#these are excellent guidelines though

[hotpinkboots]

~~~~~

~"𝓡𝓮𝓱𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓼𝓪𝓵𝓼"~

(Erik Destler x Fem!Reader Fluff)

Summary: Erik had intended to assist you in rehearsing for the next performance. He soon finds he cannot be near you for long without melting in your mere presence.

Warning(s): It is mentioned that the actor the Reader must perform with is perverted (Erik isn't having that dw)

How long it took to write: 4 Hours

~~~~~

The orchestra thundered from above the Phantom's lair, muffled, but loud enough for you and your lover to feel and hear. The world had stopped spinning, this moment in time was the only moment that had ever existed- it felt as though the world had been created just for the two of you. You danced across the floor with the Opera Ghost, Erik, of whose name only was allowed to grace your ears, and to be silenced and secret from all others.

Erik had insisted that he lead your dance rehearsals for this Opera, for seeing you dance lovingly with another man filled his chest with a fit of restricting jealousy so hot that it burned like wildfire. His fury was only heightened further when he had spotted the man earlier, staring at you in a perverted manner just as he had stared at all the other women. Erik would not allow you to be touched by the man longer than you had to on stage.

There was not much room to dance, but it sufficed. Anytime you'd knock a lit candle over, he'd catch the candelabra with a nimble hand without needing to tear his gaze away from your sweet features. His gloved hands guided your movements knowingly, for he had an excellent memory that allowed him to memorize and understand a dance in only a few practices.

After rehearsing the dance three times, Erik had decided he'd grown bored of it. The dramatic steps faded into a basic gentle box step. Erik's gloved hand lifted to smooth back the frizzed baby hairs on your hairline. He leaned in to press his warm lips against your forehead, allowing the kiss to linger. He turned his head to rest his left cheek atop your head. "You dance beautifully. Like an angel."

Your Phantom had compared you to the most heavenly of angels countless times. Although you may have gotten used to it with how often he repeated it, it never lost meaning for him. The masked gentleman truly found you to be the most divine of all. You were his angel, his goddess, his salvation.

You returned his affections by gliding the pads of your fingers tenderly up and down the back of his neck. He suppressed a shudder at the feel of your loving fingertips. How touch-starved he was to shudder at a simple caress. "Thank you," you accepted his sweet compliment humbly, a smile gracing your lips.

~~~~~

Request Guidelines!

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~~~~~

~Love, PinkBoots

[novlr]

How to write a harmonious and mentally healthy relationship between a couple in love who is in a long relationship?

This is a great question. Existing relationships have their own patterns and rhythms and are quite different from the flush of a new relationship. I’ll answer this within the context of a romantic partnership (or polyamorous relationship) though most of this will apply to platonic relationships such as close friends and family too. 

These guidelines can also be used to write less harmonious relationships by knowing how to best break them. I taught the Psychology of Human Development for many years as a lecturer, so I’ll be drawing my response from research on human development across the lifespan. 

What is a healthy relationship?

Let’s start with some definitions. The question is specifically asking about harmonious and mentally healthy relationships. Harmony is a state that people fall in and out of. It’s not something achieved and forever maintained. 

People will have disagreements and conflicts even when they are in love. Possibly because they are in love and value that relationship. What happens when couples (or polyamorous relationships) are pulled in different directions by careers, moral-value systems, or differences in problem-solving approaches? 

This is where having a healthy relationship comes in. Healthy relationships are sustainable and a foundation for everything else. Some hallmarks of healthy relationships include good communication, trust, and respect. 

Good communication includes active listening, empathy, and clearly stating needs, wants, and desires. There is a willingness to compromise and to recognize when that isn’t possible. If one partner can’t compromise, can the other work with that out of a place of respect? Is there some way to reshape the situation so that both parties can feel comfortable with the solution? These conversations may be heated at times. The important thing is that people return to the touchstones of respect and trust, and then move forward to a resolution of the conflict that all parties involved can accept. It’s hard work, and it means no one always gets everything they want. It also means doing relationship repair by acknowledging the sacrifices being made and finding ways to compensate for that. 

Relationship as a character

Think of the relationship as a character in the story in addition to each of the characters in that relationship. Develop the backstory and character arc for the relationship. How do the characteristics of the relationship and the story arc for it impact the characters in the relationship and the other characters in the story? Is it a minor background character, or is it the main character of the story? 

Give it the same degree of development you would for any other character in that position. How does the relationship impact all the other characters, and how is it impacted by the events of your story? How does it influence the direction of your story? 

Backstory

You still need to think about how the characters first met and the arc of their relationship up to the point they appear in your story. You won’t necessarily use most of this in your work, though it will give you a foundation from which to draw references and determine how they react to one another. Here are some excellent seeds for building their backstory: 

How did they meet? Was it love at first sight, an enemies-to-lovers story, or something in between? 

