#the main reason i don't follow some blogs if because i don't want to follow minors

[panfreaka]

please be careful running this sort of blog as a minor. things can go wrong really fast. you don’t know who cld be lurking. cosigned someone who had a similar blog when i was a minor and it ended up affecting me in the long run bc of the sheer shit people sent to me just bc they knew they could get awy w/ it anonymously. can i suggst maybe consider getting rid of anon? just a suggestion. take care.

Thank you for your concern! I do understand that this is a risk, and that I should be careful.

I take these asks with a grain of salt and if anything is too uncomfortable, I will simply delete it.

[lucalicatteart]

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 14: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should relax by spending his afternoon shopping ..

~

He trots down the mossy cobblestone walkway, gazing around in awe as he approaches the central hub of the small city. Tiny shops and stalls and carts are woven through the few clusters of taller buildings, with a modest crowd bustling back and forth between them. Despite much of the land being cleared for structures and pathways, it's still lush with greenery wherever it can be, every blank stone wall or street corner dotted with trailing vines and flowering fruit trees.

After spending a good 25 minutes trying to orient himself at the city map directory, he finally finds his way onto one of the primary shopping streets, eager to spend the afternoon lazily strolling about, trying to ignore his physical aches and just take in all the sights as he hunts for interesting items....

...A few hours (and multiple snack breaks) later, the streets begin to glow with a hazy warmth as lanterns are lit, marking the nearing sunset. Possibly because of the fight yesterday, he's felt shakier, more easily startled than usual, and suddenly realizes an urgent need to be safely inside his room at the inn before nightfall. He wanted to stay out longer, see the lights and the crowds, fascinating scenes of city nightlife he's never been exposed to before.. but, his nerves are impossible to ignore.

Begrudgingly preparing to slink off towards the inn in a sweaty anxious panic, he stops in the doorway, resolving to at LEAST buy himself ONE nice item before he leaves. He doesn't have much money, sure, but it'd be a shame to simply look around all day and not get anything. All travelers need to collect their souvenirs, right? But.. What should he get?

-

-

Additional Information (feel free to skip this part, it's just extra context for people who are interested lol)

just for record (in case it influences what people think he should buy), this is the adventurer's current inventory contents:

small journal + pencil to document his travels (and a few colored pencils for sketching plants or doodling)

a basic travel guide booklet

a simple map of the area

a small glass lantern case you can put candles in

fire starting materials

basic matches

first aid kid (a few bandages, simple antibacterial balm, some dried herbs that can be used for minor issues like stomach aches or nausea)

one metal cup, one metal bowl/plate thing, one metal fork/spoon, a cooking knife, and one metal pot for cooking over the fire

a basic toiletry bag (toothbrush, herbal mixture toothpaste type thing, bar of soap, one towel, a rag, a few disposable paper napkins, moisturizing oil, hair brush, a tiny cracked mirror)

three bottles of various spice mixes for flavoring the plain/bland food he usually forages on the road (+ plain salt)

a glass jar of berries

a container of plain dried oats

a container of dried beans

half a loaf of stale bread

one carrot he found

a bag of dried fruit

about 15 coins (maybe equivalent to $45 USD in our world money lol)

a basic fishing kit (simple lures, hooks, string)

two containers of canned fish just as a back up in case he ever can't find fresher food for the cat

a cheesy fairytale romance novel about people going on a grand heroic journey, to help give him inspiration to continue on his own travels and be the ultimate Super Cool Adventurer Hero

an old folded up letter from his family

a fabric pouch of cool shiny rocks + other trinkets he's collected

one change of underwear, one change of socks, + winter gloves

foldable saw

some twine/string

a basic sewing kit (2 needles, one spool of thread, a thimble)

lawyer's business card (from boat party)

lawyer's fancy expensive giant scarf (also from party)

1 lunchbox of vegetable dumplings (from Innkeeper)

2 canteens of water

a small dagger for cutting rope, vines, multipurpose anything

a little tin of mint & rose flavored candies for when his mouth gets dry

a box of cubed dried chicken as cat treats

a box of fancy tea

one large rope

a roll of fabrics (one thick blanket for padding when sleeping on the ground, some basic tent fabric to make shelter from, a few spare fabric scraps, 2 cloth napkin/towel things, two cloth sacks for extra carrying capacity if needed)

1 pouch of dried meat

5 candles

Innkeeper's hand-drawn map to her brother's hideout

and of course, the Mysterious Egg in a little wooden box

the adventurer's current main quest: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has

[aromantic-pantyanarchy]

It's me. I'm the cis, heterosexual, aromantic man. I will never marry, I will never be married, I will grow into middle age and elder age and I will die unmarried. I will be forced to support a household of myself on only my wages alone for the rest of my life. I will be asked about women and marriage and children by my family for the rest of my life (or men, the progressive ones might say). I may not ever come out to them. I feel like I burned my coming out on something stupid. I don't want to explain it. I don't want to run them through the definitions and intricacies. I don't want the acceptance without understanding, placating me with ceased questions and poor explanations to other, drunk adults.

I like my hair to be long, I spent a year with it dyed a golden blonde with dark roots because I like the trashy party girl aesthetic. I want to dye it again with pink tips. I like painting my nails, black and blue are my favorite colors. I like wearing chokers. I also like wearing baggy jeans and ratty hoodies. I like having stubble. I like having chest hair. I like having a square jaw and broad shoulders. I wish I had a flatter stomach and a thinner profile frame. I don't know what this makes me, perhaps this is something no more GNC than Machine Gun Kelly. I think about this a lot, how queer my appearance truly is. I should think about it less. I have thought long and hard about if I could be trans or if I could be non-binary or if I could be genderqueer and the conclusion I ultimately came to is that I most enjoy being a man open to whatever self-expression I want.

I don't date, but I've thought about it. I would like to meet people, and I would like to have sex with them. But I don't want to hurt them. I fear if I explain what I am beforehand it'll scare them away. I fear if I explain after they'll feel manipulated or abused. I don't know how many people in the dating scene want what I want. I fear my own lack of experience will make me a bad lay, an embarrassing story to tell to confidants in hindsight. I fear my own virginity, a boundary to those I wish to be like. All of these fears are baseless, as I've not been able to even begin a single relationship in my life. Despite this I still heavily identify with terms like "slut" and "manwhore" and "thot" because my interests lay so deeply within casual sex, sex without great intimacy or emotion. This may be some form of stolen valor. I hope the true sluts are not too mad at me.

I made this blog several years ago because a mutual of mine reblogged memes making fun of aro and ace people, making fun of the concept of aphobia, and in addition well known aphobes. I didn't feel comfortable talking about aro stuff on my main blog, for as little as I talk about it. Living through the ace discourse of the 2016 era has largely caused me to cringe in embarrassment any time I am forced to discuss my orientation with people who aren't aro or ace themselves. I no longer follow this person. I unfollowed many people I was mutuals with from that time, most of them because they posted too often about how much they hated men and I didn't want to see that, some because our interests simply drifted too far apart, only one for explicit aphobia reasons. (Also one because they became a "both sides are bad, any vote is wasted" libertarian, but that's unrelated.)

I guess at this point I don't care deeply about what strangers on the internet think of me. If a trusted friend told me that they don't think I'm truly queer that may hurt. But I am going to continue to use the word for myself. I take up no resources. I go to events that are open to me. If an event was not open to me, I think I'd not want to go anyways. I am not a hypothetical, I am not a strawman, I am a person with lived experiences both within and exterior to the queer community. If you hate me, I will permit you to continue to do so. But ultimately, I am who I am, I cannot change these facts, and I would not choose to do so even if I could.

[trafficblrpositivityproject]

some people on here don't need positivity asks. popular artists and writers for example. they get enough love, show love to smaller creators instead

Hello anon! You seem confused about how this blog works. Since it seems you are not aware, this is a submission-based blog! (✨0✨) Any person can submit anyone else, regardless of how "popular" that person is. The submission button is in fact the same button you hit to send me this unfortunate and rude ask!

I assume you are not aware of this, as this ask is the only ask you sent me. No other asks, on or off anon, came in alongside this ask. Especially not any asks sending in positivity for small creators, who you claim to be concerned about. But that cannot be right, because if that were true, I would have to conclude you do not actually care about small creators at all, and only want to complain about popular creators getting positivity, which would be not very nice!

Oh, and another thing. One of this blog's only rules is to not put down one member of this fandom in order to uplift another. I assume you did not read the rules in my description, since you did not know I am submission based, so I thought I would let you know!

Ah, but actually though.

"Popular" writers and artists are in fact also people who work hard and provide the fandom with amazing works. There are a lot of popular artists and writers whose work I genuinely admire, and I am happy to use this space to express this admiration. They deserve appreciation for what they do, and as long as people are willing to submit them, I am going to post them.

(Additionally, on an entirely practical level, who am I to decide when someone is "too popular" to be posted? I cannot see anyone's follower counts. This is in fact a main feature of tumblr. Would I just be going by guess? This seems an inefficient system.) (Not that I think you care about this. I assume you have a specific list of users in your head that you, personally, subjectively, do not like, and you want me to adhere to it for your petty grudge.)

One of the many, many reasons I started this blog was in response to how certain people use confessions blogs, where I saw space for people to post anons about how they disliked popular artists and writers, such as how they hated a certain person's art or writing style, often specifying those people by name on anon to a blog with many many followers, where that person will unfortunately see it.

Another of the many, many reasons I started this blog is for my friends who are on the more popular end of the fandom, and how people treat them directly. What they have shown me of their inboxes is nightmarish, with people being rude, entitled, or cruel, simply because they assume that people's humanity does not count after a certain amount of followers. And, in the interest of full disclosure, though I am not extraordinarily popular on my main account, I have gotten my own share of nightmare anons as well.

