#probably gonna move some of my stuff to another doc and also write

[theonlythingimfuckingisstupid]

am i gonna write or am i gonna do something else?

[misc-obeyme]

here to say i also agree with the other anon and love how you write mammon !! and if you do decide to finish one of those drafts, I'll def be the first to reblog! or at least I'd want to be lmaoo. I just love him so much 😭

I think I'm at lesson 73 in the game now?? I NEED to beat it before Tuesday, but my family is traveling tomorrow to mexico, and it's gonna be a long drive </3 minimum 14 hours, sometimes a full day if my dad naps. I'll have limited signal, but Google docs works offline so maybe writing time?! if I'm not asleep akskd.

also !! i wanted to ask if you have any favorite composers or music pieces? for research purposes of course 📝 👀

And I can't remember if you said you had a keyboard before you got the new piano, but if you do, what are the biggest differences? I'd imagine it sounds smoother and ... Crispy? (Is it hard to move a piano?? Like do they unscrew the legs to be able to get it through doors??)

you don't have to answer because I can totally google these things, but I also like seeing you talk about your piano akwkdjf

Hope you're doing well !!

- ✨ anon

omg, well maybe I will finish one of those stories... I had a handful of ideas from my last Mammon phase... okay, let's be real. I gotta stop calling them phases, the reality is that I just think about him a lot asdl;kdsfjkf. When I tell you I'm so obsessed with the Mams/Barb ship right now... it plagues me so much. BUT no my other ideas were x reader lol. And I don't know why I never finished them, I guess I got distracted? I think it was my OC's fault. In fact, I'm pretty positive it was. But even if it wasn't, I'm still blaming Arrie for everything.

AH you're SO CLOSE! I know I got really obsessed with getting through season four right before NB came out 'cause I was like, there is no way I am not having the full story before this new stuff starts! Anyway, I hope you're able to get there, even with the drive and lack of signal! I hope you have fun on your trip!

Hang on, you LIKE seeing me talk about my piano!?? I was like, man I must be so annoying about it lol. I'm happy to answer any such questions, but uh... just be aware you may be opening some flood gates!

OKAY I really rambled about this piano stuff, so I think I better put it under a read more just to save people from scrolling forever...

Now when you say composers, do you mean classical composers or more modern ones? Because if we're talking classical, the answer is Bach. Like that is a pretty standard response, probably. And maybe I'm a lil basic for being such a huge Bach fan, but I don't care. Beethoven was also excellent of course, but that guy was sooooo overdramatic, all his songs are like bombastic while Bach was like, nah it's all about keeping exact tempo. Most of my other classical music stuff is like... I have specific pieces from different composers that I like, rather than being really into one composer specifically. Like Mozart is great and all, but Fantasia in D is by far the best of his stuff as far as I'm concerned. OH but I do like most of Chopin's stuff, too. But nothing can top Bach for me asldkfj.

If we're talking piano solos specifically, though, you're gonna get mostly Beethoven. Fur Elise is like the classic piece that all piano students are taught at some point. Moonlight Sonata is another incredibly popular one from him. You'll also get a lot of Pachelbel's Canon in D, which is really boring imo. It can be fun to play if it's an unusual arrangement, but generally speaking trying to play that song puts me to sleep lol.

Now if we're talking more modern composers, my favorites are Ludovico Einaudi, Toshifumi Hinata, Alexis Ffrench, and Yiruma. This is like more modern piano solo stuff, though. All these people are still alive lol. But I love their piano music, listening to it really kind of informs how I play when I'm doing improv style stuff.

Though I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention classic jazz piano stylings, too. I named my piano after one of my favorites, Hazel Scott. Jazz piano is insane and incredible and it always blows my mind. There are a TON of amazing jazz musicians. And you'll get a lot of good piano players that are not in the classical style too and who tend to span genres, such as Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure if that's the kind of rambling you were looking for on that first question lol! But feel free to ask me more specific things if you'd like!

As for the second part of your piano related questions, I did indeed have a keyboard before I got the piano. However, it's important to note that there are many different kinds of keyboards. The one I had was bought used and even before that, it would've been an extremely cheap one. I think you can buy a new one for like $400? Mine only had 76 keys (as opposed to the full 88 a piano has). And there are keyboards that come with even fewer keys (like 56 or something?). These are mostly good for classroom situations or where you only need to say, add a bit of piano into a larger song with other instruments. They do okay as a replacement for a real piano, but they're really not made for that.

However, there are keyboards in the thousands of dollars that I think are more commonly called "digital pianos" nowadays that are made to replace a real piano. I've never had or played one of these, so I'm not sure how obvious the difference of the sound would be. That being said, I've seen them used in concert situations many times. So I suspect the most expensive ones probably sound pretty close to a real piano. Or at the very least, they act more like a real piano does.

My cheapo keyboard still had keys that could sense how hard you were pressing them. And this let the keyboard know if you wanted your note loud or soft. But honestly it barely made a difference lol. I would think that kind of feature would be much better and higher quality on an expensive digital piano.

Similarly, my keyboard had an option of "grand piano" as the sound the keys produced. Digital pianos also usually have a grand piano setting, so they might sound more like a grand piano even if they're just a standard upright. The Yamaha Clavinova is a good example of a digital piano. It can range from like $3000 to $8000 depending on what version you get.

So I can definitely tell you the difference between the sound of a keyboard like my old one and the piano I have now, but there are a lot of versions of keyboards that might sound better than mine did.

The thing that really informs what a piano sounds like is the strings inside it. When you hit a key on the piano, a tiny little hammer (sometimes two) hits a string that's tuned to that note inside the piano. So the main thing a keyboard lacks is actual strings. It's just playing the sound of a string that was being hit somewhere else and then recorded. And a real piano is also heavily impacted by the environment it's in. If you've got a piano in a small space, with a lot of stuff around it, it might sound a little more muffled than if you had in a larger more empty space. That's more about the room's acoustics than the piano itself, though.

I think I know what you mean about "crispy" lol! Like the keyboard has a crisper sound. And yeah, it does, and also it doesn't ring quite as well. I got a sustain pedal for my keyboard, so it was able to hold notes a little longer, but it's nothing like the way it works for a piano. The sustain pedal on my piano is really amazing, it'll hold that note for what feels like a million years lol.

The piano is more resonant, there's more space for the sound to be creating within the instrument itself. I have an upright, but it's a tall upright. This is so that there's more room for the strings, kind of like a grand piano but instead of the strings being horizontal, they're vertical. Grand pianos always sound better. And you can open them to make them even louder, too. You can open an upright, but it doesn't have quite the same sound. It's very close, though, and honestly most people probably can't tell the difference lol.

And yes, it is hard to move a piano! They have to be transported by movers who are specifically piano movers. Because there's a lot that can go wrong if they're not properly handled or packaged. They're also heavy, so you need two strong peeps to do it!

How they do it depends on the type of piano. An upright will fit easily through most doors, so they don't have to take anything apart. A grand piano, on the other hand, is obviously incapable of going through a door at all, so it does need to be taken apart. I think they do take off the legs, so they can turn the top part sideways and move it through a door that way. So the strings aren't too disturbed, since that's the important part. Famous bands and musicians that use real pianos on stage have a whole crew for this specifically. If they want to use their own piano, they have to have a piano crew to move it from venue to venue for them. Most venues have a house piano, but a lot of musicians are picky about this kinda stuff. If they've got enough money to hire a crew to move their piano every time, they probably do. And they'll need to have a piano tuner in there, too, because inevitably moving a piano that often is going to require it to be tuned after nearly every move.

Pianos do better if they stay in one spot for the most part. They settle into their environment, not just the room they're in, but the strings and hammers sort of acclimate to the amount of humidity in the air and that kind of stuff, too. Generally, if you're just moving a piano to a new location that's nearby, you should be okay. But if you're moving it across states or into new climates or different altitudes, you'll want to get it tuned within two months of moving it. It just takes that long for it to adjust.

ANYWAY. I'm sure you now have WAY TOO MUCH INFO than you ever needed about this stuff asdflkjf. I don't get to talk about it all that often and honestly I didn't realize I had this much to say about it lol!!

I hope some of that helped and I apologize for getting so wordy about it!

I am doing well and I hope you are, too! 💕

[chocolate-theft]

☆ 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 ☆

Fandom: Dead By Daylight. Rating: Teens And Up Audience, sfw. Characters: Pyramid Head, Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face. Pairing: Pyramid Head x Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face.

Tags: Pyramid Head's pov, fluff, adoration, established relationship, typical cute couple stuff, short and sweet, cheesy asf, Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face has green eyes, maskless Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face, soft Pyramid Head, smitten Pyramid Head, lowkey/borderline simping [Pyramid Head💀], short fic, too ALPHA to beta read, very self-indulgent.

WARNINGS: NONE.

Summary: The Executioner enjoys the beauty in his Beloved Ghost’s eyes.

– Word count:626.

Author's note:

Wrote this in the Tumblr’s draft (instead of focusing on writing my main wips), so why not post it because I'm bored and also because there's not enough PyraGhost in the world.

I will probably come back to edit and add things in this fic later since like there’s gonna be some incomprehensible pharsings and errors here and there, ofc because I literally wrote this in Tumblr’s draft, put it in Google Docs just to see the word count and copy paste in here– BAM!! Then finished!

The green line dividers aren't mine btw.

Embracing my Tumblr fanfic writer era rn.

────────────────────────────

Every inch that Danny possessed was something to be held deeply treasured to Pyramid Head.

Back then Pyramid Head used to be hesitant to reach out and touch Danny, quite wary that he would somehow break the man if he applied too much pressure. He knew Danny would be slightly annoyed by this; claiming that he wasn't that weak, but that didn’t stop Pyramid Head from being apprehensive when it came to him. Fortunately, as things progressed Pyramid Head became at ease as Danny reassured that he wasn't hurting him. 

Him having this affection towards Danny was so beyond that even the basic description of him just loving Danny was an injustice on how he truly felt. 

Even though Pyramid Head wasn't the type to care about other people's characteristics, he was utterly entranced by Danny, anything from head to toe, as well as his hands, his voice, and the way he carried himself. Everything.

And when Danny showed his face to him for the first time, enrapture swept over Pyramid Head. His immediate response was to stretch his hand to stroke Danny's ebony locks of hair in which the other man found it endearing as Pyramid Head ruffled his hair gently.

But what captivated Pyramid Head's heart the most, once he took a moment to observed Danny's face. Amused gloomy emerald were peering at him back. This caused Pyramid Head to stop doing what he was doing. The more he fixated on Danny’s eyes the more he felt lost in the glamours' greenery.

────────────

In the present, Danny was not currently wearing his usual Ghostface mask around Pyramid Head which wasn’t uncommon ever since he had grown to trust him as Danny was comfortable enough to be displaying his own actual face to his partner only. Right now they were just spending the day with one another, making up for the lost time they were busy with their trials. Danny shared a few horror tales that greatly interested him, prompting Pyramid Head to listen, producing soft grunts while the other proceed. But Pyramid Head was intensely concentrating on the different expression Danny’s eyes make.

While it went on Danny began to notice that the other wasn't really paying attention, judging by how Pyramid Head practically stopped making quiet noises to what he was talking about and wasn’t moving. Then Danny waved his hands side to side in front of Pyramid Head. “Hey! Are you even listening to me?” Causing Pyramid Head to snapped back to reality, following the realization on what was going on. 

Oh. Was he distracted again? 

As awkward as it may have been given that for the entire time he was just focused on Danny’s eyes. 

“You’re spacing out lately.” Danny said. “Is there something bothering you?” 