How long were they together before deciding to commit to a long-term relationship? Was it ever formalized or are they still together because it’s easier than breaking up? 

Are there children involved, either with each other or from previous relationships? If yes, how old? 

How often have they moved household? How do they decide when to move? Does one partner’s job take precedence over the others when it comes to deciding who stays home if there’s a sick child/pet/family member or if they need to relocate? 

How do they split the day-to-day chores of living – shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills? People in healthy relationships will balance workloads and decision-making with respect for one another’s contributions. They will play to one another’s strengths and step in to help when a partner can’t pull their usual load.

What are other major life events they have been through together? Which of these brought them closer together, and which pulled them apart? Healthy relationships will weather these events even if initially pulled apart. Conflict is a part of life. Conflict resolution and relationship repair are learned skills. How do your characters navigate these?  

Social Context

Relationships don’t exist in a vacuum. How does the world around them view their relationship? Do they have the support of family and friends? What are the societal rules about the type of relationship they have – is it the sort most people have, or are there any taboos being broken by them? 

Some examples to consider would be same-sex relationships, marrying outside the culture, sharing a household without being married, or deciding to remain childless. All of this will inform how your characters behave around others. 

Ebb and flow

One of the films I loved to show my classes was a documentary about couples who had been together for fifty years or more. I’ve put links to similar projects in the resources section. Here are some of the highlights: 

Being together for many years means you won’t always be happy. Working through those times is hard, but worth it. Are your characters happy with their relationship at the moment of the story? If not, are they working through that?

People change over time. One man said he felt like he’d been married to five different women over the years as his wife changed and grew as a person. How have your characters changed over time? How do they remember each other in the past? 

Most reported that their partner was their best friend. Do your characters feel that way about one another? 

The couples often helped each other remember things with prompts, corrections, and clarifications. What are some ways your characters aid each other’s memories or rely on one another to keep track of various sorts of information? 

Most couples had phrases or words or body language that they shared and could use to communicate in an abbreviated way that outsiders might not understand. What are some ways your characters do this? 

Companionate vs romantic love

Romantic love is most often written about in first-meets and blooming relationship stories. It is a fire that burns hot and bright in the initial stages. Over time, the fire settles into a more sustainable bed of coals. This is companionate love. 

Romantic love will flare up again intermittently and can be stoked with romantic dates. Companionate love is what allows people to get on with life and support one another over the long term. It is the process of becoming life companions. 

How do your characters express companionate love? Is it making a cup of coffee, helping with a project? Listening while the other brainstorms or rants? How do they express their deep and abiding affection? How do they stoke the flames of romantic love as a way of deepening their bonds? 

Fidelity

How do your characters feel about monogamy? Have either of them had an affair? If they are polyamorous, what are the rules for seeing others outside the primary relationship? Or is this relationship a secondary one for each of them? If it is an illicit affair, then does the primary partner(s) know about it? 

I know all (most) of your secrets

People in long-term relationships know a lot about each other. What secrets are they keeping for one another? Are there secrets they haven’t shared? 

People don’t always share everything, even in healthy relationships. The difference is in how they share when something is revealed and how they react to such revelations. 

The importance of people watching

Watch how couples interact in the real world, look for documentaries such as the ones linked below, and even draw on well done movies and books for inspiration. 

What moments of harmony have you observed? What telegraphed that to you? If you witness disharmony, how is it resolved? When you see a less functional relationship, what could have made it work better? Keep notes about your thoughts and observations so you can incorporate them into your writing and character development.

Summary

Long-term relationships can be a lot of fun to write. It provides a basis for supporting a character through difficult points in the plot and a touchstone when someone is uncertain of how to proceed. Don’t shy away from conflict between characters in a healthy relationship. The way they experience and resolve that conflict can move the story forward.

Resources

We spoke to couples who have been together more than 50 years — Los Angeles Times 

Couples Together 30+ years give us love advice — Great Big Story

Answered by Kimberley Long-Ewing.

[txttletale]

Your discussions on AI art have been really interesting and changed my mind on it quite a bit, so thank you for that! I don’t think I’m interested in using it, but I feel much less threatened by it in the same way. That being said, I was wondering, how you felt about AI generated creative writing: not, like AI writing in the context of garbage listicles or academic essays, but like, people who generate short stories and then submit them to contests. Do you think it’s the same sort of situation as AI art? Do you think there’s a difference in ChatGPT vs mid journey? Legitimate curiosity here! I don’t quite have an opinion on this in the same way, and I’ve seen v little from folks about creative writing in particular vs generated academic essays/articles

i think that ai generated writing is also indisputably writing but it is mostly really really fucking awful writing for the same reason that most ai art is not good art -- that the large training sets and low 'temperature' of commercially available/mass market models mean that anything produced will be the most generic version of itself. i also think that narrative writing is very very poorly suited to LLM generation because it generally requires very basic internal logic which LLMs are famously bad at (i imagine you'd have similar problems trying to create something visual like a comic that requires consistent character or location design rather than the singular images that AI art is mostly used for). i think it's going to be a very long time before we see anything good long-form from an LLM, especially because it's just not a priority for the people making them.

