#so while I don’t know a ton about animals it’s fun to research and learn about them + how they interact with environments

[poured-my-past-down-the-drain]

opinions on animals in general?

My favorite EVER 🥰🥰🥰

I love animals very very much. I have so many little facts about them rattling around in my brain :)))) god forbid I remember what trigonometry formulas are, there’s only room for cattle and bugs and other little guys :))))

[the-pink-baphomet1861]

The biology of Dredge

Or: What the f**k happened to that fish!

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Part 1; The blue mackerel 

So, Dredge.

It’s that one simple fun fishing simulator about sailing to four different scenic, beautiful, geographically impossible locations while helping the locals and interacting with the wildlife. Just you and your boat for miles, nothing else at all. Sit down, grab your rod, don’t worry! It’s not like anything’s gonna happen to you, especially not involving the noises you’ve been hearing from under the hull. They’re probably just the currents hitting the side of the boat, relax! Feel the cool night air and the gentle, salty, insidious mist on your face and listen to the sounds of the sea, but not too closely. You never know what might be whispering on the tides.

I am, of course, messing with you. In reality, Dredge is a game about sailing through a haunted sea full of unknown horrors and lovecraftian abominations all while searching for the key to a lock you can’t fathom. I loved Dredge, it was a fun game, and my favourite part had to be the art, (besides the wonderfully simple gameplay and riveting story, of course) and my favourite part of the art had to be the aberrations.

For some explanation to the people who haven’t played Dredge, every time you fish from a fishing spot, there’s a chance that the thing you catch won’t be a normal fish, but a mutant little beast with all sorts of fascinating deformities. The chance is basically guaranteed if you see a little blue glow above the fishing spot and these guys are a good bit more valuable than their non aberrant counterparts, so you’re kind of incentivized to collect as many as you can. 

Looks like mama’s eating good tonight!

That isn’t the reason I’m writing this though, because each fish and crab in the game comes with at least one aberrant variety, each with their own unique design and flavour text, which I LOVE! It makes the eldritch presence feel all encompassing, even as you deal with the much larger threats in the sea. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking about the actual, physical effects of these mutations and how they would affect the bodies of their poor, unfortunate hosts, and as a marine biology student, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to both study and learn about the biology of some of the fascinating animals in the ocean and talk about a game I like! It’s a win-win!

Some ground rules first:

Dredge is a video game, and as such things that appear in it don’t necessarily reflect reality in all aspects. The team at Black Salt Games are amazingly talented people, but I’m not so sure how much marine biology they know, and if they do, they probably aren’t going to drag the game to a screeching halt in order to explain three pages of notes incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t been studying marine biology for at least three years. It would also make the game a lot more boring if everything strictly adhered to reality. So everything in this document will be strictly speculative.

I may be a marine biology student, but I am in no way a complete expert. There are going to be a lot of things that I’m probably going to mess up. This isn’t a strict scientific breakdown with 100% accurate information, and while I will try my best to find good, reliable sources for my info, things are going to get pretty fantastical as time goes on, especially for the fish that are specifically made for the game. This is just for fun and not some inscrutable scientific paper built on loads of evidence.

I will NOT be covering any of the larger monsters in the game. This is already a massive undertaking with nearly 200 fish and aberrations to get through and a ton of research to do, and that’s not even getting into the lore implications that these guys are full-on eldritch abominations from another dimension instead of just mutated animals. I might do something like this for them in the future, but for now it’s just the aberrations you can catch and sell.

And with those formalities out of the way, let’s get into it!

Specimen #1: Blue mackerel

This little guy is probably the first fish that you’ll ever catch, they’re the easiest fish outside Big Marrow, not requiring any special equipment, and are in many ways the game’s tutorial for how the fishing mechanic works.

But what kind of fish ARE these guys actually? As in, which species do these guys belong to and what does that mean for how their physiology will change once they start mutating?

Well that’s what this first section is all about.

Who’s that ichthyoid?

In this section, I’m going to be going over the appearance and description in the game and trying to use that in order to find out what species these guys belong to and how exactly their bodies work. This section will vary in length from entry to entry, as while the game isn’t generous enough to give us the scientific names of each fish, there are some that are more obvious than others, and there are some that need a bit more digging.

Starting off with our little guy here, we can see that my largest trophy was about 28,1 cm in length, although I did read that their max in-game size was 30 cm. They have a bluish grey colouration with six black stripes running down both sides. Their body is that of a standard fusiform plan, which means that the animal has an almost cylindrical form that tapers off into two points at both ends, as opposed to other body plans like eel-like or elongated. The tail fin also has a particular shape, in this case forked, which means that the tail has a two-pronged appearance while still being a singular fin, as opposed to a lunate tail fin, which is two separate fins that both have a pronged appearance

A triad of diagrams that display the differences in body plan, the different kinds of fins and tail fin shape, you’re gonna be seeing this a lot. BE ADVISED that these are incredibly variable and can change a lot depending on the species of fish.

Our blue mackerel also has two evenly spaced dorsal fins that are somewhat rectangular and relatively short, reaching their highest points at the top right corner of the fin (although the rectangularity of the fins might just be part of the artstyle) and the pelvic and anal fins seem to share these characteristics, although the pelvic fin is much shorter than the rest, and although I can’t fully make out the pelvic fins, it seems to an almost teardrop shape with the bottom left portion of the fin connected to the area near the second gill slit. The mouth ends in a pointed snout which isn’t too thin, but it is still quite noticeable. 

I haven’t really said much about the habitats of the fish yet, which you would think is pretty important, but here’s the thing, Dredge is frustratingly vague about where it actually takes place. I joked about it before, but the fact that a volcanic hotspot, a mangrove swamp, a coral reef, a temperate cliff area and wherever the marrows are all occur within a few days of sailing doesn’t sound likely to me at all, (although if anyone does know any similar real world areas I would absolutely love to hear about it) but there might be something we can use here. As you can see, each fish comes with an area marker that tells you what kind of gear you need for catching it, but we can actually use this to mark down a habitat and narrow down our search a little. For the blue mackerel we see that it is listed as coastal, which means that it probably stops appearing once you get too far out into the open ocean, so keep that in mind.

Now we can get to the fun part, actually identifying the specific species this fish belongs to.  

First off I think we can safely say that this fish belongs to the ray-finned fish group because it probably has bones and isn’t a coelacanth or a lungfish, which I think is pretty uncontroversial. Narrowing it down is where this gets tricky. You see, the identification tool I was using, a site called fishbase which seems pretty reliable, has a bunch of different options to make your search easier,but they’re all things like the habitat where the fish lives, what it eats, how many spines it has in its fins, and for some reason lacks things like the fish’s colour. All things that would be helpful for a real-world marine biologist trying to identify what they caught, but not so helpful for us trying to find a fish in a fictional video game.

Eventually I did manage to whittle away the options through looking at things like the fin and body shape as well as things like size for species I found interesting, until I got to the Scombridae family, which consists of tuna, bonitos, and of course, mackerels. From there all I had to do was find the species that fit the description best, easy right? WRONG! None of the species I found had all the key characteristics I was looking for. None of them had that deep, bluish-grey colour or those six long stripes running down the sides that I was looking for. So in the end I decided on the closest match I could find.

Image source:https://www.fishbase.se/summary/Scomber-australasicus.html 

The blue mackerel (Scomber australasicus) 

Most of the main traits are there, it has relatively short dorsal and pelvic fins, with a similar almost-teardrop shaped pectoral fin and that same forked tail fin. The colour is a pretty good match too, albeit silvery blue instead of dark bluish grey, but still pretty similar. There are some differences though. The six, distinct, vertical bands on the game version are much less distinct and vertical, and much more numerous and the anal fin is much shorter than in the game and the maximum size was also said to be higher, around 44 cm with 30 being an average rather than the stopping point, but I think we can ignore this as part of the game.

And yeah, I know. Big whoop. The fish called a blue mackerel turned out to be a blue mackerel. I do think that going through this is important however, as it doesn’t just give us a starting point to work with when it comes to the more vague fish, (and trust me, it gets vague sometimes) but also lets us learn a bit more about both the morphology and taxonomy of these animals. Plus, that info will be pretty handy when we inevitably find a fish we can’t properly identify and have to dip our toes into speculative biology.

Now we get to the part you’ve all probably been waiting for since this post started:

WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO THAT FISH?

Finally we can actually get started on looking at the aberrations and breaking down the physiological changes! Hoo boy, this is gonna be fun!

First off, some more groundwork. (I know, I know, but this is still important, so bear with me) 

The internal anatomy, specifically the skeleton, is something we need. It’ll allow us to pinpoint the basic look of what happened anatomically, which gives us the information we need to make more specific assumptions about what’s going on here. I will also bring in information about specific, real-world fish diseases for more accuracy. So be warned! There will be pictures of real fish gore and gross parasites, and with that disclaimer, on with the show!

I couldn’t find a specific diagram of S. australasicus’s skeleton, so I decided to use this neat 3-D model of another, incredibly similar (so similar that scientists used to believe that the blue mackerel was a subspecies) species known as Scomber japonicus, or the chub mackerel.

Image source:https://sketchfab.com/osakanaWatch 

Now let’s get into some mutations!

Mutation #1: Grotesque Mackerel

This little guy was the first aberration I ever caught, I can still remember the day. I was happily fishing, minding my own business, when suddenly the fish I had caught came up with a distorted version of the normal “You caught something!” jingle and I was looking at this gross, sick-looking, mutated version of the blue mackerels I was so used to finding. I knew that the aberrations existed, I had already peeked at the encyclopaedia a little, but actually seeing and catching one was a whole nother experience. I remember feeling both morbid curiosity and a bit bad for the little thing, neither of which were helped by the flavour text that pops up the first time you catch an aberrated fish, but that’s enough nostalgic waxing, let’s get into some marine biology!

The first thing to note is the noticeably bent spinal column, which gives the fish a very distinct hunchback look. There are several different kinds of spinal deformities that can affect vertebrates, but I think the one most likely to be the culprit here is called kyphosis, which is a deformity which causes the upper back to curve forward into a pronounced hump and can affect basically any animal with a spinal column, including fish. We can’t exactly dissect the animal to see where exactly it bends but it seems to reach its highest point around the 10th or eleventh vertebrae, roughly right before the halfway point, and is quite extreme, as the whole spine is at a curved angle. This would probably be quite painful for the fish, the vertebrae disks would probably start digging into each other as well as impede its ability to swim straight, but that isn’t the only thing that would mess with its swimming.

Most of the fins, aside from the pectoral, tail, and one of the dorsal fins have completely atrophied into the fish’s body, with the remaining ones having undergone some serious changes. The pectoral fins appear to have lost a lot of the spines that make up the fin, and the remaining ones have grown to nearly half the fish’s length, which makes it much harder for the animal to make sudden turns, not helped by the lack of a primary dorsal fin. Speaking of which, the secondary dorsal fin is the fin that seems to have undergone the least amount of changes, being just a bit taller than normal, as well as the abnormal colour, but we’ll talk more about that later. The tail fin has gone from a general forked shape to an almost perfect crescent, again suggesting a difference int the number of spines, but this time an increase rather than a decrease, and they have also appeared to have increased in number as well, leading to the fin being proportionally much larger than before. The fish would still be able to swim, just not very well, as the narrower pectoral fins, the larger tail fin, and the lack of stabilising fins would probably give it a rough time controlling its movements, leading to uncoordinated swimming as well as a lot of collisions with obstacles.

The last of the skeletal deformities is the skull which, while still retaining the pointed shape, is also pretty messed up. The upper jaw appears to be forced forward over the lower jaw, along with the cranium, and the entire mouth just seems smaller than before. This might also be an effect of the spinal deformity, but it's hard to say for sure. It also looks like the skull has swollen and deformed a bit, as the snout is much less pointy and far more wide and blunt, as opposed to the normal fish.

You also might’ve noticed another feature of the mouth, those magnificent pearly whites of theirs. They’ve grown much larger and sharper than you can see (or rather, can’t) on the skeleton which, when combined with the deformations in the skull, would definitely affect their feeding behaviour and their ability to catch prey. In real life, while the blue mackerel is mostly a planktonic filter feeder, they can also be rather voracious predators, striking at basically anything they think they could eat, which is a lot. Things like plankton, squids, small fish, and even non-food items like burnt cigarettes and bare hooks aren’t off the menu, so they pretty much only have one row of small, pointed, teeth on their bottom and top jaws and some teeth on the roofs of their mouth. This coincides with their lifestyles as mostly planktonic but still very predatory fish in coastal and open oceans, with their teeth mostly serving the function of holding prey in place when feeding and to keep them from leaving the mouth, not to grab onto and tear like animals with larger teeth.

The altered teeth on the other hand are much larger and sharper, and appear to have decreased in number as well, there is still only one row however. They also seem to be much more uneven. Assuming that there are no large changes in behaviour, and the fish still catches prey in a similar way to before the mutations, it would mean that the teeth’s new shape would actually get in the way of capturing prey rather than helping them, which when combined with the decrease in swimming ability from the deformed fins and spine, would probably mean that the fish is much less successful than the healthy fish when hunting, which would lead to smaller body sizes and much more aggressive behaviour as the fish grows hungrier. Yeah, these fish aren’t doing well. 

With the skeletal abnormalities out of the way, let’s move onto the other forms of mutation. We can’t see much about the internal organs and muscular structure, but there does seem to be some swelling across the body, which could indicate a multitude of things. First, it could imply inflammation, which is when bodily fluids fill an infected portion of the body to allow the immune system to react better to a large amount of disease-causing organisms, but filling areas of the body with fluid can be detrimental in certain cases, not to mention painful. It could also be the sign of unregulated tissue growth, large amounts of an almost cancerous level of growth, which could cause the body to expand, which would not help the fish’s already hunger-strained body, but these growths are nothing compared to another little mutant. (we’ll get there soon, don’t worry)

The next part to discuss is the colour, which has gone from the regular bluish-grey to a vivid electric blue. There are multiple ways an animal’s skin can reflect a certain colour, such as specialized cells in the skin which hold different kinds of pigment, which is how colours like yellow or orange are produced by animals, but blue is a bit different. Instead of being produced by any sort of pigment, blue is reflected by the structures of an animal’s skin rather than any sort of pigment. So in a fish’s case, the scales would have certain structures on them which would scatter the light and make it appear blue. In our little grotesque buddy’s case, all it would take would be a shift in these structures in order for the light to scatter differently and for our eyes to pick up a different shade of blue. Actually, the fact that the fish has lost the black stripes makes it seem like the scales have actually lost pigmentation, which isn’t a very good sign for the fish’s health as the pigments in the body are breaking down for whatever reason. The lighter, more vibrant shade of blue could also make them more visible to predators, which also would not be good for the fish’s health, but in a different way.

The very last thing I want to talk about are those small beady, red eyes. The encyclopaedia describes them as bulging, but the illustration makes it seem more sunken than bulging, so let’s go with that. In any case, it probably isn’t good. Eye pigmentation is based on genetics, but to get a bright, vivid red like that usually means one thing: blood, and lots of it. It could mean that a lot of blood vessels could have burst and flooded the eye, obscuring the pupil and giving it a menacing deep red shade. The sunken-in state of the eyes is something known as enophthalmos, which can be a result of various things in fish such as sudden changes in salinity or a result of certain infections.

Mutation #2: Lumpy Mackerel

How long was that last section? Like three pages? Hoo boy we’re gonna be here forever. Thankfully I think that the rest of these are gonna go much faster, I hope. In any case now we’re gonna be looking at one of the more intense mutations in the game. Look at this thing, Where do you start!? I guess with the obvious.