There wasn’t anything bothering him, it was just his fascination with the green irises that belonged to the man. Pyramid Head shook his head.

Danny made a questioning face. “Hm. I doubt that.” Then the man’s lips swiftly formed into a grin, “you were staring at my eyes aren’t you~!” Pyramid Head was slightly thrown back by how Danny was able to jump to the correct conclusion so quick. But he knew that no matter the circumstances are, Danny was destined to read him like a book effortlessly. 

Pyramid Head uttered a gurgle of affirmation, seemingly out of embarrassment.

Danny became aware of this, “it’s fine Pyra! I just find it humorous. Plus, I don’t mind, you can stare at it as long as you like,” he chuckled. Relief essentially spread over Pyramid Head as he let out a deep breath.

“Never thought someone would be so enthralled by my eyes, you know?” 

Well, if no one was enthralled by it, then Pyramid Head definitely was.

Author's note:

Thanks for reading till the end! Hope you enjoyed it.

I should probably go back to writing my main wips. But I deadass get distracted often.

Here's my AO3 acc, if you like this pairing lol. Don't check it out if it's Monday since AO3 is down for planned maintenance for 10 whole hours, sad I know, just download fics you love in the meantime, we will live blud.

And that’s it for today... See you later, toodles!

[crystalkitty1220]

Monthly-ish check-in

Aka more of a diary entry than a blog post

Gonna disappear again for a bit after posting this

Decided to major in animation because ever since losing all of my confidence when it comes to writing creatively in Creative Writing class, my focus has been moved entirely to storyboards and scripts. Storytelling is still my passion but clearly I'm not very good with words, and tbh the only reason I had ever really been confident in my writing is because I'm good with grammar. I feel like my storyboards/scripts are pretty good and capture the exact energy I've never really been able to get across in my writing, but actual animation capabilities are still yet to be seen because I can barely fucking draw in the first place. Gonna also experiment with 3D modeling in college, because who knows, maybe I'm better if I can see my work from multiple angles at a time.

Maybe I'll host a MAP at some point when I fully come back to tumblr. If I do, it'll probably be centered around Traffic Life. Or maybe IBVS if there's enough people.

Fandom-wise, I somehow managed to get Echos obsessed with Traffic Life by showing them some episodes of Secret Life (specfically Tango's Torchy one). Then we watched Empires together, and now Echos is watching season 10 of Hermitcraft with me (Grian, Scar, and Joel's povs, though without them I've also been watching Mumbo, Bdubs, occasionally Zed, and now Doc. Before season 10 I only watched Grian, Scar, and Bdubs). I've even started working on a little something centered around Jimmy and the Canary Curse. Also add Xornoth to the list of even remotely evil-aligned characters that I thought were dudes at first and find out they're nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer after I start crushing on them. This is the, what, fifth time? At this point if I get a crush on a character I should just immediately start calling them by they/them. Specifically the Empires the Musical one btw, not the one that's just Smajor with a voice filter.

Still been having major nostalgia for Feral ever since downloading Emuferal. Got Krita to paint something based on it but I don't know when I'll post that. Wrote around three complete animatic scripts featuring the Blood Tundra kobolds. Three is actually a very small number compared to the amount I normally write per fandom. (Then again, I've only got around 2-ish for IBVS. That's probably because I like to focus on symbolism for my animation scripts, and the only consistent symbolism I can think of for IBVS is with Isaac and birds. He's been drawn in a bird cage, which is very much known to symbolize being trapped or lacking some kind of freedom. In another bit of art he's been drawn with wings, showing the achievement of freedom. Freedom from what? Hell if I know. Possibly unrelated to the bird stuff, in another bit of art, Isaac is seen holding Drew's hand. Drew has a confused, upset expression, and Isaac's expression is unreadable as always but I interpret it as being rather solemn. Isaac's feet are, notably, not on the fucking ground. He's drifting away, and Drew's trying to hold onto him. This could symbolize Isaac shutting down emotionally/socially and Drew trying to help. Or, if this connects to the freedom symbolism, Isaac might fucking die by the end of IBVS. It's probably the first one. I am eating this shit up I fucking adore symbolism.)

Speaking of IBVS, I've been reworking Curse!IBVS. The version I posted about in the past was basically the second version of Curse (I never posted anything about the first) so this one would be version three. Isaac's going back to being much more like version 1 because I decided I'm not a huge fan of the second one for multiple reasons. Due to Drew having healing powers, he and Nevin are also getting reworked - I even wrote a little snippet surrounding them just to get the vibes right, but I don't think I'll ever post it. Edward's curse is basically staying the same, but the way he handles it is being changed so he can work as a sort of foil to Nevin. I'm still trying to figure out how to turn Dez's power into a curse without making it too similar to Nevin's or Edward's. And I'm thinking Chris and Charlie can be more similar to normal IBVS, and then I can use Chris as a sort of anchor to introduce everything else. Also my brain keeps showing my this huge dramatic climax scene but unfortunately I think it's a little too out-of-character and I have no clue how it'd even get to that point.

Got the fourth Animorphs graphic novel. The whale thing is still super weird. Ax looks nothing like I imagine him. Not much more to say on that.

Started playing Royale High more regularly but it's a bit depressing because I've been playing since it was Winx Fairies and Mermaids Roleplay and now it's just Work a Job to Buy Useless Items and Invest in the Stock Market Simulator. Idk the musical chairs minigame is pretty fun.

Warrior Cats animations continue to be my main inspiration for basically everything I've ever drawn. I could write about them for hours but it's already 1am so I probably shouldn't. Oh and the new arc is pretty good if you cut out everything that isn't Frostpaw. Might be my new favorite pov character.

Really disappointed Camp Camp ended on ep 4 of the new season because literally episode 5 is always either a Jasper episode or my favorite episode Quartermoon Convergence. I can't believe my favorite character is now bald forever and my second favorite character hasn't been mentioned since season 3. On the plus side I have a whole separate document from my main script one just for Camp Camp animatic scripts because I've written so many of them. I don't know what I have more of, UTMV scripts or Camp Camp ones.

For years, crossovers have for some reason been my brain's main focus. Probably because the first ever fanfic I read was Morphing is Magic, and that shit was fire. So here's a few of the odd ones that have found their way into my thoughts:

•Yet another variation of an Animorphs and IBVS crossover.

•"The Othermind from WoF can affect people who ingest the Breath of Evil, and Nightmare's goo can break down and absorb anything, so could he be affected by the Othermind if he was stabbed one of the vines? Would it not count because he doesn't have a bloodstream?"

•IBVS constantly haunts my brain so that last one turned into the IBVS characters being dropped into the WoF world (as humans, mind you) but Drew and Nevin are in Pantala while the rest end up in Pyhrria.

•Similarly (while I was reading the new Warriors arc), the IBVS being dropped into the lake territory (this time catified) and all into different clans.

•Speaking of catification, I found this shit (below) in my ibis paint drafts, and immediately screenshotted it to send to Echos.

I don't remember how or why I drew Drew's hair like that. I don't know why Dez would be trying to catboyify Drew, or why using the wrong materials would get him possessed by Ende from Feral. But by god, the thing that caught me off-guard most is the words "Is this what I get for saving your life? Catboyfication?" and I don't think I could write something funnier if I tried. Of course my brain immediately began to run with this, resulting in this blurb of text later being sent to Echos:

Me: it's four in the fucking morning, *stop* thinking of dumbass crossovers, they don't even make any fucking sense / My brain: monika said she had some of rachel's memories when possessing her. What if, when ende possesses drew, she's led back to his home and immediately feels like this place is a sanctuary - a safe place after being in danger for so long - something that drew has managed to find but ende still longs for. When she walks inside and sees nevin, she gets really emotional and can't stop herself from hugging him, then has to come up with the excuse that she (still pretending to be drew) didn't realized how much she missed him, then makes a fake promise to explain what happened in the morning. When she's by herself in drew's room she silently swears to drew - despite the fact she can feel he's falling into some kind of 'sleep', one that she can only recognize because she herself has been in an absent 'sleep' like that for so long - that she'll do everything she can to make sure they can both be free in this place. And when she goes to bed, she experiences drew's memory dream, and ende can relate to the feeling of having an important memory be kept from her. / And then the arms around her feel like they're turning into wings, and when she opens her eyes (though still dreaming) she sees luka. And ende demands to know why, if she's supposed to forget everything, can't they let her move on? A blizzard rages on in the background. She tries to pull away from luka's arms, but they still feel like wings encasing her - trying to keep a member of the flock safe, but only trapping her there - or like those of the watcher's. Again, she demands why they can't just let her go. Luka keeps their signature empty smile, but their eyes are not their own, boring down into ende like those of an all-too familiar statue. And then she wakes up, and she makes a second promise to the boy who can't even hear her: she's going to help him remember. / Me: stfu its sleep time. honk shoo. honk mimimimi. go to fucking bed.

Echos' reply was: "Ooo".

•Hermes from Empires SMP using the Staff of Sanctuary for Multiverse Shenanigans™

•Multiple concepts of villains from different media being thrown into Gotham City, and how they'd fare against Batman. I blame Echos and the other one for being obsessed with the Batfam and talking about DC constantly.

•Doodles of Empires!Smajor, Celestia from MLP, Dream from Dreamtale, and Sun from FNaF interacting in "my sibling got corrupted by an outside force and turned evil" club™. At some point I threw DogDay in there just for the hell of it even though he doesn't fit the criteria whatsoever. One of the doodles is just Scott, confused, with a thought bubble containing a cartoony sun symbol. (Wait, does Jake from Animorphs count? Can't believe I missed that.)

•Some other IBVS ones idk it's just constantly in my head

Also been reconnecting with some irl friends I hadn't spoken to since the Women List Dude incident. First time hanging out at a friend's house for as long as I can remember, and you best believe one of my rambles led from Spiderverse to Undertale AUs to Kirby Takes Manhattan to the origins of the ship Fingers In His Ass Sunday. Also got to learn a bit more about Women List Dude, whom none of them even knew I had experience with, and vice versa. To quote one of my friends, "Every time I talk to someone new about him, the story grows." Apparently he was fucking infamous in our school, and not even just in our grade. Istg he's practically an urban legend. "Oh, [Woman List Dude]? Yeah, I've got some stories about him..." *crackling of a campfire, the smell of smores.* Except there's concrete evidence and multiple witnesses to every account. It's honestly hilarious.

Uhh I think that's basically about it for this update. It's now 4am and I just finished rereading everything, so I'm gonna hit post and then not check tumblr again for like another month.

[essayofthoughts]

7, 11, 13 & 17 for the writers asks!

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

Hm so. Two parts. Part 1. When, when writing something, I manage to solve a tangle of problems in a way which feels satisfying and ties up enough loose threads without seeming unreasonable and unrealistic. And Part 2. When I manage to write something that people connect to? Some of the comments on Ripley's Assistant and That Balance May Return and that people have sent me privately give me strong emotions.

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

I hate killing my darlings, hate it, hate it, hate it. I've got better in recent years about deleting lines, but I still loathe it and prefer to rework things and rewrite it than just delete. And the problem is, my memory is terrible, so either 1. I delete it and forget it forever or 2. I remove it to a doc of notes and then forget I have a doc of notes. So generally, when I can, I try to move a line immediately to the relevant doc, or I rework it. I know sometimes it's necessary to delete things but I will never stop hating it and it's probably a good thing for me that I tend to get ideas of whole scenes. That way I can edit a great deal of it, but as long as the overarching scene is the same, I don't mind. (If I have to delete the scene... noooooooo 😰)

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

There is a very solid answer to the first part of that question but it's also complicated so I'd rather give you that answer in private, Mike, if you want to hear it. For another answer of something that's difficult for me to write - torture. I usually get around this by writing indirectly, letting the reader's mind fill in the gaps, because rather as with horror that's often the more effective way, but yeah. Not for me.