ultimately though i think you could absolutely do some really cool stuff with AI generated text if you had a tighter training set and let it get a bit wild with it. i've really enjoyed a lot of AI writing for being funny, especially when it was being done with tools like botnik that involve more human curation but still have the ability to completely blindside you with choices -- i unironically think the botnik collegehumour sketch is funnier than anything human-written on the channel. & i think that means it could reliably be used, with similar levels of curation, to make some stuff that feels alien, or unsettling, or etheral, or horrifying, because those are somewhat adjacent to the surreal humour i think it excels at. i could absolutely see it being used in workflows -- one of my friends told me recently, essentially, "if i'm stuck with writer's block, i ask chatgpt what should happen next, it gives me a horrible idea, and i immediately think 'that's shit, and i can do much better' and start writing again" -- which is both very funny but i think presents a great use case as a 'rubber duck'.

but yea i think that if there's anything good to be found in AI-written fiction or poetry it's not going to come from chatGPT specifically, it's going to come from some locally hosted GPT model trained on a curated set of influences -- and will have to either be kind of incoherent or heavily curated into coherence.

that said the submission of AI-written stories to short story mags & such fucking blows -- not because it's "not writing" but because it's just bad writing that's very very easy to produce (as in, 'just tell chatGPT 'write a short story'-easy) -- which ofc isn't bad in and of itself but means that the already existing phenomenon of people cynically submitting awful garbage to literary mags that doesn't even meet the submission guidelines has been magnified immensely and editors are finding it hard to keep up. i think part of believing that generative writing and art are legitimate mediums is also believing they are and should be treated as though they are separate mediums -- i don't think that there's no skill in these disciplines (like, if someone managed to make writing with chatGPT that wasnt unreadably bad, i would be very fucking impressed!) but they're deeply different skills to the traditional artforms and so imo should be in general judged, presented, published etc. separately.

[rallentando1011]

Hello! Can I plz request the ROTTMNT turtles reacting to their s/o being girly? Their s/o is very hygienic, smells good all the time, their skin glows, their hair is always done perfectly, they wear beautiful and cute clothes, their nails are always done perfectly. They also love to collect plushies, bake and cook in their free time, and they also love donating to charities and shelters.

First request done! I really enjoyed this one, and hope you do, too! Thanks for the request <3

My guidelines for requests can be found here

ROTTMNT Turtles with a Feminine Reader

Word Count: 1410

Donnie:

Donnie is always one to appreciate when great levels of detail are paid attention to

With that in mind, he loves how on top of your game you are when it comes to which body washes and sprays you use i.e. how gosh dang delectable you smell

He would definitely probe about which products you use under the guise of an educational survey just in case he ever wants to try them out

Although he tries to remain vigilant, he takes a few days to notice when your nails change

Completely out of the blue, he takes your hand, examines your nails, gives them a nod of approval, just as abruptly goes back to whatever he was doing

Now, not to imply that he would ever condone stealing, but if you ever wear an extremely cute top or dangly jewelry, especially if it’s purple, the next time he’s at your place it’s definitely going missing

Some of your sprays also go missing

“Really? Your favorite spray and your favorite sweater went missing on the same day? While I was over? Nope. Drawing a blank. Must’ve been some other teenage mutant ninja Donnie.”

They’ll probably turn back up eventually

Initially, he’ll frequently yet quietly compliment your hair, but after a while of knowing you it’ll become commonplace for your hair to look amazing, his compliments more sparse

Doesn’t mean he’ll ever stop, though

Donnie doesn’t collect plushies, only having a few he’s gotten from his brothers over the years, but he does admire your tenacity

He also appreciates laying on your plushies if they happen to be bunched into a pile

If you’re baking with him in the room, it’ll be typical for you to be whipping something up and him to walk by and swipe some of it

Yes, it irks you, and yes, he’s tried to stop, but he subconsciously just snags some of whatever you’re making as he passes through

He likes measuring things out, however, so it’s not like he only taste-tests your food

He greatly appreciates when you bring him anything you make

It’s easy to lose track of time while working in the lab, so any confections you bring him are an excellent reprieve from whatever combination of energy drinks, tea, and snacks he’s been subsisting off of

Donnie is a highly ambitious person when it comes to his passions (e.g. inventing, conducting experiments, gaming), so when he hears about the time and money you donate to shelters and charities, he’s zealous to support you in it

Almost immediately he offers to accompany you  and help out in any way he can

Don’t expect him to pitch in monetarily, though; his money’s strictly committed to his scientific endeavors

That doesn’t mean he won’t make anything to help out

If you need anything donated or can think of a gadget that could help out, he’s your guy

At the end of the day, he’s just in awe of the awesome things you do and how amazing you are while doing them

Mikey:

Mikey is not a man to hold anything back

So you’d better be prepared for a barrage of compliments every time you see him

He’ll be giving you a simultaneously squishy and bone crushing hug while pouring over every detail of your outfit

“Ooh, you smell great! Is that vanilla? Ohmigosh, your hair! I love it! It’s so you- and your shirt! Where’d you get it?”