This thing is absolutely covered in large, bulbous masses, I mean just look at it, you can hardly tell there’s a fish under there, and these things are huge as well. Compared to the rest of the anatomy, they would be at least a decimeter or even more if they appeared on a human, which isn’t good, in case you were wondering.

Now onto what I think these actually are. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what they are, but I have a few ideas. They could be cysts caused by something like lymphocystis, which are sacs that can contain air, fluids or semi-solid materials, which would explain things like the smooth shapes, but the problem is that cysts usually form in one specific part of the body due a specific cause, like an injury or infectious organism, and that cause can change depending on where the cyst forms, and considering the sheer amount of growths, I don’t think a single kind of cyst can be the culprit. They might be some of the growths, but I think that the main cause is actually cancerous tumours.

Tumours are clumps of cells that can form under specific circumstances, and can sometimes result in a rather obscure medical condition you might have heard of called cancer, which in short is when cells in the body undergo several key mutations which essentially makes them go feral, they stop fulfilling their ordinary function and start rapidly multiplying and draining valuable nutrients from the body, growing into a large clump that does nothing but take up space, get in the way of important functions and generally be a nuisance. There are two categories that specific tumours can fall into, benign and malignant, which basically describes how aggressively the tumour is growing and how much of a threat it is to your health. 

Benign tumours generally aren’t very dangerous, they’re mostly just a clump, with some never even requiring removal. They don’t invade surrounding tissue or grow back after being surgically removed or even growing all that fast. However, benign doesn’t mean harmless, as they can still cram other, more important organs and do have to be monitored in case they do become malignant, which I think we should talk about now.

Malignant tumours are the dangerous ones, the ones that have entire foundations dedicated to treatment, and with good reason. These things are nasty, they do everything that benign tumours do and more, they’re cancerous, they invade tissue, they can grow really fast and take a lot of nutrition, they spread to new parts of the body, they kick grandmas and burn down orphanages, they are the worst. They are also what I believe to be causing these growths in the fish. I’m not entirely sure what exact kind of cancer it is and frankly I don’t think we can know, just that it is now everywhere. This I think is the result of metastasis, when cancerous cells break away from the original tumour and migrate to new parts of the body, where they begin growing into malignant tumours themselves.

However, there are a few other things we have to consider in this situation, the size and the amount. Most of the time tumours are rather small, even if comprised of thousands of cells, there are cases of absolutely massive tumours inside people, (don’t look up pictures if you value your mental health) but they don’t grow to this frequency in that size, probably because a person usually dies without treatment before that can happen. Which means that something, probably dark magic, is keeping the fish alive.

Other than the tumours, I couldn’t really see any easily identifiable deformities to the skeletal structure under the growths (except for one, but we’ll get there soon) as the only fin I could make out, the tail fin, seems relatively unchanged, at least compared to the grotesque mackerel, but the other fins appear to be either obscured or reabsorbed by the growing masses. Now for the skull, oh boy the skull. A particularly large mass seems to have grown either on the top of or inside of the skull, stretching the eyes from their sockets and deforming the jaws. I believe it to be inside the skull as the entire structure of the face seems to have been changed rather than a tumour simply growing on top of the skull, and since we can’t see the rest of the skeletal structure, we can’t tell if there are any more significant skeletal disfigurement.

The last thing I wanted to discuss is the colour, which has gone from the usual to a sickly greenish-yellow. Now yellow fish aren’t uncommon, with xanthophyll being the primary pigment, but given the obviously unhealthy nature of the fish, I don’t think that it’s just the pigments changing. So I did some research and eventually found another likely candidate known as jaundice, which is a condition that occurs when dead red blood cells accumulate in the body due to issues with the liver, causing the skin to turn a rather sickly shade of yellow, and it can occur in fish as well, and it can also be caused by certain kinds of liver cancer, which I’d be surprised if this fish didn’t have.

Mutation #3: Many-Eyed Mackerel

Here we are! The last mutation in this post! Can you feel the excitement? Let’s not dawdle and get right into it!

So unlike the other two, I thought I’d start with discussing the colours instead of the skeletal structure because it doesn’t seem to have changed all that much. The fins, except for the pectoral fins, which seem to be completely gone, and spine are all in basically the same place as the healthy fish and don’t seem to have undergone any specific changes, but the colouration is another matter entirely. The fish looks like a giant, eye covered carrot, which should clue you in on my idea on the matter. Carotene, a pigment most often associated with carrots, but can appear in a ton of other things as well, such as brown algae. It bonds with chlorophyll and allows it to pick up and receive energy from other light sources, basically expanding the range of colours the organism can use for photosynthesis. I don’t think it serves this function in the fish, as fish are not known for their photosynthetic qualities, but it is probably the result of whatever genetic scramblings the magic is doing to these fish, causing these pigments to form in the skin of the animal where there previously was none. 

Eyes are incredibly complicated structures with lots of different parts that all contribute to their function. You have the lens, optic nerve, iris, retina, cornea, and all the muscles that allow the eye to move and contract. This means that the eye begins to form very early in the development of an organism, driven by proteins called morphogens which tell certain undifferentiated cells to turn into specific cells at specific points, and all the eyes in the mutant seem to be fully formed despite their random placement. So that means that the extra eyes would have had to form very early into the fish’s development, probably caused by the disruption of morphogens in the embryo, which caused eyes and their surrounding structures to form sporadically across the fish’s skull.

The eyes also seem much larger than before, compared to both the illustrations and the real life photo. In fact, the one that I believe to be the normal pair of eyes, the top-right pair, seem to have bulged out of their sockets, and the other eyes seem to be in a similar predicament. We can’t know for sure, but it seems like the other eyes have formed with eye sockets of their own, albeit while bulging out of them like the normal pair, but again, we can’t know for sure.

At first I thought that the fish would be unable to absorb oxygen considering that several of the eyes seem to have grown over the the gills, but it’s possible that the eye growth would have spared at least the last gill slit, which would allow the fish to have water pass over their gills and absorb oxygen without the eyes completely compromising the fish’s ability to breathe. Gills are really good at absorbing oxygen and can function pretty well as long as water can pass through, so even if there's some difficulty, it's not as impossible as it seems.

Final words

So now we’re done with this round of fish! I’m not really sure what to put here, it’s not like there’s some scientific conclusion we can draw other than “these fish are fucked up”, which I’m sure you could draw just by looking at them, so I think I’ll just give my closing thoughts.

I really like Dredge. It’s a game which has a lot of great elements which make it fun and rewarding to explore, such as learning about the story and seeing the new fish designs that come with each area, especially as a student myself learning about the sea and the creatures that live there. Each of the designs are beautifully and carefully crafted to fit both sides of the game, and I love going over each one and learning more about both their eldritch, mutated forms with wild changes, and the real world biology that inspired them.

This is the first in a series that will be going over each catchable fish in the main game and the dlcs and analyzing their biology both as real world animals, and as little mutant monsters, and it would be wonderful to share this with anyone who is willing to listen to me ramble on about a horror fishing simulator and its wonderfully creepy inhabitants.

[fumifooms]

Hey fumi do you have any fics in the work?

Hi! I always have a ton of wips and prompts on the back burner, but as for whether I have any fics right now that I’m actively working on… Yes! Although I don’t know from what fandom you are from anon (I’m guessing Dungeon Meshi) so I’m just gonna talk about my general fic plans regardless of what they’re for.

Tldr: Currently I’m working on two fics for Harahara Sensei, but after that I want to try and continue some wips I started and left unfinished, besides all the other wips I want to try and get done asap alongside that for a bunch of fandoms.

Currently:

I’m working on two oneshots simultaneously for Harahara Sensei/Timebomb Teacher! I’ve been alternating between which of the two I’m focusing on which uhh certainly is a choice. One is gonna be pretty short like uhh 2k words while the other I’m anticipating to be around ~5k words maybe? Harahara Sensei’s a manga that’s not even been translated into english and my last fic for it got no attention so I’m def not expecting anyone else to rejoice about it but I’m having a great time. I’ve been considering machine translating them and put them on Pixiv though, there are a couple of fics for it on there so if it’s readable to others that’d be fun. Harahara Sensei has been having a grip on my brain again lately I tell you… I listen to my spotify playlist for it and I weep

— Unlike my last Harahara Sensei fic though these are feel good and not ungodly angst! The shorter one is gonna be centered around ice creams/popsicles, themes of empathy and being ice cold with others and mayybe stolen childhood considering canon, with a motif of winning and losing popsicles— You know that thing in japan where if there’s winner written on the popsicle stick you get another popsicle for free at a store. This might sound like a far fetched concept but canon just had a field trip with this I could talk SO MUCH about popsicles in Harahara Sensei and how Yoroizuka loves them omg. The way he tossed a winning stick in a fire- The way it almost mimics the look of a smoke- The way he eats them because he never had the chance to as a kid- So much I could say and so much I could spoil and so much I could theorize and rant about it makes me rabid!!!! Is this a good time to mention Harahara Sensei is about yakuzas — The longer one is about them going out to eat at a restaurant together after vol 2, pretty chill, learning to know each other beyond their usual um, "professional" setting. Unlike the ice cream one it’s less vibey and more straightforward, shooting for dialogue and neat moments. Its name is gonna be Death Tolls and Dinner Rolls which I have such a shit eating grin about, it’s so perfect and hilarious to me it feels like my brain is huge. Here below the summary tidbits for the fics + a canon extra page about Yoroizuka so y’all have a visual idk. Oh I don’t go into it in the pic but there’ll def be a death toll-adjacent convo in the fic and not only dinner rolls, I don’t lie on the label

You know, I noticed lately how the theme of food is pretty prevalent in my fics in general. Like, even before reading Dungeon Meshi! Both of my Harahara Sensei wips here were started before reading it, funny how that works. My first posted fic ever is about baking a cake hah. With Dunmeshi it’s only getting worse here on out I’m afraid. My thing with Harahara Sensei fics so far has been to do a lot of animals metaphors and comparisons because dehumanization is a big and cool theme in it and OUGHH that’s so fun. Rat races… Brb sobbing. Also I’d be making faster progress on my fics if I didn’t overthink everything and insisted on researching how rare benches are in Kabukicho tbh. Please god let them sit down……

Dunmeshi:

Listen if you’re a oomfie you knowwww I have so many marchil wips… But I also have a ton of other dunmeshi wips as well. So real talk for the moment I feel like fic wise I’ve done a explored marchil a good amount, I’d like to work on smth else as a palate cleanser after a month of working on the same fic oughh. But yes I’ve done angsty unrequited during canon marchil, I’ve done bittersweet-ish fluffy post-canon slow burn-ish marchil, if I were to focus on a marchil fic soon I think it’d either be 1) a quick gen/platonic fic set during canon where Chilchuck lends her an ear and comforts her after the dungeon rabbits incident when she gets nightmares, 2) Marcille and Chilchuck on a date post-canon, ice skating and dancing and shenanigans, or 3) either Marcille invites him to a fancy social event at the castle as her plus-one (aka emotional support) maybe already dating maybe on the verge of confessing OR they’re already dating and then Marcille’s mom visits them and it’s very sweet and then maybe a marriage proposal happens too~, in both cases Chilchuck is going through so much stress. I’ve done many flavors so far but what I reallyyy want to do rn is just Chilchuck’s heart on the edge of giving out, going through the five stages of grief over the banquet not having his favorite kind of alcohol and Marcille not letting him be an ornamental plant in the corner of the room and doing the bare minimum. If it doesn’t show I’m most excited for 3)…

BUT. Before I fell down the marchil rabbithole I was working on a couple of laimar ideas, including one where Marcille makes Laios read The Daltian Clan because she’s soo desperate for someone to talk about it with even if Falin didn’t end up getting into it. The plot twist is that Laios DOES get invested, but in all the different ways. Laios is less into the drama and romance and politics (haha have fun being king my guy) that Marcille is into but is more invested in the action/war and he roots for the monster hordes enemies and whatnot. They have diametrically opposed favorite characters and allegiances. He hyperfixates on a minor side character. Shenanigans happen in short and they heatedly discuss the latest chapters that Laios read and stuff. Marcille always end up some mix of enraged at his opinions but overjoyed to have a fellow fan around. It’s supposed to be 3 chaps long, have one chap set during canon pre-relationship, one chap set just after canon with some canon divergence & feelings blooming and then one chap set post canon & canon compliant with established relationship. I don’t have a name I’m satisfied about for it hnng, have some fun wip bits though, this summarizes the vibes well

An effect of writing up most my laimar ideas before Dungeon Meshi ended is that in many of them Marcille goes to prison oop, I do think that’d be a fun possibility to explore though, so at some point I’d like to at least include it in a fic. I even wrote down a laimar idea where it’s them pining with the other being oblivious to it BUT it’s narrated from Chilchuck sensing the romance in the air and seething (no jealousy at ALL just Chilchuck being a hater, being like ugh!! Young people in love. Ugh!!). Here are some other laimar-marchil ideas I find presentable, esp the second one I’m really endeared by it I wanna do a short soft nighttime fic about cherishing your loved one…… I want it to be marchil but dragons are more topical for laimar ugh 😔 I love Marcille being a canonical big spoon

But tbh I want to write gen/no ships fics for dunmeshi a lot. I have plans for Mithrun-centric fics, and I want to write at least one about Cithis as well. Here are a bunch, I thought of the Laios & Falin one lately while rereading that page where Laios tells about when he went to see Falin at the academy and I love it sm rn, I want to weite about Falin jumping into his arms and breaking his back, imagine your brother who you haven’t seen in years unexpectedly shows up at your window while filthy and disheveled. I need to write that, also yay Falin pov :)

Oh it’s gonna sound crazy but I also had a phase of wanting to write about Shuro, and particularly Shuro & Izutsumi as siblings who deal with their home situation in diametrically opposed ways and influence each other positively to be less at the extremes of propriety and allowing your shackles to a family vs rebelling against it. Lotsa lil snippets and maybe even a multi chap fic. Oh also a farcille one where Marcille helps bathe and brush Falin because she sheds feathers a lot post canon, just some domestic fluff. And even this is far from all my dunmeshi prompts so hopefully you see what I mean when I say I have soo many wips at all times. Which brings us to…

After that:

As with most end of the year periods, I’m feeling like I want to finish all the loose ends I actually started. I have a list with my priorities but besides Wild Side which I have the first chapter up for (Camp Camp fic) and there’s also an asaden Chainsaw Man I reallyyy planned on finishing last december for Christmas so… Second time’s the charm? It’s called Hachiko & Hot Chicken and it’s just about them going on a Christmas date in Shibuya. Ahh yes there are also two kimbliza Fullmetal Alchemist ones I started, besides the soapmaking Invader Zim zagr one from years ago that I left mid-writing the last chapter. Other fun ones are an Animal Crossing one centering around the player character & Redd going bug hunting, and a Long Way North one about sleeping on a rocking ship and bunking in together in the dead of night, both from years ago too. Man, my recurring themes truly do be sleeping and eating.