A third of the many, many reasons I started this blog is because I have seen tumblr users post about other tumblr users by name and how they do not like their art/writing/creations, do not think they deserve their success or support, or simply do not like them without ever even meeting them. They will then post those uncaring words in those user's tumblr tags, again where those people will see them.

All of this made me very sad, because it seemed like somewhere along the way, people seemed to forget those artists and writers are people. Being popular (or perceived as popular) in fandom comes with many benefits, this is true, but it also emboldens the absolute worst members of fandom to be cruel to people they think are an acceptable target.

None of this sort of attitude makes fandom a fun place to be. Fandom is meant to be a community, based in mutual love for the same story. It is meant for making art, or writing, or cosplay, or songs, or other creations. It is made for sharing those creations with strangers who love the same thing you do, and sharing excitement and passion with other fans. It is meant for making friends. It is made out of, and meant for, love. Fandom is not only made worthwhile, but kept alive, through our support for one another.

You may think me a popular artist/writer dick-rider for acknowledging the humanity and fandom contributions of popular creators. I do not mind. I am sorry for you that simply believing people should be kind to one another, or that artists and writers should be recognized for their hard work, is so skewed in your head. I will not apologize for being kind to people, or for providing a space for kindness.

Do not mistake my existence as a positivity blog for me being a pushover. I will absolutely not tolerate any of this sort of attitude on this blog. This is a blog based in kindness, and I will shut down any asks which aim to sow any sort of rudeness.

If you actually care about small creators, be the change you want to see. Submit small creators. I am literally constantly begging for submissions, and I would love for people to submit any and all creators, big or small. I myself have submitted plenty of anons about small creators to my own blog. One of the best parts of this blog is learning about lots of creators I would not have known about before because you all submit small folks. Our support for each other is not just fandom at its best. It is what fandom is for.

All this said. Do not be hateful slime in my inbox again. I do not want to block you, because I think you, too, deserve positivity, if you receive it. But I will block you if you persist. Thank you.

[catboybiologist]

So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

[obscurevideogames]

Tumblr’s Core Prodct Stratgy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on trying to keep our sinking ship afloat for as long as possible. This means desperately trying to copy every new fly-by-night social media app that some multi-billionaire sh*t out during their daily Peloton routine. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. If you find the things we say here worrisome, please understand that is our exact intention. You've outgrown our target demographic. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The Diagnosis

It's lookin' pretty bad y'all!

After somehow losing hundreds of thousands of users during the great pr0n purge of 2018, we started to wonder if anything could be done to get back to where we were. We even brought in a management consultant who charged us a ridiculous amount of money. It would make you sick if you knew how much, but we got a few nice meals out of it at least. Anyhow, we handed this guy the app, and HE HAD NO IDEA HOW TO USE IT! It was f*cking hilarious! But suddenly it all clicked -- our users are a bunch of stupid idiots who can't even do basic arithmetic. I mean, they spend all day looking at their phones, so what do you expect?

Tumblr’s best feature is its unique content and vibrant communities. But who cares, right? We're just as happy getting traffic from people sh*t-posting memes, vague-booking, giving out-of-context hot takes to news events, and spewing whatever random thought is in their head at the moment. Plus that stuff doesn't p*ss off Apple.

To keep this thing going we need new people. And by "people" we mean teenagers, like we used to have back in the good ol' days. Unfortunately we're all in our 40s now, so we have no idea what they want. But teenagers are so cool! Imagine if they talked to us like we're one of them? We're getting hard just thinking about it.

Our Guidng Principls

To make Tumblr cool again, we must address these huge glaring issues.

People can look at a blog without logging in. How is that fair to all the poor schlubs who had to fill out forms to get an account? Also we haven't figured out a way to force ads onto the personalized pages yet. But we swear that's not the main reason.

People can see content they are looking for or linked to. People can keep up with blogs they follow. But the problem with this is, people don't know what they want. We know what they want! We're smart. We wrote this damn site, remember?

Promote posts that incite pointless conversations. Posts that are guaranteed to bait every troll into responding. Isn't that why all your Magat relatives love Facebook so much? We can do that!

P*ss off your content creators in every way possible (see #2).

Create algorithms that throw an unending barrage of irrelevant content in your face. Have you seen Instagram lately? We could do that so easy!!!

The app is slow. The website is slow. Obviously this is because of GIFs. Facebook and Instagram don't allow them, so why should we?

Conclusion

Our mission changes on a day-to-day basis. Right now we're super jealous of all the attention that new Threads thing is getting. We're still not sure what it is, but we're gonna download it after work.

[randomreasonstolive]

Hello there all you lovely shining stars.

N here, with some pretty bad news...

(I'll put it behind a cut to avoid triggering anyone)

C is the person who actually runs this blog. He works tirelessly to make sure this blog always, ALWAYS has reasons in the queue in advance, just in case. There's currently over a month prepared, because he loves y'all, loves this blog, and loves to put in the time to help people.

C is a full-time care giver. At work, he care gives for three wonderful elderly ladies. When he gets home, he care gives for me, N, as I am disabled. And then, in his spare time, he care gives for y'all by working hard on this blog.

C is the most wonderful, amazing person I know, and it really baffles me that something like this could happen to someone like him.

Recently, C was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

We unfortunately live in America, where getting diagnosed with Cancer means a massive financial burden. Up until this point we've been doing very good financially, which has been a wonderful switch up from years ago, when we had to ask our community for help just to pay rent.

Now, I worry about our ability to afford things like food, basic needs, and rides to and from the hospital (we don't drive). His insurance company is refusing to pay for his treatment (yes, they're refusing to pay for CANCER treatments), and the minimal paid leave he is eligible for has had it's processing delayed.

Basically, we're financially struggling all over again, because C has cancer, and we live in America.

So what does this mean for y'all?

Well, as I mentioned, C always has the blog filled out ahead of time. He will absolutely make sure that the queue doesn't run out, so y'all don't have to worry about that.

I unfortunately do feel the need to reach out and ask for your help. It pains me to be put in this position again after years of not having to ask for help, but the current circumstances have really hit us hard.

So, what can you do to help?

Well,

Here is our Amazon wish list, if you'd like to help that way. We currently have some food and necessities on there;

Amazon Wishlist

Or, our paypal account is teamcibby@gmail.com

Currently, our biggest need is a new mattress, which is where any funds that go to our paypal will be headed.

C's cancer is the worst in his hips and our current mattress is such poor quality that I have to sleep on the floor. His doctors have insisted that good rest is important for him to heal, and he hasn't been getting very good rest on our current mattress. He wakes up every morning in more pain than he would if we had a good mattress, so getting one is our main goal.

I am so, so sorry to tell you all this bad news. C really didn't want to burden any of you with this, which is why I'm the one making this post.

We both love you all so, so much. Thank you to every single one of you for existing, you matter so much to us and to everyone who follows this blog.

~N

[mareastrorum]

Hello! I’ve been looking at your blog after Critical Role episodes for a couple of weeks now and I have to agree with you wholeheartedly about pretty much all of it. I wanted to ask you your opinion on the idea that a majority of us are calling Bells Hells the bad guys because all they’re doing is ‘wanting to dismantle the oppressive force that aims to destroy an entire established society of innocent people’. I’m having trouble understanding what oppressive force that is?

Thanks for the ask! There's two parts to this, so I'm going to address them separately.

First, there is no "oppressive force that aims to destroy an entire established society of innocent people." Like, the only group that came close to that in this campaign was the Weave Mind and the Imperium, which intended to take over Exandria in its entirety and subject the entire population to hivemind slavery--but Bell's Hells did little to oppose them. Vox Machina (backed up by an army) demolished the Imperium's main forces at the Exandrian base of the bloody bridge. The Mighty Nein killed the Weave Mind and then started mopping up their allies that remained on Ruidus. Bell's Hells did nothing to support that rebellion other than assist on a scouting/sabotage mission and then flee.

Otherwise, there is no force aiming to destroy society. Ludinus wanted Predathos out so it could eat the gods, and there was no intent about anything other than that. He did not care one way or the other about collateral damage. Predathos doesn't either, but it wants to eat, and we do not know what level of divinity is too small for it to prioritize. And let's be serious, unless a god flees and lures it away, there's no reason for Predathos not to look at a planet full of life and think, "Hmmm, it might not taste good, but I am so fucking hungry."

A good while ago, when the Hells had initially reached Vasselheim, I saw discussion of whether Vasselheim and other Exandrian forces intended to wipe out all Reilorans and other Ruidus-based species. I think Evoroa's plea and assistance made directly to the leadership of Vasselheim has already prevented that potential result. Of course, the Exandrians are working together as a collective of dozens of factions, and each of those has untold numbers of individuals working for them. It's possible some of them will insist on war anyway, but given the actions of the three campaign parties, I don't see that happening on an organized scale. Regardless, Bell's Hells aren't focusing on that right now, and nothing they could/would do with Predathos would affect that either.

The only other faction that comes close to that idea is the Betrayer Gods, but they don't care about society. They want genocide. They want to murder every single mortal in existence, and then torment their immortal souls for all eternity. I literally cannot overstate the disdain the Betrayers have for mortals. They are Exandrians' ultimate enemy. The Divine Gate is the only thing protecting mortals from the Betrayers, and it requires every god to unanimously agree to drop it. That is phenomenal protection. There's been no serious threat to it since its creation.

In particular, I want to highlight that "the gods" as a category of entity are not a united faction. The gods don't rule anything on Exandria--not even Vasselheim. That's a purely mortal project! Mortals decided to build a city dedicated to the gods, and given that it's filled with their followers, the gods have historically spent particular attention to protecting it. That makes perfect sense, and it doesn't mean the gods are in charge of it.

Obviously, there will be other factions across Exandria that could fit that bill, but Bell's Hells hasn't had to deal with them in this campaign. Like, chaotic evil factions exist, they're just not in this story right now.

Next, whether Bell's Hells are villains, bad guys, etc.