He could continue this for hours if you let him

Mikey is one to play with your hair if he is able to without messing up your hairstyle

It’s just so much fun for him to braid some strands, pull another into a bun, then take it all down, run his fingers through it, and do it all again

If you want, he’ll help you design and make clothing

Or, at the very least, paint on it

He loves using vibrant colors in his drawings and while spray painting graffiti around the sewers, so you can expect numerous colorful additions to your closet

He also pays attention to which outfits you wear most frequently and makes rubber band bracelets that coincide with them

Mikey can and will individually hug and nuzzle each of your plushies

That is a threat and a promise

As an avid baker and chef himself, this little guy is absolutely ecstatic that you enjoy it too!

You’re more experimental in your cooking endeavors? He’s down to clown and mess around with flavor combinations

You’re a little more technical with what you make? That’s great, too! He’s got croissant and baklava recipes he’s been dying to try out and would gladly accept the company

Whatever foundations or activities you’ve committed yourself to, be certain that he’ll join and/or support you in all of them

Leo:

Leo notices anytime you switch which products or sprays you use, barely repressing the urge to comment on and compliment the delightful scent of each

Would it be weird to say you smell nice? Probably, he assumes

He’ll just keep that comment in his head

Leo asks you what your skin care routine is, compares it with his own, and takes notes

He’s got to make sure his stripes stay vibrant and glowing

When your hairstyle allows for it, he likes to play with your hair

Bro makes the worst braids you’ve ever seen in your life but at least he tried

He’s definitely a matching outfit coordinator

Your outfits are fly, his outfits are fly, why not put the two together?

He will compliment your nails, secretly hoping that you take the hint and offer to paint his the same way

“I like your nails.” 

*silence*

“How do you think that pattern would look on three fingers?”

He recognizes that you might not want to mess up your nails while doing his, but he also really wants matching sets

At first when he sees your extensive plushie collection, he tries to act cool, nonchalant

However, if you have any unicorn ones by any chance, he automatically drops the act and is adopting that plush

It’s his child now. That’s just how it is

The extent of his baking assistance is as a taste-tester

Cooking, though, is another story

Want ingredients chopped or minced? He’ll have them ready in an unbelievably short amount of time

Mixing things? He loves it

Pretty much whatever you ask him to help with, he’s on it

Same goes for volunteering at organizations and charities

Whatever you need, be it assistance or just someone to chat with, he’s there for you

Raph: 

Raph gets very bashful when giving you compliments, but he does it anyway

It’s very obvious that you put a lot of energy into how you feel, how you look, and what you do, so it feels like his responsibility to show his admiration of your effort

Whether he’s pointing out how nice your hair looks or saying how pretty your outfit is, he’s scratching the back of his neck shyly and his face probably looks as red as his mask

“I- er, your, uh, you look really nice today… Not that you don’t every day! I- You understand what Raph’s tryna say here, right?”

He’s not used to receiving compliments, no less giving them, but as it was mentioned before, he pretty much has to

Self care days together sound great to Raph

Just you and him, putting on pajamas, wearing facemasks, painting your nails, preferably watching wrestling matches but animated, Jupiter Jim, or Lou Jitsu movies are also acceptable, seems like a dream to him

Being a plushie aficionado, Raph will eagerly ask for all of your stuffed animals’ names, backgrounds, anything, really, and will just as eagerly listen to you describe them

Ask him to have a plushie play date, and you’re done for

He will spontaneously combust (good connotation) and will show up with his collection of teddy bears

Though he’s not much of a baker himself, he will gladly accept any confections you make for him

Just don’t make him anything with peanuts

He is allergic, and he would be distraught to have to decline something you offer him because of his allergy

Raph values everything you do to promote a positive change in the world

It’s something he really cares about, one of the reasons he fights to stop crime in the first place, and he loves that you share that same spirit

[dionewrites]

𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐕𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄. ˚₊ HEADCANONS // ft. Lucifer 1.1k words · GN!Reader · SFW · Feel-good & Fluff ♛ Masterlist | Request Guidelines

⚠ Content Warning: Mention of his demon form, implicit threat and possible death, and reader being sick, stressed, unhappy, experiencing insomnia, and gaining haters. ✎ Note: This is the first work I wrote and posted here on my blog. I’ll be writing for all the demon brothers with this scenerio as well, so please look forward to it!