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Okok time to end this post dayum. I warn that I’m a pretty slow writer, both in general averaging at like 15 words per minute if I’m generous, and in the broader life schedule. I am unreliable af and I have no clue when my next fic is coming out at any given moment. Many of my readers have spent months or years waiting for the next chapter… Which is why I tend to stick to oneshots heh. If I focus well enough on writing, maybe my Harahara Sensei oneshots will only take me one week each hmm. Too many ideas too little time Honestly though I’d also like to focus on tumblr posts some soon, I got some asks and big posts I’d like to finish up~ Oh but I have to admit lately I’ve been focusing more on fanart and just original art as well. Sorry for the novel but ty for the ask~

[gaming]

Indie Game Spotlight: Frogsong (@brodnork​)

This week’s Indie Game Spotlight is all about Frogsong, a story-driven adventure game about a tiny frog trying to prove their worth. It has a heartfelt story and lots of fun characters to talk to on your journey.

We spoke with Brandon Braun, the creator of Frogsong, who handles most of the development—the art, most of the programming, the story, the level design…it’s busy work!

Frogsong looks like it has a lot of different animal friends. What kind of animals can we expect to meet in the land of Salia?

The only sapient creatures in Salia are frogs and toads, but Chorus will encounter lots of different animals, with most of the enemies being insects. You’ll also run into snails, snakes, bats, and all sorts of mysterious creatures!

How does Frogsong address themes of hope, identity, and what it means to be important?

The story of Frogsong starts off with Chorus moving to a new town to start a better life. Being much smaller than the other warriors, Chorus struggles to get anyone to take them seriously. The story is centered around Chorus fighting to be accepted for who they really are and distancing themself from their old identity. Chorus spends most of the game trying to prove they’re important, too, despite their small size. The story takes from a lot of very personal life experiences that I think make the game heartfelt and authentic. I’m hoping it resonates with a lot of people.

Have you learned any interesting frog facts while working on the game?

Tons! I’m a huge fan of frogs already, so I had a lot of fun putting in lots of research for the game. Did you know that there’s an extinct species of frog that raised its tadpoles in its own mouth? Or that frogs use their eyeballs to push food down their throat? Or a species of frog that breaks its own toes when threatened and uses its own broken bones as claws? Frogs are super weird.

What do you hope players will take away from your game?

I want players to feel important, no matter what disadvantages they may have or what they’ve achieved. You don’t have to do amazing things to matter. That’s what the game’s tagline—“It’s okay to be small”—means to me.

Frogsong will be up for purchase on Steam and itch.io, for PC, Mac, and Linux, with more platforms hopefully being added later in development! You can keep up with all updates by following their Tumblr here! 

[sunnyoldbear]

Luca Headcanons Part 2

DoesLast one blew up and I was gonna wait to make another before making this one but then my Italian fish obsessed brain couldn’t stop thinking and I literally couldn’t stop myself so let’s go, part 2!

Luca:

Has nightmares of what would happen if things went differently: If he was sent to The Deep, if he and Alberto were outed as sea-monsters before the race, if Ercole, Cicco, and Guido didn’t miss Alberto when throwing the harpoons at the beach, if Alberto didn’t come with the umbrella during the race and he was outed in front of the town and hit with Ercole’s harpoon, etc. He always wakes up terrified. 

Apologizes to inanimate objects if he bumps into them or drops them.

Names everything he comes in contact with. Random animals such as birds, insects (even though he’s terrified), erasers he uses often, etc. They’re always random, silly names, but he loves them. 

Is a slow reader because of how he fantasizes himself in the books and daydreams, then is snapped back to reality.

Keeps a dream journal!

Loves making stories about the stars and constellations. He loves the original stories, but he loves to make up his own.

Honestly I just get the vibe that he’s scared of birds after the encounter with the seagull.

His favorite color is purple followed by green!

Giulia’s mom buys him his own bike and he loses his mind, loving it so much

He’s a bit awkward with making friends at school, sticking to Giulia’s side most of the time

He doesn’t really care for music

He can fall asleep anywhere, honestly. He once fell asleep leaning against the doorway and then crashed onto the floor

Alberto loves to doodle on his arms and hands and Luca doesn’t really care to wash them off so they just kinda chill there. 

He’s very easy to prank and scare

Oh you should see him around the holidays! He’s so excited! His eyes sparkle and shine, he absolutely loves the decorations!

He’s not competitive, actually. He just wanted the prize money to get the Vespa, but he doesn’t really care about winning. He just... Isn’t competitive

He is very protective over his friends. Do what you want to him, but lay a hand on someone he loves and he will tear you a new one. We see him in the movie just frown when Ercole makes fun of him, but when Ercole shoved Alberto, all bets were off.

Charts the stars

He doesn’t have one love language, he has all of them, but probably Physical Touch and Quality Time more than anything, or Acts of Service.

Drinks expresso more often than he probably should, but just to get through his schoolwork

Misses his goatfish more than he wants to admit, especially little Giuseppe

Allergies beat him up during the spring

Slowly gets used to cats with Machiavelli’s kittens, but he’s still scared of the chunky boy

A teacher at school made the mistake of introducing him to Shakespeare. He spent hours sobbing over a good chunk of the plays.

Because he liked Shakespeare, Giulia’s mom got him some poetry books. He was not a fan of Edgar Allan Poe or Agatha Christie or Mary Shelley, all the horror/murder type stuff. He loved Emily Dickinson though!

Is as terrified of losing Alberto as Alberto is terrified of losing him

While he isn’t as touchy with Giulia as he is with Alberto, he does get more touchy with her

Reads tons of books about cats, dogs, and turtles to give Machiavelli, Nerone, and Caligola the care they need

Hears about human farms and loses his mind, rapidly asking questions about how they work and if they’re similar to his own

Giulia tries to convince him that fairytales are real. He has nightmares about them for a few nights until Massimo has to tell him that fairytales are made up and her mom changes them slightly to be more... Non-scary. She starts telling them to him to bed just because she misses doing so, and then he can’t fall asleep without someone telling him a story.

Doesn’t do the handshake with anyone that isn’t Alberto or Giulia.

Giulia’s mom calls him “fishy” or “guppy” and he wants to hate it but he can’t

Hates it when people call him cute or baby him, but his family + Alberto + Marcovaldos still do it

Once heard some French Tourists and stared at Giulia and went “why is their Italian so weird sounding” and she lost her shit laughing

Doesn’t swear, refuses to swear

Tries to use Vespa stamps if they’re available

Once he learns what “Piacere, gioralamo trombetta” means, he sends a letter to Alberto which is just him freaking out and laughing while making fun of it. They don’t stop saying it. In fact, they probably say it more.

He has a map in his room with pushpins of where he’s been. Beside it are a bunch of sticky notes of where he wants to go with Alberto with reasons on why he wants to go.

Has a little bit more courage, but not too much

He’s often teased for calling others “sir” or “ma’am” and so he feels really shy about it but doesn’t stop

Refuses to call Massimo and Giulia’s mom by their names, it just feels too awkward for him

Makes friendship bracelets for the trio as well as separate ones for him and Alberto, then him and Giulia.

While he loves gelato, he doesn’t like it as much as Alberto

I feel like he’d dot the i’s in Giulia’s name with hearts but no one else’s

People at school think he has a crush on her but he doesn’t

He and Alberto still say they sleep under the anchovies. No matter how often he researches stars, he’ll always call them anchovies around him.

Sticks out his tongue when focused

Doesn’t like aquariums, he stares at those fish and he just feels trapped

Loves to dance in the rain

Does that little feet tappy dance thing when he’s excited or shakes his hands

Honestly half of his vocabulary is stern shouts of “Alberto!” “Giulia!” or “silenzio Bruno, silenzio Bruno! Silenzio Bruno!”

Speaking of, he can’t just say “Silenzio Bruno” once, it’s always him saying it more than once, especially when he’s really scared

He doesn’t have loud, aggressive sneezes, but he does have sneeze fits. Once he sneezed so many times that with every one his face got closer to his desk until it just went BAM and he has a massive bruise on his forehead for days. 

Sometimes just goes into the water and swims to relax. If he’s feeling homesick, he’ll do some daring trick and then instinctively turn to smile at Alberto only to realize he isn’t there

His dad still keeps crabs but lets Luca name them. Luca chooses to name them all after space things. Mainly moons, but sometimes planets or galaxies

Secretly feels really guilty about Alberto selling their Vespa

After almost being sent to The Deep, he is terrified of the dark and can’t sleep without a light on, no matter how dim it is

Alberto:

Matching pajamas with both Massimo and Giulia! (Refuses to match with her, Massimo yelled at them)

Tries to see what triggers his transformation. Does watermelon? Does juice? Is it any liquid? He’ll find out!

Calls Giulia “Spewlia” just to piss her off

Those two are always arguing. Yes, he often starts it

Lots of tattoos and ear piercings!

Will into Giulia’s room, stare her dead in the eyes, call her a bitch, and run out while leaving the door open. She’ll scream at him and probably throw something. 

Tends to shorten people’s names. He calls Luca “Lu,” “Lulu,” and even “Luke.” Luca does not like any of these names.

Still builds his Vespas! They’re not as fun without Luca, though

Takes Giulia with him sometimes too and purposely crashes into the sea or something just to see what she does. 

Gains quite a bit of muscle 

Is the one who takes down all the sea monster things with Massimo. He and Lorenzo carry Smuca to the fountain

Idk I feel like he has loud sneezes

I also feel like he makes that weird cough face like that one cat idk I just know I’m right

He doesn’t just sing... He scream sings

Doesn’t know how to dance but if there is music he will dance

Loves dancing in the rain too!

Sometimes he’ll just walk into Giulia’s room and gossip with her. They’ll make a blanket fort and grab some snacks and cats and just... Spend the night talking and catching up

She teaches him how to braid hair and now he just loves doing her hair

Bites his lip quite a bit. That’s canon but like, still worth mentioning

Learns how to ride a bike so he doesn’t get killed or something

Keeps a journal on things Luca and Giulia are interested in so he can learn about them. He writes down bullet points on what he remembers from conversations, but it’s honestly not much

He doesn’t have big dreams other than traveling the world with Luca. He knows Giulia wants to be a marine biologist and Luca wants to travel the world + is still figuring things out. He has short term goals other than that and changes the topic about it.

A popular headcanon is that Alberto takes care of the goatfish when Luca’s at school and I think that would happen!

He’s shockingly good with kids! When not working, he loves playing soccer with them by the fountain

He almost named Machiavelli’s mate “Frog” because he can’t name things

Half the time when Giulia and/or Luca talk about school, he goes “I don’t what that means, but I’m choosing to define it as ____” and won’t let them prove him wrong

Technically canon but he will bite. Chomp chomp.

When he meets Giulia’s mom, they love to paint together

He does make some friends in Portorosso, but none are as close to him as his sister and best friend!

This man is the most dramatic person good lord

Love language is definitely physical touch!

Still screams “Take me, gravity!” pretty often

Can’t do work alone without music. He doesn’t really like opera but he can’t stand silence, he just can’t

Sometimes he thinks of Luca’s betrayal and is really angry, but knows he’d probably do the same if the roles were reversed. It was about self preservation and the risk of living. He still gets upset about it sometimes, but completely forgives him and understands

Is always torn between giving Giulia genuine facts about sea creatures and giving her such absurd but lowkey believable lies. He wants her to succeed so badly but also wants to screw her over

If you give him anything, he will play with it. String? A toy. A pen? A toy. A literal rock you found on the side of the road? A gorgeous toy, thank you!

Never just goes into the water, he will always be dramatic and dive in or jump

Sometimes when not on duty, he just blows his lifeguard whistle because he thinks it’s cool

He loves yoyos!

Will noogie Giulia.

Sometimes gets scared that Massimo will abandon him, but it seems like Massimo always knows

Città Vuota is his favorite song!

Doodles all over everything, especially Giulia and Luca’s arms and legs. They range from little stars to tic tac toe games to fish to anything that comes to mind

Giulia:

Is very much into photography! Luca always does hearts with his hands/fingers while Alberto does stupid poses or flips her off... or both.

Hums and sings a lot! 

Also loves to dance and is the best of the trio! Loves to twirl and vibe even if there’s no music! It’s just her personality

She doesn’t just hug, she jumps into their arms and holds them close

Sometimes just to annoy Alberto she’ll hug him and press kisses to his head and cheeks. Siblings gonna be annoying.

Always has so much energy but really struggles with sitting still for homework after such long hours in school that her grades aren’t all that good except for Astronomy!

The most competitive of the trio

Bites her lip when she’s nervous

Started wearing her hat to match her dad when she was little and now she doesn’t like being without it

Has probably fallen asleep in class

Loves watermelon and gelato

While Ciccio and Guido apologize for their actions, she doesn’t forgive them and doesn’t want to. She has every right to

Gets really into singing when she’s singing along to songs

Doesn’t like makeup for herself but will hold the boys captive to do their makeup

Loves puns! Will make sea puns to piss off Alberto and Luca, but Luca loves them so it half-works

Loves copying Alberto’s lipbite

Machiavelli her beloved <3 

Loves her fam so much! She’s got pictures of them everywhere and is constantly buying them gifts

Speaking of! Her love language is giving gifts! 

She’s actually pretty good at making friends since she can read people so well. It’s just that Portorosso doesn’t have any.... Great kids to befriend and Genova just has too many that she sticks to a small group which eventually fades, as groups do

She isn’t the most emotional but she also isn’t the least emotional. She doesn’t cry often but she does get sad and shows it

I don’t know why I feel this way but I definitely think she’s scared of the doctor

She used to be scared of thunderstorms until meeting her boys and the race happened. Now she associates rain and storms with that win

Summer is her favorite season

She knows everyone in Portorosso by name and knows most of their birthdays by heart

Speaking of, she always celebrates Alberto’s birthday like her like her life depends on it

Now loves racing on her bike even more cause of the race

Calls Alberto “Berto” and is the only one allowed to do say

A very light sleeper

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More on the way probably they’re all I think about

[samwisethewitch]

Little Acts of Everyday Magic

Many witches, regardless of skill level, struggle to feel magical in their everyday lives. If you’re only engaging with magic during your monthly full moon rituals, it can be hard to feel like a powerful witch on the other 30ish days of the month. The trick is to find small, everyday acts to make life more magical.

Here are a few things you can do to bring some magic into your everyday life:

Keep a magical journal. This can be a Book of Shadows where you record your spells and other information relevant to your craft, a tarot journal where you record readings, or a tool for manifestation. And if you’re not a writer, why not try keeping a sketchbook journal or a collage journal? You may even want to try creating Pinterest boards for your different magical interests — you can also use Pinterest boards for manifestations. You can do some pretty powerful magic with just a pen and paper, so don’t underestimate the power of a journaling practice!

Bring some witchin’ into your kitchen. Kitchen magic is one of the easiest ways to incorporate witchcraft into your daily life, because we all have to eat. You can use magic in the kitchen by looking up the correspondences of different ingredients and blending them based on intention, by charging your food with sigils and other sacred symbols, and by speaking incantations while you mix ingredients. Lots of the most commonly used magical herbs are edible, so a lot of spells are easy to translate to food. For example, a pumpkin pie contains all the ingredients for a powerful money spell — all it needs is your intention!

Get into mixing your own magical tea and coffee blends. One of the easiest forms of kitchen witchcraft is coffee and tea spells. Buying herbs to mix your own tea blends can be a really fun (and tasty) way to practice magic. You can also find pre-made blends that can be used for magic at the supermarket — use a sleepy time blend in spells for peace, or an energizing blend in spells for motivation, etc.

Choose your outfits with intention. Use the magic of color to pick clothes that match your intentions — green to attract wealth, pink to attract love, etc. Wear jewelry that has magical properties, or charm a piece of jewelry you already own. You can also write sigils, runes, or other magical symbols on your clothes’ tags to imbue them with magical energy.

