#or at least the three main ones present on my dash

[onlythebravest]

.

[yvesdot]

How To Get Roughly 50 Notes On An Original Writing Post And Possibly Net A Single Reader

I had someone ask today how I get people to click through and read my writing, and I'm realizing that I've never actually made a post all in one place of everything I do to get a new piece of short fiction off the ground... so here you go! How to get (some) eyes on your work, even if it is not published anywhere of interest and you don't have a marketing team behind you.

The #1 thing is presentation. You want to get people's attention, and once you have it, convince them to keep paying attention. Fortunately, people tend to be both reasonable and predictable, which means all you have to do is follow The Formula.

(original post link)

Here's the formula from the above post broken down:

[giant horizontal title card, preferably animated to catch the eye] OR [a few tasteful parallels, if you're good at parallel posts]

TITLE (linked to where you can read the piece) / wordcount

a quote that is representative of the tone, themes, prose style, and/or the "promise of the premise"

A longer pitch, featuring the overall subject of the piece (transsexual reality TV drama), any comp titles (Detransition, Baby), the main draw (in this case, watching trans people be awful to clueless cis people), major themes (performance), and any other promises you'd like to make (food romance and tigers). You can see that the quote I chose delivers on the promise of trans people intellectually outperforming cis people-- if I were a reader, I would be more likely to trust that the rest of the pitch was accurate based on that assurance.

If you have any positive reviews on your piece, say so. If it has won any awards or contests, say so. If your work has made people cry, Doja Cat - Say So. Always. Generally speaking, more personal and more detailed is better, but keep it to one or two people-- e.g. "when I gave this to my S/O to read he shot milk out of his nose so far I had to go clean under the couch" or "my favorite review of this piece is the reader who said they read it chapter-by-chapter under their covers because they wanted it all to themself." This should be one sentence.

Depending on where the story is published, what you usually promote, etc., it may be worthwhile saying the story is free. Use your judgment on whether the reader can tell.

I also like putting my links at the bottom so someone seeing this on a friend's dash can easily track me around the 'Net. They make me look more professional (I now include a link to my website) and they visually balance the post, in my opinion. This post also happened to have some additional links for bonus content.

This is not as high stakes as it seems. I'm not 100% happy with the pitch here, and I'm not 100% happy with the graphics I've used in other cases. These are some bones that help to sell the piece even when the details aren't as sharp.

REBLOGGING

When is the last time you read something the first time you saw it on your dash? I schedule reblogs of all important posts at least twice over the next 2-3 days, often three times so I can get the morning/afternoon/evening reblog. If your followers tend to be more active at certain times, go ahead and use those. In the past I've intentionally scheduled posts for times I knew more popular mutuals were active, and it has paid off!

I also schedule a reblog for a week and a month and sometimes even a full calendar year out, because I know there is going to be that person who tags the piece '#to read' and instantly forgets about it, only to get excited when they see it weeks later. I am very often that reader. The goal is to catch people when they're ready to read immediately, and this is a game of chance.

Every so often, I go through my entire #writing or #important writing updates or even just #popular tag(s) and queue two dozen posts before shuffling my queue to redistribute matters. This keeps my older work circulating, ensuring new readers get a chance to see older pieces and giving those older pieces another shot at dashboard space. (More on #popular later.) This sounds like a lot, which is why you have to space everything pretty far apart. Fortunately, this is the world's best site for cool things to reblog. I guarantee you that you can find something new you love to post in the meanwhile.

COPING WITH FAME

The post above is what I, a published author, consider "doing well" for a post about my writing on Tumblr. As of October 10th, 2024, over two years after its initial posting and over five years into my posting doggedly about my original fiction, it has 77 notes. More than half (43) are likes. Around half of the reblogs are me promoting my own work or the same very sweet person dutifully reblogging me every time I do so. Glancing through the reblogs now, I know of four people whom I can confirm have read it. Presumably, there are more who are completely silent and have never interacted with the post whatsoever. Genuinely: wahoo!! I am so grateful and happy for the attention and reception of my work.

This is the number one thing I suggest: focus on what you have, and not what you lack. Imagine your post from the perspective of an outsider: even one reblog means you convinced that one person to spread your art! How cool is that! This is also good advice because moping is simply not helpful; it will not get you more reads. (And no, neither will guilting others. Kill that vent post in your head!)

GETTING FOLLOWERS

I don't have that many followers. Of the followers I do have, people are very unpredictably active. When I hear about other people's follower counts I am consistently surprised, because people with half of mine will have fans and haters the likes of which I could not possibly dream of. I follow 500-follower folk who post "I ate a strawberry today" and get 6 asks ranging from "Wow I respect you so much for eating that strawberry" to "I'm going to come to your address at [REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED] and shove bananas down your throat for hating on my favorite fruit."

I point this out to establish three important things. 1) Be grateful for what you have (in my case, 0 anonymous hate asks about fruitpinions), 2) followers have far less impact on interaction than one might think, and 3) followers don't engage with the things you might like them to.

Think about yourself. Are you more likely to reblog a photo of a cat in a pumpkin (alright, here) or something advertising fifteen minutes' worth of writing, which could be, for all you know, bad? Or, for that matter, by a person you should not like to support? Reblogs on generically interesting things are 'safer' (unfortunately) than reblogs on art, and it makes perfect sense that people are skittish around the latter. People don't often reblog things they haven't read, and nobody can reblog every artpost on their dash. Having someone else put it there, however, is incredibly powerful—someone's vetted this post as Worth a Reblog, after all. Having more followers allows for much more of this.

(Followers don't guarantee any one sort of interaction, but having more of them is rarely bad. Rarely.)

Across my most popular posts, one theme becomes very obvious: people like things that apply to them or their blog. I try to post writing advice/opinions/memes every so often, because I know I have a loyal base of writerfolk who like to see that from me, and it's "easier" to reblog than my writing. This is simply the nature of the universe. I used to pretty frequently go into the #writeblr tag and check out what was recently popular so I could figure out how to serve the same base, and from time to time it worked.

You're welcome to examine the list of #writing posts that made it to 100 notes, because each tends to have a notable reason behind its success: a reblog with an exceptionally good review, a contest win, a wordcount that lends itself to pasting the whole thing in one go.

(Posts about my book's release are a notable exception, in part due to Blaze and in part due to my absolutely relentless flogging of their reblog buttons during the ~year of promotion. Also in large part to a dedicated circle of friends who passed the post around nonstop! Thank you so much!!)

A lot of people will tell you to attempt covert reciprocal promotion. You know—reblog a lot of stuff, in the hopes that people will reblog yours. If I could change one thing on Tumblr, it would be this: the culture that quietly encourages disingenously interacting with other people with a secret True Goal in mind. (On the autism website.)

Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not do this. If you comment on other people's work, do it because you're happy to do so. When I released Paper Tigress, I went through everybody else who responded to the same prompt and read their work, because I had the day off and I was curious. This has led to Paper Tigress having more comments on Reedsy than one of my contest winners, and even outranking the shortlisted story in the same prompt category. However, this would have been a waste of my time if I did not genuinely enjoy reading the other stories. I read 80+ stories, taking several hours, and gained 30 comments from the venture (half my comments are my responses).

Crucially, I do not promote other writers' work on Tumblr in the hopes of them reading or boosting mine. This is the #1 tip I see thrown around that I viscerally disagree with. While, again, I am grateful for engagement with my work regardless of the context, I do not want people suffering through my work in the hopes that I will promote them. I work a full-time job, and my reading calendar is perpetually overbooked, including with work by my absolute best of friends. Even if it wasn't, I think it would be quite insulting if I were posting works in the hopes that someone would choke it down like medicine. I post what I think is good so that people can read and enjoy it. If you are not enjoying it, I do not want you to feel as though you have to read it. My aim is to give to others what my favorite authors have given me, which is most certainly not A Bad Time Spent Being Dishonest In The Hopes Of Getting Something Back. You have better things to do with your time. Please be honest.

CONCLUSION

Realistically, the readers I have, I gained through being a published author for five years promoting my behind off on Tumblr, the least forgiving social media for promotion. People like it when you have a book they can buy, especially if it has Goodreads reviews that make it look like you have been vetted for them. Many people who follow me have read only Something's Not Right and nothing else. (Many people who follow me have read everything but Something's Not Right.) I have posted dozens of pieces on Tumblr and Wattpad (and AO3). I gained a small number of readers writing and posting fanfiction for the Locked Tomb Tri(?)logy, even though I marketed it absolutely terribly.

Just keep writing. Keep writing, keep posting, and keep making sure everyone who follows you knows you write. And keep writing because you want to. There's no better advice than that.

[writing-for-life]

Tags, Glorious Tags

Some encouragement to follow and check them more consistently…

So I did a little experiment: Tags with under 1k followers don’t get their numbers shown on Tumblr. I put the Sandman characters through the search, and while there were no big surprises (if we think about the main fandom demographic), the numbers were still staggering.

I tried all sorts of different iterations, too, and included the higher/most frequently used ones:

Note to self: “Lucienne the librarian” is not a popular tag. Welp, I shall tag differently in the future.

Two outliers because people will also follow these for the Lucifer/Hellblazer series/comics, not The Sandman:

That’s it. All other characters have under 1,000 followers. I’ve also added the shipping tags to the bottom of this post. Read them and weep/laugh/whatever feels right.

Even if we take into consideration that the characters who already made an appearance in the series will get higher numbers than the ones that non-comic readers haven’t met yet (because let’s be honest: This is currently largely a TV-, not a comics fandom):

Where is Desire (I find that really surprising considering I constantly read how much people love Mason)?

Where is Despair?

Where is Calliope (she has a tag, but that’s in no way Sandman related. All Sandman ones are under 1k)?

Where is Johanna Constantine (also extremely surprising to me)?

Where is Rose Walker, who had a whole arc?

Where are Fiddler’s Green, Unity (both too old presenting, I get it, but it’s just driving the point home that it’s not about narrative importance but having the hots 🤣), Gault, Nada, to just name a few?

This has nothing to do with screen time allocated to characters, as should also be obvious. Even Matthew is more popular than other (mostly female) characters who drive the story, or are at least a big part of it.

It would be easy to say, “Well, these are just the favourites, nothing we can do about that.” And while that’s true, it’s also not quite as simple…

Fandom favourites vs checking the tags

As someone who runs a Sandman blog that tries to cover all characters (and of course I cover some more than others, so it’s definitely not about that) and isn’t too interested in shipping, I can see how the reblogs stack—they come through people’s mutuals, not through tags (bar the popular two or three).

But if we really love a character, we need to check and follow their tags consistently, and I can tell that’s often not the case but for said popular two or three. Posts for those tend to get default engagement because even people who don’t follow me check these tags, and they reblog straight from there (i.e. not through a third person). Other characters though? Only if someone with a relatively popular blog reblogs (and that hardly ever happens, and if it does, it’s usually for Death, Delirium and maybe Lucienne). It never happens straight through the tags.