Lucifer is an ideal partner that certainly comes with a host of benefits. However, this demon is pretty private and keeps some of his cards close to his chest, so it’ll take time for him to fully open up. More so, showing his affection for you shamelessly.

He prefers to keep things on the down-low, so it’s not distinctly apparent that the two of you are dating, but as he falls more deeply and intensely in love with you, he becomes more comfortable and bolder in displaying his affection and declaring you’re his. Still, if one does not have eyes like a hawk, one will likely not notice those subtle cues, such as the shared pecks on the cheeks or lips when no one’s looking, the three love taps on the back of your hand to express “I love you,” his frequent stroke on your arm, hand, or shoulder blade, and how his hand is always resting on your thigh whenever you’re sitting beside him.

His most blatant public display of affection is when he spreads his wings in his demon form and wraps them around you on one side. When he’s in an excellent or sunny disposition, he’ll hold your hand and gently squeeze it from time to time, which he cutely does unconsciously, all the while entwining his fingers with yours.

He calls you “honey” or “my dear” as an endearment, but only in private. He still sticks to your name in front of others, excluding his brothers, Diavolo, Barbatos, and the occupants of the Purgatory Hall. After all, aside from gloating a bit that he’s the one you chose over them, he doesn’t really see the need to restrain himself to that extent around them.

He takes care and prioritizes your well-being around the clock. When you feel unwell or tuckered out to function for the day, he excuses you from your classes and requests a work from home for him to Diavolo to look after you. If given permission, he spends most of his time in your room and usually settles himself down, presumably working, on an armchair positioned slightly distant from your bed, just enough not to disturb your rest. This demon might seem to give off an air of calm and relaxed composure, but you bet he’s been a bundle of nerves throughout your bedridden hours. The heaps of glances he casts on you every minute are enough to reveal his uneasiness about your condition.

However, if there are very crucial matters he needs to personally manage immediately and, unfortunately, can’t be granted approval for work from home, he finishes his work as early and quickly as he can or goes back and forth between RAD and the House of Lamentation to check on you and make sure you are eating and take your medications at the right time.

Once you feel better, he teaches all the lessons while assisting you with the assignments and activities you’ve missed. He takes additional precautions to ensure you’ll not get sick again by closely monitoring your daily habits, food intake, and health condition. It may sound annoying and constant nagging, but taking extra care of your body and health is the top priority.

He can give succor and handle most of your concerns and worries. When someone wrongs or attempts to hurt you, if it requires immediate action or you want him to lift a finger, they’ll be dealt with straight away and make sure they’ll never trouble you again, though it’s a mystery whether they’re still alive…

When you feel overwhelmed and stressed, he does his utmost to reduce the task and burden placed on you, which he usually does without your knowledge. After those long days, he’ll take you on a date or short vacation (with or without his brothers) to unwind.

When you feel distressed and down in the dumps, he instantly drops whatever he’s doing, regardless of how swamped he is with work, to let you vent on him, listen to you (plus offer advice if you ask for it), and takes you into his arms while giving you slow and soft kisses or caressing your back to soothe and reassure you that you always have him and everything will be okay before long.

When you experience insomnia, he plays the musical pieces he composes for and about you on the piano. This demon has several irons in the fire, so there’s no doubt it’s surprising he has the time to spare—but little do you know, he only spends a short time composing the majority of them because, for some reason, everything easily falls into place just by thinking about you. His works are brimming with emotions, much of which focus on his deep affection, admiration, and devotion toward you.

He makes time for you. Despite having a lot on his plate, it’ll not become a serious issue because he consistently makes a special effort to be around you and involved in your every day, no matter how exhausted he is. On some days, you can see him pushing himself too hard that you’re the one who ends up canceling your plans and dates to force him to rest because he’ll never will.

He’s honest with you and won’t hide anything from you unless necessary and has a good reason for it. Even though you’re not asking or prying, he informs you about every demon, incubus, witch, or other species he meets and has a business with. Many take pleasure in spreading rumors and gossip about him, so he tells you about them to prevent misunderstandings.

His love languages are physical touch and quality time. His favorite time of the day is when he finally gets the opportunity and leisure to stick to you like glue. This demon can’t keep his hands to himself but will never verbally admit how touch-starved he is every day (unless he imbibes demonus). He always wants you to be physically close to him and enter your physical spaces. He loves how it feels to hold and be held by you. He longs for your presence and to simply spends meaningful time together.

Dating Lucifer makes others hold you in even higher regard and esteem. This is the avatar of pride we’re talking about, who’s immaculate and excellent in almost all aspects. Naturally, their respect for him is significantly extended to you. However, it’s also inevitable for many to feel envious and resentful of you, gaining numerous rivals and haters who are wishing and waiting for your breakup. Still, it’s best to feel and embrace that great pride for having him, just as much as he does for being with you as well.

[blood-red-hummingbee]

"Wassup, it's Hernanda... Gotcha! It's just me!"