Wear magical oils as perfume. I know I’ve talked about this before, but oils are like pre-mixed spells in a bottle, which makes them extremely convenient for the witch on the go. Don’t have time for a full ritual before your job interview/first date/other important event? No problem! Apply an appropriate oil to your wrists and behind your ears, whisper a few words of intention, and go forth and slay. My personal go-to combination is a protection oil paired with a success oil for general good vibes. You can buy pre-made magical oil blends from witch-owned businesses, or make your own by blending essential oils in a carrier oil and charging it with your intention.

Grow magical houseplants. As far as I’m concerned, caring for a plant or animal (see below) is an act of pure magic. Lots of magic herbs can be grown inside pretty easily, and lots of common houseplants also have magical associations. Choose the plants that you feel intuitively drawn to, and make caring for them part of your daily ritual practice. And if you end up using any part of the plant in a spell down the line, it will be extra potent because of its personal connection to you.

Get a magical pet, or learn what magic your pets already possess. Cats (black or otherwise) are the classic witchy pet, but all animals have inherent symbolism and power associated with them. Whether you have a cat, a dog, a bunny, a snake, fish, or some other creature living in your home, do research into the mythology, folklore, and magic associated with that animal — you might be surprised what you find! Make acts of caring for your pet — like feeding them, brushing their fur, or cleaning their cage — into rituals. Allow your pet to participate in your spiritual practice if it’s safe for them to do so. My dog loves to be around me when I’m doing Reiki, and will ask me to give her some energy while I’m channeling. Animals are sensitive to energy, so you might be surprised by how much they’re capable of understanding and participating in your rituals.

Develop a meditation practice. This is going way back to one of the first parts of this series, but a daily meditation practice is one of the most effective ways to develop your ability to sense and interact with energy. It also has a ton of proven health benefits and can help you maintain a peaceful mental/emotional state. Meditation does not have to be time consuming — even five minutes a day will make a huge difference. I’ve recently gotten very into mindfulness meditation, and it’s lead to a lot of positive changes in my life and my spiritual practice. If you don’t already have a meditation practice, I strongly encourage you to start one.

Read mythology, scripture, or poetry — or write your own! Whether you believe that the gods and heroes of myth are real spiritual beings or simply represent archetypes within the collective consciousness, there is power in the old stories. Read the stories and poems that speak to you, and see what inspiration you can draw from them. If no myths or legends catch your fancy, try writing your own! If you were to create your own pantheon of gods, what would they be like? What would they do? Write it down! Pop culture pantheons are also becoming increasingly popular with modern witches — this is where, instead of working with a mythological pantheon, you choose fictional characters as your representations of universal archetypes. If you want to work with Superman as a representation of the Paragon archetype or Maleficent as a representation of the Dark Mother, there’s no rule saying you can’t. Storytelling takes many, many forms, and all of those forms can be sources of power for a witch.

Make a playlist of songs that make you feel like a powerful witch. Right now, my go-to witchy music is In This Moment’s “Mother” album, but some other bands/musicians that make me feel good and witchy are Fleetwood Mac (of course), Florence + the Machine, Hozier, and the Crane Wives. Make a playlist of songs that make you feel powerful and magical, and listen to it any time you need a pick me up. If you choose to work with deities and/or archetypes, you can make devotional playlists to help you connect with their energy. You can also build playlists for specific intentions like love, wealth, or healing. Spotify can be a powerful manifestation tool if you get creative with it.

These are just a few ideas, but there are countless ways to bring magic into your daily life. What do you guys like to do to make life more magical?

[ratsoh-writes]

The character limit on asks cannot stop me from submitting my matchup request

I apologize in advance. I have dumb bitch don’t shut up disease. There’s nothing I can do 🤷‍♂️

The elephant in the room: I’m neurodivergent. A mix of adhd and autism. I was born with disabilities. I have Chairi type 2, I did get surgery as kid for it, and an auto-inflammatory disorder as the biggest in my life. Chronic migraines, joint and muscle pain, stomach issues etc. I take meds to help and try to keep up with low impact activities. I do get an injection for the auto-inflammatory disease and then botox and nerve blocks injections in my head and shoulders for intense muscle stiffness. Hurts like hell but it helps me a lot. 

Personality: I’m quite low energy and quiet most of the time. I like familiarity and having to change how I do something stresses me out hard. I try to appear calm and sarcastic but I’m a lot more sensitive than what I want to admit. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria messes me up bad and I’m generally an anxious person. I do have a knack for analyzing things. I can get too involved the world’s problems with this but also pinpoint how someone feels and maybe why once I notice their pattern. I really want to make people happier. If a loved one asks me to jump, I’ll ask how high. As for humor, I adore stupid tumblr and gen z humor. Me and the boys DO go out looking for beans thank you for asking. 

Hobbies: I love some existential games. Little Nightmares 1 and 2 are iconic. I could go on and on about the symbolism. Speaking of, once again I like to analyze. Media analysis is a fun pastime for me. As I said, I get into larger issues and I find different media’s are wonderful media for exploring them, specially horror. My new thing is horror podcasts. Archive 81 is my favorite rn. I’ve been trying to nurture my inner kid. I have plushies that I sleep with and ones that I attach to my bag to bring with me places. I wanna rewatch some childhood shows/movies like Monster High, Barbie, and Pokémon. I’ve been sewing and crocheting a lot. I made a stuffed whale with a starry looking yarn. Space whale ❤️. I draw and paint a ton. I like gauche, markers, pencils, and digital but I wanna go back to sketches. I like learning, it sounds so dumb but it’s true. I wanna go into a research field actually, specially with birds. I really like animals in general though. I have some dogs and cats and a bearded dragon. I have a sorts punk-cryptidcore-fairycore thing going on. I really expressing it through clothing and eye and lip makeup. I’m a big lipstick fan. I always wear it out. I like big and bold eyeshadow looks. I want to be soft and huggable while also looking like I came from hell.

Pet Peeves: If I say I’m busy or not in the mood, I really need that person to listen. I get into angry moods sometimes and just need to be left alone. I hate feeling like that and I despise snapping at people. Talking over me every time. I got in trouble a lot for interrupting so now I’m very cautious about it and I’d like the same. In the same vain, never listening to what I’m trying to say. I’m excited or invested in something and then they keep talking to someone else or looking at their phone. I have bad sensory issues. Don’t bother me about it. I can eat a sandwich one day and the next it makes sick. I don’t know why, don’t ask. I also can’t stand a variety of sounds. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t loud, I can hear it and it hurts. 

Dealbreakers: I hate being brushed off when I’m upset. I rarely communicate it, so when I do it’s a leap of faith from my perspective. I don’t want to be told I’m being defensive or emotional or be left alone.

Values: I hate so much about the world currently, and a lot of it is how people don’t question things. Why is this necessary if it causes hurt? Do we need it? Can we alter it? I find a lot of good people agree on fixing things but don’t understand the deeper issues that cause them. I guess I really value compassion. From a scientific standpoint, humans got so far by being really good at taking care of each other. We took care of the sick and elderly and cared for babies and children. I want things to better for my younger siblings and their kids. I truly believe in silent rebellions and hope in dark places. I’m disabled, very very queer and a lot of my family are immigrants. I’m very proud. So many people and systems tried stop me but I’m still very alive. I think living as happily and indulgently as I can is the best F you to those people and systems.

Oh! I think I have it down with this one!

The boy I’m matching you with is…..

Papyrus!!! The cool man himself!!

What attracts papyrus to you is the fact that you never loose hope! You aren’t naive by any means, but you still see the good in humanity and want to add to that. Plus your creativity is a big bonus. Papyrus is usually attracted to the artsy people. Anyone who creates

He an amazing communicator and is so forgiving and compassionate. If you’re looking for a respectful boy, paps is your man. He’s good with quirky partners and rolls with it well. Especially if you’re willing to entertain his own quirks in return.

One thing about humans that he’s super jealous of is lips lol. Papyrus jokes about wishing he could feel his “hair” in the breeze, but if he had lips, you’d bet he’d be wearing lipstick every day too. He adores it when you wear yours and will pretend not to notice if you ever leave lipstick stains on his cheek lol

He doesn’t get gen z humor very well, but does enjoy the dirtier jokes. He won’t admit that though! Gotta keep up his good boy image!

[witchyintention]

𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕔𝕣𝕒𝕗𝕥?

As of late many have found themselves taking steps into the wondrous world of witchcraft. However it is a lot more than just an aesthetic. It is a lifestyle that is both beautiful and dangerous when you don't know what you're doing. Witchy Intention is to help guide you in your craft and teach you through my experiences and research. Along with many other experienced witches through interviews.

When you hear someone say witchcraft you instantly jump to satanic or devil worship but truth be told it's not. Satan is a figure in Christianity and has absolutely nothing to do with witchcraft. So what is witchcraft you ask. Witchcraft is an earth based religion or practice, and has been practiced in almost all the societies and cultures across the world. Though each craft is different according to local beliefs and traditions.

According to scholars of witchcraft, it was a belief system whose origin predates the majority of well known religions. It dates back so far many do not know the exact date, but we have seen it in many cultures such as ancient Egyptians. It also has been evolving since then and its present form is quite different from what it was thousands of years ago. And different areas practiced it differently. Even today from person to person and Coven to Coven it is practice differently. To each their own. It's a unique experience in itself. 

In the ancient times, Witchcraft was known as ‘craft of the wise’ as the wise persons were those who followed the path of nature and were in tune with its forces, had the knowledge of herbs and medicines, gave wise counsel and were held in high esteem as Shamanic healers and leaders in the village and community. They understood that nature was superior to human beings and that human beings were simply one of the many parts of nature, both seen and unseen that combine to form one whole. As Chief Seattle said, “We do not own the earth; we are a part of it.” They understood that what we take from nature or use, we must return in kind to maintain the balance and equilibrium. The modern man has, however, forgotten this and has paid the price in the form of many ecological and environmental disasters.

Unfortunately for the past several hundred years the image of the witch has been associated with the evil, heathenism and unrighteousness due to prejudices created by the Christian church. Somewhere along the line Christians accused the Pagan Horned god as the devil because these pagans didn't believe in the same god as them. So what does some Christian of high power do? Calls it devil worship. Despite the fact the bible never tells us what Lucifer looks like upon going to hell. 

However, as of late people have started understanding and practicing witchcraft as the true religion of God and Nature. There is renewed interest in witchcraft and witches profess to believe and practice the craft with a sense of pride and confidence. The believers in the New Age movement have understood witchcraft in its true perspective.

Modern witchcraft attracts believers from all walks of life and positions in society all over the world. They come together to understand the life, nature, evolution and mysteries of the universe through witchcraft. Witchcraft is the most democratic religion and practices in the world. There is no rigid dogma and no hard-line regime except for a simple premise that we should not do evil and if we do, know it will come back in multiple. Though not all witches bide by this but many of us do. Secondly, we should not misuse the generosity of nature by disturbing its balance. This is certainly something we all bide by. 

There are many forms of witchcraft like I had said earlier it differs from person to person. I will have a separate episode going into the top most popular kinds of witches but for now let's just explain a few things. A lot of other belief systems have set rules of what is good and what is bad, think the ten commandments, or Orthodox Jews are not allowed to use anything mechanical on the Sabbath, or Muslims are only allowed to eat certain parts of the animal. Witchcraft isn't like that. It's more about the big picture and how our actions contribute to that big picture. 

I would also like to clarify that being a witch doesn't mean your Wiccan or even pagan. You can very much still be Christian and practice the craft. Remember I said witchcraft was all about the mother earth along with whatever god or gods you worship. This includes the Christian god. I personally know a few Christian witches.

 However note that if you are a Christian witch you will be working with only that god. If you plan to work with other gods perhaps you need to rethink your religion's standpoint. "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" is one of the Ten Commandments found in the Hebrew Bible at Exodus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 5:6. With that said the craft is something unique and interesting but be careful because it is real and it can be dangerous. 

When new witches find themselves wanting to get into the craft but they really have no idea where to start. Try the history. There is a lot more history than I could even hope to cover in a single session. This is nothing more than an introduction to it. When you are learning about its history you will find many different kinds of practices. 

Though it's perfectly fine to be drawn to a practice and wanting to do it. Make sure you first do research on whether the practice is a closed or open practice. Closed practices are closed for a reason and most times you have to have approval to practice it and be sworn in. So if you find yourself wanting to do a closed practice make sure you do the research on how you can do it and do go through the proper procedures. 

Some might not let you in at all. For example Voodoo. Voodoo is one of the ones you work with your ancestors, an African folk magic. Those gods (spiritual beings? I really don't know.) are not going to be very accepting of one who is of European descent because your ancestors did their ancestors wrong. 

If you are considering the craft, know this, you will spend your whole life learning about the craft. Even the most seasoned of witches are constantly learning. The craft in a sense is like a hypothesis. You will constantly be learning, writing down your findings, doing this and that, to see if it works and figuring things out as you go. But before you even think about getting a head of yourself you need to do lots of research. Don't think 'oh I read a book I can now do a spell'. Witches read a lot. Even if we have already read something on a topic we will keep on. Cross reference everything you read. There is plenty of false information. Especially on the internet, but there are some good sources too.

You need tons of training and maybe even guidance from established witches before you cast your first spell. However we know full well that you learn by doing. So go for it but start with small simple spells. Note that writing a spell or doing a spell does not require a coven, animal bones, and full moon, as fun as nights involving these can be. In fact many witches don't have covens and many do not use animal bones. 

Sometimes it’s not about forming the biggest circle under a full moon, but just having a good time with other witches. Or even yourself if you prefer to do Magic solo. It's fine and very much acceptable. But coven or not it's always fun to do with friends. Nothing's like dancing around a bonfire with your best friends.

Practicing can get expensive. I mean you're going to spend a lot of money on books. Though the internet had everything you could possibly need, nothing beats a good book on witchcraft. I mean who doesn't want a bookshelf full of witchcraft research. Then the actual items you'll need will cost you. Even if it's not aesthetically pleasing. People tend to go a cheaper route using things for the dollar store or reusing sauce jars. Which is good but you will still spend a pretty penny because you'll constantly be getting new ones. Jars break, candles melt, herbs are all used up and crystals can and will break. And no your practice might not always be aesthetically pleasing or photo worthy at all time. Truth be told it can be a bit messy, kinda like arts and crafts. Then again witchcraft is both an art and a craft so it makes sense.

Not all witches are female. Whether you are male, nonbinary, trans, genderless, or anything in between, you can be a witch. It's true that there is a beautiful history of women and witchcraft but magick is genderless. Magik does not care about your gender, sexuality, or religious beliefs. Magik is also not good nor evil, it all depends on how the protactioner is using it.

Popular belief also tells that you have to be born into a witch family or your ancestors have to be a witch for you to be one. That's not true. I have said it once and I have said it twice. Anyone can be a witch. 

Hexes, they are real. Sorry if this scares you, but hexes, cast to inflict misfortune on others, are indeed real. Some witches but not all believe Magic used with ill intent will come back three times on the caster. Some call this The Rule of Three some call it karma. Either way just know it will come back to you some way or another, even if it's by a return to sender spell.

One of the mean teachings of witchcraft by most forms is what you put into the universe is what you get out of it. If you put positivity into the world you'll get positivity back. The same could be said about negativity. But then someone will say 'Oh I have been putting positivity in the world and nothings happening.' If that's the case the negativity you've been put into the world prior to it is still trying to catch up to you. So keep up the positivity even if it's hard.