I also struggle to write the POV of outright malicious bastards just because I don't see the point of that kind of perspective? I don't see what is gained by being like that. I see it as deeply self-defeating and struggle to write it when I can't make out the goals of it or how it connects to other people.

As for easy - I mean, you've seen my fics. Manipulation, trauma, healing from violation. Angst and Hurt/Comfort in general, tbh. I struggle to write pure fluff, it feels deeply substanceless to me, but angst and hut/comfort have texture and I can always write those.

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Mrrm. I don't know that there is much that won't make it in? Like, someone once commented about Ghost Cass something along the lines of how it can be kind of slow paced and... yeah. It's my self-indulgent "Take as much time as you like" fic in some respects, and while I do want to keep the plot moving it's also that... it took me ages to get from writing ficlets and oneshots to writing big fics! I am relishing it now. But also, because of this, a lot of the ideas for lore and history and details and stuff going on off-camera... we'll get bits of it anyway? Characters will inform others of lore, details of what happened elsewhere can be backfilled with other POVs, and for example with the Briarwood Arc part of Ghost Cass there's gonna be a downtime fic, and that's gonna cover Vox Machina, sure, but also some NPCs that are relevant, both within Whitestone and elsewhere, and help to provide some of that additional detail.

Idk. I don't like it going to waste? This is why I used to have such an issue of infodumping worldbuilding into a story. It's the whole reason I made monsterblog way back when, so I could infodump things in one place and redirect to it instead of infodump again in a fic. Instead I kind of work in background worldbuilding as information which a character has due to their background and it provides both worldbuilding and character information.

But I guess like, if I had to pick one piece of random background worldbuilding, lets go with my fave:

In my headcanon (shared with @blorbologist) - it starts with how Whitestone keeps bees. Snow Mead is a locally made Whitestone alcohol, and for mead you need honey. However, if you're making it in reasonable quantities you're probably taking quite a bit of honey, (not to mention honey just to sell as honey, and beeswax) and this is Whitestone, where it's cold and there's a shorter summer, so there's fewer flowers, so there's less for the bees to feed on. Mead was valued by the Norse because it used honey and honey wasn't cheap! It was a rarity, a treat.

But Whitestone makes Snow Mead enough that not all that long after the Briarwoods' occupation is ended Percy is able to obtain some Snow Mead amongst other local alcohols, which means the business has likely been continuing even during this occupation - an occupation which prevented trade between Whitestone and the rest of Tal'Dorei, I would note.

So the beekeepers need a way to sustain their hives, right? And IRL the way that's done is with sugar water. But sugar hasn't been cheap, historically, because it's kind of a pain to grow and refine and it was usually imported and made from sugar cane. We know trade was cut off for five years, so how are these beekeepers getting sugar for their bees? Given Whitestone climate, it can't be sugar cane imported or home grown, so most likely it's sugar beet, as grown in some of the fields near where I live.

And, if they've got hardy sugar beet growing, then they might well even have a surplus of sugar. Which would explain how, even as Tal'Dorei was rebuilding after the dragons, Vox Machina were able to set up a very prolific and successful bakery/pastry shop in Whitestone. Importing sugar, even with their money and connections would be tricky, and Vex doesn't like to waste money - if there's sugar locally they can get and use that at reduced cost.

And, further, it would be a source of income for the whole city even aside from the whitestone and refined residuum from the mountain quarries, which would help to explain why, despite it's small size, it hasn't just been subsumed into Tal'Dorei. Between it's isolated location and it's local sources of wealth, it's able to stay independent where other areas might find benefits in joining Tal'Dorei.

And... yes, that's a headcanon I came up with purely from Whitestone's climate and the fact they make mead.

[andthebubbles]

gonna do something totally novel tonight (haha) ... i am gonna put a/b fic away!!! i edited ch 14 tonight and it's okay, still needs a bit more editing here and there but it's nothing massive, so that's... good. and then the next part needs some thinking/headcanoning...

like i think i could use humboldt (making him the butler in this universe) to stop benedict from sneaking out to see anthony, and also maybe berbrooke could throw a ball as an official introduction for himself into society as the baron... and maybe i can drop some hints via that (like maybe just that he was educated at harrow?)... and violet can be well-meaningly pushy when she finds out that benedict danced three dances with someone at the ball... AND his mystery friend supposedly punched someone lol. a lot to plan i guess, or like, ... use the upcoming stuff to set up the next part. and also i suppose benedict (and violet) might have to go to more than one event, with perhaps a few days break in between, or........ well, idk.

in the more immediate future, i need to plan out what frederick is gonna say to like, ... set this in motion lol (like, re right where i'm up to in the fic/how to get benedict to convincingly yeet anthony off to an inn (i mean i have some idea, but my brain is kinda scrambled today so i don't want to write it now))

mmkay! so i shut the fic doc :O i think i sorta have an upper limit of 3-4 consecutive days (four in this case) of writing before my brain sorta needs a break.

sims 4 news!! well, not news, but i've been watching deligracy's apartment renos, and i wanna open up the game now and try and do a reno on one of the apartments, because she did it in a particular way and the second bedroom looked like a closet, so i wonder if i could put the two bedrooms on the other side of the apartment since i don't mind pipes in the bedroom... (and then i want to make a family and have as many kids as i can cram into the tiny apartment hahaha)

aaaaaaaaaaaas for bridgerton 3x01 spoilers, i read a whole twitter thread of them yesterday, and i'll probably say this on another post when we get closer to the release date, but the four things i'm most looking forward to in s3 are these:

any scenes with anthony

any scenes with benedict

any scenes with anthony and benedict (there are (at least?) two in the first ep!!!! i'm so happy!! skjdnskJNKJNFGKJGN WHY DID I HAVE TO FIND THIS OUT MYSELF??)

CRELOISE OMG. i didn't know i needed creloise until the trailer dropped and now i'm so looking forward to it! i need cressida to be an evil bitch and skfjgnfkg if she gets a softer side on-screen, then that'll be interesting (but if she doesn't, that's... okay (maybe a missed opportunity haha); anyway if there's enough material/i am inspired enough, I WILL BE WRITING FIC and then maybe i'll put a softer side into her if i want to, aaaaaaaaaaaaaah (kinda interested in a non-sexual power play thing between them, then moving to sexual... but skjfngkfg let's see when s3 drops. suuuuper interesting that they've been hanging out in the country during the off-season :3)

[blueberry-lemon]

What I Did In 2023

Ever since finishing school in 2017, I've always had a hard time feeling like I've "accomplished anything" in a given year. The months all blur together, and it's crazy how quickly I will forget something that happened or something I did.

To help myself with this, I wrote up a post last year of What I Did In 2022, which honestly felt good. So I figured I'd try again.

Sorry if you find these kinds of posts obnoxious. Hidden under the Read More just in case you do!

A few things I accomplished in 2023:

I wrote some stuff

I wrote Chapters 3 and 4 of Soul Symphony: Abandoned Encore. This is a sequel to a webcomic called Soul Symphony that I made and completed from 2010-2015. Olivia Myers, former music maestro and magical-girl adventurer, lives life as a depressed freelancer after quitting her teaching job. I think literally only like 2 or 3 people are even reading this, but good enough!

I wrote about JOMO, the Joy of Missing Out, when players have to work with different characters and resources in games.

I wrote a review of Bittersweet, an album by Jamie Paige.

My big piece of the year, which I chipped away at for months, reflected on nostalgia in culture and our personal lives.

I wrote about Cozy Games, which bizarrely was recognized in a Critical Distance weekly roundup.

I wrote about my fear for the direction of art and social media, a review of the writing in Sea of Stars, and other Cohost/Tumblr posts, which you can find in the #blogofkylelab tag.

As usual, I've continued my work as a Writer working on Rhythm Doctor, detailed below.

Art and Game Dev

Another sad year of barely 👏 drawing 👏 anything 👏 which is a huge bummer but I'm coming to terms with it.

Don't have anything finished to show for it, but doing a lot of messing-around in Twine and RPGMaker, which has been good for practice at least.

I funded the guest art and music for an upcoming card game, Isle of Swaps. I commissioned around a dozen artists, who I think drew around 50 total cards. Getting paid work as an artist is getting rough out there, so I wanted to help freelance artists the best I could.

Still working on Rhythm Doctor and A Dance of Fire and Ice at 7th Beat Games

We released Act 5 of Rhythm Doctor, which was our huge undertaking of the year! I co-wrote this with fizzd, and for the first time we were working with a completely blank slate with no levels made beforehand. I was recently looking through my Google Docs and was reminded how many different drafts and outlines I had come up with for this Act, some of which were long before the "athlete" story was even decided upon at all. I eventually helped come up with the character of Lucky (designed by our pixel artist Winston), and we got it all built out from there. I had a part in almost every sentence you see in the Act, I believe. I think I did an okay job, and players seem to really like the story and characters of Act 5, so that's a big relief.

Other Stuff

I've been running IndieGamesOfCohost for more than a full year now! I hope people have been enjoying this. It's been really tough to make the spare time for it, especially getting multiple developer interviews up per month, but I'm gonna keep pushing forward. Maybe "one interview a month" is a better goal to aim for. It's hard to tell how much people enjoy the efforts, but people do keep Liking and Sharing and Following so hopefully that means I'm doing something good with my spare time lol.

My partner and I moved! Aside from Act 5 of Rhythm Doctor this was probably the biggest thing. It was my first time apartment-hunting, as well as finding and paying for a moving truck and buying big furniture, getting renters insurance and all sorts of annoying stuff. In past apartments, I was lucky enough to be invited in as a roommate after the place was already set up. I also helped my parents pack up to move from the house they lived in for 28 years. Lots of moving. Hopefully no moving in 2024.

I hope your 2023 was bearable! Take pride in the little things you were able to get done. Let's all push through 2024 together.

[gothamslostboy]

Hi!! ive always wanted to do a matchmaking request for the lost boys <33

* Physical appearance-

i’ve got wavy blue hair, cut up to my ears, basically brahms hair cut but grown out! i have green/brown eyes, and i have so many beauty marks all over my body. i’m 5’6, and have ear piercing + a septum! i have -5 vision so i need glasses ;-;

* Style-

as of right now i dress like a dad or that one uncle, cargo shorts, over sized tshirt, hawaiian shirts or hoodie, rings and necklaces [lots of thrm] earrings and nose ring!! i always make sure i have cool socks on tho, gotta keep up the style!! i usually carry a canva messenger bag with me. for shoes it’s probably doc martens!

* Favorite food

spinach, pickle flavoured sun flower seeds, ramen, calamari, rice, simple foods mostly

* Gender preference -

any gender works for me! i just tend to lean more towards men <3

* 1-2 hobbies -

i absolutely love crafting, no matter what it is, i want to make stuff! it’s not really a hobbit but i love taxidermy, when i did my first rat i fell in love with it and want to do more, so anything relating to death is a bobbie for me 🫶

* Music tastes-

sad love songs, metal music, fnaf music, french music,, it’s very all over the place right now here are the most listened to songs from me! loosing my mind - dennis domian, atlantis - seafret, ça va - emile bilodeau, we’re not gonna take it - twisted sisters, it’s a little of everything yknoe

* Favorite animal-

i think my favorite animals are between sharks, the stoplight loose jaw fish, frogs, rats and worms!!