I've written up how I assess villains in my pinned post. That's my general approach to any type of story, whether it's interactive, written, oral, etc. It's a very broad overview of when is a villain an effective narrative device? I am rather harsh in my criticism of villains: if they didn't improve the story, they should not have been included at all.

We could cherrypick through the various episodes to come up with an argument that Bell's Hells are the bad guys, but my problem with them is that they aren't effective villains. A villain's primary purpose is to highlight a theme in the negative: what is the wrong thing to do in these circumstances, and why is that? The reason they aren't effective is that they don't have a motivating purpose.

Bell's Hells are a chaotic faction that consistently deviates from whatever is requested of them. They claim to be for the people, then denigrate and oppose every faction they've encountered. They claim to have changed their minds about some of the gods (the Matron and the Arch Heart in particular), then repeatedly ignore or contradict the plain statements told to them, but they still seek out the gods' instructions regardless. This carelessness or apathy makes it impossible to map a philosophy onto the PCs other than "I felt like doing it in the moment."

None of them have been able to articulate a reason that they chose this path. Maybe the players will come up with some hamfisted excuse next episode, but it's still going to be unsatisfying from a narrative viewpoint. This stream had hundreds of hours to show that and instead needs someone to say it in the last episode. It's terrible storytelling, and none of them could claim that it was impossible to see this confrontation coming. We've known it was coming since Ludinus successfully bridged Exandria and Ruidus. There was time, and it was not spent wisely.

Going beyond dialogue, there's no consistency to Bell's Hells's actions except the desire to kill Ludinus. That muddled any potential message that could be conveyed about them as villains in a story except "kill Ludinus in particular." We can't even say they oppose any existing hegemony because none has been established in Exandria. There's no racial, economic, social, religious, etc. group dominating the world. Again, as said above, the gods don't rule anything, and they're stuck behind the gate.

Any potential to build Bell's Hells into worthwhile villains was squandered. Everyone but Orym had an explicit, tailor-made opportunity to lean into their darker personality traits, and every one of them chickened out--except Ashton, who gave into his desire to be special and have power to lash out at people standing over him. Unfortunately, Ashton's attempt to absorb another shard of a primordial would have also broken the game on a D&D level, so that got reversed and reworked into a character moment that also had no lasting impact on his character arc. Ashton hasn't bothered exploring it since. That's really the core problem: every time the PCs had the option to pursue a villainous path, they ran the fuck in the opposite direction, then dithered about what to do.

Without conviction, villains are merely bullies. They're just here to be mean, stop other people from getting what they want, and jeer at others when they get their way. We saw that in this latest episode. There's nothing Bell's Hells wants. They don't even want to be involved. They're just doing it because they can't even commit to going home--because they're player characters in a D&D game, and the players didn't want to switch to new characters.

That makes for a terrible villain story. Like, once we see the final episode and all the PCs have had an opportunity to take action and speak on their own behalf, we'd be able to revisit this with more definitive statements. Unfortunately, I can't think of a single way this could go that would correct the flaws I've already listed. It's far too late to correct the characters' lack of direction to develop a coherent villain arc for any of Bell's Hells.

[becomingthatgirl111]

how to use social media and your phone in a positive way

if you want to improve or change an aspect of your life it takes your commitment to be consistent and make real changes. to start, take a piece of paper and answer these questions that will help you have a greater focus and be aware of what you want to change.

how much time are you dedicating to social media?

is it taking up your time?

what would you like to do with that time?

how much time would you like to spend on social media?

what content do you follow?

do you follow content that you consider harmful to you?

instead, what would you like to follow more? (for example, accounts that inspire you or help you to improve, can be about cooking or some hobby you have)

what app do you use most often?

how long do you use your phone?

would you like to use it less?

what habits/hobbies would you like to spend more time on?

now that you are more aware of this issue and how it may be affecting your life i'll share some tips to help you make your social media more secure and use it more positively.

stop following those accounts that are not giving you anything positive.

start following profiles of people who really inspire you or teach you something, for example about the topics you are interested in or the kind of person you would like to become and take them as an example.

set a time limit on the use of these applications, i.e. about 15 minutes a day for example. you can do this from the app itself or from "settings" on your phone.

follow positive content that resonates with you such as people sharing affirmations, success stories or even motivational speeches.

don't use your phone first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

download productivity apps on your phone, such as daylio, notion, habit, etc. with which you can log your days, have a record of your habits or even use them as to-do lists, there are many more of these types.

"i am" is an app that sends you positive affirmations every hour as a notification, it will help you to be centered.

if you do any activity leave your phone somewhere else or even if you are on the bus don't be stuck on your phone, allow yourself to enjoy the present moment.

use the internet to search for information on topics that interest you, either on youtube, blogs, podcasts…

block people or words that you know are not bringing you anything positive.

spend more time cultivating yourself instead of focusing on a world that doesn't exist in social media.

other things to consider.

what we see on social media doesn't have to be real, even if it is, don't compare yourself with those people. on the internet, everyone will want to give their best face and that doesn't mean it's reality, it shouldn't affect you either so forget about it and focus on your own path.

the real world is outside and not through a screen. live human experiences and try to do what makes you happiest every day.

on social media and internet we can find a lot of useful information, let that be the main reason why you use it, and stop wasting your time scrolling on tik tok.

my personal opinion.

the use of social media is not negative, but we have to control what we are consuming and how it is affecting our lives and the time we are spending.

it seems normal to be on the phone all day but this is not beneficial, there are more things to do in the real world and many people say they don't have time to do things when they are really wasting it with their phones.

you can look for information on things that are useful to you but leave your phone aside and start applying them to your life.

leaving all the social media aside has made me feel much better and even more liberated. you don't really need to see what's going on on the internet, because it's not important, there are more important things to live for out there, even more interesting people to meet.

create your world from the experiences you would like to live, the people you would like to share, the person you want to become, and focus on that, which is much more important. in the end, if you don't think about it, it doesn't exist.

[stromblessed]

jayvik shippers need to understand that non-jayvik shippers are annoyed with you not because of not shipping jayvik, but because there is no escaping you.

you clog every tag on every social media platform. want to look at caitvi? jayvik posts tagged as caitvi for some reason. want to look at viktor posts? jayvik. jayce posts? jayvik. want to look at mel posts? jayvik. anyone talking about mel and viktor in the same sentence is obviously secretly talking about jayvik. (and by the way here's why every mel scene is secretly about jayvik and every viktor scene is secretly about how all he thinks about is jayce and why mel is inferior and jayce was a good boy and was right all along). you dominate the discourse and don't give room for criticism of jayce or viktor's writing and don't tolerate other interpretations. every theme in the show was about jayvik all along.

on my main blog, i write fic and make arcane posts - not complaining, staying in my lane, making my own content for me and my friends - and my tags, comments, and replies are full of people talking about jayvik and asking about jayvik when the ship is not tagged or present in my posts or fics, and jayce usually isn't even tagged because i just don't have fun with him as a character right now, and all people want to talk about or comment on is him or jayvik. so here i am, venting on my sideblog

this is a curse i specifically bear and cannot escape because as a fan of the writing of these aforementioned characters SEPARATELY, any and every algorithm is gonna shovel piles of jayvik posts 10 feet deep right up against my front door, and everyone on tumblr is "tagging for visibility" or whatever so there's no escaping it here either. blocking and muting does not help because either jayvik isn't always tagged, or jayvik is tagged at random and i end up hiding swathes of posts i actually do want to see. and there is also the fact that i WOULD be into jayvik because i do think it's fun, i WOULD have more fun discussing jayce specifically as a character who i think is a very fun hot mess, if social media wasn't making me despise both with a burning passion right now, which sucks

the only haven is Ao3 because people are still slightly sane when tagging their fics - at least with the relationship tags. jayvik shippers you do need to stop tagging mel though along with any other character who doesn't affect the plot of your story and i am dead serious

this is a vent post but i am also declaring - the reason why people are frustrated and annoyed at jayvik at large, as a concept, even if you yourself are a chill shipper and you don't see why we all can't just get along, is because the collective has poisoned the well and it's not fun for other people to be in the same space as you right now. there are a lot of you - be glad of that and happy, not every fandom let alone ship gets this large and energetic a following - but don't be surprised that people like me are gonna be mad because. it is irritating. and you're everywhere. and unfortunately there's nothing that any one person can do about it. it is an environmental thing and you just. need to come to terms and be aware, idk

[timeflow]

good evening reddit users, welcome to the website. not seen one of these that tells you how to make this website bearable so here goes

starting off with dashboard settings you want to turn off endless scrolling (it slows down the website after a while of scrolling), turn off shorten long posts because one of the main things about this website is the total lack of a character limit (as an alternative to this setting, you can press j to skip to the next post on the dashboard if the current one is kind of long). turning on timestamps is convenient because it allows you to check when a post was made (don't get me wrong: this website absolutely LOVES reblogging old posts, but there are times when it's worth checking if a post has very old news in it)

turn off best stuff first right away. one of the main reasons cited for joining tumblr is because "there is no algorithm". this is not entirely true, we have one but we routinely turn off anything algorithmic that staff adds. turning off best stuff first means your dashboard will be reverse chronological no matter what, and turning off based on your likes and stuff in your orbit will get rid of the rest of the algorithmically-recommended content that appears on your dashboard

following tags is nice because you will occasionally see posts with tags you follow sprinkled into your dashboard. this is considered good because it's almost always recent, I personally recommend turning on include followed tag posts and just following a bunch of random tags that you think could be interesting (characters, media, topics, whatever)

this one's a more personal thing but I would absolutely turn off any community labels because tumblr staff has recently been just putting a bunch of random posts under this despite being entirely sfw. if you ACTUALLY want to filter content, then go to filtered tags:

unlike the community labels which are put arbitrarily by staff, tags are put on by the actual users and so you can MUCH more reliably filter out content you don't want to see by putting filtered tags. this also works for any kind of content unlike the community labels, meaning you can just filter out stuff that you don't want to see (a particular character, a particular piece of media, a certain topic, anything you want really)

turn on custom theme immediately. the standard view of tumblr.com/url will give people who are not logged in a forced login wall, meanwhile url.tumblr.com will not. by doing this you also get access to your post archive at url.tumblr.com/archive, which lets you look through your posts more easily (the search function is awful). the main benefit of this, however, is that you get to have a custom look to your blog: going to edit theme brings up a menu that allows you to customize your css, add pages to your tumblr blog, etc. all very useful stuff

it's also worth taking the time to consider whether or not you leave your liked posts and list of blogs you follow public (most people have likes turned off, following is also commonly turned off but I personally don't care about others seeing who I follow)

turn off the let people blaze your posts. blaze basically allows you to pay money to show a post to a random group of people by paying money, suffices to say that allowing others to blaze your posts without your consent will inevitably lead to one of your personal posts getting blazed by some prick and now hundreds of people have seen it

asks are one of the main ways of interacting with blogs so absolutely turn them on. whether you allow anons is your choice, anonymity allows people to say nice things without feeling embarrassed about how everyone knows who said that, but it also allows people to send hateful stuff with no consequence.

