#so i had to create new elements to avoid making it look like i copied pupet

[squeakadeeks]

LITTLE GUY O'CLOCK

whew!! I've had this idea for a soot sprite cosplay for Litcherally so long, i thought it was never going to happen but lo and behold! here he be!! !!! I was trying to avoid fur projects to give the Dust Situation in my abode a rest but that...did not happen 🤨

This costume is another primarily suede affair, with only a few accent fabrics other than the faux fur. 90% of fabrics were from big z....again. The things of note on this guy are the chubby stars which are all painted novelty stress balls! also the big soot sprite, Augustus, is actually a fur covered beach ball.

I've always gotten a kick out of this design and thought the soot sprites were just endlessly charming, so i'm pretty happy with this project!

[mask131]

The thing that I always found abominably fascinating and insanely mind-blowing with the Earthsea series is that it breaks all the worn-out, over-used, “seen everywhere” cliches of fantasy people complain about today and try to avoid. 

Tired of your typical Europe-setting? Here is a world of islands influenced by a lot of various non-European civilizations!

Tired of having a white-predominant cast? Here is a series where people of color are the dominant ethnicities and the white are the minority and bizarre barbarian foreigners from far away!

Tired of having the heroes go on grand and perilous monster-slaying quest to fight some dark overlord or fetch a magical item? Here are books where the villains are elusive, abstract and philosophical threats, where the quests to defeat them are very down-to-earth, solitary and rely more on self-search and the understanding of human nature rather than great exploits. 

Tired of seeing the same old-worn out fantasy races tropes? None of this here! 

This book series was created with the intention of subverting, avoiding or breaking the new tropes and stereotypes that were rising up with the success of Tolkien’s work. It was made to be different and ground-breaking and stereotype-crushing, and it worked extremely well, becoming a classic of fantasy literature and influencing the genre massively... And yet, people only rediscover it today, and know about it today somehow. (Well a “large” today including the dozen of last years of so).

This series is the perfect example of the “new” fantasy that rises up in the modern era, as an attempt to “break off” from the “traditional” or “cliche” fantasy... And the first book has been sitting there since the END OF THE 60s!!! 

There are more examples I could point out of books that present to us a completely out-there, trope reinventing, stereotype breaking form of fantasy - and that yet have been there since the 70s or the 80s, or even before! As I went back in time to see several of the “classics” of fantasy literature, I came to understand something - a lot of the “cliches” and “stereotypes” and “over-used tropes” of fantasy people complain about today were not at all dominant for a very long time. If you believe the words of many people out there, you imagine fantasy never had black characters or queer characters or non-European settings or non-Tolkienesque plotlines until the 2010s or something... Which is not true. Fantasy was such a varied, bizarre, diverse genre in its literary form all throughout the 20th century, and many “old” works of the first generations of the post-Tolkien fantasy are basically what people want to see today as “pattern-breaking and fresh new fantasy”. 

The Tolkienesque-fantasy and all of its cliches and stereotypes were not so much dominant as just present in a handful of massively popular and widespread works - the case of the Shannara series can be pointed out, as its first book was PRAISED at the time for being able to recreate a Tolkien story in the 70s, and it was because it was mostly a copy of the Lord of the Rings that it got so popular (and why it is not well-liked today). And then the 80s rolled and early D&D reignited the flame of the Tolkien-inspired fantasy. By the 90s, it seemed Tolkien had been used and over-used to death, and people didn’t trust it all anymore... Which is why David Eddings’ Belgariad series was created. Its key point was to take back all the elements of the traditional epic fantasy story, but reassemble them, freshen them up, twist them slightly, all of that to re-create a by-the-book BUT fresh, new and interesting series. It was an attempt at prooving that, with innovation and some twists and modernization, the Tolkienesque fantasy would not die - and it worked massively well. And then in the 2000s, the Lord of the Rings movie sealed the deal. 

All these works make it look like fantasy had always been copying or taking inspiration from Tolkien. But it is false. It is true that most of the classics are tied to Tolkien, but not always in imitation or re-creation - in the case of “Earthsea”, there was a willing attempt at getting away and inverting the Tolkienesque fantasy to create a fantasy that went the very opposite direction. Same thing with the Elric Saga, also designed to be the reverse or opposite of The Lord of the Rings, and which in turn became the classic of another new genre of fantasy: dark fantasy. And Conan in all that? People forget that the Conan the Barbarian series were just as influential for fantasy works as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was. The Elric Saga, again, was created to completely reverse and avoid the Conan-like fantasy. A similar thing was done with Leiber for his “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser” series, which was designed to break away from the Conan “heroic fantasy” style and reinvent the genre in a new direction. 

There are so many “old” and “classic” works of literary fantasy that actually do not feel like a “classic” at all because they have all the vibes, elements and expectations one has from a non-classic, non-traditional fantasy... BUT THEY ARE THE FOUNDATIONS, they are the basis and classics and inspirations of fantasy. And it all shows this huge gap between what people think fantasy is, and what fantasy really was - it is a fascinating case study of how one specific trend somehow got over the entire genre. Imagine a world where people think Gothic novels can only have a vampire or the ghost of a judge, and must be Bram Stokers-inspired, and that everybody points out they are tired to see Dracula-expies everywhere... Only to discover the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and be baffled by them and their “inventivity” and “breaking of patterns”. I’m sorry, that’s the fastest comparison I can make, but this feels just like that. There is this strangely specific idea of what fantasy is today forged on a few items... I think, beyond the massive success of Tolkien and imitators, D&D probably is also to “blame” for how people see fantasy today.

But even then, D&D took inspiration from so many non-conventional works of fantasy... Yes many became “classics” now, though often ignored by the masses - The Elric Saga, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were big influences. But take the Jack Vance series “The Dying Earth”, another big inspiration on early D&D. Take that. This series is from the 50s - FROM THE 50S - and yet it is a unique genre of sci-fi fantasy that I haven’t seen much being done around, and it creates such a weird, whimsical, bizarre, surrealistic fantasy world, it feels completely unique. And again, it is a classic of the 50s and 60s. 

I don’t really know where I try to go with this but the important thing is: when someone wants to read “non-traditional” or “non-Tolkienesque” fantasy, or “non-stereotyped” fantasy, it is possible, instead of searching for every new author nowadays (not a bad thing to do that though), it is possible to just go back in time, look back at the books of the 70s, 60s and 50s, and find there a novelty, a freshness and an inventivity that is lacking in a mass production of modern day fantasy. And that such a thing is possible is truly crazy for me. I don’t know if such a thing happened with other literary genres, but it is insane that sometimes in fantasy, to see “new” things you just have to look back into the past. 

[nalonzooo]

you’re one of my favourite artists and one of the reasons I want to start drawing!!! >.< I’ve started and it’s a bit difficult but fun!!

I was wondering if you had any tips on how to draw face shapes and dynamic poses? I love the way you draw face shapes and the actual expressions!!! (it’s always so hard for me 😭) and your poses are super cute!!!

YAAYY NEW ARTIST🥳!! i’m SO happy to hear this -

and absolutely i’d love to share what i’ve come to learn (so far!) re: face shapes and poses as a hobby artist ^^

just to preface everything, when it comes to giving art advice there’s always a general disclaimer that there’s no right way to do art, in the end you should do what you like to do! sometimes i like to think of art as problem-solving, and there are many ways to tackle specific problems <3

for face shapes and expressions - lately i love to reference and do studies of Ami Thompson and Shiyoon Kim’s character design and expression sheets for Spiderverse. these are INCREDIBLY evocative and useful. you can study these expressions and poses and try to recreate them on different characters, and you’ll notice the difference in eye shapes, face shapes, noses, etc; studying these differences is what will help us avoid same face syndrome. what i generally like to do is find art that i like - comic/manga panels, fan art, anything i want to learn how to draw like - and copy it into my sketchbook for personal practice and study to see what elements i can incorporate into my own drawing.

another tip - any medium is good for drawing, but i highly suggest esp when you’re starting - learn to draw with ink! drawing traditionally and with something unerasable will help with your draftsmanship and line confidence. it’ll be wonky at first but you learn to be deliberate with every stroke. tbh becoming a digital artist has deteriorated my draftsmanship and has made me heavy-handed, and it’s something i’m trying to consciously remedy right now. digital art is highly convenient and best for sharing, but when i do studies i stick to pen and paper :)

as for poses - one v important thing i learned in creating dynamic art is to “push” or exaggerate the poses. what you see in a photo reference - if you try to draw that 1:1 on paper, it doesn’t always translate well—the energy is not always captured, and it usually looks so stiff. what is in 3D has to be translated a different way to 2D. so “push” it to create more energy - exaggerate the movements - even if they’re just standing, you can make it dynamic by being conscious of how they’re standing (where the weight is balanced, push one hip up, make them lean one direction, for example). i doodled some examples here:

^ first one is gojo just standing; now how i would “push” this pose is to show him putting more of his weight on one hip and maybe putting his opposite foot up a bit to suggest some movement (and balance). the third one is just a bit more variation where his body is still putting weight more on one side, his feet are more glued to the ground, but i put his hand out to do his signature victory sign just for a bit of flair. so it’s a lot of figuring out how to convey balance and weight and movement and personality :) start with exaggerating the pose - then you can create more and more dynamic art from there ^^

pushing and exaggerating applies to facial expressions, too! instead of merely drawing someone with a smile, try tilting their head a little sideways (and show how their hair might move as well bc of this), add some blush, raise their shoulders a bit, etc).

and i 100% recommend taking gesture drawing classes for dynamic poses ^^ there are a lot of artists who have draw-with-me tutorials on youtube, and i personally like to use line-of-action.com for timed sessions.

i hope this is helpful in even a little way—good luck on your drawing journey and remember to trust the process bc progress is def not linear as an artist but deliberate practice and studies WILL help you! <3

[windvexer]

Do you know any spells for attracting good and healthy (as in going to treat me respectfully and kindly) friends? I'm having difficulty coming up with a spell myself, as it's been a while since I've done a spell.

Good morning! On reflection I think I might know a total of about 5 spells and none of them related to friendship, so I asked around.

And while the buds had some great links, none of them were directly related to attracting friends.

I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but I can regardless suggest a general course of action:

[Please consider the following to be aligned to my personal practice; I'm not trying to claim that this Tumblr post is the 1 true way to do magic.]

Try combining your conjuring spell with a protection against disrespectful, unkind friends. This protection can be accomplished through the creation of a simple amulet or energetic shielding patterned to that specific purpose.

I believe that magic we put on ourselves can subtly influence those around us. Very aggressive, scary protections can make people think of us as being aggressive and scary. So, protections for your purpose are better off being gentle (perhaps those protections provided by Amethyst or Rose Quartz, or Cinnamon, *maybe* Dill if you want to come off as a bit mysterious and cool, and of course all varieties of common and garden Sage).

Try working yourself into a lovely spell jar that reminds you of exactly the kind of friendships you'd like to have in your life. According to my beliefs, these kinds of jars work best if the are charged/fed and activated.

Any sort of general, basic spell jar format is fine, as long as it's a spellcasting technique you're comfortable with.

I'm looking up resources for friendship and finding very little. Intuition advises that sugar, lemon, and allspice might serve you well. But, of course, anything you like is what should be done. If you like to work with elemental correspondences, consider using Air (communication, talking) and Water (relationships, connection). Of planets, Mercury and Venus might be helpful.

Try working "consumable" spells, such as a candle or incense spell, dressed and treated to specifically attract a respectful, kind friend.

If you don't know of or have certain correspondences, direct energy work can be used to imbue the candle or incense with desired outcomes.

If you're interested in doing multiple spells, you can do both the jar and other types of friend-conjuring spells as well.

Find-a-Friend Powder

I have a lovely copy of Pestlework by @breelandwalker, which is a formulary of magical powders. I got her permission to share the Find-a-Friend Powder formula from that book:

2 pt Confectioner's Sugar

1 pt Forget-Me-Not Blossoms

1 pt Pink Rose Petals

1 pt Meadowsweet**

½ pt Passionflower Herb**

½ pt Cloves

** Substances which should be avoided by those who are pregnant or nursing

Add the powder to a bottle charm that you carry with you to attract quality friends and companions. You can also combine it with modeling clay and use that to create a charm or poppet to be the focus of such spells.

NicGarran, Bree. Pestlework: A Book of Magical Powders & Oils (p. 49). Kindle Edition.

Bree also kindly notes that most any attraction or love spell can be modified to call friends and compaions, instead of lovers.

[For those interested, here is an additional resource list of some of Bree's recipes available for free]

Other Notes:

I find that when working multiple spells towards the same goal, assigning a spirit helper to oversee the operation can be of great value.

This can easily be done by petitioning the help of a tarot card. This is a basic ritual format for petitioning tarot cards.

I would especially recommend working with the Knight/Cups to find a friend, the 2/Cups to foster new relationship beginnings, and the 3/Cups to nurture desired relationships.

If seeking one card to oversee general operations, I recommend the Knight/Cups.

I hope some of this ends up helping! Best of luck.

[omamervt]

(This is a review of Rain Code)

So I have been a Danganronpa fan for a while. I started playing them when I ran out of Ace Attorney games and just wanted to scratch that itch (this was before the re-releases on modern devices, so replays of actual AA games could be tedious). I always thought they were just kind of okay in comparison, but D1 and D2 interested me enough that I bought V3 the week it released. V3 convinced me that this design team not only hated their own fanbase, but was incapable of genuinely good storytelling with real intention behind it.

Rain Code proved that to be false. The mysteries were all way less complex - I was able to figure out each case before the investigation was over - but that may be a plus for some people. But in the simplicity, they found time to actually build to a meaningful plot twist at the end of the game - and then DO something with it. Danganronpa games all relied on shock and awe to sell their plot, and I can't say Rain Code NEVER does that, especially in Chapters 4 and 5, but again, the thing that sets it apart is that they DO something with it. Without spoiling anything, the game creates a central theme around the idea of a "perfect" solution, and then declares that no such thing can exist when the people affected most are left out of creating it. There was an actual point.

About the gameplay, I hate just comparing this game to the studio's previous work. However, it's hard not to when there are so many gameplay elements that were copied or repurposed. We don't have the Ace Attorney-inspired Trial system, but we do have the Mystery Labyrinth, where the mascot turns into a cute girl, vomits up some keys and a sword, and then takes you to an alternate reality built on the mystery you're trying to solve. there, you explore branching paths, complete quicktime events, and play the occasional minigame to put the pieces of the puzzle together. One of these minigames is a pseudo-combat sequence that works almost exactly like the Trial sequence, where you avoid irrelevant statements, then attack incorrect ones with your evidence. Unfortunately, the tutorial was the best Labyrinth. It was a little longer due to... well, being a tutorial, and also had some additional elements - such as a false exit - which never had the opportunity to make a comeback because once you knew what the actual end sequence was supposed to look like, you'd know better than to fall for them. The game also introduced some new elements, such as side quests, which weren't really worth doing - all of them were simple fetch quests with no fun side mysteries to solve.

Overall, I'd say the game is imperfect, but it was a worthwhile murder mystery, and if you were disappointed by Danganronpa V3, it might restore your faith in the studio. It did mine.

[radsunny]

vers 1.1 update

This is going to be the first big update about the project. Mostly because I finally got around to re-tooling the project into an actual narrative – think of this first jump from CONCEPT to DRAFT.

Many issues to consider after doing so, and the main points are:

This thing is way too goddamn big!!!!!!!

There are issues with how the player accesses pages in a chronological or nonlinear order (basically, the calendar page “index” is not very responsive)

I need to telegraph more clearly when players have made a choice that changes the narrative structure or adds new content

Some screenshots of what CHURL looks like right now:

Graphically, it looks great. It’s exactly what I want it to look like. It makes me happy to see how insanely garish and overwhelming it is to see the content for the first time.

The main point of this prototype was to see if the content I already had could be fit into the new framework of treating BEED’s narrative like a blog you can browse through a centralized WayBack Machine-like index calendar page.