She's here! Twsted from Bruno (Encanto) it's Bruna Voz!

18 and third year at RSA, as well as vice housewarden of @screamintoad's fandorm, Befated, Bruna is autistic and has a very slapstick sense of humor, her jokes often leaving people wondering if she's serious. She's very soft-spoken and kind, preferring to distance herself from people (despite being very social), if she believes people would rather be without her.

She excels in plant and fire magic and her Signature Spell, 'Sands of Time', allows her to see into the future, though she can't be selective about what she sees. People tend to think of her as creepy and invasive because of this, and though she's hurt by it she understands. She goes out of her way to avoid people she knows she makes uncomfortable, to the point where she can avoid passing them in the halls, even if they have the same classes and such! Her outfit definitely goes against uniform guidelines, but no one can ever seem to find her to scold her for it.

She and the housewarden of Befated, Mattie, get along amazingly, something she is ever so grateful for.

[lightlycareless]

What are things that Naoya’s kids do to purposely annoy him?

Hello!!

I think they'd be many things tbh, considering he ends up having like 5 kids 🤣 so the list could be endless... but let's start with a few :> some a bit Naomi-centric because it's easier to write it like that.

warnings: none. domestic fluff. Naoya is a good dad in his own way 🥹

Also: I recommend reading these two too :> (oneshot 1, oneshot 2) somewhat related to this ask.

Happy reading!

Let's start by how cute it would be for Naoya to chase Naomi once she gets a hold of her technique (I will forever HC all of his kids being carbon copies of him 🥹❤️).

Like, he'll want her to get into the bathroom to take a shower, or get ready for school or something and she's like:

“No, papa!” Before running off giggling, Naoya trying his best to catch up. He may be an excellent sorcerer with undisputed control over his technique and seemingly never-ending stamina, but he is still nothing compared to a stubborn child determined to have her way.

Naoya eventually catches up to her, and while he's concerned (scared she might hurt herself 🥺, she’s still a baby with much to learn) and exhausted after the whole ordeal, he's happy too to see that his baby has lots of potential, essentially winning her a good position in the clan / jujutsu society.

The other thing would be feeding the cat you both eventually get her with things she's not supposed to. They're already glued to one another, but this just takes their friendship to a whole new level.

Though this would soon stop after her poor kitten gets sick :( thankfully nothing bad, but neither you nor Naoya had ever seen Naomi so distraught in your life! This definitely brought forward a much-needed conversation about proper care for pets and such. Naomi became a very responsible pet owner after that.

And lastly, this is Naoya's personal bane: when either of his kids follow Mai and Maki’s antics in bothering him. Just about… anything involving the 3 is enough to annoy him. And with good reason! They like to instigate Naoya through his babies just to hide behind you when things get too real 🤣 I envision they'd encourage Naomi into calling her papa a loser, silly, ugly, “mama is too good for him�� so on and so forth.

Though there would be a point where Naomi defends her papa, especially when his affection/veracity of his relationship with you is questioned.

“Mama loves papa very much and he loves her too!!” she’d cry. “Papa loves me too… right?”

The twins would stop their teasing for a while after that, feeling like absolute garbage for upsetting such an adorable girl and subsequently doing their best to cheer her up. Or at least to stop her from telling you or Naoya what happened—wouldn’t work, but there are no real consequences since you know they meant no genuine harm.

Now of course, some of his kids are more mischievous than others (Naohime…) but I think those are like the general guidelines of things they’d do to annoy Naoya 🤭

This made me want to write more of his other kids, like, I forgot they were supposed to have 1 other boy, and twins. 😶 as well as first-time scenarios involving Naomi. Thankfully, I have enough excuses to do so hahahahaaaaaaa which I hope you'll like as well 🥹❤️

Thank you so much for sending in this adorable ask!! Take care and hope to see you soon ❤️❤️

[blueharborhq]

Hello, Blue Harbor! Happy Monday, and more importantly, happy ( almost ) fall! As you may have already noticed, with the changing of the seasons, us admins have decided to do some housekeeping on the main. Over the weekend, we installed a brand new theme with matching graphics to better represent the time of year! We think this is a wonderful idea to keep things fresh, not only for us but for you all as well, so do expect similar updates every few months or so moving forward. For now, have a look around the new blog! If there's any questions about where a specific page is located, don't hesitate to reach out and we'll point you in the right direction! That's not all, though! Alongside this housekeeping, we also figured that it was an excellent time to do some general maintenance, including but not limited to: updating our guidelines, reorganizing the news blog, adding fresh locations, and more! We ask that you please continue to read through this post in its entirety to familiarize yourself with all that may have changed.