submissions are like whatever. I personally leave them on but in my 5 years of having this blog I've been submitted to twice.

to close off this post I'll leave my personal thoughts on reblog etiquette:

reblogging is great. reblog the fuck out of anything. does the post amuse you slightly? reblog it. go wild

that being said please don't put anything in your reblogs unless it's like a really important comment. your comment will be immortalized forever if someone reblogs the post from you and on popular posts I have to constantly go back a couple years to get rid of an annoying comment like "LOL THIS IS SO FUNNY" because that person didn't realize that their addition was wholly unnecessary

if you DO want to add something to say your thoughts on the post in a quiet voice that doesn't get permanently added onto the original, consider talking in the tags of your reblog. this is considered nicer since when the post is reblogged from you your tags are not going to stick around. there is also this process known as "peer review" in which if your tags are sufficiently funny one of your followers (or sometimes a random person browsing the notes of the post) will screenshot/copy and paste your tags into a reblog, which is a much more natural way of having your comment added into the post

tags are also nice to use or organizational purposes. clicking on a post with a certain tag on your blog will show you every post with that tag on your blog allowing you to find posts later, alternatively you can go to url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/[insert tag here] to a similar effect.

that's all I have to say on this subject. have fun on our glorious website

edit: oh yeah also unfollow staff. it will make you look normal 👍

[unforth]

Alright not to like liveblog my breakdown on main but yesterday was a really bad day after a really bad, like, 4 months, and I've hit a bit of a breaking point and one of the only things in my life that can give is running @mdzsartreblogs , @tgcfartreblogs , @svsssartreblogs , @erhaartreblogs , @tykartreblogs , and @cnovelartreblogs , so that is what has to give. It's been a 99-out-of-100 days thankless job. A small number of people do say thank you and yall I appreciate you so much (HUGE shout-out to the artist I met at Flamecon who gifted me a zine when I said I ran these blogs, @bonesblubs you rock) but I have never done an act of fandom labor simultaneously this labor intensive yet this invisible before and, uh. It sucks. I spend an hour or more a day on this every day, if it's under 2k hours since I started the first of these in September 2020 I'd be shocked. And I do it because I love it but doing it means I don't have time or energy to do other things I love. And I really don't want to just quit, but I can't keep this up.

In a last-ditch effort to try not to just give up, I'm making the following changes:

1. Only watching one tag per fandom for the MXTX fandoms. I am going to check *only* #tgcf, #svsss, and #mdzs. Artwork posted to any other tag, I will not see unless a mutual reblogs it.

2. Reduced tagging (even more). I'm only going to tag characters and maybe overarching au type (eg, "modern au," "fantasy au"). I'll no longer tag creatures. I will continue to tag the same common trigger warnings I already tag.

3. If a work's appearance doesn't make it obvious what it is AND the tags aren't clear, I'm not going to reblog. I can't keep spending 5 minutes or more trying to figure out what I'm even looking at, scared that if I guess wrong the artist will get mad at me for mistagging their work. If I do reblog, I'll tag only the artist name and/or whatever else I can identify for sure.

4. I am no longer going to follow #link click. The fandom is just too big. I've started dreading checking it. If I was more into it and less busy I would make another spin off just for it but neither of those is true. (The art is so good, I hate to do this, but. If you love link click, highly recommend the main tag, lots of great stuff there.)

5. I will no longer tag any non-cnovel content in the art/post. Like, if someone draws, idek, Xie Lian and Marinette from Ladybug, I'm not gonna put any tags for Marinette, just for Xie Lian.

6. Basically if I run into something hard to tag or confusing or unclear, my new policy is I'm not gonna fricken bother.

I think those are everything but idefk, I cried for 3 hours last night and got 4 hours of sleep so I'm mostly fueled by exhaustion and desperation right now and my memory is even more fried than usual.

How artists can help. This is obviously all optional. You do you. But since some people might want to know what would make my life easier, I'm sharing. I'm not claiming I feel entitled to dictate how people fandom or anything like that.

1. Put the tags for the character(s) and ship(s) early in the tag list.

2. If you make art for a fandom that isn't one of the big ones (right now the only big danmei fandoms on tumblr as far as I can tell are the MXTX fandoms and maybe 2ha) I am begging you to use my tracked tag #cnovelartreblogs

3. Do mdzs art? Tag #mdzs. Do tgcf art? Tag #tgcf. Do svsss art? Tag #svsss.

4. Not only artists, but everyone, *please* stop tagging fandoms not discussed and/or depicted in your post. It's gotten to be stupid common for people to blanket the danmei fandom tags with posts only about one fandon (like, svsss-only works also being tagged mdzs and tgcf and 2ha for some damn reason). This isn't about just my sideblogs tbh this is just fandom etiquette that seems to have been forgotten or never learned by many. Tagging unrelated fandoms isn't "reach," it's annoying. People go into the #mdzs tag to see mdzs, not whatever not-mdzs stuff people have decided to tag for ~reach~, and seeing the same post in 8 tags, none of which it's related to, is so damn irritating, and makes scrolling the tags looking for content that IS relevant take that much longer. Knock it off.

Okay. I think that's as much as I'm prepared to meltdown where everyone can see. Thanks in advance everyone for your understanding, and apologies to everyone about to see this 8 times as I reblog it to each sideblog.

At least I'm not tagging it to everywhere. 🤣🤣🤣

[toxicanonymity]

For context, a tumblr account has been posting anon hate for the past week or so, mostly toward writers. A parasocial hater of mine discovered the account and has been going to town. I posted this after they invoked Israel as an analogy. Yes really.

Obviously I am disgusted by what I just read, and floored that anyone would post such a deranged analogy in the interest of stirring up fandom drama. I'm very sorry to everyone who has been attacked and everyone who has witnessed all this. Others have posted about the situation as a whole, and I'm not sure what I could add. But I want you to know many of these "confessions" are from one individual who has been fixated on me (and probably others) for weeks if not months. I already had the following in my drafts:

warning: please don't read this if you're sensitive to hate or could be triggered by the trivialization of real abuse. (edit: they went on to trivialize genocide too but they'll pretend to be different people). there's also a really gross anatomical reference.

the screenshots are all after I blocked them.

I normally don't address things like this, but that's because I'm trying to keep it off your dash and off my blog (for several reasons including not wanting to give the hate a larger audience for their message). Normally I block/delete. But thanks to a blog dedicated to posting anon hate, some of this is already on the dash, and I thought some additional context could be illuminating.

a couple weeks ago, this person chimed in on my non-fandom post, and their comment made me uncomfortable. I checked to see if they followed me and they didn't, plus their blog tagline was antagonistic. I was confident they weren't being earnest. I replied, pointing out my issue with their comment and asking them to keep their thoughts to themselves rather than coming at me from a sideblog. I thought they must have followed me from a main account since they somehow found an untagged, unreblogged post without following me. But I now realize they were simply hate checking my blog.

(Blocked the burner too)

They were saying this last bit preemptively - I've never talked about stalkers here. I didn't include all their anons, just enough to show they clearly out themselves as being the same person. In other "confessions," they make repeated references to a former fandom writer they idolize (not me) who they also posted about on their blog.

I won't be dropping this creep's url in this post, but I had never heard of them. This week they have repeatedly changed their url, display name, and blog appearance. Their writing is recognizable and I believe they are responsible for the unhinged asks preceding katy's departure from tumblr. They also made a rude comment on her post.

This may only aggravate them. I expect them to hurl any lies and accusations they can think of toward me. They will act like they're laughing and amused, too. You may recognize their tone. I want to trust this fandom not to believe and repeat anything they hear, but unfortunately my experience in this fandom leaves me pessimistic.

I can only hope people use common sense at this point.

Note - I know I'm normally really private about everything, but you're welcome to share this. Their lies are already out there anyway. Also feel free to DM me and I will tell you what you want to know.

Update: the anon-hate account referred to above has deactivated. It was named pedgeconfessions. It wasn't the first to pop up this summer and may not be the last.

[linawritestwst]

(a very late valentine's day special) how twst characters would fall in love with you!

okay, so when i created this blog last year, i didn't have much time to write something for valentine's day, but i thought that i should try and write something for it this year!

at first i wanted to write something like "how twst characters would confess their love for you", i wanted it to be a reference to the "how twst characters would react to your love confession" series i made back when i just created this blog and i still only have the heartslabyul, savanaclaw and octavinelle hcs. i am sorry. but to be honest, i didn't have a lot of ideas and it was hard to find inspiration, so i decided to go with something different. but who knows, maybe i'll actually write it one day! also i know that this idea is very basic and i'm sorry.

this post has all nrc students (except ortho) + rsa and nbc characters, so GET READY BECAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE A VERY LONG POST.

also i'm having some really bad internet problems rn and even though i can use mobile data, EDITING ON MY PHONE IS A PAIN. I CAN'T DO ANYTHING. and idk when wifi will start working again and i'll be able to use my computer again, so sorry if this post looks weird, has typos and stuff like that, I JUST WANT TO POST IT ALREADY. I'M SICK OF SEEING IT IN MY DRAFTS.

heartslabyul.

riddle rosehearts.