* Favorite movie/genre -

For genre it’s horror all the way, but for favorite movies? my favorite movies are the lost boys, scream, labyrinth, 9, ferngully, dead poets society and the last unicorn!

* 1-2 personality traits -

im childish, but gruesome thinking, and i have terrible adhd and can basically remember nothing

* Gender

i have no gender 🫶 but i lean towards male pronouns

* Fandom (max 3) - which movie/tv show

the lost boys please!!

* How many characters?

1. 1 fandom: maximum 2

3. 2-3 fandoms: maximum 3

whoever you see fif

* Zodiac sign

i’m a taurus✋

* 1-2 traits you look for in partner
in a partner i just really want someone who will love me for me, that’s understanding and will get i habe my ups n downs, but also someone who’s down to do stupid stuff when the time comes yknow? i’m a really big person on giving gifts to people, so someone who could possibly match that energy❓

here’s some extra info about me tho

i’m aro-ace! the type of aromatic that’s cupioromantic, and a mostly sex-repulsed asexual. now the sex repulsed part is mostly towards myself, i don’t wanna see other people or myself naked, watchjng sex scenes is less bad, still weird to me tho,, i speak frnech since i learnt it when i was also learning english! so i’m sorry if my spelling is off or there’s mistakes 😭 i have writing issues shsishshs

this is so exciting i hope i gave you enough info!!

Ok before I get into this: YOU ARE SO COOL. YOURE LIKE A COOLER VERSION OF WHO I WANT TO BE. Pickle flavored sunflower seeds are amazing, but I always accidentally eat the shells haha:] don’t worry your spelling is great, also I wish I was taught another language when I was young, my mom hired a Chinese teacher and I remember 1 song, but we stopped when I was 4 (started at 2) and I don’t remember anything else<\\\3

I Ship You With….

Marko! You want someone who also likes giving/receiving gifts? HE IS YOUR MAN!!! Holy shit he’s gonna give you so many gifts you won’t be able to move around your home.

He’s a vampire, so who is he to judge anyone? As long as someone is not a hateful bigot or an asshole, he’ll find a way to vibe. He himself struggles with anger issues, so he understands mental health a bit and does his best. Besides Paul, he’s the boy most likely to do stupid shit with you, mainly bc he enjoys being a gremlin.

Lil personal hc here: Marko is Trans, so when it comes to you not having a gender, it’s the equivalent of someone not having blonde hair to him: he doesn’t care. He’s just happy to have you as a partner

Marko is very used to being around Paul, so ADHD and childish behavior doesn’t bother him, and he’s gonna encourage your gruesome thinking as much as he can.

His favorite things about your style is your hair, socks and piercings, certainly begging to re dye it himself and buying you guys socks. He buys 2 pairs, takes one of each pair, and gives you the remaining two. He loves to do this instead of matching things in the normal way.

He is an artsy dude, focusing mostly on clothes himself. But once you tell him about taxidermy? He’s on his hands and knees asking you to show him how. He obviously knew what it was, just for some reason it never connected in his head that it’s a real thing ppl do.

On dates he takes you to local flee markets/ art shows to get things and make art out of whatever thing inspires you too.

After one of his favorite pigeons passes, he will ask if you could taxidermy it for him and keeps it safely in his room.

[whentherewerebicycles]

ruthie slowly realizing I have the front camera turned on 😂 this dog hates being photographed!

we were up for a bit at 5 but it was too early and I was sleeepy so ended up dozing for another hour or two. rainy morning here. I’m trying to really savor the cozy snuggly days as life is about to get so hectic for me:

I’m in pittsburgh friday morning through monday night (YAYYY) attending two weekend games and hanging out with bec!!!

I have tuesday to run errands and do laundry before my mom arrives wednesday

we leave early thursday morning for 14 days in japan and korea, during which we are hitting tokyo, osaka, kyoto, nara, mt koya, hiroshima, miyajima island, fukuoka, busan, daegu, and /seoul… I’m soooo psyched but also 🫠 it’s gonna be a whirlwind and I still have to do quite a bit of prep to be ready

we get home on a wed, I have thurs to recover from jetlag slash finalize my job talk, and then friday is the all-day campus visit

THEN I leave sat morning for houston and get back late monday night

it’s gonna be a lot!!! so very okay to be slothful this weekend and for as much of next week as I can manage I think. I am building up my reserves of rest and solitude lol.

mmkay. tonight I am having dinner + watching tár with mary later (and maybe seeing my sister at some point in the afternoon tbd) but the morning is my own! no pressure to get anything done in particular but here are some options:

could do more campus visit research for fun! my first gen programming book is arriving sometime today so I could read that and take notes, or I could spend some more time working through these articles I pulled up on designing programming for transfer students. I was also thinking it might be fun to create some one-page idea/vision/notes docs by hand on various topics—I feel like writing by hand will reinforce my memory of key details, and then making decisions about how I want to visually organize/arrange content will be a good exercise in synthesizing what I’ve learned. lol even as I’m typing this out I’m like ‘OOOOH that sounds like fun!!!!’ so I guess I’ll probably do that.

my former student is calling me at some point today to talk about transfer students’ experiences. he’s around my age (went back to undergrad after serving in the military for a long time) and is fun to talk to because he’s super smart and just like… more of a fully formed person and professional than the college-age kids. so that will be fun and should give me some useful threads to follow in my research. 

pick up my CVS prescription

hmm maybe I’ll put my laundry in right now? I also want to change linens/towels. I cleaned most of the house yesterday so don’t have much else to do in the way of chores… and I have a bunch of leftovers to finish before I’m allowed to make anything else so no cooking to do today either.

if it clears up I’ll go for a shorter long walk (the hourlong loop?) unless it’s really nice and I feel like doing the 90+ min trek again. not gonna let myself run today though—I can tell I pushed it a bit yesterday with the long fast walk + running two days in a row at a quicker clip than usual. just a little bit of achiness!

I finished a novel yesterday and want to start the next one today so I don’t break stride, but that can wait till before bed unless I’m moved to read earlier.

mmkay I think that’s it! take it easy and do fun relaxing stuff today.

[hollandsangel]

WIP tag/title game

rules ; post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it

thank you for the tag @luciwritesstuff !! i need to be held accountable for the absurd amount of wips in my docs...i need a gun to my head.

no pressure tags! @ddejavvu @silkscream @sunshinesteviee

please send in an ask if you wanna know more about this stuff!! i need to be intrested in writing again lmao. (was just telling my bsf last night how i miss writing tragci love stories LOL)

steve harrington 

in the midst/to live for the hope of it all (working title) (one shot; angst)

so cliche, we’ve all read it before but the trope is so GOOD. essentially reader is jealous and a little bit concerned about steve’s realtionship with nancy post break up. it’s been months, but they’re so close, and he even admitted that she was the one that changed him. it never used to bother you, you trust steve, he’s an amazing boyfriend. but things start to pile up, and the image of him confessing that she was always the picture of his future is seared into your memory.

but it’s not real (one shot; angst)

okay so this one i actually hastily wrote up a summary for last night at like two am. i haven’t started writing it at all so im just gonna show you what my docs look like half the time and copy paste what i typed up on my phone in the dark...

being in love with bestie steve but it’s unrequited 

basically him driving you home and imagining the whole “you kiss me in your car you’re driving me home whatever” 

BUT ITS NOT REAL AND HIS FEELINGS FOR YOU DON'T EXIST 

so you watch him drive away and stare up at the sky and it starts to rain bc we’re dramatic here at hollandsangel 

slay.

tom holland 

...buckle up

at every table (one shot; fluff, prob some angst, smut)

this one i have started writing, but i’m not the biggest fan of the tone atm so i’m probably gonna switch a bunch of things up. here’s the summary i have at the top of the doc for this fic lol

BARTENDER TOM BUT HES A SINGLE DAD AND YOU MEET HIM ONE NIGHT WHEN YOU GO OUT WITH THE OTHER TEACHERS AND YOU LEARN HIS DAUGHTER IS IN THE OTHER FIRST GRADE CLASS !!1111!!!11!

there’s also this little prompt i have...

tom taking to haz, not knowing what to do bc he has to look after his daughter and put her first “well ofc you do mate, but you’re allowed to be a little selfish sometimes too, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing”

essentially this is my dream story. i’m really obssesed with the concept but i just. can’t. execute it. it’s literally been in my docs for MONTHS, like probably september of last year, i’m losing it.

perfume (one shot; smut with a little plot)

so this one is inspired by del water gap’s song perfume and is another one that’s been in the works since like august. ive started writing it up but it hasn’t really gone anywehre yet. it’s a def a work in progress but im excited bc i love this song. i think i just need to get back into writing for tom bc lately ive been feeling so...lost wiht him? like idk how to write him bc im so out of practice lol. ALL IN DUE TIME.

anyways, so this story is about tom lowkey lusting after friend!reader and when the whole gang goes out one night, he finally makes his move. everything i write is self indulgent. so.

okay, so the next three are literally just titles and have not been written at all. i just have the basic, vauge idea written under them bc i always get little ideas and then froget them whoops. i do plan on writing these...eventually but they’re pretty low on the priorities list.

when in rome (one shot; smut)

basically you’re on a hot couples get away and you get your period, thinking it ruins any chance of you and tom getting down but he proves you wrong

the extra (one shot; fluff)

this one is based off that tweet that all the extras were instructed not to talk to tom and when he went up to someone he told them he was sad no one would speak to him :(( literally sobbed my eyes out he’s the cutest man alive.

i have like two lines of text written for this LOL not even a summary.

the thunder is shaking the floor (one shot; smut)

i came up with this idea one week where it was super rainy in my town and never let go of it. it is rotting in my docs.

plans get ruined while you’re on vacation bc it’s raining. you make up for it. (basically fuck at a cabin resort while it pours outside and the windows are open)

bsf!tom (this one doesn’t have a title yet, but i love it sm, like i literally wish i had something going on in my head bc i’d love to churn this out. one shot; the holy trinity, fluff, angst, smut)

im giving you the unfiltered summary so you can how excited i was when i first came up with this lol

basically you have the worst luck with guys and you and tom get wine drunk to make you feel better and now he’s staying over and waking up with his hand under your boob and peeling himself away even tho he just wants to touch you and next thing you know he’s making love to you the way you deserve 

UGH wait she scooches closer in her sleep and subtly moans his name under her breath

HE SHAKES HER AWAKE GENTLY AND HIS LOOKING OVER HER AND SHE SLOWLY OPENS HER EYES AND HE HUST WHISPERS “you were dreaming, you kept saying my name” AND THE TENSION IS SO THICK AND SHES JUST LIKE “oh..” AND THEN HE HESITATES A LITTLE AND KEANS CLODER THEN STOPS TO RESD GRR FACE THEN KISSES GER

UGH I FORGOT HOW GOOD IT WAS

director!tom (also no title or summary, just vibes. one shot; angst, smut)

remember sweet? very similar idea, might even throw some fake dating in there who knows, im crazy.

bottom of the glass (one shot; angst, fluff?? maybe??)

i dont have a summary written for this, just like two pages of text...it’s another bartender!tom moment (my guilty pleasure) and him and reader get into a fight and it’s all really angsty. i have a bit of dialoug that’s barely coherent but i’ll give it to you anyways,

“if you don’t want to move in with me, just say so! don’t be a fucking coward tom, this is an adult relationship, and i want to be able to talk about conflicts like adults.” your voice cracks a little bit, but you choke back the stubborn tears that threaten to spill over, “i don’t want to feel so stupid that i get wasted at you bar,” you get quieter, sheepish almost, because you know you hadn’t been acting very adult recently either.