GUIDELINE ADJUSTMENTS —

Starting on Sunday, September 22nd, we will no longer be accepting hiatus requests on the day of activity checks. While generally we have considered ourselves to be pretty lenient with hiatus requests, as we completely understand that this group is a hobby and should come secondary to real life commitments, we also understand that it may be unfair to other members if we continue to allow hiatus requests at the last minute. This is not to say that we will be striking the hammer down completely on this, since sometimes unexpected circumstances lead to dips in our online presence, but we simply ask that you uphold communication with us if you find yourself needing a hiatus, activity extension, etc! We're still here to help, and are more than willing to come to a solution so long as we're kept in the loop!

Additionally, we will no longer be allowing members to take up multiple ( 2+ ) wanted connections for the same mun. This does not apply for connections that currently exist within the game, but rather for character applications moving forward. We absolutely love that everyone is so interested in connections — to be entirely honest, we've never seen a group so eager to snatch them up, and we couldn't be more thankful for it — but in an effort to move forward with our inclusivity expectations, we'd like to implement this rule to further incentivize all members to branch out of their comfort zones!

OPERATION ADJUSTMENTS —

In regards to the Blue News blog, the weekly column will instead shift to the monthly column, posting on the first of every month. This ensures that we as admins can take the time to cook up new ideas and keep things fun and fresh for everyone, quality over quantity! This also gives you guys, our members, more freedom to make submissions of your own. If you have any submissions that you would like to make throughout the month, do not hesitate to fill out the form and it will be included in the next issue!

The weekly radio playlists will return, but biweekly, starting today! No big spiel on this, we simply have regained the time to put them together! The link to the playlist can be found here if you'd like to listen.

MISCELLENIOUS ADJUSTMENTS —

We've added four new locations! Including a lover's lane, country club, an impending multicultural institute and the renovation of one of Blue Harbor's favorites ...

Ahead of the last announcement, we have decided to re-enable the anonymous feature. However, please continue to be mindful. Questions and comments are perfectly acceptable, but outright rude messages will not be tolerated. Both of us continue to be open to kind and constructive conversation, but still withhold the right to disable the feature in the future if need be. We deeply appreciate your patience and understanding!

We have also decided that there will be a temporary ban on two careers: lawyers and writers, due to overabundance. This change will be listed on our application for future reference, and will be announced once it's taken off.

Last, but certainly not least, we will be expanding our mun count to 35! We are so honored and grateful to have kept up with being at full capacity for this long, and thought it'd be best to open a few spots to introduce new players to our lovely little community!

Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding, once again, as we implement these updates. Please toss this post a like after you've read it, and as usual, if there are any questions, comments or concerns, you're more than welcome to address them to the main.

[humpandpump]

Emily's attack

My first attempt at a story!!! Explicit, proceed with caution!!!

***

I had barely gotten inside after a long day at work, still in my paramedic uniform for the day, when she knocked on my door. I checked my watch before I turned around - it was exactly 9pm, the time we had arranged. I was exhausted, not really in the mood for the lesson, but I had told her I would help, and I needed the extra money.

I opened the door and found myself looking... down. She was smaller than I had pictured, and although I didn't have any required criteria for who I could help, I found myself attracting quite a specific clientele: usually women, often young, who found themselves struggling to breathe during their intensive fitness regimen, which left them with excellent figures that made this job, well, easier.

Emily was no exception.

'Hi,' she said quietly when I struggled to form the words. She really was that beautiful, with perfect, plump lips, round breasts and a tight hourglass figure. She wore a tight tank top (no bra - she had read the guidelines for her first appointment) and loose linen shorts. Sometimes, I really loved this business. 'Is this the...'

She let it trail off when I nodded. 'Uh, yeah! Come in. Emily, right?'

I stepped back to let her into my apartment, mentally scolding myself for not tidying up beforehand. As quickly as I could, I led her to the spare room, where I had everything set up. When I was just starting out, before I knew how in demand this business would be, I ran it out of my bedroom, but that made things... complicated.

She looked around shyly, noticing the relativity empty room, with nothing but two chairs and a kitchen caddy under the window, though the blind was down - I didn't need nosey neighbours getting the wrong idea about this.

I guided her to the chair and sat across from her, resting my elbows on my thighs as I leaned forward. 'So, what's been going on?'

'I...' God, she was shy. This was going to be hard. 'I saw your services online and I thought... well, you helped some other people who are in my predicament, so I thought maybe you could help me. I've had this trouble breathing... kind of like asthma, but it doesn't come up when I'm doing usual exercise. It only happens when I'm, well, you know.' She blushed, rubbing her hands between her thighs and letting her blonde hair fall over her face. 'I don't have a boyfriend or anything, but I find it hard to have casual sex. Because I'm worried I won't be able to breathe, or I'll collapse. My throat closes up and my heart starts racing and I feel like I might be dying, and I don't know what to do. It happens when I start to get close and then, well, then I can't get there, because I'm scared of what will happen when I get over the edge, if I might die.'

I nodded solemnly. 'What you're experiencing is a very common occurrence. Trust me, I see a lot of women in this position.' At this, I gave a soft chuckle. 'What's happening is that your body is reacting to the sexual stimulation as a threat to your survival. It's a mis-wiring of the system.'