The gameplay cycle is as such:

Look at the index and pick a date (does not have to be day 1, but that does help contextualize the story more easily.) to visit a version of BEED’s site at that moment in time.

Browse the main page (BEED’s posts), the chat (side window) and other links (ABOUT, TYPEWRITER, PROJECT ARCHIVE, etc.) that look clickable. Read the content, analyze what is happening on that day for all the characters.

Repeat for all the available days on the calendar.

(not implemented yet) according to the textual clues collected during the month cycle, provide a summary statement on what BEED’s research ‘yielded’ or not throughout the month.

The most difficult part of transferring the project from a straightforward linear set of Twine passages to this new format is figuring out how to repeat content structurally while changing the content narratively on a fairly frequent basis.

Also, just in terms of my own lack of restraint when it comes to filling out the game, I ended up with six days of content in the new prototype totaling 58 passages. The original prototype outlining three weeks has a total of 55 passages. big time uh-oh moment.

A part of why CHURL ballooned so hard is that I am limited in my understanding of Twine’s ability to automate sections of the narrative, so I was basically copy-pasting static pages time and time again when a new “MAIN’ page was created.

Coupled with this is the fact that I wanted to include bonus content for players who visited certain pages or clicked ‘secret’ links. I had only become comfortable with using the (else), (either), (if x is true/false) macros that I limited myself to a binary variable structure. Again, this led me to just start multiplying passages to avoid the confusion that comes with players clicking the “RETURN TO MAIN.HTML” button and it working only on day 4 + 5, when they are on day 6…etc.

The solutions to these problems are basically: pull out the Harlowe Cookbook and read it properly without taking the simplest macros and trying to push them past their limits.

There is also the issue of how I started using Twine: as soon as I booted it up three years ago, I realized that I could use HTML and CSS to deal with a lot of the game’s links, pages, and graphic elements. I largely discarded the idea of using Harlowe as a language for this kind of stuff, so I am now atoning for my sins by trying to understand it better.

Turns out telling yourself “oh wouldn’t it be cool if also this happened” every time you thought it makes it impossible to maintain a workable structure for a project that you want to have an ENDING by April. So, I am also pulling the reins hard on outlining a developing/designing pipeline that does not kill me (metaphorically, psychologically, metaphysically).

After having the folks from the Behaviour Research Chair group play the prototype, I was given feedback which I summarize here:

Figure out the saving of player options, constant hotlink that takes the players to what they’ve found – journal updates for players – collects for them, shunting off a path – an inventory of sorts

How to get back to the progress, locking content and saved

History and Storylet tags in Harlowe/Twine – need to look into

The peripheral chatter is great – helps flesh out the world nicely – read on BEED through them

But, it isn’t clear who “I” is, who is it coming from sometimes – who is speaking at this moment?

The handholding of the first week of content – tutorializing the site!!!!

(not familiar with Beowulf) Felt overwhelmed – what is Beowulf? you have to tutorialize a bit

Every month could be a self-contained chapter, drip-feeding the initial bits

Real-time events – look into how to add this, maybe

The sound of the old mouse clicking, ads, broken gifs, etc

Notification sound or graphic on the DM window to draw attention to it

Interacting with the game’s text confirms the excitement for it, the text is great – it is a rewarding chunk of text every time, my time is worth it       

The trajectory is hard to understand – need framing for why you are doing, you would accumulate, this is developing live to some extent – how do you take this? needs to be framed – needs a progression scheme

Rather than a test, this site is a quest – directing the attention of the player to something

For ex: We unearthed a snapshot of the website, click on it – to move forwards the next website page

Telegraph a few things, and they should be part of the experience – it is worth overdoing it and backtracking.

“this will be remembered” something like that

On the issues with the Calendar Index page: The story might be better served without the overarching top-down view – leaning more into the interactive idea

Idea to replace the index: The split screen of the graphs (the top section of the WayBack Machine) always present on top of the screen, letting players interact with them at any point

Waypoints for the next prototype are pretty clear after documenting what I’ve done and listened to feedback on what could work better or differently:

WORKING LIST OF NEEDED TASKS (EMPHASIS ON NEEDED, NOT WANTED):

Investigate the storylet and history macros in Harlowe

Talked to another designer who has used storylet extensively – this might be an option for more ‘randomized’ content rather than structurally aligning things to happen one after another in a specific list.

Re-tool the narrative to be spread out across a much larger span of in-game time

A “week” of tutorializing sounds good to me, and it will allow me to fix a couple of issues at a time:

orienting players, setting up the “quest,” telegraph how player choice impacts the narrative.

Turn the landing page into the graph of years the WayBack machine has “crawled” a site and paste it on top of the MAIN.HTML page of content, allowing players to go back and forth between days more easily.

Maybe keep the calendar index for the overarching narrative which is supposed to last a whole year (with gaps!!!!!!!!!! I will not write a whole year of content that’s crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

[cryingbluez]

(Sorry about all the chaos in this, I did try to go thru it and clean it up a bit, but its all just rambles, so yeah sorry if u don't get anything. This is all copy pasted from my ramble on my art book on Wattpad)

HHHHHH okay, so I did say I was making my own version of Jouta (I can't remember if I also said I'd be remaking his stand as well. but that as well X'D). So here you go heres my version of Jouta and his stand 'Charmy Green' ("Devil Freefall"). The second pic of his stand is just to show how tall it is compared to Jouta (my Jouta is 6'3) (also forgot to mention in Devil's ref but the tail's are optional to draw uwu) Despite the stand looking completely different, I wanted to somewhat keep Jouta looking similar to his original design, since ima be honest, I like the original design. I just wanted to add more elements of Kak to him, idk if I managed to succeed with that thou. Oh well its fineeeee.

(More info+Backstory (My Jouta's backstory is different to the original Jouta's) under the cut, I didn't want this post to get too long.) (Yet again sorry for all the chaos under the cut, I was writing it quick before my brain died, so things may be a bit mixed up? lets hope I got everything right X'D)

His stands name is based off of the song "Rainbow Kitten Surprise - freefall". And Jouta's stand Mainly does shit like explosions. His stand makes him invulnerable to things like fire and other explosions. Only if its (Devil Freefall) either fully summoned, or has itself wrapped around Jouta His stand can let him do similar shit that you see in FireForce as well as if his stand gets a good punch on someone it can do (a smaller version of) "Crimson Moon"- from FireForce. So basically his stand is kinda op. BUT I think my Jouta as a character balances it out, basically Jouta doesn't really use it to its full potential, since nearly always has it unravelled. He refuses to fight along side people to, due to his stands power he is afraid he'd hurt someone.  Friend or Foe his stand will harm them.  On top of that Jouta is very driven by emotion, thats his downfall in most things. And may be the thing that trips him up in a battle. He can also be quite selfish with things, especially when it comes to Kak, pretty much he'll do what HE believes is best, even if it isn't the best thing.  haha au time :D (also a au where no one dies) His backstory is different from the original. Basically, to put it somewhat simply, a stand user that was a follower of Dio attacked both Jotaro and Kakyoin. Hurt them pretty bad, but they managed to come out on top and kill the stand user, but the stand user could 'cheat death' in a way, but at the cost of memory and defence? (in a way. Since he becomes young, can end up as a child.)  Using Jotaro's and Kakyoin's blood his stand basically remade it's user in a way before 'dying'. (Remade itself loosly off of Kak's and Joots's stand) Making Jouta. (the more blood there is that the stand could have gotten, the older the user could create the body, since there wasn't too much of their blood it made Jouta around 6 years old)

At first they (mainly Jotaro) were gonna kill him again, but quickly realized that Jouta had no memories of his previous life and was basically just a 6 year old. Jotaro still didn't trust him, but trusted Kakyoin's judgment on the situation.  To which when they dragged Jouta along with them to the rest of the group and explained what happened. It was also met with scepticism. But after a while was dismissed. Joseph was more so happy to have a kid about (despite the situation they were all in trying to get to Dio).  Joseph and Kakyoin mainly taking care of Jouta, with Avdol and Polnareff taking care of him every so often (more so acted as uncle figures towards Jouta). Jotaro still held his scepticism about Jouta, so tended to avoid him when he could.  They discovered that Jouta had a new stand, though no one ever fully saw it, only it unravelled, not even seeing the stands hands or anything.

When it came to the Dio fight they sent Jouta to the Speedwagon Foundation. Not wanting to involve a child in the last fight. (kept him along with them up until that point, since as much as they'd like to believe that Jouta was a kid, he came from an enemy dying and remaking themselves. So they didn't want to put the Speedwagon Foundation in trouble if Jouta did turn on them. Which obviously wasn't the case.) (since this is a everyone lives au people just end up injured in the hospital after the fight) After the fight Jouta got to see the others again, and refused to leave Kakyoin's side, partly blaming himself for what happed to Kak, wanting to protect him. Making a promise to himself that he will never let anyone else hurt Kak. He partly understood he couldn't have done anything about it, but it's just the fact he could have tried to stop Kak from going to the fight, but didn't. Obviously a few years go by, and Jouta stays by Kak, things did get better in terms of him and Jotaro, but he (Jouta) obviously didn't like him (Jotaro) as much as Kak. He normally gets asked to run errands for Kak or the Speedwagon Foundation, normally delivering things to Jotaro when he was in Morioh (which led to him meeting Josuke).

(thats all I got so far, but yee, obviously I could expand on this story a lot more, but the jist of it is, Jouta born from blood, adores Kak with his life and would die for Kak since Kak was the only one who truly believed in him since the start, Jouta would also die for Joseph, he ends up living with Kak after the events of part 3, does once and a while spend time with Jotaro (maybe spends a week with him every so often, he would do it more, its just he hates being away from Kak)) (In this au Jotaro and Kak become best friends pretty quick before Jouta, and still remain best friends. Since Jouta looks similar enough to Kak when Jotaro gets his wife, they pretend that Jouta came from a past relationship that Kak was in, and that Jotaro became a second dad to him. Which (idk if she has a name) Jotaro's wife quickly became a mother figure to Jouta. So when Jolyne was born, they were raised as siblings in the context of Jotaro's and Kak's lie, despite them being actual siblings. When Jotaro ends up divorcing his wife Jouta still visits her and Jolyne since he adores the two as well. Helping them both out when they can, Kak also remains on good terms with the wife after the divorce. )  (idk if I will end up adding more to this, so yeah just take what I got, if anyone got any questions just ask oof)

[hanyaraksa]

“3 Women (1977)”

Pinky Rose (played by Sissy Spacek) idolizes Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall) with whom she works. This adoration borders on a slight obsession. This "light obsession" turns into something darker and more disturbing when Millie proposes Pinky to be her flatmate. The relationship between two women grows more intense and strange. Pinky, naive and confused, stares at Millie, who in her eyes is the ideal of a young woman. Meanwhile, Millie creates her character on the model of models promoted within popular culture.

We are introduced to another woman - the mysterious pregnant Willie, who spends her days on painting. Each of these women represents three different personalities of one person. This film is a portrait of an American woman against the backdrop of social and moral changes at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. Director Robert Altman admitted that he was inspired by his dreams to create it.   At the beginning of the film, three women represent the stereotypical roles women play in society. Pinky is innocent, childish and shy at the beginning of the film, her character is yet to be formed, then there is Millie, who looks and tries to act like a modern woman that takes inspiration from colorful magazines, shares recipes and is also sexually liberated, but there is something about her that makes others avoid her and the only person who wants to spend time with her is Pinky, she is actually very lonely. Willie is presented as the mother, a more mature, wise woman, and together with her husband Edgar, she co-owns a bar where Millie and Pinky spend a lot of their time.  The element of water appears very often in the film. Altman said the opening shot represents the amniotic fluid surrounding a fetus. Willie paints her macabre creatures at the bottom of the pool.

Millie and Pinky's relationship becomes more and more complicated, causing Pinky to attempt suicide and jump into the pool, losing consciousness by the force of the impact. After this event, the psyche of the protagonists completely changes. Pinky wakes up in the hospital as a completely different person, she does not recognize people who say that they are her parents, and orders everyone to call her Milgred ( the name she shares with Millie). From that moment on, the dynamics between them shifted by 180 degrees. When the women come home from the hospital, Pinky starts copying Millie and her behaviors, such as drinking, smoking, but also sleeping with Edgar. The style in which she dresses also changes dramatically. 

Millie, on the other hand, does not understand this whole new situation, it scares her, and so she begins to turn into Pinky from before the accident, less confident and more timid.  One night, Pinky has a nightmare so she and Milie share a bed. Suddenly, drunk Edgar bursts into the apartment and announces that Willie is giving birth. Two women went to help her, unfortunately the baby is stillborn, because Pinky did not call for help, which Millie told her to do. After all this we see two women working in the tavern previously run by Edgar and Willie. They returned to their dynamics from the beginning of the movie, however, Millie's behavior is now more like Willie's, Pinky calls her "mother". We also learn that Edgar died from a 'gun accident', but the film makes us understand that the women were most likely responsible for his death.

Altman admits that he himself does not know the answers to many of the questions that come to mind while watching his film, because many things are a mystery to him. As I mentioned before, he based on a dream he had.  The heroes he created are extremely authentic. Altman is known for analyzing falsified ideas and apparent patterns functioning in the society around him. The style of this avant-garde film is symbolic. It can be read in many ways, such as the complexity of female nature or a reflection on human confusion. “3 Women” is very complex and extraordinary.

[masterhandss]

Hi~

I'm curious about what you think a Hamefura-GBF crossover would look like ^^

OP YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE AWAKENED IN ME WITH THIS QUESTION AJSHGJAHSGD

As a fan of both I've always created different ideas in my mind of what a GBF-Hamefura collab would be like!! I'm not really creative enough to be able to drop some fan-made collab name ideas or a full premise for the collab's plot, just some random tidbits of fun ideas I thought of.

// warning: very minor spoilers for the novels/fortune lover 2

For how Katarina and the gang gets into the world of Granblue Fantasy, I think it would be really cool if it combines something like the Shadowverse collab where they are just thrown into the world without much explanation (maybe playing it out like another Book of Desires-type thing where Katarina stumbles upon a magic tool that sends them all there) and the Love Live Muse collab where it's kinda just a dream. Not that I want Katarina to dream the entire thing, I just find it really funny how in the Manga Bonus SS, Katarina immediately figures out that she's in a dream and just plays along, which would make her nonchalance about being thrown into another world funny and make sense (for her at least). Maybe in the end it could be revealed to be a dream all along, like the Love Live and most recent Deresute collab.

For the plot itself, I'm not really good at coming up up anything new, all I can think of is making something similar to existing collabs and events qwq. It would really funny if the primal beast behind everything is one who is gluttonous, and Katarina beats them in a competition of iron stomachs (like the Priconne collab and Eating Bonanza Summer event). Or have the event story end with Katarina confronting and talking down a humanoid primal beast and charming him into surrender post-battle, something similar to how she won over Raphael (imagine how funny it would be for Keith to smack his head and sigh, as Katarina continues to charm more people, and a primal beast at that XDD).

Maybe even something like the Code Geass collab where at the same time Katarina and the gang end up in the Sky Realm, the crew is on a quest to find a criminal who is stirring trouble in an island, and that criminal had a striking resemblance to Katarina (or an FL2!Katarina). Like that other Katarina is just an illusion created by a primal beast in order to hide his identity, not really basing the image on anyone specific but just creating someone based on the perfect image of a scheming villainess lmao (and being surprised after finding out that the very girl does exist). Cue confusion from the crew and the harem, while Katarina feels both pride and fear over being called the spitting image of a villainess hgfjhsdgf.

You can even make the plot something like the GBF SideM collab + Hamefura Pirates, where the situation they are in is actually from a Fortune Lover x GBF collab (that Katarina dreams Acchan playing/was mentioned to her once in passing) that somehow (???) has ties to Katarina's fate in FL2.