“you know i love you right ? even that was hard to come to terms with-“

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“that i’ve never done this before! i’ve never been in an ‘adult’ relationship and i’ve never been in love and i’ve never lived with a girl and i’m scared im gonna fuck it all up y/n” he flushes, face red with anger and sadness “so i’m sorry i clammed up, im sorry for what i said, i really didn’t mean it..i just got scared”

“and i know i didn’t make anything better but please just..i love you so much, and i know i’m making mistakes but im trying my best i swear”

feeling exeptionally exposed rn.... but this was fun!! i didn’t realize how many half started fics i had and it makes me feel like i still have good ideas!! hopefully i can get some of these out for you guys soon. let me know which ones you’re most looking forward to!!

[thorntopieces]

1. How many works do you have on A03?

currently 74 :)

2. What's your total A03 word count?

254 101 (two hundred and fifty-four thousand one hundred and one)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

i've bounced between a fair few in the past 8 or 9 years. i don't currently write much due to depression, but it would be LU/LoZ/Persona if i did

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Ad astra per aspera - fmab fic i wrote for my gf for our two year anniversary in 2019 [1060 kudos]

Silent love - also an fmab fic i don't recall the plot of [731]

His soulmate - also an fmab fic i don't recall the plot of :) (hello i have dissociative amnesia) [581]

Hold me - surprise surprise also an fmab fic i don't recall the plot of [559]

Sleepovers - i think the first fic i published on ao3, pjo/hoo [484]

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

usually yes, unless they're spam

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

uhm i know i have written at least one open ending implied msjor character death fic but idk which one?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

again, no clue. im not gonna go through 74 works to check which one is the happiest

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i think i have in the past yes! but i don't remember details

9. Do you write smut?

i have, but i don't publish it. that's a personal preference though and might change in the future

10. Do you write crossovers?

i did back in 2015! pjo x hp specifically (it's deleted no you can't find it it was purged in one of the fanfiction.net purges). apart from that i don't believe i have, although i have some persona 3 x persona 5 stuff in the works

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! i had ad astra per aspera translated into russian a few months ago and im very honoured :)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yes! i wrote a few pjo collabs back in the day (i no longer write pjo/hoo, i have not read past hoo i am not interested in what happened beyond the final book of hoo /info). i have also written a few sherlock fics with the lovely and talented @aljedd

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

my longest comfort ship is drarry, but i don't interact with the ship and most definitely not the fandom much anymore due to other interests. it's kept me company for 14 years though so i won't let go of it. i will love it privately and personally in spite of jkr

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

ive got about 100 wips in notebooks and docs. about four years ago i started writing a fma fic that really dissected life in real-life munich in the 1930s and put almost 80 research hours into it. i gave up on chapter 4/5 because it wasn't read and i moved on to writing other stuff. it's still on ao3 though. it's called interdimensional and was 30k before i gave up on it damn :/

16. What are your writing strengths?

i think im okay at writing emotional scenes?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i. hate. describing. environmnents. and. fighting. scenes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i've done that before! i think it's fine as long as translations are provided accessibly to the reader

19. First fandom you wrote for?

ranma 1/2 or winx club when i was like 8, though the first i posted for was pjo/hoo back in 2014/2015 (on fanfiction.net) :)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

uhm probably dark hair significance or ad astra per aspera.

@mydmdcorner enjoy the pain of tag game, @aljedd no pressure at all but since i already mentioned you i might as well do it again :)

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @the-real-azalea-scroggs! Had to wait until I was of my phone because doing these is a nightmare on mobile lmao

1. How many works do you have on A03?

18 as of a few days ago!

2. What's your total A03 word count?

60,763! Which is. Only a fraction of the word count in my Docs folder. Be prepared.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I mainly write for The Legend of Zelda; specifically Linked Universe! In fact, that's all that's posted on my Ao3 currently, since my fall into that fandom began with me uploading there! Pre-Ao3 I wrote for Black Cat (Anime/Manga), Megaman NT Warrior, various Pokémon things, Assassin's Creed, Yugioh, Final Fantasy XIV and Octopath Traveler! Some of these I still write privately, but I haven't gotten around to re-posting any.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Whistling on Deaf Ears - My longest fic on Ao3, focusing on Wild and Twilight's friendship and how good intentions can lead to disaster.

Iconoclasm - Warriors deals with the room full of portraits in Cia's palace. The Chain also deals with it, but with a bit more fire.

Deserving - Twilight finally tells Rusl that he was the wolf in the village during TP, but that also means dealing with some heavier topics. Colin half overhears them and forms his own conclusions.

Something Greater - The start of the "Hyrule can see magical auras" series! In this one we deal with Legend and his many rings.

Ocean Magic - Mermaid Legend and Zora Time have a race and then fight one of the Big Octos from WW! Fun times.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Every single one!! I love comments, they give me an excuse to ramble about my fic more!! I am always down to ramble about every single insignificant detail of any line and/or section. If you ever want more background info about one of my fics, look to the comments! So please, I adore comments, I treat them like treasures, not responding to them would be a CRIME.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

There's no contest; Inevitable, my (so far) only MCD fic.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmmm, that's hard to quantify. I usually try to end fics on a hopeful note regardless. I'd say possibly either Deserving, where Twilight reconnects with his family, or Shimmering Blue, Striking White, where Time meets the Fierce Deity settled down on Satori Mountain and they both get closure.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully, no! I've been blessed with mostly amazing and patient readers, even when my upload schedule isn't the best.

9. Do you write smut?

No, not really. I've attempted it, but I'm too asexual for it lol

10. Do you write crossovers?

Very, very rarely. Mostly privately, and only very specific ones. Only a single one has had an actual plot, so far (more on that one in question 15!).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Also a nope! I tend to write for smaller fandoms, where these things don't tend to happen a lot!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! But it's been a while. Over a decade, in fact! I tried to find the fic to link it here, but it was on the German fanfic website fanfiktion.de, and my friend who posted it back then must have deactivated her account, because it's nowhere to be seen (I still have the Word file though!). It was a Multi-Crossover that started as an RP in a forum, and we took turns turning the RP into prose one chapter each. "If a Hero Turns to Dark" was its title. We were edgy teenagers.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Hissssss. Bad question. Shoo. They are all equally important!! But it's probably TenRose from Doctor Who.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

One of the very few crossovers I've ever worked on; a crossover fic between Assassin's Creed and Doctor Who, that I have mapped out in both chronological and timeline order, and yes, those are different. I only ever wrote about a quarter of it, since my primary audience of it disappeared when we graduated. I doubt I'll ever pick it back up properly, and if I do it'll probably go through heavy rewrites first since it's so old. Finishing it is a nice thought, but realistically, after 9 years it'll never be high priority enough for it to actually happen.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, especially arguments, and emotional impact. I've been told I do really well making characters feel alive and believable! Also I like to believe I'm decent at setting a scene and giving it the vibe I want it to have!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle with dialogue tags when nothing much is happening besides the talking. I always feel it's too bland, and fall back on the same phrases. My scene transitions could use some work too.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've done this with Japanese phrases, because I was a massive weeb. Usually I followed them up with their own translations, though; I'm not the biggest fan of footnote translations, unless they are properly linked to. Simple dialogue tags are my favourite way of indicating a language switch.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Black Cat the Manga/Anime! It's a series about an assassin turned bounty hunter trying to live a life separate from his murdery past, but getting dragged back into things by still wanting to avenge his best friend's death. The series has a special place in my heart and my bookshelf, it left an imprint on 13-year-old me that will never leave.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Probably Jailbreak, uncharacteristically enough! It's one of the only fics I never got stuck in once. Writing it was a great feeling from start to finish. I love writing all of my fics, but that was a special few days.

Tagging @ahrva @nowhere-to-go-but-down @silvercaptain24 and @aeghina! And anyone who wants to do it, really, go wild

[euphoricsunflowers]

his favorite color is blue - jeon wonwoo

a/n: based on a prompt i sent @pusoatbuwan that she wrote a little bit about. hope you like it starie !!

word count: 3.1k

content: a bit of angst, mostly fluff, mentions of food, college au, non idol au, not proofread lmao

summary: there’s this guy in your history class who is so attractive, but he’s cold and closed off. guess you gotta fix that.

the first time you spoke to jeon wonwoo did not go as well as you intended.

he’s comfortably sitting by himself near the bookshelves at the college’s library and he looks up from his book at the person tapping his shoulder, not exactly annoyed but he thinks he probably looks it, “can i help you?” he asks.

“yeah, actually, i actually really need help with something,” you say, taking the seat next to him without even asking. it’s not like he owns the place but you are kind of in his space for being in a mostly empty library, “you’re in my history 12 class right?”

“i think so,” he says cautiously, closing his book because he’s assuming he’s not going to be able to get back to it for at least a couple minutes.

“do you know how the professor wants us to write this paper? because i swear i have no idea how he wants us to write a paper on reconstruction when the only sources he’s letting us use are completely unrelated. also, have you even done it yet? because it was assigned like a week ago and i haven’t even opened a google doc yet,” you just seem to go on and on, “plus i don’t even take notes in class because he’s just so boring so i barely know what’s going on.”

wonwoo, while now a bit annoyed, tries to not be rude in his response. he feels it in his bones that you’re going to ask to copy his notes and probably plagiarize his paper too, but he doesn’t do that. not for anyone, “i’m sorry,” no he’s not, “but can you ask someone else?”

he sees you visibly deflate, your voice going from bursting with energy to dead and flat in seconds, “oh, uhm, yeah sure. i was just-” you start, but stop yourself, “nevermind. sorry for bothering you, wonwoo.”

he feels this sinking feeling in his stomach like he just made the wrong move. like all his life he had been making choices like a character in a game, and this moment felt like choosing the wrong one. he almost sees a ‘they will remember that’ over your head, as you get your stuff together enough to get up and find a different seat.

“wait,” he says, almost instinctively. he doesn’t even know why he said it, but now you’re looking at him expectantly and he now he has to say something, “what were you gonna say?”

you pause for a moment, debating on whether or not he was worth answering, before chuckling to yourself, “i just wanted to be friends, maybe complain a bit about my overwhelming classes. sorry for bothering.”

you’re looking at him sharply now, as if you could see through his skull and read his every thought like words on paper. you nailed exactly what he was thinking without you even saying it. i wasn’t trying to use you, i just wanted a friend and he almost felt embarrassed, “oh.” was the only thing he said.

you chuckle again before walking off.

he feels his heart pounding in his chest.

—

the second time, it was him who approached.

he figures that he was, indeed, the asshole last time, so when he walks into the library to find you sitting by yourself, ironically reading just like he was, it’s him that sits next to you.

he has no grand introduction, just sitting at the seat next to you as he pulls out his laptop to type his assignment for another class. you pull out an earbud as you notice him, “hey there?” you say awkwardly.

“it was a stupid paper,” he admits, looking over at you, “the sources were completely unrelated and i honestly wrote a good four pages of nonsense.”

it leaves you stunned, but you take the victory where you see it. and you see it just on the corner of his lip. he’s smiling at you.

it makes you smile too, “i can do you one better,” you say, leaning in closer to add some suspense, “i wrote a good five pages of nonsense.”

you sit in a much more comfortable silence than before, working on your own stuff together for a good 30 minutes. he’s typing away on his laptop while you’re reading a book for a class that is so boring that you spend the whole time thinking about him. the really cute guy from your history class. he’s super quiet and a little bit closed off, but somehow you got him coming to you. you turn to look at him, waiting for him to look back, before you say anything.

