#still trying to figure out how to use tumblr dot com after a year of being on here :0

[magdalune]

the bassett boys (♪)

arthur 'art' basset - 16 ezekiel 'zeke' bassett - 27

[ickmick]

*ive had to edit this post about 4 times already, sorry for scuff idk if its fixed yet??

hey tumblr dot com heres some magnus archives (literally just jon) content i posted to twitter but with significantly less rambling (its a mess over there... i am trying to make tma enjoyer friends but am also bad at doing such and have resorted to rambling) /hj /silly

currently drawing jon as i see him in each season/arc so yeah... the other 2 things were me figuring out how i wanna draw him generally (im still not 100% sure)

rambles and outfit inspo under the cut!

i finished the podcast a mere 3 days ago after finally getting back to it after like a year or something, and i will never be the same /hj

im already considering listening a 2nd time, both to take notes for behaviors n shit but also just to like- return to it in full lol

anyways heres the photos from pinterest im using as inspo for that first s1 outfit (button up with a tie under a green sweater vesr tucked into black slacks with a some kinda built in belt... bro probably go those oxfords too what a loser /aff /silly

ive already decided hes going to wear a long skirt around *checks notes* probably s3, post police warrant or whatever you want to call that whole arc (i say, knowing full well what to call it)

the rest of the outfits will be a silly surprise for now but yes. thrive knowing he will be put in a lovely skirt and will grow out his curly hair and be ever so queer (its 2am im just saying words atp)

im now going to sleep, so goodnight and feel extremely free to message me if you wanna ramble about tma or jon or something of that sort, i have no friends who have listened to tma as far as im aware XD

[jaceeverett]

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND... JASON EVERETT BROWNING

only a human / george ezra 🎧

vagabond / caamp 🎧

and it's still alright / nathaniel rateliff 🎧

jace is ... army fatigues folded neatly in a box, old maps shoved into the glove box of his Jeep, the lingering scent of smoke, a half-empty beer bottle on the bartop of a dive bar while dancing with a girl he doesn't know, dog tags tucked under his t-shirt, blonde hair slicked back in a bun, the wayward returning brother, a proud uncle, most likely to have a #vanlife sticker, outdoors.

Prefacing this to say that there are mentions of the military, September 11th and mental health throughout this!

Jason Everett Browning was inspired by a number of things in my life and also taken from various television shows and movies. Lindsey often tells me that I have the movie taste of a 40 year old Republican dad, which is pretty funny, given that I am about as liberal as they come... but do end up getting suckered into watching war movies a little too often. Between that, and my protective, mothering nature over Justin Walker from Brothers & Sisters, which I was watching while working on crafting Jason, and some other favorite characters from the 911 and 911: Lonestar shows that I get sucked into, and the inspiration for this guy just kind of... happened. Not to mention the fact that I have had Luke Mitchell in my back pocket as a face claim for forever (I always said that if not for Zach, he would've made a good Cage, and there's a lot of ways that Jason and Cage are similar, just with Cage having way nicer clothes and being much more steady in his life.) and knew that I wanted to use him for this character.

First things first, there is a trailer in my backyard from the US Army that's my grandfather's. Other than an aunt an uncle who served, that's about where my ties to the military end. I'm also staunchly anti-war, and think we need police reform like yesterday, so putting together this character was... way outside of my wheelhouse. I did a lot of research into different branches of service, played around with timelines and dates, and put my thinking cap on to figure out how to create a well-rounded character that shared some of my beliefs and ideals while still being their own person, so as to avoid making him too much of a political statement. Especially since... you know, this is roleplay on Tumblr dot com. It's also supposed to be fun.

My initial take of Jason was a boy who grew up in Merrock, in a trailer in the backwoods. He was friendly with everyone, but rarely had friends over, and instead preferred to sneak beer from his dad's fridge and meet up at parties. He would have left town to try to make something of himself, joining the Army and returning years later after serving for an extended amount of time. But then I decided to pick up the wanted connection for a Browning sibling, and did a little re-work while staying true to the parts of Jason that I was drawn to the most. He grew up in Merrock, but his family was well known, and he had a lot of friends, but he still snuck out to those parties to drink some PBR. Instead of leaving town to join the Army as a way of making something of himself, he joined the Army to get away from his parents, to have a fresh chance of life without living in any shadows or worrying about meeting expectations.

Jason served in the Army directly after September 11th; he went into basic training just before, without knowing what would happen next, and then got called overseas to fight a war that he didn't want to fight and didn't really believe in the longer it went on. The inspiration for that comes a lot from the fact that probably most of us writing in this group were alive when that happened, remember it clearly, and also have changed and evolved how we look at the world, wars, our different militaries -- everything. I wanted Jason to be no different, except to have experienced it all first hand, and at the first chance he got to leave, he did. And didn't look back. (Sidenote: do some research into how hard it is to leave the military, you have to convince some grand dude that you don't believe in the war, it's wild.) Of course, he deals with PTSD and depression, the way that so many veterans do, and I wanted to handle that as carefully as possible, having him speak to a therapist as often as he needs, and to work towards surrounding himself with people who love him over time. He's the kind of veteran who fights for help for his brothers, vouching for therapy and mental health hotlines, and although he is hesitant to speak about his time in the Army, he's not hesitant to say that things need to change. But he still wears his dog tags daily.

Past all of that deep, dark stuff... I really wanted to play someone who worked in and around the state parks! Partially because I myself am a huge state park nerd. I spend a lot of my summertime visiting local ones, or even traveling to others. I wasn't so interested in someone taking up the law abiding side of all of that, so Jason leaves all the heavy stuff to the other rangers and is very into the conservation and environmental side of things -- he attended school in Montana once he moved out west and studied the environment and agriculture and all of that good stuff. One of his main goals in Merrock is to conserve the land, make sure the habitats remain safe for the native plants and animals, and to teach kids to follow in his footsteps. Run a few nature programs, that sort of thing. I chose to have him live and work in Yellowstone because... it's pretty! (Although it is on my watch list, I have not watched Yellowstone. Someday!) And living in a camper just made sense, too. I won't even tell you how long I spent googling the perfect little camper for him. But I found it. His lifestyle and career were all just inspired by the fact that I love to be outdoors, would live outdoors if I could (with internet, of course), and love being among the trees and flowers and even the animals.

Growing up in a small town, all of our fire companies are staffed by volunteers: people who put their lives on the line for very little pay, so I was inspired by that. Jason has all of the proper training, courses and experience to be a professional, full-time firefighter, but chooses to volunteer for when they need him or are short staffed, as a way to give back, in his mind.

Personality-wise, I wanted to play someone who was a bit of an introvert, but is trying to come out of his shell since he is living in a new town (or old, in this case) and building his life back up. He doesn't like wearing nice clothes, probably only owns one suit, and prefers to cook at home rather than going out to eat. He's a lot different from most of my characters in that he wanted to get out of Merrock, vs. living there their whole lives and loving it, being called home, or falling in love once moving there. Granted, he's come around to wanting to be home again, but still. He fluctuates from being the person making everyone around him laugh harder than they've laughed before... and being the quietest one in the room, depending on what's going through his head. Intimately, he's a pretty open person. He's bisexual and has been with men and women alike in the past, finding himself more attracted to the individual than a gender in particular, but is not the relationship kind of person. He can probably count on one hand the amount of serious relationships he has been in since high school, for example, but could never keep count of the amount of people he's slept with. He doesn't really have any interest in having children; part of him thinks that since he didn't have a good dad, he wouldn't be a good dad. But he also knows to keep an open mind about his future. Most of that was just inspired by me wanting to play someone open to anything, someone that would really let me dive into chemistry connections. At the moment, he doesn't have any pets, and doesn't have any immediate plans to get any, because of the amount of time he spends working in the park, and the fact that he lives in a pretty small camper. But he does love to garden... and that, he got from me. Jason has a vegetable garden that has more square footage than his actual living space, and he's working on planting fruit trees, too.

Oh, and he has tattoos! Those were inspired by a few things: the pine tree on his wrist by his home in Maine, the compass to always take him where he needs to go, the mountainscape on his back by his time in Yellowstone, and the Smokey Bear on his thigh by ... okay, so, I kind of just really love Smokey Bear.

As Jason is my newest baby, I feel like I'm still inspired by little things every day. I just saw a post on my Facebook feed about a local park rescue, and realized that I am inspired by that, too, or inspired by reading my state's conservation page's updates about what native plants are better to put in the ground than invasive species, and realizing that I want Jason to teach that sort of thing to locals. Every day is a little more inspiration and a little more growth for Jace.

[boop-le-snoot]

masterpost ☀️ main masterlist ☀️ taglist

previously on...

We meet Lucy, we meet Samantha and her twins & Mother Nature gets a little bit mad. But on the upside - she loves Tony :)

Kind reminder that this story will have horror/thriller elements & graphic descriptions of blood, gore and all the nasty stuff associated with superhero battles described in some detail. This chapter contains some of that.

Honestly, this story is getting- uhh- 8-12 notes on Tumblr. It's got a decent following on AO3 which brings me joy because I truly do enjoy the worldbuilding to a, perhaps, guilty amount. So if you like it too - please reblog :)

The fabric of my skirt was suddenly yanked and I jumped, dropping my phone and startling out of my daze. Two big, blue eyes stared up at me, curiousity mixed with impatience in them. I crouched down to pick up my device, coming face to face with a tiny blonde girl about nine or ten years of age.

"Lucy, hi!" I squeezed out a smile at the child. She looked pale, as if she'd never seen the slightest bit of sunlight, chubby cheeks contrasted by an overall spindliness of her body. Her dress was a puffy, long-sleeved, red and white polka dotted monstrosity with at least two petticoats that made her seem bigger than she actually was. "Sorry, didn't see you there. Long day at work," despite there being a worm of anxiety crawling deeply in my chest, I heeded the warnings on the list of rules and swallowed any unease I had.

Which was a hard feat. The stairs had gotten confused and I lost ten minutes of time going back, over and over, after encountering floors "5", "8" and "19" instead of my third floor, in a five story building. The building providing extra floors shouldn't have surprised me that much but the worst was fighting with the desire to explore them, my rational brain unhelpfully supplying that if this building was truly dangerous, nobody would be living in it.

The pull was almost unnatural in its strength yet my protection charms remained unaffected. Too tired from returning to work, I decided to distract myself with my phone - and nearly ran poor little Lucy off her feet.

"You are new," she signed to me slowly, carefully observing my reaction to her using ASL.

I had been truly unsettled by the rule list, perhaps more than I wanted to admit to myself, so I spent a night wide awake brushing up my meager sign language skills. "Yes, my name is Star," I replied, not quite sure if I wanted to shake her hand or simply make myself scarce as soon as possible.

Lucy gave me a closed-lipped grin, swooshing her puffy skirts in what I perceived to be a calculated amount of shyness. "Can I play with you, please?" Her hands moved a little more rapidly as she side-eyed my apartment door.

I briefly ran a mental checklist of the contents of my fridge. "Sure," I figured that two leftover steaks in it would be more than enough for the little girl. I'd splurged and gotten four prime pieces of meat to treat myself after a hectic moving process, cooking only half of them on the first day. "Come on it. You hungry?"

The door swung open as I led Lucy in, her bright dress and pale skin standing out in the twilight of my apartment. She nodded her head seriously, looking at me from head to toe as shivers ran up and down my spine. My bag was unceremoniously dumped on the couch, my socked feet shuffling into the kitchen and beelining for the fridge.

Lucy followed me quietly, taking a seat at the dinner table and folding her thin arms atop it, expectant blue eyes following my every move. As I plated the meat and reached for the roll of paper towels, I felt like I was being examined under a microscope. Somewhere in the distance, a quiet hissing noise was beginning to rise.

Lucy politely declined the fork and knife I attempted to give her so I just set down the plate in front of her, leaving the kitchen to change out of my dusty, sweaty clothes, too tired to really worry about the loud, sloppy and wet chewing noises and low growling coming from the dining area. I decided as long as she wasn't attempting to have me for dinner, I was going to be just fine.

I found Lucy on the carpet of my living room, flipping through a fashion magazine she'd found somewhere after I was done with scavenging some sweatpants from my mostly-unpacked closet. Her blonde curls bounced as she looked up at me with another tight smile, this time looking calmer, friendlier somehow. "I like those dresses," she signed, pointing at a few pictures with models wearing ballroom gowns in all kinds of colours. "And these..." She pointed out a tiara, probably not knowing how to sign the words.

"This is a tiara," I spoke slowly, signing the last word with my hands carefully as she observed. And then a few more times, until she repeated her last sentence perfectly. "Good job, Lucy," I praised her as she beamed at me. The river of quiet, scratchy giggles never stopped as she pointed out various things and I tried to sign them to the best of my ability, Lucy not showing any signs of upset whatsoever if I couldn't get the name for something right.

After some time, it was beginning to get very dark outside and a couple of pointed glances at the clock was all it took for her to stand up and carefully dust off her skirts. "Thank you for playing with me, Star," Lucy signed excitedly. "I like you. Do you want to know a secret?" She leaned in conspirationally, bursting into my space bubble with a lack of care only a child could posess.

I nodded, not trusting my mouth whatsoever. The closer she leaned in, the more overwhelming her smell became. Her pretty dress reeked of mildew and stale water, her breath - of dried blood and something earthen, like moist soil and cold cobblestone.

Lucy's eyes widened dramatically. "If you need answers, go on to the seventh floor. Bring some warm milk and cookies, they won't bother you too much, but be careful and don't stay for too long. You look tasty," I struggled to keep up with her rapid signing, my eyes firmly trained on her. Lucy's hand carefully patted my cheek and in my frozen state, I could only wave back as she skipped to the door and unlocked it, giving me one of her closed-lipped smiles before disappearing behind it without a noise.

The lock slid shut on it's own after the girl's departure. My heart briefly jumped up into my throat, trapping my jerky inhale in-between my throat and my esophagus. Coughing, I went on to double check the door lock before scrambling for the TV remote to add some background noise to the suddenly eerily quiet apartment.

The sit-com that popped up wasn't any of the ones I knew so I sat helplessly watching unfamiliar people get themselves into more and more absurd situations as the grating noise of pre-recorded audience laughter mocked the characters actions. A sudden shriek pierced the late night stillness, followed by a sound of breaking dishes and a woman's voice tiredly chastising the miscreants.

Samantha.

I'd seen her a few times as she smoked her strong cigarettes in front of the entrance, her twins running in circles around the large pothole in the middle of the driveway. She'd been friendly enough, the dark circles under her eyes and the unkempt state of her clothes telling me more than her words, "I love them, I really do. But I just want some sleep," she rasped as she sighed and attempted to gather her two kids.

I didn't examine them too closely but on first moment's notice their eyes and teeth appeared... Wrong. Samantha had taken them inside after that, clutching a coffee thermos of a size truly impressive, and I went on my merry way, trying not to think too much of the poor, single mother and her two mutant kids. I felt a little proud, even, as she didn't just abandon them like many other people did after discovering their children had an active X-gene.

It didn't take me long to cave in and offer my help with watching the twins, Anya and Arman; one noisy weekend bled into the next and I began to genuinely feel bad for the overtired woman. Inviting the two terrors into my apartment was a choice I had made mindfully: having asked Odette about advice on hyperactive children, she had proposed a puzzle or two.

The thrifted, wooden items weren't able to hold the twins' attention for long, and Anya was the first one to begin gnawing at the hard blocks, covering the area around her in splinters. Arman was a quiet boy compared to his sister: he'd stare at the TV or at the walls, avoiding eye contact and conversation at great lengths.

My couch was jumped on, my dishes were taken out and my houseplants rearranged chaotically; it was almost as if they purposefully tried to get a rise out of me without doing any actual damage. I spent the remaining few hours of my Sunday putting things back in their places - all that pent up frustration had done wonders for the state of my apartment; it sparkled, looking cleaner than the day I moved in.

The babysitting became a somewhat regular occurrence, more often than not with me popping in for a couple of hours so Samantha could run some errands and the odd weekend when the twins came over to me so Sam could get some much-needed sleep.

She was a kind, gentle if chronically overworked woman. We clicked pretty quickly over our shared desire for comfortable stability and some fucking peace; neither I nor she had it in sights for the foreseeable future. Sam's reaction to me being a witch was a shrug and a top up to her wine glass as she pointedly looked at her daughter who was busy chewing on a door handle, leaving small, jagged marks all over the dull metal.

I just had gotten sorted with a bunch of complicated orders when the radio interrupted Eric Clapton with an emergency message and instructions to steer clear of the next few blocks over. Something had hit NYC again and Avengers had been called but nobody knew exactly what it was or when it was going to be dealt with.

As soon as I shot a text to Sam, explaining the situation, I immediately retreated to the back rooms, setting up my healing station over the noise of Odette preparing her office for visitors. For some time, I waited with baited breath, jumping at every little noise coming from the outside. The people tickled in slowly, mostly one by one and all were covered in foul-smelling sludge that evaporated with a loud hiss when the concentrated light of the UV lamp in my office touched it.

"Some kind of aliens, I think," a man with a face somewhere between a human and a hedgehog told me, wincing as he retracted his spikes back into his skin. "There's a hole- a portal, right on a crossroads and there's these things coming out. They kinda look like dragons, or flying snakes maybe," the more light breached the surface of his skin, the more relaxed he became. "The Sorcerer and the Witch are trying to close the portal, unsuccessfully might I add, and the muscle is just," he paused, scratching his chin. "Just killin' 'em, I guess."

I nodded enthusiastically, prompting him to continue to rely the state of the affairs as I applied the thick, viscous ointment on a gash on his leg. "It's hammer and Frisbee time," I mumbled to myself sarcastically.

"Yep," the man popped the 'p'. "Most of us are trying to keep the creatures contained to that one block. I saw Iron Man blasting off some of the creatures off of some of my friends," the last sentence contained a great deal of puzzlement. "Though you won't be seeing much of us this time. These things... They're vicious. They've got claws the size of my foot. A lot of us are going to die where they gut us," the sentence was spoken so matter-of-factly, my hands paused on the man's leg, bringing my eyes to his unblinking dots of black.

"What do you mean?" I swallowed in an attempt to chase away the dry, rough feeling in my throat.

"Those beasts... They're smart. One of my friends - she's a... Telepath of sorts... Says they're an intelligent hivemind," the man's broad, warm palm closed over mine. "The beasts leave only the ones that won't get help in time. They can smell death from a mile away. That's how they hunt," his voice was gentle, soothing over the sudden ringing of my ears.

"I..." My mind stuttered, a sticky ball of anxiety, fear and sorrow gathering up in my chest. "I'm so sorry. I..."

"We know what we're doing, out there, we know the risks," his smile was tight and full of grief. "You're doing your part here, makin' sure our babies have parents. We're out there makin' sure our streets are safe. Such is life," the grin acceptance in his pitch-black, small eyes set fire to the tension in my chest.

I exploded, inside out. The sudden burst of decisive, clear-headed energy made the objects around me vibrate, metal resonated my sorrow and my determination, the wood heated up with the force of Mother Nature itself responding to an act of cruelty bestowed upon her creations.

As soon as the man's bandage was finished and he headed out, I grabbed my old, ratty backpack, hastily shoving things into it in a semi-organized fashion. Clean linen strips, bandages, some premade elixirs and draughts, a few jars of salves, carefully tucked in-between the cloth. As I knocked on the door of Odette's office to retrieve the last few items I would need for my reckless journey, the door handle turned on its own, letting me observe her tending a woman who's skin was peeled off most of her back.

"Can't you see I'm..." Odette exclaimed, throwing her free hand towards the door, which did not budge. She turned on her heel, eyes widening when she observed my wide, solid stance in the doorway, lips immediately curling into a small grin. "I understand. Take what you need. It's not wise to resist Her call," the words were spoken carefully, as if not to spook me, before Odette resumed her delicate work of putting the injured woman back together.

Without a word, I finished packing and left through the front door, not needing more than my scarf and my light sweater to keep me from the freezing gusts of wind. My very core was the centrefold of an active volcano, bursting with white-hot bursts of energy as I approached the injured people on my way towards the terrible screeching noise.

This far out, most of the injured were able to make it to Odette's or to the other healer, who's name I had found out only then, but they were thankful for the water I offered them. Not once did they question me: my star-patterned scarf, out of all things, had become somewhat of a symbol for me among the different folk. Mutants approached me fearlessly, giving generous updates on the direction of the battle and the hotspots I probably should have avoided.

The louder the screeching noises grew, the more people needed my help. The stops took longer, my painkillers were becoming a short supply, the main relief provided by a couple of mid-range, mid-strength energy manipulating mutants that began to tail me after I offered to patch them up in exchange for help with the injured.

It was as if I instinctually knew where I was most needed, my decisions were seldom my own. Me and the two mutants bid a haste goodbye after loading up their truck with the injured, although deep inside, I knew that the amount of corpses, bloody and messy, littering the streets had begun to get to them. In a normal state of mind, I would not have been able to look at them either: then, each mangled, broken body only added fuel to the fire within me.

As I stepped foot in an intersection where someone had piled up bent and broken cars, the shadow flying over my head shrieked, taking a fluid nose dive towards another, smaller flying figure. I dropped flat on the ground, the contents of my backpack clattering, watching the small figure in the sky blast the beast with an off-blue ray of concentrated energy. As soon as the creature began it's graceless drop, Tony turned around and flew off, looking none worse for wear.