Which also makes it somewhat worth thinking about that we, on the one hand, bemoan that no one cares about certain characters while at the same time heavily relying (maybe not even consciously) on mutuals who do check tags to feed that stuff into our dash (and we probably often don’t scroll down very far either). I see those little fandom bubbles very clearly because my blog is pretty broad (as in not ship-centric) and I notice, on the regular, who kicks off the chain for those underappreciated characters no one but them goes into the tags for (you’re doing the Lord’s work 🫂).

This is not about saying some characters should be more popular or others shouldn’t, because people like what they like, and that’s okay. Morpheus is and always will be my favourite, and apparently, I’m in good company 😉

But I also love other characters of narrative importance, and if we want to see their art, their fics, their metas, we need to follow and, above all, check their tags. Regularly. Because that stuff is there. Maybe not quite as plentiful, but the problem is also: If no one interacts with it, people just give up.

But we need to actively look for it ourselves, not just through our mutuals. We also need to think about reblogging more. Liking is great but doesn’t quite cut it for the characters we want to see more of. It’s not how Tumblr works.

And if you create, it’s also good to keep in mind that some people will occasionally say they like or even love those characters, but they factually don’t love them enough to follow their tags. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but the pipeline maintains itself fairly effortlessly while left field stuff is definitely more and harder individual work. And I get that it can feel tiring at times (ask me how I know).

But long story short: Please don’t let it discourage you so it turns into a vicious cycle. Keep on checking the tags, because there are people who create for them. Don’t just like but also reblog. Keep on tagging your stuff so people who love other characters than the main two or three, and those who ship rare pairs, can find you. (Remember that only the first five tags show up in tracked tags and only the first 20 will show up in searches, and that reblogs show up in neither.) It’s hard to cut through the popular tags, but it becomes even harder if fewer and fewer people are trying.

Plus: If you check the character tags outright, you don’t have to wade through everything else. The Sandman doesn’t just consist of its main tag.

And because it’s actually quite funny, I’ll just let the shipping tags speak for themselves (I just picked a few of the most “popular” ones in their different iterations, because if the stats for more popular ships already look like this, we don’t even need to think about rare pairs):

Corintheus: <1k

Morphienne: <1k

Morphanna/ConstantDream: <1k

Dreamuse: <1k

DreamingStar: <1K

Hellmuse: <1k

Gaultienne: <1k

Dreamling:

Even compared to individual character tags, the only one outshining Dreamling is the good old Dream Lord himself. Plus the main Sandman tag (but only #the sandman, because #sandman comes in at a comparably paltry 9.9k). Any questions left as to why most people are here? 😉But again: There are others. Follow and check the tags.

[kerubimcrepin]

What do we know about Joris le Sans-Pouvoir (Joris the Powerless)?

Aka, addressing the "cancelled Nintendo DS game"-shaped elephant in the room.

While this blog has gone deep into the show and character dissections, I think it would be remiss to proceed without addressing the elephant in the room — the game, the myth, the legend, the 2007-2009ish cancelled game Joris le Sans-Pouvoir.

There isn't a lot that is known about it, and all the data in this post comes from two developers.

The only videos of it we have available are uhhh......,

...Please say "Thanks Ronik!" for this video in particular.

I spent hours trying to convert these two SWF animation video files, — which demonstrate how the game was supposed to look, — to something actually viewable. There were many issues, with at least seven different programs.

I suffered for crepinjurgenology studies, but I did it.

Instead of recounting the story in my own words and omitting anything on accident, I will simply present to you, what the portfolios of two different developers say (these two pages are the source of all the images, gifs, and gameplay):

Joris Le sans-Pouvoir is the main character from a feature film Ankama due in 2013. It’s a new character IP situated in the DOFUS universe. I had the chance to work on a platform game prototype that was all about delving into of the character’s backstory. We wrote a lot of background and had a lot of fun designing and developping a cute and quirky platformer with a hint of metroidvania elements and a dash of Grow gameplay elements in-between levels. It also was a great opportunity to work with Jono Takeshi-san of Radiata Stories fame who worked with me on the art direction. (SOURCE)

Joris was the first Nintendo DS project developed at Ankama (in partnership with Magic Pockets). I began working on the project as narrative game designer, then took on the role of Lead Designer and Project Manager. Game design on this project involved boss fight, level design, minigame design, UI… I also designed an original collecting system where collectible items were used in a minigame inspired by the “Grow” series. The developpement has been put on hold to match the release of the animated movie with the same character (scheduled in 2013). (SOURCE)

Neither the movie nor the game, survived their development, due to circumstances. (shorthand for: I have no idea what happened, man. Maybe one day I'll write a post about the history of the movie, and truly open that can of worms, but god, not right now. I don't want to spend more time on this.)

Eventually, The Wakfu film turned into three OVAs instead, and the Dofus film changed its plot a bunch of times, and became Livre 1 : Julith.

...For some reason, in some version of it, Joris had a tail. Yeah, I don't know what that's about either. Cool clothes, though!

We don't know anything about its plot, and unlike cancelled projects Dofus Donjons and Welsh et Shedar (which was cancelled for years, until its recent resurrection), the lore of this game carries no relevancy in modern canon.

The name, Joris the Powerless, as well as the log-centric gameplay, both seem to reference the early concept that Joris had log-based powers, — and that without his "magic wand," he couldn't do much.

(Joris and his weird fucking "magic wand" were, in turn, borne out of the idea of a warrior who had a woman's voice. Which makes me chuckle.)

(The following quotes are machine-translated and may contain errors)

(SOURCE)

This is, by the way, the reason why I personally headcanon Joris to be really bad at huppermagic. So bad that he dropped out of the Huppermage Academy, and almost never uses magic in combat. It's a homage to his original idea.

(Yes, there is an actual reason why I headcanon Joris to be godawful at magic, besides just projecting my neurodivergencies onto him.)

I suppose that, even at this time, Joris was meant to be a store owner:

The gameplay loop involves going from boutique, to missions, and so on, while those two pieces of concept art involve the said boutique section, and show a female character saying «Pas mal, boss !».

In my opinion, it might be this character. Proto-Simone, perhaps?

Since the store seems to be the centerpiece, and the Grow-style minigames involved collectibles, I would assume that the plot involved Joris going around and finding artifacts for the store. That would also explain the concept art gifs of him adventuring.

(Though, the adventuring would probably just be the inciting incident/a vehicle for plot development. Nintendo DS games loved using the jobs characters did for that purpose.)

This is the extent of what I can surmise about the plot.

The developer portfolios also included these example documents, but the image quality is too bad for me to make sense of or upscale. I am including them here solely for some French people who are very good at reading blurry text. (If you learn anything, let me know, okay?)

Overall, my verdict is that this game's cancellation was both a blessing (Joris without Kerubim and Atcham is like tea without water and a cup. How am I meant to drink leaves? Are you stupid? Why are you giving me leaves with nothing?) and a curse (THEY CANCELLED A GAME ABOUT MY BLUE-COLORED YOINKY SPLOINKY (who has a THIN, GRABBABLE WAIST)????? FUCK!)

Hope this was a fun read!

[kuroo-hitsuji]

So remember how i mentioned the brainrot i keep getting of the boys being fathers...

Anyways this is Elettra--

She's a menace (almost has the energy of what one would imagine Satan would've been like if he had ever been a toddler, except any unbridled rage has been converted into Even More Stubbornness) and he has too much of a soft spot for her to really do anything about it lol

Extra info under the cut bc i i don't wanna make the post a billion years long on the dash from my rambling adgkdkg

Also if you for any reason wanna send me asks to let me ramble even more/help me flesh out her character more Please Do--

Her other parent is ofc my Main MC (Kuroo)

Lucifer picked her name. Mostly she just goes by Ellie, but Lucifer and Diavolo use her full name 90% of the time

By human realm standards she'd very likely be autistic but that's complicated bc she's half demon and I still have no idea if demons in this universe are just naturally predisposed to having traits that read as neurodivergent from a human perspective--

Either way she gets Numerous traits from both parents

Much like her father she's Incredibly particular about a lot of things (especially how she presents herself) and is very routine oriented

She got an equal amount of pride and stubbornness from both parents and has ofc inherited their shared reluctance in asking for help. She will try and fail at something at least three times on principle, before requesting assistance in as dignified a manner as a toddler can manage.

She has a large vocabulary and generally stoic demeanor along with a relatively flat way of speaking that makes talking with her a pretty novel experience. She will explain to you in immense detail the plot of her favorite kid's show or the intricacies of the worlds and characters she creates when playing with her toys like it's the most complex and serious topic imaginable.

Has basically everyone wrapped around her conniving little finger and she's not even trying. She is blunt and incredibly scheming for a toddler and Everyone has a soft spot for her, Especially her father, and she is fully aware how easily she can get away with things. This could come back to bite everyone in the ass but for now she's too adorable to fix it lmao

[bittersweet-kelly]

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Malfunction

Summery: You and Henry had been dating for a few awhile now. Both of you had been invited to his friend's costume themed birthday party. Which you mistook for an early Halloween party. While dancing with Henry, you hear something ripping.

Rating: Explict. 18+. Minors do not interact.

Pairing: Henry Cavill X Female Reader

Warnings: Smut, size kink, big cock, big balls, hyperspermia, crying, alcohol, descriptive sex, spanking, biting, bulges, alcohol, unprotected sex (Wrap it up), spit, pet names, name calling, female c-word, ripping of clothes, pop culture references.

Word Count: 3,462 (Sorry)

Disclaimer: I do not own Henry or have any connections to Henry. This story was made by me and my own filthy mind from the wanting of henry to ruin me in more ways than one. This is my first fanfiction that I've written and published. I'm usually a role-player on MMOs and online games. Although my first language is English, I have dyslexia so expect grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes and sometimes sentences that could seem confusing. Not beta'd or proof read. Header made by me using pictures on the internet.

*****

Why, oh, why have you left it to the last minute to try and find a costume for a party you’ve known about for at least two weeks! You spent all day looking around town for something to wear. It’s Halloween how hard could it be to find a costume? As you found out, unless you fit in children's costumes... It was very hard. Heading home you finally remembered you had costumes back from your time in college. 

Rummaging at the back of your closet you fished out a plastic storage box that was rammed with old costumes you wore during your party days. Pulling out the costumes. A flapper, a sexy nurse, a sexy nun. Scoffing at your younger self for the costume choices. You sat on the floor humming and ahhing trying to figure out what to wear. Your thought process was interrupted when your phone buzzed. Reaching for your phone a smile forms across your lips as you read the name that popped up. Opening the message, it reads 

‘Hey baby, can’t wait to see you tonight. 🦁’ Seeing his messages always send your butterflies fluttering. You sat there for a good minute holding the phone to your chest. As the feeling fades and your mind comes crashing back down to reality your face is left with a furrowed brow. Looking back at your phone you typed a message back. 

‘Can’t wait to see you Hen-bear. What you wearing tonight??!��� You waited for an answer that would never arrive. Shrugging your shoulders, you grabbed the Witch outfit. It was Halloween after all, can never go wrong with a Witch. 