♡ he doesn't understand you at all. you should be afraid of him, you should actually hate him for what he did and how he acted earlier. he was the first to overblot in front of you, he's sure it was quite a traumatic memory from you. and it's not like he treated you better than he treated other nrc students, he was just as willing to punish you for any "misbehavior". so why.. why do you still want you and riddle to become closer? you simply don't think that riddle actually had bad intentions, he just genuinely thought that everything will be okay if he just follows the rules and makes others follow them. so.. you don't think he's a bad person or anything like that. just someone who has a lot of issues and doesn't know how to deal with them properly. and after you say that.. riddle starts feeling very strange.

♡ falling in love with you feels so sudden, riddle doesn't remember being this interested in you when he first met you. he has to admit that he even kind of.. looked down on you back then and didn't think you were that special. though the case of you being the only magicless student here really was special. he also was angry at you because of you being so close with ace and deuce.. but now, he feels different. as he learns more about you and starts getting used to your company, he realizes that he actually likes you a lot. he even admires you, because it must be hard to deal with so much stuff as someone who's magicless he's sorry for being the first to overblot btw. he's always here if you need any help.

♡ why did he fall in love with you? well, you're certainly a very smart, strong and kind person, but the main reason was.. he was just happy to be understood by someone. he didn't expect you out of all people to forgive him, but it sure was a nice surprise. you're always here to calm him down when he's close to using his unique magic or yelling at someone for breaking the rules again, however, you don't blame him for acting like that and you say that his feelings are valid, he just has to find a better way to express them and process them. so.. it probably just feels nice to be seen as someone other than a rose-red tyrant.

ace trappola.

♡ as someone who said some pretty bad things about you and grim when you first met.. wow, it feels embarrassing to admit that he has a crush on you now. imagine making fun of a magicless human and then falling in love with them. yeah, that's ace. so, how did it happen? he's not sure when exactly he got feelings for you, it just.. happened. you two became so close, he actually couldn't imagine spending a day without you. everything just feels so boring when you're not around. pranking you or showing off to you or just talking to you makes his day, even if it's just you going "ACE D:<", he loves seeing your reactions.. and maybe, he loves you.

♡ it's hard to notice him acting any different when he's in love with you, but if you pay closer attention, you can see him blushing after you praise him for something or you can notice him asking you to hang out with him more often. he also sometimes freezes for a moment when you call him your friend, it's almost like he's asking you ".. but are you sure you don't wanna be more than friends?". but right after that, he goes back to his usual behavior and he's surprisingly good at hiding his crush on you.

♡ falling in love with you feels fun and kinda sad at the same time, because even though ace tries so hard to act confident and he claims that you love him just as much, he's actually not sure if you love him back or not. he doesn't mind being seen only as a friend, being friends with you is cool, but also.. yeah, he wants more. and he's not sure if he's ready for a serious relationship, considering what he did in the past to that girl he used to date. he knows that he would never do that to you, because you're so much cooler than that girl and you're much more interesting, but he also doesn't want to let you down. but if you do love him back.. he will try his best to treat you right, though it doesn't mean that you will be safe from his teasing and his pranks.

deuce spade.

♡ out of all the heartslabyul boys, i imagine deuce being the one to get a crush on you earlier than all the others. you're just so nice and sweet and understanding.. you also didn't judge him after you heard about his past and even said that you're proud of him for trying to change and become a better person. after that, deuce couldn't get your words out of his head and became extremely loyal to you, he's always here if you need any help and he feels so happy when you praise him or want to spend time with him.

♡ it's very easy to notice him having a crush on you, honestly. he tries really hard to hide it, but he fails and ace laughs at him every time. he can't say anything properly when you compliment him or smile at him and he starts stuttering, giggling like an idiot or he simply runs away and ends up tripping and falling. it makes him even more cute though and you can give him more attention to get more reactions like that from him or you can pretend not to notice on purpose.

♡ falling in love with you feels like something completely new and that's understandable, deuce has never experienced a feeling like this before. and even though at first it was just a very huge crush, now it actually feels like something more deep, it's like.. he really is in love with you. spending the rest of his life with you sounds scary and he's not sure if he's ready for something like this, but when he imagines it, it makes him feel soft and even kind of excited. he will understand if you reject his feelings, he has not the best past, but if you say yes to him, he will try to become the perfect boyfriend for you. he already knew that he wants to become a better person for his mom, but now he has two people in his life that he wants to change for.

cater diamond.

♡ when cater first met you, he thought you were cute but.. that was it. he didn't think much of you, honestly. don't get him wrong, he thought you were very cute and he would love to be friends with you! but.. he really didn't think that he's gonna fall in love with you later. he just enjoyed hanging out with you, talking to you, he loved the way you smile, he loved the way you laugh and.. wait, that's just him thinking you're cute, right? but not, like, in that way, right? because cater doesn't think he's quite ready to admit that he has feelings for you.

♡ cater is not sure how exactly it happened and why he got a crush on you. it's like.. he just feels more safe around you. it's like he can actually show you his real self and you won't judge him. of course, he's still not sure that you would actually be okay with him acting like his real self and he doubts that you would even like that side of his.. but for some reason he still feels like he can trust you. so he may or may not drop a few hints that make you go "cater. dude. are you okay." no, y/n, he's not okay, this poor man needs a hug.

♡ falling in love with you feels exciting and terrifying at the same time. cater feels truly happy when he's with you, he manages to forget about his problems at least for some time and his smile looks a lot more sincere than usual. but he's also.. scared. he doesn't think that you will love him back once you find out about his real personality, maybe you will accept it, sure, but would you really want a boyfriend like that? honestly, he should be grateful for you wanting to spend time with him even when he's being his "fake" self. he shouldn't ask so much from you, he should thank you for even just being friends with him. so whenever cater hears you laugh at his jokes, he feels genuine happiness but only for a second before he remembers that you will most likely never love him as much as he loves you. or will you?..

trey clover.

♡ just like cater, trey thought you were a nice person, but he didn't think you were.. you know.. his future love or something like that. he thought you were cute and he was always there to suggest his help if you needed it, but he really just thought that you two are gonna be friends and that's all. okay, maybe you two will be close friends. like, very close friends. but that's it. trey gave you so much attention and he had a habit to get a little bit too worried about you for no reason at all, but he thought that you're just.. well.. another younger sibling figure to him (your actual age doesn't matter). why else would he care so much about you?

♡ but oh no. it looks like you're actually something more to him. you're not just another younger sibling figure going "trey, i need your help!! ><". he would seriously think that he just likes you platonically and if it wasn't for cater, he would never realize that he actually likes you romantically. so what if he blushes a bit when you compliment his baking. so what if he thinks about you so often that it distracts him from his vice dorm leader duties. so what if he imagined spending the rest of his life with you- okay. okay, he understands what cater means now. maybe he really is in love with you.

♡ falling in love with you feels confusing for sure, but it also feels soft and sweet. trey may be a local mom friend who's always here to help his underclassmen out, but he has no idea what to do with his own feelings. should he just confess to you already or should he wait a bit? wait, do you even love him back? he has so many questions but almost no answers. but if you do love him back, trey will most likely notice it eventually. he's a smart boy, he had no idea that he actually has romantic feelings for you, but if you have a crush on him, he will definitely find out about it and when he does, he might start teasing you even more often.

savanaclaw.

leona kingscholar.

♡ oh boy. this guy definitely didn't expect to fall in love with you. no, he didn't expect to even become friends with you. you were just a weak little herbivore to him, nothing special, nothing out of ordinary. you were very a bit annoying sometimes too. but when you started saying things like "i want to get to know you better" or "i want to talk to you more".. that's when leona got very confused, though he didn't show it. why would you say things like that? what do you even want from him? is it because he's a prince? oh well, sorry to disappoint you, but he's actually a younger- "i just want to know why you're so lazy all the time.".. okay, this wasn't the answer he expected. he will tell you to go away, but don't pay attention to that, he's actually more interested in you now.

♡ leona just can't understand why you're like this. why do you spend so much time with him? why can't you just let him nap in peace? he actually jokes about you having a crush on him once and he expects you to go "h-how can you say things like that so casually!..". but you manage to surprise him again. "well what if i do? what are you gonna do then, huh?" okay, maybe he did underestimate you a little. just a little bit. you're slowly becoming more and more interesting and he hates to admit that he wants to know more about you. why? well.. he wants to know why you're so annoying all the time.

♡ falling in love with you feels weird, but also surprisingly entertaining. leona never knows what you're gonna do next and for some reason he even finds it exciting. he somehow manages to act like a tsundere and flirt with you at the same time. yes, he will go "ugh, why do you have to ruin my day like this" whenever you step on his tail while he's asleep, but he also will say things that make other savanaclaw students think that he's about to confess his feelings for you OR you two are actually already dating. does he know that he's in love with you though?.. he will need some time, but he will eventually realize it. and he's not gonna be happy about it.

ruggie bucchi.

♡ ruggie didn't really pay much attention to you at first, but he has to say that you're really fun to mess with. he never gets bored of seeing your reactions and sometimes he would steal stuff from you just to make you look at him. he knows that it probably sounds weird, but don't worry, he definitely doesn't have a crush on you, haha.. hey, why are you being so kind to him? why do you cook/buy food for him? why do you keep asking him if he needs any help? ah, maybe you just want a favor from him? you want him to help you with something, don't you? why would you have any other reason- "i'm just worried about you, that's all." oh no. oh no he's about to catch feelings.

