#there is a lot of overlap between them but I think it covers everything

[moldyfloorboards]

new tagging system to better encompass all of my issues

[didyougaming]

Hi, gamers. I know the results of the Sandwich Poll have been gnawing at you. So many people wondering whether they answered correctly, which as a reminder is a very important factor in determining which afterlife you end up in when you die. Please understand that I needed a lot of time to internally process these poll results and also that I've been kinda busy/tired. But the people need to know, so here we go.

In total, we received 372 responses. I also spent a lot of my weekend annoying anyone who would listen to me in person about these questions, but I didn't write those answers down.

Question 1 was fairly non-controversial, as it should be. It is worth noting that 3.2% of respondents chose to write-in an answer, and most of these write-in answers were what scientists would call "bad" and "not really useful." So you can assume a 3.2% margin of error on everything in this survey. That's how statistics works.

Question 2 is where we see a real divide. Most respondents consider a sandwich cut into two separate but equal pieces to be one sandwich. This is a real shame, because it's the wrong answer. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Question 3 considers whether one piece of bread cut in half and used for sandwich-making results in a sandwich, and surprisingly the majority of respondents do consider this to be one sandwich. This is really interesting, because despite ending up with functionally and aesthetically the same result as one of the pieces of the sandwich from question 2, a significant number of respondents believe the results to be inherently different. I wish there was a way to better track how much overlap there was for those two seemingly contradictory answers, but the big Sheets page Google Docs is daunting and I don't feel like figuring out how to parse that data, so we just need to accept that we'll never have that exact number. That's how statistics works.

Question 4 mostly just cements the findings of the previous two questions. I do want to point out the one person who answered "who the fuck does this". Sandwich shops do this. Go to a sandwich shop for once in your life and really watch them do their work. Open your eyes.

Question 5 did not get me a lot of useful data, as it turns out having a question that only allowed for write-in answers was a bad idea. However, there are more or less two camps for people who really took these questions seriously and gave it their all. The first school of thought suggests that intent is the most important factor, and if you deem what you've made to be a sandwich, it's a sandwich. While I appreciate the critical thinking on display here, I believe in the other school of thought, which is that when you put ingredients between two breads that's a sandwich, baby. There is a sub-school of thought here that requires those two pieces to be whole pieces, but that's wrong.

One question that I should have included in the survey I think proves my point. If you order a sandwich platter from a deli and they use a single really long piece of bread (think like a several foot long hero) into multiple sections, you would say that you have sandwiches, plural. If you wanted to grab one, you wouldn't say "I'm going to grab a 64th of a sandwich" because you would sound deranged. Despite being parts of a larger whole, they are still ingredients between pieces of bread, and thus fit the definition of "sandwich."

Anyway, thank you for coming on this non-gaming detour with me. It was extremely important that I prove a friend wrong on this topic, and even though I don't think I did that and I think he's choosing to double down on his incorrect opinions, I'm still choosing to spin this as a personal and moral victory. New actual DidYouGamings will come out as soon as I discover any new facts about video games (right now there's only a couple hundred facts about video games at all and I've basically covered all of them.)

[accio-victuuri]

July CPNs round-up ❤️💛💚

• xz as backing vocals for the song everything is lovely

• clowning about screen protectors

• both of their names together on hs for being posted by xinhua news agency

• same city in Beijing on 7/6 - there was some talk that xz’s flight out has been changed to the 12th, probably to spend more time with wyb who will leave on the 10th. which didn’t happen cause wyb left 7/8 but still got to to spend that time together. some were clowning about how his airport shirt had a crease on it & how that made it seem like it was folded like how xz does it so ya know, is it a sign? lol.

• 7/10 XZS paris vlog clowning: posting so close to yibo’s appearances and similar shots // the two bros focused in the video, paris olympics and torchbearer route.

• 7/12 XZS vlog - possibly texting wyb and little prince figures + snowy mountain ; jacques tati films bgm used

• 7/14 xzs vlog clues! more symbolism and that goose laugh

• walking in the streets of paris

• similarity between tao and yibo showing off a photo of their significant other

• continuing on with the off white with “painting” shirts that xz wears, which is already strike 3 && kind of proves the sdc 3 clowning. he wore this during his off work hours. ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

it follows the pattern 👀👀👀

• 7/15 xzs vlog clowning continues - same place different time / confirmation of the bystander lyrics connection and E142 cue

• NOT TOTALLY CPN BUT ME BEING EMOTIONAL. LOL. SEEING YIBO do that torch really in that simple outfit everyone was wearing. mostly bare faced and all eyes on him. that moment — and then you see him wearing that bome necklace makes me go somft. 🥹🥹🥹🥹 he will go to so many places and experience a lot of things but he will always have a piece of xz with him.

some are getting excited about them with silver jewelry necklace but xz’s is boucheron which he is endorsing. as much as i love jewelry cpns, i always get picky when it’s something they endorse, unless there is an additional clue. but i understand why people got 👀 when they saw that silver chain with GG. unfortunately, this is not the necklace we think it is.

another one is this “couple” / same style jacket they both wore when they went abroad. RBS already explained this and i totally agree with their stand on it. i guess what makes this cpn-y to me is the “style” it, showing how their preferences overlap in clothing. and that’s why we think they have a “shared closet”.

<< previous post

• On 7/19, the booting ceremony of XZ’s new film DeXian JinZhi, the cast was revealed and we learned that Yin Zheng is there. Yin Zheng is WYB’s very close friend, so we will definitely keep an eye out on how he will interact with XZ 😂😂😂😂 and oh, Peng Yucheng is also there! who is Bobo’s friend and someone he fake kissed HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! so many common friends!

• some minor cpns from xzs 7/20 vlog + something i forgot to add, same acne studios plain shirt. HAHAHAHAHA! twinning! 👯‍♀️

• xz vlogs appear to be countdowns 🤔🤔🤔

• BJYX related hs on them speaking goose language! HAHAHAHAHA! we shall remain relevant forever!

• what a nice magazine! our boys! side by side! and it’s like a fanfic cover for pairing wei ruolai and chunsheng!

• them posting for public welfare and in support of the olympics for CCTV ( here and here ) also with mengniu’s short film. i love seeing them supporting the same thing and hopefully they get to collab someday for a common cause 🌎 if there is any type of project they can work together, this may be it, cause fans can’t even be outwardly toxic especially if it’s a government project.

• 7/26/2024 xzs vlog candies

• 7/28 coco crush posts clowning

• 7/29 throwback video uploaded by rufeng

• 7/30 XZS vlog clowning time: dancing like wang laoshi, possible mv for bystander and wonderful world lyrics.

plus some more ⬇️⬇️⬇️

ohhhhh. a snowy mountain or is it? i mean who wouldn’t be taken by that and especially someone like xz. love how he took pictures of it and drew it too. in the post by xzs it’s in the c-position, probably cause it’s drawn by xz but also it’s photo #5/18 WYB.

p3 is also our colors! green (ish), red and yellow!