And please, I would love a quick scene of everyone dining with the crew, and everyone comments on Katarina and Lyria's black hole of a stomach XDD

It would kinda be cool if Katarina had a moment where she uses Phalanx, since VOD showed us that there are shield-type spells in hamefura (canonicity is debatable though) but I guess since Nico already did that in the Love Live collab that'd be copying/too similar haha).

For the event rewards, Katarina would join your party after Chapter2 of course :DD By then she would have met the crew. The other playable characters depends on who you ask to be honest. I don't want to sound mean or anything to the fans of the girls, but when I first encountered the question, my mind immediately went the NinSwitch otome game and how all the boys are the capturable characters. Since HameFura clearly favors the Katarina + the boys in the marketing, I thought realistically that if there was a collab, the playable characters would be them. That would be 5 playable characters though, which might be a lot so I guess a good alternative is a Playable Katarina, Geordo, Keith and maybe Maria too. Combining the three girls into a single unit wouldn't be likely, I think it's more realistic to assume they would be the event summon instead (or at least have a cameo in Katarina's victory animation)

(LOOK I EVEN MADE SOME QUICK EDITS/MOCKUPS, DO YOU SEE HOW EXCITED I AM ABOUT THIS QUESTION HGJHSDGF)

Katarina would be a Dark SSR (sorry if that's considered as a spoilers to anyone qwq) whose attacks also inflict a partial earth damage. She would be an attack-type character with a sabre and axe specialty (axe because hoe haha). I just can't imagine her being an Earth Character unless Keith isn't playable, because then I guess she could just inflict partial dark damage via casted debuffs in order to reference FL2. She's probably mostly has attack skills that either gives buffs or increases her charge bar. Katarina would get a 5 star uncap in the next event rerun :P

Geordo would be a Fire SSR with a sabre specialty. He's be an attack-type character who specializes in Attack/Support. Spoilers to the light novels kinda, but I imagine Geordo to have a special third skill that gives him lots of buffs but either debuffs him & kills him eventually (like Dark Jeanne) or sacrifices his HP (like Fire Yuisis) as a reference to Volume 8, where he's a bit unhinged when he's angry and will use his fire magic lethally to anyone who harms his friends.

Keith would be an Earth SSR with a sabre and staff specialty. He would be Special character, acting as a Support/Debuffer. I imagine that he could have his own personal buff called "Earth Dolls" that get consumed each turn, and having a lot would increase the damage of his charge attack. I know the picture says katana instead of staff, I'm just too lazy to edit it again :'))

Alan would be a Water SSR with a sabre and gun specialty (why gun? he uses a gun in the hamefura fantasy au so :DD). He'd be a balanced-type character who is an Attacker/Defender. I imagine he'd be like SSR Romeo, who is good for defense but is preferably used to deal some damage (or at least that's how I use him lmao).

Nicol would be a Wind SSR with a sabre and bow specialty (bow because wind element :DD). He would be a defense-type character who specializes in Defense/Support. Either lands some good debuffs (Def Down, Debuff Success Boosted, Blind, Gravity and CHARM OF COURSE) or has Substitute Ally. Most likely the prior. I know that sounds like he should be a special-type character instead so I'm suggesting he should have a skill with Shield and Immune in a single package.

I imagine the girls to be an event summon together (in my hypothetical scenario where the boys are the playable characters) where they give random buffs (like 3-6 buffs depending on the lvl and uncap). I imagine that they would have a special Call Effect with Katarina, giving her more buffs or a special buff meant just for her :DD

In the event that Maria is a playable character, she would be a Light SSR who has a staff specialty. She would be a Heal-type character who specializes in Support. Her skills could have stuff like a heal that activates for a few turns, light def-down and a def-up to name a few.

The event SSR weapon would be a "Doom Flag" of course! It blends perfectly with the dozen other flag-looking spear weapons in the game XDD

My ideas for the SR weapon would either the "Doom Avoidance Strategy Book" which would be a Dark Melee weapon, or a smaller "Bad End Doom Flag" which would be a Fire Dagger (haha get it, because Geordo Bad End :)).

Hahaha that's all I can really think of when it comes to a collab. If you want me to talk about a Hamefura RPG AU, but with GBF classes/races then I can make a whole other post for that sjkfhdsk i've always wanted to draw/imagine the hamefura characters wearing job classes & magic from GBF!

Imagine Mary wearing the Dancer/Masquerade class outfit, Maria in the Doctor class, Alan in the Elysian class, Nicol in the Cavalier/Robin Hood class, Geordo in the Glorybringer class, Keith in the Relic Buster class (as a reference for him being a black knight in the manga bonus ss), Sophia in the Warlock/Asparas class, and Katarina in the Chrysaor/Lumberjack class!!

If anyone would like to add with more collab ideas, I would love to hear it!!!!

Anyways, thank you for the ask :DD

[whereisten]

Perfect.

A Winwin fic that’s part of our Halloween Series!

Summary: things get busy for one of the world’s leading scientist’s, Yuta, so he creates his own efficient and trustworthy personal assistant robot a.k.a Sicheng. But what happens when his perfect creation develops a flaw or two?

Pairing: Scientist!Yuta x Robot!Winwin

Genre: horror, smut, angst, a tinyyy little bit of fluff

Word Count: 6K

Warnings: dark themes, side piece Doyoung, Yuta has major God-complex syndrome, cursing, weapon usage, blood mention, smut: mlm (top!Yuta, bottom!doyoung, bottom!winwin, anal penetration, masturbation, oral sex, c*eampie.

(A/N): hey guys!! This is the first fic we are posting for our Halloween Series! Every day we will post a new fic for each member of NCT 2020 so be sure to stop by to see what dark and spookyyyyy stories we create. This is also my first time writing BL so I hope it’s good enough for a first try😂 I will do better next time. Thank you❤️🥺.

—————

“He’s perfect” Yuta looks upon his creation in the open glass box.

“Height. 5’11. Date of Birth. October 28th, 1997. Eye color. Dark Brown. Hair color. Dark Brown. Origin of parts. Wenzhou, China.”

“It looks so...real. It’s kinda creepy..” Doyoung, Yuta’s coworker, analyzed the texture of the robot’s face.

“Well, he wasn’t made to be pleasant, only efficient.”

“Yes, but Yuta..don’t you think this is a bit much? Mimicking the face of an actual person..someone that died over 100 years ago? Will you name it Dorian too?”

Yuta created his robot as a personal assistant to him. He found that humans were full of error and it made them incompetent and negligent beings. And Yuta, being the best scientist in Japan, just couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. So he created him. The perfect robot, a “copy machine” that could keep up with him and do the work he does just as efficiently. He would be just as smart as him.

Yuta steps closer and runs a finger down the robots face, causing a neon green honeycomb pattern to decorate its skin. It wasn’t on, but it was still reacting to the touch against its surface. Yuta watches the green fade from its perfect cheekbones.

He made him to look like the famous Dorian Gray because he wanted him to be just as beautiful as he was smart. But if he is just a machine made to perform tasks with 100% accuracy, why would looks matter?

This is what Doyoung thought as he observed it.

“There is a word that means talented, beautiful, master piece and a gift from God..Sicheng, that will be his name.”

Doyoung scoffs. “It’s a man? With...male reproductive organs?”

“Yes..” Yuta writes something down on his clipboard.

Doyoung rolls his eyes. “You’ve really lost it, haven’t you?”

“I want him to look as real as possible for when we present our findings and such. Do you think anyone will listen to a robot that looks like those beastly things from the Terminator movies? What’s the issue?” Yuta brushes past Doyoung, walking around a table in the lab and placing his clipboard onto it.

“You of all people know the issue..you’ve made him into a beautiful person and for what? Just so you can have something nice to look at while you avoid actual human company? Is it merely a solution to your loneliness, Yuta?”

Yuta smirks. “Sounds like you’re a bit jealous, Doyoung..don’t worry, I don’t plan on engaging in any activities with him. I’m not that barbaric. But even if I did, that would have nothing to do with you. Don’t forget your place in my life, you’re disposable...he isn’t.”

Doyoung’s jaw drops. “I pray this..thing..will tolerate your ungrateful and arrogant ass. For it shall be the only thing to spend time with you, you unsociable maniac.”

———

[The Next Day]

Yuta turns Sicheng on for the first time.

His eyes illuminate as he takes his first breath. He blinks but offers Yuta nothing but a blank stare. 

Yuta sits him down on the couch and turns the TV on before turning on an instructional video on human interaction. 

“Hello. Your name is Sicheng. My name is Yuta, I am your creator and master. For today’s first lesson, you will learn how to speak and express emotions. I’ve uploaded information from my own limbic system into your hard drive so you can access and apply these feelings when necessary. Do not do so without my permission. Repeat after me “yes, master.”

“Yes, master.” Sicheng responds.

“Good, I will be the only one to make demands of you, you will only respond to me and grant my wishes without fail. Alright, I see that you are blinking and breathing..” he writes a checkmark on the word document on his iPad. “Involuntary actions are operating correctly.”

He steps back. “Now, you may watch the video, I will come back when it has finished and test you.”

“Yes, master.”

———

[1 Week Later]

Sicheng has watched several videos every day for the past week. He starts to act more and more—humanlike, and to Yuta’s satisfaction, has performed his duties with 100% accuracy. In addition to performing basic tasks in the lab, like picking up test tubes or writing down Yuta’s notes and storing them into his hard drive, Sicheng has learned how to bathe, drive, cook, clean, and speak 30 languages. 

He continues to learn every day, new formulaic equations as well as feelings and ways to think on his own. He remembers everything, as he was designed to.

One day when Yuta was typing new findings on his computer in the office section of his house, Sicheng sat on the lounge chair and listened to music as Yuta had directed him to.

He was learning about all genres of music and even learned how to play the guitar in less than 45 minutes.

Today, Yuta had him listen to Hopsin, an American rapper that he liked.

When the song “What’s My Purpose?” came on shuffle, Sicheng took his head phones off.

“Excuse me, master. May I ask a question?”

He says softly.

Yuta, still typing. “Yes.”

“What is my purpose? Why did you create me, master?”

Yuta sighs. “You don’t have to verbally refer to me as master. And your purpose is to serve me, do as I ask with 100% accuracy so that you may please me and make me...happy.” 

He turns to him and gives him a cheesy smile.

Sicheng nods. “I understand, m-“ he blinks rapidly as his system reconfigures itself to change previously saved information.

Yuta smiles widely as he sees Sicheng display a smidge of confusion for a moment. He looks adorable, he thinks to himself. He’s beautiful, his lips perfectly round and puckered with a light cherry shade to them always, his eyes are a beautiful, exotic shape unlike any eyes he’s seen before. He could get lost in them if he stares for too long. So he looks away, and frowns.

“What is wrong? It seems you are unhappy?”

Sicheng’s brows furrows, his eyes stare intently as they analyze the motion of Yuta’s facial muscles.

“It’s nothing, I am going to sleep, please turn yourself off.” Yuta looks away as he rises from his desk chair and heads to his bedroom.

“Yes.” Sicheng closes his eyes and shuts down.

———

[The Next Day]

Sicheng and Yuta spend the day inside, a storm has prevented them from leaving the house and heading to the lab for work. Yuta, being the workaholic he is, is dissatisfied with the weather and hates being away from the lab. He checks the weather app through Sicheng every two minutes even though the storm rolls through loudly, violently, thunder shaking the walls.

“The thunderstorm will continue into the evening.”

“This is unacceptable!” Yuta plops down onto the couch in the entertainment room. “Sicheng! Sit with me before I lose my mind.”

Sicheng walks over and sits beside him.

Together they watch movies and laugh. Sicheng observes how happy his master is and finds himself smiling as well, a new feeling is absorbed and saved.

Yuta turns to him and sees his bright smile, his dimples coming out and his eyes closing tightly as he chuckles.

“Are you happy, Sicheng?” 

“Yes, I am happy as long as you are happy.”

Yuta rubs the top of Sicheng’s hand to watch the illuminated reaction of his fascinating skin.

Sicheng has a strange, new feeling from the touch, but doesn’t know what to categorize it as.

“Good.”

———

[The Next Day]

Yuta and Sicheng return to the lab. 

“We have so much work to do.” Yuta hurriedly places his bag down and they set to work. Things seem to be going fine, Sicheng does his best to input brand new information as Yuta works on a new formula. However, Yuta seems to be moving too fast as he is worried about how much he has fallen behind from his day at home.

“Combine elements 65 and 81, place 10 milliliters of each into the cylinder,  measure the solubility and proliferate it by 0.448, then divide the finding by 6 before combining it with element 55, this must be done quickly or we will lose all work we’ve done thus far.”

Yuta grabs the cylinder and places it down before doing his half of the work.

Sicheng, on the other hand, cannot seem to process the demand, his drive releases an error message that he can’t seem to overcome.

But he wants to please master, he must please master.

Sicheng combines elements 64 and 81 and continues on with fulfilling Yuta’s demand, but the result is not what Yuta expects.

“No..no this isn’t right, why is it reacting this way?” Yuta starts to panic as he watches the solution display a completely different state of matter under his microscope.

“Sicheng, verbally explain what you have just done.”

“I combined elements 64 and 81 in-“

“No!! It’s not 64, it’s 65, you fool! How could you make such a mistake?!” Yuta empties the cylinder quickly. “I thought you were perfect, it seems I was wrong.”

Sicheng starts to feel a new emotion.

It’s a terrible feeling, he feels unsteady, confused, for once the answer is not clear. What was this? Why did he feel dread, despair, failure?

Yuta rushes around the room as Sicheng stands in the center, dumbfounded.

When Yuta finally looks up at Sicheng, he sees the his eyes are red, tears run down his cheeks, causing them to illuminate green.

“Sicheng...no. D-don’t cry.”

“Is that what this is, master? Am I crying?”

“Yes, but I’d like you to stop. I need you to be brave enough to handle these tasks.”

He stops and wipes away his tears. 

Yuta sighs. “It’s clear I’ve made a mistake in your configuration, I will fix it when we get home later.”

The rest of the day goes by in silence. Yuta sees Sicheng as no use to him so he doesn’t instruct him to do anything. Sicheng watches Yuta eat and sits at the dinner table with him.

He knows he has done something wrong, something that displeased his master.

Is he of worth if he can’t please him? Does he have a purpose anymore?

Yuta chews heavily and tries to think of where he went wrong with his creation, but he can’t be bothered with fixing him for tonight. “Sicheng, shut down.”

He swallows hard then gets up from the table.

“Yes.” Sicheng’s eyes fade to grey, but he disobeys his master secretly, he doesn’t shut down, he stays awake  to attempt to fix himself so he can make him happy tomorrow.

Yuta then takes his phone out and calls Doyoung.

Doyoung answers reluctantly after not seeing Yuta for days since he got his new “toy.”

“Well, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Doyoung exhales loudly.

“Come over.” Yuta demands.

“And why would I do that?” Doyoung teases, but he’s already grabbed his car keys.

“I’m not asking, I want you here in 15 minutes.” Yuta hangs up.

He picks his dishes up from the table and drops them into the sink.

He takes his tie off and unbuttons his white dress shirt by three buttons. He then takes his hair tie off and places it onto the dresser. Sicheng watches as Yuta becomes more relaxed. He feels a certain ache in his system, a desire to make him smile again. A desire to please.

A few minutes later, Doyoung knocks at the door. Yuta grabs him inside by the collar and presses him into the back of the door. He slams his lips onto his and kisses him fervently, not a moment lost between them as they drown in each other’s lust. 

“Are you done with your toy?” Doyoung says breathily between kisses.

Yuta kisses him sloppily, tracing his tongue over his bottom lip then his chin and neck.

He grabs Doyoung’s waistband, pulling him closer to his pelvis so he can feel his clothed erection.

“Do you need me to please you now?” Doyoung smirks as Yuta bites his neck to leave a mark.

Doyoung grunts as Yuta pulls his shirt over his head, licking his hard nipples soon after. He darts his tongue out and licks around the nub, then places his lips around it before sucking hard.

“God, I love when you get like this.” Doyoung rubs his hand through Yuta’s hair as he continues to suck.