At the very centre of my chest, a faint feeling of fondness and hope blossomed into tiny little flowers that soothed the aching sorrow for the dead. Each warcry of the beasts from another world fed the anger, the anguish Gaia seemed to exhibit at their intrusion; the revolt I felt upon laying my eyes on one of them made me sweat, hands clenching into fists until my skin crawled under my nails.

The last part of me that wanted to pretend I was in control was gone; my soft, untrained body a mere vessel for a force stronger than me, stronger than anything. Noise around me grew in pitch, some of the creatures circling around my hiding spot cluelessly, aimlessly, as if they could not find what they were looking for.

I moved spots in a daring series of runs, bringing me almost to the portal itself, and the hellish lizards dived into my previous sanctuary, shattering the concrete and the wood of the house under the amused black stares of glassless windows.

The realization set it - they could not see me. Or perceive me properly, I deduced, inspecting the creatures for any sort of orifice except for their mouths and finding them to lack eyes and ears.

My own stare fell onto Sorcerer Supreme, floating amongst a variety of moving golden circles; I was close enough to hear him talking in a language I did not know. Wanda was hovering nearby, holding up a wall of red energy, protecting the chanting sorcerer.

A united screech invoked a shiver from every living being within it's reach, the creatures circling the portal for the last time before flying off in haphazard directions as the portal slowly began to close. I was prepared to cheer, yet, something stopped me; not a second later, the circles surrounding Stephen dimmed as the man himself jumped up onto his feet in alarm, screaming something unintelligible at the Scarlet Witch.

The overturned food cart I was hiding behind slowly began to creep towards the portal. A couple of rats, a pigeon - the animals flew in front of my eyes, rapidly, as they struggled against the unseen force. My hands grasped the handlebars of the cart in vain, I struggled against the force, seeing a moment of confusion on Wanda's face as I floated- no, rocketed past her as Stephen's golden magic forcefully pushed her out of the portal's reach.

It's size no bigger than a doorway, the vile thing blew cold, dry air under my sweater, muffling Stephen's cursing as we briefly collided during our violent expulsion into another world.

And then, there was darkness.

Taglist! @couldntbedamned @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins2 @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites @xoxabs88xox

[some-cookie-crumbz]

h,,,huwumi,,,kiss in the snow,,, add fan kiddos if you wanna uwu

Cute domestic Huwumi fluff??? On MY tumblr dot com blog??? As it should be! 

Days where Keigo was off to stay with the kids were some of Fuyumi’s favorites. The twins were going to be seven soon enough and spent a good majority of their days in school, and Isamu had officially started preschool, but Hibari had just hit two years old three weeks prior. When a sitter was needed, Rei was always excited and eager to offer to take any or all of her grandchildren. And, while less enthusiastic, Enji could be relied on when necessary. But none of that was the same as the thought of her husband doting on their children. There was something about knowing that Keigo would be there all day with Hibari and then picking the boys up once they were done with their days that brought her a sense of peace and put an extra pep in her step.

It was why she walked in the door with a smile, though it faltered slightly at how quiet the house was.

She had stayed a little bit after to finish some grading, knowing that it would be a good few hours between dinner and bedtime routine before she could resume, but had anticipated the usual enthusiasm levels. The twins were always eager to play some mischievous and rowdy game the second their homework was completed and Isamu flocked to her as soon as she was in sight. “Keigo? Kids?” she called out as she put her shoes away and swapped into her slippers.

After a moment she heard loud, high-pitched squeals coming from the other side of the house. She was quick to make the trek to examine, seeing the door to the backyard thrown wide open, cold gusts starting to creep in. While a full-fledged storm was far from kicking up, a light snowfall had started up. In the doorway was a bundled mound of blankets. She couldn’t help but smile as she reached out and gently pushed at the top of the bundle, revealing a mess of dark red hair and startled gold eyes. “Oh, Mom! Welcome home!” Reo said, shifting to lean closer as she moved to kneel and press a kiss to his forehead.

“I’m a little surprised you’re this close to the outside, hun,” she mused. Reo had inherited a stronger variant of Fuyumi’s ice Quirk - deemed Dry Ice by their family pediatrician - but had a ridiculous aversion to the cold. It wasn’t a situation of him lacking a resistance to it, either. He had a higher resistance to the cold as was the norm for temperature based Quirks like that. Somehow, someway, her eldest son had just decided that snow wasn’t his speed. Which she understood and respected, but this left her a bit baffled.

“I was helping Dad get Hibi dressed for the snow and then I wa-Bwah!” His explanation was cut off as a snowball came flying out of nowhere, pegging him straight in the face. He scrambled to wipe the flakes from his face and off his blanket cocoon. "KAITO!" he shrieked.

His blonde haired twin stood out in the yard, pointing with one gloved hand while the other arm was wrapped around his own stomach, cackling like mad. "Holy cow! I got you right in the face! Best day of my life!"

"So you've chosen violence... Very well! RrraaAAAHHHH!" And with that battle cry, Reo came scrambling out from his blankets and charged for his brother. Fuyumi briefly considered chiding him for leaving his blankets in the doorway and charging out without a proper coat but opted against it. Instead, she moved the blankets further inside, stepped out herself and closed the door behind her.

She spotted Keigo over by the large oak tree in the corner, his back facing her, Hibari's bright pink wing mittens just barely visible over his left forearm and Isamu hovering in the air just beside his father. While he wasn't an expert yet, Isamu's wings were large enough for him to hoist himself into the air for a good but short bit. She moved along to join them, briefly glancing over to watch as the twins tussled about in the snow a few feet away. "Birb! Dada, birb!" Hibari's voice cried in delight and wonder, quiet chirps coming from where she pointed.

"There's a lil birdie in there, Daddy!" Isamu gasped in quiet awe, fluttering up just a bit more to get a better look.

"That's right, buddy! It's a little sparrow. They're wintery birds, just like Hibi," Keigo agreed, tilting his head down to nuzzle his cheek affectionately against the toddler’s in his arms. Fuyumi giggled at the excited squeals he got for that.

"That's part of why Daddy calls Hibari his little sparrow," she chimed in, grinning wider when they turned to face her.

"Mommy!" Isamu gasped. He dropped back on to his feet and rushed over, arms looping around her waist as best they could and burrowing into her. "I missed you, Mommy."

She smiled and shifted to pick him up, settling him on her hip. "I missed you, too, Isa," She pressed a kiss to his forehead before turning her attention to Keigo.

“Hey,” he hummed, stepping closer to pull her close and kiss her. She hummed happily and kissed back eagerly, letting one hand slide up along the shoulder of his coat. When they pulled back, she blinked to dislodge a few snowflakes that had snuck past her glasses. “How was your day?”

“It was fine. Glad to be home, though,” she mused, leaning forward to give him another quick peck. She beamed when she saw how his feathers ruffled a bit from the quick affection. Even after years of marriage and four children, she still found how flustered he’d get to be achingly endearing. "Hibari's wings doing better today?"

He nodded and gently bopped his hip to bounce the tot, causing her to giggle. "They're still pretty sensitive but it’s still been going down. Today the sensitivity waned enough for me to be able to touch them gently, and she seems to be kinda starting to gain more mobility over them. Should probably be able to start doing those exercises the specialist was talking about in another couple of weeks," he hummed, chuckling as Hibari reached out to grab at a snowflake that drifted by. “Since she was in higher spirits today, I figured a little time in the yard would be fine, get her some fresh air. Little miss isn’t exactly fit to be cooped up all day.”

Fuyumi smiled as she reached out a hand to tuck a loose strand of hair back under Hibari’s hat. “That’s true. She’s such a curious baby bird, isn’t she?” she mused. Hibari, despite being nearly two, had already proven that her curiosity was vast. So many times they’d had to stop her from getting into somewhere or something she shouldn’t be, eager to point and let out a little questioning noises.

Hibari giggled at the affection before perking up and glancing over Keigo’s shoulder to watch as Reo flipped Kaito over his shoulder, clearly intending to throw him into a nearby snowman, only to be halted by a small flurry of red feathers swarming them. “Boys, keep the rough housing down. We don’t need any emergency room trips tonight,” Keigo said patiently. His feathers shifted to grab Kaito and put him back on his feet properly. 

Reo huffed. “He started it! I wasn’t doing anything and he threw a snowball at me!” he yelped, pointing at his twin.

“Kaito, you know how Reo feels about the cold. Be respectful,” Fuyumi chirped in.

Reo flashed a smugly satisfied grin at his twin, who responded in turn with a raspberry. “I’m going inside and crawling back into my blankets! And I’m not coming out until it’s time for donburi!” With that announcement and another small huff, he began marching his shoe-less self back inside, swiping at his crimson locks to dislodge some of the settling snowflakes.

“Coward!” Kaito called after him, trying to toss another handful of snow at him but instead only succeeding in slipping. He would have hit the ground if Keigo’s feathers hadn’t been lingering about, just in case.

“Kai so silly!” Hibari giggled, peering up at her parents.

“Yes, he is,” Fuyumi hummed before looking back over to Keigo. “So donburi tonight?”

“Ah, yeah. I wanted to do something that shouldn’t take me too long to prepare and would be warm, considering the kids were all mostly outside,” he explained. A gust of wind picked up around them, causing one of Keigo's wings to shift and curl around Hibari to protect her better.

She still visibly shuddered and pushed closer to him. "'S bbbbrrrrrr!" she squeaked.

"It's very bbbrrrr, sparrow. Let's all get inside and I'll make some warm, yummy dinner for us all," he said. He glanced over at Kaito, who was reaching again for a handful of snow, but dropped it when he realized he was being watched. Keigo slowly quirked an eyebrow in amusement as their second oldest started the slog to the patio, clapping his hands together to remove the remaining bits of snow from his mittens. “Thanks for making a better choice there, buddy.”

Kaito grumbled something in response as he marched his way up, then shrieked when Reo suddenly leapt out from around the corner, grabbing his brother and starting to drag him further in. Hibari gasped before starting to squirm. “Daddy, down! Gotta help Kai!” she squeaked frantically. Fuyumi giggled as Keigo set her down, watching as she waddled as fast as she could through the snow to follow after her two oldest brothers. “Reo meanie! Stop!”

Isamu whined quietly in Fuyumi’s hold before shifting himself. “You want me to let you down, sweet pea?” she asked.

“Wanna make sure Hibi doesn’t hurt her wingies,” he mumbled, carefully moving with her to stand on his own. “Reo-Nii and Kaito-Nii play too rough sometimes.”

Keigo smiled and reached over to ruffle his hair affectionately. “You’re a great big brother, you know? Looking after your little sister like that,” he praised. Fuyumi felt her heart skip at the shy smile he gave his Dad in return, little feathers fluffing up a bit, expression and stance near identical to her husband’s just a few minutes before. Isamu was the most reserved of their children, seeming to take quite a lot more from Fuyumi, Rei and Shoto, but there were little ticks that were so much his father’s it always lifted her heart.

“Thank you,” Isamu chirped quietly before perking up at a loud squeal from inside. They weren’t sure which one of his siblings it was making the sound, but he was following after them with one good flap from his wings. “Y-You guys, hold on! We gotta get our snow stuffs off first!”

She watched as he disappeared inside too before turning to look at Keigo, watching him disappear with a fond look in his eyes. “They’re really great kids, aren’t they?” he asked, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

She smiled wider and reached up to set both her hands on his shoulders, turning him to face her fully. “I think we’re doing a pretty good job,” she hummed, leaning up to kiss him again as yet another frigid gust whipped around them. He looped one of his arms securely around her waist as he deepened the kiss, one hand coming up to gently stroke her cheek. When they pulled apart after a second she giggled and indicated towards the patio with a tilt of her head. “Shall we?”

“Always,” he purred back, flashing her a grin that was sincere and warm, chasing off the winter chill much better than her coat certainly did.

[supernatural-jackles]

Hi Jen! This is part rant/question/hug so bear with me. I completely understand your mindset about the comments and notes point you brought up. If you don’t write on here, I think it’s hard for some people to understand what it is that writers see and what trends they start to see and what it makes them think. Years ago, it seemed like a free for all whereas nowadays it’s a struggle. It’s hard not to look at your follower count and old notes and say this number has gone (1/4)

up but notes have gone and think to yourself that you must have gotten worse. I work in numbers. My head’s gone there a million times. I’ve never said it but I considered stopping several times. But some things inspired me to keep going, one of them of you and your friendship that we’ve grown. Then I started to think about all the other stuff that I can’t see like tumblr’s stupid algorithms, how notes and comments really started dropping after the tumblr purging incident, how it’s not it didn’t reach x number of notes. I don’t want to hate a fic I love and no writer does. It took a really long time to stop caring about that number in the corner and stop basing worth on how many comments something had. Of course we want people to enjoy what we write. But it shouldn’t lessen what we feel either. Yeah, I still look at those things but with a lot of mental changes to how I feel about a number, it doesn’t hit me like it used to and this place felt warm and inviting again and  a lot of the weight went away. So for your question, what’s your ideal way to write a series? In long spurts or in little snippets? Now last of all take your hug. You’re the best and I love you girl. Kick this week in the ass. 💜

Hi Michelle! I love your rant/question/hug first of all!! 

You're more than right! My sole focus surely isn’t about notes. Not entirely. Yes it’s nice to see, and things have definitely gone down over the last little while for sure. It was always a way for me to gage the audience.  I head off Tumblr as soon as I post something most days to try and avoid that part. That and it’s 8pm and I like to watch a movie or something before bed time. The things that’s been wigging me the most is how many readers that commented before stopped? So I gotta figure something else out for that and find a way that doesn't harm as much. And maybe if the tagging system didn’t suck as much 😂 Oh how I miss the old Tumblr days! I do value our friendship very much and I love how it has grown so much over the last little while! You are what keeps me going a lot of the time and I often find myself thinking when I write “ooooh Michelle’s reaction when she reads this!”

For your question, it all depends on the series. I either get obsessed and write five parts in a week or it turns into a slow one part a week, focus on something else for awhile before going back. For the most part, I like long spurts! 

HUG TIME! 

I love you so much and I can’t wait to read your series again!! I’m really looking forward to it!! 💜 You’re the bomb dot com! 

[wiseabsol]

WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 13: A Start

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/13/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.  

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 28 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 13!

CHAPTER 13: A START

Alright, on to chapter thirteen. Before I begin, since there have been some people in the comments expressing interest in my full reviews, they can be found at: wiseabsol (dot) tumblr (dot) com (slash) tagged (slash) dominion (percent sign) 20by (percent sign) 20aurelia (percent sign) 20le. I might also run the idea of setting up a forum for “Dominion” by Aurelia. That way, you all would have someplace to read my reviews on this website, as well as discuss the story with each other outside of the reviews section.

 On to the review. Zuko has slept past sunrise, which may be an indication of how bad a shape he’s in, since firebenders are supposed to rise with the sun (Azula, note, still rose with the sun while hospitalized). But he managed to sleep the night through without nightmares, which is progress for him. Turns out he’s achieved that by drinking a sedating tea left by Iroh.

 “The old man had even gone do far as to pretend Mai told him, to try to get Zuko to talk. It was the kind of thing Azula would do.”—Iroh and Azula are both cunning, strategic thinkers, which may be part of why she makes Iroh uncomfortable. She probably reminds him of himself when he was younger. If she’d been a boy, it’s possible that he might have tried to take Azula under his wing…but given that she was a girl, and thus had gender roles that she was supposed to conform to (hence him giving her a doll), he didn’t. That and Ozai snapped her up quickly, with Iroh soon afterwards writing her off as Ozai’s “creature.” But I wouldn’t be surprised if we later find out that part of why Iroh considered her so dangerous was because she reminded him of his younger self, rather than Ozai.

 Apparently Zuko blew up at Iroh for the deception, and said some things he shouldn’t have. Old habits die hard.

 “What his uncle couldn’t know was that there was no help for what he did.”—Yeah, sleeping with your sister is not something you can take back.

 Zuko has some manservants in the room with him, who offer him fruit, foot washing, and hot towels, which he doesn’t accept. What even is the point of being royalty if you can’t enjoy some nice things, Zuko? Though you probably don’t think you deserve nice things. As the manservants go about getting him ready, Zuko has this pleasant memory of Mai: “Mai used to put his hair up for him, when she woke at the same time as Zuko. She wasn’t much good with hair, in truth, but that hardly mattered. More often than not, it was just thinly veiled foreplay”—So they were a genuinely sweet couple at one point.

 But then it’s time to go to Squicktown: “But when he tried to recall those mornings now, it was his sister’s slim fingers that raked through his hair, her mouth that he tasted, the warmth of her skin—“—That’s gross, buddy. While we could chalk this up to being a sign of his continued obsession with Azula, it could also be a sign of trauma. Good memories triggering associations that trigger bad memories. If he was wanking off to the memory of Azula, then I’d say it was an obsession thing. As it is, it’s causing him distress, so trauma seems more likely.

 “A memory made all the more painful by having to wonder how much of that Azula did at their father’s command, those years he abused her under the guise of training….”—Sadly, I think Ozai does believe it was training. Though this is also the dude who believes that suffering is instructive.

 “With such dark thoughts as he had for company, he barely noticed the comings and goings of the palace staff anymore.”—Losing your situational awareness is not good, Zuko. Especially when you know there are people who aren’t happy with your reign.

 “Uncle thought it started shortly after Zuko was banished. She would have been eleven.”—Ugh. That is vile. Though I suspect that Ozai was grooming her before then.

 Ozai is dying from his burns. While I’m inclined to say “Good riddance,” if he dies, it means that Zuko will have committed patricide, which will cause a public outcry and earn him more enemies. Also, Azula will never forgive him for it.

 “The man lived to plague him, he knew.”—Ozai is absolutely that spiteful.

 “He remembered asking Iroh if his banishment might have been planned. If his father might have sent him away just to do that to Azula, to remove the last family member she might have turned to for defense, the last witness to his crimes. He remembered the look his uncle gave him then, when he said they may never know.”—I think it’s probable that Ozai was looking for an excuse to get rid of Zuko, just like he did with Mai and Ty Lee. He wanted to isolate Azula, but he also wanted to get Zuko out of the picture so he could make Azula first in line for the throne.

 That being said, I don’t think Ozai believed that Azula would turn to Zuko for help. The siblings were already poisoned against each other back then. I think the look Iroh gave Zuko wasn’t because he knew the answer to the question—it was because he knew that it wouldn’t have mattered whether Zuko was there or not. Ozai would have done this to Azula anyway, and given how careful they were to hide it, I don’t think Zuko would have noticed that something was wrong until the abortion. I doubt that Iroh would have noticed either, since he was so focused on Zuko. While the idea of, “If I was there, I could have done something!” is a comforting one, it’s also naïve on Zuko’s part. He was a child then, too. And given Zuko’s disposition at that age—to confront evil head on, without thinking through the potential consequences—he probably would have ended up in a much worse position than he did in canon. He would have been a security risk to Ozai—a security risk that can’t lie well. No, I think Zuko being there would have resulted in disaster. Iroh, on the other hand, might have been able to figure out a quiet solution. But he wasn’t there, and so the possibility passed.

 Iroh, in any case, left after receiving a letter from Rai, without telling Zuko the contents of said letter. Iroh says this is so Zuko can have plausible deniability, but because Zuko is in bad mental shape, he’s slipping into some paranoia about it—paranoia rather like Azula’s at the end of the series. He’s unkempt, he can’t sleep, he is wracked with self-hatred and guilt (Azula was, too, though her mind expressed it through Ursa’s hallucination). If he starts banishing people, it will probably start rumors that madness runs in the family.

 “He wondered if his uncle began to mistrust him around Azula. If he knew what you did, he would never trust you with her again, he reminded himself.”—Which would be fair of him, Zuko. But Iroh is too convinced of your goodness to suspect that you would hurt her intentionally. He was ready to handwave away you killing her as an act of self-defense.

 “And Mai would not receive the old general at her parents’ house, sparking rumors she had left the palace to avoid him, rather than her husband.”—I think because Mai knows that Iroh will side with Zuko in a conflict, and that’s not something that she wants to deal with right now. I do not blame her.

 Zuko continues to contemplate Iroh’s visit, sliding into self-pity as he thinks of how tired Iroh must be getting of him: “[Iroh] was probably just as relieved to go as Zuko was to see him away….”

 “‘It isn’t fair,’ [ . . . ] That one mistake with Azula should poison the only healthy, loving relationship he had with any blood relative. It wasn’t fair.”—Zuko thinks this, but he’s the one who is pushing Iroh away. I think he could have told Iroh a portion of the truth—that he and Azula argued, that he got angry and intentionally hurt her, and that he feels horrible about it now. I think that would shake Iroh’s faith in Zuko, but I think he would still be supportive, and would understand, finally, that Zuko still has lingering behavioral problems from Ozai’s abuse that need to be worked through. It might have opened up some routes to healing faster…though I daresay that Mai wouldn’t have been pleased with Zuko giving his uncle a sanitized version of the truth.

 Zuko’s chamberlain comes in, with a list of what sounds like some very important meetings that Zuko should go to, but Zuko has other plans for his day. He’ll still keep the meeting with the “Advisory Board for the Reformation of Asylums,” which Zuko created sometime in the last few weeks. For now, though, Zuko is going to see Mai and Lu Ten.