SEE YOU ALL NEXT MONTH!!!!!

<<< previous post

[parisoonic]

I'm in love with how you draw characters (especially when you draw sniperscout and demoman in general), I'm unsure if you've answered a question like this before, but how do you figure out what to do with face shapes? It's hard to explain but the way you over-exaggerate certain features to make their design pop is so cool to me and I've never been able to do it for myself. That, and making faces look like.. well, faces.

thank you so much!!! hopefully i'm understanding you right...

Regarding the face shapes in TF2...we're all standing on the shoulders of the (excellent) design work already done and laid out. The characters have really nice distinct face shapes with some general overlap before you even consider that a lot of them have facial accessories which you can pick and choose from to help push facial silhouettes and peel apart characters that are a little similar.

Naff threshold filter heads to show silhouettes lol In order to exaggerate them - it's mainly about pushing and pulling the existing proportions and ratios of their faces IE: Making Medic's/Soldier's/Heavy's stupid large-chins even longer but sacrificing some of their forehead or eye-region. Varied proportions have a lot of 'rhythm' or 'appeal' and typically the human face can break down into the forehead (+ hair), eyes (I like to do a Batman style mask but people will often use the nose to form a triangle too) and then....everything else (chin, cheek etc).

Soldier, Heavy and Sniper all have REALLY similar proportional ratios but their silhouettes are really different (in both the x and z). When you add in that the 'default' way to view Soldier and Sniper is with their accessories they're all really nice and different. Funnily enough Sniper's 'eye mask' is teeny tiny with his visors off but this relationship changes with his sunglasses on. Kinda interesting... I sometimes like to think of visual vibe-based 'archetypes' when i'm drawing the tf2 guys. I don't have one for everyone yet but Heavy is sort of like 'handsome caveman' to me. Archetypally, cavemen are drawn with thick brows, small low foreheads and big chins. The 'handsome'-ness comes in when you apply a delicate approach to eyes, cheekbones, lips and with careful posing. Having this kind of visual-archetype in mind informs how I view the character as a whole and thus how i depict them! HOPEFULLY even if I drift away from how they actually look because the vibes are right...it feels right you know? There's also a sliding scale to me as to HOW you represent them. If the character is doing something goofy/stupid, drawing them less handsome and toonier can add levity. Obviouslyyyy you can have your handsome depictions making a dick joke (and that's its own sort of visual gag) but you'll notice in a lot of my images the straight-man gets drawn a little more...realistic? on-model? than the butt of the joke. It just feels more appropriate to me haha I'm using 'toonier' here to mean not only am I drawing fewer details but also exaggerating those ratios between areas of the face away from their 'default' ratio. like with most drawing-y things it's practice AND experimentation! i draw these guys differently depending on my mood and how generous i'm feeling towards their looks lol if you wanted tips on the construction of faces I really recommend checking out Griz and Norm's 'Tuesday Tips'. They're incredibly clear, concise and very approachable (and cover a variety of subjects!) Hopefully this link works? but if you search them on Pinterest and grab a cuppa, there's some AMAZING tips to be had here: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?q=griz%20and%20norm&rs=typed

[tokyo-daaaamn-ji-gang]

can i ask why did people genuinely think hanma was the time leaper? i’ve rewatched the anime twice and read the manga and not once have i suspected hanma to be the time leaper.

Ok it's been a while so I might be misremembering some bits now but it got super popular after it was revealed Kisaki wasn't a time leaper. The idea was someone is the second time leaper but it's not Kisaki, so naturally people considered it to be Hanma. And there were a few reasons too (there was also a separate theory about him not being a time leaper but being like a God or some other un human being who knew about the situation. There's a bit of overlap between those two theories.) Also you're gonna find that a lot of these "clues" are really small and don't really mean anything, especially now that we know what happened. But at the time, we were all really reading into everything to try and figure out where the story was going. And everything stacked together seemed to make a lot of sense.

Firstly, Kisaki seemed to know about time leapers existence, which we all kinda assumed meant someone had told him aka a time leaper. With Hanma being the most obvious choice since they were shown to be close and working together a lot.

There was also Hanma's inside cover, which had on top of train tracks, train tracks which were heavily associated with time leaping and Takemichi in the past.

It was also thought that Hanma's boredom could be a hint, like he was bored all the time because he already knew what was going to happen because he'd lived it before. Things got more exciting for him when he met Kisaki, a new face.

And of course there's the story cliff hanger, where most people assumed something important was going to be said/ revealed. Something important like time leaping maybe.

In the final fight he also said this, which I think he was talking about how they made it this far in the fight but at the time it was pointed out that all of them had died in different timelines before. So if he knew then he was probably talking about them surviving death literally.

And of course there was maybe the biggest hint of them all, his name. We already know how Wakui likes to put little hints when choosing their names sometimes so this made a lot of us think the second time leaper could be Hanma.

There was also a few bits to do with dates, I'm not sure if I've remembered them all but these are the ones I do remember, Hanma met kisaki and Takemichi first leaped in July 2005. Then in June 2008 we have both Hanma's main chapter where it jumps forward to him visiting Kisaki and Takemichi doing his 10 year time leap.

Aside from that it was just that he was generally quite a mysterious and suspicious guy. Not telling Kisaki why he's following him, always being around in the arcs, the way he acted etc. And with there not really being any other obvious hints at the time, it made sense he was the one the fandom thought of most as being the second leaper.

[thorraborinn]

I want to explain how religious organizations in Iceland work because I keep seeing some incorrect information about Ásatrúarfélagið having a policy of prohibiting Americans from joining. I'm American and I have been a member before, so that obviously can't be true.

In Iceland, religious organizations (and "life-view" organizations) are regulated by the government to a degree that the American mind cannot comprehend. Even the Catholic church is subject to the state's bureaucracy if it wants to operate within Iceland. When a church wants to know who its members are, it needs to get that information from the government. There's a link on Ásatrúarfélag's website that says "Want to join Ásatrúarfélagið? Click here." and it's a link to the same government website you use to register a change of address. If you want to join, take it up with the government.

Ásatrúarfélagið does not and can not set policies about who can join. It has no ability to regulate its membership. The real thing that membership in a religious organization actually is, that everything else is an extension of, is checking a box on a government form which tells the government where to dedicate a portion of the money you pay in taxes. How they feel about this is irrelevant and I doubt they've said much if anything about it.

Obviously, the state can't regulate people's actual beliefs and there's nothing stopping you from finding a bunch of friends and participating in your own customs without integrating into the state bureaucracy, but Ásatrúarfélagið sought recognition and therefore integration into this system half a century ago.