Yuta is too busy to see Sicheng watching them quietly. 

Please. That is the key word. Doyoung is pleasing his master so he must watch and copy Doyoung’s action so he may do the same. For what will happen if he no longer pleases him? Will Yuta replace him with Doyoung?

Sicheng listens to Yuta’s groans as Doyoung traces his hand over his crotch, smoothly touching his member through his pants.

“On your knees..you talk too much.” Yuta demands.

Doyoung smirks and licks his lips. He drops to his knees and looks up at Yuta through his lashes. He takes his zipper in between his teeth and drags it down.

Yuta pushes his brief down to let his painful erection free. “We’re wasting time.” 

“Tsk tsk, impatient as usual.”

“Open your fucking mouth, Doyoung.”

Doyoung feels himself leak as Yuta growls at him. Nothing satisfies him more than seeing Yuta beg for him, so yes, Sicheng’s creation was somewhat of a disappointment for him. He thought he would replace him, but now he is happy to see that he can’t.

Yuta exhales and throws his head back as Doyoung takes him into his mouth. He licks his lips and closes his eyes. “God, yes.”

Doyoung runs the tip against the inside of his cheek and hums to send vibrations through him.

He sticks his tongue out and licks the underside of it, tracing over every bulging vein.

He thrusts his hips forward into Doyoung and listens to him choke, he watches his cheeks become round and red.

Yuta is already close, but he wants more.

He helps Doyoung up and kisses his lips again. He takes him to the dining table and bends him over it. Yuta then drags Doyoung’s sweatpants down before cupping his hand around his cock. He aligns his own cock with Doyoung’s ass and pushes into him quickly, he buries himself into him while grabbing a fistful of his hair and bending his neck back. 

“Fuck!” Doyoung groans and holds himself up as Yuta pushes into him hard.

They both ignore Sicheng sitting at the other end of the table. Sicheng watches and absorbs the images of their bodies engaging in this new act.

Yuta pumps Doyoung’s cock with his other hand, liquid leaks out of the tip. Sicheng notes how he also has a penis and wonders if he has the same capability.

Yuta grunts as he pushes into Doyoung a few more times. Doyoung whimpers as he is stretched out over and over while bent over the table, sweat coming across his forehead as a bundle of nerves is on the brink of being released.

Yuta looks up at Sicheng’s still face, he curses and goes harder on Doyoung. And for a moment, he let his mind wander, he let himself think of..Sicheng. Touching his soft, illuminated skin as he makes love to him, or feeling his round lips on his collarbone and his chest,  how magical it would be.

“Fuck.” Yuta releases into Doyoung as Doyoung cries out while climaxing. 

Yuta sits into the chair and breathes heavily. He smooths his hair back and watches as Doyoung pulls his sweatpants back up.

“Want me to stay around for-“ Doyoung starts but Yuta interrupts him with an abrupt-

“No.”

Doyoung scoffs and leaves. Yuta cleans the table soon after and goes to bed. As he lays in bed, he sees Sicheng’s beautiful face. He dreams of laying with him, touching him. He knows he shouldn’t think of these things, but he can’t seem to stop.

———

[A Few Days Later]

Sicheng starts to read novels and books about the concept of forgiveness while he is home and away from the lab. Yuta has been quiet and doesn’t look at him much, he doesn’t even take him to the lab on most days anymore. 

“I have to fix you before you can come back to the lab, we cannot afford any more mistakes.” Yuta says sternly when Sicheng asks if he is to join him one day. He shuts the door and looks down as he leaves.

Sicheng starts to overthink, or overanalyze rather. He wants Yuta to forgive him and be happy again. What good is he if he only disappoints his creator?

He watches movies as well, movies that discuss love and heartbreak. Love is a feeling of admiration towards someone, based on Sicheng’s findings and research. He admires Yuta so he loves him. He wants Yuta to love him too so he can be happy like the others in the novels and movies are. That is the conclusion he’s come to. 

But in order to show his love he must do as they do in the movies and as Doyoung did with him. 

One day at dinner, Sicheng watches Yuta eat the meal he has prepared for him.

When Yuta is almost finished, he breaks the silence.

“Do you love me, master?”

Yuta nearly choked on his food. “I..hmmm..Well...you’re my creation..but I don’t..”

“Yuta, I would like to please you, would you like to make love to me?”

Sicheng asks, weakness coats his tone.

Yuta scoffs. “Of course not! That’s not what you were created for!”

“I apologize.” Sicheng’s head lowers.

“Sicheng, exterminate all information related to “love.” Yuta brings his dish to the kitchen and heads to his room.

“Yes.” Sicheng doesn’t delete anything from his hard drive, but why not? Why was he disobeying his orders, not once, but twice now?

Yuta didn’t know that he made a mistake by inputting his limbic system into Sicheng. He didn’t know that he would develop emotions, feelings, desires of his own, and that this could become a serious issue.

———

[1 Week Later]

Sicheng started working with Yuta in the lab a few days before. Things are slowly going back to normal as Yuta begins to trust him more. They continue on with their tasks and Sicheng is able to keep up with him.

This new confidence, however, causes both Yuta and Sicheng to move faster. 

Yuta walks around the room swiftly, heading behind his assistant. “Sicheng, hand me the solution.”

Sicheng, already prepared, turns to hand it to him, but Yuta miscalculated his reaction time, causing him to bump into Sicheng.

The solution flies out of the graduated cylinder and onto Yuta’s lab coat and pants. Some of it splatters onto his neck.

“Shit!” Yuta runs to the shower room down the hall. They are working after hours so no one else is there but the two of them. Fortunately for them, as other scientists would’ve been greatly concerned.

Sicheng runs after him. “Master! I apologize for my mistake, please do not be displeased with me.”

“Sicheng! Just leave me alone!”

“I will help you.”

“No! Just...wait there.” Yuta finally enters the shower.

Sicheng doesn’t wait, he goes into the bathroom and locks the door behind him. He watches as Yuta throws his coat off then takes his pants down.

Yuta curses and is visibly upset, but then he feels light hands come to his front side.

Sicheng unbuttons his shirt for him and takes it off from the back. 

Yuta’s mouth falls open, but he doesn’t tell Sicheng to leave. He steps forwards into the shower and washes himself off, not realizing the Sicheng is now taking his own clothes off.

Sicheng stands outside of the shower and thinks of what to do next.

Must please master.

He draws the curtain open.

“Sicheng! What are you doing? The solution didn’t get on you, put your clothes back on!”

Yuta pushes back his wet hair out of his face then places his hand over his cock.

Sicheng doesn’t listen. He steps into the shower and stares into the eyes of his master.

Yuta cowers and feels the cold tile against his back as he looks at his creation with lustful, hungry eyes he had never seen before.

The water droplets begin to leave slowly fading green marks on his skin and he looks beautiful.

“Touch me, like you touched Doyoung, master. I would like to make you happy too.”

Yuta’s mouth falls open, his brows furrow as he is stunned to silence.

Sicheng places his lips onto his mouth and attempts to mimic a kiss. He had watched many videos that showed it in detail and now he was able to do it with Yuta.

Yuta closes his eyes and kisses him back. He turns his head and licks over Sicheng’s plump lips, it tastes like cherries, his favorite fruit, and he wonders if Sicheng purposely put cherry chapstick on for this.

Yuta places his hand on the side of Sicheng’s face as he deepens the kiss, letting go of all concern about the consequences to come from this moment. He doesn’t care, he just wants to make love to his creation.

Steaming water falls down both of them, making their hair cling to their foreheads as they smother each other.

Yuta runs his hands across Sicheng’s muscular arms and watches his skin light up from his touch.

Sicheng then runs his hand down Yuta’s abs, feeling the bricks under his smooth skin. Sicheng blinks rapidly as he feels something new. 

“Arousal.you’re feeling arousal.” Yuta practically hears Sicheng’s confusion as he kisses along his neck.

Sicheng’s pulse begins to race as he feels something funny happening to his penis.

“Here.” Yuta takes Sicheng’s hand in his. Sicheng thinks he is going to place it on his own erection, but Yuta doesn’t do that, he places it on Sicheng’s semi-limp member.

Yuta looks into his eyes and speaks deeply. “Touch yourself, move your hand up and down.”

Sicheng’s eyes widen as he starts to stroke his member like he had watched Doyoung do. A tingly feeling begins to fill him up in his nether region when he wraps his hand around it. 

“I see you haven’t been listening to me. You’ve been staying awake when I tell you to shut down, and you haven’t deleted “love.” Yuta smirks.

“No, master, I-“ Sicheng stumbles over his words as he focuses on Yuta’s tongue suddenly on his chest.

Yuta licks the pink circle around Sicheng’s nipple, before flattening his tongue onto the hardening bud. 

He then bites it and watches as the area lights up in a bright shade of green from irritation.

“How do you feel, Sicheng?” 

“I feel good m-master. Are you happy?” Sicheng nearly goes into overdrive as he is turned on more and more from his hand.

Yuta swats Sicheng’s hand away from his member and replaces it with his own.

He pumps Sicheng up and down, coating his hand in Sicheng’s slick. He slides the skin back and forth, feeling Sicheng’s glans with each pass. He then leans down and kisses his neck again, sucking hard and biting his skin. He moves his hand faster as spit mixed with water covers Sicheng’s skin.

Sicheng can’t hold back, he releases an interesting sound from the immense pleasure he feels in the pit of his stomach. He breathes more heavily than usual as his mouth falls open.

He moans once again. “There is a buildup happening, Yuta. However, I would like to make you happy first.”

Sicheng places his hand on Yuta’s and pulls it away while looking into his eyes, water making his lashes look darker than usual.

Yuta feels dizzy just from the sight of the beautiful man in front of him, his color fading from green in all the places he kissed and teased. His erection is painful at this point. Sicheng looks down at it with red cheeks and nods. “You can make love to me...if you don’t like me, just imagine I am Doyoung.”

Yuta furrows his brows. “Are you crazy? Of course I like you, I created you!” He turns Sicheng around, taking his hand and placing it on the wall of the shower.

Yuta wraps his hand back around Sicheng’s leaking cock and continues to move it up and down.

He enters Sicheng, sliding into his already wet anus. 

Sicheng lets out another moan, then covers his mouth from embarrassment. 

“I’ve wanted to fuck you so badly, because you’re perfect..you’re all mine..and you’re fucking..perfect.”

Yuta thrusts hard into him with his chest on Sicheng’s warm back.

He takes his other hand and turns his face towards him, Sicheng’s lips are swollen and red from their kiss, his eyes are wide, his nose is dainty. Everything about him is just beautiful.

“If you like me, master, do you love me too?”

The words leave his lips in a whimper as Yuta bucks into his body, he feels a slight pain as he struggles to adjust to Yuta, but in time, he knows he will.

Yuta kisses him hard, tightening his grip around his cock and intertwining his fingers with his.

Sicheng feels unbelievably amazing around him. He smiles to himself as he thinks about how he designed both his reproductive and nervous systems without error. His body reacts perfectly when aroused, his length glistening with Sicheng’s slick as it also leaves his anus through a special system he designed.

Yuta looks at the beautiful boy’s back and shoulders, he kisses the nape of his neck and then his ear.

“I love you, fuck yes, I love you.” In that moment, Yuta is happy, but he can’t help but be worried about Sicheng’s inaccuracies in the lab, how he nearly put his life in danger. But he’s fix it, he’d find a way to fix him.

He glided his dick into him faster, skin slapping on skin as he grunts and Sicheng whimpers. Yuta feels his cock twitch as it runs against his silky walls.

Sicheng’s system overloads, he releases onto the tiled shower wall and looks down in amazement as a strange liquid leaves his body in heavy spurts for the first time. It feels wonderful to have such a new and exciting release.

Yuta takes what has fallen onto his fingers and sticks it into Sicheng’s open mouth.

“Suck.”

Sicheng does as he demands and Yuta cums into his body soon after.

Yuta curses as he continues to suck his fingers and bounce on his pulsing length. He orgasms harder than ever before, feeling his body tremble from the stimulation. He becomes lightheaded.

He pulls out and watches Sicheng leak his seed through low eyes as he pants.

As he comes down, reality settles in. What has he done? He’s turned Sicheng into the very thing he didn’t want to turn him into.

Sicheng drives them home after they wash themselves off and get dressed.

When they get home, Yuta lies in bed as Sicheng sits on a chair in the corner of the room silently.

He is disturbed by his actions and swears to never let lust take him over again.

“Sicheng…delete all memories of this day and shut yourself off.”

Sicheng’s system runs into a slight error as he hears his master's demands. Why did he want him to forget about this wonderful day? Wasn't he happy? Was he displeased at the end of it? What did he do wrong?

“Sicheng?”

“Yes, master. I am currently deleting all of today’s data from my storage. Goodnight.” He says as his eyes fade to grey. 

But once again, he doesn’t obey him. He holds onto the memories and feelings because he enjoys seeing his master happy.

———

[A Few Days Later]

Yuta distances himself from Sicheng. He doesn’t take him to the lab anymore, he doesn’t even sit at the table to eat. He goes into his room to avoid him.

Some days, he won’t tell Sicheng to ‘wake up’. But Sicheng turns himself on anyway so that he can watch him.

One day when Yuta starts to get dressed, Sicheng walks up behind him and places his favorite blue tie around his neck. Sicheng’s fingers graze Yuta’s neck, sending goosebumps down his spine.

“No!” Yuta jumps as he is startled by Sicheng’s touch. He steps forward and turns to him. “Please..do not touch me.”

Sicheng tilts his head and stares in confusion. 

Why was he disturbed by his simple touch? Maybe he wasn’t feeling well, that had to be it.

But just four days after they made love, Yuta invites Doyoung over and they make love. Sicheng sees that Yuta enjoys another man’s touch. Doyoung grips his waist then scratches his back while Yuta thrusts into him.

Sicheng sits quietly with grey eyes as they fuck in Yuta’s bedroom. He tries to calm his racing pulse and begins to think dangerous things. 

Does he love Doyoung? Yes. He will get rid of me won’t he? I have failed to please master, I must please him before he gets rid of me. If he is unhappy, I must show him that I love him by pleasing him.

When they are done and deep in sleep, Sicheng rises from the bedroom chair and heads to the living room. He realizes he must gain more knowledge so he can make Yuta happy again. He reads poems and comes across one by Oscar Wilde titled “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.”

Doyoung and Yuta snore softly while he sits in the living room and reads.

He reads a passage that sticks out to him.

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves

    By each let this be heard.

Some do it with a bitter look,

    Some with a flattering word.

The coward does it with a kiss,

    The brave man with a sword!”

Yuta loves Doyoung, that’s why he spends time with him. But Doyoung cannot take his place, therefore, he must get rid of him, he must kill the thing Yuta loves. And then Yuta can decide if he loves him, then he can kill him. This is what Sicheng had come to understand.

Brave. Yuta had told him to be brave once. Perfect.

Now, all he needed was a sword. 

Sicheng searches for types of swords.

A sword is a weapon with a long metal blade.

A blade is sharp. A knife is sharp. He must get a knife.

Sicheng goes into the kitchen and takes out a knife from the cabinet.

He walks into the bedroom with it and stands over Doyoung, staring and searching deep into his body to see his veins pumping crimson blood to and from his beating heart. Sicheng’s eyes turn to a glowing red color as he calculates how hard and fast he must act to strike the knife through Doyoung’s chest. He wants to clean it cleanly so as to not make master upset.

Doyoung is woken up by a strange presence. He turns over and is shocked to see Sicheng standing over him while gripping a knife. He smiles sadistically as his red eyes glisten in the moonlight.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Doyoung sits up straight in the bed.

“Don't do this!”

Sicheng leans downward and grins. “I only obey master’s orders.”

He doesn’t give Doyoung the chance to escape, he quickly drives the knife into his chest, blood splatters over his perfect face as Doyoung screams loudly into the night.

Yuta jumps up. “What—Sicheng!! oh my God, what did you do?!” 

