#similar/adjacent time zones

[angelnumber27]

So many of my flop posts on here are (imo) better than the ones that ended up blowing up. Like nope. that one should have gotten 20k notes not 3 and the one with 20k should have gotten 3

[honoura]

Shaaloani: The Land of Enchantment Part One

Hello again! It's another lore-adjacent post from me about a niche special interest of mine. This time it's Shaaloani, the American Southwest/Northern Mexico inspired zone in FFXIV's Dawntrail.

I want to disclose a few things right at the start just to temper people's expectations: I will not be definitively ID'ing any of the indigenous-inspired structures or visuals as inspired by any specific tribe. That's not my lane! I'm going to link to things that they remind me of, for sure. But otherwise my hyperfocus is going to be on the physical environment, some animals, and the ceruleum as petroleum industry. It's what I recognize best! And what I know best, truthfully.

"Hon why are you doing this?" A variety of reasons honestly. After DT dropped I saw a lot of folks who did at least one of the following:

Commented on the Old West theme park aspect

Called it "miqo'te Texas"

Generally just called the whole map "Texas"

And if I'm honest... it bugged me! Not because I thought anyone was being malicious about it (it's mostly pop culture saturation I'd suspect), but to me it stung a bit that this zone, which I grew up on the fringe of, was... kind of flattened by a lot of people?

I don't know, the response to me just felt like people assumed they knew everything about it because they'd seen it already in movies or TV or Red Dead Redemption rather than the same open-mindedness about what was presented in places like Urqopacha.

This zone isn't just Texas -- yes there are some bits and pieces here (because it's pulling from the Chihuahuan Desert and the Sonoran Desert), but so much of it reminds me of New Mexico, Mexico, and Arizona. There's some Colorado, Utah, and Nevada there too! And the background story going on there is something that still happens in a lot of those states, by both the government and corporations alike.

That variety deserves to be celebrated! So come learn with me about the inspiration for Shaaloani!

Shaaloani Geography

Shaaloani has three major regions in the zone -- Eshceyaani Wilds, Pyariyoanaan Plain, and Yawtanane Grasslands. To get this out of the way, I'm going to tell you the one that reminds me most of Texas.

Ready?

Lake Taori of the Pyariyoanaan Plain.

It's river-fed, with canyons on both ends of the Niikwerepi. The trees crowding around it are cypress trees, as you can tell by the little nubby off-shoots called knees. To compare, here is a photo of cypress trees along the Frio River:

This is also reminiscent of places along the Rio Grande and Pecos Rivers, two significant water sources in West Texas. I also would not call them bayous! Bayous typically have brackish water, are slow-moving, and are way too far east.

However, it could be partly considered a ciénega -- which according to its wikipedia article:

"Ciénagas are usually associated with seeps or springs, found in canyon headwaters or along margins of streams. Ciénagas often occur because the geomorphology forces water to the surface, over large areas, not merely through a single pool or channel."

As a caveat, ciénegas generally don't have trees around them, but I also know that you can't really drown a cypress and they love sunshine. Regardless -- if you see trees in the desert they are typically growing along a water source. Balmorhea State Park has some cottonwood trees native to the area that are going strong.

Yawtanane Grasslands reads as a mix of the Chihuahuan Desert and the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Both are rather arid and home to a variety of grasses that can thrive in such a climate -- which has historically made both areas home to large cattle industries (whether or not this was ever a good idea is debatable, since cattle are very thirsty animals).

Meanwhile the Eshceyaani Wilds looks similar to the Sonoran Desert -- the red-hued soil and rocks, the abundance of cacti with the scrub brush and some drought-tolerant grasses. Here's a shot of the Sonoran within Saguaro National Park in Arizona:

Saguaros also only grow in Arizona in the States! As well as the organ-pipe cactus, which you see in Tender Valley. And prickly pears grow just about anywhere they can get a chance -- as well as barrel cacti, both of which we see in Tender Valley (along with what could be agave!).

You could probably make a case for it being a piñon-juniper scrubland -- everything's very short compared to those cypress trees, including the juniper trees! Piñon-juniper scrubland's found throughout the Southwest. There are also piñon-juniper savannahs and persistent woodlands intermixed in the same places. The difference lay in what plants you find with the piñon pines and junipers.

Visually, aside from the Sonoran Desert, I can also see a lot of New Mexico, like the Ghost Ranch in Rio Arriba:

It matches up with the mountains you can see, and both Yowekwa Canyon and Tender Valley. And of course, Tender Valley is likely a Grand Canyon reference, going by the sheer height of the cliffs. But you could also make a case for Canyonlands National Park in Utah.

There's a shot from Grand View Point Overlook within the park -- the closeness of the canyon walls and the warm earth tones also evoke Tender Valley!

There's also a lot of these sandstone formations in Utah that better fit Shaaloani -- like here in the Valley of the Gods:

Shaaloani Structures

I also at this point want to call attention to one of the two sites with cliff dwellings & adobe structures. We just saw Tender Valley above, which is confirmed to be old Yok Huy structures. But check out these Tonawawta buildings below.

As I stated before, I don't want to state which tribe these two styles remind me of. But I do want to say this again strikes me as another New Mexico and Arizona callback; both the Gila Cliff Dwellings and the Puye Cliff Dwellings are found in two different areas of New Mexico. And the Gíusewa Pueblo, also in New Mexico! Montezuma Castle is found in Arizona, and is pictured below! Look at that rich reddish earth color.

I also want to call attention to the place of worship for the Tonawawta in Yowekwa Canyon:

When I saw it my kneejerk response was to call it an ofrenda. But that's ultimately an incomplete response -- that was just the vibe I felt after seeing them during my life! What it also reminds me of are pictographs and petroglyphs. You find these all over the Southwest (the climate helps preserve them!), but I'm going to link some really great examples. I won't provide images to all though!

Crow Canyon Petroglyphs:

Piedras Madras Canyon at Petroglyph National Monument (New Mexico) Petroglyph Point Trail at Mesa Verde National Park (Colorado) Petroglyph Panel at Canyon Reef National Park (Utah) Nampaweap at Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument (Arizona) Horseshoe Canyon at Canyonlands National Park (Utah) and the Hueco Tanks State Park (Texas)

In contrast, I don't want to spend a ton of time on the boom town structures in this zone; they are pretty straightforward references to mining towns during the different resource booms (gold, silver, copper, oil).

Similar blocky shapes, built out of wood. One thing I noticed as a neat addition are the decorative patterns painted on it -- again, I don't want to presume if there's a specific tribe tied to this. But I do think it's a neat touch and I want to think that's a design choice to convey the underlying theme that this is a zone at odds with advancing technology and wanting to keep hold of important traditions.

I WILL talk about the ceruleum wells and pumping though. Mostly because I'm impressed that they went with structures that so closely resemble early 20th century oil derricks. Those were also predominately made of wood (including the barrels, yikes!). The pump part of what's called a pumpjack were covered in the old days -- the ones we're most used to seeing now are made of metal and are thus left uncovered.

However, as you can see from this century old rig, even the wheel's made of wood:

I don't think ceruleum gushes the same way oil did -- it seems to behave more like natural gas. However, most natural gas pipelines do burn off excess, which can be seen as a little spout of flame atop.

Oil's occupied an awkward spot in the Southwest, and still does. Aside from the heinous crimes committed in Killers of the Flower Moon (where members of the Osage tribe were murdered for their oil shares in Oklahoma) and the Teapot Dome Scandal, oil is just... well.

Bear with me, I'm about to rag on Koana a moment.

The people who make the most money and have the most power over the average roughneck's life never live in the Southwest. They work in the c-suite and have more money than sense.

I find it very fascinating that DT chose to recreate this dynamic, this uncomfortable push-pull of a region rich in a resource, and it's being harvested at the suggestion and behest of a power that is physically removed from the area. And to some NPCs it's with a certain level of disregard to traditions and practices in place before, with the focus on the nebulous quantifier of 'progress'. Progress how? It depends!

But the folks at the highest seat of power never have to grapple with those questions, because to them it's a fairly cut and dry answer. This is the way to proceed, and if they want to take this nation into the "future", then this is the clear way to do it. It speaks to Koana's fixation on foreign technology to the point he de-values his own (partly due to his childhood trauma, which kind of prepped him to be susceptible to it).

Meanwhile the locals are the ones grappling the most with this change -- how it affects their plants and animals. Sometimes pits open up in the earth and ceruleum burns (which, Santa Rita New Mexico sank multiple times into the earth thanks to copper mining). On the map there's even discolored plants -- and they only occur in the vicinity OF the bulk of the ceruleum pumps.

This is at odds with core beliefs, keeping up with traditional practices. It puts people in the place of 'do I participate in this system, which promises work and the means to take care of my family, even as it pits me against my cultural heritage?'.

Growing up in West Texas, one of the weirdest things to me (to this day) is how many people will claim they love the land. They do! They love the outdoors, they worry over how certain species of animals have become scarcer. But they also work in the single most damaging industry because it pays the most money. It lets them cover bills and give their kids what they never had.

That same push-pull is in Shaaloani narratively; when progress has been thrust upon you, how do you survive it? How do you make sure what's dearest to you comes along with you?

In Conclusion

I want to call it here for Part One -- Part Two after this will cover more observations I had regarding flora and fauna in the Shaaloani zone, and how that also shows the attention to detail given this zone! It's a good time! There will be dinosaurs!

[dclovesdanny]

DcxDp prompt

I want an au where the GIW did something when trying to recreate the Fenton portal, and upset the entire balance of the world. Their universe became so stabilized that very few people managed to survive, i.e. members of Amity Park had a 50-50 shots of surviving, Jaz, Danny, Tucker, Sam, Ellie and Valerie all survived, but were injured. Fix this and how’s the new souls, most of them were sent to be reborn with no memories of their past life in Gotham. However, Danny and his people stay in the zone for a while, each of them getting training from different people.(Danny, getting training for becoming the ancient of space, undergrowth, training, Sam, Tucker dealing with the whole reincarnation thing he went through the first time and figuring out his powers, Jaz training with the yeti and frostbite, as well as with a few other psychologists in the zone, Valerie, maybe going to train with Walker? IDK they just have some vibes to me. Allie definitely traveled throughout the entire zone and Indered herself to everyone.)