This is the same for Catholics in Iceland, Muslims in Iceland, secular humanists in Iceland, dialectical materialists in Iceland, etc.

What the Icelandic mind is correspondingly unable to comprehend is why an American would want to join. What do you think you get out of membership? Ability to attend rituals? As long as you can get to Iceland, you already have that, because their rituals are already open to everyone (sometimes requiring pre-registration if there's a limited number of seats, and sometimes there's a cover charge, but there are also many free outdoor public events). For the vast majority of members, the only difference between being a member and a non-member is that you get a calendar and newsletter in the mail periodically, which is in Icelandic. I can't pretend to speak for org members but my impression is that many think the only reason non-locals would want to join is the weird idealization that people subject Icelanders to, this kind of second-hand nationalism common to heathens that strips Icelanders of their actual humanity and turns them into a novelty.

What I think people might be thinking of is that years ago when the hof (temple) was in the news a lot, they were getting threatening messages from international heathens, mostly folkish ones objecting to their stances on issues like gay marriage and racial non-discrimination; and some from heathens who think Ásatrúarfélagið should have to conduct animal sacrifice (not sure what the overlap is between them and folkish but I imagine it's substantial). There were discussions about how to protect the hof when it was complete. But it's still not complete (though yeah, parts of it are usable now) and Covid-19 both delayed its completion and just otherwise made that discussion less urgent. I'm not sure where they landed on that or if they did come to a conclusion. But it's weird that international people would feel entitled to it anyway. The Icelanders didn't ask to be the custodians of an international pilgrimage site and they shouldn't be obligated to provide one.

[themsthenow]

Ok so this is kinda a tutorial but not really cause I don't recommend doing some of the things I did, cause it's not safe.

The pic on the right is 1 out of 12 thingys I cut out of ply wood

I used a saw to cut them out.

you could probably just use something slightly wider than a regular lollipop stick to get the overhang , like the free wooden utensils at a cafés.

You'll probably need 2 or 3 if so for each finger joint

The claws were cut out of some board I found in my house, but a clipboard should probably work, maybe double up just incase idk.

I don't recommend getting a knife and hammering out the outline of each individual claw thing, a scissors should hopefully be enough.

I dont have a photos of:

1. drilling holes into each end of all of the stick joints(the black dots were holes I burned, until my wood burner died, they're also held together with bent nails)

2. Cutting out the board for the palm part where my hand is

3. Taking a bunch of clothes pegs for the springs to attach the fingers to said palm board using a long piece of metal? To hold it like the bent nails, you could probably just use a skewer

4. Tying wires like a cm apart from the drilled holes(you can't really see it in the image) to thread string through, so it can move the joints when pulled, you can see the twisted part on the outside of the finger joints, once they're tight just flatten them into the joint and put hot glue over them so they don't catch on anything like your clothes or skin

5. Gluing a foam sheet and elastic band to the palm board

6. Gluing the half pegs on to the outside of each of the finger joints so they don't go backwards

I added another Layer of foam to the board to cover the elastic and the painted them.

There was a lot of trial and error (and hot glue) trying to get these things to not overlap when moving them but they work now

Hopefully this helps someone somehow, be careful and stuff

Each finger joint was made with 2 lollipop sticks and 1 ply wood cut out thing, with the ply wood thing hany out . The holes were put in at both ends

The wires on the joints can be any type, I think, as long as its sticks

The claws and hand board can be made out of layered clipboard(probably)

I used acrylic paint, idk if it matters though

When drilling or burning the hole be careful, for both your safety and not breaking the lollipop sticks

Idk if the bent nails could be replaced with anything. Wooden skewers?

The thread I used is actually fishing wire because it's thin, strong and passes smoothly between the joints

Soo for 2 hands

Lollipop sticks x 24, bring spares

Ply wood cut outs/ an alternative x12

Clipboard board cut outs of claws x6

Pully wire /fishing wire

Craft Foam x1 sheet

Clothes pegs x12

Nails /an alternative x12

A bit of elastic fabric

Paint

A glue gun with lots of glue sticks

A SAFE way to cut out everything

A SAFE way to drill the holes

[swaps55]

That ask about Shiala made me remember a thing I often thought and giggled about - One night the Yang crew went out drinking and dancing and competing over who could get the most people to give them their number (contact info, comm frequency or whatever) and obviously Sam won.

Please enlighten me! How?! Did he actually flirt? Did he make the people think that he flirted? Did he bully them into giving him their number? Did he let them know about the bet and made them play along?

And what did Kaidan think about it? Did he even try to win or did he sulk about Sam charming people all over the place?

And what about Sam? What did he think about Kaidan flirting around?

Ahaha, I have actually tried to write this a couple of times - including as a first kiss AU - and just not been successful. This is in part because Kaidan did get too sulky about it and the tone wasn't right for something that was supposed to be stupid, idiot, squad fun, and part of it because I do not know how to write about hitting on people in bars. XD

But I can tell you this: Sam wins because he doesn't try. He's not interested in anyone but has a lot of confidence and is insanely comfortable in his own skin. So he's a magnet for people who want to get in his pants. All he has to do is turn off the death stare that he uses to repel people.

Aslany is too hostile. If anything she probably winds up with a one night stand and no phone numbers. Clay doesn't win because he he's a quality over quantity kind of guy. At some point, Kara resorts to flashing people and probably nearly gets arrested, which further slows down Clay (though he probably manages to get the number of the person trying to throw Kara in the brig).

And Kaidan is just...not built for this, lol.

Eh, what the hell. This is what I wrote for that abandoned first kiss AU based on the Phone Number Contest:

~

“You know, this may be the first time I’ve been hit on so kindly by someone who would clearly prefer to be hitting on someone else.” The brunette woman sitting at the bar swirls the toothpick in her martini, eyebrow raised as Kaidan sighs and leans an elbow on the counter.

“Sorry.” Someone bumps his elbow trying to get to the bartender, and Kaidan shoots them an irritated look. The Space Bar is flooded with people tonight. Between the asari pop cover band on the stage in the back – humans shouldn’t cover asari songs; it just doesn’t sound right – and the overlapping conversations getting louder with each drink, it’s quickly becoming his least favorite place.

“You don’t do this often, do you?” the brunette asks, lip curving in a smile. She is attractive. No denying that. Beaudoin would be interested. Aslany, maybe.

Interested isn’t the point, he reminds himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shepard laughs as the woman he’s talking to across the room at a high-top table drops her shoulder and leans in closer. Kaidan takes a long, deliberate sip of his drink. The brunette follows his eye.

“He’s quite handsome, by the way.”

“I’m sorry?” The damn music is way too loud.

She nods towards Shepard. “He’s not into men, I’m guessing?”