 We transition to Iroh meeting with Rai. Apparently, Iroh recruited her after her banishment from the Fire Nation. Rai catches Iroh up on how her time with Azula went, but feels that she could have done more for Azula. Iroh interrupts her by placing a hand on her knee—weird choice there, Iroh—and says that it was for the best that she didn’t reveal that she knew who Azula was, because, “‘She might even have killed you.’”

 Rai, though, has more faith in Azula than Iroh does: “‘No.’ The cook shook her head, surprising Iroh. ‘She makes threats when she’s under duress. And she certainly knows how to sell them [ . . . ] But she never struck me as particularly bloodthirsty, either then or now. She would avoid unnecessary violence, if only to keep a low profile.’”—Thank you, Rai!

 Rai, bless her, also dismisses Iroh’s question of whether the wounds could have been self-inflicted. I see why he would ask this, given the self-harm Azula committed in the asylum, but it does make it clear that he hasn’t seen her any time recently, after she started getting better. He then wonders if maybe the asylum had been mistreating her and covered up the signs, since his visits were announced in advance and he only ever saw her from a distance.

 Then he wonders if Zuko was the one who injured Azula—ding, ding, Iroh, you are correct! “It would go a long way toward explaining his obvious guilt, and Zuko had always been given to emotional excesses.”—No kidding. In regards to the burn, he thinks, “He could not see what purpose it had served, except to hurt her…”—CORRECT AGAIN!

 Rai, meanwhile, wonders about Azula being sent to the asylum. She thought that Azula might have been jailed or banished by Zuko instead. This ticks Iroh off: “Her brother showed her compassion,” he insists, but Rai is not convinced, since the workers at the asylum might have hurt Azula. When she expresses that, Iroh responds hotly, “‘He knew naught of this, woman,’” and breathes out flames. I’m not fond of him calling her “woman” here, because when men do that, it’s often meant to be dismissive or demeaning. The show of flames is also not cool of him. Control yourself, Iroh.

 Rai isn’t impressed by him and plans to leave, but Iroh has more questions. He asks what happened to the man who assaulted Azula, and Rai responds: “‘Dead,’ Rai told the woodplank floor, her voice barely breaking a whisper when she crossed white arms under her ample bust.”—Why are you noticing the size of her breasts, Iroh? But also, this does seem hard for Rai to talk about.

 Iroh assumes Azula killed the guy, but Rai corrects him, telling him that she did it herself. “The woman raised her eyes to his, and Iroh was reminded uncannily of his missing sister-in-law.” Oh, I hope that Ursa kills Ozai. I feel like it’s improbable that that will happen, but I want it. Also, the phrase “silk hiding steel” comes to mind here, both for Rai and Ursa.

 Rai discusses her reasons for killing Lee—both to give Azula a measure of protection and for justice—and how her own husband, Shou, abused her. “If she had been abused, of course this cook would look coldly on what she likely viewed as excuses for the abuse of Azula. Her own husband probably made her parrot lines like that, that it was an accident, she did it to herself….”—As much as I obviously empathize with Azula, I should point out that there is, theoretically, some danger in Rai doing the same. If Azula had continued to behave abusively towards others, Rai’s empathy for Azula’s suffering might have made her inclined to excuse Azula’s actions, much like Iroh currently does for Zuko. And if she’s excusing those actions, then she might have been caught off guard and hurt by Azula during their time together.

 That being said, in this case, Rai’s empathy is refreshing, and also lends itself to a more accurate reading of Azula’s character than Iroh has. Iroh, very confused by this point, asks Rai why she would go to such lengths to help his niece. As it turns out, Rai worked in the kitchens at the palace, while her husband was an imperial firebender. She couldn’t accuse him of abuse or get away from him, but when Azula started banishing people, Rai was banished before he was—and so she managed to escape and stay ahead of him all of this time.

 “‘Rai,’ he said quietly, a little concerned for her sanity at this point, ‘you must know she didn’t mean to help you. She banished her servants because she was crazy, not out if any altruistic urge.’”—It rubs me the wrong way that Iroh thinks that Rai might be crazy. There’s a part of me that wants to throw at him, “You only think that because you’ve never known what it’s like to be helpless,” but I know that’s not true. It’s not like Azulon was compassionate to Iroh or cared about his emotional needs, and losing Lu Ten would definitely have made Iroh feel helpless. Still, this grates on me, possibly because Iroh is a very privileged man and hasn’t faced the same hardships as Rai. I feel like Ursa would understand Rai, though. I don’t know if they would get along—somehow, I doubt it, since Rai has faith in Azula and Ursa does not—but I’d love to see a conversation between them someday.

 Much to Iroh’s discomfort, Rai talks about how the palace staff knew that Ozai was mistreating Azula, and hints that there were rumors about the sexual abuse, too: “Those years Prince Zuko was banished, her father kept her so close [ . . . ] She turned up all manner of strange injuries [ . . . ] and even disappeared for a week once. There were some as said he killed her. And those were the least of the rumors. [ . . . ] There was something…wrong there. [ . . . ] Everyone knew it. And no one did anything. [ . . . ] Not even me.”

 When Iroh points out that Ozai was the Fire Lord and there was nothing that she could have done, Rai is not consoled: “‘And she was a piece of work,’ Rai finished bluntly, holding his gaze. ‘I know. She was also a child, with no one to treat her like one. I thought I might be someone to look out for her, even years too late’”—God, it’s so nice to hear someone point out that no matter how cruel Azula was, she was a kid and didn’t deserve what happened to her. It’s so good to see someone want to look out for her and help her. I’ve never thought that Rai could have been an inspiration for Tam, but she’s hitting the same points, even if she’s a very different person. I wish we had more of Rai in this, but I suspect her role in the story is done by the end of this chapter.

 As their conversation winds down, Iroh reassures Rai that she did help Azula and pays her for the information. Rai urges him to help Azula, even if Azula pushes him away. “‘She really seems to hate you,’” Rai says, and I think that’s due to, A.) Ozai turning Azula against Iroh, B.) Iroh’s claim of killing the last dragon, C.) Iroh sending Azula gifts that catered more towards who Ursa wanted her to be, rather than who Azula wanted to be, and D.) Iroh choosing Zuko and telling Zuko to confront Azula and take her crown from her. Iroh says his goal is to help Azula, but he inwardly admits that he’s not sure how.

 We shift back to Zuko, who is just arriving at Mai’s place. Mai’s uncle, the warden from the Boiling Rock, is there, and isn’t happy to see Zuko. He escorts Zuko in, and there is a brief exchange with Mai’s parents, during which her mother seems to imply that Mai’s uncle better not mess things up with the Fire Lord. Once the rest of the family is gone, Tsutomu quickly establishes that if it weren’t for Mai, he’d gut Zuko, because Mai has told him everything.

 I’m not sure this was a wise call on Mai’s part—the more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep—but I understand why she did it. She knows that her uncle is loyal to her. She knows that he doesn’t like Zuko. It would feel safe to go to him with this. That and he has contacts who could help her.

 “Zuko was glad Mai had him to support her through this. But the warden would have done his utmost to poison her against him”—You did that yourself, Zuko.

 “But then, a man who lays with his sister and tries to kill his father, what would you know about [family]?”—Woof, yeah, Zuko is a walking Greek tragedy. I’m curious about what Hu Xin did to be considered an equivalent.

 “And I’m not sure that’s something I can allow in my niece’s life, regardless of her wishes.”—Fair, but you can’t support Mai if you’re executed for committing treason and regicide, Tsutomu.

 Zuko asks if Mai’s parents know, but Tsutomu dismisses the idea: “‘They still think you fucked that waterbender.’” I am slightly amused by the confusion there, but not amused by the warden calling Katara a “nubile little savage” right afterwards. Gross and racist, Tsutomu.

 “Zuko could only stare at him, sick with the realization that Mai’s parents suspected he cheated on her, even if they didn’t know with whom. And they still treated Zuko better than their daughter.”—More evidence that monarchies and patriarchies are terrible. The warden acknowledges that, saying that Mai’s parents expect this sort of thing from a noble husband, and that they think that Mai should suck it up and make sure her son’s and her family’s futures are secure, rather than let her hurt feelings get in the way. Which the warden thinks is bullshit, and as much as I don’t like him, I agree with him.

 “‘Be the man that she deserves,’” he tells Zuko, and I’m like, “You tell him, Scary Warden.”

 Zuko goes to find Mai, who is still wearing her crown. “She wouldn’t if she meant to desert him, would she?”—Dude, she earned that. I wouldn’t give it up without a fight either. Like, I don’t like monarchies, and I’d set up a council if someone gave me a crown…but like hell if I’m giving up that crown! It’s shiny!

 Mai has been waiting for him to approach her to talk. I don’t know if I’m supposed to find the bed exchange amusing, but—Mai, come on. The bed needed to go. How could you sleep in it again knowing that Azula was raped and impregnated there? No, let it burn. Throw some oil on it while you’re at it. There’s bad juju in that mattress. I don’t think making Lu Ten in that bed erased the aura of squick. Though also, Zuko, you should have offered her a different bed. Come on, my dude.

 “‘Really?’ Mai sprang like the jaws of a trap snapping closed. ‘So you were thinking of me the whole time you were with her?’”—Yikes!

 Mai continues to press him on why he slept with Azula, with him getting “unaccountable angry that she wouldn’t just accept his explanation.” She doesn’t buy that the fight spun out of control, though that was a part of what happened. But that isn’t why it happened. Zuko reveals the ugly truth of it: “‘She made me so angry [ . . . ] I just lost control.’”—Meaning that Zuko didn’t have sex with Azula because he loved her. He did it to punish her.

 Mai then asks why Azula would sleep with Zuko, and Zuko tries to explain that it’s because Ozai abused Azula. Mai isn’t convinced by this—maybe she thinks that this is some kind of Morgana plot on Azula’s part—and doesn’t believe that Ozai would admit to the abuse, either.

 “‘He just let it slip, in a moment of anger!’” Zuko says, to which Mai responds, “‘Really? Because that sounds a lot more like you.’”—Yes. Yes, Mai, Zuko and Ozai are very similar people. Similar explosive angers, similar self-centered natures, similar disregard for Azula’s personhood. Yes, you got it in one, even if you don’t realize it yet.

 “‘You’re a fool if you think it ever happened.’”—This is so ugly. Mai, don’t be this person. Don’t be the person who thinks that the rape victim is lying.

 “‘Because I know Azula, I know how she thinks [ . . . ] She makes you feel sorry for her, you give her want she wants. You let her bend again when she starved herself, maybe you’ll give her a royal pardon when it turns out Daddy fu—’”—Mai, I don’t think you’ve ever understood Azula. Not really. Right now, you sound like all of the Azula-haters out there, who see Azula as a conniving snake, rather than a deeply troubled girl. And honestly, when did Azula ever act weak to try to get what she wanted? And why would she want this story to be spreading about her? It will make everyone look at her differently. At best, they’ll pity her; at worst, they’ll find a way to blame her for what happened, or say that it served her right, even though she was a child.

 Zuko raises a hand to strike Mai at this point, almost adding wife-beater to his sin list, but Mai intercepts him and tries to kiss and come onto him. When Zuko pushes her away, Mai asks him why he didn’t push Azula away, too—which HE SHOULD HAVE. Which he had opportunities to do! But he didn’t and he doesn’t know why.

 Mai has a theory, though: “‘It wasn’t just the fight. You wanted her. You lusted after her. Your own sister. [ . . . ] You act like you caught some disease that impaired your judgement. [ . . . ] But people don’t do what you did without feeling that way for a long time. And you never said a word to me.”—I think Mai is correct here, though this doesn’t touch on how his resentment towards and his desire to dominate Azula pushed him over the edge. I also want to sit her down and say, “He didn’t know, so he couldn’t have told you,” because I don’t think that Zuko knew on a conscious level what he felt for Azula, besides anger. Also, Mai, would him telling you have made it better, somehow?

 “‘You would never talk about her! I had no one I could talk to about her—’”—Ty Lee is glaring at you from the other side of the planet, Zuko.

 Mai accuses Zuko of raping Azula, which he denies, but Mai asserts what I’ve been saying for chapters now: “‘If she was crazy, how could she give consent?’”—Thank you, Mai! Thank you for calling him out on this!

 Mai wants to play the blame game, either having Azula or Zuko be entirely at fault for what happened. It’s not that simple, though. The truest answer here is probably Ozai—he’s the one who messed both of his children up—but at the same time, Zuko was in full control of his actions, unlike Azula. So we can’t and shouldn’t absolve him of responsibility.

 As Mai starts to cry, Zuko tries to hug her, but she pushes him away. “‘I want my husband [ . . . ] I want the man who would never do this! I want the man I trusted!’”—This reflects the pain that people feel when they find out that one of their loved ones has abused someone, except without the denial that usually comes with it. It feels impossible to reconcile the person you thought you knew and cared about with who they’ve been revealed to be. As much as I don’t like how Mai demonizes Azula, I understand and feel for her here.

 Zuko asks if this means that she won’t come back, but she clarifies that she will, with some conditions. After all, there’s Lu Ten to think of. “‘He asks for you every day.’ A tear dripped from her chin, and watching this, Zuko needed a moment to realize she was talking about their son.’”—Dude, think more about your son! You barely seem to!

 Mai’s conditions are reasonable: Talk to her before telling their son about what’s going on. Give her her own quarters. Don’t come into them unless she summons him. Keep her in the loop about the search for Azula. She’ll probably have more requests in the future, but this is a good start.

 We switch over to Aang and Katara, who are visiting Bumi in Omashu. Bumi captured Azula at one point and she escaped, which is what the pair are here to discuss with him. We get the detail that there are now bounty hunters looking for Azula, and that the people of the Fire Nation aren’t thrilled with the search.

 “[Aang] began to realize that he was not these people’s hero. He wondered if Azula might be.”—Honestly, Aang? Yeah, she is. Their princess is the youngest firebender master in centuries, she has blue fire (which could be seen as a sign of Agni’s blessing), and she conquered Ba Sing Se with only two comrades, after their most famous general failed to. Iroh and Zuko are also, technically, traitors to the Fire Nation, since they defected and helped overthrow the king. This isn’t even touching on the dismantling of the Fire Nation’s military, the trials against many of the Fire Nation’s nobles and generals, or the massive amounts of reparations that Zuko has given to the other countries. Are these things, in the broader sense, justified? Of course. The Fire Nation’s imperialist regime brought 100 years of suffering to the world, suffering that is still fresh for the other countries. But from the perspective of the people of the Fire Nation, this looks like a deep betrayal from their leaders. The fact that the economy is tanking and the crops aren’t good must look like further signs that Zuko is bringing disaster onto the realm. Of course the people would look up to Azula instead. She brought them glory. Zuko is forcing them to feel shame. It’s little wonder that they prefer her to him.

 Moving on. Bumi is apparently 117 years old now. I know that Kyoshi lived to 230, but this is still wild to me. It’s also wild that Bumi became the king of Omashu, considering that he was a commoner and is still illiterate. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things—I think that compassion is a much more important quality in a leader, and Bumi has that in spades—but I’m surprised that the Earth Kingdom allowed it. I have to assume his prodigious earthbending was part of what elevated him. I bet there’s a whole story there, which we’ll sadly never see.

 Katara is offended to learn that Bumi shared a meal with Azula, but Bumi reminds her that he shared a meal with them, too, when they were prisoners. “It’s the little things that count, you know, Aang [ . . . ] Never forget that.”—Bumi knows how important kindness is, and probably suspects how little of it Azula has been shown in her life.

 Bumi doesn’t buy that Azula is crazy and dismisses the danger she poses if angered: “‘Oh, all Fire Nation people are like that’”—Which is too much of a generalization for my tastes. He thinks that Iroh might be an exception, but given that Iroh breathed out flames at the suggestion that Zuko put Azula into an abusive environment, I’m not convinced.

 When Bumi compares Azula to her “prince” brother, Aang worries that he might be going senile, but Bumi gently corrects him. They then get back to business—Bumi reveals that Azula stowed away in a cargo caravan and was caught by inspectors when she fell asleep. Aang is surprised by this, but Bumi reminds him that Azula was sick during her stay in Omashu. Azula was with Bumi for two days—god, I would have loved to see that—before he let her go. Aang and Katara are shocked and ask why. Bumi confides that he’s worried that Azula’s capture and death will lead to war, since Zuko threatened as much.

 Aang and Katara don’t believe Bumi at first, with Aang going so far as to say, “‘He wouldn’t endanger [the peace] for personal concerns.’”—I’m sorry, Aang, but have you met Zuko? Family is super important to him, even if that family is dysfunctional. Katara understands, since she’s the girl who went on a revenge quest to murder her mother’s killer, but only stopped when she realized that the killer wasn’t worth damaging her soul over. But if Sokka’s life was on the line, you better believe that she would start a war for him. Katara is just as ruled by her emotions as Zuko is, and just as inclined toward dramatic gestures. Aang’s own culture works against him somewhat here, since it emphasizes the communal over blood relations (which are functionally erased, though there must have been someone keeping records of who was related to who, to avoid accidental incest). It makes it difficult for him to grasp how deep a bond with a family member can go, even one who you have a bad relationship with. Zuko and Azula are parts of each other’s identity, difficult though that is for both of them to accept.

 Bumi points out that the Earth Kingdom is part of why he didn’t turn Azula over to the Fire Nation or Aang—the Earth Kingdom is more of a collection of countries in a trench-coat, rather than a single, organized government. If Omashu defied the wishes of Ba Sing Se by turning Azula over to safety, rather than to them, the people of Omashu would pay the price. We also learn that since Bumi outed himself as a White Lotus member, he hasn’t had access to privileged information, like Azula’s trial in absentia.

 Regardless of who catches Azula, though, the Earth Kingdom sees it as a win. Either they catch and kill her and restore their honor, or Zuko shelters her from them and they can start a war over it—a war which would help them seize Fire Nation resources and recover from the occupation. Zuko has, apparently, suspended reparations to them.

 Bumi adds that a war with the Earth Kingdom would be extremely difficult to fight: “‘A continent this vast supplies almost unlimited troops, and plenty of places to hide private armies. And our chain of command is more convoluted than the 52nd Earth King’s family tree.’” The technological gap between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom has also been closing since the war ended, and with the Fire Nation’s military gutted, it would be challenge for them to get an edge on the Earth Kingdom again. Overall, our heroes are in a bind, but there’s still time for them to find a way out of it. Until Azula is captured, that is—that will force the issue.

 At this point, some letters arrive. The Gaang, thinking that Azula went to Kyoshi Island to recruit Ty Lee, are relieved that Ty Le “refused.” In truth, Ty Lee would have gone with Azula, but Azula told her no, because she understands the pain that she caused Ty Lee by forcing her to choose between her friends, and doesn’t want to do that again. Zuko tells them that he’s going to Kyoshi Island himself to ask questions, and that they shouldn’t waste the trip, which they accept…but Aang is starting to feel like he can’t trust Zuko, which troubles him.

 We cut to Zuko as he arrives on the island. It turns out that Kaede actually bought that Azula and Ty Lee were fighting, and gave Ty Lee some light work to cheer her up. Zuko thinks that maybe Azula told Ty Lee everything and that’s why she’s not acting like herself. I wish that Azula had told Ty Lee, since it would be good for her to have someone in her corner who knows what happened from her perspective. But I understand why Azula didn’t say anything—it’s a memory that causes her shame, she’s used to keeping stuff like this a secret, Ty Lee might have let it slip to someone else, and it would have driven a wedge between Ty Lee and her other friends, something Azula is being careful not to do. But even so, I wish Azula had someone who knew and was supporting her in the aftermath, rather than her carrying it on her shoulders alone. But Azula isn’t used to accepting help from others, especially with things that are this sensitive.

 When Ty Lee and Zuko meet, Ty Lee says that she didn’t think that Zuko would want to see her, and Zuko contradicts this with, “‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’” I don’t think that is true, given how Zuko thinks about her and how dismissive he’s been to her in the past. Zuko tries to apologize for that, but Ty Lee is more upset about how he’s treated Azula than with how he’s treated her. Zuko gets to the point: he wants information about Azula, such as why she was crying. Ty Lee refuses to give him that info because it’s personal to Azula, which tells us that Ty Lee wouldn’t have shared what happened to Azula if Azula had told her.

 When Zuko says that he’s just trying to help Azula, Ty Lee calls bullshit. “‘You’re just trying to help yourself! She never would have ran if she thought there was any chance of you ever letting her out! But you never saw her; you wouldn’t even answer her letters! [ . . . ] Even I could tell you just dropped her there to forget about her—”—So true, Ty Lee. Especially the part about him never seeing her, which works on both a literal and figurative level.

 “‘I never forgot!” Zuko insists, but this is actually more damning. It suggests that he kept Azula there so he would always know where she was and have control over her life.

 “‘You never helped her, either [ . . . ] I know she didn’t always treat you right. I know, because she hurt me too. [ . . . ] But that’s not all she was. She’s not a monster. [ . . . ] She feels remorse, and she can repay kindness with kindness. She’s just—seen so little of that, I don’t know if she knows what it looks like anymore.’”—Clearly Ty Lee dumped most of her character creation points into Wisdom (and Dexterity). She might not be cunning, but she understands people, Azula included, much better than most of the other characters do. She has a lot of empathy, which I deeply appreciate.