“i’ve actually gotta get going. i told nayeon i’d meet her for starbucks after her lecture on the different classifications of bones. you know, as like a treat for sitting through something so painful,” you chuckle at your own words.

“yeah, that’s fine,” he says, going back to looking at his computer, “i’ll see you later.”

“actually-” you start to say, catching his attention again, “could i have your phone number? maybe we could plan to meet up next time.”

he doesn’t know why but his heart is pounding the same way it did when you first walked away from him, but this time you’re still here staring into his soul.

he worries his silence is an answer you’ll take as a no, so he remembers to get out of his head, “sure.”

another win for you.

—

the third time, the fourth time, and the fifth time all kind of blend together. maybe it had something to do with they were all in the span of 72 hours, but every it seemed you would text him that you were in the library and he could come sit with you if he wanted. every day, almost like clockwork, he popped into the library maybe 20 minutes after you messaged him, scanning the building for you and taking a seat beside you once he found you. he would either work on his assignments or read his book, while you would do something similar.

it wasn’t until meeting #6 that anything had really happened. of course your conversations were getting less and less awkward as you settled into a pattern of you talking a lot and him talking a little bit until one of you had to go.

this time, though, you had brought something for him, “here,” you said, already rushing to explain before he even had a chance to ask what and why, “you’ve been telling me you’re tired for 3 days straight, or at least agreeing with me when i say it. you like iced americanos, right? i even got you an extra shot.”

he doesn’t say anything but his nod along with the small smile on his face as he sips the straw says he most definitely does like it. he drinks it slowly, so much so that by the time he’s halfway done all the ice had melted; you had been finished with yours for at least 10 minutes at that point. the caffeine hits him after about 20, though, and the energy is really what he needs. he sits there, sipping his coffee, as you casually talk about your classes and the like, as usual.

“oh and i have to fill out this philosophy study guide with some arguments that socrates made. i don’t even know what’s going on and all i know is that socrates just goes around making annoying men feel dumb and i love that for him,” you say.

normally he’d just chuckle and that would be the end of it, but this time he thinks about it more. he takes philosophy, he had to do the argument study guide, in fact, he did it last night. he doesn’t need to do anything about your problem though. there’s plenty of time until it’s due tonight, and unless you ask for it he won’t even mention he’s done it.

“not to mention that i haven’t even been sleeping well, but i mean, does any college student? do you sleep well?” you ask, nodding your head at him to indicate you were asking him specifically if he sleeps well.

and yet he can’t think about himself for a moment. the second you started speaking he noticed all the things that said you haven’t been sleeping well before you did. your quad shot latte, the bags under your eyes, your slouching posture. you looked exhausted, frankly.

so he doesn’t even answer your question, instead saying, “you should go home and take a nap then.”

you just can’t seem to stop laughing at him, like what he’s saying is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, “were you even listening to me? or are you just in your own little world?”

he caved when he sees that exasperated smile. looking back on it, this was the moment he realized that it would become his job, his responsibility, to care for you if you couldn’t care for yourself.

he pulls the philosophy study guide out of his backpack, handing it to you, “take a picture of it and just copy it down. i can’t memorize them all for you but call me if you’re confused.” he can tell you’re a bit stunned, but eventually cave and take a picture of it, front and back, and then hand it back to him.

“thank you, wonwoo, i really appreciate it. i owe you one.”

no, you don’t owe him anything.

—

the semester ends faster than he wants it to. he’s enjoying meeting up with you at the library a couple times a week, and even though the coffee was a one time thing on your part, he starts to bring stuff for you too. he starts carrying a charger because you complain that your phone is always dying or an extra sweater because they keep it so cold in there. every time he sees that relief and gratitude on your face he feels a sense of inner pride. he’s grown to really love doing all this for you.

especially because his boundaries with letting people copy his homework have been, in all honestly, eroded when it comes to you. even in your classes he doesn’t take, he’s somehow doing your homework for you, disguising it as him being done with his (he’s not he has literally so much to do) and wanting to be helpful somehow.

he never complains though because now you come to the library more refreshed and energized than before and he’s thriving off of seeing you do well. the complaining about stress turns into passionate rants about hobbies and interests, until he feels like he could ace a test about you.

but the semester ends with you going right back to being a stressed disaster as finals overtake your life. he helps where he can, but he’s also overwhelmed and he barely has enough time in the day to stay afloat in his classes.

—

january is cold. it’s also a sad time for him, the seasonal depression hitting him harder when he realizes the happiness of his last semester is coming to a quick end. he hasn’t gotten a text from you in two weeks and it feels like, now that you’ve gotten what you needed out of him, you’ve left him to drown.

he wonders how he could have been so naive to think that you weren’t going to use him. he thinks back with an outsider perspective to your relationship, one of one-sided conversations and history quiz answers. he wonder if you even knew anything about him.

he knows your favorite color, do you know his?

—

“blue,” you said, when he confronted you about his feelings, about feelings invisible and used. he didn’t even mention the favorite color thing. you just knew, “your favorite color is blue,” his eyes soften, and you continue to list things off about him, like they were on a top 10 fun facts list, “you’re afraid of dogs and you don’t like seafood and you like sad music before you go to bed.”

“i never told you those things, how do you know?”

“you say you’re the only one listening, but i’m clearly the only one looking,” you say, “i bring up how i like the color blue, and your smile gives away how you like it too. i recount my childhood dog and the scar i have from him biting my hand and you got pale. i tell you all about this new sushi place i went to that was incredible, and your face told me you were disgusted. i say how i like listening to love songs while i’m winding down before bed, and you nod your head like you do something similar, plus i’ve seen your spotify.”

his heart is aching as he wants to hold your hands and he wants to stop you from talking because god he can’t bare to listen to you pour your heart out like this.

“wonwoo, you’ve always had my attention, i was never just going to up and leave,” he berates himself for even thinking something so preposterous, “i am always grateful for you, i don’t take for granted how graciously you help me, and i have no intentions to sweet talk you into doing my homework for me while i forget about you. i want you to stop thinking like that.”

he supposes he’s truly an idiot.

—

he can tell you’re still a bit shaken by his confrontation, but you still agree to go out for coffee with him. he’s known your order for months now, but he puts less espresso in it than you used to, hoping that you don’t really notice (you do) in hopes that it helps you sleep better (it does).

you made him promise to believe you when you said you valued him as a friend. friend. besides his buddies he had his whole childhood, he doesn’t make many of those.

he keeps his promise. when he looks at you, he believes you. he sees genuine care and love he doesn’t see from anyone else.

this next semester you only share one class, yet he still finds a way to get you homework answers for anything you ask for. he’ll search the whole internet for answer keys or even just straight up do things himself. he’ll drop off lunch for you on days he knows you don’t have time to go get food.

yeah, basically he’s down bad, and only now realizing it.

—

he finds you asleep next to your computer at 9:33pm one random tuesday at some seating outside the library after you left when it closed for the night. he sees that you were about to click submit for an assignment that was due at 11:59, but must have passed out before you could.

he submits it for you, and then packs your back for you, only waking you up when he’s done. those extra seconds of beauty sleep matter, “hey, sleeping beauty. time to go home.” he says.

you groans, standing up and stretch, before slouching and leaning up against him once he stands up too. he gets flustered when you wrap your arms around him and give him the longest hug of his life. he feels like he’s suffocating but in the best way.

“you need to go home and go to bed,” he says, getting another groan from you, “do you want to be carried to your car? i’ll drive you home. we’ll figure out what to do with mine in the morning.”

you nod at everything he says, which is just the cutest thing to him. he picks you up piggyback style and carries you the half-mile walk it is from the library to the parking lot. he spots your car immediately.

he’s driving you home, and you’re practically asleep, but still manage to invite him in. it’s not like he can go anywhere. how are you going to leave in the morning if you didn’t have your car? it makes him think he really could have just taken his to drive you home, but in the moment he wasn’t thinking too well and he really just wanted to get you home and safe.

he crashes on your couch, even after incessant pleading on your part to just sleep in your bed with you, it’s not that weird, it’s the least you could do for him. it’s not that it is weird, but he’s shy and will definitely not get any sleep.

—

you get up in the middle of the night to see him up as well. he was restless and you just wanted some water. you end up talking a little bit, low and quiet voices, as you drink your water.

“can i tell you something?” he asks.

“always,” you say. tell me anything and everything about you, “what is it?”

“im really grateful for you,” he says with his heart on his sleeve. he’s not intoxicated in the slightest but the exhaustion may be having a similar effect on his decision making, “you make my life so much better.”

“how so?” you ask. tell me you love me, please.

“i think i didn’t realize what i was missing out on when i was living my ‘never make any friends’ life, but you make my life so much brighter. i feel so happy and content when i’m with you.”

“i am too,” you say, “i can’t help but adore you every time you rush to try and help me with any problem i have.”

he’s blushing so badly, thank god for the lack of light, “and i can’t help but want to be that person that you rely on to help you. i want to be there bringing you coffee and meals and homework answers every day. i want to do that for you for the rest of our lives.”

say it, he says to himself, say it now.

“i am so badly in love with you,” he says.

he searches for a response in just your eyes, refusing to trust your lips when your verbal replay comes. he sees nothing but adoration in your eyes, and, just like he promised to, he makes himself believe it.

you smile at him, except this one is different. it’s less youthful and less from laughter than before. your smile is so warm and inviting that he feels like he could tell you his deepest secrets without question, that’s how comfortable it makes him.

you press your forehead to his as he smiles back. you whisper, “i’m in love with you too.” it feels like a scream with how powerful it is, but it was nothing more than a whisper, “stay with me forever.”

you already know the answer.

[acerace]

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo) 

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad 

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway) 

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet 

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will! 

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers 

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe 

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao 

[seesgood]

can we very gently talk about call out posts / culture really quick?  not in a judgmental way, but in like a: i just want to pose a thought and explain why i’m never going to buy into it and why i wish it would become less of a trend instead of more of one? and i’ll add the  disclaimer  here: i totally get not wanting certain people around you for various reasons, that is all your prerogative. that’s your comfort level. but in emphasizing “your blog should be a safe space” we’re kind’ve losing sight of the fact that the rpc should also be a safe space, and as much as your comfort and safety matter, so do other people’s. and not just the person who hurt you, but the third parties and other mutuals and 99.9% of people who are not at all involved in any way in whatever happened. so, anyway here goes, read it or don’t, we all have different opinions or reasons, i just want to be heard:

people are allowed to change.  think back to who you were last year. two years ago. think about the stuff you said when you were seventeen, or twenty-one, or hell whatever age you were. current-you would probably cringe at the kind of stuff past-you had to say. because you grew. you learned. you had life experiences. in hindsight you have the freedom to be like “oof yeah that was not the best version of myself right there damn i don’t want to be like that again.” the growing trend of ‘here’s a 10+ page google doc complete with out of context screenshots that sometimes date back to like 2017 or earlier’ makes this kind of change impossible. because right there, you’ve just frozen a person in time, probably not at their best, removed any and all amounts of context, and put it on the internet and let other people judge it for themselves. 

so that leads into another point that i want to just kinda present to the community at large: the act of documenting behaviors and storing them for months / years at a time, in itself creates a super unsafe environment, not just for you, your friends, the people who have hurt you --- but also for anyone else that isn’t at all involved in whatever happened. like, for example, i like to think that i’m a pretty nice person. i actively try to be a nice person. am i sometimes not having the best day? have people definitely caught me in bad moments? oh hell yeah. but am i, as someone who tries really hard to be nice and welcoming, constantly thinking through every message i send to someone knowing that a) i could have a reputation that makes them read into context that isn’t there and that could contribute to them misinterpreting words i meant in a different way, b) very aware that every post i make, ask i send, message i send can at any moment be screenshotted and posted and taken out of context and either serve as someone’s only opinion of me or pile on to someone’s existing opinion of me? yeah. so in my experience, and based on people i’ve talked to, we now have this thing where you can be surface-friends wtih a lot of people, but if you want to survive in the tumblr rpc you should really only have 2-3 people that you really trust that you can actually talk about shit with. 