A flush burns Kaidan’s neck. He’s not into anything, Kaidan almost says, but isn’t so far gone on the whiskey to let that thought slip out into the open. Though, if he drinks much faster, this damned game isn’t going to end with a winner – it’s going to end with someone peeling Kaidan off the floor.

He steals another glance at Shepard, who has parted ways with the woman and is now on his way back to the bar, pausing to waggle a subtle eyebrow in Kaidan’s direction before settling in to wait for the next one. He’s the only person Kaidan knows who can wear BDUs like they were tailored to fit him.

How the hell is he good at everything? Never in Shepard’s life has he wanted to pick someone up in a bar, yet an hour into this fucking game he’s had six people try and pick him up, and those are just the ones Kaidan’s seen.

“It’s, uh. It’s not. He’s not….” Kaidan clears his throat. “What did you say?”

At least she looks genuinely amused rather than ready to throw a drink in his face.

Kara Pendergrass chooses that moment to run up and practically barrel into his lap, nearly spilling his drink. “I fucking got one, can you believe this shit? People will do anything to see a pair of tits. Sex is so fucking weird.”

The brunette’s eyebrows nearly arch off of her head. Kaidan inserts himself between Pendergrass and the brunette, and apologizes. “Please don’t mind her. She means well.”

Pendergrass looks from him to the woman, then leans over Kaidan’s shoulder. “He’s a nice guy who puts up with a lot of shit, and you should give him your phone number. Because if you don’t, Beaudoin is going to win and I’ll have to watch him gloat about it for a week.”

Kaidan sets his drink on the bar, grabs Pendergrass by both shoulders and steers her away, apologizing over his shoulder to the wide-eyed brunette. They bump into at least four people before they find an open pocket that’s even closer to the dance floor and the crooning band.

“Why?” he demands.

“Come on,” she says with a grin. “She was gonna give it to you.”

“Hardly.”

She slugs him in the shoulder. “People like you, LT. Think it’s your face. If you tried not looking miserable, you might have more luck.”

Elsewhere in the bar, someone shrieks. Kaidan looks over his shoulder, fervently hoping he doesn’t know the cause, and sees Aslany standing over a very dismayed serviceman who is now wearing his drink.

“Fucking hell,” Kaidan mutters under his breath, already moving towards her, but Beaudoin gets there first, like he’d been keeping tabs on her the whole time. In the blink of an eye, Beaudoin is buying him a drink, escorting him away, and probably gets his phone number in the process.

…Did they plan that?

Are they a team? His competitive side flares up a little. Maybe more than a little.

[bladesmitten]

(anon feral about Wyll transformation scene again) Do you think he has nightmares after that? dreams where he's human and then wakes up a devil and has to readjust all over again? nightmares where the transformation is worse, more drastic, more monstrous? nightmares where it happens again? where the devilish nature makes him do, or want to do, something monstrous?

when he wakes up from one of those do the changes hurt, or seem to hurt, again? does he go to anyone for comfort or try to soldier on? does he yearn for how he looked and felt before, even while he does his best to accept the changes and move forward? does Karlach notice him having a hard time and go try to comfort him somehow, because she knows that was all because he wanted her to live?

Karlach's engine was put in there against her will, Astarion got vampire'd against his will, do those two ever talk to Wyll about it from the angle of someone who's gone through something not the same but comparable? do they want to help get him away from Mizora before she can do anything worse to him, both knowing that it never stops at just the transformation, not wanting to find out what she would do to him next? (Karlach knows from an angle of having been used after the 'upgrade' as a devil's warrior and attack dog, Astarion knows from an angle of having been used as a vampire's tool and plaything, and from what they see of how Mizora treats Wyll she very well might do any/all of that or find some new other terrible thing to do)

when he realizes they have overlapping traumas like that do you think he seeks them out for help or comfort, or to try to help/comfort them because he's like that? do you think even the companions who don't 100% get the specific "somebody painfully physically transformed you against your will for their own gains" trauma notice him sleeping fitfully sometimes and recognize the same kind of pain in his voice that they heard that night when he was transformed and they just know what that nightmare was about?

it's late and I'm rambling but YOU KNOW???? WYLL...

(I haven't even made it through act 2 yet and I'm already like this about him)

considering wyll still has nightmares of him being exiled 7 years ago? he definitely gets nightmares about this one too. the readjustment period is another thing altogether - his skull is heavier, he has to rebalance his center of gravity to stand up straight, and everything else in between. it's a lot to handle, both in reality and in his sleep.

(also thinking about the last time something drastic physically happened to him is when he lost his eye 🥲 and now here he is again trying to readjust his life)

this is headcanon territory but - that man is a Sulker... whenever he thinks he's alone he just kinda mopes about it all. but it's also sooo obvious that he's not okay and that he's just putting up a front.

karlach definitely does everything she can to cheer him up. whether that be cracking the shittiest jokes (that wyll laughs at so earnestly) or playfighting with him. astarion does it in his own prickly way, like a cat pretending not to be endeared by wyll - offering to bite him to give him a good night's nightmare-less rest. gale cooks wyll's favourite dish as a morale boost - even though fresh ingredients are hard to come by. lae'zel offers to spar with wyll to take his mind off things, or just telling him how great a warrior he is and how she'd love to [redacted] his [redacted] (LMAO). shadowheart would tease wyll about his affinity for trashy romance novels, giving him a backhanded compliment on how hot he looks with his horns, and that his new look would fit in the cover of a trashy romance novel (that she'd totally read and enjoy).

whenever mizora appears in camp, everyone just forms a wall between wyll and mizora like a phalanx. wyll protection sequence activate.

i also like to think wyll recognizes that he's no longer alone in his suffering. he's not as isolated as he once was! that's why he's so eager to make friends, why he gives approval on every question you ask him. he's grateful to have these people who care for him, especially his bestie karlach who'd give her life for him and vice versa 🥺

(get yourself ready when you get to act 3... honey youve got a big storm coming.gif)

[rhysintherain]

Top 5 archaeological sites in your province

Well, I hope everybody's settled in for an illustrated archaeology infodump, because this one got long...

But thanks for asking, this was fun to put together.

1. Tse'k'wa (Charlie Lake Cave)

Partly because I worked there as a field school TA. Also because it's one of The Coolest sites. Look up the raven burials, they're incredible. Basically it's a rock shelter overlooking a filled in ravine used by Clovis-ish peoples moving north through the ice-free corridor 12,000 years ago. Our work there was looking at the top of the hill above, where the activity might be more recent. This is the home of the northernmost Clovis point in existence, among many other cool artefacts.

It's a very cool place, and you can usually visit if you call ahead and use the driveway instead of the unauthorised path up the bank.