 Interrupting their conversation, though, June the bounty hunter storms into the clearing, with her shirsu paralyzing Ty Lee with a lash of its tongue. And that brings us to the end of another chapter! As always, thank you for the read, Aurelia!

 Sincerely,

WiseAbsol  

[ratbastard42]

Hello! I finally figured out the settings on tumblr dot com and now I present to you, this weird angsty Sabriel poem thing I wrote at 1:30 in the morning! Enjoy! (or don’t enjoy, I’m not a cop, just don’t come at me in my asks if you think it was bad) (pls)

Before Sam Winchester, Gabriel was obedient.

He loved his family, served his father, did everything a loyal archangel should.

He had to, in order to keep the peace.

For now.

 When the archangels were created, they knew how their lives would play out, for the most part.

Never any large details like how they would die or who they would meet along the way, just the overarching events of their lives.

Their destiny.

 Gabriel knew that he would meet his true love, his soulmate, in the blink of an eye.

This soulmate was to be a human.

They wouldn’t have very long together, only the length of the human’s life.

For after that the human would be one of thousands in Heaven’s halls and would most likely not even remember Gabriel.

Barely 80 years in a millennium is akin to a single spark in centuries of darkness.

Gabriel knew he would have to make an impression and make use of what little time they had.

Unlike humans, an angel’s love is eternal.

Human love is transient, temporary, fleeting.

But angels, angels will love as fiercely as the raging seas and just as deep, for eternity.

And when Sam was finally born, Gabriel felt as if he suddenly knew the answer to everything.

Sam’s soul was so bright, so strong, yet so fragile.

Strange.

Gabriel would have given his life at that very second just to see the safety of this boy and his unintelligible soul.

 Gabriel waited, bode his time, watched over Sam as well as he could.

What young Sam called luck, Gabriel called divine intervention, to the smallest degree of course.

Lost homework showing up in Sam’s backpack, getting back to the Impala right before the rain started, somehow getting cell service everywhere.

Little conveniences that made life easier, more bearable.

Gabriel couldn’t change huge things like the death of Sam’s mother, no matter how hard he wanted to.

Poor Mary, Gabriel hoped she knew how much she was loved.

 Gabriel waited until Sam was old enough to truly comprehend romantic love and show it to the people around him before he finally made his move.

He had to attract him in some way, what better way than a case?

Gabriel played his part, the monster at the end of the book.

The deadly mastermind.

Gabe didn’t really like harming or hurting Sam, but if this was the only way to get Sam’s attention, then so be it.

 Gabriel played a little while longer as this “Trickster,” doing everything he could to get closer to Sam.

Gabe was so worried, Sam had already died once to save his brother, Gabriel couldn’t let him die again.

Gabriel knew that he wouldn’t always be around to pick Sam up when he fell.

Sam needed to be taught a lesson in cutting his losses.

 Just like an angel’s love, an angel’s pride is a powerful thing. They do not like being told they were wrong, even in the smallest of ways.

When Sam stabbed Bobby in the back and begged for his brother, Gabriel was enraged.

He was trying to help Sam! Why couldn’t he see that?

Why couldn’t Sam see that these atrocities had been done out of love?

These atrocities.

 Oh no.

 Gabriel left after that, left Sam alone.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

He wandered for a while, thinking about what he had done, until his path again crossed with that of the Winchesters.

Oh, how he wanted to tell Sam who he really was, but he couldn’t, not yet.

So, he waited, watched, bode his time

Until it was revealed on its own.

“They call me Gabriel”

Sam had never looked so disappointed.

 Gabriel found Sam after that, away from Dean, away from Cas.

He talked.

He cried.

He begged Sam, this human, this eternal light, to forgive him, to love him even.

Gabriel didn’t know what he was really aiming for, he just couldn’t rest until Sam knew why he had done those things, why he had caused Sam such suffering.

Sam understood.

 And then it happened.

What Gabriel had been waiting for all of these cold, dark, sad millennia.

Love.

Togetherness.

Souls bound by an ineffable force.

It was magical, yet short-lived.

Gabriel should have known it couldn’t last.

 Soon, the demon found him.

Locked him in a cage like a dog.

Drained his life away.

And Sam, believing him dead, did not come.

“Please, won’t someone help me?”

 It could have been years; it could have been centuries.

Gabriel wouldn’t have known.

He stopped trying to escape after a while.

Sam was probably dead now.

And if Sam was gone, what else did Gabriel have?

 But then, suddenly, Gabriel was free again.

He was with Sam again.

It all happened so fast.

Gabriel could barely keep up.

 The demon was dead, Gabriel was healthy,

But Sam and Dean just wanted to use him in their newest plot.

Use his grace.

He would have obliged, always happy to bleed, but he didn’t have any grace left.

So. Gabriel left.

 Sam called out to him at night.

Pleading for his return.

“Gabe, please come back, I need you.”

An angel’s love never fades.

 “Fine, I’ll help.”

 Soon Gabriel was with Sam again.

When Gabriel looked into Sam’s soul, just as he did those few, short years ago.

He saw strength.

He saw light.

He saw hope.

The man he loved was still alive, if a little bruised on the outside.

That was all that mattered.

 The team prepared to fight.

Sam and Dean were getting older and wiser.

Cas and Dean still had years of tension to work through.

Gabe had a fling with Rowena just to make Sam jealous, which worked.

Everyone was together again.

Gabe had never been so happy.

 Then came Michael.

The brother Gabriel loved so much, but different than before.

Then came Lucifer.

The brother Gabriel used to revere, still the same.

They fought.

People died.

Gabriel looked into Sam’s eyes and said his sweet, unspoken goodbyes.

“I’m sorry my love, but it seems I must go.”

Too quick the spark had burnt out.

 Pain, then Darkness.

 While there are many different theories of what the Empty is like, not many angels or demons get it right.

They think you can only sleep.

While it is true, you can sleep, you can also observe.

A clear, glass wall meant to punish those with loved ones left behind.

Disgusting.

Still, Gabriel watched as Sam moved on.

Left Gabriel’s body in that awful place.

Angels can’t move on, their love is indestructible, unwavering, intransigent.

But Sam moved on.

 Gabriel became obsessed with observing Sam, watching over him through the clear barrier between the Empty and the Earth.

Watching him eat, sleep, work cases.

Gabe knew it was creepy, but it was all he had left of the man he had died for.

He wished he could help Sam like he used to, but he was powerless.

Sam didn’t believe in luck so much anymore.

 Gabe watched as years went by, and Sam all but lost his spark.

He was working too hard.

So many people had died.

Sam was on the verge of death, and Gabriel almost couldn’t bear to watch.

Until Eileen.

 Eileen was the sassy hunter from Ireland.

Always cracking jokes that made even Gabriel laugh.

When Eileen came around, Sam smiled.

Oh, how Gabriel had missed that smile.

Still, he wished Sam was looking at him like that instead of her.

 Gabriel became jealous of Eileen over time.

Wishing he was there with his true love, the man he had waited for for eons.

Sometimes, at his lower points, Gabriel would place his hand on the glass to cover Eileen’s face and pretend she was a bug that he could squash.

Pretending he could replace her.

Pretending everything could go back to how it was.

 That was, until he looked, really looked at Sam’s face when he was with her.

Happiness.

That was all that Gabe saw.

Sam looked happier than he had in years.

Sometimes Sam looked even happier than he had looked when Gabriel had been with him on Earth.

 That’s when Gabriel screamed.

He screamed not at Eileen or Sam, but at all the rest of them.

At Chuck, Michael, Lucifer, Lilith, all of the demons and angels and monsters who had gotten in the way of happiness.

His happiness.

Their happiness.

Gabriel and Sam could have had years together. Happy, blissful years. If Sam were made immortal, they could have had EONS.

But no.

“Why couldn’t they have just let us be?”

 To this day, he lies there, in front of the glass.

Gabriel, the fallen angel.

The angel who cared too much.

The one who loved and lost and loved ever strongly still.

Asleep, never to be woken again.

[veryimportantsparkles]

Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately.  I dunno how obvious it is?  Probably kind of obvious.  I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people.  So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out.  I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around.  My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT.  Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position.  If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall.  I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months.  Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day.  I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor.  I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much.  Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6.  One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished.  The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately.  Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art.  Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets.  I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes.  I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page.  I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6.  I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system.  Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while.  Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks.  I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing.  An old outline had maybe 40 chapters.  It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while.  I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself.  It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas.  But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule.  Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies.  At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon.  Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts).  After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause.  In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post.  Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have.  I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime?  Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics.  It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content.  Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it.  It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything.  I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it.  Also, I let the domain registration drop.  Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it.  Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news.  The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work.  I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error.  This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website.  But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards.  All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule.  I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to.  I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it.  I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP.  In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry!  I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet.  I really don’t have an answer.  I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone.  And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2?  Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob.  Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby.  It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there.  I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters.  Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place.  You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it.  I’ll also repost all the art to DA.  If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art.  I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it.  This is what’s stolen my life, guys.  Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text.  I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon.�� I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately.  I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon.  I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away.  I’ve already done a few.  However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them.  The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep.  I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet.  Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on.  But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing.  Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update.  My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place.  Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not.  How do I end this post?  I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

[tarmairons]

aaaaaaand here’s part 2 of the extensive (book & netflix) masterpost of all my fave eslaf moments!!!! again, fair warning, this is a very long post

[part 1]

i wish i could have done all this in one part but i hit a size limit oops

NOW ONTO SEASON 3!!! which was a nightmare but i’ll try to pretend it wasn’t for the sake of this post

to begin: the constant endearments in the book (and the show... “darling dearest dreamboat” damn esmé) have me losing my wholeass mind like

next up we have the indisputable fact that they f*cked in the tent on mount fraught. my proof is that they shared a tent and it was cold and so they had to generate heat. thank you

and then another instance of their shared brain cell evaporating

olaf being super proud of scoring the world’s hottest girlfriend and bragging to his parental figures is surprisingly wholesome 

aaaand their brain cell is still missing in action

it’s very very cute how olaf obviously has zero artistic talent but esmé is always out there looking at him putting on a show like he’s the most amazing actor alive

and next on the list of scenes we were robbed of: p h y s i c a l  a f f e c t i o n

but at least the most important line, that is:

was included:

so i won’t torch netflix hq just yet!!!! oh but WAIT they cut this next part, so i might change my mind about the arson after all

and also this line ???? ugh they’re disgusting i love them

and then this whole entire scene of olaf being so proud of his murderous gf was. beautiful. spectacular. legendary 

and then someone pointed out that their hug looks like that draco/voldemort hug and it’s TRUE but i’m still gonna include it bc netflix is eslafphobic and i’m clinging to scraps here

this next line isn’t an eslaf scene but the phrasing is sending me shddhhdjsh

ok submarine time!!!! aka netflix making the sugar bowl esmé’s priority whereas in the book it is olaf’s as well AND netflix making it look like olaf was against carmelita joining them whereas it was his idea in the book… so basically all the reasons they fight in the show are unsubstantiated but go off i guess

very grateful for this Old Married Couple Bickering tho

and i know this whole scene is very problematic and talked about profusely on tumblr dot com but i’m including this screencap bc it’s soft how esmé considers them all a family

and Oh Wait olaf does too i’m melting

it’s like in TPP they wrote him bitching about “pretending to be a family” but he didn’t have any issues with it earlier, he just ran with it when esmé called carmelita their daughter

and was like “i know” ok netflix so why have him complain about it later on smh… he’s clearly not THAT mad about it, like:

next up!!! i’m a big fan of them disagreeing over something…

…and then 0.5 seconds later they’re getting along again:

^ that is the essence of their relationship

and now back to the topic of olaf not being annoyed at esmé’s Fashion Diva moments:

see he’s lowkey impressed ok

i’m now realizing that 99% of my alleged fave eslaf scenes from s3 are just me complaining about how the books are superior but ok

anyway this next scene deserves an emmy. give lucy an emmy for the delivery of “BUT DARLING”

and this is also soft bc olaf is like :/ and then esmé says something and he turns to her and is like :) so that always has me on the floor in tears

out of context this sentence is wild but like… netflix back at it again with robbing us of all the affectionate scenes huh

and here’s another instance of Couples Scheming being a fun activity to do together

and then we have their joint brain cell screaming for help but it’s adorable so

and then they go off to f*ck again

next up this whole beach scene is just more old married couple behavior and i absolutely adore it

and then we have Bonding Over Arson ~just couple things~

the fact that as the series progresses they go from “count olaf’s gf” to “esmé squalor’s bf” is legendary

and now this isn’t really a fave scene per se BUT considering the mess netflix made of the breakup i have to give a shoutout to the book version bc in comparison to the show version it’s.. beautiful how Mutual Agreement it is

but yeah lucy is spectacular here and it adds fuel to the Esmé Did Have Feelings For Olaf Because Otherwise She Wouldn’t Be Crying fire, which is great for me bc i love my otps with a side of angst

and of course netflix confirmed that esmé squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial advisor, has a daddy kink, so that’s incredible

you may think i’m done bc they broke up but no

here we have them a millisecond away from murdering each other but they’ll still take time out of their busy schedules to menacingly glare at children together. a spiritual bond that no breakup can destroy

but the real gem is the massive horny on main energy in the opera flashback (which was awful, but horny, so i have mixed feelings)

subtle, esmé

you too olaf, good job

and ofc it’s [luciana voice] imperative to remember that in the book esmé was out there trying to stop the premeditated murder of olaf’s parents so that’s nice of her

and last but not least the only valid s3 scene aside from esmé menacing the kids in the burned vfd headquarters:

sexy noir aesthetic fire escape rendezvous that ignited a revenge scheme spanning decades. if that’s not peak romance idk what is

and not to be controversial but i’m gonna drop this here anyway

ever since i read the end a billion years ago i always used to think olaf meant kit in this scene but like ?????? over the past few months i’ve been thinking, what if he meant esmé?? i mean, nothing directly negates that possibility, the books are so ambiguous and so open to interpretation that i might as well twist them to fit my headcanons, as we all do, so why tf not 

and i’m gonna add some final Thoughts and Opinions in case i get more anons asking why i ship eslaf even though they’re constantly bickering &/or about to Snap and kill each other:

i’m hopelessly weak for villainous ‘us against the world’ power couples and it’s like.. even though in the series they ultimately have different end goals, they have a great time being awful people together along the way and that’s all that matters, that familiarity and mutual understanding between them. neither of them ever tried to change the other, they’re both garbage people and that’s why they get along, and what makes them so compatible

and while i’m still hesitant to use the word ‘love’ in regard to their relationship bc it just doesn’t feel Right to me (i know there’s people out there who feel otherwise but i’m still meh about it), i don’t doubt that they had feelings for each other deep down, even if they didn’t always outwardly express them

so that’s my massive essay with so much source evidence that tumblr made me divide it into 2 separate posts thank you for your attention i need a vacation from tumblr now bc this took me HOURS

[stfustucky]

Here, have some bomb-ass Stucky fanfiction

I’ve been reading tons of fic the last few weeks in all the haze and craze of IW, and have come across some real gems. Time to make a rec post and share the love with all of you! Enjoy xx

Note: SOME FICS CONTAIN IW SPOILERS, so check the tags before you read! This post will be spoiler free.

.............

Grab Your Things (I’ve Come to Take You Home) by belovedmuerto 22,310 words, complete Explicit, no archive warnings apply ----->  Steve getting hit with some sparkly purple sh*t during a battle and left with all of his old ailments gives Bucky the opportunity to do something he's been meaning to do for ages.

the way your face could light the bitter dark by Lizzen 2,760 words, complete Mature, author chose not to use archive warnings -----> Steve finds Bucky a year after the end of Infinity War. Fix-it fic ***CONTAINTS IW SPOILERS***

the cold never bothered me anyway by icoulddothisallday 75,562 words, complete Explicit, no archive warnings apply -----> Bucky Barnes has spent his whole life in a state of mild hypothermia. Steve Rogers has spent the last 70 years in the ice. The two things aren’t related until, suddenly, they are. Shrunkyclunks soulmate AU Author’s tumblr: @icoulddothisallday

So Alive by GottaSaveBucky 108,976 words, complete Explicit, -----> Steve is a comic book artist and creator of the character Captain America and only visits this bookstore because of the superior baked goods, honestly, not the gorgeous manager. Bucky designs the comic book displays in his little shop and tells everyone he meets about his favorite author, Steven G. Rogers.

The City in Which I Love You by magdaliny 5,209 words, complete Explicit, no archive warnings apply -----> Steve and Bucky raise baby goats together in Mongolia and everything is rainbows and sunshine and peace. Author’s tumblr: @magdaliny

Moosebumps by rohkeutta 4,207 words, complete Teen, no archive warnings apply ----->Steve and Bucky are road cyclists who don’t know each other until Bucky crashes into a moose and Steve has to go to his rescue. Author’s tumblr: @rohkeutta

Just Dropkick the Shame by MissyPJ, Rohkeutta 7,909 words, complete Explicit, no archive warnings apply ----->Bucky has a kind-of sort-of thing with his boss Steve Rogers, and also drunk-tweets about Captain America’s daddy level sometimes. Turns out those two hobbies may be more related than he thinks. Author’s tumblr: @rohkeutta

M is for Murder by Rohkeutta 4,196 words, complete Mature, no archive warnings apply ----->Bucky’s having a hard time paying rent and turns to tumblr for help. I’m pretty low on funds and need to make ends meet this month. I’m taking commissions for hits in the New York City area. Will Not Kill: Captain America or other Avengers. Will partially refund payment if target turns out to be HYDRA. Will not go to Jersey. No dismemberment or killing children. Message for negotiations and payment details. Author’s tumblr: @rohkeutta

Collateral by Aylwyyn228 13,384 words, complete Explicit, author chose not to use archive warnings -----> Thanks to Hydra’s mindfuckery, Bucky can’t be penetrated without a lot of pain and yet can’t achieve orgasm without getting fucked. He’s really trying to figure this shit out, though, preferably without breaking Steve’s heart in the process.

Darling Wolf by cleo4u2, xantissa 15,605 words, complete Explicit, no archive warnings apply -----> When Bucky put on the mask and browsed the clubs, he just wanted to find Steve. All he wanted to was to let go, to finally relax. He didn’t expect to find so many disappointing doms. All but one. The one he’d been looking for. The one he was afraid would find him. Authors’ tumblrs: @cleo4u2, @xantissa

Controlled Release by steebadore 9,073 words, complete Explicit, no archive warnings apply -----> Bucky's just having a little trouble...finishing. Completing the mission. He can squeeze the trigger but he can't make the shot is what he's saying. Which is why he's here, loitering outside a nice brownstone in Park Slope, trying to find the courage to knock on Captain Come Control dot com's door for his three o'clock appointment. You know, just normal Thursday things. Author’s tumblr: @steebadore

Mokusatsu by Shadesfalcon 125,492 words, complete Explicit, author chose not to use archive warnings -----> Clint Barton has been strung along from abusive relationship to abusive relationship all his life. Now, being trapped in a bureaucratically mandated relationship with not one but two doms is going to be difficult and dangerous. Especially since these two doms are both members of the Avengers themselves. He hopes that whenever he disappoints them, they’ll have at least a little pity on him, even though he knows he won’t deserve it. ***PLEASE READ TAGS CAREFULLY, CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND PAST ABUSE but it’s so so good. just like, be careful if you’re triggered by such things, okay?*** Author’s tumblr: @polyamoryavengers 

The Changes we dread (are the changes we need) by araydre, sapphire_escapist 32,370 words, 3/12 chapters as of 5.7.18 Mature, no archive warnings apply ----->  In a world where superhero IDs are still secret, Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers are both Captains America, and Bucky has had enough of SHIELD controlling their life since they woke up from a 70-year-old nap under the ice. So they do the only sensible thing to do and start auditioning to find the "third" Cap... which goes exactly as well as you'd imagine. Author’s tumblr: @cpt-winniethepooh

Carpe Noctem by GoldBlooded 68,169 words, 22/27 chapters as of 5.7.18 Explicit, creator chose not to use archive warnings -----> When the world’s power grid is shut down thanks to a terrorist organization, the world is plunged into an apocalyptic return to violent, domineering alphas and omegas who have to fear for their lives. Alpha!Bucky and Omega!Steve wind up on the run together hiding out in a bunker in the middle of nowhere, finding connection with each other in the midst of the world falling apart. Author’s tumblr: @duelingnebulas

How to Draw Fallen Angels by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves) 17,627 words, 4/? chapters as of 5.7.18 Explicit, no archive warnings apply ----->  Steve Rogers, smol angry artist, helps out a guy having a panic attack in a museum café. No good deed, as they say, goes unpunished.

[friendlystarfruit]

should not be as nerve wrecking to interact on tumblr dot com btw nobody here has the high ground

what do you mean?

but yea goofy prob should hold back more on my cringe , I guess we all wanna be ourselves but we all need to remember are public filters, I dunno where you would have the " high ground" online if by high ground you mean free from all conflict? maybe in a tiny echo chamber, if by high ground as in righteousness , it really only exists on s spectrum

I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.”