You don't have to wear all black. There isn’t a standard dress code for witches, and while it’s absolutely acceptable to wear black from head to toe, there are just as many witches who prefer a sundress and sandals as there are who like black fishnets and velvet.

Black cats are not needed either. Though there is nothing wrong with having a black cat and being a witch. Both have been misunderstood for their supposed evil intentions and connections to dark magic for centries.

Remember real magic isn't some Harry Potter mumbo jumbo either. Though let's face it, we can all still pretend that's what it's like. I do. I know the difference between real magic and what the church and Entertainment make it out to be. But I still enjoy the fiction as much as the real. But we do use wands. Though not all of us do and if anything it's to help control where our magic goes to say.

Black, Grey, White, Evil or Good Magic are terms I personally do not use. Some people use these terms, but they probably shouldn't. To start, they have racist undertones. Rituals that are mistakenly believed to be bad are labeled black magic often come from traditions such as Hoodoo, which is traditional African folk magic, that is also a closed practice. Another thing I have said before is that Magic and Witchcraft alike are not good or bad, it's all on how the protationer uses it. I personally tend to stay away from these labels simply because I do not like the negative feeling given and the story behind them. But that is just me, I would hope many follow in those footsteps but not all are going to. I fully understand that.

✩ Don't Steal Other Peoples Work ✩

Written:

May 24, 2020

By:

Reine Alicis

[c-c-cherry]

Jojos Doing Jojo Things (with each other)✨😌

*sweating as the part 5 hc asks start piling up in my inbox*

 *looks at the one that mentions Jonathan*

Hello~~ I’m sorry for being criminally inactive here, I forgot during that long 6 month lockdown that I actually had a real life outside of the internet and now I have to go do real life things?? Instead of doing nothing but writing?? Crimes, I tell you.

I love the idea of Jonathan interacting with all the other jojos so I thought I’d take a little break from part 5 whump headcanons to fulfill this one :D SO HERE’S SOME SELF-INDULGENT HEADCANONS ABOUT JONATHAN DOING FUN LITTLE ACTIVITIES WITH THE OTHER JOJOS BECAUSE I KNOW WE ALL NEED IT RIGHT NOW😭����😭

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Joseph (lets say Youngseph in this case because shhh)

-Hear me out but KNITTING

-Let this man do some nice calm things please

-Joseph has absolutely no way to connect with Jonathan. Like. Nothing.

-He doesn’t see the two of them as anything alike even though they both have the star, and when it comes to connecting with such a righteous, nice dude he’s a bit :/ about it

-He also doesn’t want to do anything stupid (In his words.) He hates baking, he’s never been into reading and school, and the two can never really click with sports

-Our man Jonathan has searched his heart and soul for something to bring the two of them together but Joseph is always just not into it >:(

-He’s almost given up on connecting at all BUT—

-One thing they do have in common? Erina.

-BOOM. Johnny-boy suddenly has ideas >:)

-Joseph is really put off when Jonathan shows up with a ball of yarn and needles and in the most innocent way possible he’s like “I have something to show you ^-^”

-the first thing Joseph thinks is NO FUCKING WAY. If Caesar or his mother or anyone caught him fucking knitting he’d never be able to live it down

-So instead he just watches as Jonathan sits by the fire, and it looks really boring at first but he just starts going at it

-And of course the gears start turning and all his brain sees is “fast task?? task I can be good at? something quick my hands can do??”

-And Jonathan looks up to take a break to see Joseph perched on the edge of the chair in complete awe, but the moment he asks if he wants to know how to do it, Joseph gets really withdrawn :/

The rest of their conversation goes a little like this:

“Isn’t that meant for girls?”

“Why would hats and scarves be only for girls?”

“But its—”

“You know...I’m making Erina a matching hat and scarf for her birthday. I could use a little help with the scarf…”

“...”

“We can make it a race.”

And with a fire lighting in his eyes, Joseph accepts the contest even though he has no idea what he’s doing. But isn’t that what he does best?

-Needless to say, he becomes obsessed.

-When his greatest fear comes true and Caesar finds out, he’s too obsessed to care about the teasing

-Joseph is good at something that Caesar isn’t. Caesar is jealous. Caesar picks up knitting.

-Are knitting contests even a thing?? I don’t care because Joseph and Caesar could probably open a fucking etsy shop with all the stuff they make (and absolutely shamelessly at that)

-Anytime they meet someone new it's immediately “which hat is better?” “Joseph’s is worse, right?” “Can you start the stopwatch for us?”

-Even in his older years, he never actually stopped making things for Holy, Suzi, and even sometimes Jotaro (thought Joot wouldn’t be caught dead wearing any of it in public)

-He actually progresses past knitting and making clothes in general becomes a secret passion of his

-The hat he’s wearing in part 4? He definitely made that. And don’t even think he doesn’t send Josuke the tackiest shit in the mail

Jonathan is very proud :)

Jotaro

-Animals. Is that even a question?

-Jonathan was always more of a dog or cat person, but the moment he finds out that Jotaro’s interested in marine life? MAN GOES ALL OUT

-He not only researches the shit out of marine biology just so he can hold up a conversation with him, but he also buys A SHIT TON OF BOOKS for his favourite angst man

-We all know that Jotaro isn’t exactly a man of words, but his heart is touched when they exchange a few sentences and Jonathan shows up the next day with a book all about what they were talking about🥺

-Like—Jonathan was always scolded for never listening to his father, but when it comes to stuff like this, Jotaro swears he’s able to read his mind

-Most people can barely get him to utter a sentence, but when these two are alone they’ll talk for hours about the ocean

-Holy was actually pretty worried for a while that Jotaro rarely ever opened up to anyone, but after seeing the two of them talk it was like a weight lifted off her shoulders :)

-They go on trips all the time to study water life. First, it's just to the river a few minutes away. Then they start going out to the lake nearby, and then they’re suddenly borrowing Joseph’s private boat and going on all these “research trips” together

-Which just consist of Jotaro taking hundreds of pictures and surprisingly never shutting up about what he sees (which is definitely a first)

-They pass by snooty, rich fishermen all the time who make fun of them for only looking at the animals, and Jonathan secretly uses Hamon to attract the fish to anywhere but where the fishers are lol

-I can blame snipster on instagram for introducing me to Smiletaro but the pure happiness and smiles of happy Joot on this boat with Jonathan is like a DRUG

-Star Platinum is absolutely thrilled, and when Jonathan realizes that Star is an amazing artist, he actually buys the stand a cute little purple notebook to draw all the ocean life they come across :3

-The moment they get back to shore Jotaro’s all -_- again around people, but you can still see the excitement in his eyes if you look hard enough

-When he gets into school for marine biology, Jonathan is so fucking proud

-This is an au which means anything can happen so I formally declare that Jonathan definitely got Jotaro those golden dolphin-shaped coat pins when the man first goes off to Uni

-He wears them as a good luck charm :3

Josuke

-Josuke is soooo easy to get along with, especially since both of them are such warm people :)

-Jonathan figures that it wouldn’t be hard to find something fun to do together, but when he actually thinks about it...he really knows nothing about what Josuke likes to do

-He ends up just asking the kid next time they see each other, and they end up just agreeing to teach each other one thing the other doesn’t know

-Because the power of KNOWLEDGE BABYYY

-Josuke shows up the next day with an entire fucking Nintendo 64 and is absolutely set on teaching him how to play something

-Erina just kinda watches like 👁👄👁 as Josuke plugs it in and Jonathan is confused but also SUPER EXCITED because he barely even knows what a video is but there are also video games??

-After much internal debate, Josuke decides on Ocarina of Time because he’s worried Jonathan will have a fucking heart attack if they play something like Mario Kart

-Also he thinks Jojo would enjoy the whole “righteous hero coming of age” archetype thing because,,,you know,,,

-They start it up and immediately Jonathan is like WHAT and has no idea how to play and dies in ways that Josuke didn’t even know were possible, but they somehow make it to the first temple with a lot of help from Josuke

-Right before the boss fight, his mom pulls up like “bitch we gotta go come on” so Josuke sees no harm in leaving the system at Jonathan’s and coming back next week

-Oho,,,ohohooo,,,

-He comes back a week later to a dark house,,,Erina’s off on some trip, and he can hear the faintest “HYAH!” coming from the living room

-He walks in to find Jonathan in the exact same spot he left him, ALL OTHER SAVE FILES ARE COMPLETE, and he’s in some obscure location doing a side quest Josuke didn’t even know existed

-Turns out he’s really good at quest games

-After Josuke realizes that Jonathan’s managed to beat the game more than once, he asks if he wants to try out another game

-To which Jonathan replies: “There’s MORE?”

.

-Aside from giving Jonathan a crippling video game addiction, Josuke also learns a vital thing about Jonathan Joestar

-Hamon ^-^

-Josuke’s a little surprised that Jonathan can even see his stand, and Jonathan has no other way to explain it than that it must be connected to his Hamon somehow

-To which Josuke is like “what” and Jonathan realizes that his stupid fucking grandson decided not to tell ANY OTHER Joestar about Hamon

-He’s no Zeppeli, but he could try and teach him...even if it didn’t work, it would still be a nice bonding activity

-When Jonathan finds out that Josuke’s stand ability is revolved around healing, he’s overjoyed because he might have a better chance

-They start small with breathing exercises and meditation, which eventually lead to Jonathan trying to teach Josuke how to make things like flowers

-Since it doesn’t exactly come naturally to Josuke, things don’t exactly work out,,,but both are unsurprisingly happy when Josuke manages to make a single flower bloom :3

-It’s not much, but it’s there and it honestly makes Josuke feel much better knowing that he could eventually learn how to heal himself, too :)

Giorno

-Jonathan considered teaching Giorno Hamon a while ago, but he realized that his stand already has the properties of Hamon, if not just in a more humanoid form

-And when Jojo puts two and two together that he and his son can both grow a lot of plant life, he has the perfect idea

-Garden buddies!!!! :D

-They grow everything you could possibly think of, and to top it all off, Giorno fills the garden with all this animal life :)

-When it comes to biology, Giorno never shuts up about it. He’s the quietest kid when it comes to virtually anything else but prepare for MAJOR info dumps about frogs and his vast knowledge of flowers

-Speaking of flowers, them just sitting and growing them together and talking about all of their favourites? Yes please

-Although they love to accelerate plant growth, there’s one patch in the middle of the garden that they’re determined to grow naturally

-Also them growing and eating carambola (star fruit) together because it’s my pocket dimension that makes no sense and I get to decide what fun fruits the Joestars get to eat together

-the garden becomes a great place for picnics and outings and the best place to go when things get too chaotic

-Giorno starts a plant journal where he records everything that ends up growing there, and Jonathan starts impulse buying all these flower guide books so they can look at pictures of them and put their favourites in the garden :3

-They end up creating a little pond in the middle of everything, and Giorno puts a whole bunch of frogs and fish in it and it's all very tranquil and calm and nice :))

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I was gonna do part 6 (maybe part 7 too?) but mental energy? I don’t know her, sorry y’all :(

Feel free to add on though!! I wanna see what y’all would think Jonathan would wanna do with Jolyne or anyone else I missed :D My first thought for Jolyne was Rugby because Jonathan was a rugby KING and I feel like she’d be really good at it lmao

[uh-drarry]

Previous Part

Drarry gets some pets!

-Draco had talked about wanting a cat, and thought maybe they could rescue one. So he and Harry decided to check out the local animal rescue, not really expecting much from their first trip there. 

-They didn’t really find a pet that called to them and they were ready to leave after cooing over all the cuties when something white and fluffy caught Draco’s eye. 

-He got so excited and Harry was just very confused at what was happening until he actually deciphered Draco’s fast babbling and saw what Draco was dragging him towards. 

-It was a white ferret. 

-Draco was so goddamn excited and it was obvious he wanted the ferret so so bad. Which Harry thought was both hilarious and adorable. 

-“I thought you wanted a cat.”

“Why would I want a normal cat when we can get this adorable noodly cat instead?” Draco stared at this ferret with heart eyes and Harry knew they would be taking the noodle home with them.

-Only they don’t get to take him home. It turns out that the ferret had only recently been brought in after it was found outside so there is a waiting period to see if the original owner came to collect the ferret they lost. 

-Draco was obviously worried that he wouldn’t get to keep the ferret but they put their names down, luckily they were first on the list, so they would be notified when the ferret was either claimed, or when they would be able to come take their baby home.

-Draco talked about wanting the ferret their entire walk home, worrying and hoping. 

-Harry tried his best to reassure Draco that they would be able to find another pet if this one was taken, at least if that happened, they knew that the owner loved the ferret. Draco reluctantly agreed and Harry silently hoped the ferret wasn’t claimed so Draco could get the pet he really wanted.

-About a week later, Harry heard Draco answer a call and then a minute later he was yelling and running down the hallway toward him. Harry was afraid something bad had happened until he registered Draco’s giddy smile and bright, excited eyes.

-”Harry! The ferret! We can take him home!” Draco yelled and he lept into Harry’s arms.

-”Oh my god, Draco! That’s amazing!” Harry caught Draco in a tight hug while Draco continued talking to the person on the phone.

-They told the rescue they could come get the ferret the next day as they needed to buy supplies before they could take the little guy home. Harry and Draco immediately ran to the pet store where Draco pulled out a list of supplies they would need that he apparently had been researching over the last week.

-They got everything and some toys and made it home for dinner and they were able to get everything set up for the next day before they needed to head to bed that night.

-Draco then realized he has an all day class requirement the next day, but Harry promised to pick up their new baby and bring him home so he’d be there when Draco returns.

-Draco was reluctant, but he really couldn’t miss this class so he agreed to have Harry do this for them. He’d have all evening to play with their new pet after all.

-Draco was almost too giddy to fall asleep, he kept talking about how he’d never had a pet and he couldn’t wait any longer, but Harry got him to calm down, and then finally to fall asleep.

-The next day Harry made his way back to the rescue to pick up the ferret.

-As he’s waited for a worker to be free to put the ferret in the travel cage he brought, he happened by the reptiles he didn’t even see last time they were visiting. Seriously, how big could this place be?

-He was looking in all the habitats when he saw a ball python that looked like a toasted marshmallow and immediately fell in love like Draco did with the ferret. 

-He didn’t have anyone to talk to about it with unfortunately though. Not like how Draco babbled his ears off when he saw the ferret. Harry just watched the little guy and wanted to hold it.

-Honestly he didn’t know the first thing about taking care of snakes but he always thought they were cool and cute. And okay, he really wanted to take this cutie home. They could handle two pets right? One would technically be Draco’s pet, and one would be Harry’s pet! Perfect!

-When the worker came to get him for their ferret and to fill out the paperwork, he asked her how one is supposed to take care of a snake and what kind of snake is this little guy? He wants to know everything she knows about snakes, please and thank you.

-The worker was very accommodating and told Harry everything she knew and then went to get the worker who knew the most about the reptiles. Harry then asked even more questions. They made a list on his phone of things he would need and how much of what and how big a tank would have to be to hold this guy.

-Harry just kept getting more and more excited the more they talked about it.

-Harry, knowing he had nothing for snakes, just like with the ferret, asked if it would be possible to put a hold on the little guy so he could go make a habitat at home for it before he took him home. The rescue gracefully allowed it and Harry was, again, even more excited.

-He almost ran out without the ferret or filling out the paperwork, but he wouldn’t tell Draco that.

-Finally though, he signed off and was able to take the ferret home for Draco.

-When they arrived home, he got the ferret into his new pen with his toys to wait until Draco arrived. He didn’t want to overwhelm the poor guy so he just sat outside of the pen to watch him explore his new home. And maybe he gave him a treat or two.