2. Keatley Creek

This site might be the closest thing to a precontact interior plateau city we'll ever find. The house pits are so close together they almost overlap in places. A community this size was possible because of Keatley Creek's prime location on the Fraser salmon run and the nephrite jade celt industry across BC (think like axe blades and chisels, etc.) that they supplied with top quality material. A disaster that impacted the salmon run is probably why the site was abandoned, but they left behind lots of evidence of the good times for us to find.

Here's the site in modern times courtesy of Simon Fraser University:

And this is the inside of a modern reconstruction Lillooet pithouse like the ones those depressions used to be:

3. Hagwilget Canyon

There hasn't been a ton of work done on this site, but oral histories document it as a key trade hub in precontact BC. People from all over the northwest would come to the canyon to trade and socialise annually. And, with all those people moving through, you needed proper infrastructure, such as:

The first (and best, if you ask me) Hagwilget Canyon Bridge.

And here's the new one, in case you need context for how massive a crossing this really was:

This thing was built before white people arrived, from natural materials, and stuck around for generations. It was an incredible feat of engineering, and I'm so glad somebody thought to get pictures.

4. Kilgii Gwaay (Haida Gwaii)

This is a cool site for a bunch of reasons. It's about 10,000 years old. It was occupied before cedar was well established on BC's coast. It was only occupied for about 50 years. It's a wet site with amazing preservation. It's been under the ocean for most of its history.

Once upon a time there were people who lived on a nice little patch of shore between a pond and the sea. They fished in the ocean and hunted bears and drove wooden posts into the ground to make their homes and drying racks. They made stone tools. And then the water came up, slow but unrelenting, and made them leave. The grandparents who held little kids hands as they walked away were probably the people who had first picked this place as a home. Everything we know about them came from the short time they lived there and the things they left behind.

And then the water covered it, and kept bones and tools and wood stakes safe for ten millennia. Only luck and climate and geology working together made it possible for us to find it again. It's like a tiny, perfect Atlantis. I wonder how many generations after heard stories about the village the sea took back.

5. Vancouver Island Petroglyphs

Had to have at least one hometown hit on this list, right? There's rock art all over the place in BC, but some of the ones on the Island are phenomenal. They're pictures carved into rock faces, sometimes flat, sometimes vertical. They tend to heavily feature mythical creatures.

Here's some from Petroglyph Park near Nanaimo:

I like the chalk additions. You can't really damage carvings ground into bedrock and exposed to the elements for hundreds of years with sidewalk chalk, so why not let kids be kids?

This is the petroglyph wall at Sproat Lake Park:

There's a dock set up in front of the wall to view the pictures. They must have been very cool to see from a canoe before the dock went in. Here's a close-up of some of the creatures:

And here's a really big seal near Sooke, BC. Haven't seen this one personally, but it looks amazing:

[sophieinwonderland]

if you had to guess, what percentage of do you think may be of a plural mind, regardless of if it’s a trait they identify with or not?

Ooh! This is a tough one.

It's going to come down a lot to how we defined plurality.

First, are we talking about people who currently are experiencing plurality or all the people who have ever experienced plurality?

I've talked a lot about how there are many imaginary friends who are experienced as acting outside of the child's conscious control.

One study showed about 65% of children have imaginary friends. Another showed 35% didn't always do what the children wanted while 29% were what was deemed as "noncompliant."

 Thirty-six per cent of the children described their imaginary companions as consistently compliant and agreeable, 35 per cent gave some indication that the imaginary companions did not always do or say what the children wanted, although they were mostly friendly and compliant, and 29 per cent described their imaginary companions as noncompliant in ways that suggested the children experienced the companion to some extent as being out of their conscious control. 

If we assume every imaginary friend who can act outside of the host's control is a headmate, the percentage of children who are plural during childhood would be a whopping 41.6%

But the numbers could be even higher. That only covers two manifestations of plurality. (Imposition and Inhabitation.) And it's probably ignoring spiritual experiences.

If a child has different distinct personality states they switch between, that's not accounted for in that statistic. Nor would praying to God be even if the child hears God regularly talks back in two-way conversation. And it's unlikely a voice in their head would be counted as an imaginary friend unless that voice had a form of some kind. So this number could actually be much higher.

But I feel comfortable saying at least 41.6% of kids are naturally plural.

What about adulthood? Well, things get complicated.

Purely on the disorder side, DID alone makes up about 1-3% of the population. OSDD and Partial DID make up even more. And personally, I consider certain experiences many psychiatrists would currently classify as hallucinations or delusions to be dissociative as well. (A delusion of being someone else could be a form of switching, some hallucinations demonstrate intelligence, etc.) Then there are many with MADD who report sentient Paras.

On a more spiritual side, Tanya Luhrmann, who is running the Stanford Tulpa Study, wrote a piece comparing people who build two-way communication with God to tulpamancers.

If we take the view that these are the same mechanisms at play, that could add a lot to the plural spectrum.

But finding accurate statistics for this phenomenon that we could apply to the whole population is hard. And it's unlikely everyone or even most people who say God talks to them is meaning with a literal mindvoice, and that this is happening consistently enough to consider this God of theirs a headmate.

Going back to the imaginary friends, only about 7% of adults report having imaginary friends.

While we might take the numbers from the children and apply it to the adult group, to say only about 64% of that 7% would be autonomous, I would actually speculate the number being much higher.

A lot of those imaginary friends will have been with the hosts since childhood. And I think it's likely most would gain autonomy and self-consciousness in that time. I would say most adult imaginary friend will be sentient enough to be considered tulpas.

All in all, my conservative guestimation for adult plurality is 10%-20%.

(This estimation might sound low after everything I've said, but consider that different forms of plurality tend to overlap. A lot of systems with DID may have imaginary friends who they don't consider alters, many spiritual systems are mixed origin, many self-diagnosed with delusional companion syndrome here on Tumblr also happen to be systems of some kind, some tulpamancers later discover they were already traumagenic systems, etc.)

Finally, if you were to ask me the percentage of the population with the potential to be plural, I would guess that at near 100%.

[thewhumpcaretaker]

Okay I'm getting a little too obsessed with the werewolf au with Santino and John HEHEU UMM

Now is my turn to ask you about it >:]

How do you see them as werewolves? Do you think one would turn another or you have something else in mind? And their appearance, behavior, maybe possible side effects, how would they comfort each other? Anything really :3

Aahhh cuties 😭🐾

Thank you for this ask!!

SO I have a ton of lore about this because of John's character sheet from the roleplay. A lot of this will overlap with RP John! But I have lots of new ideas too. They really are adorable together!! 💖💖💖

John's background as a werewolf would be similar to what I've done in the roleplay. He was turned at a very young age and raised as a living weapon at the Tarkovsky Theater, which is a training ground specifically for werewolves. They are taught to control their abilities and use them in assassinations. They are a secret weapon of the High Table.