― Nelson Mandela

just do your best to be a good person, try to be aware and admit when your wrong , I don't thinking being a good person is just inside you, it's also what you learn, I mean their are traits that help us be good and just, but the philosophy of justice was debated for 100s of years and even now social progress is still evolving, , all over the world we humans commit atrocity and injustice and sometimes good people support evil without even knowing it , after all think how humans normalise violence against animals in society ? , think how slavery was once normalised too , how can somebody seem so kind but says something ignorant and offensive , justice is a group project and no one person is perfect but they can learn,grow and be better and that is what makes them worth it.

I think decent people cab be seen through all the mess, because they learn and change.

None of us are perfect or above everyone, we're all lil dumb humans trying figure life out.

[godsavetheq]

1,6,11,13,14,15,17,20 😀👍

1. Who did you first come out to, if anyone?

Uh, you in point of fact, right here on tumblr dot com, in one of these very ask game prompts. And really that ask was very unexpected and I had only just at the time, y’know, figured it out for the first time. I also told my cousin since then who apparently is also not straight? And she thought I knew that? But I didn’t??? Anyway I’m not too interested in keeping it a secret. I want people to know that about me, I just hope they don’t think of me differently after.

6. How long did your questioning process take (if you’re not still going through it)?

Jesus Fucking Christ. I first thought maybe I was bi when I was like 14. So... 7 years. And uh, for most of that time I had myself pretty convinced that I was straight. Not that I was in denial about what I liked, but for a couple of reasons I didn’t think I was bi, therefore I did some mental gymnastics to say that I still “counted” as straight. Seems so stupid now. But part of the problem was that I wasn’t well-acquainted with the concept of pansexuality until like last year, and to this day I of course don’t think bi is the right word, so that also obstructed my path to understanding my sexuality.

11. What’s your favorite thing about your flag(s)?

Y’know at first I didn’t think I liked the colors because they’re bright and obnoxious, but it’s growing on me. I like the crazy colors now, they seem appropriate.

13. How often do you get tired of The Straights?

I don’t, really. I spent 20 years of my life as one of them, so I’m not interested in feeding into any us vs them narrative. And this seems like an appropriate place to say it, so I just want it on the record that I want straight people to be proud of who they are, too. As far as I’m concerned, pride month is about being honest with yourself and proud of who you are, and if straight people want to get in on that then I welcome them - as long as they’re supportive of the rest of us doing the same of course.

14. How do you express your sexuality/gender?

Well I dunno if this is exactly because I’m pan since I did this before I started thinking that I was pan, but at the very least now I feel liberated from adhering to strictly masculine appearance tropes. Like I shave my armpits, which I almost never see any other guys do, because that makes me feel more attractive. 

15. Has Tumblr been more harmful of beneficial to you when it comes to discussing LGBT issues or figuring yourself out?

Tumblr dot com has taught me a lot. Like, I used to use no social media. I didn’t know what the hell a trans person was until I was on tumblr. I didn’t understand asexuals. I didn’t know what pansexuality was. Give the hellsite credit - there’s no avoiding the Homosexual Agenda on here. I do a lot of learning here.

20. What are your plans for this June?

I’m doing my victory lap now that I’m a few months into knowing that I’m pan and it feels fucking GREAT. My self-esteem is just higher on a daily basis, it’s wild. I know it’s a cliche, but the feeling can only be described as pride. And since it’s pride month I am trying to get around to letting people know that I’m pan because again, I’m not interested in keeping it secret. The hardest one’s going to be my mom - don’t get me wrong, she’ll be totally supportive - but it’ll be so awkward and embarrassing for me with my social anxiety to try to explain these things to my mom who undoubtedly has no earthly idea what us frying-pan-sexuals are all about. That probably won’t happen this month because I dread having to deal with that.

[diceysitchcast-blog]

Dicey Situations Episode 1: TRANSCRIPT

In this world building/character creation/game building episode, Jess takes us to the city of Pinnacle, a techno-magical dystopia mirrored by the VR world of The Dreaming. She also introduces us to a hybrid home-brew game with elements of of DnD 2.5 and 5e, Normality, and various other systems. There is no actual play in this episode, but we hope you’ll enjoy hearing us talk organize a game and create characters!

Drew exercises his right to bear arms, Ellie achieves robotic sapience, Avery decides to become an intolerant tank, and Ronnie invents a new pronoun.

[NOTE: It's our goal for Dicey Sitch to be as accessible as possible, which is why we want to provide transcripts for every episode we release. We are disappointed to say that transcripts will likely update at a slower pace than audio episodes, which is our own fault. However, we're still dedicated to make sure that transcriptions are released as close to audio episodes as possible. For now, please enjoy Episode 1 of Dicey Situations!]

Dicey Situations!

Season 1: Pinnacle

Episode 1: Have You Seen My Robot?

Jess: The city is made of spun green glass. It fades into the distance and then focuses in. The city’s name is Pinnacle. It’s been around for a few hundred years, and it blossomed from the end of the world.

In this city, there are, well, they’re not really factions, but three different groups of believers. Those that believe magic came back into the world to rise humanity above, those who believe magic is a penance from the Gods, and those that believe magic mostly doesn’t exist, and when it does, it’s more technology than anything.

[Music starts]

In this city, there is the Dreaming: a massive, cyberkinetic, shared VR reality that people use to escape from their own. And in the Dreaming, you do escape. There are sometimes mistakes, sometimes firewalls get breached and people’s properties and lives get destroyed, but no one dies in the Dreaming. Your body can be killed outside, but if you die in the Dreaming, you wake up in real life.

[Music continues, then fades.]

Jess: So! Welcome to Dicey Situations, the.... podcast! It’s... this is the people! Go! Drew!

[laughter]

Drew: I’m Drew. I use he/him/his pronouns. I am an on-again off-again Internet user. I shamelessly use Facebook way too much, and I get paid to do that sometimes.

Ev: My name’s Avery, I use they/them pronouns, I’m agender, and I am on the Internet on Twitter @crapiocaa with two a’s.

Ellie: My name is Ellie, I use she/her pronouns. I’m not giving out my personal tumblr, but my fun tumblr is badlifeadvice.tumblr.com! It’s awesome, it’s full of things you  shouldn’t do, like stalling the intro for a podcast!

[laughter]

Ronnie: I’m Ronnie, I use they/them pronouns! I draw queer comics on the Internet! You can find them at gqutiecomics.com. It’s spelled GQ............ U...TIE comics dot com!

Drew: [sarcastic] “I know what I’m doing!”

Ronnie: I totally know what I’m doing!

Jess: My favorite thing about that was the pause as you had to, like, remember [laughs]

Ev: As Ronnie remembered how to spell their webcomic!

[laughter]

Jess: And I’m Jess! I’m your... I don’t have a fancy name for this session, like, I can be a Dungeon Master or a Keeper, but this is house rules, so I haven’t got a name, so I’m Jess. I use she/her pronouns, and I use this as a coping mechanism, and my comic’s at closertohomecomic.com... if you want it!

Ronnie: It’s great!

Ellie: Why don’t you call yourself the Master Controller?

Drew: You should be a Dungeon Guru!

Ellie: Ooh!

Jess: Maybe I’ll just introduce myself as something different every time.

[laughter]

Drew: I like it!

Ellie: Do it!

Drew: Do it!

Jess: I think Dungeon Guru will work for this week, cause this gonna be all about me, like guiding you down this like, fucking, homunculus, this is... this is a homunculus game you guys.

Ev: I don’t know if that’s the right way to use that word by the way!

[laughter]

Jess: Uh... a chimera?

Ronnie: That makes more sense!

Ellie: Yeah, I was gonna say chimera, but, you know.

Jess: You guys are insurance agents! Clerics and wizards and fighters and rogues hired by an insurance agency to go out and investigate insurance claims. Be they someone suing a corporation, a house being burned down, you guys know what to do.

And... that’s pretty much it so far. That’s my pitch to you guys about your characters. So, it’s future cyberpunk with elves and magic and clerics and stuff and...

Drew: I always wanted to be an insuranceman, so...

Jess: That’s good.

Ev: That’s exactly what I said when I heard about this campaign! [laughs]

Ronnie: Hey Jess!

Jess: Yeah?

Ronnie: In the Dreaming, do people have... avatars?

Jess: Shit of course they...! [laughs] Actually, last night Ev and I, uh, created, oh shit, come on computer, don’t do this to me right now... I know you’re hot... You’re gonna be fine...

Drew: Sexy!

Jess: Yeah I’m sweet talking my computer into working. Ev and I have made a ton of...

Ev: Puns!

Jess: Puns! Pun objects, because we went through, like, the DnD objects list and... like, just kind of updated it to be futuristic. Clerics in this world, and druids, and technomancers, and paladins believe in different kinds of gods, and part of that is they have to maintain a Holy Site, which is like a fansite for their religion!

Drew: Oh!

Ronnie: I love it.

Jess: And then, as one of your perks is that you can get a Church Verified Avatar, which makes you less likely to be hacked!

Ronnie: Eyyyy!

Ev: Yeah, everyone should definitely have the game items list open by the way.

Ellie: Yeah, I just opened it.

Jess: Ev and Ellie kind of have ideas for their characters so if, you guys actually wanna, like, summarize your characters real quick, so Ronnie and Drew know some places that you can go with this...

Ev: Or have you guys looked into it, too?

Jess: Have you guys got any dreams?

Drew: Um, I don’t. Ronnie might. I’ve like, worked the past two evenings, so I’m ready to go now but I haven’t done any homework. I’m a bad student!

[laughter]

Jess: Keeping you after class, young man!

Ronnie: For me, I’m imagining, like, this sort of shitty teenager character, who is like, a teen radical who puts up tech graffiti places...

Jess: [laughs] I love it.

Ronnie: And wants to encourage the rising of the proletariat and stuff.

[laughter]

Drew: You know what would be fun? A like, a middle-aged, kind of balding, really angry person, that actually turns out to just be all those things.

[laughter]

Ev: What kind of class would that be? Would that be like a rogue or something?

[Inaudible because we’re talking over each other like dorks.]

Ronnie: I was thinking Bard, but I don’t think Bard is available, is it?

Jess: It is actually!

Ev: Oh no it is!

Jess: It is totally available!

Ev: That’s an awesome way to be a Bard, actually!

Jess: Yeah, we were trying to figure out how to do Bards, because one of the custom classes for this campaign is LARPer which is similar to Bard but different. LARPers can create different alternate identities and stuff.

Ev: This is my favorite part of the campaign right now.

Drew: Where are the funky different classes?

Jess: I shared the items list, and that has all of the different classes that we have, but mostly the classes are just DnD classes, but with like a little bit of a cyberpunky upgrade. So like, your wizard’s going to be a technomancer, your thief can be a hacker and your rouge can also be a hacker...

Ev: And then of course there’s, you know, LARPers are like, masters of disguise crossed with rogues or thieves basically, right?

Jess: Yeah, they’re masters of disguise, they’re also the ones who can kind of impersonate people, they can doxx people, and like, take on their personality and act like them, and they’re less likely to get caught doing it.

So, so far we have two religious dudes, [laughs] and I feel like, honestly Drew, if you wanted to play a cranky old dude, you can definitely play a cranky old wizard dude...

Drew: Yes.

Jess: ... who’s like, just been showing up for his paycheck at this insurance agency.

[laughter]

Ev: One day away from retirement!

Drew: Oh, that’s when the shit goes down, though!

[laughter]

Ev: Yes!

Drew: “It’s my last day before I retire, guys!”

[laughter]

Drew: “Nothing’s gonna happen to me!”

Jess: Man I sure hope nothing happens to that guy!

Ev: “I sure hope I don’t end up in a Sin City comic!”

Drew: “Ha ha!”

[more laughter]

Jess: So, Ronnie, can I make some suggestions for your Anarchist, like, shitty teen?

Ronnie: Yes.

Jess: Ok, I like the idea of them being a thief or a rogue or a hacker or a LARPer or a combination of that. And I also like either they’re interning at this insurance agency to make money for like, paying rent or something...

Ev: Interns don’t make money!

Jess: Well, my other thought is maybe it’s a community giveback program that the agency is doing to show great they are, like, “look at this teenager we’re rehabilitating really badly”...

Ronnie: [laughs]

Jess: But also it could be like, some sort of future community service, like I’m kind of imagining a Shitty Corporate Future, where like, if you get arrested you have to work it off at a corporate 9 to 5 job.

Drew: I mean, that’s not really that far from what it is now, so that’s sounds like a pretty good movement.

Jess: Are any of these appealing to you, or do you have your own ideas?

Ronnie: I enjoy the intern. [NOTE: Ronnie said this but then went with a sort of combination of both, which may be confusing, woops!]

[laughter]

Jess: Yeah, the miserable intern! [laughs] Alright, I like this. Okay! So let’s start some characters, then. You got your character sheets. Your traits are gonna be just how you would roll your DnD traits, so your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. You roll four d6 for each, and then you take away the smallest one, and then you can plug them in wherever they’re needed, okay?

Ellie: Jess I already did mine, like I did them before... but I can roll again if you want.

Jess: You don’t have to because it’s probably good that other people can talk while people are figuring out the math bits, right?

Ellie: I suppose, yeah. I mean, I haven’t put them anywhere, I just have them.

Jess: Oh, well, you can plug them in if you want, ‘cause, Ellie your character is basically a robot druid, which is the coolest thing!

Ellie: Yeah!

Ronnie: Oh my god, that sounds awesome!

Ellie: Oh man! I wanna, I wanna tell you my robot’s name.

Ev: Yeah, tell us all about your robot.

Ellie: Alright, my robot’s name is H u M 4 N, and it’s pronounced–

Ev: Oh Christ!

Ellie: –it’s pronounced Human!

[laughter]

Ev: Your character, your character and mine are going to get in so many fights!

Ellie: My, mine doesn’t fight! It’s a lovely robot!

Ev: Just wait.

Jess: What’s your lovely robot’s pronouns?

Ellie: I’m trying to figure that out, y’know?

Jess: Okay, yeah.

Ellie: Um, maybe put N/A because I’m not sure.

Jess: Yeah, I’ll put pronouns N/A. And HuM4N, the robot! [laughs]

Ellie: I might give a 15 Charisma for my druid robot!

Jess: So he’s like a religious, they’re like a religious leader a little bit?

Ellie: No, I mean...

Ev: Or just like, really charming!

Ellie: Yeah, like a charming robot!

Jess: All robots are charming robots.

Ellie: Yeah, but this one’s especially charming because HuM4N’s surrounded by... other... little robots?

Jess: Okay. Ev, give me, hit me, let me know. [laughs]

Ev: Okay. [laughs] Uh, my character is named Adrianna Arkadie Usko, and she goes by Adie for short, or Ah-die, I’m not sure. But anyway, she, I, fuck, I gotta stop calling her “she”, they’re a they!

Jess: Okay!

Ev: They’re a human cleric, and they belong to a church that believes that machines should be tools of flesh-and-blood people, instead of sentient beings.

Jess: I...

Ev: And they’re gonna be in a party with a robot named HuM4N!

[laughter]

Drew: I’m sure a great friendship will totally grow, and not hatred!

Ev: Oh yeah totally! They’re also, like, you know, their church is considered somewhat moderate in that they’re not anti-technology in general, but they definitely have the basis of their church’s beliefs is that, uh, machines are fallible, and that if you want something with a real, actual sense of responsibility and life, that it should be a flesh-and-blood being. That robots can’t understand the true meaning of life, basically.

Drew: I want the two of your characters to become Platonic Life Partners by the end of this campaign.

Jess: I ship it!

[laughter]

Ev: That’s a, that’s a possibility!

Jess: It’s the future!

Ev: I also do, you know, in true Avery fashion have, uh, a two page backstory and personality document for this character and... yeah.

Ronnie: Also, also Jess...

Jess: Yeah?

Ronnie: Can my character be a ratfolk? Can they?

Jess: Yeah they can definitely be a... I feel like gene modding is kind of a thing that kind of was, like, used early on.... Okay, wait, do you have ideas about the rat creatures? I should not just stumble over your ideas before you get to put them out there. What do you, where do the ratfolk come from, Ronnie?

Ronnie: Um, they either came from underground, or they came from the desert, whichever.

Ev: And they’re part of like, the magic coming back into the world, basically, like they’re magical creatures?

Drew: I want them to be like, nuclear devastation, and they’re like pet rats that have evolved through toxic sludge.

[laughter]

Jess: See, can I put forward a third proposal? Of they are, like the results of “Hmm, well we figured out how to cure cancer in rats. We haven’t cured it in humans yet. What if we can we make kind of humany-rat things, and then try and cure cancer that way?”

Ronnie: [laughs] Excellent!

Jess: Like, you got some choices out there!

Ev: It could be, it could be both, you know! They could be like, lab rats that became human when the magic came back and they just were like “What the fuck?!”

[laughter]

Ev: “When did this happen? Okay, I guess we’re people now! Sure!”

Drew: I like it!

Jess: They’re also underground, and like I imagine... Although we’ve kind of built up this robot-human conflict, and elves and dwarves... I feel like they’re not super happy, like that’s probably why your guy’s so proletariat risey-upey.

Ronnie: Uh-huh. They dream of a utopia in which the sun’s warm, and there are fields of grain, and everything is happy farmland, I dunno!

Drew: And there are no cats!

[laughter]

Jess: Alright, do you have any names or anything? Or...

Ronnie: Ooh, how about Sybil?

Jess: Ooh, I like it!

Ellie: Aw!

Drew: I’m only gonna think of the author now that you say that.

Ev: How do you spell... What way is Sibyl spelled?

Ronnie: S-I-B-Y-L. No! It should be a Z! It should be Z... Zibyl!

[laughter]

Jess: Yes! I love the future. And Drew, do you have any ideas about your guy? Is it just like a human guy, or is it like a...

Drew: I’m like “Oh, I wanna be something fantastic” and then I’m like “No, I kinda just want to be an old, crotchety human with, like, age spots on his face and I want his name to be, like, Earl.”

[laughter]

Ev: Good.

Ellie: Earl the Human.

Jess: Oh my god.

Ev: What class is Earl? [laughs]

Drew: I haven’t thought that far ahead, but Jess did say Wizard, and I thought that was kinda good.

Jess: Um, wizards are the ones who get guns in this universe, by the way. Cause, we figured that magic missile is basically, like–

Ev: It’s a gun.

Jess: –a projectile. It’s a gun! It’s like a laser rifle but in a fantasy setting. So, Wizards get guns.

Drew: [drawling old man voice] “It’s my right to bear arms, that’s why I got bear arms attached to my body when I was seventeen!”

Jess: ...Wait, please tell me this is true.

[laughter]

Drew: Maybe! We’ll find out.

Jess: Old wizard with bear arms. I like that.

Drew: And he’s got a tattoo of a human head on his shoulder.

Jess: [laughs] On his bear arm he has a tattoo of a human head drawing?

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: I love... okay. Yeah.

Ev: These are the best one-line character descriptions that I’ve ever written in my entire life.

Ellie: Woo!

Ronnie: Also, also, my character’s, like, underground username was going to be The Oracle, but somebody had already taken that, so it’s like, TheOraclexx27.

[laughter]

Ev: So good.

Jess: Is it also, does it also have x’s in front of it, so it’s like xx_The_Oracle_xx27?

Ronnie: Yes!

Jess: Oh my god, this is such a good party. I’m just imagining this old shrively guy with massive bear arms that like come out of his shoulders and drag along the ground, but...

Ev: What kind of bear arms? Are they like Sun Bear arms, or Grizzly Bear or Panda Bear...

Drew: Brown. Brown Bear. He couldn’t afford to get the Polar Bear ones that he wanted when he was younger, so they’re just Brown Bear’s.

Jess: Does he dye them white, though?

Drew: Yeah, he cleans them.

Ev: I gotta bleach my bear arms today!

Drew: They’re kind of blondish, but don’t... don’t talk about it.

[laughter]

Jess: I’m just imagining frosted tip bear arms.

Ronnie: Oh my god!

Ev: He’s a 90’s kid!

Drew: What’s the retirement age?

Jess: Um...

Ev: Old.

Jess: Yeah I think it’s dystopian, like, future-hell, so... Basically, like, the concept is Paprika meets Brazil, meets Ghost in the Shell, with a little bit of Wizards, the 80’s cartoon about nuclear magic.

Drew: I just wanna know how old my guy is. I’m okay with him being super old. I’m fine with that. I just wanna know.

Jess: It’s all about how old you want him to be.

Drew: I feel like... I dunno, 63?

Jess: 63 is a good age. He’s... he’s a pretty old guy.

Ev: 63’s not like, unreasonably old. It’s not like he’s, you know, 95 or whatever.

Drew: Nah, nah, he’s not 95! But he’d be pretty... he’d be a different class of wizard if he was 95 though, let’s be real.

Jess: Yeah, he’d have maybe gone up the ladder a little bit. ...Oh shit, Drew, you get a hat!

Drew: It gets to hide his head so he doesn’t get a sunburn on his balding scalp!

Jess: Well, we decided that, like, it’s like the class ring of wizards. So, wizards who go to school get a class hat, and you get to choose a spell that goes with that hat.

Drew: He didn’t go to school, he’s old school!

Jess: He went to the school of hard knocks?

Drew: He was in the Trades. He learned from the people… I dunno. He failed High School, I dunno.