♡ your kindness scares ruggie a bit, but he also keeps wanting more. he doesn't understand your motives, he doesn't understand why you're so worried about him. you just say things like "oh, i thought you were tired from doing leona's job all day" or "i thought you looked tired, so i just want to help you out, if that's okay". they may sound like nothing special, but ruggie feels weird whenever he hears you say stuff like that. he just jokes about you being too pure for someone like him, but he's actually kind of serious about it. are you sure you want to be friends with him? or.. maybe you're actually in love with him? don't worry, he's just joking around~

♡ falling in love with you feels fun at first, but it slowly starts becoming more and more scary when ruggie realizes just how deep and strong his feelings are. it's not just a small crush, he really is in love with you. he can't stop thinking about you and not a day passes without him wanting to see you. it feels strange to be treated so well without any reason at all, but ruggie just can't say no to your kindness. even though he keeps trying to make it look like it's nothing serious and you're just friends, he's actually this close to crying because he feels like he will never have a chance to be with you and you will never love him as much as he loves you. why would you even have feelings for him anyway?

jack howl.

♡ savanaclaw boys wouldn't find you that special when they first meet you and jack is not an exception. he thought you still have a long way to go and you have to put more effort in what you do. he also thought you looked too weak and "fragile", so he made sure to remind you to train more often, if you can, or to just take better care of yourself. i-it's not like he's worried about you. it just bothers him that you always look so tired all the time and it doesn't look like you get enough sleep too..

♡ however, you manage to impress jack and he's surprised to find out just how hardworking you really are. no matter what happens or how hard your life in twisted wonderland may get, you still try to achieve your goals. sure, you may whine a bit and say that it's unfair for a magicless human like you to go through so much, but you still do what you have to, no matter how weak you look. jack sure finds you more impressive than leona and he doesn't even notice how fast he starts to admire you and even fall in love with you.

♡ falling in love with you doesn't feel like something special because jack isn't even aware of his own feelings at first. he just thinks you're very cool and he respects you a lot and wishes to help you whenever he can. he just always wants to be by your side and support you when you need it. you're much stronger than he thought you were when you two just met, but he still thinks that in a world like twisted wonderland.. you deserve to be protected. and he's more than willing to protect you from whatever life throws at you. he realizes that he's actually in love with you when he notices that he feels a bit weird when you're around. this feeling is warm, but also so confusing.. and whenever you say goodbye to him, he doesn't want you to leave. b-but that's just because he admires you a lot, right?

octavinelle.

azul ashengrotto.

♡ azul didn't think you'd be that useful to him at first. it's not like he can make a deal with you or take your magic.. but still, being friends with a ramshackle prefect might actually help him in the future. so yes, he will try to become closer with you anyway. he's sure it will be easy to make you trust him, he just needs to make you believe that you can rely on him and who wouldn't want to have a friend like azul in such a scary world, especially as a human who has no idea how twisted wonderland works?.. well, it's actually not as easy as azul thought it would be.

♡ sure, you do want to become friends with him, but whenever he tries to help you with whatever you're struggling with (for a price, of course) or he tries to make himself seem as a kind person who genuinely wants to help others, you simply go "thank you, but i'm fine".. what do you mean, you're fine, y/n, he knows what crowley makes you do, just ask azul for help already! but as time passes, azul starts to notice that he actually wants to help you not because he needs you to make a deal with him.. but just because he really does feel bad for you and he wants to make your job at least a bit easier.

♡ falling in love with you feels strange and unexpected, azul wasn't prepared for this at all. he didn't think that he would actually become so attached to you, you were supposed to be another student who he can manipulate, so why do you feel like one of the most important people in his life now? he doesn't think that it's love at first, him thinking of you as his actual friend is already too much for him.. but then his overblot happens. and you forgive him for everything. and you tell him that no matter what, you accept him and even though he still has some.. um.. not so good qualities to work on, you'll be there to help him and support him. okay, maybe he actually is in love with you.

jade leech.

♡ jade thought you were an interesting and unique person right when he met you for the first time, but you were just that: an interesting and unique person. nothing more, nothing less. he would love to know more about you though, so don't be surprised if he starts talking to you more often or asking you more questions. this man wants to study you in a lab, okay. oh, and even though he sure does seem suspicious, he actually doesn't have any ulterior motives, unlike azul. he just can't go "hey, i like you, let's be friends', no, he has to act like his usual self that sometimes seems more dangerous than floyd.

♡ he doesn't even notice falling in love with you, but he sure notices becoming more interested in you for some reason. he always wants to know what you're up to, he wants to know more about your interests and he's always here if you need someone to talk to, whatever the topic is. he only starts thinking more about his feelings for you when floyd mentions jade being "totally in love with you". jade thinks floyd is just joking at first, but then floyd says that he was serious and jade's crush on you is more obvious than he thinks. and the funny thing is that.. jade is surprisingly casual about it. he just goes "oh. so i have a crush on them. okay". he never felt like this before, so he's a little confused, but it's not like he's about to have a breakdown because he just realized he's been in love with you this whole time.

♡ falling in love with you feels sweet and exciting. jade just thought you were a fun person when he first met you, but now it's hard for him to imagine his day without you. you've made him feel emotions he has never/rarely felt before. it's so unusual for him to worry about you, laugh at your jokes or be angry at someone who ruined your day. and trust him, all of those emotions are sincere. he's not pretending, you really made him feel all of this and even though he's not used to feeling this way, he can't wait to find out what else you're going to make him feel.

floyd leech.

♡ just like his twin, floyd already thought you were interesting when he just met you. he always followed you everywhere, he kept pranking you just to see your reaction and he thought that you getting annoyed with him was cute. and he found you even more interesting after he realized that even though he kept messing with you, you still let him hang out with you and didn't ask him to leave. huh, so you actually like his company, shrimpy? well, he's glad to hear that~

♡ floyd's feelings for you don't feel like a crush at all at first. he just thinks you're cute and that's it, really. but for some reason, he really hates it when he has to leave or when you don't give him enough attention. sometimes he takes a break (he doesn't tell azul anything though) from his work at mostro lounge just to hang out with you and he feels bored whenever you're not around. he has no idea why he feels like this, but.. who knows, maybe he really does like you, hehe.

♡ falling in love with you feels fun and full of surprises. floyd has never felt this way before and even though this feeling can be kinda annoying sometimes and it doesn't go away, he wants your relationship to become deeper and he wants to have more fun with you. just being friends is not enough for him anymore. you became an irreplaceable and extremely important part of his world and he hopes you feel the same about him.

scarabia.

kalim al-asim.

♡ kalim is kinda oblivious when it comes to crushes.. no, he's very oblivious. he really does believe he just likes you as a friend and even though it's true at first, as time passes, literally anyone can see that kalim treats you even better than people who he calls his friends. and considering how kind and friendly he is, this guy basically never leaves you alone even for a second and you get gifts from him every single day. he's constantly trying to come up with ways to make you happy and he thinks you have the most beautiful smile in the whole world. but yes, he definitely doesn't have a crush on you <3

♡ you and kalim would most likely have that friends to lovers dynamic. he's very easy to get along with and even though his energetic personality may be overwhelming sometimes, if he sees that you're tired or sad, he will tone it down a bit and ask you what's wrong. if you're not doing so well, he will genuinely worry about you a lot and he's okay with doing anything to make you feel better. he doesn't understand why your happiness matters to him so much, but.. maybe he just doesn't like it when someone is sad. and when YOU are sad, he feels like it's the end of the world and he has to do something about it immediately.

♡ kalim almost doesn't notice falling in love with you. he just thinks your friendship is becoming stronger and that's it. it's okay if he wants to hug you for a little bit longer, that's just because you're his best friend! it's okay if he wants to hold hands with you, he just doesn't want you to get lost and he's worried about you! it's okay if he wants to kiss you- oh. uh.. oh, you know, he means it in a platonic way! it's not like friends can't kiss each other! but if he actually wants to be more than friends with you.. would you be okay with that? wait, what is he even supposed to do with his feelings? maybe he should ask jamil for advice..

jamil viper.

♡ jamil's case is actually even worse because if kalim at least knows that you two have a good relationship and that you are friends, jamil is like "?? idk who you are to me. can i trust you. can i call you my friend". he thought you were okay when he first met you, but didn't pay too much attention to you, though he certainly appreciated you being.. you know, a more "normal" person than most nrc students (especially kalim). he actually feels like he can rely on you, honestly. he won't talk to you too much though, who knows what you're really like jamil if you're hiding something it doesn't mean that everyone around you is like that

♡ jamil doesn't understand why he feels so strange around you. at first he feels like he can trust you, even though he still tries to stop himself and tells himself that you can easily stab him in the back. and why are you so nice to him? you're probably just trying to become friends because you think that having a close relationship with someone like him could be useful, right? well, he's not gonna fall for that. and stop praising him all the time already. he told you that he's just a vice dorm leader and his abilities are not that special- wait, why does he feel good after hearing your compliments. oh no. oh no, he doesn't want you to stop.

♡ falling in love with you feels scary and jamil doesn't want to admit that he sees you not only as a friend (though he won't tell you that), but also as someone who he loves and wants to be with. you actually listen to him, you give him love and attention that he always wanted and you recognize his talents, but you still think that they are not the only good things about him and jamil is also just a very good person who deserves to be loved. jamil doesn't feel like he's ready to open up to you just yet, but he really doesn't want to miss a chance to finally find someone who will care about him as much as he cares about them.

pomefiore.

vil schoenheit.

♡ your relationship with vil definitely had a rough start. he criticized you a lot, he told you to take better care of your appearance, health and all of that. you felt like this guy hates you and tried to avoid him as best as you could. however, you were wrong and even though vil still thought that you could do better and you have some things to work on, he didn't hate you. in fact, he thought you were an interesting person who has their own talents and abilities, but they have to work on them more so that they can achieve their goals faster. so yeah, he basically tried to motivate you, but he probably didn't do a very good job.