I don’t know why, maybe the zone needs them out, maybe they’re human needs are being hindered by the zone, but they have to leave the zone and go to the Gotham world, where almost everyone they knew has been reincarnated and does not know that or anything about them.

I want them to arrive in Gotham, and then find out that most of the people who they knew are either villains or heroes, with a few scattered people who are not technically involved, but are adjacent.

I want everyone who is reincarnated to meet these people and have a strange feeling of déjà vu and maybe maybe even treat them a little bit similar to how they were treated before. Like Vlad being reincarnated as Ra’s Al ghul, and when he sees Danny, he has the overwhelming urge to adopt him.

It’s even better if they all have their ages messed with for some reason, so now Jazz is 25, Val is 12, Sam and Tucker are 10-11, and Danny and Ellie are 3-5, bonus points if they are seen as the same age.

Idk but I think this is just neat

[mufos-photo-album]

The Swordmaster, dressed up as her primary design inspirations

If you like reading, I've included some commentary about the Swordmaster's inspirations (including ones not depicted above!) as well as one (1) kinda funny picture below the cut.

When thinking about how to design Mufotsuki/Piripu into the Sword/Spearmaster, I knew from the beginning that I wanted them to be based on magical girls and super saiyans respectively. When it came to actually designing them though, I ditched the Swordmaster being based around magical girls specifically. There might be an inkling or two of meguca in there, however most magical girl designs I found online (as well as from media I like) were waaaay too feminine for my liking. So, I looked to my favorite girlprince, Utena Tenjou from Revolutionary Girl Utena. The Swordmaster takes after Utena in mainly visual aspects, inheriting Utena's pauldron thingies and hairstyle (to some degree). I knew that I wanted the Swordmaster's hair to be different from Mufotsuki's, however I couldn't bring myself to get rid of Mufotsuki's braids. So, I amped up the braid length and gave the Swordmaster some bangs adjacent to Utena's. Utena was also one of a few characters who encouraged me to take a "knightly" approach the the Swordmaster's design.

Up next is Mami Tomoe from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, who actually had zero bearing on the Swordmaster's design but contributed mainly in vibes. For those unfamiliar, Mami Tomoe is the oldest girl in the main cast of Madoka Magica, and she serves as a role model to the others as well as being the ideal image of a magical girl. In whatever story the Swordmaster and Spearmaster are in, I want the Swordmaster to have a similar role/vibe (though maybe not as tragic, ahem...) Mami Tomoe also serves as inspiration for how the Swordmaster carries herself in and outside of a battle. She acts rather dainty most of the time, however she knows how to hold herself up in a fight, and her often soft nature serves as a contrast to her stern moments. No doubt a show-off, but she does it with the flavors of elegance and poise.

These characters have less of a bearing on the Swordmaster's design/personality, but were nonetheless ones I thought about while designing her.

Sayaka Miki, also from Madoka Magica: Probably the first magical girl I looked to when I wanted to base the Swordmaster's design purely on magical girls. Sayaka is probably why I decided to make Mufotsuki the Swordmaster. Similarly, Sayaka's counterpart, Kyoko Sakura, might've been why I made Piripu the Spearmaster. +1 to knight inspiration.

Diamond, from Land of the Lustrous: No direct design influence, some personality influence. Diamond has a soft way of speaking that influences how both Mufotsuki and the Swordmaster are heard in my head. Some of the ways Diamond fights also serve as inspiration for how the Swordmaster fights, but the techniques I think about aren't wholly unique to Diamond and kinda belong to Land of the Lustrous as a whole.

Ludovica Bonnaire, from Tiger Tiger: Ludovica as a character probably has the least influence on the Swordmaster. Her influence is actually based on how another character described her, calling Ludovica the "princesscaptain". This title tickled me, so I kept the words "princess knight" in my mind while drawing the Swordmaster.

...Lookit you, reading all the way down to the bottom! Guess I owe you that funny picture, HOOAH!

Color theory is my passion! (Context: When I color, I use a LOT of layers to make the process later on easier/neater. Splitting color zones into parts also makes some aspects of shading easier. Laying down these ugly colors first helps me distinguish other color zones from each other.)

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Rust Devil

CR 12

Lawful Evil Medium Outsider

Adventure Path: Hell's Rebels: The Kintargo Contract, pg. 82-83

Also known as Ferrugon in the language of Hell, Rust Devils are typically found in the infernal cities of Dis, where they view themselves as gardeners of the great iron constructs erected by the endless toil of breaking souls. They flit from building to building like tetanus-filled gargoyles, using their at-will Make Whole to fix any breaks they may see and their 3/day Fabricate and Major Creation to whip up new features and decorations in accordance with their own aesthetic sensibilities. You may be scratching your chin by now as you read this, wondering where all the rust is supposed to be coming in, and there's a bit of... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... iron-y here, because Ferrugons are actually responsible for creative acts and playing the role of muses and inspiration for mortals in need of an artistic spark.

Ferrugon prefer acts of creation rather than destruction, but acts OF creation which LEAD TO destruction are their absolute favorites. This is primarily done with their Vainglorious Whisper, an incredibly dangerous ability as-written because of a few missing lines of text. Once per round as a swift action, the Rust Devil can whisper into an adjacent creature's mind, infecting them with delusional pride; the victim gets +4 to saves against fear, but takes a -4 penalty to attack rolls, damage rolls, caster level checks, and skill checks, and they cannot perform any defensive action (such as withdrawing, casting defensively, or using any healing on themselves). This pride is so powerful that a victim of it will be forced to make saving throws against any incoming healing effects, viewing them as unneeded, potentially dooming someone suffering from its bleed, but we'll get to that in a moment!

Why did I bold "incredibly" up there? Because as-written, there's no per-day limit to the number of times the devil can use Vainglorious Whispers, no 24-hour immunity clause, no duration, and no stated way to remove it. The Rust Devil can try round after round to give someone destructive pride until it finally sticks, and then the victim is stuck with that effect forever unless the DM rules that Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, or similar removes it. It took until they reappeared in Second Edition for their whispers to gain any form of limit! If you're a DM hoping to use them, I'd install those limits into the 1e version; the whispers can only target a creature once on a given day, it's a curse effect, and it falls off an arbitrary amount of time later (such as an hour, a day, or until the victim is reduced to 0 HP).

Even without their whispers, Ferrugon are formidable enemies once discovered and forced into combat. As their name may suggest, anyone in melee with them should be as scared as they would be while fighting a Rust Monster at lower levels, as their stated preference when fighting is to utilize their Greater Sunder feat to shatter weapons and armor alike, potentially robbing players of the gear they've worked all adventure to maintain. They have Heat Metal at-will to punish anyone in armor and can use Rusting Grasp 3/day for destroying anything they do not wish to waste time sundering, though Rusting Grasp isn't especially scary for players at this level in anything but low-wealth campaigns, as it has no effect on magical metal. Neither does their at-will Shatter, though the chaos both Shatter and Rusting Grasp can cause to NPCs or across industrial zones is enormous, and a DM wishing to add some environmental hazards can have them introduced or exacerbated by the Rust Devil shattering an important support beam or rusting a weight-bearing chain.

Among their spells that are actually dangerous to a party around level 8~10 is a 3/day Suggestion and Wall of Iron, the former probably convincing someone to sit out of the fight while the latter makes a more forceful argument that some people should just stay out of this particular battle. Able to fly with a 60ft speed, Ferrugon aren't inconvenienced by their conjured walls, and trying to shoot them down without a weapon that can't pierce their DR 10/Good is basically wasting everyone's time. They've also got both high saves (+15/+13/+10) and 23 Spell Resistance, making most forms of magic less than reliable against them... but ironically (and weirdly), their Metallic body is actually vulnerable to being rusted, meaning Rusting Grasp damages them as though they were a ferrous construct, and any ability or effect which specifically affects metal also affects them.

This is dangerous for them, because they quite enjoy being in melee to affect victims with their whispers and pulverize them with Full-Attacks, but in order to rust them away, one must survive this Full-Attack first. Their two slam attacks deal a modest 1d8+6 damage each, but the real danger is their Slashing Wings, the razor-sharp feathers hitting twice in a Full-Attack and slicing 2d6+6 damage from their targets. Not only is their damage formidable, but they threaten critical strikes on 17 and higher, inflict 1d4 bleed damage, and infect anyone they strike with Scarlet Tetanus, a diabolic breed of tetanus that afflicts victims immediately upon failing a DC 23 Fortitude save, dinging their Dexterity for 1d4, draining 1 point of Con, and having a 50% chance of locking the victim's jaw up and preventing them from speaking or eating without immense difficulty. The disease ticks every 24 hours, meaning escape from the Ferrugon isn't the end of the pain it causes, though by this level the party hopefully has a means to cure the devilish disease. Every other commoner struck, however, is less than lucky.

The feathers are only slightly less dangerous from a range, as the devil can flick upwards to four of them out as a standard action every single round. Each feather deals only 1d6+6 damage, but they also have a crit range of 19-20 and afflict the struck victim with Scarlet Tetanus. Unlike the devil's whispers, there is an immediate and obvious sign that Scarlet Tetanus has affected a victim, allowing a Ferrugon focusing on spreading its sickness to focus its feather attacks against a single target, forcing them to make the DC 23 save four times a round, every round, until they're infected (or dead from the damage) before targeting someone else. That's only if it really wants to spread its disease for whatever reason; the most likely case is that the devil will simply affect every spellcaster it can see to force them to toss a coin at the risk of losing 70% of their spellbook for the day.