[laughter]

Jess: Maybe his apprenticeship ended with him getting a hat from his gruff boss man? It’s his hat?

Drew: Sure.

Ev: Okay, so I have to go and eat dinner. I will be back in fifteen, twenty minutes.

Jess: Ev, you have your Spirit and Objectives done, so I can probably just do that for everyone else while you’re gone, is that cool?

Ev: Yeah, I’m gonna leave my recording running, and then I’ll just let you guys know when I get back, but I’ll try and be quick.

Jess: Cool! Have fun!

Ev: Alright. Laaater!

Jess: Lates!

Ronnie: Bye!

Drew: What do the hats look like?

Jess: Whatever you want. It can be whatever hat you want. It’s just a magic hat. It can be a magic fedora, it can be a magic, like, helmet, one of those mining helmets, it can be a magic…

Drew: What about… it’s a fez. It’s a fez hat.

Jess: It’s a magic fez?

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: Okay. Why don’t you figure out a spell that goes on your magic fez? So, for Spirit, you guys, Spirit is pull three random books, then go to a random page and pull a sentence that you think describes your character.

Ellie: That involves moving!

Ronnie: I happen to have three books on my desk!

Drew: They have to be random books! Those aren’t random!

Jess: As long as they’re on your map it’s fine.

Ellie: There’s books around Finn’s [Jess and Ellie’s little brother] bed. I’m just gonna pull those books.

Drew: So you said to grab three random books?

Jess: Yeah. If you have three near you that’s fine.

Drew: There’s a bookshelf…

Ellie: So wait, it’s a random line as well?

Jess: Well, you can choose a line on that page if you want. I don’t mind!

Ellie: Alright, uh, Jess, say a number.

Jess: 27

Drew: [counting to himself]

Ellie: Page 27… [flipping pages]

Drew: [laughs] Alright… oh man my three books…

Jess: Okay!

Drew: Where the Boys Are: Urban Gay Erotica…

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets…

Jess: [laughs more]

Drew: … Jaws.

Jess: These are all… definitely titles!

Ronnie: My books are Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder… Queer and Trans Artists of Color… and Fruits Basket! [laughs]

Jess: Nice!

Drew: And we just have to pick a random sentence? From each of them?

Jess: Or you can just pick a sentence. It doesn’t have to be random. I pulled this from Normality, which is a really fun game.

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: You pick from your favourite book a random page, and then pick a sentence from that page.

Drew: Oh man, I picked a page and there’s a lot of…

Ellie: Jess, say another number.

Jess: Sixty… nine.

Drew: [reading] “Gripping his jaw, I kiss him, I kiss him for…”

Ellie: 69?

Jess: Yeah.

Drew: “...our noses rub, our tongues exploring, our teeth crushing together.”

Ronnie: [laughs]

Jess: So like, your guy is gay, right? That’s what that means?

Drew: I feel like... Well, he can, or like bi.

Jess: That’s true.

Drew: I mean, let’s be real, though. He’s got bear arms. He’s clearly a gay Bear.

Jess: Oh my god!

Ronnie: This is really funny, because the book I have actually landed on a quote by Nietzsche.

Jess: [laughs]

Ronnie: And so, the sentence is, “From this point of view even the blunders of life have their own meaning and value– the occasional side and wrong roads, the delays, “modesties,” seriousness wasted on tasks that are remote from the task.”

Jess: Oh that’s kind of horrifying, and also kind of nice, and also kind of in character.

Ronnie: Yes.

Drew: So, the sentence I wanna do is “I lift my hand off his face just long enough to reach for the ball gag on the bedside table.”

Jess: [laughs] Alright!

Drew: There’s… there’s not a lot on that page I can get through. Most of it is about nipple clamps and sex. So… well, I’ll write down what I got from it.

Jess: Okay.

Drew: Where the Boys Are… he’s gay, and he likes ball gags!

Jess: [laughs] His spirit is strong.

Drew: Oh man, but he… so he should get some sort of special rope ability, ‘cause he’s clearly into bondage.

Jess: Rope is very expensive, I’m warning you now! I literally only made it super expensive because Ellie wanted it to be included.

Ellie: What?!

Drew: Is there any way that he could just have like his bondage rope, and then it just could be half as useful as actual rope but no one really knows why he has this kinky rope?

Jess: Except him?

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: I think so. [laughs] I like the idea of, someone’s like “Does anyone have some rope?” and he sheepishly pulls it out, and they’re like “Yeah! Thanks guy– where did you get this?”, and he’s like “...Adventure reasons.”

Drew: He’s like, “I can’t really hold a lot of weight, but I can tie a whole bunch of knots if you want.”

Jess: “I can suspend this bad guy from the ceiling a whole bunch of ways.”

Drew: Yeah. [laughs]

Ronnie: Oh noooo! Mine just got so angsty!

Jess: Oh no!

Ronnie: Fruits Basket pulled up for me, “They didn’t really want me.”

Jess: Awww no!

Drew: Mine’s just like, Dursley yelling at Harry. “I warned you, I will not tolerate mention of your abnormality under this roof!”

Ronnie: Oh no!

Jess: So sad!

Drew: So he comes from a family that, like, doesn’t believe in magic, and he’s magic, and they’re like “Fuck you! Get lost!”

Jess: Aww!

Drew: I dunno! That’s what I get from that.

Jess: Yeah.

Drew: They don’t care he’s gay, they just don’t like that he’s magic.

Jess: I’m just, it’s so sad. Some tragic backstory shit happening all of a sudden.

Ronnie: [in the background] Oh no!!

Drew: Are we using “magic” with a “c” or “magik” with a “k”?

Jess: Um, I think it’s with a… well, you’re the magic guy, you choose.

Ronnie: The quote that I got is “I’m not going to exploit my grandma just because somebody gave me money.”

Drew: That’s nice.

Ronnie: This rat… loves his grandma.

Jess: Aww! His ratma!

Ronnie: I say “his”… I’m going to say “they.”

Jess: Okay.

Drew: I don’t know what to say from this. Um, there’s a lot of, like, weird stuff on this page, but a lot of it has swearing, so he likes to swear.

Jess: Ah. He’s such a gruff, old, like BDSM guy.

Ronnie: [laughs] It’s great!

Jess: I think I’ve met this guy at Pride before.

Drew: Probably.

Ellie: I think I’ve got my quotes maybe. From The Supernaturalists… [correcting self] Supernaturalist, single.

Jess: Aw, I love that book.

Ellie: “Even if sometimes, she couldn’t remember her mother and father anymore,” from that.

Jess: Sad.

Ellie: From Martin the Warrior, “I’ll try to get back to you this time tomorrow night,” and then from Itch, “‘Reading’ said Itch.”

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: Those are my quotes.

Drew: Did we have to write down the actual quote because I just wrote down what I got from them.

Jess: You can do either, it’s about how you’d interpret it best.

Drew: Okay. My brain keeps being like “But Jess, what’s your character?!” and I’m like “Uhh never mind, shut up.”

Jess: [laughs] Don’t worry! Ev and I have been discussing some of the side characters and stuff. You’ll meet some fun types.

Um, so, I think next we’re gonna go on to adjectives ‘cause you guys are kind of getting what your character is.

Ellie: What about Ev?

Jess: Oh, yeah, Ev! Sorry!

Ev: [sarcastic] Alright, cool. [laughs] That’s how it is!

Jess: Shut up! Shut up and speak!

[laughter]

Ev: Okay, um, sorry, I’m just moving things around a little bit.

Okay, so, I have “A little voice in her head said ‘Are you doing the right thing?” which is that, uh, Adie’s always questioning their faith and their motivations.

Um, “String me up ‘cause I’m in it now,’ he said to no one,” which is that they go whole-heartedly into things, and they commit to things.

And, “If you’ve had a freakish education, at least use it,” which is that they were brought up in a weird, like, super technophobic, like... I called the organization that their parents were in “Radical Organicists,” which is like, in my head it’s like a combination of, like those weird culty communes, and anti-vaxxers, and anti-GMO vegans, and basically everyone who, like wants to go back to the Earth, but in kind of like really harmful, bad ways. [laughs] So…

Ronnie: Did I tell you that my grandma totally lived in a couple communes in the 60s?

[laughter]

Ronnie: She’s a cool grandma.

Ev: This is like, they grew up in a bad commune. It was definitely much more cult than anything else.

Jess: Okay, so adjectives. And your adjectives are describing words. This is something I pulled from MechNoir, because I’ve been listening to a lot of Friends at the Table, and this is something they do. But you get to choose three adjectives to describe your character, and they can give you bonuses on rolls if you can convince me that it’s relevant.

Ev: My, my adjectives for Adie are committed, clever, and blunt.

Jess: Committed, clever, and blunt.

Ev: Yep.

Jess: I like it. Has anyone else got any thoughts on theirs? I guess it’s very soon.

Ronnie: What’s the word for when someone is really good at, sort of, MacGyvering things? I-Innovative? No…

Ev: Resourceful?

Ronnie: ...Resourceful, there we go.

Jess: Yeah, that’s good, yeah.

Drew: I wanna use Persnickety.

[laughter]

Ev: Solid.

Jess: So far very good. Ellie, you got anything?

Drew: Crotchety…

Ronnie: Oh my god.

Ev: That’s the same thing as persnickety!

Drew: No, it’s not! Persnickety is being particular, and crotchety is being “ill-tempered, irritable, or grumpy.”

Jess: [laughs] I love this old man!

Ev: He’s so hard to work with, it sounds like!

Drew: Persnickety is "fussy or putting too much emphasis on trivial or minor details."

Jess: I love, I love, oh my god the worst co-worker of all time.

Ev: Right? This is gonna be so... man, this party is just a nightmare. We've got like a shitty teen, we've got a grouchy old dude, we got a religious zealot, and we got a robot, who's just like "Yep."

Ellie: Oh, Ev! And you're like "And a robot!"

Ev: [laughs] I'm becoming Adie!

Jess: My favourite thing so far is that you guys have all, like, fallen into being like of each other? Already? It's very exciting. Does anyone else have extra adjectives, or do you wanna like, you can also sleep on it and we come back to this next week.

Ronnie: We need to do it NOW!

Jess: Okay!

Ellie: I've got something note worthy.

Jess: Okay.

Ronnie: I thought of "resourceful," oh wait, I already thought of "resourceful," but "rebellious"!

Jess: Okay.

Drew: Um…

Ellie: "Volatile"

Drew: Oh I know what I wanna… Oh, sorry!

Ellie: How's "volatile", Jess?

Jess: Volatile's good!

Ev: It's really good.

Jess: Surprising but good, yeah. I wanna see how that runs out.

Ev: Like, temper-wise or in the fact that your HP is so low and you just explode when someone touches you?

[laughter]

Jess: Oh no!

Ellie: I said the wrong words and wrote the wrong word down, so that means I'm keeping it!

Jess: I like it though!

Ellie: Yeah.

Ev: What word were you thinking?

Ellie: "Versatile!"

Ev: Oh!

[laughter]

Ellie: Um, I'm keeping it either way.

Jess: I like volatile and versatile.

Ellie: I'll put both! So, my character is trustworthy, volatile, and versatile.

Jess: Aw!

Ev: That's a good robot.

Jess: That's a good... yeah!

Drew: I'm, uh, so "charitable" is the other one I wanna put down.

Jess: Ah shit, that's really interesting! Like, as a third, compared to "crotchety" and "persnickety"... and charitable.

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: I like it. How're you doin', Ron?

Ronnie: ...Good. I'm trying to think of a... specific word.

Drew: Oh I know!

Ronnie: Um…

Drew: [typing something for Ronnie]

Ronnie: Uh... no.

Drew: Ronnie's third word is "stinky"!

Ronnie: No it's not!

[laughter]

Ronnie: They can't 'cause [rats] clean themselves so much!

Drew: They do.

Jess: Especially 'cause this rat has high Charisma! This is a fancy rat.

Ev: Yeah!

Ronnie: I-It's more than just cleanliness, like... like... he grooms a lot, they groom a lot.

Drew: Obsesses.

[Ronnie mumbles]

Jess: Uh, "neat," "clean"...

Ev: Hygienic?

Jess: Uh…

Ronnie: Fussy! There we go.

Ev: Fussy!

Jess: Fussy's good! Yeah!

Drew: That's the same thing as "persnickety!" Except my word's better.

Jess: So what were your three words in the end, Ronnie?

Ronnie: Resourceful, rebellious, and fussy.

[Multiple "aww"s]

Jess: I wanna bully that rat!

Ev: Everyone's so cute!

[laughter]

Ev: Ronnie and Ellie, did you guys decide on like, genders or pronouns for your characters?

Ronnie: My character's pronouns are they/them, yeah. Or maybe zey/zem to keep with…

Ev: Zibyl, zey/zem, oh good!

Jess: Okay! I love it. Uh, Ellie, do you know what your robot is yet?

Ellie: Might be she/her?

Jess: Aw! Yeah, I like it.

Ev: Yay, we got a girl robot! [laughs] It's perfect!

Ellie: Ev, have I show you my robot?

Ev: No, show me your robot!

Ellie: My robo…

[paper shuffling]

Jess: She's so cute. I love her.

Drew: She's the cutest!

Ev: Oh my god, that is really charming! [laughs] What kind of hat is that, or is that an antenna?

Ellie: It's a little, it's a bird!

Ev: Oh!

Jess: A ro-bird?

Ev: Too cute!

Ellie: Ro-bird! [laughs]

Ev: It's a little bird on her head!

Ellie: And then, that's the feet! Because, poor Dexterity.

Ev: [laughs] Oh my god! All of our guys are so good!

Jess: This is so good!

Ev: Uh, my character looks like Michelle Forbes in, uh, Battlestar Gallactica. I'll find a link. Hang on.

Jess: Nice.

Drew: I'm so bad with names!

Jess: Are you, are you going back on Earl?

Drew: What? No. No no no, I... Ev just said some person's name, and I was like "I know Battlestar Gallactica, but I have NO idea who that is."

Jess: Oh!

Drew: No, Earl is Earl, like... Earl cannot be any more Earl than Earl already is.

Jess: It's true!

Ev: Let's see…

Ellie: Unless he wakes up in the morning... Because then he gets up EARL-ly.

Ev: Heh.

Jess: [grunt and long sigh]

Ev: I linked to Michelle Forbes in the chat.

Ronnie: Okay.

Ellie: Ohh!

Drew: Yeah, okay.

Jess: Nice.

Ellie: Good

.

Drew: I want them to get in a relationship!

Jess: Well…

Drew: Ship it! Ship it!

Ev: [laughs] They're in a relationship and they have a, have a son. I'm telling you, I go so deep into character building!

Jess: Wait, they have a son?!

Ev: Yeah. You want me to read this, part of this real fast?

Jess: Yes.

Ev: Okay. "Adie grew up within a commune that was also slightly a cult. They retained some of the ideas they were raised with, but actually consider themself very moderate compared to what they grew up with, even if that's sort of reactionary in most society. They became an insurance investigator because they wanted to reduce the dependence of flesh-and-blood people on machines and change the system of the Dreaming from the inside, in a way they're not completely sure how that's going to happen, yet." [laughs] Um, "They love travel and reading, and they're very curious, not very funny, and maybe not quite as clear on what their ideals are as they should be. Adie is estranged from their parents and extended family due to aforementioned cult/commune thing. They have a life partner named Robbie McCabe and a seven year old son named Colin."

Drew: Are they Poly [polyamorous]?

Ev: Hm?

Drew: Are they Poly?

Ev: I want them to be! I'm not sure if I should do that, because then, like, I think most of that's going to stay deep in the background, but I kind of wanted them to actually be married to two people.

Jess: It is Space Future.

Ev: Yeah.

Drew: I just wanna ship them with, um, with Ellie's character.

Ev: With HuM4n?

Jess: It would be so symbolic!

Ev: It would. It would be so solid. Their, their wife wants them to stop being such a zealot.

[laughter]

Jess: That's a fun table talk. "Adie..."

Ellie: I think HuM4n would have a nice tea session with Wife.

Ev: Yeah! I can, I can see Robbie meeting HuM4n and being like "Oh, you guys should date because then Adie would just, fuckin' chill for a minute."

[laughter]

Ev: What a bunch of trash babies.

Jess: Um, okay. So, we've got our adjectives... we're gonna do... Luck next. So I want you all to roll 3 d6 [dice]. And don't cheat, goddamn it!

Drew: Roll 3 d6?

Jess: Yes.

Ev: Whoa! I did Ellie rolls on that one.

Ellie: Wow!

Jess: What did you get?

Ev: Five, four, five.

Jess: Okay!

Ellie: I didn't, I did the opposite of Ellie rolls!

Jess: What did you get?

Drew: Oh, Ronnie got shit! Ronnie got anus hairs!

Ronnie: Oh nooo!

[laughter]

Jess: What did you…

Drew: I got 12. But Ronnie got 3!

Ellie: Well, my robot's…

Jess: Oh no!

Ronnie: I got 4!

Ev: Shit!

Jess: What did you get, El?

Ellie: One, two…

Jess: Oh my god!

Ellie: ...and one.

Drew: Hey, you got the same thing as Ronnie!

[hysterical laughter]

Ev: Wow, you are SO unlucky.

Drew: What is this roll for?

Ev: For Luck.

Jess: For Luck!

Drew: For Luck…

Jess: Yup!

Drew: I got twelve.

Jess: Well, okay. So, here's the thing about Luck.

Drew: Good luck and bad luck.

Jess: There's good Luck and there's bad Luck, and um, you can actually trade out skills for better Luck, but you have to take three points away from your skills to get an additional point of Luck, and you can do the reverse. You can trade your Luck to get more skills.

Drew: I dunno, I kind of like having high Luck, even if it could be bad for me, 'cause it feels fun.

Ronnie: You say that because you also have high skills, Drew.

Drew: [evil laughter]

Jess: It's true.

Ellie: Here's the thing. I think it would be hilarious if my robot, who's got all these high skills has really, really low Luck.

Jess: Aww! What a squishy baby!

Ev: That's really charming.

Ronnie: As my quote spirit says: "Even the blunders of life have their own meaning and value."

Jess: Aw! [laughs]

Ellie: Ronnie! Your character and my character should get tea!

Ronnie: [laughs] Yes!

Ellie: Well I mean…

Drew: My character will buy the tea and grumble about it.

Ellie: Everyone's invited!

Ronnie: He doesn't have to!

Drew: Yeah, but that doesn't matter, I'm your elder!

Jess: So, I'm just figuring stuff out on this end, but um…

Drew: There's no spot for age.

Jess: You can put age down... somewhere.

Drew: So, are we following, um, the rule with, uh, I think D&D has a thing where you actually get lower skills if you're older…

Jess: No, we're not. We're ignoring all that. [laughs]

Drew: Okay. Did I say I was 68 or 63?

Ellie: I think 63?

Ev: Yeah.

Drew: 63, okay.

Jess: Okay, so here's how Luck is gonna work. You can use it to re-roll rolls. For example, if you have a 20 on Luck, you can reroll 3 rolls a session, and they don't have to just be yours, they just have to affect you in some way or another. So, if you have 20 Luck you can reroll 3 times. If you have 19, 3 times, Eighteen, three times. Seventeen, two times. Sixteen, two times. Fifteen, one time. Fourteen, one time. Thirteen, one time. Twelve, eleven, ten, and nine have no Luck values one way or the other. And then, if you have…

Drew: Twelve has nothing or twelve is still one?

Jess: Twelve is nothing.

Drew: Twelve is nothing.

Jess: Twelve is average. Yep. You can't reroll, um, unless you have greater than twelve. If you have eight or less, I get to reroll a roll against you!

Ronnie: Oh…

Jess: If you have a 4 or a 3, I get to reroll two rolls against you! And if you have a 2 or a 1, I get to reroll three rolls against you. There are some other things that Luck will have, and you can combine Luck for things, and Luck does have other applications, like there will be times where I won't know if something's going to go one way or another, where you'll roll a Luck thing. So, at the moment I get to roll against Ellie and Ronnie twice a session.

Ronnie: [laughs sadly]

Ellie: It's okay.

Drew: Sucks to be them!

Ellie: HuM4n's fine about it.

Jess: And the only people who get rerolls, are Drew and Ev, which... wait, no! Drew doesn't get any!

Drew: No.

Jess: So only Ev gets to reroll.

Ev: Heyo!

Drew: I don't get any rerolls but you don't get to roll against me!

Jess: Yup.

Ellie: You said three d6 right?

Jess: Yeah.

Ellie: Wow, I rolled so terribly!

Jess: I kinda like it! I kinda like the low…

Drew: I think it's hilarious that you and Ronnie both rolled the same thing.

Ev: The same really bad thing!

Drew: Yeah.

Jess: It's so impressive... Christ. Okay, um, now let's do materials. Um. Which are Status, Education, Money, and Equipment. Your Status and Education will have some effect. Money's probably going to have the most effect to start, because that's going to depend on what, it's gonna change your budget around, and then Equipment is also a thing. So, roll one d6.

Drew: Pardon?

Jess: Roll one d6.

Drew: Okay.

Ellie: Okay, I rolled a six.

Jess: Okay, that's your... that's your Status, so you have been with this company the longest, Ellie.

Drew: Oh man, I rolled a four.

Ev: Hey, that doesn't make any goddamn sense! [laughs]

Drew: Hey it's your bad luck.