-While they waited for Draco, Harry started thinking about the snake again.

-He decided he would surprise Draco in a day or two when he would be able to take the next pet home. It would be more fun that way. Draco had another full day of classes soon when Harry didn’t, he could set everything up then.

-Draco arrived home about an hour later and he immediately ran to where they set up the pen for the little guy.

-”Dionysus! You’re home!” He crouched outside of the pen, sticking his hand inside so the ferret could come and sniff his hand.

”Dionysus?” Harry asked.

”Yes that’s his name. Ferrets are mischievous creatures and also very entertaining. Dionysus is the Greek God of wine, vegetation, pleasure, festivity, madness, and wild frenzy. I thought it would fit well.” Draco looks very proud of himself.

Harry snorts, “Okay, babe.” But I’m definitely only calling him Dion, or maybe Noodle, Harry thought.

-Watching Draco play with Dion for the next hour was very entertaining, but eventually he got up to start making them dinner. 

-When Harry called Draco for dinner and he didn’t come, Harry went back to the ferret pen only to find the two curled up and sleeping together. 

-Harry was immensely happy they happened by the little guy, Dion and Draco just seemed to be made for each other. White ferret, white blonde man, a match made in heaven, obviously.

—

-Dionysus was a mischievous bastard.

-It had only been two days, and both Harry and Draco already loved him to pieces but damn.

-The little guy was somehow able to get out of his pen and they had woken up to him sleeping in their bed in the morning (draped over Harry’s face, heaven knows how he didn’t wake up, Draco definitely took like 50 photos), he stole socks, and he was great at hiding, which was terrible for them.

-Oh, he also somehow knew how to get on top of the kitchen cabinets? Draco and Harry were seriously considering the fact that their new ferret was actually a wizard in hiding.

-Each time they thought they had fixed the pen escape problem, he somehow proved them wrong when they turned their backs. It was honestly quite amusing and they didn’t mind terribly, but they needed him to be contained while they were both out so they still needed to figure out what to do. They were thinking about just giving up and basically ferret proofing a room as much as they could and shutting the door while they were both out.

-The socks had been disappearing at an alarming rate, but they finally caught him in the act a few hours later and chased him to where he’d been hiding then behind a dresser. They keep their socks put away in the hamper now, *cough* Harry.

-They also quickly learned that treats were a great thing to lure him out of his hiding places but also they didn’t want him to gain too much weight and have a vet yell at them for it. So they did their best to find him themselves first. They hoped when he was used to his new home that maybe he’d calm down somewhat. But that was a test of time.

-”Maybe he needs a friend.” Harry said to Draco on their second evening with Dionysus. They were watching him run around the room, and sometimes he kind of played fetch.

-”Babe, I don’t think we can handle two of these things. I’m already exhausted from one ferret.”

”That’s true. Maybe more toys to keep him occupied.”

“He’s already got tons.” Harry just shrugged. He didn’t want to give away the surprise of the snake he was planning on bringing home tomorrow while Draco was away for the night visiting his Mum.

-The next day after Draco had left, Harry got Dionysus into his room with water and his toys, closed the door, and then made his way to a local pet supplies store. He needed a lot of stuff in a short amount of time.

-He was about a quarter of the way through the list he had acquired when he realized he really couldn’t do this on his own. Draco had helped with all the ferret supplies, and this was even more than that had been.

-He called Sirius.

-”Hey pub, what’s up?” Harry smiled at the old nickname.

“Hey Dad, I need your help, are you busy right now?”

“Well, I am in the middle of working on a prank for Remus, but that can wait. What do you need from me?” 

“Oh god, I can hear the glee in your voice, what are you doing to poor Pops this time?” Harry didn’t know if he should laugh or warn Remus. Probably the former.

“Well... I may be sewing the flies of a pair of underwear shut. Embroidering more like, actually. He gets dressed in the dark mostly so I figure he won’t notice this and then he’ll have pretty little designs, and a little signature of my initials when he’s trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.” Harry is laughing loudly in the middle of the pet store by the time Sirius is done.

“Good one, Dad. I won’t warn him, that’s pretty harmless. But you should embroider his initials or name on the back of that pair too like Moms used to do.”

“Harry, this is why you’re my favorite child. Maybe I’ll embroider my own initials there so people know he’s mine…”

“Sure Dad, okay. Anyway, could you meet me at the pet store by my place? On Claps Gate Lane?”

Sirius gasped, “A puppy?!”

“No, Dad, sorry. Something a little less furry. But I need your help getting supplies. I’ll tell you all about it if you meet me here.”

“Okay okay, I think I can get there in about 15 minutes. See you soon, Pup!”

––

-After Sirius had found him and Harry had finished telling him about Dionysus and him now planning for a snake, Sirius demanded he meet the new babies. As Harry had been planning to pick up his snake that day, he agreed as long as Sirius helped him set everything up.

-Sirius ended up calling Remus over to Harry and Draco’s place to meet the animals as well as help set up and it turned into a bit of a fun disaster. Harry took some pictures of Remus and Sirius meeting Dionysus and sent them off to Draco before he pulled Remus away to help him set up his snake enclosure. The sooner they got it done, the sooner he could go get the new baby.

-When they got everything done, with some minor mishaps, Harry left them to play with Dion and told them he’d be back soon.

-When he got to the animal rescue, the workers actually recognized him and moved to go get his snake right away while another printed out the forms they’d have him fill out before he could leave.

“Do you know what you’re going to name him yet?” asked the woman who brought over the snake in the traveling carrier.

“Well,” Harry started, looking at the snake fondly before moving to finish the forms, “he looks like a toasted marshmallow, I was thinking Toast.”

The woman chuckled, “Not Marshmallow?”

“Well that’s just a bit of a mouthful. And my boyfriend named the ferret we just got from here, Dionysus. I figured we needed one simple name.”

“Dionysus. Oh my god, that’s such a good name for a ferret though I love that. God of Madness, tell your boyfriend he’s a genius.”

“I think I won’t, I don’t need to inflate his ego. But thank you. Honestly, I’m sure he won’t like the name Toast, and he’ll pick some just as outrageous a name for this little guy too.”

-Soon enough Harry was driving back home with his new baby in the seat next to him. He was so excited to surprise Draco.

-When he walked through the door, Sirius came running. “Let me see him! Let me see him!”

“Okay okay, let me just put him in his habitat so he can start getting acclimated and then you can look all you want.”

-Sirius followed Harry, acting like the child in the relationship. But they both admired the little guy after he was put in the tank.

-”Have you named him?” Harry and Sirius both jumped, not having heard Remus walk up behind them.

“Gosh, Remus, you scared us!” Remus just smiled sheepishly.

“Yes, though I’m sure Draco will call him something posh, but I’m naming him Toast. He looks like a long toasted marshmallow. I think it fits.”

“I can definitely see the resemblance,” Sirius chuckled.

Remus smiled, “Your new pets seem to be a great new responsibility for you two, I think you’ll enjoy them both. You’ve always been weirdly fascinated with snakes, it only makes sense that you’d get one as a pet now.”

“Please tell me Draco’s reaction to the snake when he gets back.”

“Yeah okay, Dad, I will.”

“Siri, we need to get going if we’re going to meet Minnie on time for tea.” Remus told Sirius.

-They all got up to walk to the front door and say goodbyes, and then the two of them were gone and it was just Harry and the two new pets.

-He immediately ran back over to the snake to watch it with fascination.

–

-When Draco was set to be home any minute, Harry was waiting in the living room, bouncing on his toes. First because he hadn’t seen Draco for a while, and second because he wanted him to like their new snake. Toast seemed to be settling in easily enough. He spent a lot of time under his little shelter but Harry saw him out on the heated area sometimes too. Every time he did, he knew he had heart eyes and a big smile.

-Harry had also been playing with Dion too and he was perhaps calming down just a little bit. He seemed to like one of the balls they’d got him the most. He also liked sleeping in his little hammock, of which Harry had taken many photos.

-When Harry finally heard the key in the door, he ran over and engulfed Draco in a hug as soon as the door was open.

-”Whoa,” Draco laughed. “Hello to you too, I also missed you but I didn’t expect to get attacked before I even got in the door.”

Harry leaned up and kissed Draco. “I missed you and I’m excited to see you and I have a surprise for you!” Harry pulled him inside and shut the door behind him.

Draco raised a brow and smirked, “Oh? A surprise for me?” Draco moved his hands to cup Harry’s ass.

Harry retaliated with a pinch to Draco’s side and pulled away, “Not that kind of surprise.”

“Bummer,” he frowned, “What’s the surprise then, dear?”

-Grabbing Draco’s hand, Harry led him into the room where he had set up Toast’s habitat and beamed at Draco, bouncing once again.

“Oh my, what’s in here, babe?” Draco asked, leaning down to look into the tank, and then gasped and looked at Harry with wide eyes. 

-Harry just beamed brighter, and finally burst out saying, “It’s a ball python, isn’t he so adorable!?”

-Draco just looked back at the snake who was curled up under the heating lamp. 

-”Draco?”

”Harry. He’s very cute. But also, don’t snakes eat rodents?”

”Yeah?”

“Aaaand Dionysus is a rodent?” Draco looked back at Harry with slight concern in his eyes.

“Oh! Well… his food is baby rats. Not ferrets. I don’t think he’d be able to eat Dion, he’s too big for him?”

“Hmm. We’ll just have to keep an eye on them. To be careful. But to answer your first question, yes he is very cute, he even looks toasted. Have you named him?”

Harry chucked, “His name is Toast.”

Draco rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, “Of course that’s what you chose. But you are wrong! His name is Damocles!”

“Damocles? What the hell kinda name is that, Draco? I knew you’d pick something ridiculous.”

“Damocles is a perfectly respectable name, thank you very much.” Harry just shook his head in response.

–

-The next day Harry had taken Toast out of his tank to explore a little. Harry ran to the next room to grab his camera while Toast was chilling on a couch cushion when Draco came running in asking if he had seen Dionysus anywhere.

-Immediately on alert, Harry headed back to Toast to put him back in his home and help Draco look when what he saw stopped him in his tracks.

-”Oh my god, Draco! Come here!”

-Running into the room, Draco asked if he’d found him already.

-Harry just pointed to the couch. Toast was curled into a ball for protection while Dionysus sniffed all around the poor snake. But then Dion apparently decided Toast was acceptable and ended up curling himself around the snake to take a nap. 

-”I don’t know whether to be worried, or to melt from cuteness overload.” Draco whispered.

“Definitely the second option, they like each other!” Harry whispered back, but Draco’s face immediately turned to horror.

“Oh my god. Harry. They’re going to be absolute terrors! Dionysus is already a handful of mischievousness, and now add a snake to the mix?! Oh my god, I changed my mind, I’m terrified for my sanity!” Harry just laughed at Draco’s dramatics.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, Draco. Maybe having a friend will calm Dionysus down?”

–

This is for @bisexualronaldweasley for putting up with my shit and yelling about snakes with me for like a month. The vote was a tie so I ended up choosing to post a headcanon first. I will be posting a social media post soon though, I promise. I also might end up doing a part two of this as well. I hope you all enjoy this!

Next

Masterlist

@pan-and-ready-to-stan @spaceaas @abstractundefined @afanbloglikeanother @potatoloveisreal @textrovert-01 @tashkib @itsskylover23 @it-would-set-me-on-fire @panicfanatic-malfoy @drarryruinedme7 @charlenasaxen @vici-l @sweetlialia @devilrising @eruditeslytherin @molfoy-potterx

[tlbodine]

hello!! asking all my favorite blogs this question : if i want to switch from fanfiction to original writing, how should i go about it? + do u have any experience with original fiction and if yes, then how exactly did you start writing about new characters of your own?

Hey Nonny, thanks for thinking of me! Sorry it’s taken me a little while to respond, I’ve been kind of busy and wanted to give this a proper answer. 

I actually pretty much started out with original fic and have never done more than dip my toes in fanfic, so hopefully this perspective proves helpful :)

From what I can tell, one of the great strengths of fanfic is you can just drop right into the action (or the emotion, as the case may be) because everybody already knows what you're talking about in terms of character and world. So if you have a lot of experience writing fic, you're probably already well-versed in writing character interactions, emotions, action sequences and so forth.

What you'll need to spend some time practicing is character creation and world-building.

Characters

You'll need to convince your readers that these characters are interesting enough to follow around and read about, since they have no experience or expectations about them. I actually write a pretty in-depth guide about character creation here that might interest you: https://tlbodine.gumroad.com/l/nsDYd

Some tips:

It helps to know what kind of story idea or concept you'll be writing so you'll know what kind of character will best suit the plot you have in mind (but if you want to come up with a character first and then draft up a plot to match, you can do it that way)

Putting a paradox at the heart of your character will make them more interesting: https://tlbodine.tumblr.com/post/640960158610128896/pro-tip-one-simple-trick-to-making-your

It's best to reveal character traits a little at a time throughout the story/as necessary rather than dumping them all up front.

You might like to spend some time just thinking up OCs for a while, to practice, if you're not comfortable with it. Or you could try some forum-based roleplaying, which is how I first got the hang of creating characters and learning how to develop them.

World-Building

The type of world you build will of course depend on the genre you want to write in and the sort of concepts you want to write about. When people hear "world-building" they often think in terms of fantasy worlds, with various races and political ideologies, but really any sort of fictional setting can have a bit of world-building attached. 

World-building may affect: 

The basic rules of reality in this world, in particular anywhere they differ from what we’re familiar with (this can be anything from “werewolves exist” to “Christmas is a super important holiday in this town”) 

The overall tone of the world and its inner logic 

Specific setting details like where things are located, how people get around, etc. 

Your world-building is going to depend a lot on the type of story you want to tell. I think it’s best to form worlds in tandem with the story so you can be sure your story needs get met and the setting feels authentic and coherent. it’s 100% cool to make up setting details as you go along to make sense of the plot you’re developing (but you should probably make a note of them so you don’t contradict yourself later). 

Actually Writing Original Fiction 

OK, so after you’ve spent some time experimenting with those two things -- or not, you can just jump in and do it all at once -- you’re going to want to try writing a story. I recommend maybe starting with something that isn’t super ambitious at first because it’s very gratifying to finish a thing and look at it and say “it’s done! I made this!” instead of laboring deep in the trenches of a thousand-page tome, but you do you. 

If you’re struggling with the transition from fanfic to original fic, you might try a “training wheels” halfway point -- a fairytale or Shakespeare retelling, perhaps, or characters based on people you know (just don’t tell the people you’re writing them as characters, and scrub identifying information off them so it doesn’t get weird). When I was younger, I frequently wrote stories that used people I knew as a jumping-off point, like, “OK, me and these five friends are plane crash survivors in the wilderness, what happens next!” and as the story developed the characters developed along their own paths and nobody looking at the finished product would ever recognize who it was based on. 

(You can try the same tactic with your fandom of choice, too. I mean, “AU with the serial numbers filed off” worked fine for Fifty Shades of Grey and After, right?) 

I think it’s also probably helpful to look at the literary tradition that a particular fandom is rooted in, too, if you’re still really interested in that type of work. There’s that quote...

“Stealing” ideas from multiple sources and mixing and matching and innovating is how genres are created. 