♡ other people can notice vil giving you quite a lot of attention but not in a good way. it means that he's especially harsh on you. most students start to agree with you and think that the guy hates you, but his vice dorm leader knows that it's not true at all. rook is sure that vil is being so rude just because he believes you're better than most nrc students and he wants you to reach your full potential. but wow, it really feels like vil is almost obsessed with you. rook mentions that vil almost never stops talking about you lately and vil says that it's not true- no, rook, don't even joke about vil having a crush on you.

♡ even though vil sure has a lot of braincells, he almost doesn't notice falling in love with you as well. he really thinks he's just mad at you for not "trying hard enough", but this guy actually cares about you a lot. it may seem like he's angry at you and he hates you, but he's actually just very worried. what do you mean your sleep schedule doesn't even exist. go to sleep already, don't you know what happens to your skin if you don't get enough rest?? no, he's not worried about your health, it's just. uh. anyway, what about your hair-

rook hunt.

♡ finally. finally someone who actually knows they have feelings for you. though it may take some time for rook to realize that he's in love with you and not just admiring your beauty, he still would understand his feelings for you earlier than most characters here. he understands how romance works better than them, okay. very chad behavior of him sure, he thinks all people are beautiful in their own way, but you feel a little bit more special to him. his heart beats faster around you and he finds it hard to take his eyes off you. he never felt like this before around other students or people in general.

♡ rook would be very affectionate with you, however, he would take his time and wouldn't confess his feelings for you that early. he wants his confession to feel unique and special, he has to be prepared for that moment! he also needs some time to learn more about you. he wants to get to know you better, he wants to know what kind of person you are, how you see the world and he hopes that this way he will be able to predict your reaction to his confession. but of course, he doesn't do it just to earn your trust, he really is curious and wants to know more. you're just so interesting to him, he wants to know what exactly made him fall in love with you this hard.

♡ falling in love with you feels like a fairytale. it's so magical and exciting, rook wishes he never stops feeling this way. you are everything to him, all of his thoughts are about you and he's not complaining. he may joke about you distracting him from everything else, but he's actually more than happy and he doesn't mind being obsessed with you at all. yes, he may still compliment other people's beauty and talents, but don't worry, he has eyes only for you and he's more loyal to you than you think he is.

epel felmier.

♡ unless you make fun of his height, call him cute too often or refuse to take him seriously, epel wouldn't mind your company at all. who knows, maybe you two can actually become friends. and you do become friends! how fun! epel didn't expect to get along with you so easily, but he's more than okay with it. he's glad to have someone he can trust enough to talk about his true feelings and show his true personality to. he's more open and honest with you and he feels like you would never judge him no matter what he does or says.

♡ this feeling slowly starts turning into deep love and affection for you, though epel doesn't seem to notice that and still thinks you're just a friend to him. but he does notice feeling a bit more anxious around you now. why? well, it's like.. he wants to become better for you. he wants to impress you. h-he doesn't have a reason for that, really. he just.. wants you to notice how great and talented he really is. he wants you to praise him and smile at hiim while saying that what he did was amazing. again, he doesn't have a reason for that. totally.

♡ falling in love with you feels sweet and bitter at the same time. epel feels safe when you're around and he feels like he can tell you anything, but he's also scared that you actually don't think he's that special. he does slowly start to realize he's in love with you and that makes him feel even more scared. he needs to become a better person for you, he needs to become stronger, he wants to become someone who can protect you, who can impress you and who you can rely on. so forgive him for taking some time to work on that, he promises that he will tell you the truth when he's ready.

ignihyde.

idia shroud.

♡ idia genuinely doesn't understand why you're so nice to him. it actually scares him a little and he never knows what to expect from you. you're not as extroverted as some other nrc students, like kalim for example, but you still always run to idia whenever you see him and try to talk to him more. what do you want from him? you're just doing this out of pity, aren't you? it's okay, you don't have to give him so much attention, idia loves being alone, also he has online friends, so it's not like he's a complete loner or anything.

♡ you still try to get to know him better. you just want to help idia get out of his shell and become more confident. you don't think that being an introvert is a bad thing at all, but you still think that idia should start socializing more anyway. and you're sure that idia wants to make more friends as well, he's just afraid of being rejected. no, idia, you don't think that all these people are normies, you're just scared of them and trying to come up with an excuse so that you don't have to talk to them.

♡ falling in love with you feels sudden and predictable at the same time. of course idia shroud would fall for a person who's always there to support him and genuinely wants to become friends with him. he's affection-starved, okay? he may say that you can be really annoying sometimes, but he actually waits for you to text him or say hi to him every single day and if for some reason you can't talk to him, he feels lost and.. sad, even? please, don't leave him alone.. he knows that he's most likely too lame or boring for you, but he can't stand the thought of you leaving him.

diasomnia.

malleus draconia.

♡ i wouldn't call it love at first sight, but right after malleus met you, he knew that you're gonna become someone special to him. you didn't know anything about him. you didn't know his real name, status, his real identity. you didn't care about his reputation and you simply thought he seemed like an interesting person to talk to. he also seemed a little lonely too and you really could use a friend in a world like this, so yeah, that's how all of it started. he thought that the nickname you gave him was cute too.

♡ malleus gets used to your company too quickly. in fact, he can't imagine what he would do if you suddenly disappeared or simply lost interest in him. he got used to your kindness, to your smile, to your laugh, to your affection. his world becomes more warm and fun when you're around. but of course, he doesn't want this relationship to be too one-sided. he would do anything to protect you, help you or simply make you smile. you deserve the same happiness that you give him.

♡ falling in love with you feels soft and sweet, but also.. scary. malleus feels so happy when you're around, whenever he wakes up, he immediately thinks of you. you're everything to him. so if he loses you.. he will lose everything. he can't let you leave him. of course, he knows that you come from a different world and twisted wonderland isn't your home. he knows that you will leave him sooner or later. but.. is it selfish of him to want you to stay here for as long as possible? maybe you don't even have to leave?

lilia vanrouge.

♡ lilia thought you were cute right when he first met you. your reactions to his sudden appearances were so funny, it was hard for him to stop surprising you like this. at first your relationship dynamic was just like that, lilia kept surprising/scaring you, you screamed, he laughed and asked you to not be mad at him, he just likes your reactions too much. but as he started learning more about you, he realized that there are so many things he likes about you and it's not just you being an adorable scaredy-cat.

♡ for some reason, even though you wouldn't be able to tell from his behavior, lilia feels very calm when you're around. it's like his thoughts about his past and everything that he had to go through during his very, VERY long life can finally give him a break when he's with you. he doesn't have to worry about that, he can just stay here in present. and actually, he likes staying in present much more now thanks to you. but you're so naive, so innocent, so fragile, lilia thinks it's cute but he's also extremely worried about you because of that. you weren't made for this world. no matter how much you get praised for your job as a prefect, twisted wonderland is still too much for someone like you.

♡ lilia falls in love with you slowly, but when it happens, it feels so overwhelming, lilia has no idea what to do. he knows that having a romantic relationship with you is probably not the best idea considering that you'll have to leave this world someday and even if you don't.. he also doesn't have much time left. but if it's possible, if there's at least a tiny chance of him being in a happy relationship with you, he doesn't want to miss that chance. he may not have much time left, but he would do anything to spend all of that time with you.

silver.

♡ you and silver become friends surprisingly quickly. he knows he can trust you to wake him up when he falls asleep again, even though you think he looks very cute when he's asleep and you want him to get enough rest. whenever silver blames himself for being too lazy or incompetent, you're always here to remind him that he's already doing his best and he doesn't have to be so harsh on himself. he definitely will become a great knight one day no matter what, you believe in him!

♡ your kind words and your support make silver enjoy hanging out with you too much. he lets you watch him train, he finds it relaxing to take a nap when you're there with him and you run your fingers through his hair while he's asleep. even though he seems like a chill guy, he's scared of letting his father and his master down, but he always can rely on you when doesn't feel confident enough and he needs someone to tell him that everything is gonna be fine and lilia and malleus are already proud of him. and you're proud of him too.

♡ falling in love with you feels like a dream that he doesn't want to wake up from. he never thought his life was that bad, but it surely got better thanks to you. he wants to thank you for everything you did for him, he wants to protect you from all the dangers of this world. he knows that he wanted to become a knight so that he can repay lilia and malleus, but now.. he wants to be your knight as well. no, please, don't worry about him, he genuinely wants to do it. you always give him motivation to keep going and it would be an honor for him to become someone who can always protect you.

sebek zigvolt.

♡ yeah, your relationship with sebek wouldn't be that good at first. you two would argue a lot, he would never stop calling you a "lowly human" even though he's a half-human himself. and if you even think of saying anything bad about malleus, that's it, he's this close to killing you on sight. and you did hate sebek for acting like that at first, but as time passed, for some reason you actually started finding it.. entertaining? you loved to make him angry on purpose and then you decided to start teasing and even flustering him. yes, you did flirt with him multiple times just to see what kind of reaction he would give you, so what?

♡ sebek doesn't know how to feel about you. he knows he's supposed to think you're weak and pathetic because, you know, you're a human, but.. why does he feel so weird when you throw your dumb pickup lines at him? and why he feels like he actually wants to be praised by you and he wants you to notice how talented he really is? he knows that you're most likely not being serious most of the time, but he really wants you to be serious for once. uh, he just wants to be praised by you because he deserves it and that's it. it doesn't mean he wants you to be serious when you flirt with him, haha..

♡ sebek really didn't want to fall in love with you and he didn't expect to catch feelings for someone like you, but it still happened. he just doesn't understand why you still hang out with him even though he doesn't treat you that well. and how is he supposed to react when you tease him like that? he knows he should stay serious, but for some reason he just can't control his emotions when he's around you even though he's never that good at controlling them. he also realizes that even though you're a human, you're capable of doing many things and.. ugh, he really doesn't want to say it, but you're actually just as good as some magic users. y-you still have a lot to work on though.

royal sword academy.

chenya.