Jess: I mean, it's kinda like, if you're middle management, and this robot's kinda come along and is kind of, muscling you out.

Ev: Climbing the corporate ladder!

Jess: Yeah! [laughs]

Drew: That means I'm gonna hate you!

Ev: [sarcastic] Goddamn robots takin' our jobs!

Jess: You could get along!

Ronnie: I got a five.

Ev: I also have a five.

Drew: That doesn't make any sense!

Ev: Aw man, I'm at the same Status as the, the intern?

Drew: I have LESS Status than the intern!

Jess: I don't, I think it also is like, societal level Status, so if you have Status in certain groups, that might also count towards this. So maybe the fact that Ellie's kind of the leader of a church is gonna bump her Status up a little bit.

Ellie: I mean, it's kind of a church. Kind of, but not really.

Ronnie: I'm internet famous! [laughs]

Jess: [laughs]

Ev: You have a lot of followers on Tumblr!

Drew: People are just jealous of my bear arms.

[laughter]

Drew: My friends have all died. I have no Status because they're all dead.

Jess: Aw!

Ev: Oh my god, Drew!

Jess: It's because our society doesn't respect the elderly.

Ev: Yeah.

Drew: I'm sure they just ship us off to get burned or something.

Jess: Aww! It's not THAT dystopian! I'll just work you until you're dead!

Drew: Oh, okay.

Jess: Okay so roll me another d6, guys.

Ellie: And this is for Education?

Jess: Uh, actually I'm gonna let you roll first, and then we'll figure it out, so it makes more sense next time!

Ellie: I rolled a three.

Jess: 'Kay.

Ronnie: I got a one!

Drew: I rolled a two.

Ev: I have a five again.

Jess: Okay, it does make sense for this to be Education, right?

Drew: Yeah!

Ev: I think so.

Drew: I already said that my character did go to, like didn't go to school, he just learned his stuff from Trades.

Jess: Yeah.

Drew: He failed high school, so.

Jess: I'm guessing that Ev, your guy went to, like, your person went to like, a Clerical college? Like a religious…

Ev: Yeah. Um, yeah, probably.

Jess: And then, Ronnie is like, a homeless teenager, so... Roll again, guys!

Ronnie: Gah! [dropped their dice probably]

Ev: Frick, I got a three for Money.

Jess: 'Kay.

Ellie: I got a four.

Ronnie: Oh dang! I got a four for Money.

Jess: Okay!

Drew: I rolled it off of the edge of my book. [laughs]

Jess: Don't do that!

Drew: I rolled a six! Retirement money!

Ev: Retirement mon! [laughs]

Jess: Okay, nice, so, this is your weekly income in Creds, which are the currency. Actually…

Drew: Six dollars a week!

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: Well, if you'll look, I think you actually get twice that.

Ev: Yeah, you said it was two weeks back pay when you start.

Jess: Yeah, it's two weeks back pay, is what you've got sort of behind you, so you've got twelve creds to start. You get six a week but you have two weeks of back pay. But, you do have, like, weekly things you might have to pay, like rent and rations, uh…

Ellie: Question!

Jess: Yeah?

Ellie: Do I pay rations if I don't eat?

Jess: Um, oil, maintenance, that kind of thing.

Ellie: Ahh.

Jess: Also, you as a druid/technomancer/paladin have to pay for a Holy Site with 1 Cred monthly, so you can subtract that from your income.

Drew: That's complicated.

Jess: Yeah, I wanted to make this, uh, a game about budgeting.

Drew: In the loan section, are we doing compound loaning?

Jess: No, because I don't want to have to do that much math.

Ronnie: Hey! Hey! Stop! [laughs] Noooooo! [yelps]

Jess: I don't know what's happening over there, but I bet it's disgusting.

Ev: I think Drew and Ronnie are being married right now. [laughs]

Jess: God... damnit.

Ev: They're doing married shit.

Jess: This is what happens when you invite married people to anything, right?

Drew: I'm tickling them!

[laughter]

Jess: [sarcastic] Gross.

Ronnie: Okay, okay.

Jess: They don't deserve that. Anyway! Um, you guys all need rent to rent out a place and rations. You can combine those however you want. If you want to eat fois gras in a gutter, that's fine. If you wanna eat spam in a mansion, that's also fine. Uh, you can get yourself some prosthesis…

Drew: There's very little money to start with!

Jess: You guys don't have, like glamorous jobs, you know that right? Like…

Drew: Yeah I know, but we've been living for a while! You'd think we'd have SOME money to start with!

Ev: I have a partner who brings in her own income, presumably!

Drew: Yeah, right?

Jess: It's Capitalist Space Future! Do you wanna... [laughs] You have to pay Air loans probably!

Drew: Can I just get a tattoo of a corporation on my ass and call it a day?

Jess: I mean, you can if you want! That's probably why you get six, six pay a week!

Ev: Earl is so into body modding. [laughs]

Drew: Earl IS into body modding.

Jess: There is totally like, underground body modding places, and people get addicted to modding their bodies until they're like, weird. Ah... Space Future.

Ellie: Can I use my creds that aren't, that are part of my Money to get a tiny automaton familiar?

Jess: Yes, of course you can!

Ellie: [happy sound]

Jess: Um…

Drew: Where are the familiars?

Jess: The familiars are for wizards and druids. You can get one. It's gonna be alive by magic whereas Ellie's is gonna be alive by religious…

Ellie: It's a tiny robot!

Drew: But, but isn't that like a baby then?

Jess: I was thinking more like the daemons from The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass, but robots.

Drew: I was just thinking 'cause it's robot, I'm like isn't there some sort of like, weird existential thing that you have to consider because you're also a robot?

Jess: Yeah, Ellie! Do you?

Ellie: Sorry?

Jess: Do you have to consider that, that they're babies, or is it different for robots?

Drew: Or that they're equal?

Ellie: They're different for robots!

Drew: But doesn't that have like a weird supremacy thing for robots though?

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: No! It's my buddy!

Ev: It's like, you know, being a human and owning a dog. Like, they're still flesh and blood guys, they're just like, dumb and you know, you have to take care of them.

Drew: A dog, a dog isn't a tiny human, though!

Ellie: I have a connection with my tiny robot friend! It's like we're both friends on equal terms.

Jess: Also, I think in this society, there are like, dogs that are as intelligent as people, and dogs that aren't. I think that it's gotten to the point where people occasionally will just make a creature or a species super smart 'cause they can.

Drew: That that mean that there are like, super not-smart people?

Jess: Hmmm…

Ev: I dunno if I like that, 'cause that gets into weird like, weird territory.

Jess: That gets kind of into, um, what's-it-called, that one dystopian, not nineteen-eighty... Brave New World! It gets a bit Brave New World. I'm not sure we're gonna go that far into the like, intelligence hierarchy, some-people-are-better-than-others…

Drew: Yeah, I'm fine with not doing that! I was just asking about robots.

Ev: [sad laugh]

Jess: It's interesting from a robot perspective. I wonder if it's like, based on how, like, close they are to the Singularity.

Ev: Well, plus we also have in this world, robots that are dead people's souls put into machines.

Jess: Oh yeah! That's a thing!

Ellie: Maybe I built my own familiar.

Jess: Aww!

Drew: Oh I know what, I know what I want now!

Jess: Yeah?

Drew: I want Earl's, like, Life Partner to have passed on [Ev gasps], and they had decided he was going to go into like, one of those, um, machines and then like he was super fit-looking and awesome and he's like "See ya later, Earl!" and then just like leaves.

Ev: Ohh!!

[lots of sob laughing]

Drew: So that was Earl's like, retirement funds.

Jess: Aw!!

Ev: Oh my god!!

Ellie: He's... he's so sad and awwuh!

Jess: So, does Earl not have any money anymore? Did you get it, like, the large…

Drew: He gets six Creds! Of course he doesn't have any money! I'm trying to explain away the fact that he's saved for like sixty years and he's got like, 12 Creds!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Um, do I need to pay for my prosthesis or should I just like imagine that I paid for them when I was young like I said?

Jess: I think I might have to make you pay for your prosthesis.

Ev: Noo!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: I still have one dollar left!

Jess: You have your Equipment money! I gave you Equipment money!

Drew: Yeah, then I'll just be naked! [laughs]

Ronnie: [laughs]

Ev: Christ.

Jess: I'm assuming you have…

Drew: Do I have to pay for each arm or can it just be 11 dollars, 11 Cred?

Jess: I think you just paid for it all. You can can also have been in debt for the last like…

Ev: Rope is really expensive.

Jess: That's... [laughs]

Drew: Oh, what's the deal with the bondage rope that I had suggested?

Jess: You get to keep your bondage rope, but if Ellie wants rope, she has to pay full price.

Drew: Okay.

Ellie: Jess, how much are weapons and what what weapons are available for a druid?

Jess: Um, so... mostly, you just have to look at the druid weapons in AD&D and then we're gonna adapt them.

Ellie: Can I have a quarter staff?

Jess: Yeah.

Ellie: Alright.

Ev: And that goes for spells, too, right?

Jess: Yeah.

Ev: We're just doing AD&D ones?

Jess: Yeah. If you want.

Drew: Is there, like, a certain amount of spells?

Jess: Uh, same as AD&D, it's just whether we're gonna start you as level one or level three. What would you guys prefer?

Drew: Uh…

Ev: What's a man catcher?

Jess: What?

Ev: I'm looking at Cleric weapons and there's something called a man catcher.

Jess: Like a net? [laughs]

Drew: Jess?

Jess: Yeah?

Drew: I'd like to advocate because I have bear arms, that I get to use one of the D&D things where I have claws, which actually is an attack weapon.

Jess: Okay, but you don't get any other weapons except for a magic gun if you wanna shell out the money for that.

Drew: Well, I mean, I'm already shelling out the money for my arms, they're 11 Cred, right?

Jess: Yeah, it's true! [laughs]

Drew: So I just wanna be able to use my claws if I need to!

Jess: Yeah, those are probably gonna be a 1d4 damage. And I think the thing is, the reason they would be kind of lower as well is because I think there are a lot of robots and people who have body mods and you're gonna need energy weapons.

Drew: Well, and also I'm just old. So my physical body is probably pretty old, even if my bear arms are rad.

Jess: Man, you could probably get your claws, like, upgraded into laser claws at some point.

Drew: That'd be cool. I wonder if my bear arms need to be replaced at points because bears, like, live way less and so every like, ten years my bear arms have to be replaced when they, like shrivel up and fall off.

Ronnie: Gah!

Jess: [laughs] So they're like actual bear arms not just like, look like bear arms?

Drew: Yeah, they're actual bear arms!

Jess: I love it, okay, yeah.

Ellie: So Jess, are we first level or third level, 'cause that changes how many spells I can get.

Jess: I know! [sighs] ...I guess you guys are third level.

Ronnie: I have picked out my stuff!

Jess: Oh yeah? What do you have?

Ronnie: I have a Hacker's kit, one alternate ID which is The Oracle... xx27…

Jess: [laughs]

Ronnie: Uh, two costumes, a glow worm, and... a set of Dream Interference. And... no weapon because this shitty teen doesn't understand.

Jess: I am gonna get that shitty teen a hoverboard if it's the last thing I do.

Ev: Oh good.

Jess: [laughs] Like, I just want the shittiest, eighty-est, 80s-est…

Drew: So the hat actually says that it doesn't have to be a spell! I get a special effect, which can be frost resistance, advantage on charisma rolls, or an extra spell slot!

Jess: Shit! [laughs]

Ev: Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking when we were talking about it, Jean. You can change it if you want, but I was thinking like, it's like having an item equipped in a video game where it like, gives you a buff or something.

Jess: Yeah, I think that's it. I think I just said "spell" because I'm a sleepy baby all the time, and I don't know what's going on in the game I'm creating! So.. yeah!

Drew: I think I'm gonna end up getting a loan, I think.

Jess: I'll just have to keep track of that, and then there'll be creditor organizations who are keeping an eye on you, and I'll just have to remember that.

Ev: Can I have a, a sword?

Jess: Yes.

Ev: A non-haunted sword?

Jess: Yyyyyeesssss... I feel like you're kind of edging more towards the Paladin territory in some ways…

Ev: That's true.

Jess: I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it kind of, almost fits with the character more than the Cleric?

Ev: I can do a Paladin.

Jess: Yeah.

Ev: Alright, yeah, I'll just be a Paladin. Fuck it!

Jess: I feel like there's probably a cool name we could give to the Paladins, for the Future Times, but we'll figure that out.

Drew: Pala-don'ts.

Jess: [laughs] Pala-do?

Ev: [laughs]

Drew: Pala-outs!

Jess: Uh, Pala-drives?

Ev: Pals!

Jess: Like, drive? Like... a computer drive?

Ev: Hm....

Jess: No?

Ev: Mods? [laughs]

Jess: Oh no wait, I love that! [laughs]

Ev: Well, that doesn't really make sense, 'cause they're not really in charge of any, like, they're not like, well... I dunno! A mod?

Jess: Um, admins?

Drew: How come technomancers get to be in the druid/cleric/paladin AND in the wizard section?

Jess: Uh, 'cause technomancers can use, uh, pretty much they can use wizard or druid magic to affect the Dreaming.

Drew: Okay. ...What's a spring belt?

Jess: Oh, the spring belt is, uh, if you have your weapon in it, it means you always have it at the ready, so even in surprise attacks, you're not gonna get surprised and you can attack and roll initiative.

Drew: Okay. Um, and what's a travelling duster?

Jess: Like, a cool duster, like the jacket in [shyly] ...Fallout New Vegas.

Ev: [laughs]

Ellie: You're a nerd, Jess.

Jess: Hey.

Ronnie: I might need it.

Jess: [laughs] Oh my god, you do need it!

Ev: That's what that hoodie is! [laughs]

Jess: Oh my god, no. I need…

Ronnie: My hoodie is actually a travel duster?

Drew: Ooh what's a festival lantern do?

Jess: I think it's just a cool lantern! [laughs]

Drew: Dentures?! C'mon! I've been working here for how many years and I don't get coverage for dentures?

Jess: Yeah, there is definitely only private health insurance in the future.

Drew: I'll gum you to death!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Uh, so right now I need, I would need a 14 Credit loan.

Jess: I think you can get a 14 Credit loan. I'll just write it down. Does anyone else need a loan?

Ev: Yeah, I need a loan of... 4 dollars.

Drew: I'll, I'll probably need to get one or two Credits more just so I can clothes. Um, but, that's what I'll ask for right now, and then I'll email you about it later.

Jess: Cool.

Ronnie: My clothes come from the garbage!

[laughter]

Ronnie: Except for the cool duster thing.

Ev: You saved up for a good jacket.

Jess: Aw, that's so, like, like, I'm just imagining zem like, saving all of their money for weeks on end and spending it all on a jacket.

Is there anything else you guys want to go over before we leave? Any worldbuilding stuff that you think is really appropriate to this world that you need me to inject right now?

Ellie: Well, I don't know if it's really anything important, but I thought, so we all have usernames in the Dream, right?

Jess: Yeah.

Ellie: My robot's username is Sore_491, and it's that because the robot had to have a human friend help to log in because of the prove-you're-not-a-robot, and that was what, that was the code that needed to be typed in, and the human thought it would be funny to name the robot's…

Jess: Username.

Ellie: Yeah.

Drew: Hey, can my guy's name be deepthroat_69?

[laughter]

Jess: Yeah! Absolutely! And I bet, yeah, he had to be really fast on the draw to get that, that username.

Drew: What I, well I, well he's old, right? But he…

Ev: Yeah he's had it since the Internet was new!

Drew: I want it be that, basically they, um, you can't change your username once you have it, so like, so like he just went into the Dreaming when he was horny one time or something, and then he got this job later on and he was like "Fuck, whatever." [laughs]

Ev: There's probably SO many people with that, that that has happened to!

Jess: Yeah, like... Oh, I want the mayor's username to be, like... 420justblaze$$$, and like, part of their campaign was being like, now I'm a serious candidate!

Ellie: One of the heads of the churches is called MiLady450.

Jess: [laughs] Cleric…

Ronnie: There is so much Vaporwave in this, in this RP right now.

Ev: It's so good. I'm trying to think of something that Adie would have... It's probably something that they thought was really clever when they were a teenager... shit.

Ellie: Can there just be a, epidemic of memes? In the church? Like…

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: [laughs] like another head of the church has one that's "Can I Haz Churchburger?"

Drew: Noooooooooo!

Ellie: [laughs]

Ev: I bet this is a future where there's definitely, like, a church of Our Lord Dril, or something like that. [laughs]

Jess: Oh god! Oh god....

Drew: I want people to be back to worshiping cats again.

Jess: I think, I think we can do that. Think they probably put on performances of Cats every Sunday. IN the Dreaming, though. Like, they got kicked out of other... they can't do it Live anymore. They, have a Live, once a year, Cats performance.

Ev: Oh, oh! Can we have it, can he have "Hugh Jackman's Huge Act-in" be canon in this universe?

Jess: Yeah, definitely.

Drew: Hugh Jackman's what?

Jess: It's a CoolGames Inc. ... it's a podcast where they make up game ideas, but one of them was "Hugh Jackman's Huge Act-in." You get to be the actors in Broadway show of your dreams, and it's virtual. You're virtually kind of, filled into a lobby.

Ev: It's VR theatre, and, and it's such a good concept, and I'm so mad that it doesn't exist. [laughs]

Jess: I feel like there's, like, bazillions of entertainment channels, and some of them are just like virtual, and some of them are real actors, and some of them are just Amateur Hour. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a, like, station called "Amateur Hour."

Ev: [laughs] Good.

Ronnie: [laughs]

Drew: I, I drew Ronnie's and my character. [shuffling paper] [The drawing shows Earl with an arm around Zibyl.]

[chorus of giggles and "aww"s]

Jess: "You're gonna go far, kid."

Drew: [laughs]

Ev: He's so little!

Drew: He's super short! He's like 5'2" or something!

Ellie: Like, he's reaching up with his arm!

Drew: Yeah.

[laughing and yelling, probably because Drew's showing a drawing of Earl with a leather harness and black g-string.]

Jess: That's happening. I guess.

[laughter]

Ev: Is that...

Ellie: Earl's the best.

Ev: Is that his avatar?

Drew: That's his, so he's got two avatars. He's got his like, cruising avatar, and then this is his regular avatar. [Drew shows the drawing of Earl's avatar, which has him in his normal dress and slacks with suspenders and bowtie, but taller and more svelte.]

Ev: Oh, yeah!

Jess: So cute!

Ellie: Earl is the best.

Ev: Earl's the cutest character I've seen in my life. Oh my god.

Drew: Back to his cruising avatar! [laughs] [Earl is in a harness and g-string again in this drawing, but with his more "ideal" build as an avatar.]

Ev: Jesus Christ. [laughs]

Ellie: Wow.

Ev: Oh boy.

Drew: [showing another drawing] This is his partner that left him when he got downloaded into a robot!

Ev: Aw!!

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Um, what's in the, uh Adventurer's kit?

Ev: Whatever we want, I think, right?

Jess: Yup! And, like, you can...

Drew: Whatever we want?

Ev: Well.

Jess: And if you can try to convince me it's like, something you would carry, I will just say yes to you carrying it, but you can't go ridiculous with it. You can't be like "I have the item we're looking for!" or "I have the Heart of the Dreaming!" Neither of those things are gonna happen, so, like.

Ronnie: [laughs] So, like, in Pathfinder there's actually a Perk called "Packrat," for Ratfolk, which is, if there is a mundane item that we need, I can just say "Oh, I happen to have it!"

Drew: That is one thing I like about Pathfinder, is that they give you, like you get to pick a couple qualities and they affect your characters, like what is that?

Ev: Oh, that's like what we have!

Drew: The [traits] are really cool, and they can be things that like affect your character, so one of the [traits] can be like you're rich, and you start out with like, three times the amount of money, but that wastes one of your [traits] so it only affects you at the beginning of the game, basically. Whereas, um, you can have a [traits] where, what is it? One of them is that I was an orphan, so everyone who didn't have parents trusted me more automatically.

Jess: Heh! It does kind of also sound like, uh, the proficiencies, almost. Which, are just things you're kinda good at. You'll get proficiencies, you can be good at stuff that isn't, like, directly based... like dancing and cooking an' things like that.

Drew: Earl's really good at tying things.

Ronnie: [laughs]

Jess: Okay.

Ev: That's not surprising.

Drew: We had that discussion.

Ellie: Can I have animal handling?

Jess: Yes, but you can apply it to robots.

Drew: Do you have a list of possible ones or are we just making them up and asking?

Ellie: I'm gonna apply it to robots.

Ev: Uhh... can we, I think we can make 'em up, right? As long as they're not weapon proficiencies?

Drew: Um, and how many do we get?

Jess: Uh, magic-user has three non-weapon, but a Druid begins with three non-weapon slots and gains another at level six, book rules suggest a character should receive two additional slots every six levels. [distant meowing] So you get up to five at level six. A paladin gets two non-weapon slots, one more is gained at level three. A thief acrobat, which is...

Ronnie: [distant] Sheppard, come here!

Sheppard: [continues meowing]

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: Um. [laughs]

Ev: Everyone be quiet, there's a cat talking!