After showering and getting yourself ready you get a call from Henry. 

“Hey [your f/n], car will be picking you up in about 10 minutes. Then it will come to mine and we’ll arrive together. See you in a bit, baby." He finished his sentence with a roar, which made you chuckle slightly albeit slightly confused and taken back by it. 

“Okay see you then sweetie." The call ended, and you had 10 minutes to make sure you looked good and presentable. Standing in front of the mirror you look over yourself. Making sure the make-up was right and not too clowny. You wanted to look good after all. Your main concern was the outfit that was a couple of years old... It fitted okay when you were standing still and breathing in slightly... In the years since putting on the witch costume you’d become more of a woman to love. You weren’t fat by any means, but your body was softer and there was more to grab. The black lace and crushed velvet dress hugged your body in all the right places, looking more like Morticia, from the Addams family, than the wicked witch of the west. 

Hearing the car pull up, you make a quick dash for your small handbag. “Housekeys? Check. Lipstick? Check. Aaannndddd... Phone. Three for three.” You gave yourself a small victory cheer before shutting the door and getting in the car. While sitting in the car you do the most English thing anyone does in a taxi or an Uber. “Are you having a nice evening? On for long? Have you got many jobs after this one?" You and the driver small talked for about 30 minutes by the time it took you to get to Henry’s place. While Henry walked down the driver to the car, you were able to ogle at him. He wore a crocheted lion hat that had a tasselled mane that came down to his broad shoulders. A tight Muscletech tee that hugged his muscular frame. The tee looked stretched over his bloated biceps and stuck tightly to his pecs, almost giving the illusion of support. Could his shorts be any shorter, you thought to yourself. A slutty 4-inch seam on the inside showing off his powerful legs. 

As he got in the car, he filled most of the back seat with his mass and might. His legs spread out in different area-codes. “Hey babe." He leaned over pressing his lips to your cheek for a quick kiss before putting his seat belt on. “Looking great." He winked at you, making your toes curl and your fanny to flutter. He then spoke in the voice he uses for when he’s being Geralt of Rivia. “Hmm. Fuck. I do like sorceresses." He then laughed, lightly slapping his massive hand down on your thigh to comfort you. Either your face must have been embarrassed or looking like you’ll pounce on him in the car. Not that the two of you have fooled around in a car before... 

���What’s with the costume?" You ask him, casting your eyes over him once more. Taking in all the mountain of man beside you. Your eyes fell on the large mound at his crotch. Henry was a big guy all over, and sometimes had a hard time hiding his bulge. You quickly butt in before he answers your first question. “Shorts so short, your boxer briefs are sticking out passed them." You chuckle, playfully nudging him with a hand of yours only for said hand to be engulfed by his mitts as he held yours. Using his thumb to stroke over the back of your soft hands. 

“First of all... I’m a football mascot for England. One of the three Lions." With his free hand he pointed to the Lion hat. “Lion. And football gear." Using his index finger and thumb he plucked at the tight fabric, letting it snap back into place against his body. “Secondly... I’m not wearing boxer briefs. Just briefs... Which." He looked at you with a knowing look. “There’s a lot to fit in them. Can’t wait to take them off." With the same breath he leaned into you again to whisper. “I hope you’re not wearing –any-.” Feeling his stubble tickle the side of your face made you squirm in your seat. The warmth of his breath in your ear. Heavens. You sat there hoping you hadn’t left a wet spot on the seat. Henry’s wish wouldn’t have been hard as you didn’t wear any. The undies you had created the line around your waist and butt cheeks. 

“I didn’t realize football mascots were for Halloween.” You smirked over at him, your eyes drinking in the sight of your lover. Henry’s eyes widened in realization. 

“Fuck!” He threw his head back into the headrest and covered his eyes with his free hand. “I forgot to tell you... It’s not a Halloween party. Derek’s Birthday is close to Halloween and he’s ended up hating it. So when he has a party, it’s things other than Halloween." You started to panic. The last thing you wanted to do was to look out of place. It would be like the scene in Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan turns up as a ghoul and everyone else looks hot. Cavill laughed to put your mind at ease. “Just say you’re Morticia. That’s from a movie, doesn’t need to be Halloween." He let go of your hand and slipped it behind the small of your back to hold you from a seat away.

Once the both of you get to the location of the party, you toss aside the witches hat you were going to wear. Aren’t a witch no more! Joined at Henry’s hip, due to his hand on your ass, the two of you do the rounds greeting the people and his friends. Usually, your head came to Henry’s chest, something you loved; those furry pillows to rest your head against when he was shirtless. With the heels you wore, you came up to his shoulder. Admittedly both of you liked the size difference. 

After a while you let Henry do his thing. You’ve met his friends a few times, but you weren’t in with the crowd. You find yourself at the bar, just chit chatting to the other girlfriends, all while doing shots and drinking vodka lemonades. Henry comes up to the bar to get a refill on his pint of lager, stealing a kiss every time. Which makes everyone ‘aww’ and giggle at you. 

As the night continued and the more drunk you got, the music started to sound better and better. Plus the kids had all gone to bed, so the real dance floor fillers were coming on. Being drunk enough you wandered on over to Henry when he was speaking to his friends. You grabbed his hand and another gripped his bicep. “’Cuse me, I’m going to steal my boyfriend." Playfully you tugged on Henry’s arm. “I wanna dance with you." You felt Henry’s disapproval. Henry never danced unless he was getting paid to and had choreographed the dance beforehand like his fight scenes. “Please?" You begged, looking up and him with doe eyes. Pleading to him. He scoffed. 

“Fine." He groaned. “But on the way home we’re stopping off for a kebab!" Both of you laughed while making your way over to the floor where people were dancing. Henry mostly stood on the spot, tapping a foot on the ground and throwing a hand up in the air to pump it. Sensing his awkwardness you grabbed both of his hands and then began to dance with him... For him. Feeling flirty, your hands trailed along his torso, every now and then groping his pec muscles to give them a squeeze. It’s only fair, he comes up behind you and reaches around and puts his hands all over yours. Your hands glide down his torso while you lower yourself in front of him, your face now greeting by his crotch as you were crouched in front of him. He simply shook his head while chuckling at your antics. To stand back up, you slowly rose pushing your hips back to make your ass stick out. You then turn around to have your back to him. With your back resting against his front, you slide down his body until you’re crouching again, you turn your head to the side to be knocked by Henry’s bulge in his shorts. How his shorts managed to hold back the mammoth of a cock he had between his legs was a miracle. The fabric was stronger than your mental health. 

You hummed with a smirk across your lips while looking up at him. His eyes filled with lust. If you weren’t surrounded by people, he could have pulled his cock out to slap it against your face. You felt a hand grip your armpit and with his assistance you were standing up straight. “I love how big you are." You whispered loudly due to the music, all while chewing on your bottom lip. 

“I’m glad I wore underwear, otherwise my cock would be sticking out of the bottom of my shorts. And you’ll have to deal with the consequences.” He stared you down; unsure if he was angry with you or trying to keep cool. You shrugged his grip off; you were too drunk to really care about the consequences. Turning back around to face him. The song then called for a ‘drop low’ which you were more than happy to oblige to. Hoping your knees wouldn’t give out as you quickly dropped to the floor in the sophisticated dance move called the ‘Slut Drop’. Over the music you heard this loud ripping noise. Shooting straight back up to stand, your hands reached around behind your back. 

" I think my dress ripped. How bad is it?" You asked Henry to look. He shook his head while laughing. 

“That’s karma." His eyes then fell onto your rather large split. “...”His eyes widened. “It’s barely noticeable." His voice raised an octave. You knew he was lying and it must have been bad! In a panic you rushed off to the toilets, luckily this place had individual unisex toilets that the door could be locked. Once inside you look in the mirror, having your back facing it and your head peering over your shoulder. Henry’s words rung in your ears. ‘It’s barely noticeable...’Your bare ass was on show!!! You cursed yourself! Why did you go to commando? Foolish! The rip started at the midpoint of your lower back and went down all the way to your thighs. Someone tried to open the door. “Honey you in here?" Henry asked. You unlocked the door only to swing it open. Grabbing Henry with both hands to pull him in with you; only to relock it. 

“It’s barely noticeable?! BARELY?!” You confronted him. Henry raised his hands defensively. 

“It’s dark out there... Plus I had strobe lights in my eyes." He deflected. “And here’s you thinking my shorts would be the ones to rip." He tilted his head back to laugh. While you stood at the mirror trying to see how you could salvage the outfit. While your ass was out in the open Henry took the opportunity to slap his hand against your cheek. Leaving a red handprint on it. You let out a yelp as it stung and took you by surprise. "I should sign it like the Walk of Fame." He moved to stand behind you, his hands now on your hips. His grip pulled your hips back so the top of your ass was pressed against his crotch. “Think you can tease me in front of my friends?" He growled in your ear. “Should have fucked you there and then on the floor. Show everyone how much of a slut you are for me.” He lowered his head, feeling his breath against the nape of your neck. “Show ‘em how well you take my big cock.” His stubble rubbed against your soft skin before feeling his lips press against your skin in lust filled kisses. 

You couldn’t help but moan softly at his touch and kisses. His words made your legs go weak. You felt Henry’s mouth at the beginning of the rip, his lips peppering your skin. His beard tickled against your lower back which sent shivers up your spin. Just as you were in the moment of heaven you felt Henry sink his teeth into your butt cheek. You turned your head over your shoulder to look down at him, you playfully swatted at his head. “Oi." Henry looked up at you with a smirk, his hands reaching for the rip and extending it, so it reached the end hem of the dress making it one big split in the back. He stood back up, his hands on your shoulders to force you to lean over the sink. Using a foot, he kicked your legs to spread them further. His hand moved to his face, licking his three middle fingers to get them wet. You soon felt his fingers rubbing against your labia and his middle finger dipping inside of you. His finger felt so good inside of you. When you first started dating, one finger was enough to send you over the edge. Now you’re more accustomed to Henry and his size, you’ve upgraded to 2 fingers. 

Henry laughed. “Someone’s eager. Fucking wet already." He brought his hand up to his mouth to taste you. He hummed. “If only my cock wasn’t begging for a release, could eat you out. But someone wanted to tease the kraken." Keeping one hand on your shoulder to keep you in place, leaning over the sink. Your hands gripping the sides of the basin. His free hand wiggled his shorts and briefs down far enough for his cock to spring forth. Due to the size and weight of it, even when Henry was hard his cock fought a hard game with gravity, making his member bow down to the ground. His hand gripped his cock at the base of his shaft, his little finger sinking into his ball sac, to position himself. At first he glided his cock between your lower lips, getting his dick all greased up using your juices. Soon you felt his tip push against your body. You look back at Henry in shock. 

“We usually use lube." You pointed out to Henry. “You’ve never gone in dry before." Henry raised the left side of his brow at you. 