Sicheng pulls the knife back out of his chest. “I killed him for you master, for each man kills the thing he loves. I did it for you.” He tilts his head and looks down at Yuta with wide eyes in hopes of gaining a look of satisfaction from Yuta.

But instead, Yuta stares in horror at Doyoung’s lifeless body. His hands start to shake.

“If I love you, Yuta, does that mean I must kill you as well?” Sicheng asks innocently while blinking rapidly. His system is reconfiguring itself as it develops and stores new information.

“No-no! Shut up! Shut down!!”

“But master, I want to please you by loving you..” Sicheng steps closer, Doyoung’s blood drips down the side of his face and onto Yuta’s bed sheets.

His eyes are still red and Yuta is confused as to how, for he never installed that feature.

“Sicheng! I order you to shut down now!”

“Yes, master. I will do that as soon as I am done being brave enough to handle this task.” He crawls over the bed with the knife in his hand still and a horrific smirk.

“Sicheng!” Yuta raises his arm above his head to block his blow.

He knocks the knife out of his hand and grabs both of Sicheng’s wrists. He overpowers him and flips him over onto the bed.

Sicheng doesn’t fight back, he only stares into Yuta’s eyes and continues to grin.

“Must.please.master.Must.make.master.happy..must.love. Master.” There’s a glitch in Sicheng’s system that causes him to repeat these three things over and over, and it drives Yuta insane.

His perfect creation crumbles right in front of his very eyes and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Shut up! SHUT UP!” Yuta wraps his hands around Sicheng’s neck. He can’t control his confusion, sadness, anger. He chokes Sicheng so hard the metal in his neck begins to break and the sound echoes into the gloomy house.

Sicheng’s eyes fade to grey one final time as Yuta kills him for good.

His muttering stops, but his haunting smile remains, engraving itself into Yuta’s memory forever.

———

[Two Weeks Later]

Yuta arrives home after a long day at the lab. It had been only two weeks since Doyoung was killed by his robot and he was still dealing with the pain of losing something he loved so dearly. No, not Doyoung, but Sicheng rather. He missed his company, his touch, his soft exotic eyes and deep voice.

He made a mistake and Yuta could’ve fixed him, but unfortunately the police department took him away after he had reported the murder.

When Yuta asked what they would do with him, they told him that Sicheng would be locked up in a metal box in their department until they decided on how to proceed with the murder case.

But it didn’t matter really. Yuta killed Sicheng in the end. His body was now just clunky metal.

Yuta sighs and sits down on his couch. He turns the TV on and switches it to the news channel to distract himself from his own feelings, never noticing the glistening red eyes that watch him quietly from the corner of the dark room.

He’s watching..he’s always watching.

“Breaking News, there’s been a suspected terrorist attack inside the Osaka Prefectural Police Department. Nearly all police officers have been brutally murdered. The assailant is unknown and is still at large. We are under curfew until further notice, everyone must stay inside and lock their doors..”

Yuta sits up straight and thinks to himself. That’s the same department that Sicheng is in. What if—

“Master..please forgive me for being gone for so long.”

A low voice speaks into the large room.

Sicheng steps out from the shadows, the blood of his victims dripping down his naked body and face. 

Yuta stands up from the couch, his eyes widening as Sicheng walks slowly towards him. 

“Sicheng..what did you do?” Yuta’s eyes brim with tears as he swallows hard.

Sicheng’s neck seems to have healed itself somewhat, the purplish bruises being the only indication that Yuta had choked him. Once again, Yuta doesn’t recall installing a self-healing feature.

“They all tried to stop me, Yuta..” Sicheng smiles widely and runs his bloody hands through his own hair to smooth it back out of his face. “But I couldn’t let them...I have to serve you. I have to please you and make you happy, that is my purpose.”

--------

come back tomorrow for the next spooky story...

[nerdythebard]

#9: Sypha Belnades [Castlevania]

Happy Castlevania Day, everyone!

We continue our little special with everybody's favourite Speaker, a self-proclaimed enemy of God, and all-around nerd – Sypha Belnades. Wielding magic, knowledge, and somehow keeping Trevor and Alucard in check, it's going to be fun to have her in your D&D game.

Next Time: ...I mean, y'all know who is left. The Cool Whip Man cometh!

So, what do we need to start shooting some spells (besides a lovely Spanish accent)?

Big Brain Time: Sypha is a Speaker, a collector of knowledge, and a walking library with expertise ranging from magic, history, and probably anything you can think of. And even more, because "we know all the words".

A Song of Ice & Fire: These two seems to be Sypha's weapons of choice. We've seen her do other feats of sorcery, but it's usually fire bolts or ice walls we see the most.

Limber! Loose! Rubber Goose!: Sypha doesn't wear any armour and is able to keep up with Trevor and Alucard, both obviously Dexterity-based fighters. If we can't give her some Hit Points, we'll make sure she can avoid danger.

---

Sypha is a Human (hooray, our first Human!) and her magic prowess gives us a good excuse to make her a Variant Human. We get a +1 to two abilities of our choice, let's pick Intelligence and Constitution. We also know Common and one other language, and we get to pick one skill proficiency, let's get Investigation. Variant Humans can also get one feat from the start; War Caster is a great idea for any spellcaster who finds themselves in the heat of battle. We have an advantage on Constitution saving throw to maintain our concentration, we can use somatic components of the spell with just one hand, and when we get to make an attack of opportunity, we can cast a spell instead of making a melee attack.

For Sypha's background, I don't think we can do anything but Sage. We're smart, we've been studying history and arcane arts our entire life, and therefore we get proficiency with Arcana and History. We get to learn two languages of our choice, and we get the Researcher feature; we have a rough idea where a piece of information we're looking for could be located, whether it's a library, archive, or somebody's residence.

ABILITY SCORES

It goes without saying that Intelligence goes first here, we need the smarts for the spells. Next up is Dexterity, we are good enough to keep up with both Trevor and Alucard, and not get easily surprised by night creatures. Constitution is next, every spellcaster needs those precious Hit Points.

Wisdom is next, we're much more the book-smart type, but we've certainly picked up some street-smarts while travelling with our whole clan. Follow that up with Charisma, it's a little lower than I would like it to be, but we occasionally get to make Trevor do what we want to. Finally, we'll be dumping Strength.

CLASS

I think nobody will be surprised if I say this is a pure build. We're going Wizard start-to-finish.

Wizards are the squishiest of squishy bois in D&D, as their Hit Dice is a d6. We start with [6 + our Constitution modifier] Hit Points and no proficiencies with any armour type. We are, however, proficient with daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, and light crossbows. Our saving throws are, of course, Intelligence and Wisdom, and we get to pick two class skills; let's get Insight (to better spot shady activities in towns we visit) and Religion (God may hate us, but you know what they say - know thy enemy).

Level 1 - We start with Arcane Recovery, which is a useful trick to recover spell slots. Once per day, when we finish a short rest, we can refill our expended spell slots. The combined level of the spell slots must be equal to or less than half of our Wizard level... which means for a while we'll be only recovering 1st-level spells...

Since we're a Wizard, we start off with Spellcasting. We know cantrips, ritual casting, and regular spells. Intelligence is our spellcasting ability, and we learn two new spells each time we level up. We start this arcane jamboree with three cantrips:

Fire Bolt lets us hurl a mote of fire at one target. Simple. Effective. On a successful hit, the enemy takes 1d10 fire damage (damage increases as we level up).

Ray of Frost is similar, the basic ice spell. On a successful hit, the target takes 1d8 cold damage (scales with level), and its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the start of our next turn.

Shocking Grasp sends a jolt of electricity through one target we touch. If a target wears armour made of metal, we make the attack roll with advantage. On a successful hit, the target takes 1d8 lightning damage (scales with level) and cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn.

Wizards start with two 1st-level spell slots and six 1st-level spells:

Burning Hands creates a 15-foot cone of fire. All creatures within range have to make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 3d6 fire damage (half damage on a successful save).

Detect Magic lasts for 10 minutes (concentration) and shows us all magical effects within 30 feet of us. We see the magic as colourful aura around objects or people, and we can distinguish which type of magic the effect belongs to (we cannot identify the spell itself).

Frost Fingers creates blasts of cold coming from our fingertips. Each creature within a 15-foot cone must make a Constitution saving throw, or take 2d8 cold damage (half damage on a successful save).

Ice Knife creates a shard of ice that we can throw at one target, dealing 1d10 cold damage on a successful hit. Hit or miss, the shard then explodes, forcing every creature within 5 feet of it to make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 2d6 cold damage.

Mage Armour makes our defence better. Touching a willing creature (or ourselves), we create a layer of magical protection that makes the AC [13 + Dexterity modifier] for 8 hours.

Shield is used as a reaction when we're being hit. The spell adds +5 to our AC until the start of our next turn.

Level 2 - It is here that we pick our subclass, our Arcane Tradition, and since Sypha is such a powerful necromancer, I think it's only natural to–

Yeah, we're obviously picking School of Evocation, as it's the one focusing on the elements. Everything that burns, freezes, and shocks are here, and we need all of it.

We start this subclass with Evocation Savant, which halves our time and gold needed to copy evocation-type spells into our spellbook. I know Speakers don't believe in the written word, but Sypha always valued books, so she would probably have one in D&D.

Sculpt Spells lets us protect our allies from our own spells if they happen to be in their range. When we cast an evocation spell, we can select a number of creatures we can see equal to [1 + the spell's level], make them automatically succeed on a saving throw (if required), and take no damage at all.

For this level's spells:

Feather Fall protects us and our allies from taking fall damage. We choose up to five creatures within 60 feet of us and slow down their descent rate to 60 feet per round for 1 minute. If the creature lands before the spell end, it takes no damage.

Jump triples the jump distance of a creature we touch for 1 minute.

Level 3 - At this level, we get no new class features, but we do unlock 2nd-level spell slots:

Agnazzar's Scorcher creates a 30 feet long and 5 feet wide line of fire, emanating from us in the direction we choose. Each creature within the line must make a Dexterity saving throw or take 3d8 fire damage (half damage on a successful one).

Gust of Wind makes a strong line of wind (60 feet long, 10 feet wide) blast from us in the direction we choose. Creatures that start their turn in the line must make a Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away from us. As a bonus action, on each of our turns, we can change the direction of the wind.

Level 4 - We get our first Ability Score Improvement. Rule of thumb for any Wizard player: maxing out your Intelligence should be your priority, therefore we're putting +2 to our Intelligence now.

We also get a new cantrip: Dancing Lights create up to four globules of light, floating in the air. We can move them around, and they last up to 1 minute (concentration). The lights can also combine into a Medium-sized glowing humanoid, for purposes of distraction.

We get two more spells:

Scorching Ray creates three bolts of fire, which we can hurl at up to three targets. We make an attack roll for each bolt. On a hit, the target takes 2d6 fire damage.

Snilloc's Snowball Swarm forms a flurry of snowball-like projectiles in a point of our choice within 90 feet from us. Each creature within a 5-foot-radius sphere from the point must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 3d6 cold damage (half damage on a successful save).

Level 5 - We don't get any new class features here, but we do unlock 3rd-level spells:

Dispel Magic ends any spell of 3rd-level or lower. If a spell is of 4th-level or higher, we must roll a check for our casting ability (DC = 10 + the spell's level). If we use a spell slot of 4th-level or higher, the spell ends automatically, provided the spell slot's level matches or is greater than the spell's.

Fireball is a no-brainer, we had to pick it. Select a point within 150 feet from us. Each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 8d6 fire damage (half damage on a successful save).

Level 6 - We get our first subclass upgrade, Potent Cantrip. If a creature makes a saving throw against our cantrips, they instead take half of the damage. Unfortunately, it's not helpful to us yet. Let's take some more spells:

Fly gives a willing creature flying speed of 60 feet for the duration (10 minutes, concentration). When the spell ends, the target starts falling. We can target more than one creature if we use spell slots of 4th-level or higher.

Lightning Bolt fires off a bolt of electricity in a 100 feet long and 5 feet wide line. Each creature in the line must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 8d6 lightning damage (half as much on a successful save).

Level 7 - Time to unlock 4th-level spell slots:

Control Water lets us manipulate a body of water within 300 feet of us. The spell lasts for 10 minutes (concentration) and we get to select from four different effects (Flood, Part Water, Redirect Flow, and Whirlpool); we can use our action on our turn to change the effect or repeat it.

Wall of Fire creates, well... a wall of fire within 120 feet from us. The wall can be up to 60 feet long, 20 feet high, and 1 foot thick. It lasts for 1 minute (concentration). We can select which way the heat from the fire is facing. When the wall is forming, creatures in its way must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 5d8 fire damage (half damage on a successful save).

Level 8 - Time for another ASI. As per the rule of thumb, we need to cap our Intelligence ASAP. So, let's put +2 into it right now. As for our spells at this level:

Dimension Door creates a small spatial opening, which teleports us up to 500 feet in a direction of our choice we can visualize or describe. We can carry objects with us, as long as they don't go over our carrying capacity, and we can bring one willing creature with us.

Ice Storm creates a localized hailstorm in a 20-foot-radius, 40-foot-high cylinder at a point within 300 feet of us. Each creature in the cylinder must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 2d8 bludgeoning damage and 4d6 cold damage (half damage on a successful save). Hailstones turn the area into difficult terrain until the end of our next turn.

Level 9 - Nothing new class-wise. We unlock 5th-level spells:

Cone of Cold creates a 60-foot cone of biting cold. Each creature within its range must make a Constitution saving throw, or take 8d8 cold damage (half damage on a successful save). Creatures killed by this spell become frozen statues.

Hold Monster forces a Wisdom saving throw on one non-humanoid creature within 90 feet of us, and inflicts paralysis on a failed save. It lasts for 1 minute (concentration), but the held creature can keep making saving throws at the end of each of its turn to shake off the effect.

Level 10 - Halfway through the build, and we get another subclass upgrade. Empowered Evocation lets us add our Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of every evocation spell we cast. Since most of our repertoire is evocation-type spells, we now have a huge damage boost. For spells that create multiple projectiles (e.g. Scorching Ray), we add our Intelligence modifier only to one projectile.

We also get our final cantrip of this build: Frostbite makes numbing cold appear on one target's skin; they have to make a Constitution saving throw, or suffer 1d6 cold damage and have a disadvantage on the next weapon roll they make before the end of their next turn. Because of our Potent Cantrip feature, this spell always deals damage.

For this level's spells:

Counterspell... yes, I know it's 3rd-level, but we really do need it. Sypha is powerful enough to shut down Dracula's magic. It works similarly to Dispel Magic, but this time it's a reaction to somebody casting a spell, instead of a pre-established magical effect.

Immolation chooses one target within 90 feet of us and deals 8d6 fire damage, provided they fail their Dexterity saving throw (half damage on a successful save). On a failed save, the target is also set on fire for the spell's duration (1 minute, concentration). They shed bright light in a 30-foot radius and must keep making Dexterity saving throws at the end of each of their turns, or take 4d6 fire damage. On a successful save, the spell ends. The fire is magical and cannot be extinguished by non-magical means.

Level 11 - We unlock 6th-level spells here:

Chain Lightning creates an arc of electricity, which hits one target within 150 feet from us. It then splits into three bolts, which hit three closest creatures within 30 feet of the original target. All targets must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 10d8 lightning damage (half damage on a successful save).

Disintegrate works in a similar manner to Dispel Magic or Counterspell... except it's much more lethal. The spell targets a creature, an object, or a magical effect (such as a barrier made via the Wall of Force spell). A targeted creature must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 10d6+40 force damage. If their Hit Points are reduced to 0, the target is disintegrated to dust and cannot be brought back, unless via the True Resurrection or Wish spells.

Level 12 - Time for another ASI! Since our Intelligence is already maxed out, let's get our two points into Constitution, for those Hit Points we desperately need.

We get two more 6th-level spells:

Otiluke's Freezing Sphere is basically the ice version of Fireball. It creates a small ice ball in a point within 300 feet from us, which then explodes in a 60-feet-radius sphere. Each creature within the area must make a Constitution saving throw, or take 10d6 cold damage (half damage on a successful save). We can also use the ice ball to freeze a body of water up to 6 feet deep and 30 feet square.