My werewolves are very monstrous. They draw their power from the darkness behind the moon - the legend goes that when the moon is covering up the darkness, night emanates from the werewolves instead of from the sky. So they have a black fog that flows off of their bodies and creates fear and other very negative emotions in anyone that it touches. They are full wolves, but much larger than a regular wolf, and with weirdly long limbs and creepy glowing eyes. They can stand on their back legs, but they usually run on all fours.

John is a jet black werewolf with white eyes and very sleek fur. Santino is brown with glowing green eyes and curly fur around his neck (I really liked that from your ideas :3), and the darkness that surrounds him is more murky and smoky rather than a pure black like John's. And yes, he's also a bit smaller than John.

Changing into a werewolf can be voluntary or involuntary. When they do it on purpose, it isn't painful. But it happens against their will on the full moon, or when they become too enraged to control themselves, and when that's the case, it feels like every muscle is being torn apart. They're screaming from pain and very sore afterwards.

Okay, with the lore out of the way, the story between the two of them:

John doesn't like being a werewolf - it's something that the High Table uses to control him. So he doesn't want Santino to have to go through that. But he changes Santino to save his life. He was severely injured and John bit him because werewolves heal faster than humans. (It'd have to be an injury that kills you slowly, because the first change takes about a day. So I imagine they had both been kidnapped and held for ransom, and Santino was dying of an infection in a stab wound.)

This has a major effect on who Santino is as a person, because it forces him to work through his trauma. To me, being a werewolf is all about having uncontrollable outbursts of anger and fear. And learning to control when you change, learning to change back into a human, thinking clearly and remembering who you are when you're in wolf form...all of that comes from managing your emotions. So John has to show Santino the techniques he learned at the Tarkovsky for managing anger, dealing with panic attacks, meditating, etc.

They're also the only two people who aren't bothered by each other's darkness. No one else can touch them or pet them when they're in wolf form because of that terrifying fog that surrounds them. John has never been petted before he meets Santino </3 But they don't scare each other, so they can nuzzle against each other and give each other comfort.

At the end of their story, once they're happy husbands, Santino has a more positive outlet for all of that rage, too, because he has learned how to enjoy being a werewolf. They go through the change together. They go on runs through the forest together every month and just yell about everything that's bothering them (aka howl at the moon) and tear things up and eat deer and playfight and act cute and freaky together and finally curl around each other, tired out, until they wake up naked in each other's arms in the soft morning sunlight. 💙🖤

[thecoppercompendium]

for the tarot rpg ask game! The Fool, The Empress, The Hierophant, The Chariot, The Hanged Man, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Sun

Wow, that's a lot (to be clear I am not complaining)! Thanks for your interest! I've already answered The Chariot and The Star here, so I won't answer them a second time, but the rest are new!

The Fool – What do the earliest stages of work on a game look like for you? OR How did you get into game design?

I'm going to be greedy on this one and answer both parts, because… I want to, to be honest. The earliest stages of design vary quite a lot for me, but typically start with either a mechanic (say, exploding dice), a concept (a game set in an eldritch ocean) or a title (Summit). If I'm very lucky, I occasionally start with all three! From there, my first step is to define a few restrictions for myself, normally 1/2 for mechanics and gameplay and 1/2 for genre/vibes. For instance, with The Curse Lingers (which I'll come to in more detail) I started with the idea of it being based on nuclear waste warnings (vibes), that it would be multiplayer (gameplay), and that I wanted to use Caltrop Core for it (mechanics). These restrictions give me a direction to push the game in, even if I often end up ignoring some or all by the end of the process.

When it comes to how I got into game design… It was D&D 5e. My friends badgered me enough to DM for them that I read the entire PHB cover to cover in a day or so, then proceded to make some (very very bad) homebrew for the very first session I ever ran of any TTRPG. I do not recommend this in the least. While that campaign eventually petered out, my creation of homebrew did not, and in the last year and a half I've drifted further from 5e and began making stuff for other systems, as well as a few TTRPGs of my own.

The Empress — Where do your ideas come from? OR Do you seek out or avoid inspiration while working on an idea?

To be completely honest, I have little to no idea where my ideas come from. I have a colossal list of concepts on my phone, typically titles or bare-bones mechanical possibilities, but I can't pinpoint the source of many of them. Some spring from conversations with my friends, others crop up at 4am, probably as a result of sleep deprivation, still more sneak their way in after seeing some particularly cool art. I wish my inspiration for games was more consistent, but I'm definitely not going to be running out any time soon.

This is getting long, so continued under the cut.

The Hierophant — Who is a fellow game designer you’ve learned a lot from? OR What is a piece of popular wisdom about games you think is nonsense?

I can't nail down one particular game designer I've particularly learned from -- I tend to magpie from any and everything I read, taking inspiration from the mechanics and flavour that most appeal to me. In this vein, we have @rathayibacter for their excellent work on [BXLLET>, @prokopetz for his many many posts on game design, John Harper for Blades in the Dark, Spencer Campbell (Gila RPGs) for RUNE and Caro Asercion for Exquisite Biome and i'm sorry did you say street magic. I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten. I've recently joined @uktabletopindustrynetwork, and am learning a lot from everyone there, too.

The Hanged Man — What other creative pursuits do you have? OR What current trends in game design are you most interested in?

I've written a couple of first drafts for fantasy novels that I will come back to one day. My main creative passion has always been worldbuilding, so that inevitably gets built into my TTRPGs in some way if I can get away with it. I particularly love creating maps of the worlds I create. I've been working on a map for my fantasy world that I run D&D (at the moment at least) in since I started that first campaign, back in late 2019. I've included one small section of it here, a dimensional overlap between that world and the Far Realms known as The Wandering Isles, created using assets from Map Effects (it goes without saying you can use it for personal use if you like, but not for commercial use). I've made a bunch of others for towns and cities, but it's the overall world map that's taking the time -- the world keeps expanding on me.

The Devil — What motifs or mechanics do you just keep coming back to? OR What is a game you’ve enjoyed playing in the last year?

As it happens, I was thinking about this last night before reading back through these questions. Turns out every single one of my games so far has you fighting against time in some way: Summit drains your cards the more time it takes you to climb, I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE is literally about trying not to be late, the Curse Lingers has a curse mechanic that mutates you the longer you spend within a temple, and both of my current in-progress games have a clock that counts down in some way. I'm beginning to suspect this says something about me…

The Tower — Talk about about a game you tried to make that crashed and burned.