“With how wet you are, there’s nothing dry here.” He retorted only to pull his hips back to see his own cock. He drew spit from his mouth to aim it at his member, then used a hand to massage the spit into the head of his cock. Realigning his cock with your pussy, his hand and hips aided his dick to enter. Both of you let out a moan as your body finally accepted his appendage. “You feel great." He reassured you. The hand that helped his cock moved to join his other hand around your waist. His thumbs dig into the dimples on your back. Slowly he begins to grind his hips back in forth, allowing you to adjust to his size. Doesn’t matter how many times you have sex, he always felt huge and your felt tight to him. 

Sensual moans escaped your mouth, you were trying to be quiet knowing you were in a bathroom and on the other side of the door there were people who could listen. “Your cock is huge." Henry chuckled at your quip. His grind turned evolved more into a thrust. Forcing more of his fat inches into your body. 

“Get ready." Henry warned you as his thrusts become stronger and faster, feeding your body more of his member. His balls swung back and forth slapping at your labia, and clit while swinging back to hit his thighs as his hip crashed into the cushions of your ass. With ever thrust you felt yourself colliding with the ceramics of the sink. Moving your hands from the basin you reached out and planted your palms against the mirror. Your moans got louder and more uncontrollable. “That’s it...” He growled into your ear. “Make everyone hear you being fucked by me.” With every forceful move of his, you felt your legs get weaker at the knees and joints. You feel his hands move from the sides of your hips to the front, giving you support. All your weight was lifted by his strength. Your feet dangled in the air, even with heels on. Henry was lost in lust. Your moans and cries did nothing but spear him on. His cock acted as a piston, steaming in and out of your stretched cunt. You were at the mercy of him, nothing but a toy for his cock to erupt in.  

You felt tears roll down your cheek as Henry ploughed into you from behind. His grunts echoed around the room, along with your moans. Your body felt a mixture of pleasure and pain. His cock was scratching at all your points due to its size, driving you crazy. The girth stretched out your velvet tunnel while the length of it always pressed against your cervix. You often thank the gods for making you hardy. With how powerful his thrusts were, the tip of his cock slammed and knocked against your cervix, causing you pain and the reason why your face was wet with tears. 

Henry’s grip around your waist tightened and you felt his fingers dig deeper into your skin. With one more forceful slam, his hips buried his cock deep inside of you. Your pussy felt his cock throb, pushing against your already stretched walls. He tilted his head back while his cock unloaded its load. At first it oozed out before gaining momentum and shooting forth a powerful shot. It felt like minutes for Henry, standing in bliss while his balls unloaded his cum deep inside of you. He cummed a lot. Which made sense with the size of his family jewels. You swore it felt like he made you bloated whenever he came. As his climax weakened, as did he. Letting go of your hips, his torso laid on top of yours. “...Fuck.” He huffed out, only for his cock to slip out, while it softened, from your gaping pussy. 

He stepped back, looking down at you while you flopped over the sink with your Bambi legs. His semen seeped out of your body, dripping down your thighs. “Let's get you home and in bed.” Stuffing his cock back into his briefs and shorts. At least now he fitted inside them a bit better after blowing off some steam. He picked you up, as you weighed nothing to him, carrying you in the bridal carry. He unlocked the door and stepped out. Naturally there were people standing close to the door. “She had a moment." Henry confessed before walking out of the building and putting you in a taxi to take you home.

[tapejob]

hockeyblr linguistics - a preliminary analysis

hey all! as some of you know, i sent out a hockeyblr lingo survey a few days/weeks/something ago. as of today i finally have the free time to tackle it. big thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey, and without further ado: a kind of hasty, barely technical, preliminary analyses of hockeyblr lingo!

this dataset features around 21 main questions, with a sample size of around 673 respondents. partial responses were also combined in the final dataset because i got tired of waiting. obligatory disclaimer on response bias due to the nature of an online survey, etc etc.

i'm dividing this analysis mainly question-by-question, but also organized somewhat by themes/section. while we're mainly covering vocab + pronunciations, there's also sections looking at connotations/sentiment associated with words, and hockeyblr behavior patterns. it is very late at night, please bear with me if i get anything wrong.

section i: vocab + pronounciation demographics

Q1: vocabulary associated with the hat trick*

*as anon and multiple respondents have mentioned, this specific question contains a typo that may have affected data collection. the original question posed was 'what do you call three goals in a period?', which caused some confusion. though i think this data is enough to get the gist of it, this is something to keep in mind. i spent some time cleaning the 'other' responses and incorporating any '3 goals in a GAME is a hatty' responses into the other points, but i apologize for the confusion, haha

'hatty' as a casual reference seems to dominate the preferences. the other two spellings of hat trick seem to be less popular, but still present in the sample. in addition, 2 respondents brought up using 'HT' and/or 'H-T' as shorthand.

it is curious to note: in 'other' responses, at least 12 separate people brought up that they would use 'hatty' and 'hat trick' interchangeably (while only 1 person brought up they would use 'hatty' and 'hattrick', and no one mentioned 'hatty' and 'hat-trick' as pairs).

Q2: What is the title of the player that guards the team's net?

'goalie' seems heavily favored, while 'goaltender' and 'tendie' come after. given that these three terms are most likely to be derived from each other (goalie from goal, tendie from tender), it's understandable: goaltender is the official position name in ice hockey. yet it's curious how 'goalie' is so much more preferred, compared to say the hatty vs hat trick.

i bring this up anecdotally because i remember talking with a friend of mine not in hockey (but into other sports), and she laughed a bit incredulously when i said 'goaltender', like i was making a joke. 'what a weird name, tender, haha,' she'd said, and i got. extremely confused for a moment because i had been so used to it being common vocab.

Q3: What is the term you use to reference who calls the game?

as also mentioned in the other section, there are a lot of people on the ice with a lot of different titles (ref vs linesmen) - how much of this data captures the people who care and specify (mentioned in the others responses) vs those who just call everyone ref (also mentioned in the others responses)? something to consider in the future. in addition, 'zebra' surprised me as a somewhat common term, given that i rarely see it used on my dash.

a big oversight on my part was forgetting to put 'refs' as an option - that's why the 'other' chunk seems so large here. below is an expansion on the 'other' responses:

Q4: How do you pronounce the term for the period played following a tie at the end of the 3rd period?

this question sort of combines pronunciation and vocab in one. once again, shorthand seems to be favored (specifically the 'OT (oh-tee)' pronunciation, though there were still respondents for the other pronunciation). interestingly, more fun terms were also reflected among a decent couple people in the 'other' section, shown below in the figure.

shoutout, also, to the respondent who called an instance of overtime 'instant victory'.

Q5: How do you pronounce the term that references when your team gets to play with an extra man on the ice due to a penalty from the other team?

interestingly, this is one of the questions where the shorthand wasn't favored (powerplay over pp). also, as @bisexualingmaliciously brought up: terms like man advantage, commonly favored during announcing, aren't as widely favored, while pee-pee (wouldn't be caught dead on air if they can help it) is considerably larger of a chunk. shoutout, also, to the respondent who pronounces pp as 'puh'.

in other responses, 'poplay' was also brought up as a term. another respondent made a specific distinction that powerplay was used for speaking, but PP for typing - this gap might be something to consider in the future.

Q6: How do you pronounce the term that references when a player gets a goal into a net that a goaltender has been pulled from?

'empty netter' as a term falls into a somewhat shorthand purgatory (with the full term as empty net goal, and true shorthand as ENG). it's similar vibe i assume as calling hat trick -> hatty -> HT. also, unlike PP and OT, ENG pronunciation is slightly more varied (not by a lot, but a little).

within 'other', 5 respondents also cited 'empty net' as their term. obviously this might not be favored due to the confusion (empty net as the event of not having the goalie in the net, vs empty net as the goal on that specific empty net). yet in the sentence 'crosby got the ___', why do the majority of us prefer empty netter over empty net (which, i do recall instances of announcers using as well)? does the 'er' ending roll off the tongue better? expansion on other response data below:

another note: a respondent made a specific distinction that empty netter was for speaking, while ENG is for typing.

Q7: "The other team is coming to our __"

i do think it's interesting that the sort of stadium/localization for the playing field is built off the materials surrounding the sport. 'turf' and 'field' are pretty widely used for field sports, and we have a similar reflection when put into the context of hockey: arena, rink, ice.

'other' distributions also reflect sentiments on 'house/home' -- rather than home turf, our home ice -- or calling out the specific territories. however, there were also a couple responses stating that they would never phrase or say anything along these lines.

Q8: How do you describe a situation where one team is playing 5 players on the ice, and the other team is playing 3 players?

There's a huge preference for '5-on-3' rather than '5v3' as a term. However, something interesting to note: from the 'other' responses, there was one respondent who used '3-on-5', and one who uses '2 man advantage' and '2 adder' interchangeably.

Q9: How do you describe a situation where both teams have 5 players on the ice?

Here, though the number-on-number format is still a large chunk, 'even strength' gains a closer ground (despite '2 man advantage' not having a similar effect on the previous set, even if both terms seem to be contextually linked). in the 'other' responses, there was one respondent who simply cut the term into simply 'even', and also 2 respondents who called this 'normal'/'a normal situation'.

Q10: vocabulary associated with dick trick

*this specific question contains a typo that may have affected data collection. the original question posed was 'what do you call four goals in a period?', which caused some confusion. i went through the same data cleaning procedures, but given this is a 'lesser known' sort of term, it's harder to guarantee that confusion is accurate or reflective.

The majority seemed to have 'dick trick' down - an interesting term, considering that it's not technically an official hockey term, but was popularized from thornton's quote and definitely isn't said on-air.

'other' responses vary: there is a great amount who expressed confusion over the term or called it simply '4 goals' (may be influenced by the question wording, as mentioned). others seemed aware of the reference ('joe thornton special'), or had a different term ('gettysburg hat trick', 'poker', spin on the word hatty).

Q11: What do you call the area that players sit in during their penalty?

more variation in this response - it seems roughly equally divided between 'the box', 'penalty box', and 'sin bin'. within 'other' responses, the sentiment surrounding the box revolved around either playful/childish terms, or those that involve connotations of punishment or crime.

some respondents also remarked that their language around the ox will change based on the situation: for example, 'Time out or prison depending on severity' and 'juvie (if it’s a rookie) crimes corral'.

Q12: What do you call a player whose role is often aggressive and expected to fight in defense of their teammates?

'enforcer' and 'goon' seem to be the heavily favored terms -- however, commentary from 'other' respondents also mentioned that a few believe the terms to be dated, corresponding to historical roles that no longer have a place in the game.

a few responses also called this role 'rat' adjacent, 'bad/big boy', or a similar term referring to the size of the player ('the tank', 'the muscle').

Q13: What do you call a player whose role is primarily situated on defense?

'd-man' as a shorthand holds a large portion of responses (once again, a similar middle ground shorthand format). however, of the 'other' responses, there was a group who also referred to this position as 'defender' and 'defense', as well as one respondent who specified a 'dman' without the hyphen from the multiple choice.