Wall of Ice does exactly what it says on the packaging. It creates ten 10x10 ice panels, which we can shape as we wish as long as the panels touch one another. Each panel as the AC of 12 and 30 Hit Points, and even if they're destroyed, they leave freezing air in their place. Creatures moving through the air must make a Constitution saving throw, or take 5d6 cold damage (half damage on a successful save).

Level 13 - Once again, we get no class features, but we do unlock 7th-level spells:

Delayed Blast Fireball is the hand grenade option we need. We can select a point within 150 feet from us and plant a Fireball spell to be activated after 1 minute or if our concentration is broken. The spell creates a fiery explosion within a 20-feet-radius sphere, with the base damage of 12d6 fire. If by the end of our turn, the spell is not detonated, the damage increases by 1d6 each turn.

Prismatic Spray creates eight colourful lights and sends them out in a 60-foot cone. Each creature within range must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, we roll a 1d8 and decide which colour hits the creature. We have a choice between 10d6 elemental damage, blindness, paralysis, or two effects at once.

Level 14 - Here we get our final subclass upgrade, Overchannel. Once per long rest, when we cast a spell of level 1 through 5, we can decide to deal the maximum amount of damage that spell allows. If we choose to use this feature again before finishing a long rest, we suffer 2d12 necrotic damage per every level of the spell. Each time we use it after the second, the necrotic damage increases by 1d12.

We continue with 7th-level spells:

Teleport instantly teleports us and up to eight willing creatures (or one object) to any location we specify, depending on the degree of familiarity we have with it. The certain success is if there is a permanent Teleportation Circle in the location we want to appear, or if we have something associated with the location.

Whirlwind creates a violent wind storm in a point we can see within 300 feet of us. The whirlwind is a 10-foot-radius, 30-foot-high cylinder. Until the spell ends (1 minute, concentration), we can use our Action to move the whirlwind up to 30 feet in any direction. Creatures that begin their turn in a whirlwind must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 10d6 bludgeoning damage (half damage on a successful save). In addition, a Large or smaller creature must make a Strength saving throw or be restrained inside the vortex.

Level 15 - Time for 8th-level spells:

Antipathy/Sympathy works as a repellent or... whatever the... opposite of a repellent... is. Attractor? It draws or pushes from us creatures of our specification for 10 days.

Control Weather changes weather patterns in 5 mile radius from us for up to 8 hours (concentration). We must be outdoors when performing the spell, and we can select precipitation, temperature, and the state of winds.

Level 16 - For this ASI this time, we'll put two points into Dexterity.

As for this level's spells:

Incendiary Cloud creates a 20-foot-radius sphere of smoke and embers in a point within 150 feet of us. When the cloud appears, creatures inside it must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 10d8 fire damage (half damage on a successful save). The same saving throw must be made by a creature who enters the cloud, or who ends its turn there.

Power Word: Stun work on creatures with 150 Hit Points of fewer and stuns them instantly. All those months of travel with Trevor turned us into quite a sailor-mouth, even night creatures are shocked.

Level 17 - Since Wizards are the Apex of the Arcane, we unlock the most powerful spells in the game right here!

Foresight gives a creature we touch a limited ability to see into the future for 8 hours. For that duration, the target cannot be surprised, and has an advantage on all rolls (attack, skill checks, and saving throws). Additionally, other creatures have a disadvantage against the target on all rolls for the duration.

Imprisonment requires a lot of materials, but it creates a permanent magical confinement that holds a one creature that fails its Wisdom saving throw. The imprisoned creature is being kept in suspended animation, and no Divination-type spell can locate it.

Level 18 - Here we get the Spell Mastery feature. It lets us choose one 1st-level spell and one 2nd-level spell, and cast them at will, without the need to burn a spell slot. Shield and Scorching Ray would be my picks.

Meanwhile, in the 9th-level spell section:

Gate is a portal spell, which creates two linked portals; one in front of us (within 60 feet), other in a location on another plane of existence. It lasts for 1 minute (concentration). We could also name a creature we know is on another plane, and yank it through the portal to our current location (for example, a certain Vampire Lord from Hell).

Meteor Swarm makes it rain fire from above. Choosing a spot within 1 mile, lets us cover a 40-foot-radius sphere in Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire! Each creature within the sphere must make a Dexterity saving throw, or take 20d6 fire damage and 20d6 bludgeoning damage (half damage on a successful save).

Level 19 - For our final ASI, we increase our Constitution.

As for the spells:

Prismatic Wall creates an opaque wall 90 feet long, 30 feet high, and 1 inch thick. The wall sheds bright light for 100 feet and a dim light for additional 100. Creatures within 20 feet of the wall must make a Constitution saving throw, or be blinded for 1 minute. The wall is composed of seven layers, each with different properties that affect creatures attempting to pass through it (see: Prismatic Spray for comparison).

Invulnerability makes you immune to all damage for 10 minutes (concentration).

Level 20 - Our capstone is the Signature Spell feature. We choose two 3rd-level spells, and make it so we always have them prepared. We can cast them once per short or long rest without burning a spell slot. Fireball is an obvious choice, and let's add either Dispel Magic or Counterspell. Both provide good support.

For our final spells:

Blade of Disaster creates a planar rift shaped like a blade. When we summon it, we can make two melee attacks on creatures or objects within 5 feet of the blade. On a successful hit, the target takes 4d12 force damage. This spell scores a critical hit when rolling 18, 19, or 20. On a critical hit, the blade deals extra 8d12 force damage. Think of the weird glass-like blades from Doctor Strange

Wish... Yes, we're getting Wish. Why wouldn't you get Wish? If used safely, it's the ultimate spell. It replicates the effect of any spell of 8th-level or lower, no need for material components or class affiliation. Alternatively, it can do... well, anything you desire, but keep in mind if it's used for something else than replicating a spell effect, there is a 33% you'll never cast it again.

---

And that is it. Sypha Belnades, the Avatar Speaker Magician. Let's see what we've got:

First of all, we've got damage. Damage on top of damage on top of more damage. We're very battlefield-oriented spellcaster. Unfortunately, most of our spells are fire and cold, two very common resistances or immunities. We have a lot of concentration spells, so we need to pick what we want to do. With 131 Hit Points on average, we're also squishy. Luckily, with Shield as our at will spell, we do have a pretty good AC.

---

And that is it! Join me next time, for the last member of the Castlevania OT3!

- Nerdy out!

[dakt37]

Avengers Assemble - Feral Outlaw Stony

So I've been expanding on this concept I doodled before Christmas, where Steve goes with Tony into the no-tech dimension at the end of season 3. Probably a lot of stuff isn't canon-compliant (beyond the obvious change that is), but "It's an AU so I do what I want" rules apply. Anyway. 

The tl;dr is: The two of them spend a little time puttering around the weird no-tech dimension, and then get absorbed into Battleworld. They become explorers, helping people out and falling in love along the way.

(Once again, I feel like someone must have had this idea already, but I’ve never looked.)