The very first game I tried to make after becoming disillusioned with D&D (during the OGL debarcle, as it happens, what a surprise) was tentatively named Cursed Fools. It was far too ambitious for a first game, used a deck of playing cards and had an interlocking system of Curse and Boon cards, as well as complex spellcasting, classes and a TONNE of elaborate worldbuilding. I do still like a lot of the mechanics I came up with for it, but odds are the game will never see the light of day in its original form. Since then I've continued to battle scope creep (my nemesis) but I've learned to begin with a smaller scale concept to mitigate.

The Sun — Talk about a game you’ve made that you’re proud of.

This is the bit where I talk about The Curse Lingers (TCL), the most insane thing I've decided to do (so far at least). As I mentioned earlier, TCL is a Caltrop Core game about nuclear waste warnings. In it, players take on the roles of the Keepers of the Temples, many years after an unspecified apocalypse. These Temples are cursed by a Relic, with each curse having specific triggers. Keepers delve into Temples to cleanse and claim these Relics, entering fragments of the Old World, our world, in order to do so.

I'm incredibly proud of the mechanics I developed to bring the feel to the game I wanted, using a variation on clocks (which I know from Blades in the Dark) as well as a health mechanic called Mutation, where a Keeper grows more powerful the closer they come to death. I'm proud of how the Temples and even the 4 included Keeper classes are all based on actual nuclear waste warning suggestions. What I'm most proud of, however, is how long it took me to make. I decided to create a TTRPG for Free RPG Day this year, and this became TCL. What I neglected to mention was that I decided this a week before Free RPG Day. I made the entire 28-page game, including formatting, within that week. It was one of the most exhausting and rewarding things I have ever done. I hope to not do something that insane again,

Thanks a tonne for the ask, and thanks to @che-bur-ashka / @wildwoodsgames for stealing/creating the ask game!

[cosmereplay]

Day 18: Once upon a time

Rated Teen, transfem!Kaladin/Leshwi, Rhythm of War spoilers Part 3/4. Start at part 1 on ao3

Leshwi hummed to Peace as she watched the sky for Kaladin. It was good to hear the ancient Rhythms again, and she thought briefly of Riah, who loved Peace for its even, stately beat. It soothed Leshwi’s heart to be able to attune it again.

She took a breath of post-sunset air. The sky was almost completely black, dotted with limitless stars, and the breeze was soft and cool, easing the humidity of the Shattered Plains. Usually it would be her turn to visit Kaladin at Urithiru, but he’d insisted on coming to her.

She hoped that was a good sign.

Soon, she spotted a glowing speck in the distance, which began to resolve into a figure in blue and white, tails of cloth streaming behind him. Leshwi hummed to Amusement, thinking his fashion looked a bit familiar.

…Or was it her fashion? Leshwi caught the subtle curve of breasts as Kaladin got closer; like a nimbleform femalen. Leshwi attuned Consideration–were humans capable of changing forms now?

She…he?...landed in a flourish, Stormlight glowing through the fabric of his dress. Up close, it was more obvious. It was a dress, cut in a similar style to fashion Leshwi was accustomed to, though the wide swaths of fabric were interwoven at the front rather than wrapped, and his left hand was covered by a long, elegant white glove up to his elbow. He drew the ends of the tails to one hand with a Windrunner's lashing, then tucked them into his wide waistband, leaving the loops overlapping and hanging like a skirt. He stepped towards Leshwi, still glowing faintly, with a confused look on his face.

“Why aren’t you flying?” he asked. 

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Leshwi said, humming to Reconciliation. “Tell me, what is the occasion for this work of beauty? You look…exquisite.” She gestured to the dress, then upwards. Kaladin was wearing makeup, and his hair was braided.

Kaladin smiled broadly. “I wanted to tell you in person,” he said, and she noticed his voice had grown softer, though it was still deep and rich. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said, what you asked me. And I want to say yes. I want to court you, if you’ll have me. But I need to tell you something first…”

***

They joined a late night fire and sat together. Though they stood out sorely, the other listeners offered them drinks then politely ignored them, continuing their own conversations. As Kaladi explained her recent changes, Leshwi came to understand that humans could change forms, in a way. 

“Once upon a time,” Kaladi began, “I wanted to be a little girl. I was a little girl, I suppose. I wanted to learn to read, but I also wanted to climb and explore and fight.” She held her gloved hand in front of her. “I was torn between wanting to follow my parents’ footsteps and becoming a surgeon. I thought that maybe if I learned medicine, I could learn how to become a woman.” 

Kaladi held out her ungloved hand. “But I was also good with the spear. Really good. It just felt right. I thought I would never be able to fight if I was a woman. I thought, if I wanted to fight, maybe I wasn’t really a woman.” Her hand closed into a fist.

Leshwi hummed to Resolve. 

The fire crackled; the conversations around them hummed in interweaving harmonies. Kaladi’s eyes reflected the dancing lights.

“When Tien was taken, I buried those thoughts. I was needed as a soldier, and to be a soldier I had to learn to be a man.” She looked into the fire and sighed. 

Leshwi reached out her hand, caressing Kaladi’s shoulder. “You knew no other way,” she said to Resolve.

“I didn’t think of it again until I met you. Leshwi...I don’t even know how to say how much I admire you. What it means to me that you exist, just as you are.” 

Kaladi raised her eyes. She reached out her ungloved hand, taking Leshwi’s hand in her own, and Leshwi attuned Anticipation. 

“Now that you know everything, do you still want to court me?” Kaladi asked.

Leshwi hummed Praise. “I do still wish to court you,” she said. “The path ahead of us will not be easy. We will exist among those who hate us for joining together. This would be true whether you were Kaladin or Kaladi.”

She took a moment to hold Kaladi’s hand, then leaned down and kissed it. “Kaladi,” she said to Praise, “meeting you has changed my life. You gave me hope when I thought I was lost. Knowing your deepest heart is a true honour. I am overjoyed to know you.”

She snuck closer beside Kaladi until their hips touched, and Leshwi wrapped an arm around Kaladi’s waist. Kaladi rested her gloved hand on Leshwi's shoulder. In the firelight, Kaladi’s eyes shimmered. Her smile glowed more beautifully than any light Leshwi had ever known. 

For a moment, she attuned the Lost, and Kaladi’s brow furrowed.

“Tell me, Leshwi. Why weren’t you floating when you met me today?” Kaladi asked suddenly.

Leshwi met her eyes sadly. “I finally ran out of voidlight. I will not be flying again.”

“But you need to fly.”

“It’s worth it.”

“But Leshwi–”

“It’s worth it,” Leshwi said to Pain. “Being free, being myself, knowing you–it’s worth it, even if I never fly again.”

Kaladi pulled her close, then, their foreheads touching. Together, they found Peace again, and sang.

[marshmallowprotection]

Thinking Thoughts about mysme once again and they started to overlap.

So, I feel like it's pretty likely that V has some scars from the fire when his mom died. The house was fully on fire when his mom went to save him. And there's one chat, for the life of me I can't remember which, where V mentions he doesn't like taking off his clothes in front of people (which made me start thinking it).