So for example, let’s say that you write a lot of Naruto fanfic. If you don’t have a ton of experience with Japanese culture and history and literature, you might not realize that a lot of the tropes and character archetypes and plot devices in Naruto are actually similar to a ton of other things. “Warring ninja clan” serves as the backdrop for the anime Basilisk, for example, which is itself kind of Romeo & Juliet adaptation. And researching that may lead you to history, where you discover that a lot of stuff is actually rooted in history: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-ninja-195811

Obviously you didn’t ask about ninjas, but the point is the same no matter what it is you’re writing -- whatever you’re doing, the odds are good that other people have done something similar, so reading/watching as broadly as possible can help you come up with your own ideas. 

One final note: It’s a lot harder to get attention on original works. That’s kind of shitty, but it’s true. It’s harder to find original fiction (since you can’t very well search by fandom-related keywords), and it’s harder to hook people into reading it (since they don’t know what they’re getting into, they’ll be less patient). Be prepared to get less engagement on your original work, at least at first, until you start building up an enthusiastic readership. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s not your fault -- discoverability just doesn’t favor original fic right now. The tides may change in the future! 

Good luck, and have fun on your journey! 

[nepenthendline]

Hi, I really loved how thoughtful your recent blurbs about an SO who self harms were. I've been having awful chronic pain recently. It hasn't made me immobile but I'm sleeping a lot and gaining weight and overall feeling really uncomfortable. Especially when I have to go into work. Could I get Noya, Bokuto, and Tendou with an SO who has chronic pain?

Thank you so much! I hope this was ok for you! Im sorry about the wait 🥰

S/O with Chronic Pain - Nishinoya, Bokuto and Tendou

Nishinoya:

Noya has a very low pain tolerance in general so it’s a little hard for him to understand chronic pain and how much it affects you

however, he is very willing to learn about your condition and asks you lots of questions about it to familiarise himself with each problem it can cause

Noya is really good at motivating you to be a little active each day to strengthen your body and, hopefully, ease the pain a little

even just small activities such as stretches you can do from your bed, or taking little walks outside everyday 

if you take regular painkillers, he’s great at reminding you to take each dose on time and give you food or snacks so they don’t upset your stomach

he’s extremely patient with you if you need to take things slow or work your way up to being able to do more activities on bad days

he’s super proud of you on your better days when you’re up and about without too much struggle, he’ll hype you up and compliment you tons

he does need to be held back a little to make sure he isn’t overworking you - he just enjoys doing things with you and forgets that it can become very difficult since his own stamina and energy is endless

his own energy does help you to feel a little brighter yourself though, as if he’s channeling his excess energy into you

Noya is prone to overworking himself a lot, so he enjoys days where the two of you spend time together not doing much, he knows it can be frustrating for you though so he keeps your mind busy with movies and chatting

he likes to try a lot of relaxation techniques with you such as deep breathing or meditation to help you feel less anxious or frustrated and relax your body

it doesn’t bother him if you sleep a lot, he thinks its great you are getting lots of rest, whenever he is sick his mother always tells him to stay in bed and rest, so its the same for you, right?

when you’re feeling a lot of discomfort he will get anything for you to help you feel better, heat packs? more pillows? some water? whatever you need, he’s on it

Bokuto:

Bokuto has a tendency to forget about your pain a lot, especially on good days where you can be more active

although with some reminding, he is amazing at taking care of you

he loves giving you massages and running you hot baths, hoping they will soothe your pain a little

he’s very considerate when planning dates for the two of you - he always keeps in mind (when reminded) how much your body can cope with and offers easy, yet still lovely options for you two do to together, such as going to a cafe or sitting in the park

his favourite thing to get you moving a little on bad days is by throwing a volleyball towards you and having you catch it or hit it back, him standing while you sit in your bed or on a chair

it’s fun and distracting, but also gets your body moving a little

he’s not the best to rely on when remembering to take medication, he forgets easily himself so you’ll probably need to set an alarm on your phone instead

really enjoys taking you swimming on better days, he knows its a great form of exercise thats gentle on the body, plus he gets to see you in a swimsuit so its a win-win

even if you’re struggling to swim with the pain, he loves to carry you in the water and just get you legs or arms moving a little

you might often feel low in your mood on bad days, so Bokuto is always there to try and cheer you up with soothing cuddles

he understands you need a lot of rest, but he tries to not let you sleep too much in case your body gets stiff, even if you just get up to eat and change then he’s proud

he’s extremely caring and worries about you so much, but he can be a little forgetful and push you a bit too far sometimes

he often asks around (particularly his coach and Akaashi) if there is anything he can do for you to help ease your pain

Tendou:

Tendou is so good at distracting you from the pain while also doing things to ease it

often comes out with bizarre ideas for you two to do together, like doing couples yoga or playing dancing games - really, he is trying to find ways of getting you moving that help you best without too much difficulty

he does a lot of his own research about it, so he won’t ask you too many questions besides generally checking up on you

if you aren’t already, he recommends seeing a physiotherapist as this could help you a lot

since he’s been playing sports for many years, he has a pretty big bank of stretching and healing exercises in his memory so he’ll help you do them too while telling you stories of his sporting days 

he’s not the worlds best cook, but he does like to make you food to bring to you and make sure you’re eating enough

even better though is that you come and help him cook or bake

he knows your mood and confidence might get pretty bad so he’s constantly flooding you with affection and kind, loving words about how amazing and gorgeous you are

he always seems to have everything prepped for you before you even ask - painkillers, blankets, heat packs etc. he’s really good at reading you so he can tell when your pain is getting worse

he never feels like he’s missing out when you have many bad days in a low, he loves cuddling with you and spending chilled out time inside binge-watching anime and movies - honestly, its his favourite thing to do with you 

creates a pain tracker with you so you both can see your progress and how things change through the day, it also lets you both know if certain things make it worse or better

[dreaming-of-assclass]

hihi!! is it ok if i request group 4 helping their friend with tics? they come with my adhd and i have either happy tics (happy stims is what i call them) which happen when im excited or i enjoy something, or negative tics when im overstimulated/overwhelmed by something. this morning at 3 am i had a really bad attack because my body was shaking but i couldnt move to release tension. i also learned that my most common negative tic is me hitting myself which always hurts sm i need comfort man :')

Aww, sweetie, I’m so sorry to hear that :( I hope this helps you feel a little better 💜

Group 4 helping their friend with tics

Karma Akabane

This boy loves to tease his friends, but he absolutely will never make jokes when it comes to this

In fact, in the beginning, it’s almost like he doesn’t even notice at all. But he does, he just does a lot of research on his own. He makes sure to learn the best ways he can support his friend.

If anyone dares to make fun of you or bully you, they’re dead. Just a goner. Karma will either beat them up, make their life hell, or make them somehow disappear from your life.

He keeps an eye on you if you guys are somewhere stressful/overstimulating, and he does his best to protect you. He’ll immediately try to lead you out of there into somewhere more calm, and he’ll act as your personal bodyguard and make sure people aren’t crowding you.

He’s not the most comforting person, but he definitely tries hard to reassure you. He’ll start talking about random stuff to get your mind off it, offer to get you your favorite food, etc.

Tomohito Sugino

This sunshine boy cares about you so so so much

Like he will go completely out of his way to make sure you’re comfortable to be yourself

Sometimes when you’re having happy stims during your conversations with him, he just looks at you with a smile because he loves seeing you being excited and happy

He keeps a gentle arm on you whenever you guys are somewhere stressful, like around your shoulder or something. He tries to shield you as best as he can

If anyone is giving weird looks to you guys, Sugino absolutely won’t tolerate it. He’ll tell them to mind their business and if they don’t, he’ll square up.

He gets so sad if you accidentally hurt yourself :( Like in general, you being stressed or overwhelmed upsets him greatly and he wishes he could take away bad stuff and protect you better

He always asks you and communicates openly about what’s the best way he can support you without going over boundaries or anything. 

He just adores you tons and will always be there for you uwu

Nagisa Shiota

This soft boy is so supportive and sweet towards you

He absolutely is super mindful right from the beginning of your friendship

Even if he doesn’t know too much about tics, he does a ton of research and asks you (respectfully) about it

Whenever you get really excited, he laughs a little at how cute you are and gives you the fondest looks

So he’s not the most efficient shield in crowded situations, but he tries his best by holding your hand, staying close to you, and whispering reassurances in your ear

He won’t leave your side until he’s sure that you’re okay

Like Sugino, he will always openly ask about how you’re feeling and what you need from him

He hates whenever you get hurt or upset. It breaks his heart, and he feels so helpless sometimes. He just really wants to protect you from everything.

He gives you the sweetest, most loving hugs whenever you’re in need of comfort from him.

Kaede Kayano

Oh, this girl will basically be your personal bodyguard, sister, and bestie all in one package.

She’s super sweet and understanding right from the start, and over time, she gets so used to your happy stims, that she barely notices them.

That’s a testament to how close you guys are and how often you hang out uwu

She thinks you’re the most adorable bean ever, and she always showers you with adoration and cuddles

Whenever you’re stressed and begin having negative tics, she will get you out there ASAP. Even if she has to barrel through a hundred people to do so. You’re a top priority.

She’s very protective of you, and she’ll hold your hand, give you verbal support, try to take your mind off it, etc. 

She treats you to food afterwards to try and cheer you up. She’ll get anything that you like, but pudding is usually her first suggestion.

Yukiko Kanzaki

Ohhh your friendship always looks like an odd one to others outside of it.

Like you’re a happy, sweet person...and Kanzaki is an introverted, reserved, gloomy nerd lmao.

You guys are so tight though, and have a really sweet bond even though you’re such opposites.

She always laughs and smiles when seeing you excited, it makes her happy in return

She already knew what tics were before you met, but she definitely still does her best to learn what works best for you, and what she can do to support you.

In moments when you’re overwhelmed, she holds onto you or gently touches while saying “It’s okay, I’m here.” She stays by your side even when you start to calm down.

If she can, and it’s in her power, she’ll try to remove whatever makes you stressed. Like class debates? She’ll request that it becomes optional. Crowded stations? She’ll give you a personal ride home in her car, or walk with you.

Playing video games together cheers you up a bit, and Kanzaki is more than willing to play whenever, as long as it helps you.

Manami Okuda

Ahhh such a cute friendship you two have. Two sweet beans!

Once you both get pretty comfortable around each other, she likes to cling to you often.

You both just make each other feel stable and comfortable uwu

She can be a pretty excited girl sometimes herself, so she doesn’t even question your happy stims at all. Not until you actually mention it to her haha

She’s 100% supportive and reads like 30 articles in one night about them

The first time you have your negative tics around her, it’s when you’re having a sleepover and you wake up late, really overwhelmed. She wakes up groggily and sees you. She panics but remembers what she read and helps you to the best of her ability

When you’re feeling better, she hugs you and tries to comfort you since neither of you feel like going back to sleep. You guys just end up in her living room, watching animated movies with ice cream until early morning.

It was a stressful experience, but it brought you closer and was sweet in the end.

Please let me know if I made a mistake anywhere. I read up on things about stimming and tics before I wrote this, but it’s not 100% accurate from my perspective, of course. If I accidentally included anything harmful, I’ll fix it immediately 💜

[ailuronymy]

Hello! I was searching for some trans warrior cats post on Google when I saw your account, I would really like some advice for handling a trans warrior cats character I'm writing in my AU.

He presents as a she cat at the beginning but later on comes out as trans, I was wondering about how should I approach the transition itself. The first ideas I had are: for him to do vocal exercises with the medicine cat which will help lower his voice (that is one of his main insecurities) , his clan mates will switch to male pronouns and he will get extra food so he could grow larger and more masculine looking (Cats that have a stable diet while they're growing are going to be bigger and stronger) along with herbs that are supposed to stop/repress ovulation in she cats (I'm not that great at biology but I think that would also affect his hormone levels)

Do you have any other ideas?

PS: Thank you for your help and time!

Hello there! Thank you for writing in, but I’m sorry, this blog is not here to provide this kind of help. If you look in the tag here, I’ve done what I can in the past and I hope some of it is useful to you, but as I’ve said before, I’m not looking to talk more on the topic. It’s not wrong to want to write about trans characters, so you’re not in trouble for asking or anything, but I’m not comfortable being consulted for this information.

In fact, if I’m totally and maybe a little brutally honest with you, I think that if you’re at the stage of writing about a complex and highly personal experience where you’re asking random strangers on the internet for advice, you’ve probably got a little way longer to go before you’re ready to actually write about the topic and I’m sorry if that’s difficult to hear. My guess is that you’re probably not transgender yourself, because otherwise why would you be asking me about it? Surely you know your experience better. 

I don’t think that means you can’t write about this topic eventually and I think there is genuinely a good intention in trying to seek out information, but please consider the sources from which you’re seeking this information. There are literally books (both fiction and nonfiction) written by transgender people and I feel like reading work by those people--i.e., the people who have first-hand experience--is a great place to begin learning about how to write on this topic. 

I know you’re coming to my blog because it’s about Warriors and you’re looking to write about a transgender cat, but I think before you can try to transpose this concept onto the world of Warriors, you need to really learn about the concept itself in detail from a variety of sources and then you can focus in on how it might be interpreted in a different context--i.e., in cats. 

For example, you’ve mentioned “male pronouns”--but actually there’s no such thing as male pronouns. He/him is traditionally assigned to men, but there’s a lot of lesbians who also use those pronouns. There’s nonbinary people. There’s a lot of transgender women who haven’t come out. I understand what you mean to say when you say that, but pronouns are actually just one aspect of identity and performance of self and they’re as fluid and open to interpretation as the rest. 

It’s all constructs and I personally think if you want to write in a space that is actively discussing gender and what gender is and what gender can be and the kind of inherent boundary-breaking and remaking and reworking that comes with that territory, it’s worth really sitting down and thinking about these things and being careful with how you actually want to position your character and story and the language you use, etc. etc., and again, I think if you’re asking me for guidance, there’s probably a chance you’re not quite there yet. 

I want to mention as well that “coming out” stories in general are greatly over-represented when it comes to ‘queer’ stories by non-queer writers in mainstream media. You’re writing fanfiction for fun and that’s allowed and okay, but it does seem that the story you’re looking to tell is ultimately about this character coming out. You’ve focused a ton on the transition aspects of this character and if I’m totally honest with you, that strikes me as maybe not a great move, since it’s a very cis approach to writing about transgender characters to fixate on the “process” (often with an invasive, objectifying kind of lens). I’m not saying that your intention or necessarily what your story would be, but I do feel it’s worth pointing out so that you can be sure to avoid it. 

Also, as a side note that might interest you, cat voices don’t actually work like human voices. In human sexual dimorphism, testosterone levels rising in puberty result in a low voice--but cats don’t experience this in real life! Male cats don’t have lower voices than female cats, and the spectrum of “normal” cat voices can span from the very high to the quite low and gravelly regardless of the cat’s sex. To offer an anecdote, I have a skinny old Siamese who has an extremely deep yowl (which his mother also had) and a fluffy ginger cat with a very high, squeaky chirp, and they’re both male and desexed. So basically what I’m saying is transposing human experience onto cats (or frankly any animal) in this instance might be less straightforward than you’d expect, depending on how many cat characteristics versus human characteristics you want to include. 

Anyway tl;dr: I strongly recommend undertaking genuine research into lived transgender experience as written by transgender people before attempting to tackle any kind of story like this. You’re welcome to look through the tag I’ve got on this blog for ideas on adapting that research to a Warriors context when the time comes but I really have to stress that this is a topic that requires effort, humility, and a willingness to both learn and acknowledge the limitations of your own perspective as a writer. I’m sorry if that’s not the feedback you wanted to hear, but I can’t in good conscience not say it. 