and lately i’ve been seeing a resurgence of posts on my dash about like “bring back xyz in the rpc” or “the reason the rpc is like this is because of xyz” and i both agree and disagree with a lot of this, but primarily i think the reason the rpc is Off lately is because everyone and their cousin has a DNI, which is --- again --- your decision and i understand and respect that, but while you know the context of every name on that DNI, other people don’t. and to be honest: other people don’t really care and honestly maybe they shouldn’t care. --- and don’t get me wrong, your friends should care if someone has hurt you. that’s important. but joe billy bob who just wants to write their character with yours is going to read through your rules, they’re going to see “do not interact with me if you follow with or interact with these people you’ve never heard of and if you want me to tell you why just message me” (which no one is ever going to do, i’m sorry to say). and say, joe billy bob also followed that other person because they were like ‘omg this blog looks cool’ --- now joe billy bob, who just wants to write cool plots, is suddenly the middle-man in some type of drama that they do not understand, and maybe they’re able to remove themselves from the situation, but even then it’s still in the back of your mind. 

this is getting long. it’ll be longer, but let’s take a brief break for me to remind you that in some cases, it’s definitely good to give your mutuals and friends a heads up when someone has done something really, really bad. like, remember x amount of years ago when some dude was like ‘i’m gonna make up a new person and say they died by suicide as a social experiment’ or ‘hey this person actively tries to force very triggering plots about abuse / rape / incest onto people and has been doing so for years and does not seem to change their ways no matter how many people try to educate them’ that’s shit people should probably know about. and it’s also okay ( in my opinion ) for your friends to be able to message you like ‘hey i saw you’re writing with x and i just wanted to let you know i had this experience with them’ if that’s something they feel comfortable doing. and if they are comfortable with you still having the autonomy to make your own decision regarding the person. 

i’ll be honest, for a second: i’ve been part of friendships and groups that have turned really toxic for one reason or another. a handful of times. there are probably people out there that are like “yeah this chick is really fake and manipulative and etc, i was friends with her back in 2019″ which, okay. yeah. i’ve definitely done shit and said shit that was not the most representative of who i want to be and who i want to become, and you probably have to. because we are human beings and we are a product of our social groups and the community around us. and you shouldn’t be chained to a version of you that isn’t you anymore. people change. they grow. you don’t have to like them, but you should respect that sometimes people don’t mesh, and that doesn’t mean any of them are bad people, it just means the experience was bad. 

a few additional notes i would like to make but i’ve already gone on way too long:

90% of the callout posts that i’ve seen and the DNI’s that i’ve seen can, in my opinion, be classified as a friend group thing. you were friends with x, x did something, now y and z aren’t friends with x anymore. pain is a very, very real thing and people hurting you should never be minimized, but at some point i just want you to remember that not every friendship is going to end happily, but both you and the other party should be allowed to move on and grow better, healthier friendships after. rehashing Friend Group Gone Wrong instances removes that ability for not only person x, but also person y and z.

you putting out a callout says just as much ( maybe more ) about you than it does about the other person. which sucks. because i’d like to think we all have great intentions, and i’m not saying that you should swallow your pain, but it might not be the kind of thing that impacts the community at large, and maybe you should try to find a better way of working through it with a trusted friend(s)

i’m going to be very real and very blunt on this one: literally no one cares. i say that with love. i’m good friends with people who have each other on their DNI’s. establish a baseline of respect and ‘i’m not going to say anything to them about you and vice versa because there’s no need for me to do so’ and move on. but seriously. no one cares. most outside people read callout posts because they like being in the know about the drama, not because they actually care. 

person a and person b who are mentioned in the DNI / callout aren’t the only ones who are going to be affected. your friends, your mutuals, your writing partners are now all put in a weird spot where you have to pick sides on an issue you know nothing about and shouldn’t have to know anything about. you’re asking people to choose sides on an issue they cannot fully understand, and that’s not fair to them or to you. and it drives great people away. and then we all lose out on having more awesome people in the rpc.

you’re entitled to your safe space, but this is a public platform and you are also responsible for maintaining your safe space. you shouldn’t put it entirely on other people to do that for you. you can block, blacklist, make up funny names for, or spitefully erase from your many anything and anyone that you wish. but you shouldn’t make your friends do it for you.

there’s always an inherent power imbalance when any kind of drama occurs between those who have more followers / friends / connections and those who do not. and the smaller blog is always going to suffer a little bit more because they don’t have people blindly coming to their defense. 

bad moments, bad experiences, bad decisions DO NOT equal bad people. 

allow people to make up their own mind about something or someone

anywho, if you read through this whole thing i think i owe you financial compensation. but also thank you for reading / listening / considering. even if you rolled your eyes through the whole thing like “stfu lia” that’s fine. i’m just presenting an alternative thought. i’d like to once again state: i’m not judging you if you’ve made a callout/DNI or if you’re on a callout/DNI. like i literally don’t care. and frankly, in my opinion, i shouldn’t have to. because i, and you, and your friends, and your mutuals, and your non-mutuals should be allowed the space to make up their own opinion and mind on something or someone without being told that there will be consequences if they don’t agree with you. set boundaries. communicate in healthy ways. you don’t have to forgive the people who have hurt or wronged you, but you also don’t get to decide that their actions make up 100% of who they are as a person, or decide that that is the only side of that person people should get to see. 

[massivedrickhead]

Bechloe Week 2021 - Day 6

July 31st: Neighbors AU or Famous AU

Read on AO3

So, yeah, should have posted this yesterday but I didn’t have time to finish writing it and then I got drunk. I’m not super happy with it, it didn’t come out like I planned, but I hope you like it anyway. Hopefully I can get day 7 written and posted tomorrow.

-

Fame for Beca had always been a double edged sword.

It allowed her music to spread across the globe. She got to meet fans and hear about how she had inspired or helped them, just by existing. She got to work with and meet her peers and idols, and perform in places she never dreamed of.

She got to provide for her family. She got to give her kids the childhood she never had, and she got to give her wife the life she deserved.

But she also had to deal with paparazzi following them around everywhere they went.

She had to deal with articles written about her every other day, and intense fans that crossed boundaries, and ones that would trash her online.

Beca was finding that she had more bad days than good days, and it was beginning to weigh her down.

She had to remind herself daily, that there were billions of people who were suffering in the world, and that she was incredibly privileged to live the life she led.

But Chloe could see the toll it was taking on her wife, and it was killing her.

After she was almost in that car accident, Beca had taken a couple of weeks off work. She spent her time taking care of Chloe, playing with Blake, and obsessively re-writing and re-working the songs on her upcoming album.

And it was an insane success.

Everyone who had slated her single ate their words, and Beca found herself skyrocketing to fame for the second time.

Their money worries disappeared almost overnight, but other problems replaced them quickly.

Beca had always been a relatively private and introverted person. It was one of the reasons she had always wanted to be a producer rather than an artist.

So while her fame rose, her anxiety did too.

She tried to keep it to herself, but Chloe has always been able to read Beca like a book.

She always knew when Beca’s anxiety was bad, but she also always knew how to calm Beca down.

So they were dealing with it. They had a system. Beca would work until she couldn’t, and then Chloe would pick her back up.

“People are dying,” Beca would mutter to herself, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands on the back of her head. “Children are dying. They’re going without food, water, and medicine, and they’re dying. My problems are nothing.”

When things were at the worst, she would repeat this to herself over and over as wave after way of anxiety crippled her. Chloe would find her and hold her, and whisper reassurances until Beca calmed down.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was working.

At least Chloe thought it was.

But then Beca reached her breaking point.

It had been a rough week to begin with - she had had to read an article on a prominent gossip site about how she was apparently cheating on Chloe with another musician - so she was already on edge.

Chloe had assured Beca she knew it was all bullshit, but Beca still hated that Chloe had to deal with that stuff. And she hated even more that Blake was old enough to read and understand it.

It was Riley’s third birthday, and she was walking with her girls to get ice cream from the kids’ favourite place.

Riley was up on Beca’s shoulders, Chloe was walking at her side, pushing Riley’s empty stroller, and Blake was walking between them.

“What ice cream are you gonna get, peanut?” Beca asked.

“I don’t want any,” Blake said, frowning, kicking her shoes against the ground.

Beca shot a look of confusion at Chloe. She had been excited when they were in the car, and had seemed perfectly happy a few minutes ago when Beca had taken her hand to cross the street.

“Why not?” Chloe asked.

“I just don’t. I wanna go home,” she said. She stopped walking, so Beca and Chloe did too.

“Hey, what is it?” Chloe asked, crouching down in front of her. She pushed Blake’s dark brown hair out of her face, and lifted her sunglasses so she could see her eyes. “Are you not feeling well?”

“People keep taking pictures of us,” she said in a quiet voice. “And I don’t like it.”

Chloe glanced up at Beca in time to see her face fall.

“None of us like it very much,” Chloe said. “But your Mom is famous. And that means people wanna see pictures of her when she’s out and about.”

“Well I hate it!” Blake snapped. She looked past Chloe and let out a groan of annoyance. “They’re doing it again!”

Chloe turned and saw a man sitting at a table outside a coffee shop pointing his phone at them. He shoved it into his pocket and turned away when he realised he’d been caught.

Beca sighed, and took Riley down from her shoulders. Riley fussed and started crying when Beca put her back in her stroller.

“Sorry baby girl,” Beca said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Beca,” Chloe said in a warning voice.

“I’m just gonna talk to him,” Beca said.

She left Chloe with their daughters and approached the man.

She saw recognition dawn in other peoples’ faces as she got close.

“Hey,” she said, keeping her tone friendly. “Can you do me a favour and delete those pictures you took?”

“I didn’t-”

“Come on, man, even my nine-year-old clocked you. She doesn’t like having her picture taken, and I don’t like photographs of my kids being on some stranger’s phone,” Beca said. “I’ll happily take a selfie with you, if you want, but I’d really like it if you deleted those photos.”

“Yeah, I kinda don’t want a selfie,” he said. “TMZ won’t pay me anything for a selfie.”

Beca clenched her jaw and forced a smile. “Delete those pictures, dude.”

“No,” he said. “It’s a free country.”

Beca could feel the eyes of every other table watching them. She knew they had all fallen silent to eavesdrop.

“Delete the pictures of my fucking kids, do you hear me?” Beca said, trying to keep her voice down.

She was sick of this. Sick of the entitlement that these people had. Like they had a right to her life, and she was sick of the impact it was having on her family.

“Are you gonna make me?”

She saw he was pointing his phone at her again.

She swallowed down the anger that was building. “I’m asking nicely, dude. Delete those pictures.”

“I was taking them of you and Chloe,” he said. “You can hardly see the kids.”

“Is there a problem here?”

She looked at the man who had just arrived and figured he must work for the coffee shop, based on his brown apron with the shop logo, and the name tag that read ‘Dylan’.

“Beca fucking Mitchell here won’t leave me alone,” the guy said.

“This pervert took pictures of my kids!” Beca snapped back.

“What did you just call me?” He stood up from his chair quickly, the raised voice and abrupt noise of the chair scraping attracted more attention.