Q14: What do you call a player who often seeks to agitate opponents and draw penalties?

'pest' and 'rat' seem to be the big terms here, with very little surprise. there is however, a plethora of other nicknames available in the 'other' responses

the sentiment towards this player role also seems much friendlier in comparison to other role questions (multiple references to positive endearments, nicknames, or players).

Q15: Which of these terms do you (commonly) use?

this particular question was multiple-response for a reason - i want to take a deeper dive on these associations later. for now, it's interesting to note that specific shot terms, often finisher acts (e.g. 'slapshot', 'one-timer') are somewhat more used than those involved with skills (e.g. 'toe drag').

section ii: connotations/sentiment association

Q16: Oldest age of a baby ___ ?

here are some violin plots on that specific question (which i loved). though this stat has somewhat been alluded to in literature before (the so-called primes/development curves of each position), it's nice to see it in numbers.

a 'baby goaltender' can essentially be older than that of the other 'baby' positions (however, with greater spread - indicating that there was potentially a range of responses in terms of goaltender age). an old baby prospect is the youngest of them all, with the smallest spread.

Q17: Your "national broadcast" refers to:

evidently, regionally based associations come into play here. within the 'other' distribution, there is a range of responses, from those who have never heard/used the term 'national broadcast' before, those not in the US/Canada, to those who define it as anything outside of their local broadcast (no association with any particular brand). there is also a healthy amount of illegal stream usage.

Q18: What do you call it?

this question was deliberately a bit vague, relying on respondents to know the context through the answer choices. even so, 'narrative' won out overwhelmingly. how did this term come about, and why do we all specifically associate so much with it -- choosing it over other terms such as sports magic or story?

on the flip side, 'other' spouted multiple responses who were unfamiliar with the term. so how did that 77.56% suddenly and undeniably understand the term and its connotations? what part of the hockeyblr bubble has assimilated this particular figure of speech for us?

Q19: What does the above term mean to you?

this question was a free response, aiming to look at the sentiments and connotations associated with the term, and received around 342 responses. responses varied from snippets of poetry, objective definitions, confusion from those who aren't familiar with the term, and also a few associations with rpf.

i did a sentiment analysis on the dataset per response, and graphed the positive, negative, and neutral sentiments on a 3d scatterplot.

though a majority of responses featured generally positive-neutral sentiments, there was variation and the addition of negative sentiments in the set as well. looking at a violin plot of the compounded sentiment (combining the positive, neutral, and negative)

though the majority falls neutral in sentiment, and an average skews towards positive, narrative sentiment continues to vary.

in addition, topic modeling was done on the dataset, split into both negative and positive topic models. 10 topics were each generated from the lda models. from the positive topic model, the following topics were generated (terms, with their corresponding weights)

'0.033*"dreams" + 0.033*"perseverance" + 0.033*"strength" + 0.033*"maths" + ' '0.033*"hopes" + 0.033*"finesse" + 0.033*"feats" + 0.033*"essence" + ' '0.033*"peoples" + 0.022*"interactions"'

'0.054*"fun" + 0.053*"used" + 0.051*"happen" + 0.034*"talent" + ' '0.033*"family" + 0.026*"numerology" + 0.026*"moments" + 0.026*"improbable" ' '+ 0.026*"golden" + 0.026*"sids"

'0.167*"story" + 0.054*"win" + 0.048*"season" + 0.040*"team" + ' '0.025*"beyond" + 0.022*"g" + 0.019*"adds" + 0.019*"case" + 0.016*"underdog" ' '+ 0.016*"neatly"'

'0.099*"hockey" + 0.081*"way" + 0.056*"magic" + 0.052*"it" + ' '0.046*"definitely" + 0.040*"fan" + 0.037*"terms" + 0.026*"thing" + ' '0.025*"much" + 0.023*"special"

'0.067*"cup" + 0.059*"team" + 0.039*"whats" + 0.034*"uplifting" + ' '0.034*"bonding" + 0.027*"us" + 0.026*"dynamics" + 0.024*"theme" + ' '0.016*"intricate" + 0.015*"overarching"

'0.059*"storyline" + 0.058*"player" + 0.056*"lore" + 0.048*"career" + ' '0.047*"emotional" + 0.034*"satisfying" + 0.032*"team" + 0.026*"goal" + ' '0.024*"beloved" + 0.023*"important"

'0.100*"tale" + 0.055*"one" + 0.050*"thats" + 0.043*"on" + 0.039*"sport" + ' '0.036*"reason" + 0.024*"cant" + 0.024*"supreme" + 0.024*"pornography" + ' '0.024*"define"

'0.056*"luck" + 0.040*"friendships" + 0.036*"the" + 0.034*"put" + ' '0.025*"words" + 0.025*"stoned" + 0.025*"research" + 0.025*"figure" + ' '0.025*"ur" + 0.025*"playoffs"

'0.059*"current" + 0.037*"trying" + 0.033*"theyre" + 0.030*"creates" + ' '0.030*"cohesive" + 0.030*"life" + 0.029*"guy" + 0.021*"urban" + 0.021*"ppl" ' '+ 0.021*"gay"

'0.047*"pekka" + 0.023*"kisses" + 0.023*"nashville" + 0.023*"must" + ' '0.023*"mika" + 0.023*"juuse" + 0.023*"letang" + 0.023*"hugs" + 0.023*"kane" ' '+ 0.023*"chis"

read through them. i think i cried when i did. it's like.... that's the narrative, huh.

section iii: hockeyblr behavior patterns

Q20: How would you tag a post about Mitch Marner?

this question aimed to look at how users tagged players -- though i tried to pick a player that could be looked on mostly ambivalently, i obviously failed badly. for that i apologize.

though the #[first name] [last name] format that most player tags use seem to be the most common, there are an evidently varied amount of responses regarding the player in question. people either hate mitch or love him, 'other' responses included responses from 'i would not post about him/i have his tag blocked' to variations of 'minch/affectionate nicknames', to a response who didn't know who he was.

other tagging styles mentioned included specific player tags for only players on user's followed teams, or exceptions for specific players. also used was the #p:[name] format for players.

Q21: How would you tag a post about the Toronto Maple Leafs?

as opposed to the full name variation for player marner, 'leafs' as the shorthand name wins out over 'toronto maple leafs' as the full team name.

however, this is also dependent on cultural context - the leafs have always been referred to as the leafs. does this tagging etiquette extend to teams such as columbus (would you tag it cbj, jackets, etc)?

conclusions/future considerations: i hate writing this part in real academic papers so i get the choice to half-ass it on my fake no effort one. hockeyblr is fascinating, and you know - why do we tend to say the things we do? there were a few questions i posed in this dataset that would be interesting to pursue if i or anyone else had the time or the time (good god). and considering how unique we are as a niche, how does hockeyblr compare to a different dataset with similar questions? something to consider.

anyway, i hope you guys learned something from this huge post. if you read through all that, you're the greatest. thanks again for reading, hope you enjoyed this not-at-all-academic study.

[omies-odd-writing-spot]

BFDG prompt 3:

22: BFDG “Reaction to Slayer finally getting his armor”

“Sound off, who’s not dead?” Winston’s voice rasped as he gasped for air. His rebreather system struggled to keep up from that last dash. The Guardsmen Commander scanned the display on his head's up display. Then turning to do a physical headcount, six others beside himself not including the big guy. So far so good even as two were collapsing now that Slayer had finished barricading the door before the thumps started.

The big guy was standing back up, watching the vibrations before nodding in satisfaction. They would have a few hours at least before reinforcements came. They did not need that long here. Slayer huffed a greeting, smiling as Bitty swung around him in the air, glad the little drone made it. 

“How long do we have?” Richard asked after everyone made sure their small team was still alive. 

Slayer made a face as he turned, thinking about it he held up his hand with four fingers up, then carefully lowered one at the second knuckle.

“Three and a half?” Richard asked, getting a nod. “...Minutes?”

Everyone paused to turn to stare at the giant not-really man. Slayer grinned and shook his head, holding his hands close even with his modified weapon in hand. Then spread the space out wide.

“Hours?” Winston tried, sighing in relief with the other Guardsmen at the grin and nod. “Thank gods. Okay everyone reload before checking and treating any wounds. How are you doing, Jackson?”

The black armored man looked up and then started a bit as the mass of Slayer was kneeling beside him. “I can still feel my hand, but I think the bio foam is degrading in the heat.”

Jackson shifted, but let the demigod carefully lift the smaller man’s damaged right arm. Being exceedingly gentle with the inspection, turning to chuff at Winston, who had the last can of the foam. Most of those present had to use the stuff, supporting injuries until they could get back to the nearest exit portal. Taking the can that was tossed over, opening it as he had been shown and been watching. Fit the nozzle into the crack in the armor like it had been done before, then a few spots- snorting and then leaned down to sniff the older, now bloody foam that was pushed out.

Infection was trying to start. Not too bad but something they needed to watch. Slayer reached up to pat Jackson’s helmet as if trying to ruffle hair, giving him the can that still was pretty full. Getting up to walk around the once tomb chamber, eyes tracing the walls.

His prison. His tomb.

The demigod snorted, looking up at the ceiling and recognized he used to stare at it when the blood priests used to…feed Slayer souls and the liquid energy. 

Shaking his head firmly, pushing those memories away he walked around the room. Finding where the draw of his attention was. Almost in the direct line from the main entrance. He rumbled then chuffed a warning sound going back to the door. Growling at it and there was scrambling to get away, turned and leveled the modified plasma weapon at the wall. The Guardsmen flattened out and got further out of the way as Slayer's weapon whined softly at the over charge before letting it fire. Cracking the slate and stone as much as weakening it before setting his gun down on the podium that once housed his sarcophagus. Taking three long strides and put not only his momentum but his whole self into punching the cracks. Widening them as the demigod used brute force of the physical kind to pry out the chucks until he found…

“Is that a glove?” Richard asked as his prosthetic right arm was limping hanging while Winston was helping him clean it. 

“...holy shit.” Winston found it appropriate to curse, getting a rasping laugh from Slayer as the demigod used his knife to help pry out the gauntlet from where it was imbedded into the stone. The armor twitching in response to him as he pulled the parts out in a whole piece of glove and forearm cover.

Shaking the dust off the armor and himself, Slayer gave a satisfied rumble as he fitted the familiar piece onto his right arm. Flexing his hand and felt the part shift and alter to fit his current state. Not that hitting stone with his bare hands seemed to affect the big guy, but with that gauntlet on he cracked through the stone faster. Pulling a part out at a time, but only putting on the gauntlets to help himself get everything out and cleaned up. The darkened armor was oddly lightening somewhat, starting with the gloves as if it was pulling power from Slayer himself.

He flexed his hands and prying the helmet out from where it was embedded into the stone. The last part. It took about forty minutes to get everything out and then moved to where the sarcophagus used to be. Pulling out several things from subspace freely now to wipe down the inside of the Praetor suit first, getting all the grit out.