The feathers are just the backup, as the Ferrugon love being in melee far more, where their 27 AC and hefty DR prevent most enemies from harming them. They also have 5 points of Regeneration suppressed only by damage from a source of Good, but this healing is also suppressed if they're exposed to a rusting effect, so somehow turning their Rusting Grasp back around on them will not only deal some fair damage, but render them vulnerable to death for a round!

Ferrugon, like many higher level devils, are excellent background threats and final bosses. They prey on mortals seeking to master their craft, gifting those they favor with powerful infernal contracts which inspire astonishing creativity in the signee, not only improving their ability to perform their craft but making it cheaper for them to do so as they find new ways to work more efficiently! Most mortals, though, they curse with Vainglorious Whispers and sabotage with their spells, causing endless despair in their victims as the poor souls believe their projects are failing because of their own faults... and hey, if they really need help, if their vision is truly too important to let languish in the halls of their mind, the Ferrugon is there with a contract in one hand and a pen in the other.

True mastery of your craft is one signature away.

You can read more about them here.

[freckled-koi]

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒂𝒓

summary: you've known gojo since your training days at jujutsu tech. you were inseparable - as thick as thieves. so, what happened?

pairing: satoru gojo x reader (feat. nanami x reader).

cw: angst, emotional manipulation / mental spiral, mature themes. 18+ / minors dni.

wc: 3k+.

a/n: this is just the first chapter, but i wanted to give some fair warning for content!! this is also my first jjk fanfic i'm steadily working on, so tread lightly.

( ◡ ◡ ♪ ) ｡

you can also read here on fanfiction.net!

001.

The lone cigarette hangs over your tiers loosely, mindlessly staring off into space. You were pondering a thought for a moment, but you couldn’t bring yourself back to whatever it was that made you zone out. Your arms cross just below your chest, leaning into the brick of the office building. The ash at the end of the cigarette was progressively increasing the more you became idle.

What was it that you were thinking about?

“He’s not back yet?”

The lowly registered voice breaks your subconscious fixation on whatever it was far into the distance, eyes now flitting up to the taller, blonde haired man that appears adjacent to you. You purse your lips together, lithe fingers reaching up to remove the cigarette from your lips to tap the excess of ash after realizing just how much of it there was. 

“Of course not.” You respond with a hint of annoyance in your tone when you remember what you were thinking about – or who, for that matter. 

Satoru Gojo.

He was off completing another assignment – one that he completely dismissed the offering of help from the other known sorcerers in the branch – even though Ijichi insisted on following along after as a support system. And he hadn’t returned yet. It wasn’t out of Gojo’s character to do such a thing, so when you hear him complaining outside of your office audibly to ‘taking on the job himself’, it doesn’t come as a surprise.

That doesn’t mean it never brought a tinge of annoyance every time he was performatively cocky.

And not only that, this had become something of a recurrence. He was gone for far longer than he needed to be today, though.

A similar sigh of annoyance expels from the man, fixing the ocular frames along his face that you always found so oddly shaped. You can’t help the amused smile tugging at the corner of your lips to his reaction, taking a slow drag from the cigarette only to exhale a short laugh of cloud.

“Kento.. You can’t be surprised by that, you know,” You comment in a murmur, allowing your arm to hang off the one bent under your bosom as your gaze now settles on the other. 

His features were stoic, the strain of his work days idle on his features, but the way he carried himself was far from exhausted through his built, taller stature. You can see the shimmer in the glass of his frame when his head tilts towards you, offering him a raise of your brows. 

“He’s too arrogant.”

“Again, not surprising.”

There’s a growing silence between the two of you. This conversation was becoming a common one, Nanami somehow finding you outside more and more with the same pack of cigarettes in your hold; same position; same time and place. It was almost as if it was a routine.

“.. Have you spoken to him at all?” He asks, and you don’t know if it’s out of curiosity or of concern.

It’s only then that you ponder a response after a moment of trying to recall the last conversation you had with Gojo.

He had been brushing you off every time he caught your glance in the office, every time you walked past each other with a few centimeters of distance between you in passing. Granted, the last time you were even in the same vicinity as Gojo, it wasn’t pleasant and all you wanted was to block it out of your memory for as long as you could. It was only a couple months ago, but it was still fresh on replay in your mind.

Nanami inquires about Gojo everytime he finds you outside. The history between Gojo and yourself wasn’t that too farfetched to understand – all of them having been in the same technical school, gone through the same training, known each other for what seemed like years. You knew Gojo best, even with how closed off he seemed to other people, but you were someone that saw through his bullshit a lot more than just surface level to anyone else who would just brush it off as him being consumed by narcissism.

“Y/N,” Nanami says with a weight that’s delicate even with how deep his tone was, breaking you away from your trailing thoughts that cause your gaze to travel once more, looking back at him. 

He holds your gaze with a hesitance, hands neatly tucked into the pockets of his trousers just as he expels a breath through his nostrils, still waiting on an answer that he knew was the same.

“You know him, Kento, he always comes back.”

You see a small sense of tension release Nanami’s shoulders by your words, and that’s enough for him to not press forward. It’s almost peculiar in the way he doesn’t pry. Part of you wanted him to keep prying. 

He turns away from you, both of your eyes now settled into your surroundings a bit of the way across from you, settling into the silence between the two of you.

“You know you should quit doing this.”

“Smoking? I know.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Nanami’s larger frame leans back into the building beside you, still giving you a couple feet between the two of you.

Of course, you knew what he meant. You let out a sigh, blindly pressing the end of the cigarette to the brick to put it out with a twist of your fingers. 

“It’s complicated, Nanami.”

“Which is more of a reason to stop. If you know how he is, Y/N, you’d stop giving him this much grace.”

The weight of Nanami’s words were heavy on your chest, but you knew he was right. He didn’t know the full story between you two, but he didn’t need to know. It was the way you carried yourself, the energy you possessed at the mentioning of Gojo – it was all too obvious.

You decide to avoid a response to his words, turning your head to look up at him with a playful smile that feigns innocence, now returning your arms back to their crossed positioning.

“You know you don’t have to care about me so much~” You say in jest, just enough to get a small inkling of a smile from the taller man.

And you do, the corners of Nanami’s lips turning up into a slight smile that resembles sunlight between cumulus. It’s enough to make the somber moment much more lighthearted than it needed to be. 

“I’d be a fool to not care as much. Any decent man would want to be worried.”

There’s an airy chuckle that leaves your lips, just before your attention is drawn away from each other to hear the slam of a car door. 

Nanami’s smile is now dissipated, settled back into his stoic expression just as your own resets, even with your brows still slightly lifted to the sight of two men walking up to the building. 

The much taller, white haired man emerges from the vehicle, tugging down the dark bandage over his eyes and brushing the dirt and non-existent gravel from his dark attire. His appearance is disheveled, looking as if he scrapped with someone in a ditch with remnants of blood littered in his hair, across his pale flesh and fabric clinging and distressed to his frame.

“Yo, Nanami!” He exclaims, tone a tad exhausted while a slightly shorter, dark haired gentleman trails behind him soon after. You hear a disgruntled breath leave Nanami, catching from your peripherals his hand lifting in greeting.

“Satoru.” Nanami calls out, eyeing over his appearance as he’s leaning off the building and your own body straightens up. He glances over to you for a second, seeing the discomfort in your stiff appearance, now taking two steps forward when Gojo begins to walk over. 

“You look like hell.”

“Hey, I’ve fought worse~ This was lightwork.” Gojo says with a smitten grin plastered onto his face, Nanami only sighing hopelessly.

There wasn’t an ounce of acknowledgement of your presence when Nanami and Gojo spoke to one another. It doesn’t bother you, but it does bother you. It makes you realize that you really don’t need to be here after all. 

‘If you know how he is, Y/N, you’d stop giving him this much grace.’

The quote replays like an echo in your head. It sinks deep and it’s now something you’re completely stuck on. It’s enough to bring your feet to step away from the two of them, crossing behind Nanami to head back into the building. You need to be away and in your office anyway and you got the reassurance you needed that Gojo was still kicking. 

It’s when you step away, does Gojo’s attention follow you for a split second before it returns back to Nanami. And Nanami can clearly see it, no matter how short of a fraction it was, his own gaze trailing behind you before he turns back to the white haired man. 

You’re no longer in earshot of the conversation, but the feeling of dread is still there. Why was it consuming you this badly? What purpose did it serve to wallow in it? You tousle your tresses in dismay, huffing to yourself.

“This is so fucking stupid..” It’s something you murmur to yourself.

Every time he goes on a mission, you worry; every time he isn’t back in the fit time frame, you worry. How much more did you need to worry about a man that wanted absolutely nothing to do with you?

You weren’t expecting a ‘hey, hello, Y/N!’ or a ‘were you waiting on little ol’ me~?’ that he would casually throw in just to annoy you, to which you would retort with something along the lines of ‘glad to see you not dead’.

You don’t know what you were expecting. 

The moment you enter your office, you close the door immediately behind you and lean back into it, the back of your head pressing into the glass. You feel a slight sting behind your eyelids when you close them for a moment of clarity, you already know your eyes are welling up by just how frustrated you were.

You settle into the memory from years back.

It’s as if you’re reliving it. The momentary glimmers of your youth with Satoru, the stolen glances, the teasing that traveled into your later years that were still juvenile just more refined with age. Late nights after trials and training. Off days where you’d hang around his place; where he’d hang around yours.

Then, the memory starts to build up. 

Being employed under the same group of sorcerers for the academy. Taking assigned missions with each other with ease, celebratory drinks after to congratulate each other on coming out alive of each one.

The memory starts to boil over.

Letting you in on his Infinite. 

It’s scalding.

His Infinite.

It’s hard to control – hard to breathe.

The day you realized he denied you access to his Infinite.

It makes your stomach sink the more you think about it, the more you ruminate in it–

“Lost in thought or are you spiraling?”

The familiarity in that tone of voice sends a shock through your frame and makes your gut once sunk low jump straight back up into your throat. 