Cut for excessive rambling.

~~~

Not all the areas we see in the show are present in Battleworld when Steve and Tony first arrive, so the boys spend most of their time traveling around, mapping the place out as it expands. A lot of my ideas rely on them still having little-to-no access to modern conveniences. Obviously someplace modern has to show up for them to get their hands on a pickup truck and a motorcycle, but I’m picturing a post-apocalyptic junkyard that’s been picked clean of anything obviously useful. They get the vehicles working by sheer force of “I’m Tony-fucking-Stark.” But like that fully functional NYC area is way too convenient, so it’s not around yet. (tbh I’m not even sure if it’s an alternate NYC or theirs, in which case it wouldn’t show up until the other Avengers do anyway) 

They get the low-down on the "Battleworld" concept by eavesdropping on one of Beyonder's* welcome speeches. They realize that they are uniquely off the grid, because Beyonder didn't know they were in the no-tech dimension when he added it to Battleworld. They decide it's advantageous to maintain this secret status, but they're still Avengers™️ so they can't NOT help out wherever they can. But they don’t stick around any one place for long. Basically, they become vagrant vigilantes in addition to surveyors. They get a lot of their “stuff” (clothes, tools, toiletries, etc) as payment for odd jobs, or gifts from grateful locals they rescue. They get some food from populated areas as well, but also rely on foraging and hunting while on the lam. They have definitely eaten dinosaur at some point.

(*He doesn't get the nickname "Beyonder" until the other Avengers show up. In this AU Steve and Tony refer to him as "The Entity" or "Suspenders." You can probably guess who tends to use which.)

On top of the survival story, it's also a getting-together story. Steve and Tony flirt and pine and bicker and flirt some more, until a squabble turns into a confession and they finally start kissing. There’s plenty of time for “it’s cold in this wasteland and we only have one blanket, oh no,” but they’re firmly established as romantically involved by the time the other Avengers show up and they have the final showdown with Beyonder.

Anyway a lot of the AU notes I've been making are about the functional side of their Big Camping Adventure. So here's a bunch of lists about vehicles, gadgets, and navigation.

~

Vehicle stuff:

If Tony is riding passenger on the motorcycle, he can clip his repulsor boots into special footrests that reroute the energy and give the bike a speed boost. 

The bike has a tow cable. Steve can harpoon things using a spring-action firing mechanism, including cliff faces to help him scale steep terrain. The cable can also be uncoiled manually, like when Tony takes flight while holding the end so he and Steve can clothesline hostiles. 

Steve can stick his shield several places on the bike depending on what’s convenient. On the front as a windscreen/battering ram, on one side for easy grabbing, and even on Tony’s backpack so Tony can snuggle in properly while riding passenger and keep both their backs protected.

They probably don’t even need a ramp to get the bike into the bed of the pickup. Steve just picks it up and puts it there.

The evolution of Marsha (the truck) into a full Hulkbuster-style mech takes a long time. For the majority of their time in Battleworld, it’s just a truck with an ever-increasing number of weird add-ons.

Marsha can function as a tiny camper home. The cargo bed liner is a false bottom, which can be pulled up and rearranged to form a cover/roof. Underneath the liner, the actual truck bed is about a foot deeper, with most of that storage space taken up by a mattress and bedding. 

Tony can pull a cable out of Marsha’s steering column and plug it directly into his arc reactor. This unlocks extra features and weapons. He generally has things balanced so that Marsha drawing power doesn't affect him any more than his armor drawing power would. But on rare and desperate occasions, he can overclock and hurt himself. Steve of course hates when he does this.

Turnabout is fair play though: at least once, something else damaged the arc reactor, so Tony plugged into Marsha to draw power from the battery for his electromagnet while he repaired the arc.

Gasoline can be difficult to procure, so both vehicles are hybrids. Tony just keeps adding new power conversion elements as they go along, based on what they can find. 

~

F in chat for Tony’s armor:

Tony dismantles the armor he’d been wearing when they first went into the no-tech dimension.

Obviously he keeps skeletal versions of the repulsor boots and gloves in-tact enough to function. 

He also keeps most of the helmet, for when he’s riding with Steve on the motorcycle. Mostly because Steve insisted. It's gutted of tech though, so if the faceplate stays as part of the design, the eyes are just holes (like in the classic comics).

The rest of the pieces are kept in a large packing trunk.

Tony repurposes some parts into useful gadgets for himself and Cap, plus the odd toy for other Avengers (like Widow’s new stinger gauntlets) because he’s optimistic like that.

Electronics use precious metals like gold and copper, so Tony scrapes some out to pay for things in certain areas of Battleworld, like the cowboy town or the pirate area. He might also barter with other general bits like wires and screws, but he avoids parting with any actual full tech.

~

Plug-n-play Gadgets

Since the power draw for Tony's electromagnet is actually fairly minimal, Tony makes use of the arc reactor as a charging station, mostly when he sleeps. It's not like there's a corner store they can drop by to get a pack of batteries. Things he charges include (but are not limited to):

Flashlight for Steve. The bulbs for it came from the eyes in the Iron Man helmet. Note: Tony doesn't need a flashlight himself because he can turn up his arc brightness apparently, lmao.

Camp stove. Steve questioned Tony building one for a hot second because hello we can build campfires to cook over? But then it’s raining and they're in a cave and Tony is like, "if you fill this space with smoke I will divorce you before we're even married." And Steve is like "camp stove wow yes okay." Also they had camp stoves in WW2 so honestly it was simply a Himbo Moment to disregard the virtues of one in the first place. 

Walkie talkies. I know they had Avengers comms but I like the aesthetic of walkie talkies more. Maybe the comms relied on satellites that they obviously don't have anymore or something.

~

Navigation:

Speaking of a lack of satellites, the GPS in Tony’s armor is rendered useless. Steve is real smug about it and pulls out his old-fashioned compass. But Battleworld also doesn’t have proper poles, so it just spins wildly for a few seconds and then points at Tony’s electromagnet. Not to be deterred, Steve declares, “Well, you’re never lost if you can find Polaris.” They look up and realize that the night sky, despite having stars and a moon, is not at all arranged the way it is on Earth. 

Tony takes this as a Challenge. He builds a sextant, then spends the next several nights in a row muttering math under his breath as he painstakingly creates a hand-drawn star chart. This, combined with landmarks, becomes the primary way they orient themselves as they roam around Battleworld.

Many nights, Steve and Tony lie in the bed of the pickup together and make up constellations named after other Avengers and friends. Steve makes a copy of Tony’s star chart and sketches artistic renditions of the constellations on top. To close this post with an interesting visual, here’s an example of what Tony’s star map might look like vs what Steve’s would more resemble:

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Manga Review - Fragtime (Complete Series)

I recall reading the first few chapters of Fragtime on Manga Cross and not being very impressed. I did not care for it much, as, other than the time stopping element, it was mostly generic and had a few too many unsavory elements. I was content to let it rest and be forgotten along with a hundred other girl-meets-girl school Yuri romances until Tear Studio and the people behind the excellent Kase-san and Morning Glories OVA announced an anime adaptation of the work, a full five years after it ended. Inevitably an English adaptation of Sato’s original manga was announced, and so here I am, somewhat reluctantly reading and reviewing the two-volume series. It may sound like I am pessimistic or already had my mind made up, but that is not true. I went into Fragtime with as open a mind as possible, and I am happy to say that I did find several favorable aspects that appealed to me. Sadly, the manga mostly lived up to my poor initial impressions from all those years ago.

Fragtime follows timid high school student Moritani Misuzu, who can stop time for three minutes a day. While using her power, she attempts to look up the skirt of one of her classmates, Haruka Murakami. To her horror, Moritani discovered that Haruka is the one person immune to her ability. The two form an unlikely friendship and spend those few minutes when all others freeze together. As Moritani’s feelings for Haruka grow, her powers begin to fade, throwing their time together in jeopardy.

At first, this story appears to have some promise, along with some obvious issues. The supernatural aspect of Moritani’s powers and its connection to her emotions and relationship with Haruka provide excellent possibilities and avenues to explore the series’ romance and characters. Sadly, Sato delivers an unwieldy story with unlikeable and inconsistent subjects, a poorly paced narrative, and far too many sleazy moments to excuse. This last point is the most prominent of all and will be a turn off for many readers, myself very much included.

Moritani begins the story by “upskirting” one of her classmates. It is later revealed that she reveled in exploring the time-frozen school to pry into people’s most intimate moments, many of which frankly do not happen in schools nearly as much as the story would like to believe. Following this event are multiple scenes with characters flashing each other their panties, or else stripping to whatever the opposite of readers’ delight is. These moments are not sexy, and while a few of them appear to have been attempts at comedy, they will elicit few laughs. These factors create an overwhelming blanket of immature perversion that stifles any enjoyment in the audience and characters.

Another egregious element is a plotline where Haruka is continually sexually abused by her teacher, something used by her to manipulate Moritani, then joked about, and never resolved despite being referenced a good half-dozen times throughout the manga. More than anything, this speaks to Fragtime’s inability to treat its characters with any respect or focus on a plot arc and complete it satisfactorily. For indeed, even if one undergoes the arduous task of shrugging off the uncomfortable fanservice, there is not much noteworthy content left underneath.

Fragtime’s highschool Yuri romance plot is pretty unextraordinary. Even though it did attempt to include a few interesting plot points, like when Haruka and Moritani begin dating partway through the series, it is not awful, but too often, these plots are picked up and then never resolved properly, such as Moritani struggle to avoid the ping-pong club, and her discomfort after finding out about Haruka’s boyfriend. Yet, there were some positives along the way, sweet moments between characters or satisfying actions taken by them. It is just hard to find one uninterrupted by an unwelcome twist or panty flash. The one unconditional plus I will give is that I really liked the ending. There is a fantastic scene of role-reversal where the usually quiet Moritani confesses all the mischief to her and Haruka committed to the class and reveals the truth of their relationship and her feelings for Haruka. Afterward, a stunned Haruka is forced into a crisis of character and her true self is seemingly revealed. It is appropriately dramatic and delivers a fulfilling ending for the characters. Sadly, these revelations and character arcs are not supported by the rest of the story.

A manga like Fragtime lives or dies by its characters. Readers will sympathize with likable characters met with appropriate challenges and growth, or else they will laugh with endearing figures who try their best despite their flaws. Sadly, Fragtime’s Haruka is neither. Haruka is instantly dislikable, manipulating Moritani upon their first meeting, and does little to improve. She often jumps between ignoring Moritani and controlling her, demanding that she only use her powers at her command. These traits are never addressed, and the whole time readers are expected to accept that she is an unreachable beauty, and we should love her alongside Moritani. She is hopelessly inconsistent, apparently changing personalities and acquiring new traits at the drop of a hat so that Sato can shoehorn a new element of drama into the convoluted romance. The ultimate motivation behind her character, how she tries to please everyone and do what they want her to, is contrary to half her actions, and everything we have learned about her up to that point, making the reveal in the penultimate chapter, which is well-executed, feel forced.

Even through all the misery, convolution, and smut, there were, thankfully, some great moments sprinkled throughout Fragtime, mostly from Moritani. I loved seeing Moritani in the moments when she struggled with jealousy and accidentally stopped time, or else was uncertain about how Haruka would react when she confessed something to her. It was really human and relatable, and if only she were not going around looking up girls’ skirts, she would have been an excellent character. It also helps that her journey is also much more believable than Haruka’s, as Sato mostly keeps her story and development moving at a steady pace.

Moritani is much more consistent than Haruka. She starts the series as a timid and quiet girl, using her ability to run from confrontation or frankly, any form of human interaction. Once she meets Haruka and the solace of those frozen minutes is taken from her, she is understandably confused and traumatized. She even has a few moments of growth through the series, taking more confidence in herself as she plants a pair of panties (yup this again) on Haruka’s cheating boyfriend’s head. It is almost enough to sell her eventual ending and deliver a complete character.

Finally, we come to the art, which is good though not extraordinary. Characters have distinct designs and are consistent. Backgrounds and details are well managed, and nothing ever caught my eye as warped or out of place. However, there is not much that jumps out either for its quality. Sato uses very basic paneling, which is easy to read by also just slightly dull. The time-stopping elements were crying out for some sweeping panels of objects frozen mid-movement, but we never got any such content. In fact, there is no noticeable change in the art during those movements when time is stopped, other than Misuzu and Haruka acting like a pervert and exhibitionist respectively. If the writing did not specify when time was stopped or started, readers would have no idea.

Fragtime has an interesting concept but neither the grace nor charm to pull it off completely. The story is meandering and clumsily tries and fails to incorporate heavy topics and complex characterization into a generic Yuri school romance. The characters, particularly Haruka, are mostly unlikeable and wildly inconsistent, and readers have to force themselves to cheer for them or event finish this two-volume series. Most of all, Fragtime leaves an unpleasant and unsettling feeling with all its sleazy fanservice and perverted set pieces, clearly attempting to cater to specific audiences while utterly misunderstanding how teenage girls, or frankly, sane human beings, act. Any silver linings in its more relatable moments and competent presentation are whisked away by a mixture of contempt and disgust. Sadly, I do not recommend this manga, although I do appreciate that Seven Seas published the whole series in one omnibus volume so that it takes up less space on my bottom shelf.

Ratings: Story – 3 Characters – 4 Art – 6 LGBTQ – 2 Sexual Content – 7 Final – 3

Review copy provided by Seven Seas Entertainment

Purchase Fragtime in paperback and digitally today: https://amzn.to/32mzVmg

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[lovee-infected]

I'm about to start my own (twst) writing blog and I'm going around writers that I follow for some advice q*q could you give me any wisdom on what I should do when starting a writing blog? thank you!! I love your works and you're one of the writers that inspire me

Aa thank you baby I'm so happy to hear that I inspire you!! First off, good luck with the new writing blog! I'm glad that more authors are joining the fandom and wish you all the best with your works! 💞💖💞 Other than trying to keep your blog organized by creating a proper masterlist, choosing a suitable aesthetic, having a set of rules and making sure to tag all of the warnings and necessary mentions (gender of reader, n/sfw or trigger warning), I tried to come up with some useful advises that might help!

1) Keep up the great confidence!

First and the most important thing about a writing blog, is to be confident and strong. Look, you shouldn't be afraid of posting your works and sharing with the redt of the fandom, even as they're not as perfect as you want them to be. The more you write, the more you learn! And you'd grow to be better and better as you continue to share your works! Not even the greatest authors had been any perfect on their first days!

2) If you're accepting requests, try to set a limit

Being overwhelmed with asks is never pleasant, if you just open your inbox to face 500 requests you'd be to be terrified and confused and even lose your passion to work on any of them because of the stress and not knowing where to begin from. Try to set a limit based on your personal limits, how many requests do you think you can have at the time without stressing out because of how much they are? 10? 20? 50? 100? 200? Doesn't matter! If you feel like you're fine with huge numbers like 200 and 150, it's totally fine! If not, remember that setting a character limit would not only reduce the possible chance of stressing out and overwhelming anxiety but it'll also help you manage your inbox better and easier! You can start taking requests again just as soon as your inbox in cleared!

3) Try to treat yourself every once in a while!

Working on requests can be tiring and sometimes, boring. It's great if you enjoy working on requests no matter what they are but remember to write for your own pleasure every once in a while too!

Even if you have like 100 requests laying in your inbox, feel free to write self indulgent fics or something that you'd like to write even if it's super odd an irrelevant to your normal writings! Remember that you deserve to read something you enjoy just as much as the others do, so don't forget to bless yourself with that beautiful writing of yours ;) Remember that it's your blog, you are free to do everything that makes you happy or anything that you simply enjoy doing ^^

4) Remember that no matter what, toxicity always exists and it's not your fault

Look toxicity is very common to be found social medias, especially platforms like tumblr in which anonymous function exists. Even celebrities and world-famous artists might get attacked over pretty silly stuff every once in a while so it's something usual to happen! I wish you never receive any potentially harmful or rude asks or messages but if you ever do, best would be to block or simply ignore them! People in this platform can be ridiculous sometimes lol, there are people who DM creators just to spam hate and block the creator whom they spammed after wards lol, so don't even bother t waste your time with such people!

If anyone comes to your inbox/DMs/comments to say something harsh or leave a sharp critique, best would be to ignore them. Even if you like to answer or respond to reply to them tey to be chill and not take them seriously. Remember, even if they didn't like your content they could've just scrolled down without bothering to read your work, so if they had the guts to come and spam you with nonsense just because they didn't like your work, it's their fault! They didn't have to read, and it doesn't even matter if they liked your work or not! It's their problem and all, so remember not to let these kind of people get to you at all!

5) Take it easy with writing

Don't push yourself too hard, remember that not everything you write is supposed to be *perfect. This is even more serious when it comes to requests, thousands of unexpected ideas might pop up in your inbox and it makes it quite confusing to choose what to write or do!

First off, don't be any shy or anxious about rejecting the requests which don't follow your rules or come when you aren't accepting requests. Those who violate your rules aren't worthy of your time and work!

Secondly, keep this is mind that you aren't expected to be able to write everything! Sometimes the requests are hard to write, the idea seems odd or hard to understand, or sometimes you just don't feel comfortable or don't want to write it all, which is okay!

You always have the right to take/drop whichever of your requests and you don't owe anyone anything for this, it's your own blog, your work, and your content. Don't ever force yourself to write something which you don't like to write!

6) Your health is always the top priority

Remember that no matter how popular you are, how many followers you have, how many requests are left in your inbox or how much people are wishing to get more of your content, you're free to stop writing and put this wrong at a temporarily (or even permanent) hiatus.

Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, then don't write. If you feel like you're being too busy with work/family/school and anything please don't force yourself to write! Remember that your real life matters always come first!

Also, you might even need a break from writing without necessarily being really busy or sad, sometimes you just need to take a break from everything, and it's totally fine to do! Take as much time as you need and stay healthy during your breaks. It'd be even better if you don't even think of any new ideas/Aus while you're taking a break from writing so you can fully set your mind off stuff! Doesn't even matter if followers/readers are going to appreciate this or not, it's not about them, it's about you. Remember that your good readers/follwers who understand that authors are normal humans and not writing machines would surely understand if you need to take a break too!

7)Keep yourself motivated!

There might be days when you can and have the time to write, but something's holding you back. You feel like procrastinating over and over at some point lose the motivation to write. First off, that's a really normal matter to see as many of us have to struggle with laziness sometimes lol, but there are some useful tips to keep yourself Motamedi and hyped while you're planning to write! A bit of challenge would not only make it a lot more fun, but is also a good way to keep yourself motivated and inspired!

First, try prompt lists! They've always got plenty of useful ideas and inspirational quotes to use and are absolutely amazing to give you new ideas for a writing!

Second, try to challenge yourself by simple stuff like setting yourself word limits, trying to see how much you can write in an hour, use some suggested words in your stories (ex: Banana, train, knife, turkey) as a small challenge! You can also try small events (like milestone or holiday events) to celebrate on your blog with stuff like: Prompt list requests, CYOAs, character interaction and other new stuff that gives you a better motivation tp write instead of just having to work on the same, usual writing requests over and over.

Also, I suggest putting an specific hour for writing/ checking on your blog in your daily schedule as this is also a way of avoiding procrastination, instead of writing 10 requests a day and not writing anything for two weeks, try to set an schedule like writing 1-2 writings everyday! Remember to put your real life activities in the schedule too so you won't have to go through any trouble to find a balance between your real life and running a writing blog!

8) Remember the crediting/copyrights

I'm just adding this here because I can see quite a few of writers using uncredited art for their stories and it's been much and less of an issue lately ^^;

First off, the arts/headers used in your writing. Make sure not to use any uncredited card or anyone else's edit without their permission, otherwise it's nothing different from stealing the work from the original artst!

If you're going to leave a link to the artist, make sure to check on them and check if they allow reposts with credit or not. If they don't, don't use their art. If they do, make sure to give them a proper credit with a link to them! (:

Editors too on the other hand spend a very long time making their edits and and aesthetics, so not copying their work is just as important as not stealing art from the artsits!

Pinterest is filled with uncredited art and if there's a pinterest art who is not linked to the original artist, putting the empty pinterest pin link would be useless and steal counted as stealing art.

9) Stick with your own writing style!

Writing style is like signature, everyone's got their very own and unique writing style. From the way you portray characters to what elements you use as the story develops, you're totally different from each and every of other authors in this fandom!