Slayer did not mind the Guardsmen that came to see what he was doing. If anything grinning and showing off his armor, able to tell now when they were impressed by the subtle body language. Different from his Argenta, but still as curious.

“What's this?” Winston asked as he poked at a large pile of the black fabric. What he assumed was fabric as Slayer was trying to clean the worst of the demonic gorenest off his legs. The death ash staining his skin was just barely given an attempt, enough to get the worst off.

Slayer glanced over and poked a knuckle at Richard's middle. Humming as he tried to use the Argenta silent language.

“We need to work on direct communication some more.” Richard noted, watching the demigod huff in agreement before pointing to the fabric then to the armor. 

Getting up, the Slayer stretched…and dropped his pants. Grinning at the groans of protest as the guards scattered, Slayer half sat to get his under suit on. His bulk seemed bigger without the layering of scarring readily visible to distract; his outline stood out more. 

Boots were found, check again for anything inside before fitted on. From feet up, his armor was finally getting put into place. Now and then a part was taken back off but with some help from smaller hands got the pebble out. He stood up slowly, rolling his shoulders to help settle the back and chest plates into place. Slayer wondered if he should teach the guardsmen how to help him get his armor on. He could and did get it on right, the Praetor suit was fully activated and responsive to his body as it should. Altering to fit and the cover as much as his form as the Praetor suit realized that it's wearer was technically and compared to before underweight. Though the humans never seemed to realize yet why the demigod got frustrated at himself, Slayer had lost muscle mass when trapped.

He would start gaining it and his old strength again now that he was fighting and absorbing energy again. Now he could get it back at a faster pace with the suit! 

“Holy fuck,” Richard noted as he stared openly from where he sat on the ground, the elite guard composter rattled just enough. Also trusting this giant of a man to let their guard down just that bit despite where they were. The big guy was…big, being twelve feet tall on bare feet, with the almost alien-like armor he filled out in mass more.

“Big guy?” Cruz asked as she stared upwards, managing to hold her ground as Slayer turned his attention to her. He grinned wide at the fully armored woman, and showed off his helmet to her before putting it on. Smoothing a thumb over the glyph before he stood a moment in full gear.

…Slayer leaned forward and gave himself a full body shake. Unknowingly it was something not unlike what the guardsmen did when they were in full armor for the first time after a shift off. As if it were a universal thing to do, something so oddly human to shimmy and settle into the armor.

There was a faint humming from the Praetor suit itself, the demigod looking at his rigged weapon on the ground. Picking it up to slip into the suit's weapon storage. Let the Praetor suit link up to it. Then the Slayer pulled out his trusted Argenta made ballista.

“I don't know what that is, but I like it.” Winston's voice drew Slayer's attention.

With the helmet on they could not see the giant man's expressions. But his own body language reflected excitement as the demigod sat down on his heels. Turning the weapon around in his hands and seemed happy if not eager to show it off as the guardsmen that came back closer. Showing off how he still had the muscle memory to open the weapon, check the power cells were all charged and put back together.

“What's the kickback?” Jackson asked, getting a few odd inches of space between large fingers as a response. “Decent? Does your armor help with that?”

Slayer nodded, with a happy chuff and freed his right arm to curl it up as if to show off a flexing bicep. Armor and his strength!

Cruz reached out as the armor lowered, being aloud to look over the massive hand. Her own covered fingers seemed oddly slim as she traced over the back of his right gauntlet. Hells, Jackson looked to have dainty hands in comparison too where he was trying to investigate the massive minigun like weapon. Some of the black flaked off under her touch, showing a dark olive tone under it. “What other goodies do you have?”

Slayer tilted his head, paused looked at where Richard was still sitting and resting. 

Everyone saw he had an Idea as Slayer perked up. Shamelessly shoving his ballista into Jackson and Winston’s hands. Effectively distracting them as he rocked forward and then looming over the worst injured Guardsman. His armor only adding to his bulk and blocked out a few touches’ light.

“Uuuum, what are you doing big guy?” Richard almost flinched as the demigod set a large, glowing blue bottle to the side of the human that was pulled out of Slayer's subspace. Then yelped as the massive hands closed around the Guardsman.

Outside the once tomb chamber there was a pause in the onslaught. An older Knight snapping until there was some quiet. Only it was not really quiet, even with the several foot thick door sound just making it out. Muffled but clearly some sort of yelling from the mortals inside. The demons exchanged worried looks when a thunder deep voice started laughing distinctly.

Was…. Was the Great Slayer eating the souls for himself before emerging?! 

The knight looked around, there should be one of the Barron's Prowlers around to send another message back- The doors burst open and the fully armored Slayer pulled back, letting the three Guardsmen fire his ballista before swinging his personal shotgun up to fire at those still alive. The horde outside screamed in horror realizing their only real predator was seemingly back at power.

[vintagerpg]

Don’t know how I feel about this one! This is The Greatest Thieves in Lankhmar (2021), a deluxe box set containing the tournament run at Goodman’s tables at GenCon 2019.

What’s good? All the constituent parts. The production values are high throughout. There is a ton of stuff in the box, all of it pretty. The adventure is split into three major sections — the dungeons below Thieves’ House, a race across the city rooftops and a dash through the palace of the Overlord. Each of these has mechanics that make the broad traversal complicated and interesting, and they are punctuated by devilish encounters that range from combats to traps to puzzles.

What’s bad? Well, stringing this all together, honestly. I don’t like competition modules generally, and telling me no one has ever survived it is not going to prime my enthusiasm. There’s no good reason given for this madcap jaunt (just, Ningauble wants you to, and his weird magic doohickey points the way). And the thing is just punishing encounter after punishing encounter. Honestly, most of the discreet encounters could serve as the centerpiece of their own module. Mostly, there isn’t a way to make this not a tournament module, at least to my eye. So it is only good for pissing off my play group or if I decide to start running tournaments, I guess. There is an irony here in the fact that the Leiber story this box takes its name from presents the Twain at their most arrogant and sees them so thoroughly duped they leave Lankhmar in shame.

The best bit is the Dicing With Death bonus adventure, which is meant to occupy players killed in the main game with avoiding death a second time and thus, maybe, returning to life. Its pretty neat and has utility outside the tournie model.

[glapplebloom]

Let’s finish off the Equestria Girls series (at least the visual media) before we finish the Visual Media for Generation 4

Even including the Clip Show episodes, I am a few episodes away from finishing the Main Generation 4 Series again. Meanwhile I got 4 more Equestria Girls specials, 2 Seasons of the Youtube Series and 2 Seasons of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. So before I get into the Specials, let’s finish up this series first. And since there are 27 episodes per Season, let’s do 9 at a time.

We begin with School of Rock. While I have been enjoying Maud’s standup, the rest aren’t until the girls use their Magic to help Maud’s presentation. This was all planned alongside Maud, so it's not like them trying to help without her permission. Next is a fine line, which is about Sunset Shimmer waiting in line for a new game. And she didn’t come earlier since this is a new game so others will likely want to play this new game as well.

Luckily for Sunset, Rainbow Dash came early and decided to bring the other girls along to help wait out the line. Bad news, despite waiting for hours the games were all sold out. Good news, Pinkie Pie already got the game for Sunset. You’ve seen Pinkie with Cider, you know she was the first on the line. Pinkie Sitting is next and it's Pinkie Pie babysitting for Rarity. The kid is an i-pod kid but Pinkie eventually wins her over. To be fair, despite an i-pod, she’s reading an EBook, so she’s a techy book nerd.

Queen of Clubs is yet another Applejack Vs Rainbow Dash episode. Who can get into the most club pictures in the yearbook? They tie but Rarity wins because she’s more into quality than quantity. Overpowered shows us a little disadvantage of their powers: if one of them uses it a lot, it overcharges the others so someone like Sunset can read minds without even touching them. 

Now this is actually interesting because this is why I feel the Generation 5 Ponies have stronger magic than their previous generation. Since the Unity Crystal combined all of the Pony Magic (minus Cutie Marks), it basically combined all of that magic into one and everyone can access it. As long as they stay unified, they can do magic not even their previous generation could. And if they all overuse it, it supercharges everyone else.

It’s the Final(s) Countdown... Basically a musical montage of Twilight helping the girls with the finals coming up in a few weeks. Not sure why Sunset is there because she’s as smart as Twilight. Not exactly as smart, but still able to answer a math problem Twilight wrote up. Twilight uses their interest to help them (again, except for Sunset). In the end, they all pass with As. It was also multiple choice so the answer was there.

Star Crossed has Twilight and Timber on a “hang out” at a museum. Twilight has a schedule, but life decided “we don’t like this ship so let’s ruin it”. Fluttershy gave her a jar of bugs for emergencies and this was an emergency. The bugs were fireflies and they stood in for the missing stars due to cloudy weather. My Little Shop of Horrors is basically their take of Little Shop of Horror. 

Twilight volunteered to take care of Celestia’s plants, but magic brought them sentience and they wanted more water. It's also a musical episode. Not a music video, but them singing in real time. When the plants became unruly, Applejack came in and saved the day. Never send a nerd to do a farmer’s job. 

We end this part with Display of Affection. Rarity has to design a display but has an artistic block. But after seeing a Flanksy Street Art, she tried to mimic the style but just couldn’t do it. Luckily for her she knew Flanksy and she decided to help without permission. It worked out and we find out who is really Flanksy all along: Sunset Shimmer.

Honestly, the shorts make me feel like we could have had fun with a proper Equestria Girls series. I wouldn’t mind some of these stories being longer in length. Like three of them and a music video would have been great. But it is nice to see more of these girls developing into their own characters and not exact copies of their Pony Versions. Tomorrow, part 2. 

[alolanrain]

Ta!au HC’s but their more focused on Rowan bc I love his old ass in this au to much

\ if he had to pick a favorite kid between Gary, Ash and Dawn it would be Gary without hesitation. he was the first scrappy little Buizel, a nickname he only ever calls Gary in his head, Rowan willingly brought home. 

\ he wasn’t to pleased when Councilman Kyubi from Unova and Regi, human Kyurem and Regigigas respectfully, showed up at his door at ass o’clock in the morning. Ash and Pikachu, beaten and bruise with noticeable dashes of dried blood on the collar of the kids shirt, looked so pathetic standing between the two adults. swaying on his feet and looking like both he and his partner were about to drop from exhaustion. 

\ Gary saw and snatched Ash right up before Rowan could turn the three away, because being a babysitter is not his problem. Gary works for him for Arceus sake, he can’t get away from the brunette even if he tried. though the Professors steely marine strength resolve dissipated when he saw just how heavily Ash leaned into Gary after the door was closed. 

\ Rowan refers to Ash as a short circuited Rotom in his head. Dawn is the only one who gets the verbal nickname of Shinx, she totally doesn’t rub it into Gary and Ash’s face when Rowans not around. 

\ is actually really sentimental, it’s the old age, and Ingo gets the brunt of it when they officially start dating. 