Your eyes shoot open, immediately darting to the glimmer of the white haired figure sitting at your desk, sitting back comfortably with one leg settled over his knee.

“Jesus fucking Christ–” You let out a weary gasp, palm pressed to your heart as if to check if it was still beating. Gojo expels a short laugh in response and your brows twitch together.

It was the first thing he’s said to you in months, and it didn’t feel as comforting or fulfilling to be finally addressed by Gojo as you thought it would be. 

You wear an irritated expression as you glance over him, standing up straighter against the door. 

“Can’t remember the last time I popped in on you like this,” He remarks with his hands folding together on his lap, mirth playing on his tiers with his head cocked towards his shoulder, using his heel to lean back into the chair. “I almost forgot how jumpy you get when I do it.”

You couldn’t remember the last time he did this either. Gojo would play this game with you quite often, mostly to ask you a measly question about something that could have been simply sent through a text or just to get under your skin when you weren’t expecting it. Most of the time, it was the latter.

“Why can’t you just knock on the door like a normal person?” You respond with a sharpness in your tone that just causes the grin to stretch further on his lips.

“Mmn, I’m not normal, remember?” He purrs lowly.

“Clearly,” A sigh leaves your lips, your facial features now relaxing after taking a small glance around your office before it returns back to him. You ponder what to say next, but the words come out less polite than you initially wanted. “What do you want, Gojo?”

It’s quiet for a short moment before the grin is softening on his lips into more of a cocky smile, sitting back up again and swiveling in the chair to face you.

“Come over to my place tonight.”

You stare blankly. You don’t respond.

Gojo exhales a dry laugh to the delay of a response he receives from you, only causing your shoulders to tense.

“What?”

“Do I really have to repeat myself again, Y/N? You heard me.”

“I heard you–” You echo back to him, scoffing under a haughty breath as you push yourself off the door, shifting to stand in front of your desk. You lean over to snatch up a few papers that were laid out on the surface, turning to your filing cabinet to store them where they needed to be. “--but lemme guess.. You don’t have some other girl to occupy your space tonight, so you have to turn to me as a last resort?”

“Oh, please, Y/N~ You know me better than anyone else, and you know that I can scoop any random girl in a millisecond to do my bidding if I chose to~”

Your jaw tightens to that. 

But, he wasn’t wrong. 

Gojo had a knack for hooking up with just about anything that had a pulse, and they’d surely fall into his palms just with a glance. You’ve walked in on him a couple times when you would merely visit and a different girl every time was scrambling to get their clothes on and rush out as fast as possible, never to be seen again.

“Tonight’s different. I want you to come over. For old time’s sake.”

“I’m busy tonight.”

Gojo grimaces with a twitch of his nose, even exhaling a snort to the quick admission.

“You’re lying.” He chimes, head following you as you close the filing cabinet and turning towards him again. 

“And?” You place your hands on your hips, facial features stern when speaking – definitely trying to shield yourself. “So what if I’m lying? Why do you want me over?”

“For old time’s sa–”

“Gojo.” You raise your voice to stop him, the sound bouncing off the walls as you hold a hand up to press into your temple and close your eyes to calm yourself for that small pause, quietly, deeply sighing.

You’re mildly hesitant when your mouth opens, the following words hardly summing up how you felt in that moment.

“You haven’t spoken to me.. In months,” You begin with a worn tone, much quieter but still audible enough for him to hear you. It was only the two of you in the room after all. “And.. you want me to come over to your place? Just like that? You want me to just say, ‘yes, Satoru, I’ve been waiting for you to reach out like this, I’ll definitely come over!’ and just do it?”

You play up the performance by exaggerating your words – even when there was so much truth behind them – hand falling to your side as you stare a hole into the white haired man perched in the seat. 

All the while, Gojo’s smile is still fixed on his tiers, lightly clicking his tongue soon after before he’s standing up from the chair to walk around your desk, leaning his hip into the edge of it.

“Honestly, knowing you, I figured you wouldn’t be too thrilled by it,” He gives a shrug of his shoulders, rolling his head to cock once more. “But.. You haven’t said no.”

You blink once, coming to the realization that you really haven’t denied it. He wasn’t really asking either. 

He just simply said it. 

“Come over to my place tonight.” Gojo repeats, now lifting himself off of the desk to stand tall and a foot away from you. He towers over you, so you have to crane your neck just enough to get a good look at him. “If you don’t show up, I’ll get the message.”

You don’t even have a second to reply, or even come back with a snarky comment, before he’s disappearing from sight.

The weight on your chest has somehow lifted, the tension in your shoulders soothed, but it’s not comforting in the slightest. You stare at the spot he was once standing in, mindlessly walking over to your desk to sit onto as your eyes wander the room. Your fingertips drag along the surface of the wood, quirking your lips to one side in thought. 

Why didn’t you say no..?

There’s a knock at the door that breaks you away from lingering far longer on the thought, your body back to its stiff state. Only then does it go away when you see it open and Nanami appear behind it. A sigh of relief leaves you, almost slumping forward with your palms bracing the desk.

Nanami doesn’t have to say anything. The look in your eyes says enough.

You break the silence after a moment, standing back onto your feet as you take a glance at the clock on the wall before looking back to Nanami.

“Dinner on me?”

[the-river-delta]

Let's talk about Grimwild, and why it's maybe my new favorite D&D replacement

Over the years, there's been a lot of tabletop RPGs that have attempted to bring over the structures and conventions of cinematic and story-driven indie tabletop RPGs and apply them to the themes, tropes, and stories associated with the ur-TTRPG that is Dungeons & Dragons, whether that's the messy and venerable Dungeon World or the more modern attempts like Daggerheart (not to mention the plethora of games that are interested in totally different things).

Now, I've been rather free of the gravitational pull of The Dragon/Elf Game for quite a while - I've not played D&D proper for 4 or 5 years now, and even been Pathfinder-free for a year or two as well, content to play the variety of smaller games totally orthogonal in terms of rules and theme to the fantasy dungeon-crawling and monster-killing game, so I am by no means in a position that resembles "I'm fed up with D&D but it's the only thing I know or want".

At the same time, every now and again, the craving for that very style of adventure strikes me, but after years of becoming so accustomed and comfortable with the Powered by the Apocalypse and especially Forged in the Dark styles of play (where a cinematic and character-driven focus, tidy rulesets, and short, sub-15 session campaigns and oneshots have long been my comfort zone), it feels daunting to imagine picking up a d20 game again; Outside of playing some OSR-adjacent games every now and again (or perhaps something like 13th Age, which I still haven't gotten to), I no longer desire beat-by-beat dungeon crawls and monster fights that can eat up whole sessions by themselves and make even seemingly short stories take up the better portion of a year (or god forbid several) - I am too cursed by ADHD to manage that as either player or GM.

So, right around New Year's Eve, along came Grimwild, an RPG by one J.D. Maxwell of Oddity Press I remembered looking at in summer last year when it was brought up on the Wildsea Discord server as it apparently had some inspiration from it, but was very confused by its somewhat rough (but understandably still beta) presentation at the time.

Since it was free and looked like an interesting mix of D&D themes and Blades in the Dark-style cinematic storytelling, I decided to dive in, and came out with an early contender for my 2025's game of the year.

So, what does Grimwild, which proudly labels itself as Cinematic Fantasy Adventure right on the cover, do that makes it stand out among the crowd?

Well, the good news is you can see for yourself immediately by grabbing the free edition (which, similar to Kevin Crawford's Without Number games, is a complete experience, but you get some fun extra goodies if you snag the physical or paid PDF version), but if you want some autistic girlboy's thoughts on it, head under the cut!

"What is a tabletop RPG?", "What is D&D about?" and "How do you play an RPG?" are two subjects that the internet at large will never fully agree on, but what I'm moreso interested in are games (and designers thereof) that are at least in some amount of agreement and alignment with my preferred answers to those questions (enough that I don't feel like I'm swimming upstream) - and from the very first pages, Grimwild excels at this in my eyes, as both its introduction as well as the player and GM principles echo a lot of the wisdom and ideas I've enjoyed and picked up in indie games like Blades in the Dark and Fate - I love to think of TTRPGs like movies and TV shows in terms of pacing, structure, and vocabulary (like the all-mighty camera), and evidently so does J.D. Maxwell.

I also enjoy some amount of player collaboration and GM-facing structure - I don't like to think of the GM as an omniscient authority (nor do I enjoy the stress that comes with that much power, from experience!), and Grimwild delivers on both fronts, with mechanics and advice that offer both sides of the table fun toys and clear guidelines to follow to ensure a consistent and smooth play experience.

But, it's not just about the theory that I already know and love from other TTRPGs - Grimwild brings plenty of fun rules and mechanics of its own, which feel familiar (to me at least) while still offering some novelty and honing in on its desired play experience - though at the time of writing I have not directly witnessed it firsthand, but stay tuned for a potential followup after I run my group through a oneshot or two!

The core mechanic should feel familiar to anyone who's played Blades in the Dark or Wildsea: roll a pool of d6 dice based on a stat and some bonuses, then look for the single highest result (6 is good, 3 or less is bad, and 4 or 5 is both; two or more 6s is a crit). Where it gets interesting is with thorns, optional d8 dice added if you're impeded by wounds, the environment, or other factors, which downgrade your result level if they come up on a 7 or 8 (which can stack, and potentially downgrade you to a particularly nasty disaster if you go below a 1-3).

The thorns strongly remind me of Wildsea's cut (where you remove X topmost dice from the pool after you roll it), but slighty less harsh, and both are an interesting way to directly alter the actual roll chances in a way that standard FitD doesn't really have any tools for (position and effect only kick in for the fiction after the fact, apart from perhaps -1d from level 2 harm in Blades).