Also I looked through all the album images and what title screens I could find, V is almost always wearing long sleeves. There's a handful of times where his sleeves are rolled up (mostly title screens, and usually still below the elbows). there's one (1) image where he's in short sleeves without a jacket and it's one of the defaced pictures Ray sent to the RFA so it's not super visible (but honestly even if they showed V without scars cheritz can't stop me. Like the twins are also covered in scars. they can give us all the tank top saeyoung they want but i KNOW he's got scars)

ANYWAY so... VAE. V is the one who goes back to Magenta and gets Saeran out of the wreckage and runs off with him (a thought that came later: I wonder how he felt walking through burned ruins, hoping someone survived such pure destruction). There's a lot of complicated feelings between V and everyone else--ESPECIALLY the twins--but I wonder. Towards the end of that two years. He and Saeran must be at some sort of peace. Saeran's physical wounds are... healed, as much as they really can be. The scars will stay.

Maybe one day V just rolls his sleeves up or tugs his shirt collar aside or something, just enough to show Saeran he's not alone. He knows how it feels to burn long, long after the flames have gone out. The only other person who's seen his scars is Rika (And probably Jumin, either in the hospital after the fire or by accident over the years). Not the rest of the RFA, not even MC yet.

I don't know how to word it but just. that... A sense of not being alone or just being seen when you see someone with wounds similar to your own. They're not exactly the same, no two wounds can be, but on some level you both understand it.

Finally. God. Do you know how long I've been trying to advocate for Jihyun's burn scars by putting them in countless stories? There's no wrong answer for the placement of the scars, but I've always thought that they were on his back and likely patches of his arms. Jihyun is a modest guy in general, so it makes sense why he doesn't show much of his body off, but when you add in the accident with the fire... well, I think his being insecure about his scars would make sense.

It's not even that the scars make him feel bad about his reflection. Those scars are a mark that reminds him his mother is dead every time he looks at him. No wonder he wants to cover up. His life went through a change that nobody will ever understand when he lost her. His personality changed, he withdrew, and he started to hold back on everything because that grief wrecked him in ways that he still hasn't started to unpack by the time you encounter him.

Between feeling insecure about himself and carrying a constant reminder that his mother died for him; You can only imagine what things must be like in his head for years. The accident happened when he was a teenager. Somewhere between the ages of 16-18, that's the only definitive answer I've got on that. By the time MC comes around, Jihyun is 25.

That's almost ten years of carrying shame and self-hatred. We all know how he feels about his mother, but imagining him carrying every scar like it's a punishment for not "loving his mother enough," now, that's hard to stomach. I sympathize with him. Learning how to love himself is going to come with the price of learning how to accept his scars, too. In the same way that Saeran and Ray have to learn how to accept theirs.

I truly believe that Jihyun would've shown his scars to him at some point. He fights hard to help Saeran, but I just know he's going to be quick to run out of answers within the first couple of months and he'll have to resort to thinking outside the box. He'll have to learn that the best way to get through to Saeran is to show him, not tell him. Words are empty to him given what he went through. You need to show him what you're made of.

That's why revealing his scars would be crucial in the healing process.

Imagine Saeran and/or Ray lashing out at V for months because they are angry, afraid, and want nothing to do with this healing that Jihyun is selling. They fight him every step of the way and there's nothing the man can do to stop it. V would be at his wit's end. He would have to try and find something else.

An angry cry of: "You can't even begin to understand my pain, V! You'll never know what it's like to carry these scars!"

Jihyun will have no choice but to roll back the fabric and show Saeran the weight of his worst trauma. "...I'm afraid I understand more than you'll ever know."

No words will be spoken between them about that. Only thoughts of pain and confusion because Saeran didn't know that V had scars like that. V will give him space for a while before Saeran comes back to his side to ask about the scars, and to learn about the story that comes with it... so that's how they open up to each other and finally start to have a healthy dialogue about everything and anything that happened to them.

[aroclan]

i read sounds fake but okay (the book, authored by the podcasters) and it does not cover anyone allo aro. it also has no awareness of loveless aros, non-sam aros, or apl aros. it even includes a "what makes us human is... love! of all kinds!!" section to finish up the book.

tl;dr: this is, first and foremost, a book about asexuality, by an asexual and a demisexual. to broaden their perspective, they surveyed/interviewed ace and acespec people for additional quotes. throwing in the greens on the cover, and having separate aro and ace flags as the section break within chapters, makes it promise something it never delivers.

i also checked their podcast, which is how i found out this book is one year old (as of recording an episode for release on 25 Feb 2024), meaning the writing process itself probably happened in 2022. given the lack of perspective, i had not expected it to be so recent.

(going to cut the rest of this because it is long)

the focus on and centering of asexuality while borrowing a bit of the aromantic symbols seems rude at best for people who are clearly aware of the difference between aro and ace. they discuss the split attraction model early on, and they consistently use aspec, acespec, and arospec accurately. oh, and they happen to run what might be the biggest aspec podcast (as in, the only podcast I could name if someone asked me, "are there aspec podcasts?")

i also noticed that alterous attraction rates a mere footnote with a brief definition (and that definition is "between platonic and romantic") when one person being quoted used it. somehow, this doesn't come up for discussion in the relationships chapter. or anywhere.

overall, i got the feeling that the authors were approached with a book deal based on their podcast, but didn't actually have much to say. or just, like, phoned it in. it's a relatively short book. it dives deep into an AITA reddit post because apparently only that one person could be found for the topic of housing. and that's a topic that would have to be revisited to pad out the final chapter.

[i wanted to know what other people thought, so i checked reviews, and the answer is: there's a lot of criticism of the authors' position that you can hate JKR but like HP. accurate and valid; i have nothing to add to that.]

i wanted to be objective, so i scanned the book again. out of 82 quotes, Phoebe gets 3, and Rai gets one. Phoebe, she/they, responded as ace but realized they were bisexual (allosexual, alloromantic, trans) afterward; Rai, they/them, included neither an acespec label nor allosexual.

ten quotes are from people who use a sexuality label other than asexual:

2 gray-ace

4 demisexual

2 aspec

1 acespec

1 aegosexual

(i didn't track individual names; Phoebe and Rai just stand out.)

so in the final accounting, five of every six quotes are from people identifying as asexual, and none are from people who are unequivocally arospec and not acespec (including loveless aros, non-sam aros, neu aros, unit aros, allosexual aros, and aplatonic aros. and yes, there is overlap between those terms, but they all have zero representation in the text.)

i want to be clear before signing off... it's not that i think everyone should know everything about our community, necessarily, but i do think that people who claim to write for the whole aspec community owe it to us to be well-informed and inclusive before publishing.