\  “My shining Gallade” get’s used pretty often along with “Sneaky Zoroark” when he finds Ingo sneaking down the halls to get a midnight snack or to sneak into his office when Rowans working on paperwork to try and steal his attention. 

\ big on words of affirmation, those come easy to both the kids and his assistants. it’s one of the main reasons why it’s so hard to be accepted to be apart of his small group of lab assistants because the man doesn’t trust easy and an open spot is fought over so hard in the science community. 

\ doesn’t give touches a lot, saves the act for when he’s being really sentimental over someone or something, but likes to receive. never flinches away when the kids lean in on him during the early hours of the mornings-when the nightmares are still a little to fresh and they needed just a little bit of support-or when Ingo places a hand on some part of his neck to get Rowan’s attention. 

\ Ingo constantly has cold long bony fingers, seemingly no matter what the weather is like, and Emmet used to hate it when he touched him with them. the kids always flinch away and whine when he teasingly dances the tips of his fingers along the back of their neck when their zoning out or hyper focused on something. he can’t for the life of him make Rowan flinch away. the Professor always leans into the touch regardless if Ingo’s hand was incased in a bowl of icy cold water just mere seconds before. 

\ Ingo naturally just cold as shit and he wasn’t like this before Hisui so it’s definitely a post-thing. like he ran cold-ish for a human being but now it’s like he’s almost constantly covered in ice and snow. he didn’t notice it back in Hisui, when Ash and Dawn repeatedly pointed it out while dancing out of his grip during their sparring but it hinders him a lot now that he’s back in the present time. 

\ Rowan, Gary and Ash naturally carry hand warmers since Sinnoh’s cold and Ash and Rowan’s bones have taken their fair share of beatings but the whole squad takes it upon themselves to always have at least two ones ready and waiting to go incase Ingo suddenly needs them

\ not like Ingo doesn’t already have four in his sweater pockets already. 

\ Sandgem Town quickly becomes the new hot spot of Legendary’s and the two residents just look at what's going on, notices they stick around Rowans house, and decides it’s not worth it to brother the Professor. heading back inside like they were just checking the weather outside. 

\ Gary cooks, Rowan grills/barbecues, Ash bakes, Ingo is good at frying stuff and Dawn tops it all off by making some mean salads with hand made dressings. they try their best to have a somewhat family dinner but since all five of their schedules are so wacked in ways they have to coordinate who’s going to be home or not. 

\ Rowan and Ingo prefer Kalosian based food the best. pasta or a small charcutiery board of prosciutto, kalosian creamy cheese’s like brie, crackers and fruits. both are so used to snacking throughout the day that if their working on paperwork together in Rowans office the older man will make a board so they can eat through it. it seems to make the time fly easier when they do. 

\ Gary is a spice-olic. it seems no plate is spicy enough for him. always offers Ash a bite no matter how hot it is because Ash is a damn foodie and eat it regardless. Rowan always sighs deeply when their out and about in restaurants because Ash will no doubt make a scene. 

\ Ash loves Kantonian food, even though he has very little spice tolerance, but if he had to chose his ultimate favorite food it would have to be extra crispy, thick crust, deep fried imitated-Combusken. he’s had real deep fried Combusken before but prefers the vegan option because the texture of the ‘meat’ is better in his opinion.

\ it’s not like he didn’t feel guilting thinking about May’s Blaziken when he tried it for the first time. 

\ oddly enough that’s not Ash’s favorite part of the dish. it’s just the skin and breading. he will literally leave the ‘meat’ alone and just eat the outer layer of breading and be happy. Ingo is trying to perfect it so Ash doesn’t waste to much money buying the whole thing meal, even if Gary and Dawn happily eat the ‘meat’ part with out Ash having to ask them, but he’s failing horribly since it’s hard to cut the skin off without cooking it. 

\ Dawn has no spice level and actively refuses any bite of spicy-shit that Gary offers. she knows what she likes and sticks to her comfort foods, even if the majority of her diet is junk foods like chips and candy besides the salad she eats every other day. 

\ both Ingo and Ash don’t use phones. Ash because he just doesn’t want to and doesn’t really see the point since he can call people on his pokedex. Ingo because he’s taking a break from the majority of electronics, since he’s been around Lord Electrode Ingo can now hear the electricity running through the house and the lab. 

\ it’s not uncommon for the others to find Ingo reading a book next to a lit flame instead of having the lights on. Ash and Rowan can easily navigate through the dark, Gary just uses the glow of Umbreons rings to watch out where he’s stepping and Dawn just uses the flash on her phone but turned down to the lowest setting. 

\ it’s weird to the other professor’s how easily Rowan can share his space with the four and his more long standing assistants but not his fellow colleagues. it’s a trust thing that he picked up in the Corps and it just stuck. 

\ when Ash is gone and Dawn is off with Barry and Zoey, silence over takes the house. besides the odd argument with Oak over the phone or video feed and the way Professor Magnolia and Birch just talks loud in general there’s rarely any continuous loud noises. it does change when Ash is finally able to transfer all his Pokémon from Oaks ranch to Rowans care, Charizard and Swellow are loud motherfuckers in the morning, but not by much as the majority of his Pokemon enjoy the silence or go scream in the woods that boarder the back of Rowans large backyard. 

[shinysamurott9]

2024 Games: Mega Man X6 Tweaks

After playing X5’s improvement project, I felt it was only fair that I give X6's a go as well. X6 Tweaks is a sort of like a custom tweaks patcher allowing you to alter several elements of the game to your liking, including how the characters play, certain specific elements of level design, elements of the game’s presentation and a lot of stuff being tracked under the hood.

Before going into that though I feel I should talk about my opinion on base X6.

I hate it.

I really do not like base X6. I have played a majority of the side scrolling Megaman games, not all of them but most of what could be considered main series games and I genuinely feel X6 is the worst Megaman game, of the one's I've played at least, I've heard many bad things about BN4. But with X6 itself I feel like there were a lot of good ideas and some genuinely fun things to mess around with, but between the massively inconsistent difficulty, poor executions of it's ideas like the Nightmare Effects, bad design decisions with things like the secret boss areas and all armour pieces being required to use an armour again and of course it's infamously bad level design. Any good or sensible idea X6 had, is ultimately either undermined, falls over itself or is lamented for being stuck in this game.

So what exactly does Tweaks do to fix these issues?

In short, quite a lot while also adding a number of miscellaneous additions for fun and QoL, but at the same time, not doing much to fix arguably X6's biggest issue.

With my playthroughs, for the overall important changes, I opted to disable the Nightmare Blindness, leaving the other nightmare effects on. Aside from that, I activated incomplete armours, made it so the Exit Stage button was always available, unlocked aerial moves like double jumps and dash, fixed the translation, added the custom mugshot graphics, and tweaked the damage tables to make a few things more tolerable, like the donuts.

These changes did do a lot to make X6 more tolerable which did allow it's better qualities to shine through. The game is a lot more open with your routing, probably at least in part because every stage needs to be revisited anyway. The armours are fantastic, I'd argue they're some of the best armours X ever got and with the updated script, I can at least appreciate what the story was attempting. The script does even have some stuff that is genuinely interesting or funny.

Nightmare Zero actually has lines that read like he is Wily, I genuinely did not know that til now.

MF actually pulled the "I got better" card,cannot believe this.

Zero canonically hates puzzle games lol

They even added unique dialogue for Zero in the intro stage and against Nightmare Zero should you use the cheat to unlock him from the start which is a fantastic touch.

Some other fun additions include letting you change the Ultimate Armour’s palette to any of the three from the PS1 Trilogy as well as a fixed version of the X6 colours to match the portrait and a colour palette for the Legacy Collection Ultimate Armour which I think was updated to make it look better.

Unfortunately, at it's core the game us still X6 and it's main issue, the level design is still very much a problem. Scaravich is still a random layout , leaving the armour, boss portal and heart tank up to RNG. Mijinion still has his really annoying secret area, and his main area still throws literally everything at you, and of course, Heatnix is still just donuts. Would you believe me if I said someone actually told me they thought this was not only fun, but better than an actual level? Course the Gate stages are still just as bad too, but hey you can actually beat them without parts now. Bringing Shadow Armour to Gate is actually a reasonable idea now, as one of the few changes the hack does make to level design is adding a platform to the infamous jump. An air dash for No Armour and Shadow Armour is also available.

Sadly, like X5 Improvement, the hack ultimately does very little to fix the overall level design and the more problematic sections. But to be clear, I can't really blame the hack creators for that as the only real solution would be to just completely scrap the existing levels and completely redesign them from scratch, something well beyond the scope of a rom patch. So overall while it is an improvement over X6, I'd really only recommend it to someone who's familiar with X6, the bullshit it throws at you and the ways you can cheese it.

I'd say it helps the stromg qualities of X6 stand out enough to get B tier, but a pretty low B if I'm honest

[twistedtummies2]

Top 15 Portrayals of Christine Daae (ALW’s Phantom)

As many of you know, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” is an important show to me. As well as being my favorite adaptation of the classic novel, it is perhaps my second favorite musical of all time…and given how many musicals I love, that’s saying a lot. It’s certainly one of the most popular pieces of musical theatre ever created; it’s had numerous tours worldwide, many productions in non-English-speaking countries, has been running for decades straight on the West End in London…and, of course, it currently holds the record for the longest-running Broadway musical in existence, with 35 Years Onstage under its black belt.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. That long-running streak of shows is about to fade away: on April 16th - three days from now - the original run of the Phantom of the Opera will be closing on Broadway. While it is possible the show could return in a revival production, and of course the show itself won’t be disappearing entirely, it is sad that such a long-lasting fixture on the New York stage scene will be coming to an end. In honor of this celebrated musical, I thought it would be good to present a few lists naming some of my favorite actors who have played the key three roles in the show: Christine Daae, our main character; the dashing Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny; and, of course, the Phantom himself, known in the book as Erik. I’ll be naming my Top 15 Favorite Actors to play each part between now and closing day for the Broadway production. There are only two rules in order for performers to count. One, I obviously have to have seen or at least heard their work, and heard it in good quantity; if I’ve only heard or seen a performer do one song, I don’t think it’s fair to give them a heap of credit, because I don’t know what the rest of the performance is like. Two, I won’t be counting JUST Broadway performers: actors from the West End, Las Vegas, Canada, Australia, and many others will be included too, along with cast members from the 2004 movie and the 25th Anniversary production at Royal Albert Hall. HOWEVER, I will be counting ONLY English-speaking performers. Why, you may ask? Well, primarily, it’s because I simply and honestly just haven’t seen or heard that much from non-English versions of the show. The ones I have heard or seen have been great, but the ones who perform in my own native language are the ones I know the best. With all that said, let’s begin with Christine. Christine is a more interesting character than I think a lot of people give her credit for. Her heart, her mind, and her will itself are all put to the ultimate test in this show, as she has to figure out where her loyalties and love truly lie. For her, the events she lives through are equal parts traumatic and exhilarating. It’s not an easy journey, and while Christine never swings a sword or gives great commands, she’s a much stronger and more layered character than many likely realize. The best versions of Christine find solid ways to blend her innocence and her maturity, and all have voices that truly match that of a person whom the Phantom considers “His Angel of Music.” This will be a description-less list, as will be the other two to come: just names and pictures. This is mostly because analyzing some of these actors and performances is honestly really, REALLY hard to do, at least for me. Having said that, I think I’ve prattled here long enough: allow me to present my Top 15 Portrayals of Christine Daae from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera!