Another notable mechanic are diminishing pools, which function as something akin to a dice-based take on progress clocks and tracks from the aforementioned games - a pool can represent some challenge, timer, or resource that can be triggered at various points in the game, wherein you roll the dice and decrement the pool for each 1-3 result. I have yet to see how it fully plays out in practice, but I love clocks and am always intrigued by different takes on the idea.

Grimwild also gives players (and even the GM!) some metacurrencies to play with - for PCs there's Spark (gained in various ways and used to boost rolls) and Story (used to declare significant character- or story arc-relevant world details) while GM gets Suspense to dole out harsher consequences (in a manner akin to Slugblaster's Bite, or even Discord from Tendencies: Spirits & Glamour, a PbtA game by a friend of mine). Some people find metacurrencies and especially GM metacurrencies contentious for reasons I am unbothered by, but I think they contribute greatly to a game like this.

Things like Story and Suspense, as well as other rules they tie into like Vantage (a sort of codified fictional positioning that helps abstract away matters like "would your PC have this item for this" or "can I narrate this action as this kind of magic"), Story Arcs (which come in both personal and group-wide flavors), player character relationship Bonds, and Quarrels (a way to quickly resolve player character drama in a way I adore envisioning in my head) is where Grimwild's cinematic elements really come out, at a pretty light rules and cognitive footprint at that!

While there is a good amount of new terminology introduced here, I found most of it pretty intuitive to wrap my head around - your mileage may vary depending on what your TTRPG background is primarily.

Over on the GM side of things, we have moves (very much in the PbtA vein - with general story moves, soft-hitting suspense moves and hard-hitting impact moves), the aforementioned suspense GM resource, diminishing pools, and challenges - a really pleasing way of structuring threats and monsters and the like in tiny little stat blocks.

(Which can also be linked, whether for particularly complex and dynamic scenarios or multi-bodypart enemies!)

If you're one of the comparatively few but extremely correct and sexy people who thought D&D 4e was actually a good game with fun ideas, you're in a for a treat - monsters in Grimwild have tiers (from mooks you can wipe out en masse to imposing elites and bosses), role descriptors (which have some further advice and tactics in the paid version of the game), and even ways to give the battlefield itself some textures and things to do. Tactics in a narrative game? It's possible, folks!

And if you thought SWN's faction turn or Blades' sprawl of Doskvol gangs was the coolest thing, you will be delighted too, with this surprisingly tight but useful section on writing up and running factions in the game world.

[Looks back on this post] Well, that's gotten quite long, and I haven't even gotten to talk about everything I actually enjoy about this game - because I like damn near everything I see here.

So, I will leave you with these - probably my favorite path (class) in the Warlock (which makes extensive use of many of the mechanics I brought up here), some monsters (which each have sensory details like smells and sounds, just like in the Wildsea!), and the very flexible Story Kits, which are basically modular and flexible do-it-yourself adventure outlines, a structure I find far preferable to standard massive linear modules.

Go get this game. Even if you don't play it directly (though I strongly encourage it!), there is a lot of good advice and plain fun ideas in here that can enrich either your existing D&D experience (I've not brought up basically any of this game's incredible rolling tables, Crucibles) and general TTRPG wisdom.

[spiderman616]

in fleetway, amy and tekno go on their wacky adventures through the ring of eternity,* a sentient gateway to other dimensions and throughout time and space, and the spirit of planet mobius. if we mushed fleetway and archie canons together to be compatible, do you think the fleetway "dimensions" would all be self-contained, or do you think theyd still be under observation by the zone cops? do you think tekno and amys adventures would be monitored for dimensional instabilities, or do you think theyd just let them do their own thing? do they know?

*comparable to how zonic zoops sonic prime off to adventures, ring of eternity does this for amy and tekno.

hmmm.... well if we are formatting this like how a canon crossover wouldve taken place i think stc and its alternate dimensions would be their own zones in the archie multiverse similar to underground and x were. so i think the zone cops would know about them but would not devote as much attention to those zones due to not being mobius prime or adjacent. generally heroes can still travel interdimensionally without zone cop involvement (ex: shadow saga where he chaos controls to different zones) so i think they would know but not care a ton

[marshmallowprotection]

Heyo! I really enjoyed your New Years post : ) Happy New Year!

I've been thinking lately about music tastes, as I tend to start hearing every song as my blorbo's song when I'm deep into a fandom, haha. So I'm wondering, do you have your own ideas of each Mysme character's music taste?

For me, I feel like I'd say...

Yoosung: sort of eclectic mix he picks up from others

Jaehee: Zen's songs from everything he's in, including the special edition OST only available on the DvD

Zen: is it too obvious to say musical OSTs? Probably also dance music for exercising and some pop songs

Jumin: classical, obviously. I think he secretly has a few of Zen's songs. Secretly only cause he doesn't want to deal with Zen's bragging. Also I feel like he'd have some influence from Rika and V

Saeyoung: dubstep is what comes to mind immediately. Probably some obscure bands you might find strange. Some foreign music. Maybe some rock and metal music.

Now, I find it more difficult to think of Saeran, V, and Rika's tastes, though I have a thought of them all enjoying classical music? I think Saeran would be influenced by V and Rika's tastes, and I can see them both liking classical. But I don't know beyond that...

Anyway, I'm really curious of what you think!

Hi! I hope your new year is fairing well. I have character playlists on Spotify you can check out, actually! I add to them periodically when I stumble across a song that suits the character in my eyes. Though, it is a blend. A lot of those songs are things I use to channel them when I'm writing, and not always things I think they'd listen on their own.

Like, for Yoosung, I think he listens to everything. I don't think he's the type to say, "I like this music or that music!" He just likes music. You could probably say he likes to listen to whatever's popular at the time, but he's not picky about it. Saeyoung listens to a lot of music, too. I've always been certain he loves some good jazz. His character theme is like that!

Whereas, someone like Jihyun is a lot more defined in my mind. I've always seen him as a lover of classical music. He just seems the type to sit down in his living room and listen to smooth melodies. After all, his mother was a masterful violinist. I think he appreciates orchestras most of all. Rika doesn't listen to a lot of music. I can't imagine it was accessible to her given what I know about her adopted family. But, as soon as she left that house, she started to enjoy musicals.

She loves to watch Zen perform, so it's easy for me to say she'd listen to musicals if given the choice. But, God, do I ever want her to listen to some rock music and unpack her religious trauma.

Zen has a mixture. I know he listens to musicals in his spare time, but another part of me is 100% sure he's got a work-out playlist with pop music to keep him energized. Now, as to what pop music is in there I can't say, but I know it keeps him motivated. Jaehee's likely similar in that regard, she listens to musical soundtracks and lo-fi melodies to play in the background. She doesn't seem like the type to venture too far out of her comfort zone; So she likes music that calms her down, Zen adjacent music or not!

Jumin isn't that far off from V. I can't really see him moving beyond the classical sphere unless you poke and prod him. He loves to learn and engage with new things, so he's open to other music. you just need to push him.

I can tell you that Saeran listens to classical music and love songs from decades ago. It's possible to assume he picked it up from his interactions with V and Rika, but I think he stumbled across it on his own at some point and decided that he liked the peaceful ambiance it created for his weary mind.

Let me know what you think if you check out my playlists.

[blazehedgehog]

If one decides to start a creative project about their favorite thing, be it fanart, fanfic, fangame etc. , which approach do you prefer, the creatives involved fully dedicating themselves to recreating and recapturing what made the original works...work, or make an active choice to be derivative (this doesn't mean artists are ignorant about the original material, not necessarily) How do you feel about either, and are there any other approach you can think of?

There's this guy who used to post at SFGHQ named Sam Beddoes who now runs Freakzone Games. He's made the official Manos: The Hands of Fate game, he did both AVGN Adventures, he's the project lead on that Toxic Crusaders beat'em'up, etc.

But he's an old guard Sonic head and I've heard him turn up on a couple of Sonic podcasts, specifically to talk fangames, and by his account he got really fed up with the Sonic fangaming scene when everybody became obsessed with perfectly replicating the Genesis games, because to him, all the creativity and magic went away.

I remember hearing that and both agreeing and disagreeing with him. And I have enough thoughts about it that I've actually considered doing a video about it, and about fangaming overall.

I think there is a stigma to replicating something perfectly that's very adjacent to people who are concerned about young artists who start out by tracing pictures other people have drawn. Plagiarism is a real, legitimate problem. But it's only a problem if you lie about tracing.

I'm of the mind that if you're starting out drawing, half the problem is just learning control. Tracing can be a valuable tool in helping you to understand hand motions and give you a perspective on the construction of an image. For the earliest beginners, I don't think there's any shame in starting out by tracing. It's building muscle memory. Just don't say you drew it.

Similarly, my game development skills went way, way, way up about the time I started to analyze and perfectly replicate existing games. Like, the long canceled Sonic Forever project used an early enough version of the Sonic Worlds codebase that I had to read the Sonic Retro Physics Guide and use their data on how to add Knuckles in from scratch. My code matched how he worked in the Genesis games almost 1:1, because it was largely me just interpreting the values into something Clickteam Fusion could understand.

Something similar happened when, in 2012, I started (and never finished) a remake of my famous Mario Blue Twilight DX fangame. That's when I started really paying attention to how the source games worked so I could get a better sense of how a Mario game needed to "feel" in order to be correct.

And that trend continued with every fangame project I worked on following that, like when I figured I could make my own version of Sonic 2's Hidden Palace Zone, since I wasn't happy with the Retro Engine version. The idea was to be accurate above all else. In some cases, I'd even watch recordings of official gameplay in slow motion just so I could see exactly how the game was created, and in some cases, count frame by frame the duration of certain actions.

And all of this just makes me think of when I showed a friend my game jam game, OverBite. He complimented me on how nice the controls felt, in that kind of backhanded way where he said "When did you learn to make games feel so nice?"

Because if you go back to those really early games of mine, they all feel like garbage to control. And I attribute it to putting in a lot of time pulling apart the nuts and bolts of real retro games and putting a microscope up to why they work the way they do. Deconstructing all of their little nuances and sub-states and then trying to put it all back together again in a different programming language.