[laughter]

Jess: I don't want to interrupt, but here's something else that's also useful. [sends link]

Sheppard: [meows louder]

[laughter]

Ellie: Jess, I want ancient history!

Jess: Okay. Oh, here's a great list, shit!

Ev: God, the background on this site is balls...

Drew: It's balls and ass!

Ev: [laughs]

Drew: It's a, like, hairy anus.

[laughter]

Jess: But it's useful! Look, I, I didn't make this site!

Drew: Just paste it to a google doc and save our eyes!

Jess: I will paste it into a google doc later!

Ev: [laughs] How difficult are we making your job right now, Jess?

Jess: Not, I mean, you just changed the rules of the game like six times, but...

Ev: Well...

Jess: But it's fine! [laughs]

Ev: It's like, okay so...

Sheppard: [meows loudly into the mic]

Jess: Oh my god that's the loudest cat in the world.

[laughter]

Ev: Who even is this cat?

Drew: You know what's even louder? I'm reading about a spell called Ghost Sounds that sounds completely useless.

Jess: What, what is the spell called Ghost Sounds?

Drew: Um, you just make a sound that people think could be a ghost. You send a whisper fifty feet away.

Ev: Ohhhh, I wish my character believed in ghosts! [laughs]

[laughter]

Jess: This is a decision, okay? Uh, so I decided that technomancy comes in three forms, and... There are Clerics who can like, religious people use their belief to manipulate the world and technology. Magic users use magic over technology to manipulate technology and, um, LARPers, Bards, that lot use technology to manipulate magic, and mechanically, that means that if you are a religious person, you roll under your Wisdom to Hack. If you are a Wizard, you roll under your Intelligence to Hack, and if you are a Bard, you use your Charisma to Hack. Because basically Bards sweet talk the machine into doing what they want.

Drew: "Hey baby... take your cables and tie them up real nice..."

Ronnie: Actually it's... [laughs]

Drew: "Heheheheheh..."

Jess: Earl is a terrible Wizard. Um, here is the other thing, Drew, I'm just making sure you know this... You can use spells that aren't in your spellbook, but you will forget them forever.

Drew: Okay...! I didn't know that, but now I'm like... I'll have to look into spells that I wanna have as like my eventually-I'll-forget-this-spell but it's a pull-it-out-of-my-ass kind of thing.

Ev: Your burn spells.

Drew: Yeah. I don't have my Ass Spells yet though, so.

Jess: Yeah, I just figured you should probably know that.

Drew: I appreciate that.

Ev: All of Earl's spells are Ass Spells.

Drew: Heheheheh!

Jess: [laughs] 'Specially those rope spells. Anyway! Moving swiftly... on!

Ellie: Alright, I was just saying I'm having swimming as one of HuM4n the robot's... proficiencies... even though HuM4n is a robot.

Ev: They could be waterproof. I mean, she could be waterproof.

Ellie: Yeah, but she feels uncomfortable!

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: It's so cute!

Ev: That doesn't sound like a proficiency!

Ronnie: [laughs]

Ellie: No, it's like she's, she's good at swimming, it's just she hates it!

Drew: That's fair.

Ellie: You know how you have parents and they're like "Err, you're gonna do this," and you're like "Why," and then you get good at it, and you're like "I still don't like it!"

Ronnie: [laughs]

Drew: Yeah.

Ellie: That's HuM4n's experience swimming.

Ronnie: Obviously Zibyl is good at sewing.

Ev: Aw!

Drew: Why is it obvious?

Ronnie: Because, Zibyl made zeir clothes from garbage!

[chorus of "aww"s]

Ronnie: And also, uh, and also...

Drew: Why does, uh, Zibyl have red eyes? [Referring to a drawing Ronnie is making]

Ronnie: 'Cause that's what that breed of rat looks like!

Ev: [laughs]

Ronnie: Anyway! Zibyl makes zeir clothes from all of the hand-me-downs from zeir gazillion sibilings, and so...

Ev: Their zibilings?!

[laughter]

Jess: No!

Ronnie: Zeir gazillion ziblings! [laughs]

Jess: No!

Ev: [laughs]

Jess: No! Please... Okay, I'm going to get more water, you guys have to make some decisions! We have to move on this!

Drew: This, this list of spells is, like, terrible! It's so hard!

Jess: Yeah, you shitty spells 'cause you're a shit wizard!

Ronnie: [laughs loudly]

Jess: Get a promotion! Maybe get some better spells!

Drew: I more mean that it's difficult to find what it is, but that's fair! That's fair.

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: Um, you didn't get back to me about, you were going to think about my hat, because what you had told me and what the sheet said about what my hat can do is different, and you said you were going to think about it.

Jess: Yes. It can... buff you. Choose a buff. But choose a buff that isn't, like, "I want this for my character for gameplay reasons." Think about it in the world. Like, what did... wait, I can't remember Earl's... oh, Earl. Not deepthroat69, which is why I have it written here.

[laughter]

Jess: Um, what did Earl's, like, mentor... what would he, or she, or they have wanted to pass down to Earl? And what kind of person would they, like what kind of buff would they have put on that hat? So you think about that, I'm gonna get some water...

Ev: My character wants to mentor Ronnie's character, that's, like immediately what they, like... I was talking to Jess about this, they're... actually no, I was talking to Ellie about this I think!

Ellie: Mm-hmm!

Ev: Which is that, they want to take Zibyl under their wing and have Earl take zem under his wing! And then they'd want HuM4n to just not be there. [laughs]

Drew and Ronnie: [laughs]

Ellie: [in a robot voice] HuM4n understands, but will not comply. Beep boop!

[laughter]

Drew: I love it. ...There's not a lot of spells, because they're not sorted in any way, on this Wiki, so it's like going through all these shitty random spells that all like, does this weird obscure thing from this one side quest thing.

Ev: Hmm.

Jess: I'm back!

Ev: Well, I mean maybe you could think about what kind of effects you wanna have, and then just pick something that's similar to that and you can mod it, y'know?

Drew: Yeah, I'm just, a lot of them do things that I don't even know what they mean. So I'm just trying to find ones that make sense, 'cause there's a lot of like weird, stuff being like "alter normal winds" and "avert evil eye, means that Evil Eye doesn't affect you," and then I have to read about what Evil Eye is...

Jess: Evil Eye is someone watching ya. Creepin on ya.

Drew: Oh, okay. That's actually not bad.

Jess: Yeah, I mean I would say you could mod that and be like, it means that cameras around you will go out!

Drew: I like that!

Ev: I really wanna fast ask about, are we, are we doing alignments, because a lot of my stuff has to do with alignments. [laughs] And if it's, I mean, I can totally pick and choose and sort of ignore the whole Detect Evil stuff, but...

Jess: I think... [sighs] Ah, shit, are we doing alignments...

Ev: I don't want to have to be Lawful Good. I, like, that's the most boring thing about being a Paladin ever.

Jess: Oh, I'm definitely not, like, constraining anyone to anything, like...

Ev: Okay, okay...

Jess: Like, those systems exist, but you do not have to abide by, like, race restrictions, character class restrictions... all that shit. Nah. Nah son.

Ronnie: I think, Ev, is that, it's not necessarily that your character is Good because everyone's vision of good is different, just as long as your character falls within their scripture, the honoring the five things...

Ev: Yeah.

Ronnie: I can't remember which... the body things. The bones and the blood stuff.

Ev: Yeah, I think... Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with, like, they... maybe "evil" in this case is stuff that doesn't... well, that's a really really broad base... I dunno. I think maybe, maybe it would be best to just ignore the "what here is evil" skill, because it's so weird and broad, and it doesn't make much sense in terms of actual morality.

Jess: What about "What here is malevolent," or what if you have a virus scanner?

Ev: Ooh! That's exactly what I'm gonna do!

Jess: Like, you can just check if things have bad spells and bad viruses and shit.

Ev: Yeah! Okay, I love that. That's awesome. Oh, and I also have uh, a thing called "Aura of Protection," which is that if Evil tries to attack me within, like, a certain range, it take a -1 penalty, and I'm just gonna say I have really good antivirus software.

Jess: [laughs]

Ev: Okay.

Jess: Okay!

Ellie: So, Jess?

Jess: Hmm?

Ellie: I was thinking about "Speak with Machines." Does that mean there's more than one language with machines?

Jess: I think there might be multiple languages. Because there are like, Ev and I were talking and there are like, different platforms that can get you onto the Dreaming with, and we're making some analogies to like, Wizards and Clerics and Bards being, like, your Mac users, your PC users, and you Linux users. So that's that, and then like to get to the Dreaming you have different "browsers" quote unquote...

Ev: There's also like different programming languages in general that you can use.

Jess: Yeah. That's what I was thinking like, the different classes maybe create... they can all create robots, right? So maybe a robot created by a Cleric has a different language to one created by a Wizard, to one created just by mechanics, to one created by a Bard.

Ellie: But maybe robots speak just like, maybe the spell, 'cause I've got a spell "Speak with Machines," maybe they speak to each other on a spiritual level.

Ev: How would you communicate with a microphone that doesn't have any kind of... maybe that's what allows you to communicate with machines that don't have any kind of like, sentience or whatever, or...

Drew: Maybe you would give them sentience briefly?

Ellie: [dramatically] But Ev! We're ALL from the Earth!

Ev: Yeah but, I can't talk to cows!

Jess: [guffaws]

Jess: [quietly] Sorry.

Ev: Or I can but I can't communicate with them!

Drew: Oh dear.

Jess: Can I also just say, uh one thing we did talk about was that Hymn is the language of the Church of the Born, their like programming language is called Hymn. Like H-Y-M-N.

Ev: I, I thought it was more like, the language of religious things, because the Church of the Born, their whole thing is like, "we don't really do that," so... [laughs]

Jess: Okay, yeah, so maybe it's just that. Religious things.

Ev: Like Clerics use Hymn to do their shit.

Jess: Uhhh, oh, and I found the browser names for where you jack in. Uh, it's Reverie, which is like, Opera, and then Lotus and Morpheus are the ones we have already.

Drew: Uh, so this, uh, thing doesn't actually have anything about the duration of the spell or anything like that, in the Wiki.

Jess: Well, uh, we can just make up durations.

Drew: Kay.

Jess: [laughs]

Drew: We'll figure it out when I actually use it.

Jess: I figure that probably, yeah, it's probably just going to be as long as narratively relevant, so I might just cut it out at a slightly inconveniently time. Cause that's more interesting.

Ellie: Maybe it could be Luck dependent.

Jess: Oh shit yeah! That's a good idea.

Ev: [to Drew] You do have nice Luck.

Ellie: And I have terrible luck!

Ev: That's a great way to use that.

Jess: Yeah.

Ronnie: Also it's funny how the things that I'm interested in have snuck into this roleplay. I mean, rats is obviously one of them!

Jess: [laughs] It's not surprising.

Ronnie: Oh, but, since I'm actually reading through the AD&D book I have a second time, like highlighting shit, I'm just, the things that I've read are just coming into the...

Drew: The what book?

Ronnie: The ADD... the ADD book, sorry.

Drew: [laughs] The AD&D book!

Ronnie: Oh no! [laughs]

Drew: That's why I was asking what you said!

Jess: We're all... yeah.

Ronnie: The ADD book... uh, so I guess Zibyl has ADD traits now. [laughs] Because that's sort of what...

Jess: That's fair.

Drew: Can we go over talking about what my familiar does?

Jess: Oh yeah.

Drew: And like where...

Jess: Where is your familiar right now by the way?

Drew: I don't know! Um, I don't know what my familiar would look like right or anything. We could retroactively have my familiar on my shoulder. A small one?

Jess: Yeah. Or you could have it on your desk?

Drew: I, I could be so creepy, I'm like, "I have a rat familiar!"

Ronnie: Ahh!

Drew: Like a little rat!

Jess: Aw! [laughs]

Ronnie: See, I was thinking about, about Zibyl being like super fond of cats.

Jess: Ha!

Drew: But I feel like the cat wouldn't be the small one.

Ronnie: No, probably not a tiny one, unless it was a tiny cat.

Drew: I could have a squirrel!

Ronnie: Can I run a couple proficiencies past Jess?

Drew: I don't have my proficiencies...

Jess: Yes. You can.

Ronnie: Uh, proficiency in telling whether or not food is good?

Jess: [laughs]

Ellie: Like poison detection?

Ronnie: It's like, yeah, it's like poison detection, but it's like, people are like "That looks bad," and then it's like, "No, you'll only just get mild diarrhea, it's fine."

Jess: Ha!

Drew: Yeah, but that would require you to know other peoples' makeup if you can tell what's going to affect them. I can see how it would affect you, but then you'd have to know like everyone else's biological makeup to know how it affects them.

Ronnie: Hmmm...

Ellie: It could be through observation.

Drew: Yeah, it could be through observation, I just meant like you can be that specific in that sense.

Ev: It is though a pretty like, I mean you could be that specific just because it might not be, like, THAT useful

[laughter]

Ev: Like in general, like it's a very specific thing, you know? It's not like it's an overpowered trait or something, y'know?

Ronnie: [laughs] It's true.

Jess: I mean, it might not even be poison detection, technically. Like you can't tell if it's poisoned, but man, those eggs in the back of your fridge? You should really throw them out.

[laughter]

Jess: Oh! No! You know what this is? Like, I think it's a magic thing. Like, I think some of the ratfolk have this weird, like, inborn useless magic and yours is like, it's not even like because you can smell good, it's 'cause... you have like, a sixth sense of whether food has gone bad or not.

Ronnie: [laughs]

Drew: I feel like that's probably gonna bite Earl in the butt because he's gonna look through something and he's gonna want to eat it, and you're gonna be like "That'll make you sick!" and Earl's gonna be like "Fuck you!" and then eat it, and then he's gonna get sick, and he's gonna be like [dramatic gravelly sick voice] "Euurgh, I'm not sick, I dunno what you're talking about! I'm gonna go away now..."

[laughter]

Jess: I also like the idea of like just being able to sense that food is rotten is just kind of really annoying. Like, there's like a constant anxious "Oh shit, in the back of that fridge, it's got someone else's name on it, someone else has labeled it, but there is mould growing up the inside of it, oh god."

[laughter]

Ronnie: Yes.

Ev: And yet, like a totally useful skill if you're a little rat child!

Ronnie: Yes! And so I'm thinking that, and sewing, and... the other thing is... is just like able to sprint for a long time.

Jess: Real hard.

Ronnie: Like compared to other people. Just because, having to run from shit constantly. [laughs]

Ev: And four legs!

Ronnie: And so, and so, if something goes bad, he's just like gone. Bye.

Drew: So we get three, um, three proficiencies right?

Jess: I think you do, yeah, I think everyone at this level has three proficiencies.

Ellie: I get four!

Jess: ...Fuck you, Ellie. [laughs]

Ellie: Aw, whatever. [laughs]

Ev: Do you really or is that...

Jess: Druids get four, and Paladins start, like if we'd started at level one you'd have only gotten two.

Ev: Yeah I'm annoyed. Goddamn it, I chose the wrong class. It's okay, I'm gonna fight the heck out of everybody! Just gimme a minute! [laughs]

Jess: Let us pray.

Drew: Um, okay so I've got knots, like, as one of my proficiencies.

Ev: Catch.

Drew: Well, slash rope. Um, I want leatherworking to be one of my other ones, and then cooking.

Jess: Good. Yeah. Done.

Ev: [laughs] Oh my goodness.

Jess: Okay. Outro! This has been Dicey Situations! I'm Jess.

Drew: I'm Drew!

Ev: I'm Avery.

Ellie: I'm Ellie!

Ronnie: And I'm Ronnie!

Drew: [sarcastic] No you're not!

Ellie: Breaking it down now!

Jess: No!

[laughter]

Jess: This has been a podcast about a game that's kind of being made as we play. We'll find out. It should be fun. See ya next week! [Makes clicking noises, probably while doing finger guns]

[Music fades in]

Drew: [laughs]

Jess: [shyly] Stop laughing.

Ellie: [singing] Ba ba ba, ba ba bada!

[Music continues, then fades out.]

Drew: But before we continue, is this, are these mechanics popular, or are they unpopular mechanics?

Jess: They are really, really unpopular. They've been bullied in the past.

Ronnie: Awwww!

Jess: You NERD. I'm gonna bully Drew!

Drew: [laughs] Bring it on!

Ev: [laughs]

[bholenathvalsan]

A New Era Begins: The Horror Vivarium Dot Com!

I haven’t been blogging proactively in the last months as I used to be when I started writing on this blog, and that’s for a reason. I wanted to use a top-level domain on the blog.

I wanted to work on this blog and improve it. Soon after I began testing The Horror Vivarium with online tools I realized I’ll have problems with the standard subdomain given by tumblr.

Not one by several tools showed me that tumblr’s subdomains restrict aspects of SEO optimization. It’s always good to have as many SEO improvements implemented, on any website, if one wants to be found.

Some things that the tool sites advise to implement are things that don’t fit all sites, but a basic thing, like the domain name, to not have one after more than one year blogging can be interpreted poorly by others.

Uncertainties about Changing to a TLD

I don’t know how tumblr will do its magic, but I understand that it will. When the blog is linked to the top-level domain, anyone that finds me on tumblr will be redirected to the new URL without problems.

I guess it will be a perpetual redirect from the old domain automatically made by the platform’s CMS and that even the old RSS feed URL will work and subscribers will not lose the subscription?

This is something I have to watch because I’m not sure what happens. On top of that, don’t get me started in whatever automation and such I had linked to the old domain.

I don’t have the paltriest idea if the integrations with other apps will break and I’ll have to update the site’s domain in each one of them. We’ll see.

Kudos to Tumblr

I think tumblr as a CMS is a gas, thanks for giving us this for free.

Still, what makes the platform shine is the community. I’m delighted by how others express their love for horror esthetics and horror in general.

The only worry I experience pertaining horror persons and communities on the internet is not to be able to, in some way, go over everything, learn the basic facts of as much as I can, and be able to curate the best stuff and personalities out of the mountain that’s constantly being released.

I’m still trying to figure out horror content glut at the logic level. What to say of the way that has to be found to manage the constant flood of horror content on the web.

Horror on the web has needs that are yet to be met, and I’m going to try to make a list in this post. A list to which I’ll return and update as I continue to find out things that are required and still not fulfilled by a horror-specific solution.

Image Credit: Alvena Weezles

[badri2]

Awake always when it is late, obsessed with finding the way. Remembering not to lose touch with spiritual life along the way. To be rich and to only serve oneself — what is the use? This journey is for everyone not just me. As my wealth increases, so does my family’s. It’s important to give back to the community and help spread wealth across all zones of the city. Driving around Los Angeles doing food delivery, I get to see Bel Air and South Central the same day. Money really is everything. Some of us have this perception of money that is so negative because of how the struggle for money has left some of us so stressed and depressed. But money is not the cause of stress. That is like falling down on the way to take your medicine, and then blaming the medicine for your pain from falling when the medicine would have really made you better, if only you didn’t fall on the way. The best thing to do is to get back up and get that medicine. 

Money really is a great power, though— especially in the right hands. To see the development of these neighborhoods and a blending amongst the social classes in the upcoming years is something I am very excited about. With the development of online markets and the availability and relatively low cost start to developing online businesses, lower-income families can find new ways to bring in more wealth to their communities. I want to introduce classes to the general public of how to start your own online business. I have learned online and seen many mentors before me, and there are A LOT of classes already out there, many of which are being taught by people from the ages of 18-28. Seriously, there are a lot of young people doing this and many of them are making 6-figure incomes. Me, I am not making that at all. I actually have not even had my first sale yet, but I think that is what makes me different. From my constant failures and attempts, I feel like I am learning so much. I mean, I know those that have found success also had rough periods to get through, I’m not trying to “out-struggle” anyone here. But the point is, most that start writing about their journey start after they’ve made some money. Most have goals of becoming rich, buying their dream car, etc. I am on the same boat. I would like to also talk about and add how socially, we can as a team help teach those that may benefit from this the most. Like inner-city kids who come from poverty and just anyone that wants to sell online basically. 

Sales channels

Marketing strategies

—ads, engagements, promotions, influencers, sponsorships

Influencers- an influencer is someone with a large following and reach. Typically what you want to do is contact influencers either with a DM or an email and basically […]

Social Media Marketing

What already works: Instagram, FaceBook, YouTube

Potentially could work well: Reddit, SnapChat, Tumblr (I haven’t personally experienced marketing across these platforms)

Making your Brand

—what is a brand? 

Your brand should define you. It’s more fun that way. I mean, you could be a dude that sells women’s face creams, that he himself would never use, but if you’re good at selling that, then great— actually ya you could do that. Pretty good idea actually. Lol kinda went on a tangent. The point is you have to have a solid brand.

Some things I am researching— Graphic Design and hiring graphic designers (Logos)

Graphic Designers can make logos. Logos help define your brand and give your brand an image. A logo is how people will remember you better. One that stands out, that is not too complex, is better. Notice how companies like amazon have really simple logos. They’re not too many colors, and they usually follow a theme (orange and black, white). They’re consistent with that. That’s part of their image and their brand. 

A good domain name

— you need a solid domain name that is sustainable. That will be your store name forever. I’m still meditating on my perfect one… Typically you want a dot com name (unless you were a nonprofit, then dot org is good) I personally don’t really like the sound of most URL suffixes other than dot com. But that is just me.