15. Jennifer Hope Wills.

14. Kelly Mathieson.

13. Claire Moore.

12. Rebecca Caine.

11. Ana Marina.

10. Emmy Rossum. (Not sure how popular or unpopular this opinion is, but I’m sticking to it.)

9. Lucy St. Louis.

8. Sandra Joseph.

7. Sara Jean Ford.

6. Anna O’Byrne. (I should point out I am NOT counting or considering “Love Never Dies” with these lists. However, when a performer has been in both shows, I do find it interesting.)

5. Katie Hall.

4. Sarah Lawrence.

3. Kristi Holden.

2. Gina Beck.

1. Sierra Boggess.

Tomorrow: My Top 15 Portrayals of Raoul!

[gamergirljournalist]

The Super Mario Bros. Wonder: FIRST IMPRESSIONS (PAX Aus Review)

Rating: 4/5 stars (so far) System: Nintendo Switch OLED + Pro Controllers

I got a chance to play Super Mario Bros. Wonder with some friends during PAX Aus and it's pretty good. This upcoming Mario installment had me and my companions talking about what this title has to offer, the news of Charles Martinet leaving his iconic voice acting role, and for some reason, "What if Kirby entered the Mushroom Kingdom."

While the game has yet to be released on Oct 20, we got to play the demo version for 15 minutes and here are our thoughts.

Players have the chance to play as Mario, Luigi, Daisy, Peach, Toad, and Toadette. It also has options for those who are inexperienced with platformers via the Yoshis as they don't get damaged by enemies. However, if you want to use the power-ups, you need to use the main characters.

I chose Toadette and my friends chose Daisy and Mario. We only had 15 minutes to try the demo before the "thank you for playing" message popped up. We dashed through the Flower Kingdom and it's pretty cool. For starters, each world tells you the difficulty level through the star ratings. Aside from the familiar characters, like the Goombas, there are new foes that add flavour and an interesting challenge to each level.

Now let's talk about the ELEPHANT in the room - the Elephant power-up. As expected it's super weird to see our favourite characters LITERALLY TRANSFORM TO ELEPHANTS. But it adds to the comedic and whacky elements to the game. It also has a unique ability as well, where you can use your trunk to get through the level, which I thought was pretty neat. It was like a stretchy long arm. However, due to your size, you can't crawl down to the secret levels if the path has a tight entrance. So you need a friend who's in their default form to access them.

There are also other cool power-ups as well that are exclusive to certain levels, like the drill power-up, which allows you to move on ceilings. However, you can only get it during underground levels or ones that require drilling obstacles. Wonder has a feature where you can save up to three power-ups that you've collected and it can be carried throughout each level. So if you want to use certain abilities in other areas, you can if you want.

Based on our gameplay experience, we only got the chance to use the new abilities and didn't get to see the classics like the Fire Flower in the game. The regular mushroom was there though, so that's good.

Another cool feature the Wonder has added is the "Badges" system. According to one of the staff (and the Overview trailer), Badges will be something you can collect in the final game, and each of them has abilities that can help you through the level. In the demo, we were offered at least 6-8 badges to choose from. Due to the limited time we had, I couldn't properly see if had any effect. I guess we'll find out once Wonder gets released.

We also got to experience "The Wonder Effect," which made our gameplay feel a bit trippy. It gave us a more entertaining experience to get through the Flower Kingdom. However, one of my friends thought this might be a reference to "illicit substances" based on how it's presented and how the kingdom goes haywire.

Due to this being the demo, some things weren't available during this showcase. One of them was the Online Multiplayer feature where you'd get to see "live shadows" of other players. Makes sense since the game isn't out yet. Also, we couldn't collect more badges and had to stick with what we were offered.

Of course, not all games are perfect and here are some of my gripes that I had during this demo session. First of all, you need to be way ahead if you want the screen's attention. So if you're way behind, you need to move as fast as you can so you can see your character.

My friend managed to find some sort of secret area but just like the original Super Mario Bros, the screen does not adjust so you're kinda blind until you move into an area where you can be seen. Lastly, warp pipes follow "majority rules." So if you have three people playing the game and two want to go to the next area and one has unfinished business, through luck. You're going up to the next world regardless.

Overall, one of my friends plans to get the game so looking forward to a game night at some point. There were moments in the game that felt trippy and you need to be a quick thinker during certain moments in the difficulty level. Super Mario Bros. Wonder left a good first impression during my time at PAX Aus and I'm keen to see what more this Flower Kingdom has to offer.

[aquadestinyswriting]

🌈 RAINBOW SLOTH for the random WIP ask game!

Hi there, thank you so much for the ask :D. Putting my answer under a cut to save everyone's dashes because this is about to get long.

Wild card! Share one thing about your WIP that you have been waiting to be asked about!

The random generator chose The Trouble with Meredith for this question.

I have been waiting to be asked about the rest of the Ironforge children in more detail honestly, so I'll be happy to infodump here. To provide context for the age ranges here, Dwarves reach the age of majority at 65 in Fangthane and can live until they're around 650-700 years old on average.

As of the time of the above WIP, Meredith is the youngest of three children. However, she did have two older brothers that went off to fight with King Nargond in the Demon War, alongside their uncle Snorri. Neither brother made it back. Gruk and Morag were, understandably, quite upset that Snorri managed to come back without the boys in tow, but Snorri's obvious regret prompted Gruk to make amends with his older brother and the two of them are much closer as a result.

Alfolor (or Alfie for short) was mentioned briefly in the story Come Back Again, and was the eldest child of the family. At the time of his unfortunate death he was 153 years old. He'd been working as a smith, alongside his father at the time the Demon War kicked off and had been planning to ask his girlfriend of the time to marry him, but never got the chance to.

Magni was the second child and he was only 138 at the time of his death. Magni had been working as an Ironguard at the time of the Demon War and got himself swept up in the fervour of the moment alongside the vast majority of his unit. Magni did have a boyfriend at the time, who was quick to join him in the fight to save Allansia. It's unknown whether said boyfriend survived since no one in the family have seen him since, but he wasn't counted among the dead at the end of the war.

The third child of the family is Hilde, the only other girl in the family. As of the time of the majority of The Trouble with Meredith series, Hilde is 120 years old and is apprenticing under Auld Derek to become a Librarian Scholar. She's not quite to the level where the old librarian will allow her to take her final tests, but she is very close and is, rightfully, proud of the fact that she'll be one of the youngest Scholars the library has had for at least two generations if she can take the tests in the next couple of years. She's also the only family member who likes animals well enough to keep a Glowwyrm as a pet. Hilde has no plans to get romantically entangled with anyone at present and has basically told her parents to look to her younger siblings for grandbabies.

The last of the Ironforge children I'm going to mention here (since Merri herself is the main character for this series) is Dugald. At time of The Trouble with Meredith series, Dugald is 106 and is apprenticing under his uncle Ufgi as a Runesmith, one of the more prestigious professions found within Fangthane. Dugald showed an aptitude for messing around with metal and runic magic at a young age, much like his uncle, so he was fast-tracked into an apprenticeship to prevent any magical mishaps at home. Dugald does have a partner, though it's still so early into the relationship that he's not even brought said partner home to meet his parents yet. Magni is the most reserved of the surviving Ironforge children, preferring to stay in the background while his sisters take up the space he's left for them.

Thanks again for the question.

Edited because I messed up on the ages. It's been fixed now

[knitxt]

independent | private | highly selective | canon divergent RP dash-only sideblog of MILLIONS KNIVES from TRIGUN STAMPEDE | written by N. | est. april 04th, 2023

Please read the rules before interact.

Reminder: This is a sideblog from @vashtxt , I follow back there!

About. | RP Prompts. | Headcanons.

↓ ↓ — Rules below ! — ↓ ↓

1. INTRO: This is my own interpretation of Millions Knives from the last Trigun anime that came out. This Knives is focused solely on TriStamp. Even though I know the story of the previous Trigun, I'm not going to do any mixing.

My intention is to write Knives in an obsessive and psychotic way. It will not listen to reason and the possibility of it being aggressive is very high. Triggers such as religion, blood, death and manipulation both physical and psychological will be present.

3. WHAT DO I ACCEPT: I'm Original Character / Alternative Universes / Crossovers / Duplicates friendly. You can go wild with me. I RARELY write NSFW, so don't expect much about it here— I may write descriptive horror or suggestive but that's all. (I'll think about making a sideblog about smut... we'll see.)

3. IMPORTANT: Godmodding & Powerplay are NOT allowed. What is allowed is to launch an attack on my character, but what happens to my character is MY decision. In the same way as the other way around. The attack exists, but it is each one’s decision what happens to his character. So please, DO NOT control my muse, if you do I will immediately drop our interaction.

4. SHIPPING: I don't think that Knives can be shipped, at least the canon one. But if you're willing to try to conquer his heart, go on, I dare you. I have 0 problems with problematic ships, with him will be 90% sure a toxic one.

* I do accept plancest/KV and I will write about it if I feel like it. I won't accept any hate or drama towards me about it. If you DON'T like it you have three choices: DON'T follow me, BLOCK me or MUTE the tags. I will tag every ship and trigger.

5. MUN =/= MUSE: I totally separate reality from fiction. I write as a hobby, because I love writing, I've been doing it for more than 12 years and it's not something I plan to stop. Knives is really a psychotic and complicated character to write about. He is not me, and I am not him. I'm NOT looking for a partner IRL, I already have a beautiful wife ♥ I love very much.

6. ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSES: I accept to write Knives in different situations (e.g. him being 5 years old, him being an actor, or even versions of anime I know). But I won't write about them unless they are requested. So for something specific, drop me a DM.

7. PERSONAL BLOGS: Please, PLEASE, pleeeease, DO NOT reblog my roleplays when I'm writing with someone. I know, they must be exciting or you would love our writing but please with a like is enough, thanks. If you ignore this rule I'll sadly softblock you and really... I hate to do that.

8. ABOUT THE WRITER: I go by N. 25+. he/him. INFJ-T. Spanish. I sometimes write drabbles.

I have a work, I have a life outside internet so I'm forever semi-hiatus. So please, don't pressure me to write. I'll do it slowly. I won't tolerate anything that would stress me out. Oh and English is not my main language, if something is not understood or is written incorrectly, please tell me, I'd do my best to rewrite it.

I can RP on discord, but I'm horrible when it comes into join a server group. If you're interested to write there and we're mutuals, yes you can ask for my discord, or even if you have a group and want people, I'm not picky and I try my best to not make anyone uncomfy. But the why I offer discord is more if you want to contact directly with me, I'm there forever.