You learn a lot when you're forced to stop and understand why a piece of code exists in the way it does. Why there are all these little edge cases that you never notice but still exist to make a game feel just a little better.

At the end of the day, yes, Sam was right. Games need to have creativity and seeking out the perfect replication of the Sega Genesis Sonic games can feel somewhat futile. Every SAGE for the last ten years, there will be at least three games that instantly vanish from my memory because they are basic, plain Sonic Worlds Delta fangames with no style of their own. They just want to make Sonic 4 and we've had a lot of different Sonic 4s by now.

But the thing about learning is, you gotta learn the rules before you learn why and where to break them, because breaking (or at least bending) all of those boring, standardized rules is where your personal style starts to emerge, and that personal style is ultimately what people are going to be interested in at the end of the day.

So I think it is vitally important to start at 1:1 exact recreation and once you've made a comfortable replica, only then should you start asking yourself what you'd change and why. Make sure you understand the material before venturing further. You gotta learn to do it right first.

[darkwingphoenix]

@loominggaia, Civ VI Ideas

So, I play Civilization VI, a 4X game. I don't wanna go too deep into the game, but people can Google stuff, right? We have TECHNOLOGY

And, with the new Kingdom Lore pulling up, I was thinking about making hypothetical Civ Vi abilities for the Kingdoms and their leaders. There's also a Sui Generis mod that makes civilizations parts of ethnic groups with abilities for those too.

Evangeline: Harvest Kingdom

Farms gain +1 production for every 2 adjacent Farms. This is boosted to +1 for each adjacent Farm by Feudalism, and gain an additional +1 food for each adjacent Farm. You can build Farms on Hills once you unlock Feudalism.

Farms are a common improvement in Civ Vi, so why not boost Farms to an insane level? This ability is very similar to the Incan ability, but modified to work like an early game Feudalism with Production.

Queen Indiga: House of Humanity

A Holy Site adjacency bonus grants Culture in addition to Faith. All Encampments gain +1 Gold and Production from all adjacent Farms, and grant major adjacency to Holy Sites. Finishing Encampments and Encampment districts grants a free melee unit with no maintenance cost.

This ability is very similar to parts of Byzantium's two leaders: Theodora and Basil II. The Holy Site adjacency to Farms merges well with the Evangeline's ability to make Farms, and the Encampment part is based off of Byzantium's unique District, the Hippodrome, but modified for Encampments.

Unique Unit: Kelvingyard Slaver

Unique Unit that replaces the Man-at-Arms and is unlocked at Feudalism. Stronger unit than the unit it replaces, and cheaper . -10 Strength when fighting outside of your borders, +5 when fighting against a unit from another Religion. Has a chance to capture enemy military units as Builders.

The Kelvingyard Slaver is replacing the Man-at-Arms as Evangeline's Medieval melee unit, and I fused several other Melee units for it: The Eagle Warrior of the Aztecs (The capture units for Builders part), the Spanish Conquistadors for the boost to Strength when fighting a unit from another Religion. I also put a major nerf when fighting outside of Evangeline's borders, putting a higher emphasis on staying within your borders, as a reference to how they don't really act openly outside of Evangeline. It also helps a lot if you get attacked/invaded, as they'd be super OP the entire time and even help your economy by getting you a couple Builders from it.

Unique Building: Slave Auction

Unique Building that replaces the Market, and is cheaper to build. +1 Trade Route, and +2 Production and +2 Gold if this city has an Encampment, and +2 Faith and +2 Culture if this city has a Holy Site.

The Slave Auction really isn't much, just a slave auction.

Evangeline Overall Strategy

As it may be clear to see, Evangeline's ability, as well as Indiga's, makes for a powerful farming empire, turning every available tile into Farms, while having a powerful homeland defense. Farms give Production, and Encampments and the Slave Auction do as well, and combined they're designed to basically remove Industrial Zones from the equation, as enough Farms with an Encampment and Market will do well.

The lack of any way to boost Science using Abilities isn't a bug, it's a feature: Evangeline is notably low tech, so having no Science Boost works out.

I can also see Cobalt, Cerulea, or even Azura as potential alternate Leaders (Azura can work as two leader have had two nations, and one married into another: Eleanor of Aquitaine for England and France, and Kublai Khan of China and Mongolia). I'd say Cerulea's knuckles down on Holy Sites, possibly via giving Gold equal to a portion of a city's Faith output, Cobalt is something I can't really figure out until I know more about his potential reign, and Azura would likely have an ability that boosts Gold output from Markets and Harbors while having the ability to train Spies earlier and gaining Gold and Culture from successful Spy Operations.

Matuzu Kingdom: First Kindgom

All cities gain additional Culture, and Science equal to 20% of their Gold output. All Luxury Resources give Amenities to 2 additional cities, and give 1 Housing and +2 Gold to the city they're worked in when improved.

Matuzu's obviously pretty into Gold, so why not make an ability all about that money? Luxuries also make sense, as they're valuable and worth gold.

Marghan: Frivolous Spending

Cities gain an additional +2 gold for each unique type of Luxury Resource worked, and Trade Routes give +2 gold for every Luxury Resource improved at the destination.

Marghan... would NOT be my first choice for a Leader, as he really isn't much of a good ruler. However, as High King, he needs to be included. So, his ability taps into his cross-continental DoorDash orders and his love of being an ass and doing drugs, by making that a massive Gold making ability. I strongly believe this is a bad thing, but I needed a good ability.

Unique Unit: Uekoran Archer

Unique ranged unit that replaces the Crossbowman and is cheaper. Uekoran Archers give Gold equal to the Strength of a Unit when they defeat the Unit.

Uekoran Archers are a pretty significant thing, right? So, having them as a UU makes sense to me.

Unique Building: World Atheneum

Unique building for the Government Plaza, available with a Tier 2 Government. Grants the city the Government Plaza is in +15% Science and Culture, and can hold up to 2 Great Works, which are automatically themed when completed.

I'm using the World Atheneum for Matuzu's Unique Infrastructure (Districts, Buildings, and Improvements have ALL been used for this) because it's a significant part of Matuzan culture. The Government Plaza also has like 1 Unique Building in official Civilizations and Leaders (That being the Queen's Bibliotheque for Kristina).

Matuzan Overall Strategy

Overall, Matuzu is built for a ton of Gold, Science, and Culture while improving every possible Luxury Resource and making a ton of Trade Routes for that Gold.

I'd say Azura, Jelani, and maybe Uzoma make for solid Matuzan rulers. Azura would have her ability for both Evangeline and Matuzu, Jelani would have some sorta ability focused on the military (Maybe a Leader Unique Unit (Like Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt or Empire Victoria)), and Uzoma would probably have a good diplomacy ability.

I ain't doing the rest because this is already so long. I'll do Damijana and Zareen next tho

[fountainpenguin]

Minor Fanfic Updates

- I'm slowing Life of a Loser's posting schedule down to just Wednesdays and Saturdays [my time zone] instead of every other day. An update will go out Thursday so the end note can inform readers of its schedule change, and the next one will be Saturday.

-> Update schedule was so frequent because I didn't see the point in holding out too long when the whole 'fic is already up on FFN (and I'm not familiar with best schedule for chapters that average 3k words or less, and this 'fic is summer vibes so I didn't want to take forever), but I do think the every other day schedule is overwhelming. Slowing down is smart.

- I have several Hermitcraft-themed 'fics in the anonymous Guess the Authors collection that will have authors revealed on Monday. I spoke more about what that means for subscription emails and plans HERE.

- Updated my Pinned Post to include a What's Going On? section. I added the FOP 'Fics page link, the MCYT 'Fics page link is there but currently unlinked, and I updated my Currently Updating section.

-> You can check that any time you want to see the update schedules for my current projects.

- I've been making Frayed Knots progress, but it's still slow (I have a big, personal thing happening IRL that takes lots of my attention; everything I've been updating throughout the summer is stuff I'd prepped in advance).

-> I was hoping to post consistently in June or July, but I think sometime in August/September is more likely, as I would rather have multiple chapters on hand before I post. My big thing ends early August, so I'll be able to give more attention to writing new content then.

- I've been thinking of finishing Come What May before posting more Frayed Knots. It has 6 chapters left and then I can finally wipe my hands of it after starting it in 2018. I'd love to finish it before 2025. Thank you to everyone for being patient with it!

- I recently added new headers to Dog's Life, Origin of the Pixies, and Frayed Knots that include links to their chapter-by-chapter recap info, so that's there for anyone who wants a recap guide as they go. I've prepped a more detailed recap for the next Frayed Knots chapter that recounts what's happened thus far in Act 3 since it was on hiatus a long time.

- Drafted a series page for my MCYT 'fics (similar to my 130 Series Table of Contents page). It will be up on Monday after Guess the Author is revealed. The purpose of this page:

-> To be linked in my Pinned Post for easy access to people browsing my Tumblr (as previously my only AO3 link there was my multifandom Personal Faves list)

-> Help people see what I write and direct them to series so they can customize the content they receive AO3 emails for

-> I was linking to every other series on my individual MCYT series pages, and there are a lot of them. Every time I added a new series, I had to edit every series page and it got annoying. I'm planning to redirect people to the Tumblr page for series info, which mirrors my current set-up with the 130 series (as of my recent footer update).

-> After the author reveal on Monday, I'm going to update the footers for all my MCYT 'fics (as they are currently inconsistent) to link to this page. I'm working on some more detailed descriptions for series content as well, which will also be linked there to help people decide if they're interested in reading.

- Factor It In still on hiatus for now. I was hoping to update it again in August, but my IRL busy-ness has slowed my ability to get Frayed Knots up. Factor It In is not abandoned; just paused while I work on a 'fic that's older.