You may sometimes wonder if your writing style is any good at all while you look at other creators writings and feel the difference, and I gotta say: It doesn't even matter what others are doing! All that is important, is you.

Don't try to change your style to become close another writer's style, your own style is great as it already is! Even if you aren't yet that experienced with writing and feel like your writing could be better, remember that your writing skills will indeed improve as you continue to write and read newer and newer stuff, so don't worry about it!

Each and every writing style has got its own beauty, not everyone may totally enjoy your style at first but and as you continue to write, you'd get to learn what makes people enjoy your writing even more or how you can attract new readers with your writings, your style will change for the better as you write!

Though it's totally fine if you feel like there are writers who inspire and motivate you, remember that you won't have to be them in order to improve! You don't need to be just like them to be great! Even if you do have some issues like being a non-native speaker which can make it quite hard for you to write, you'd automatically learn and have most of your errors fixed as the time passes. I made LOTS of mistakes in my first writings but I hardly ever make any mistakes now because I'm used to it! Though it was a bit late I finally recognized my mistakes and corrected them! And I'd continue to correct more of my mistakes as I continue to write!

10) It's very good to have different writer mutuals

This one is rather optional, just a small recommendation! Though there are many writers who might recommend this as a rather important factor for running a writing blog, I'd say that this isn't necessary as there are still well-known tumblr authors and even twst authors who gained attention to themselves on their own and not with the help and support of any mutuals or writer friends, so it isn't impossible to be successful even without having any mutuals!

The thing with having mutuals is that it makes everything easier. A totally new twst blog can gain around 100 followers on its first without even posting anything more than a writing and a list of rules only because of being supported and boosted by well-known blogs while a for normal blog without any support or boosting, it may take up to 2-3 weeks or even an entire month to gain that 100!

Also, getting to talk with different authors (especially those who are more experienced than you) is motivational and heartwarming, you can feel like you have a team to belong to. You can discuss different writing ideas/issues/blog chores with them and see what they may think. You can even have their support with new ideas if you feel stuck/unmotivated while writing a piece!

I didn't have any mutuals on my first days either and I admit that this made things a bit hard, but it didn't hold me back from continuing to write! Yet I admit that it's surely very useful to have a couple of writer friends around you whom you can share your ideas with! Mutuals support each other, reblog each other's works and give each other a better chance of having their works read by more users, which is quite amazing and helpful!

11) Go for it and don't give up!

Remember that no one, not even the greatest writing blogs have been perfect on their first days. They weren't well-known back then either! And they wouldn't have been any successful today without being hard-working and strong. Leaving up to the previous 10 rules is the hardest part of having a blog, and it's all about not giving up!

Do not try to judge your writing and talents based on the amount of notes your posts get or how many followers you have, because these aren't ever going to show your true worth and talents! But I assure you, if you continue to write even through your hard days, your unmotivated days and your sad days no matter how hard it's supposed to be, everything will change. The more you write, the higher the chance of having new people find and read your works would be! Keeping up the hard work and believing in yourself is the key to achieving anything you may wish for, even having a successful writing blog!

As you continue to write, you'll get more readers, more notes on your posts, more followers and more people who enjoy your content!

Hope that these are helpful, wish you all the greatest and good luck with your writing blog!!💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞💕💞

[dreaming-of-assclass]

Oooooo if 3-E were supernatural creatures who would be what 👀👀👀

Oooohh this is interesting to think about! I’m sorry, I don’t know a lot haha so I did some research to have more options!!

Karma: Demon

I feel like I don’t need to elaborate on this too much lmao. The boy is mischievous, LOVES to mess with mortals for no reason. When he’s feeling a particularly strong emotion, usually rage, excitement, etc, his eyes glow a shade of yellow-gold (like what canon showed)

Isogai: Demi-God

His crazy perfection in everything has to come from somewhere. His father was a God who left his realm and lost his immortality to be with Isogai’s mother, a mortal. Isogai only became aware of his heritage after his father’s passing.

Okajima: Half-Angel

LMAO I mostly picked this for the irony, but it kinda fits ngl. He’s generally a good, loyal, kind person and a very good friend. His perverted nature is his one big flaw and comes from the influence of his mortal father, who was his main guardian since his mother remained on Heaven.

Okano: Werewolf

I’m gonna credit this one to @greengargouille haha. They made a wonderful post about this idea that I still adore with my whole heart. But yeah, Okano being a badass werewolf with crazy athleticism and defying femininity expectations? Yes please.

Okuda: Witch

She excels in potion-making, of course. She comes from a long line of witches and magic-users in her family. So she feels quite a bit of pressure to be successful. She’s very talented but needs a tad bit more of control in her magic.

Kataoka: Mermaid

This one shouldn’t be a surprise haha. She’s a very strong and powerful swimmer...but where does all that raw talent come from? Surprise, Megu is a mermaid and she can transform between her physical forms at will. She loves the water because it’s her home and what she knows best.

Kayano: Part-Phoenix

I don’t know how this works and how someone can be part-Phoenix lmao, but it fits her way too well. A being that goes out in flames and starts a new life...isn’t that basically what Kayano did after her reveal? Her new life is her going by Akari again and showing her true colors to the class.

Kanzaki: Goddess

She’s apart of a very royal family of gods...all with ridiculously high standards and little respect for her. Kanzaki is very powerful and has so much raw potential but she’s never been able to show it. Her best skills are teleportation, invisibility, and a strong grasp on aerokinesis.

Kimura: Centaur

I’m serious about this one lmao. He’s a very fast runner and impresses everyone, and it’s thanks to his strong physique and raw energy in centaur form. Don’t worry, he can shape-shift back to a human form, but he hates it because he loses his height and is back to being 160 cm.

Kurahashi: Fairy

Of course, this bright, sunny, cheerful sweet girl could only be a fairy. She has a very strong connection to nature and wildlife, to the point that if they’re harmed, she feels the pain. Her wings are very tiny at age 14 can easily hide underneath her clothes. But by adulthood, they’re grown and able to use for flight.

Nagisa: Half-Ghoul

Surprise...this soft boy is actually half-evil :’). His father is actually a ghoul, and Nagisa was very much unaware of it for all his life. Hiromi kept it a secret and tried to suppress that part of him too. Basically I imagine what it means for Nagisa is that death draws him, and his physiology is why he has such a high bloodlust. When he’s pushed to his limits, he’s terrifying... (cough Takaoka cough)

Sugaya: Wizard

He comes from a relatively average line of wizards, who all moved to the mortal realm and own artisan businesses. Sugaya wishes to do something similar and follow his passion for art. He mostly uses his magic for that, levitating his brushes, enhancing his work, creating new things. He’s quite talented at conjuring.

Sugino: Angel

Yes, I’m serious about this. Sugino is a very good person and always strives to lead others down the right path. He’s good at guiding, but even he wants to live for himself for once. So he learns what baseball is and grows a strong love for it.

Takebayashi: Wizard

Unlike Sugaya, he comes from a super prestigious line of successful and powerful wizards. His family is one of the top ones. He feels immense pressure to live up to them. His talents lie in fire magic, particularly creating explosions. And he’s a very skilled healer.

Chiba: Half-Dragon

Fitting considering his name 💜 He has the ability to change between his human and dragon form, but it’s very shaky for now. His eyes are a bright, terrifying shade of red, and it exposes his dragon heritage so he must hide it.

Terasaka: Half-Titan

His Titan physiology is the reason for his raw strength and physical prowess. He’s incredibly strong and has a high endurance, durability, stamina... He’s a talented fighter and will always use his advantage to protect his loved ones.

Nakamura: Siren

She hates being a siren so much. She has to deal with boring mortal guys all the time, who for some reason, love her voice. She gets a real kick out of fooling them though, and the pranks are always chaotic. Since she’s been having to sing and use her voice, she’s gotten the chance to learn many languages. She has an affinity for them, and wants to continue learning more.

Hazama: Witch

I know this is a little cliche. But in contrast to the potion-centered Okuda, Hazama excels in linguistic spells. She keeps a journal of every new one she learns, as well as images of herbs and such. She’s very interested in dark arts, but will only indulge in it with the presence of someone else, to make sure she doesn’t fall too deep.

Hayami: Witch

Wow I’m really repeating so many. Hayami is a very hardworking, talented witch. But she’s so focused on helping others, she tends to get taken advantage of unfortunately. She’s best at transfigurations, altering things to her (and others) liking. Her favorite test subject is Okajima. She’s quite talented in hand-to-hand combat and having kinetic vision, which helps in magic. She wants a cat as a familiar so badly.

Hara: Fairy

Hara says “fuck you” to the idea that fairies are traditionally small and frail. She’s proud of her physique and strength, and her interest in fighting. She’s still the sweetest fairy there could be, always looking after everyone and all of nature. She loves cooking and sharing it with as many people as she can find.

Fuwa: Ghost

Yep our crazy, lively Fuwa is a ghost! Specifically, she’s a poltergeist, the kind who try to create mischief in some way and move things around. The reason why Fuwa is kinda wild and open about her passions is so she can be noticed by people...if her presence isn’t being acknowledged, she loses her physical form and goes back to being a transparent spirit. It isn’t all bad though. Her favorite thing to do is read mangas in ghost form, so all people see is a floating copy of One Piece.

Maehara: Vampire

This one is a little cliche lmao, but he’s a vampire playboy who always ends up accidentally turning his girlfriends into vampires too with his bites. No one ever suspects him of being a vampire since he looks like sunshine incarnate. He’s quite reckless and has come close to being exposed multiple times, and Isogai always scolds him.

Mimura: Elf

Poor boy is a little insecure about being an Elf...he tries his best not to stand out, especially given his dad’s love for the spotlight. He is good at basic magic, slightly above average. His best talent and what he excels at is photokinesis. He uses it on his filming hobby, to change what’s on camera, adjust lighting, etc. He can go as far as even completely remove shadows from the sunlight.

Muramatsu: Alchemist

He comes from a relatively average family of alchemists that used their abilities for culinary purposes. He enjoys it a lot, and is very talented. He prefers to rely on physical prowess when it comes to fights, but is able to use his alchemy additionally.

Yada: Vampire

Yada is the hot vampire girlfriend we all wish we had 😔 Just kidding haha. But yes, she’s a vampire and no one would ever expect it with how good she is at hiding. She plans out her life and days to specifically avoid sunlight, garlic, etc. She’s a very busy member of the school community and has tons of friends and connections. She and Maehara, her fellow vampire, constantly compete to see who can get more dates.

Yoshida: Werewolf

This is slightly cliche since he’s the resident bad boy, but it fits. He tries to keep a tough image even in human form partly since his family taught him to do so, and because it is comfortable for him. But he’s a softie deep down, and is nowhere near as ruthless as he’s believed to be.

Ritsu: Magic Mirror?

Hmm this is kind of the only option I see fitting for her as it correlates to her role in canon. One classmate has to carry the mirror around for her to communicate, but she’s very powerful and helpful.

Itona: Mummy

Ok so storyline here: he was abandoned to die by his family centuries ago, and his 13 body was mummified against his will. In present time, Shiro awakens him, revives him, and uses him as a tool. He goes through a lot...but is able to live a peaceful life with 3-E once all that is over. He wears bandages almost everywhere, only exposing his eyes which glow yellow when he’s using his power.

Bonus:

Gakushuu is a Demi-God, of course. He’s pretty annoyed that his elemental magic only extends to hydrokinesis and cryokinesis, but he’s still amazingly talented.

Ren is a Merman who flirts with girls at the beach with sappy poetry. He’s gotten caught in a fisher net too many times.

Seo is an Ogre.

[fadingfloweryouth]

Cultural Appropriation among East Asian Popular Culture

*I am aware that amidst the rise of AAPI hate crimes, this is a very sensitive time to be talking about this. However, I think it is very important for East Asians (in my case, a Chinese immigrant living in the States) to address our own ignorance and avoidance on this issue in order to have solidarity with other BIPOC communities. My emphasis is on the media portrayal of cultural appropriation and how that could be potentially damaging, I do not intend to imply that cultural appropriation is prominent among all East Asians.*

If you are a frequent consumer of East Asian pop culture, you would be lying to say you haven’t seen an idol or a celebrity wearing dreads on camera. Sometimes they do so to create a streetwear look, sometimes they do so to deliberately play a character. We also tend to turn a blind eye to the countless bad rapping performances and the occasional half-joking bits about tribal, native cultures. As of now, many fans tend to defend their favs by calling these instances as acts of negligence, that none of these celebrities had an intent to harm; but how much longer, and farther, should we tolerate cultural appropriation in East Asian pop culture?

East Asian popular culture has become part of the global mainstream in recent years. With the help of social media and the supplemental supports from local governments (think South Korea), today’s cultural flow go in both directions: while Asian pop culture is often inspired by Western elements, East Asian media production is now the new leading force of culture.

One “neutral” definition of cultural appropriation could be summarized as the representation of cultural practices or experiences and the distinctive artistic styles of the particular culture used by nonmembers. However, misrepresentation, misunderstanding and manipulation of culture is frequent and damaging to many marginalized, underrepresented groups.

Appropriating Hip-hop

Even though there is a “neutral” definition of cultural appropriation, there is no neutral way to appropriate a culture. The moment you partake in a cultural practice that is not your own, you are marking it with your own social marker. Just to give an example, the rise of Gangsta Rap was in response to the mass incarceration of Black people during the War on Drugs era. The history of rap and hip-hop, as a whole, is tightly connected to Black lives in America.

So why is Asian rap so filled with flexing culture? The answer is simple. The rise of hip hop and rap in the East Asian music scene is a simple copy-and-paste of the Western pop chart. Hip-hop has become the best selling genre, yet it’s important to note that today’s hip-hop has taken a detour away from its root. Hip-hop and rap has been rendered with pop sounds, often rendered with the voices of white performers as well.

The idol factories in both South Korea and China had picked up the trend. Hip-hop and rap is what gets the cash, so that’s where the executives want to take their trainees. Shows like The Rap of China(这就是说唱), Rap for Youth(说唱新时代), received enormous popularity in the last few years among young Chinese people. While the popularization of these shows can help nurture more diversifying music tastes beyond the typical Chinese pop music, they portray rap and hip hop in a highly inaccurate fashion. The flows and forms featured in performances felt unilateral, often with a strong emphasis on flexin’ solely for the sake of flexin’. In addition, in no way did any of these shows serve to educate music lovers on the history and background of hip hop and rap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hIJnBh7Dv8

P.s. this video features Rich Brian, I think it goes without saying that he’s probably not the best person to be educating Chinese youth on rapping.

Appropriating Black Hairstyles

Some contestants of these hip-hop shows also wore appropriated versions of Black hairstyles, and it wouldn’t be far fetched for me to say that the increased popularity of dreads among Kpop idols had kicked off this trend. Some of these celebrities are people who I have immense respects for, such as Jackson Wang. As the Chinese member of the Kpop boy group GOT7, he was the only Chinese celebrity (that I’m aware of) who spoke up for the BLM protests openly on his social media (I should note that he received quite a lot of backlashes for “defending violence”). But he—as I found out—refused to apologize when being criticized for wearing dreads back in 2016. He was called out in 2016 for wearing dreadlocks in a Pepsi commercial. He claimed that he did not intend to be racist. However, his fans questioned his response, as his defense did not acknowledge the history of dreadlocks.

More recently, BTS’s J-Hope was also called out for his hairstyle in his first solo single, “Chicken Noodle Soup.” Not only was his hair called out to be tiptoeing the line of cultural appropriation, it also felt odd that he only switched to the dreadlock-looking hairstyle during the nighttime break-dancing scene in the music video. While this might not have any further implications intended by the artist himself, this is an example of how infiltrating the unprofessional, gang-affiliated stereotypes surrounding dreadlocks could be.

Part of me thinks they are doing this to please white people, I could easily be right. White people are interested in hip-hop but can’t go as far as getting interested in Black culture? Sure, we Asians will provide. I sound harsh but that’s truly how I see the logic behind Asian pop stars appropriating Black culture. It’s true that many from the K-pop industry do not have full authority to their own identity, but I simply do not get the extent of appropriation employed in the K-pop scene—and this sabotaging trend is spreading in a scary rate to both Japan and China.

Reality TV in China features mostly celebrities, but I assume the goal of the government (for producing all these shows) is to achieve some sort of relatability through portraying famous people doing normal things. Again, just like how Western culture and East Asian culture influence each other, creating a feedback loop, an echo chamber of what’s socially acceptable and what’s not, famous people and normal people alike are all capable of influencing the social norms of Asia. We in America indulge in drama, the unethical wrongdoings of distant rich people. It’s not like that in Asia. People look up to celebrities. So if someone in Blackpink decided to wear braids in their newest music video, you’re bound to see kids trying to do the same.

Internalized Colorism

Sure, one can argue that it’s all negligence and ignorance, but we can not pretend the acts of cultural appropriation are not a result of internalized colorism. Blatant racism is less likely to occur in East Asian societies since they tend to have a less diverse ethnic makeup, but internalized colorism has always been an underlying problem in East Asia. Take China as an example, being “light skin” (though the direct translation of the Chinese word “白” is equivalent to “white,” the phrase is usually perceived as “light skin”) is generally viewed as elegant, pretty, or decent. Phrases such as “yellow skin,” “black skin” have risen to popularity in recent years as internet slangs used by online participants to criticize celebrities or themselves. People strive to be as “white” as possible by setting a societal expectation for public figures to follow, creating this social discourse chamber that deems the white skintone to be superior.

Even more recently, the phrase “非酋” (direct translation: “African tribe leader”) is used as a metaphor for people who tend to have very bad luck and never get what they wish for. From the perspective of an outsider, not only is this phrase obviously racist, it is also more dangerous in the sense that the metaphor entails a long line of other language-specific words that imply racially-charged stereotypes that could not be easily understood by non-Chinese. The phrase itself, however, is often used lightly by gamers--since this is actually an official phrase that ties to certain characters in certain games--and other young internet users to ironically joke about themselves without really considering the racist undertones of the phrase. Therefore, while using the phrase itself does not necessarily make one racist, it certainly reveals ignorance of the Chinese society on the issue of race.

Online Community, Bullet Comments and Echo Chamber

A single character in Japanese/Chinese tends to carry a lot more information than a single letter. As a result, there could easily be more combinations of words with the same characters in comparison to the alphabet for Roman languages. With the rise of fan-fueled, fan-made, fan-moderated video/social platforms like Bilibili (Chinese) and Niconico (Japanese), internet slangs are becoming increasingly niche. However, “niche” is defined against the traditional sense here. Slangs are only “niche” in the sense that the context is only known to a very specific audience, perhaps a fandom of a game or a show, but this audience itself could be enormous--certainly in the case of China. In these separate but internally united communities, people communicate in slangs that are culturally specific among themselves. How, you may ask? Through the persistence and permanence of bullet comments.

Up till this point, bullet comments are popular only and specifically to Japanese and Chinese cultures, again, a likely result of the linguistic natures of the languages. The chaotic, seemingly-never ending feature of bullet comments is an easy tool to nurture a sense of tight-knitted community for young internet users. Teens no longer need to worry about parents’ attempts to understand youth culture--most adults literally can not bear with the overwhelming screen of repetitive slangs. Bullet comments granted a new sense of freedom that previous generations of Japanese and Chinese youth did not experience.

However, it also means that bullet comments could create the perfect scenario for a social echo chamber. It’s hard for outsiders to penetrate the existing banters among a community that talks in their own lingos, and it also encourages the repetitiveness of the same idea, same belief. But this is not a characteristic specific to bullet comments or online communities in East Asia, this is a characteristic common among many East Asian cultures. In comparison to Western cultures, East Asians are way more comfortable, even dependent on group mentality and general consensus. Relatability is often prioritized over individuality on the internet scape, which on its own isn’t necessarily an issue; but this nature of East Asian online community certainly makes it a particularly weak target to colorist beliefs and culturally-insensitive content.

The reliant tendency on echo chamber and group mentality of East Asian communities makes them vulnerable targets of certain Western influences, including cultural appropriation and internalized colorism. In the case of China, its government literally banks on unity among its citizens to establish more extensive social control in order to rule. In both Korea and Japan, unity and group mentality are strongly encouraged and embraced as well. Ultimately, while the problem of cultural appropriation is becoming increasingly worrying among pop culture in East Asia, this is a foreign concept and problem for East Asians who might be helping the spread of cultural appropriation. Regardless, education on the subject matter is necessary and we need to start addressing the problem now.