[ryqoshay]

Tri-Arame: A Train’s Delay

Primary Pairing Trio: YuuAyuSetsu Words: ~1.6k Rating: G Time Frame: During their 2nd year in high school Story Arc: Stand Alone

Author’s Note: Writing the last scene made me want to give Ayu’s perspective on the early development of things among the three.

“I’m telling you, the pose will be really cute.” Yuu insisted as she and Ayumu stepped off the train. “The fans will love it, so we should definitely work it into your choreography for the next Live.”

“I’ll think about it.” Ayumu conceded.

Yuu’s obsession with school idols had led her to performing a ton of research, so there was little doubt as to the extent of her knowledge. However, Ayumu knew she had to temper the advice with the fact that Yuu called pretty much everything about her cute. Though as embarrassing as it often was, Ayumu couldn’t say she disliked it. And she was in no hurry to tell Yuu stop anytime soon. It just meant she had to gauge things carefully and occasionally seek a second opinion. A critique from someone like…

“Setsuna-chan!” Yuu called suddenly.

Yes, Setsuna was another excellent source of school idol information. And in the newly reformed club she was learning how to be more accepting of other views on the genre. Thus… Wait, she was here?

Sure enough, Ayumu looked in the direction Yuu was already running to find their fellow second year. Having just disembarked her train, she now stood facing them, her dark hair in twin braids and her glasses donned.

A flash of excitement crossed Setsuna’s face as she saw her friends before she visibly quashed it and forcibly reigned herself in. “Please, I’m Nana right now.” She said, giving a quick and nervous glance to either side, as if expecting her parents to get off the next train and catch her in a brief moment of not being the studious and somber girl they expected her to be.

Ayumu felt something wrench at her heart. She didn’t like seeing her friend having to repress her passions, especially since it was Setsuna who had ignited passions within herself and Yuu. She enjoyed watching Yuu be open about her obsessions with school idols, not only because she was incredibly cute when excited, but also because it helped keep her inspired to continue working on becoming more open herself. It was for these reasons that she and Yuu had invited Setsuna to the mall with them the other day, to give her a few hours to be truly open and honest with her interests.

“Ne, Nana-chan,” Yuu effortlessly switched gears “wanna walk to school with us?”

“I’d like that.” Nana replied. “Good morning, Ayumu-san.” She greeted the redhead with a polite bow.

“Good morning, Nana-san.”

Though genuine, the smile Nana offered was far more reserved than those she typically displayed as Setsuna.

“You know,” Yuu continued “Ayumu and I have taken this same train every day since we started high school and we’ve never crossed paths with you. Did you take a different one today or something?”

“No, that was my normal train.” Nana shook her head. “They just had a delay at the station before me.” To prove the point, she held up the delay certificate. “Though I suppose if you two usually arrive at this time and do not suffer punctuality issues at school, I don’t really need this.” She slipped it back in her bag anyway instead of discarding it in a nearby recycling bin.

“So I guess today was just an accident.” Yuu surmised.

“It would seem so.”

Yuu shrugged. “But at happy accident at least, ‘cause we get to walk together now.”

Another reserved smile.

“Anyway, I was just telling Ayumu that she should consider using this pose at the end of her new song at the next Live.” Yuu paused to demonstrate.

Nana stopped as well to examine Yuu thoughtfully. “Ayumu-san.” She said suddenly.

“Eh?” Ayumu wasn’t expecting to be addressed.

“Would you mind taking this position? I believe I might better judge it by observing the correct subject.”

“S-sure…” Ayumu battled the rising sense of unease at the concept of making idol poses in the middle of the walkway while dressed in her school uniform, as opposed to on stage in an idol outfit.

“Hrm… Perhaps if you moved your forearm up a bit more…” Nana reached out to make the adjustment. “And your other arm like this… Turn your wrist… Maybe shift your hips… And your torso…”

Ayumu almost bit her tongue as Nana’s hands slid up her waist to the sides of her ribcage before gently guiding her to the new position.

“How about this, Yuu-san?” Nana took a step back to admire her handiwork.

“That’s amazing, Nana-chan!” Yuu marveled. “Ayumu’s pose is even cuter like that!”

Cuter? Ayumu tried, likely unsuccessfully, to swallow down a blush.

“Indeed.” Nana agreed. “Although, I cannot take all the credit. The pose is only accentuating the existing high level of cuteness.”

Oh no… It was one thing when Yuu constantly called her cute, but now Setsu… Nana was joining in as well? Ayumu felt the heat overflowing from her face, up to her ears and down her neck. Geez… if she was going to survive as an idol, she would have to get better at handling these kinds of things.

“And Yuu-san set up the base work well.” Nana continued. “It is obvious you know much about your subject.”

“Subject? Ayumu? Of course I know her and her cuteness well.” Yuu puffed out her chest as though she believed the accomplishment was worthy of great pride. “But Nana-chan, you really know your stuff when it comes to idols. I may know Ayumu's cuteness, but you were able to help me truly refine the pose to ensure it shined at its brightest. And I'm still trying to learn the other girls in the club. I may have to have you teach me your ways so I can better observe you guys during practice and give better advice after.”

Though clearly enjoying the praise, Nana continued to keep herself reserved. Ayumu felt a bittersweet emotion start to fill her, displacing the embarrassment from earlier as the conversation shifted away from her. She wanted to see her friend like she was when the three of them went to the mall together. Back when the anime-obsessed girl was practically vibrating with excitement like a puppy, so much so that Ayumu had wanted to pat her on the head and scratch under her chin. The girl walking with her now was behaving instead like a puppy being cautious in its excitement after being scolded for doing something wrong.

Except Nana hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not as far as Ayumu could tell. She was merely guilty of having hobbies unapproved by her parents. It was for this reason that Ayumu and Yuu had reached a mostly unspoken agreement to provide an outlet for Nana to be Setsuna and freely celebrate her passions. The idol club certainly helped, but idols were by no means Setsuna’s only interests.

It wasn’t the easiest of tasks. On entering high school, Ayumu had tried to mature and move on from many things of her childhood. Yuu had an easier time picking back up former interests, but it had taken the burning passion of someone like Setsuna to remind Ayumu that it was alright to hold on to some things. In that regard, Ayumu felt somewhat indebted to Setsuna, so she was repaying it by helping her indulge in her interests.

Then there was Ayumu’s jealousy. As club activities continued, she was becoming increasingly aware of such emotions as Yuu lavished her attentions on the other idols. And when Yuu and Setsuna lost themselves in something, it was difficult for Ayumu to avoid feeling left out.

However, the rewards for the task were plentiful. When Setsuna truly let loose, her smile was nothing short of contagious. And Ayumu couldn’t help wanting to see it more.

The trio continued to talk idols and make plans for practice later that afternoon as they completed their walk toward school. Nana was adamant about helping perfect Ayumu’s performance and maximize her cuteness. Yuu suggested bringing in Kasumi, their local specialist on the topic of cuteness, to which Nana agreed. All the while, Ayumu’s thoughts continued to focus on how much Nana was holding back.

“Thank you for allowing me to accompany you this morning.” Nana bowed as the three paused in the front entryway of the school.

“It was our pleasure.” Ayumu assured her.

“Yeah, that was fun.” Yuu agreed. “Maybe your train will be delayed again tomorrow?”

There it was. That was the smile Ayumu had wanted to see. Perhaps Nana felt safer within the school walls? Or perhaps it was a result of spending time with trusted friends? Or both. Ayumu quietly hoped it was at least in part due to the latter.

“See you at practice.” Nana flashed one more smile before turning away and heading toward her homeroom.

“I sent you the link so you can view them later.” Yuu said as she and Ayumu stepped off the train. “Their choreography is amazing! I think we can learn a lot from…” Something caught her attention. “Nana-chan!” She called before taking off.

Ayumu glanced ahead along Yuu’s path. Sure enough, leaning against a nearby pillar was their fellow second year.

Nana looked up from whatever study material she was reading. “Good morning Yuu-san, Ayumu-san.” She smiled and bowed politely.

“Good morning, Nana-san” Ayumu replied as she caught up to her childhood friend.

“Don’t tell me I jinxed you with your train?” a concerned expression crossed Yuu’s face.

“Oh no,” Nana assured “my train arrived on time just fine. I just…” she glanced down and hunched her shoulders a bit “I had so much fun yesterday morning I thought perhaps we might walk together again today? If… that’s alright?” She looked back up with a hopeful expression.

Yuu laughed. “Of course, it's alright, Nana-chan!”

“Yes, it’s definitely alright.” Ayumu agreed. “Let’s walk together again.”

Even in its reserved form, Nana’s smile still managed enough of its contagious nature that Ayumu was compelled to reciprocate. And with that, a new morning tradition began.

Author's Note Continued in Followup Post

[cosplayinamerica]

AUTHOR INTERVIEW : Ryan La Sala

The best thing about being in Artist Alley is the opportunity to meet people. You are sitting behind a table and basically the entire convention comes by you. Over three days you are chatting, laughing and sharing stories with the community. It was 2019 and I was sharing a table at Anime NYC 2019. It was my first time back to New York in a number of years and this is how I met author Ryan La Sala who just released his first book Reverie at that time. He mentioned he was working on a book related to cosplay. Fast forward to now Jan 2021 and his new book Be Dazzled is out!

But before we jump into the book, let’s talk to Ryan about his experience cosplaying. I mean I do run a cosplay blog!

EJEN: So Ryan, after digging around on Google I discovered you cosplayed at New York Comic Con previously. Take me back and let’s talk about how you discover cosplay, what do you love about it and take me through your experience cosplaying and convention going.

RYAN: I’ve always loved crafting costumes, and I’ve always loved cons and anime, but for some reason I didn’t cosplay myself until I started dating this guy who needed help on an iceman look. We dated for a few years and it was through him that I got really into the world of cosplay, even building us matching Hawkman cosplays for NYCC one year. I started writing a book about cosplay soon after, and fell deeper in love through the process of research. I love cosplay for so many reasons.

Dressing up is such an effective way of outsmarting reality and inhabiting the body of someone powerful, or eccentric, or dramatic. It feels good and it looks cool. Plus, I have profound respect for the work that goes into building these looks. I love that cosplay is half armor, half art, and entirely fun.

The irony of writing a book about crafting and cosplay is that I rarely had time to work on my own cosplays. The result was that despite being super crafty, I was constantly the only one in my group of con friends not dressed up, which meant I got to hold their stuff and take photos of them while at cons. Which I actually love! It gave me the ability to absorb the atmosphere and appreciate everyone’s hard work, and observe. That’s what I needed while writing, but now that the book is done I’m super excited to get to work on all the things I couldn’t create these past few years. Soon, my friends will be forced to hold my things and take my photo!

EJEN; Cosplay is like any creative process faced with barriers and difficulties, some of them interior battles and along the way I think we find ourselves through this process.  Share with us how cosplay has informed you and your writing.

RYAN: There is nothing more humbling than that task of taking something imagined and attempting to make it material. Cosplays are like that. So are books. The mark of a job well done is often the lack of any signs of effort, but the truth is that effortless excellence comes at the steep price of a lot of rejection, failure, and determination. I learned this early on in my own crafting ventures, and it prepared me for the monumental task of taking the worlds in my head and trying, despite physics and reality, to put them into the heads of others.

If you’re me, you start every project with half the knowledge you need to finish it. Half if you’re lucky. The rest has to be figured out as you go.When I create something--a craft, a cosplay, or a book--it’s often an exercise in trust and vulnerability. I trust that if I just keep going, I’ll finish, and maybe it won’t suck. And that’s a vulnerable thing to do--to know perfectly well that you’re not nearly as skilled as you need to be to accomplish something, yet setting out to accomplish it anyways.

EJEN: So your new book Be Dazzled has been tagged as Project Runway meets Comic Con. I’m sure your con experiences help create the characters Raffy and Luca, can you talk about how these two came into being as well as the genesis of your second novel?

RYAN: I was a mess at my first NYCC. I stayed up every night for like a month prior building matching cosplays for me and my boyfriend, who wasn’t very useful at crafting but was super hot, so we balanced each other out. Anyways, on the day of NYCC I was irritable and exhausted, but also elated and inspired. It was a strange, super-specific scenario, and immediately afterwards I called my agent to tell her I wanted to write a rom com based on it. 

That’s how I got Raffy and Luca, and their fraught relationship drama taking place during a cosplay competition. Raffy is this super determined artist that fights through perfectionism and anxiety to deliver amazing work, yet Luca, his ex-boyfriend, gets tons of recognition cosplaying because he’s hot. The book is fiction, and the story is made up, but it’s rooted in a real experience and a real relationship.

And for anyone wondering, me and that guy broke up. It wasn’t because of cosplay though, I promise! We’re still best friends, and the book is actually dedicated to him.

EJEN: How was the writing process with the second book? I mean with your first book there was definitely many, many years put into that book. This time I assume your writing time has shortened plus you definitely have more experience under your belt.

RYAN:  I’m careful about saying this because I don’t want the Novelist Mafia to put a hit out on me, but writing this book was a lovely, painless process. I think it’s because this book is made out of pure love and joy. Even though it starts with a breakup, the book itself is about all these things I love, and have loved forever.

Crafting, anime, costumes, cons, new love, second chances, teamwork -- it’s all readily available joy that I just had to write down. And it also helped that the emotional plot of the book was something I myself had gone through, so much of this felt like therapy.

And, of course, there’s the deadline. First books are hard because no one is asking for them, usually. You can just go on and on until you’re done. Second books, however, are often developed with a deadline looming. I’d like to think I’m a better writer the second time around, but it may just be that I’m a tad bit more….inspired.

EJEN: I love your story how growing up you didn’t see queer people represented in the books you read so you were inspired in a way to make own path plus the way you found yourself a book deal makes it sounds like a dream. Though you know as well as I do there are many curves and many paths to reach your goal. What are some nuggets you would give creators out there hustling for their dreams?

RYAN: Take your dreams seriously. Afford your dreams the dignity of your best effort. There’s lots and lots of advice out there meant to ease off the pressure, to give you a break, to treat yourself, to take care, to take a break -- all of that is good advice. But I always tell creatives that it’s also okay to know exactly what you want to do, and to pursue it with unremitting resolve. I especially want queer creators to know this, because so often no one is asking after our art. We have to create it without any promises it’ll be recognized, and it’s so easy to give up as a result. So I’m here to tell you to take your work seriously, because it deserves it. And you deserve it.

EJEN: What would you hope readers would take away after finishing your book.

RYAN: My greatest dream is that someone will put down my book and be inspired to make something amazing for themselves. It doesn’t have to be a cosplay or a book. It could be a dragon made out of laffy taffy for all I care. I just want people to get in touch with their own ability to make cool stuff, and to take risks expressing themselves.

My second greatest dream is that readers realize that stories like this--that are joyful and queer--are too rare. I hope they put down my book and ask for another just like it.

EJEN: So how are you handling the pandemic ? Are you using the time for your next book?

RYAN: I certainly should be, but I’ve found instead that the pandemic has created an oddly perfect scenario for me to focus on all the arting and crafting I didn’t get to do while I was writing a book about arts and crafts. I’m writing more, but I’m also working on lots of mini-projects. I’ve started a crafting channel on YouTube, for instance, and separately a podcast in which me and another writer are reading a fantasy novel written by Tyra Banks as if it’s a IRL Bookclub. Stuff like that.

EJEN: Awesome, thank you Ryan and good luck with what comes next, I hope to see you in the future at Anime NYC or New York Comic Con!

Be Dazzled is available now. Read the first chapter here.