-> /cry smile as I think about how Frayed Knots is only one year older than Factor despite them being posted online 6 years apart

-> I promise I have not lost interest in Factor, lol... It's my baby, but it's also my middle grade-adjacent style experiment and it's important to me that it feels a certain way, so I don't want to rush it.

-> Might finish some little WordGirl one-shots I have sitting around, though. They've been sitting with me since 2018... I've just been nervous to post them because. idk. Feelings about them.

- I have been sitting on a far-future Inside Out draft since the movie came out, and now that Inside Out 2 is out (it was lovely! Seeing it a second time today with family), I'm tempted to finish it... You might see that or maybe you won't.

-> It's about the inherent awkwardness of trying to control a body and flirt with another's emotions you know exist but will never meet, especially if you yourself are an emotion and aren't getting the physical sensations that other parts of the body are :') Anxiety and Ennui also getting dropped in my lap, my beloved...

All righty! Thanks for reading my work!

[makowo]

As a much longer follow up to this post, here's this... My Ideas for Two Minecraft Mods ^_^ this got really long so it's under the cut

Circle of Life: Rudimentary mod that adds a basic ecosystem, with as few mobs added as possible but enough to stand out as a bare bones animal mod.

Rather than mobs just existing independently of each other with the player as the focal point, focus in on more instances of stuff like wolves hunting sheep. Foxes hunt rabbits + rabbits are more widespread, wild cats/ocelots should spawn more plentifully and have birds and wild mice to hunt, polar bears should have seals to hunt, etc.

These prey animals can have their own niches, like eating plants and spreading their seeds (making grass/ferns/crops grow naturally and make grass more lively), seals eat fish and may be difficult to kill on your own but with the help of a polar bear, but they can be easily killed and drop seal fat that acts as coal or dried into leather.

Bears and foxes should be tamable as alternatives to wolves and cats respectively. Bears are focused on combat, as they hit harder and have more health (could be mounted as well?), as well as have a faster swim speed. However, they aren't useful in smaller areas, and you can only have two at a time or they get territorial with each other. Foxes are similar to cats in that they don't do combat but maybe could help find buried items or something, tying themselves into archeology. -

Darker Days Ahead: A larger progression mod that adds the Deep Dark as a secondary endgame zone to follow up to the End, and not a glorified treasure zone with a scary guy in it. (I know there's already kinda one of these that adds a deep dark dimension but I hate that mod bcs it's very aimless and bare bones atm)

This mod would have new structures, new types of crops that only cultivate with the aid of sculk, new items for scaring mobs away from you with the call of a Warden Horn, a new set of armor with a focus on utility, and potentially a new dimension which the sculk infection originates from. Definitely more but that's what's off the top of my head

The Ancient City is larger and has more signs of having been a city rather than just a castle sorta area. I'm imagining tying it into villager lore, so there would be decrepit but more advanced forms of villager buildings scattered around or above deep dark biomes, with the Warden hinted at being the basis of the iron golems villagers make.

The main new crop could be a fucked up form of glow berries that spread darkness instead of light, and will give darkness/wither when eaten. They could also be crafted into a 2x2 grid and made into a bundle of berries that can be thrown and make mobs in a small area around the landing point unable to lock onto you and take wither damage for a short time. They only grow on walls made of sculk-infested stone/deepslate, which is made by crafting stone/deepslate in the center of a crafting table with a sculk vein on each space directly adjacent to it. They also spawn naturally in the deep dark villages, but crumble into nothing unless mined with silk touch.

The Warden Horn isn't obtained by killing the Warden, but is crafted with a goat horn, a sculk shrieker, and an item that's dropped randomly by Wardens randomly after taking damage, maybe a part of its flesh or one of the things in its chest. It has a very limited amount of uses (repaired with experience via natural mending) but can be used as a defensive tool to temporarily scare and de-aggro any hostile/neutral mobs in a radius around the player, making them run like skeletons with wolves or creepers with cats. Doesn't work on Nether mobs as they wouldn't know about the Warden naturally.

The armor set would be primarily focused on utility, to not compromise on netherite being the endgame armor. Each piece of armor has its own ability, similar to turtle helmets. The helmet allows the wearer to highlight mobs around them and through walls when they make noise, the chestplate provides temporary Resistance 1 and a small damage boost whenever you gain experience, leggings give Speed 2, Jump Boost 1, and small attack speed boost after taking damage, and boots make you walk without making noise. Wearing the entire armor set gives you Absorption 1 in areas under light level 0 and you can get closer to aggro mobs without them spotting you, with the Warden becoming entirely passive to you unless attacked. There could be tools as well, but I don't have ideas for them right now. I think this would have stats slightly lower than diamond to balance out its strengths, since you can mix it with stronger items for certain benefits.

The new dimension is kinda a point of contention for me because I'm not sure of what it could offer. Definitely a new boss, NOT a new faction for trading, but it could relate to enchantments/magic considering experience plays such a large role here and enchants have no present origin point.

That's all I have for now. one day I will make these ideas or commission them when i get money.

[justmagicalgirl]

Please talk more about Domina! I want to hear your analysis soo bad!!!

(I'm starved of Domina content, I need season 3 right nowwww)

WAAAAH THE PERFECT CHANCE. op ily thanks for making me yap.

(beware of lots of spoilers, religion, cult talk and run-on sentences from here on)

first of all. i wanna say that if you're a domina fan and haven't watched the owl house, you're probably a) gonna like the show and b) gonna have a soft spot for hunter. i've been talking about them as accidental parallels a lot and damn. for context, it started as a joke. i told my friend "that's so hunter coded" when the "devil's quintuplets + mash as spare pieces slash hearts created via magic for IZ" plotline first appeared, i think i even posted about that here, but then domina appeared and the brainrot arose STRONG. like, i haven't been as active in the fandom since Stuff HappenedTM back in 2023 and by last year it became kinda hard for me to engage with the show (tip of the day: dont use your special interest show as comfort and a coping method during one of the most traumatic periods of your life bc the special interest at least for me means it doesn't entirely leave your brain ever LMAO) and i'm back to thinking about hunter specifically because of domina like three hours a day at least. and most of my free time. i lost a full combo on pjsk yesterday bc i zoned out during a show thinking about them.

the thing is, they have a very specific flavor of trauma going on. i need to study their brain under a microspcope. gonna put this in domina terms bc that's the test subject/aff today

out of all the brothers, domina is the one shown to be closest to IZ. as in, he's the only one we're shown to have been raised by IZ himself before being sent to walkis. the only one we see IZ in their childhood memories. while IZ is one of the biggest motivations for all the quintuplets, he is basically domina's only one. domina and cell war's in fact (cell war is a whole other can of worms dude has very similar issues but with the slight variable that is the fact IZ isn't his father or at least doesn't consider himself as such and gave domina that idea as well). and the way he's like a replacement of mash but couldn't fulfill his only purpose WAH he also makes me unwell but my brain didnt latch onto him as hard sigh)

the way in which domina looks up to him is very closely tied to the fact IZ considers himself a god-adjacent figure. and the fact that IZ's following largely acts in a cult-like manner, which isn't that much of a surprise given the previous point.

before the eclipse arc, IZ conducts his following as the "priest-visionary-prophet" role (note the use of visionary there). the society in which the entire story happens is a theocracy. i found this really interesting as soon as the divine visionaries were introduced because i had a feeling they would be paralleled for evil and SURPRISE they were (as if they were all super nice to begin with lol). the thing is that every religion is a cult at its core, and the line is more arbitrary than is useful for analysis sigh.

after i got into toh, i got this really cool book called "cults: the language of fanatism" by amanda montell for analyzing it lmao. i really like the separation she uses in the book, taken from steven hassan, betwen what they call "ethical" cults and "harmful" cults. pretty self explanatory yk. in the story, their religion is considered by many in the ethical cathegory, although later we see from mash and regro's POV that it actually threads the harmful line, given that one of the main characteristics of a harmful one is the extreme polarization created by an "us" and "them", displayed by the hatred towards weak and non magic havers. since most of the world doesn't have weak magic or a lack of it, it would have otherwise never really popped.

however, in IZ's following's case, it's extremely blatant that it's a cult. they have a MUCH more extremely polarized version of the "us vs them" thing, all the language, etc (i heavily recommend checking out the book bc i could make a whole post on the details lol, if you cant find it send me a dm). while the divine visionaries are the "priest- prophet-visionary" leading role, expanding the power sphere and reinforcing the hierarchy in the meanwhile, the hierarchy in IZ's cult is way more strict and restricted, with a series of upper echelons that yet never equal IZ as the leader, leaving him only in the "priest-prophet-visionary" role. where the divine visionaries are seen as godsends to spread the gospel and the beauty of god in a way, and every magic user as someone gifted by divinity, in IZ's circle IZ is a god-incarnate to-be and the quintuplets only take the role of spreading the word and acting upon his wishes. we can also see this in the wands the visionaries are given: where they get to use the power of the gods, only IZ becomes a true one. only IZ is the leader

domina was raised directly by this leader. which means, he received the fullllll blast of all the indoctrination destined for the rest of the cult from the very moment he was created. and mind you, created with a predesigned role. i have questions on why he's the only one of the quintuplets with a last name when it doesn't match IZ's civil one, but i have a feeling it might be related to ostracizing him even from the other quintuplets given IZ considered him to have the most magical potential. which in the end, makes him more easily malleable and prone to giving in to IZ's manipulation.

the specific tactics IZ uses are particularly related to their bond, reaffirming domina's purpose as only one, and making him feel like he had to repay IZ for his affection. i suspect that this has a lot to do with the fact it's mentioned doom fought IZ at some point. IZ then, knowing domina has even more magical potential, resorted to saving himself the trouble by ensuring domina wouldn't have a motive to challenge him instead of placating his otherwise eventual rebellion.