♡ you and chenya first met during that one unbirthday party after riddle's overblot. you were surprised to find out that a guy from a different school (and a rival school too!) was able to get here so easily and didn't care what nrc students will think of him. and also you thought that the way he could easily appear and disappear as he pleases (or he could just stay as a floating head) was funny. so yes, this guy managed to pique your curiosity.

♡ chenya himself thought you were quite interesting and he was even more surprised when he found out that you came to rsa secretly from other students just to see him. haha, you really betrayed your own school like this for him! wow, y/n, that's something only a lovestruck person would do! but he has to admit, he likes you even more now. just what kind of person are you? you're so full of mysteries and chenya isn't sure if he wants to know all the answers or it would be more interesting to keep it this way.

♡ falling in love with you is fun and exciting. you keep spending more time with chenya no matter what other nrc students think and chenya likes to make jokes about stealing you from nrc students so that you never have to leave him. is he just joking though?.. well, it doesn't matter. what matters more is that you both always end up having so much fun and you feel so comfortable with each other that there's been multiple times when one of you was very close to kissing the other. and lately, it's been very hard for you both to control your feelings.

neige leblanche.

♡ when you first heard of neige, you couldn't believe that someone like that actually existed. i mean, someone more beautiful and popular than vil? is that even possible? and when you finally saw him for the first time.. you were a bit underwhelmed. yes, neige is definitely very pretty, he's adorable, actually, but.. is that really it? but when you actually meet each other, you find it surprising just how nice neige really is. he's very polite, he treats you with kindness and makes sure you're comfortable. oh no, he's so cute, you're about to fall in love-

♡ you actually feel kind of pathetic for getting a crush on neige. it's just.. so predictable, you're really not that special and you're not any better than his fans. you doubt that he will ever notice you, you're just a magicless human from a different world, you don't deserve to be with someone like him. but what you don't know is that neige fell in love with you right when he first saw you. not because of your appearance, even though he thinks you're really pretty, but because of your personality, the way you treat other people and stay kind and patient no matter what. it's very impressive for someone who was basically forced to stay in this world against their will.

♡ falling in love with you feels like neige's life turned into an actual romance movie, but this time he doesn't know anything about the plot, especially the ending. he sure hopes you two will get your happy ending though. neige loves his fans and he really doesn't want to make them sad, he knows that dating someone when he's this popular is not the best decision, but he really, really wants to be with you. this is what true love feels like to him.

noble bell college.

rollo flamme.

♡ you were a bit intimidated by rollo when you first met him, you just.. thought he was a bit scary, haha. but then you noticed just how kind he is to you and that even though he's polite to all nrc students, you're a special case and you certainly are his "favorite". he also was the first person who actually thought you didn't deserve to go through all of this and that it must be very scary and overwhelming for you to have no other choice but to stay in this world full of danger and.. magic. so yes, you got used to his kindness pretty quickly, even though you still had a feeling that something is not quite right.

♡ and yeah, it turned out that rollo really wasn't the best person to trust. he hated magic with all his heart and he wanted it to disappear. and it was hard for him to choose between his growing love for you and his hatred for magic, but then he managed to convince himself that he's doing all of this for your own good and in the end you'll have no other choice but to agree with him. after rollo is defeated, he expects you to hate him as much as others hate him, but to his shock.. you forgive him. you had to deal with six overblots, even though nrc students saved the day this time, it's not like they're much better than him. so yes, you think rollo still can change and you want to give him a second chance.

♡ after that, rollo's love for you becomes even stronger. he can't stop thinking about you and it's hard to tell if he's in love with you or he's obsessed with you. when you have to go back to nrc, it gets even worse and everything around rollo reminds him of you. he really wishes you could spend more time together and he wasn't so focused on his plan. he's gonna be honest, he doesn't really regret doing.. well, all that, but the fact that he could use that time to talk to you more makes him think that maybe.. maybe trying to steal everyone's magic wasn't a good idea. yes, he thinks so only because he could spend more time with you instead of taking everyone's powers. listen, he needs some time, he will change. probably. maybe.

[thechekhov]

Hey Chekhov! How do you start converting an AU idea from character sheets and mini comics into a plot outline for a full, continuous comic? Especially if the series you're basing it on isn't complete?

I've been following your white diamond Steven comics for years, and frankly, I love how it builds and continues the scaffolding canon laid to be something that is thematically still the same but also very unique. And I never thought I'll ever say this, but now I'm working on a canon-divergent AU with someone that's I think aiming to do something similar(continue the themes of canon but different). So I'll just like some advice, I suppose!

You might've answered something like this before, honestly, but I tried to dig a little and couldn't really find it.

Thanks, if you do answer this! I just want take the opportunity as well to say also that your comic and blog accompanied me through parts of my late teens, and I'm very grateful for you being a stabilizing influence during that time.

Thank you! I really appreciate you saying that, and I appreciate you respecting me enough to ask for advice.

As for your question...

Well, to be frank, I don't START with character sheets and mini-comics. In fact, for WD!AU, I didn't have any character sheets until I started season 2.

Think of your story as an aquarium. Your characters are fish.

Yes, they're important, but having a whole bunch of fish without any substrate, tanks, feed and WATER..... will not really make for a memorable aquarium experience.

The reality is that all stories should start with an end.

That's my personal approach, anyway.

What I mean is - you need to know the general idea for your story before you begin to write or plan it.

Let's try this:

1.Tell me about your story in THREE sentences!

Just three. Not long ones, just regular ones.

For my AU, @ask-whitepearl-and-steven, it would be:

"A young orphan runs away from home with a mysterious lady who seems more cryptid than human. He realizes that he's not human either - he used to be the ruler of an alien planet! He and the other aliens he meets decide to (REDACTED) (REDACTED) (REDACTED) and he (REDACTED) (REDACTED) (READACTED) (READ ANDCTED) (READ AND FIND OUT)."

YOU should know how YOUR story ends too! Even vaguely.

It helps if you know at what point you plan to lay down the pencil. Because if you DO know, you are always going to know which direction to walk in, even if the end is so far away it's beyond your line of sight.

It's true that when I began WDAU, I didn't have much information about White Diamond and white Pearl, because they had literally ONLY been introduced. I had to guess a lot of the details (like WP being Pink's originally) and what White would be capable of. And thankfully, my original intent for the story's end fit pretty well with what was later revealed!

But don't forget - you could also just fuck around with stuff! It's your story, after all.

And don't forget... to also look back!

2.Tell me WHY the story is happening in the first place.

There's a reason that the beginning of your story happens when it does. If there is no reason to start somewhere, then find a different place to start.

You should be able to tell me "We're picking up the story here because something significant has happened... and that significant thing happened BECAUSE...."

That 'because' is your main background information that should be revealed slowly throughout the story. In WDAU's case, we only have a few pieces of the puzzle. We know Greg's side. He know Earl's side. But there are still little bits and pieces missing! And they're all important for finding out WHY Steven ended up an orphan and WHY he is being followed by White Pearl (Earl) at the very start of the comic!

3.Tell me what the coolest and most interesting things to happen would be....and then write them!

I think this may be something that's rarely said out loud, but I will speak on the behalf of the people...

We should write the scenes we want to read. If you don't want to read the scene you're writing, then DON'T write it!

If you feel like you "have to" do a page and a half of 'lore' because you think it's traditional to have that 'explanation' about the location of your story, or the history of the species or whatever, you're simply wrong. There are other ways to reveal information aside from just forced paragraphs upon paragraphs of information that would make an SAT Reading Section sweat.

Instead, I recommend that you find the most exciting or hilarious way for the characters to discover the most important bits of info. Find a dramatic twist. Shove it into the narrative. Then, figure out what needs to happen to get there.

Ultimately, though, remember this: When you're taking advice from me or from others, don't forget to take advice from yourself, too! It's your story, after all. You know it best, and only YOU can figure out how to get it written.

I hope that helps at least a little bit! Writing it never easy, but it should still be enjoyable!

[theprettynosferatu]

I Had Ice-Cream (The Election Post)

I had ice-cream yesterday.

I've following a very strict diet because I'm trying to eat in a healthy manner and, let's not lie here, because I am quite vain and wanted to lose a few pounds. And if there was one thing I stayed away from, it was ice-cream. But yesterday I had to. Eating my feelings, I suppose.

The reason I felt so bad should be obvious. And I'm not even American! But I lived there. I made friends there. I still have friends there. Gay, straight, cis, trans... my heart breaks for them all. It feels like something horrid, something primal and evil and dark won. A fear turned into anger and selfish lashing out. It's hard to believe, right now, that love will always conquer hate.

I intended to make a few captions yesterday, but I couldn't. And I am well aware you don't come here to see me whine and weep and rant. But I don't think I can make more content without addressing this first.

This blog plays with ideas of power- in fact, the main aesthetic and tone for captions is inspired very directly by propaganda. I imagine them as posters from another, fictional reality. Hard to see it as so fictional right now.

Let me be absolutely clear: if you truly think women are lesser, if you let hate take root in your heart, if you are a real authoritarian, this blog is not for you.

What can I do? Not much. Not much except providing, perhaps, a bit of escapism- hoping people understand the difference between kink and reality, hoping I haven't done harm with my work (although I doubt captions and kink stories moved a lot of votes in this election).

I feel we need to take our small joys wherever we can find them. You can't fight if you are a burnt-out, overwhelmed mess. So, don't feel bad about cutting yourself some slack. Do something that brings you joy, even for a moment, because we need you. You matter. And you deserve that joy, and so much more.

So, I had ice-cream. Find your ice-cream, and eat a bit without shame.

Take care of yourself. And now more than ever, we need to help take care of each other.

Kink content will resume soon. I just needed to clear the air and vent a bit. Thank you for understanding.

-Nos