“How many other pictures of little girls are we gonna find on your phone? Let’s take a look,” she made a move to grab the phone off the table, but he tried to stop her, and caused it to slide off and onto the floor.

Without thinking, Beca drove the heel of her Doc Marten boot into it, hearing a satisfying crunch as the screen broke.

Yes, his pictures were probably already on the Cloud, but she didn’t care right now. He wasn’t going to be able to ruin anyone else’s day today.

“Yes!” One of the patrons of the coffee shop cheered. “Work bitch!”

“That was a $1,500 phone you… talentless whore!” He shoved her, hard, and Beca fell backwards into another table.

With a look of panic in his eyes he ran off, as Chloe rushed towards her with the girls.

“Mommy!” Blake cried, letting go of Chloe’s hand and running over to Beca who was now sitting on the ground, her hand gingerly touching the back of her head. “Mommy, he pushed you!”

She climbed onto her Mom’s lap and wrapped her arms around her.

“I know,” Beca said, hugging her daughter tightly. “But I’m okay.”

A bigger crowd had started to form around them now, and more people had their phones out. Beca could feel the panic building in her chest.

People were touching her, Beca didn’t know if they were trying to help her up or not, but she needed them to stop.

“Can I get through, please?” Beca heard Chloe shout. “Excuse me, I need to check on my wife.”

Dylan managed to clear a space for Chloe to get through with the stroller.

Riley was starting to get upset, and Chloe could see the panic rising in Beca’s eyes.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asked, her voice as quiet as she could make it so Beca would still be able to hear, but that it might not carry to the crowd.

“I can’t be here,” Beca said, her voice shaking. “I don’t want them to see.”

“Okay,” Chloe said. She stood up and quietly asked Dylan if there was somewhere they could sit in private, and he nodded. “Blake, honey, can you help your Mom stand up?”

Blake climbed off Beca’s lap, and held out her small hand for Beca to take. Beca took it, and stood up as Blake pulled.

Dylan led them through the shop and to a small room with a couple of sofas that must have been meant for staff.

“I’ll make sure no one bothers you,” he said.

“Thank you,” Chloe said. “We really appreciate this.”

He left the room and closed the door behind him.

Beca dropped onto one of the sofas and let her head fall into her shaking hands.

She forced herself to take deep breaths as Chloe sat beside her, rubbing a comforting hand up and down her back.

“Mommy?” Riley asked.

“Yeah?” Chloe replied.

“Can we get ice cream yet?”

Beca burst into tears without warning, which created the domino effect of Riley crying and then Blake crying.

“Okay,” Chloe said, surveying her tearful family. “Who needs a hug the most?”

“Mom does,” Blake said, sniffing and wiping her eyes.

“Can you give it to her while I take care of Riley?”

“Uh huh,” Blake said. She climbed onto Beca’s lap again, and Beca pulled her daughter into her arms. “It’s okay, Mom, the bad man is gone.”

“I know,” Beca said, trying to stop crying. “I’m just sad that he ruined Riley’s birthday.”

“We can still get ice cream,” Blake said. “I won’t be angry about people taking our picture anymore.”

“No, baby, you should be angry about that,” Beca said. “They don’t have your permission, so they shouldn’t be doing it.”

Her eyes met Chloe’s who was soothing a still sobbing Riley. Something was going to have to change.

They left the coffee shop once everyone had calmed down, and Beca gave them a big tip for the trouble they’d gone through.

They made it back to the car without any more trouble, and Beca ordered some ice cream on DoorDash to get delivered.

They hung out in their garden for the rest of the day, playing in the pool, and eating junk food.

Chloe kept noticing the smile that would slip from Beca’s face whenever she thought no one was looking.

Once the kids were bathed and put to bed, Chloe poured them both a generous glass of wine, and joined Beca on their comfy sofa in the living room.

“I don’t want you confronting people like that again, Bec,” Chloe said, trying to massage the tension out of Beca’s shoulders.

“I know,” Beca said, closing her eyes.

“I mean it,” Chloe said. “He could have hurt you.”

“I know,” Beca said again. “I promise, I won’t do that again.”

“Good,” Chloe said. She placed a kiss on the back of Beca’s head.

They were quiet for a while as Chloe continued slowly massaging Beca’s shoulders.

“Come on,” she said, planting a brief kiss on her neck. “Let's go to bed.”

They climbed the stairs, briefly checked on the kids, and then changed for bed.

“What are you thinking?” Chloe asked, watching Beca as stared up at the ceiling. She could see tears building in her eyes again, and she brushed one away with a sweep of her thumb.

“I don’t wanna do it anymore, Chloe,” Beca said, her voice breaking. “We can’t take our kids for ice cream. Blake is getting too anxious to leave the house, and Riley is gonna start picking up on that soon. You can’t even work anymore. I don’t… I don’t wanna be famous anymore, I don’t want to live in this stupid town, I don’t want any of it.”

“I know,” Chloe said, softly.

“I’m serious.” Her voice was wobbling dangerously now. “I can’t… It’s crushing me.” She brought up a hand to cover her face as she started crying. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“Hey, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, we can figure this out,” Chloe said, gathering Beca into her arms. “We’ll be okay.”

“It’s gonna kill me.”

“I know, baby, I know. But I won’t let it,” Chloe said. “Tomorrow we’re gonna call Theo, and we’re gonna figure it out.”

“Thank you,” Beca said, feeling calm relief begin to wash over her. Things were going to change. Things were going to get better. “I love you.”

“I love you too. No matter what your job is or where we live. I’m always gonna love you.”

[mythicandco]

A Random Rant About Belos (Again)

I have a headache so instead of sleeping to make it go away I’m gonna drink some water and drink some TEARS

(Side note: Belos’ tears taste like pencil shavings and bird crap. Would not recommend.)

Anyways I’m just gonna ramble about the Edward/Philip/Belos/Hunter dynamic for a little while, including my own version of events (which is pretty much shared by eighty-five percent of the fandom) and some stuff that is so obvious but I want to talk about it so that I don’t have to think about it anymore. Why didn’t I just put this into a Google Doc-

Spoilers so everything is under the cut

For the sake of my sanity we’re calling the unnamed Wittebane brother Edward. Edward Carlos Wittebane. Why not, the TOH team can’t prove us wrong for another couple of months so we can do what we want.

Alright, lets start with the relationship between Hunter and Belos. It’s FUCKED UP, people. I am I firm supporter of the Philip = Belos theory (if you couldn’t already tell ;w;) and Hunter being a Grimwalker means that Belos had “the bone of ortet” (EDWARD’S BONES!!) ready for use. WHO KEEPS THEIR BROTHER’S BONES JUST LAYING AROUND?! I mean, Belos does, I guess. 

There is no doubt in my mind that Hunter is a Grimwalker. I will be seriously surprised if he doesn’t end up being one. (I’ll be surprised in a good way. But still very surprised.) His reddish-violet eyes, the check mark on the adolescent stage that Belos had in the book, it’s very unlikely he’s writing about a different Grimwalker (oh brain please no). The nose shape of the Grimwalker also matches Hunter’s, which I’m wondering is a coincidence given that Edward’s nose also just happens to be shaped like that. Makes me wonder if Hunter is the first Grimwalker (at least in a very long time), and those are Belos’ notes. It’s not impossible. 

Either way the way Belos treats Hunter is not okay. It’s practically unanimous that Belos is a terrible parental figure and is manipulating Hunter in one way or another. Personally I think that he’s mainly keeping Hunter alive for the Day of Unity, and doesn’t care about his feelings as long as he does what’s supposed to get done. Heck, Belos outright says that Hunter can be replaced! Even if he says it’d be a hassle. Still. He doesn’t feel guilty about abusing the poor kiddo and that’s why we see such deepset issues with Hunter’s character. 

However there does seem to be a tiny sprinkle of genuine emotions in Belos’ one not-outwardly-violent interaction with Hunter. Unless it’s all completely emotional manipulation and I’m just seeing stars. But while Belos does seem to have little care what happens to Hunter in the long run, he appears to have a slight fondness for the kid. He shares a brief story about the Human Realm, Hunter is the only person we’ve ever seen him take his mask off for, and I think he likes seeing Hunter happy, even if it’s near the bottom of his “Most Important Emperor Things” list. If his ultimate plan for Hunter isn’t “Have a Sacrifice for the Titan” or “Have a Host for the Titan”, then I imagine he’d like to see Hunter make it past the Day of Unity and rule at his side. 

What I’m wondering about is what leads Belos to be so terrible to Hunter, the literal CLONE of his brother who, as far as we can tell, he cared about and had a good relationship with? Who knows, maybe the TOH team with throw a huge wrench in our plans and make Edward an abusive brother or something, leading to Belos continuing that cycle by taking it out on Hunter (WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT AT ALL!!). When Hunter finds out, or smol depressed man is gonna have an existential identity crisis and we’re all going to cry. We know we are. Either way, just my thoughts on that big ol’ mess. Everyone in that family has ISSUES. (And insomnia. You’ve all seen Belos’ eye bags, right?)

Now moving onto Edward, Li’l Rascal, and Hunter. (I’m probably gonna call the palisman “Red” more than once, so don’t get confused by that.) If Rascal is the former palisman of Edward, then it makes me wonder how they got that scar over their left eye (wait who else has a scar on the left side of their face that’s right BELOS) (I mean there’s really only two sides of a face that you can put a scar on, but still). It’s possible they got it in the cave-in during the disastrous Titan’s blood mission, but it’s also possible that if we’re taking the abusive brother route that Edward himself inflicted those wounds. 

I’m not sure how that would make Red want to be Hunter’s palisman, but I guess it’s possible they sensed Hunter wasn’t as dangerous as he seems. I don’t have much else to say on this subject other than the idea that Rascal was probably gonna become Luz’s palisman until it spotted GG.

And finally an overlook of how Philip become Belos, because once again I believe in Philip is Belos supremacy--

Before continuing read this because it’s written and explained very well and covers a couple of the main options. I’ll wait. I don’t care how long you spend reading it, it’s worth it. 

Okay so now that you’ve read that, I’ve narrowed the options down to five. 

- Philip pulled a Science Man™ and either drank a potion or had a spell cast on himself so that he could preform magic without the use of glyphs or palismen. Since he’s human, he needs a source to take magic from, and that happens to be palismen. However the longer he goes on, the more “source magic” he needs, and 400+ years later he’s so degraded that he needs palismen just to stay stable, let alone preform magic. 

- Philip pulled a slightly different Science Man™ and got himself trapped between realms. Whether it was accidental or Edward or someone else deliberately staged it, that’s up to you, but one way or another the weird black in-between goo slowly erodes away at his human form and, once again, he needs palismen to stay stable. 

- Philip got himself cursed the good ol’ fashioned way! Either he angered a witch/demon or opened a magical box that was never supposed to be opened, or maybe the Collector was involved somehow, who knows (The writers know. The creators know. But they’ll never tell us.). The Collector could actually be applied to any of these scenarios with the right context, as seen here. 

- The Titan somehow fucked stuff up. I saw this theory floating around a little while ago and it doesn’t seem too unlikely that Belos is only doing what the Titan says so that it will leave him alone. Or maybe he believes that his affliction is the cost of communicating with the Titan, and it’s a price he has to pay in order to stay in power. 

- This is the most likely option: the writers sic a whole new idea at us and we love it. I have no idea what that could be, but I’m all up for new stuff I wasn’t expecting!

And thus concludes this almost TED-Talk, now if you don’t mind me I’m going to lay down for a little while and finish drinking my water. Good night/morning/afternoon/evening to you all.