thus, it was ensured that even if domina were to question his allegiance to IZ, he would find it hard to actually have a motive. IZ mistreating him? on the surface, IZ is nothing but caring, giving him attention and sweet words. IZ's requests making him uncomfortable in some way? easily solved by that "it makes me happy to see him happy" logic (which i find even more interesting given it's one of the few pieces of backstory shown, mashle is not really a manga that takes a lot of time with backstories). feeling IZ's affection or care to be deficient? in contrast with the other brothers, he has everything he could wish for. questioning IZ's divinity role? everyone that could have been around him was either going to agree or at least encourage the belief in magic power = divine blessing, therefore the next logical thinking process is IZ having more magic power than anyone else = higher divinity status. which, being sent to walkis, was never going to be challenged. every most likely doubt scenario can be covered by these points.

since these are very simple question-explanation thinking steps, most logical arguments most people could try to use to refute them would appear overcomplicated and less likely to have any actual effect. which is why only mash could break them. straighforward oversimplified logic ingrained into domina's behavior, determining his every behavioral pattern vs straightforward oversimplified logic user because more complicated stuff confuses him mash.

now now. diving into more technical analysis because im a nerd and unironically one of the main reasons im studying psychology is to analyze characters. HUMANISTIC ANALYSIS TIME. if you're not familiar with it, just read points one and two of this post. mash does a good ol' nuclear construct obliteration process through a catastrophic version of daseinanalysis that involves the oversimplification of constructs he observes for his own understanding, which puts the basics of it into perspective for the subject. actually ykw you should read point three as well. the thing that first hooked me into mashle was the similar daseinanalysis confrontation process mash and mob have going on, which is more throughouly (i hope thats spelled correctly) explained in the other post.

going back to domina, he has a very interesting thing going on, because in his pov, he's getting unconditional positive regard. however, IZ is placing undercover conditins of worth onto him, sugarcoated by the fact he never equates power with domina's happiness as much as he equates his happiness with domina's. and it works, because even without ever putting much emphasis into it, both the environtment of IZ's cult and the environment at walkis teach domina the standard condition of worth. thus, he gets both without having IZ as the resposible for placing the most obviously potentially damaging one onto him.

mash, having received actual unconditional positive regard, given the fact regro doesn't have strong magic which is the extended societal condition of worth, is able to point out that for domina. since it's heavily tied into the other one, both break at once, and domina is left to reevaluate and create a new eigenwelt and mitwelt. i want to point out though, that it's interesting that most characters with power levels similar to domina tend to mix up their umwelt and mitwelt, but domina just. doesn't. likely the product of the fact IZ was smart to sugarcoat his manipulation

wow that was a lot of text, but that's it for this post! i have so much to say on him still, maybe i could try to do a construct analyisis hmmm. anything specific that you wanna hear about lmk bc 'll be more than happy to yap again, this was so much fun to write and think!

[magicshopaholic]

Hey Cath, I just have begun reading your work with OCs x BTS and I love it, though I am much intrigued by Chaeyoung and Jhope so I am going through their masterlist first (hopefully this doesn't offend you!) but I want to know more about the OCs. Which Disney 'princess' would they identify with or like the most? Doesn't have to the official Disney princess, can be former or unofficial one!

So apparently this ask has been in my inbox for over a month but I never got a notification for it 😭 I’m so sorry for the delay, anon, but I love this question so much and I took a couple of extra days to think about this because it’s so interesting.

(Also, don’t worry about the masterlist thing. The reading order is there as a recommendation but you do you and I just hope you enjoy it 🥹)

Idolverse OCs as Disney (or Disney-adjacent) Princesses:

Kaya Madaan: My first pick is Tiana, because of their ambition, their perseverance and the fact that they still have room in their lives for love. Kaya and Tiana share a lot of similarities on that front, but I also think there's a little of Jane Porter in Kaya as well. They are both intellectuals and find love in a very unexpected place and even though it's a bit unconventional (a long-distance relationship in Kaya's case and cultural barriers), both work hard to bridge the gap and maintain their relationships. Her favourite princess would be Jasmine or Mulan.

Choi Nari: Nari is a tough one but if I have to choose, I would say she shares a lot with Merida. We see her mother constantly asking her about her relationships and setting her up with young men but Nari has been focused very much instead on her education and her residency, to the point where she has almost lost all sense of a personal life. She pushes away Seokjin and realises what she's done, but it's too late, forcing her to reflect on her own actions. I think they're both tough (Nari has to be, as a surgeon) but there's a lot of fear and vulnerability in them as well. Her favourite princess would be Rapunzel.

Kang Miso: I think the first impressions would probably be Cinderella or Rapunzel because of her family, but from a personality standpoint, I think she shares a lot with Elsa. While they are all isolated and the first two also face emotional abuse like Miso, Elsa shares her lack of self-confidence and tends to push away the people who try to help her (cue Yoongi feeling vindicated af). A large part of Miso's story is self-acceptance as much as escape, and a journey to finding a place in the world outside of her family's influence. Her favourite princess would be Merida or Jasmine.

Kang Chaeyoung: My sweet, wise Chaeyoung is a hundred percent Rapunzel (with a little bit of wise Belle), with her desire to explore the world, gain independence and constantly try new things. She moves to Seoul at a young age, makes friends at yoga class, gives her childhood nemesis a second chance and even though she has her baggage (her mother's death, her father comparing her to her brother, Hoseok's initial dismissal of her), she refuses to let that overshadow her own sense of self. Her favourite princess would be Ariel.

Kim Sooah: Sooah is also a hard one to place but if I had to choose a Disney princess, I would say she stands somewhere between Aurora and Anna. Anna initially is a fun-loving young girl who has a seemingly perfect life but sort of has to step out of that to bring Elsa back. Sooah doesn't have anyone to save exactly, but she prefers to stay in her comfortable world of friends and parties and flings until she has to step out of her comfort zone to confront her past with Jimin. Aurora is a little less similar, but I remember her as being an isolated girl who really longed for human connection. Sooah is far from being isolated but secretly does wish for a fairytale kind of true love and often reminisces about a time when she almost had it. Her favourite princess would be Cinderella.

Dilara Komyshan: For Dilara, the OG OC, my pick would be Ariel. It's no secret that Dilara is a romantic, much like Ariel, and displays a willingness to do pretty much anything for something she loves, be it her sport or a person. She gives up her teenage years and a lot of her life to be a world class athlete, trains and works through the year to be able to achieve her dream. Along with that, she goes to huge lengths to be with Taehyung, to fly across the world and meet him when she can and most importantly, overcomes her doubts to give him a second chance. Her favourite princess would be Belle (but she would tell people it's Mulan).

Cheon Lia: Despite very very few similarities in story, Lia reminds me of Pocahontas, largely in terms of her maturity and desire to avoid conflict for the bigger picture. Like Kaya, she also has similar traits to Tiana in terms of her ambition and hard work, as well as a little Jasmine with her assertiveness and need for independence. Her favourite princess would be Pocahontas.

[countessofbiscuit]

hello! i was wondering if you had any recommendations or advice on how to improve on writing milwank in my fic? you're really good at it and i am in awe. any recommended reading etc would be so appreciated!! hope you have a nice day :)

That’s very kind of you, thank you for reading my stories and telling me what you like about them! I’ll try to distill 15+ years of personal interest, family involvement, and academic study into some broad channels to check out (with the caveat that I've never been in the military or lived anywhere near a combat zone):

Nothing beats first-hand accounts, for starters. I read nonfiction, autobiographies, and memoirs, from a variety of veteran nationalities. But it doesn’t matter the war or the conflict or the branch: military experience shapes not only perspective and thinking, but also—particularly important for writing—the words one uses and how one uses them. Read or listen to enough veterans and it becomes clear which phrases and jargon are actually common currency and which are the stuff of Hollywood and bad listicles on the internet. 

Speaking of Hollywood, a really approachable and digestible resource are those “experts react” videos on YouTube that poured forth during COVID. Channels found ex-service people to watch clips from movies, TV shows, and video games and rate their realism. Gamology has some of my favorite reactors. Some are better at explaining their reasoning than others, or just more engaging. Regardless, watch enough of these and you’ll feel like you have someone sitting on your shoulder as you write, guarding you against creating scenarios that are too far-fetched or just fundamentally wrong. 

Another thing first-hand accounts do is prove that truth is stranger than fiction. Sometimes the unbelievable does actually happen—but it helps to know where things went wrong or sideways, so you can use similar bend and flex convincingly in your own stories. 

r/militarystories on reddit is also a fantastic resource for short-read narratives that highlight military attitudes, experiences, and tribulations—as well as, yeah, wild one-of-a-kind, no-shit-there-I-was stories. The sub encourages spelling out acronyms and explaining concepts in a way that civilians can understand, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time googling things. Some of the regular contributors are published authors. It’s also well moderated and the comments on each story are usually equally rich in good jargon and humor. Great for learning more about military culture(s).

On top of this, there is so much open-source doctrinal information, depending on your stomach for dryness. I am fascinated by “admin”, so I enjoy leafing through memoranda, monographs, white papers, and manuals. Understanding certain principals, objectives, and definitions gives you a stronger understanding of what the military thinks military people are actually supposed to be doing—e.g. route clearance, infil and exfil operations, fire support—and how different military elements are integrated to achieve a goal. This really helps when building out fictional units and trying to understand what their day-to-day looks like. Learn how to give a unit's elevator pitch.

If your eyes tire, return to YouTube or Spotify. Put all those male podcasters to good use. Every ex-SEAL has their own platform now where they interview other ex-service people, and their casual dialogue is often as illuminating as their monologues about specific events. Some of these podcasts have five hour episodes. I stick ‘em on when sewing or painting, absorbing a lot of words while I work with my hands. (All my algorithms think I am a specific black gun, black coffee type of male, which is one downside of this type of media consumption.)

I also enjoy reading books by mil-adjacent folks: ex-CIA employees, UN doctors and aide workers, theatre reporters, etc. Their informed perspective and view of the impact of military operations on civil life is informative and thought-provoking. 

Hope this helps, and thanks for your patience as I’ve been away for a month.