'What do we do to fix it?'

'Well, it's complex, and if you're here it means you know my methods are unorthodox. But the most success we've seen is controlled stimulation, sometimes paired with CPR, to take you to climax without killing you. It teaches your body how to react to the climax by giving it a bit of a helping hand. We do this a few times, regular sessions, until your body starts to learn on its own.'

She looked uncomfortably around the room. 'Here?' she asked.

I chuckled. 'Well, I can't exactly get a hospital bed in here. And a real bed would be too soft for CPR, it would have a detrimental effect on its effectiveness. Don't worry - I have pillows for under your hips, which keeps the blood flowing to your heart. I can go get those when you're ready.'

She looked shocked. 'What, now? Are we doing this today?'

'We don't have to,' I said, putting my hands up in defence. 'It's completely up to you. We can call this a complimentary information session.'

She looked around the room again, and then her eyes slowly passed over me. I felt exposed in my uniform - it had been getting tighter since I'd started going back to the gym more regularly, and I could feel the fabric press against the skin of my arms. Slowly, she nodded. 'No, now is as good a time as any. What do you want me to do?'

I cleared my throat. 'Well, step one is to simulate the conditions of the attack. You say it happens when you start to climax? We'll have to get you there, and then we'll start doing whatever methods necessary. First, let's get you hooked up. Could you take off your clothes?'

She lifted her tank top over her head, and I tried not to watch as her breasts bounced back into place as she lowered her arms.

'Pants too, please,' I said quietly. She slipped out of her pants, revealing a lacy pair of underwear that disappeared into a firm ass. Like I said, sometimes I really loved this job.

'Lie down, please,' I instructed, motioning to the ground. Tentatively, I pulled out the EKG machine and started to press the electrodes onto her breasts and abdomen. I could feel the heat of her skin and the lines of her abs beneath my hands. One hand could span nearly the entire length of her torso. I tried not to let my imagination get carried away with that, though I felt myself twitch beneath my pants. I then grabbed the pillow, sliding it beneath her hips.

'This will monitor your heart,' I said. She moaned slightly, and then pressed her lips together, as though it were an accident. She pulled her legs up as if trying to keep them together. I tried to suppress my smile, to keep it professional. 'Is there anything that turns you on, that might help you get to climax?'

Wordlessly, with my hands still on her abdomen from where I had pressed the last wire onto her skin, she lifted herself up onto her elbows, so that our faces were close. I could smell the mint of her breath.

'Is this allowed?' Oh, boy, yes it is allowed. This line of work wouldn't work if this was not allowed. To communicate this point, I pressed my lips to hers, feeling the hot air of her mouth and warmth of her tongue against mine. As soon as they met, the machine started to beep, slowly getting faster. Every time we pulled away, I checked the numbers, just to make sure.

Her hands roamed my body, reaching for the buttons of my uniform, but I grabbed her fingers with one hand, forcing them above her head, watching her body stretch to accommodate the motion. Her breast heaved with desire.

'The uniform is to remember who's the teacher and who's the student,' I whispered into her ear, before moving my lips to her neck. The monitor beeped faster as I sucked on the soft skin of her collarbone, letting my other hand roam of her breast and gently flick her nipples back and forth. I could feel them getting hard under my hands. Her heartbeat was climbing, climbing - I rested my hand on her ribs in an attempt to bring it down just slightly, in case I mistimed the whole thing and killed her. I could still feel her heart beneath the slight pressure of my hand on her upper abdomen.

But she was doing okay, which I occasionally paused to check, searching her eyes for signs of fear. There was nothing but desire, which made me incredibly horny, though that was probably a test of the rules. Oh well, I thought. I'm my own boss.

I moved my lips to her breast, releasing her hand to guide her nipple into my mouth as my other hand continued down to rest on the curve of her pelvis, lightly caressing her centre. God, she was so wet already. Not that the machine wasn't giving away everything, her heartbeat incredibly receptive to my every touch. I was hard as a rock, hoping she couldn't see the tent that strained my pants. Her hands pulled at my hair, at the collar of my uniform, at everything she could get her hands on.

I flicked at her nipple and let my fingers stroke the outside of her underwear in gentle motions. She liked it - the beeps gave her away.

'More,' she whispered, nearly missed in the chaos of the EKG machine and her panting breaths. I moved away from her side to between her legs, guiding her underwear over her thighs and discarding them. I could see her centre, dripping and ready, and even without me touching her, she was grinding her hips against the pillow. Without my hands, her own started to move down to her centre, though she eyed me curiously.

I moved her hand and pinned it up near her head, leaning over her as my own hand took its place, slipping a finger into her warm centre. With one finger inside her, I pressed the heel of my hand to her swollen clit as I fingered her, all while watching her breathe, just to be sure that she still was.

'You're doing so good,' I found myself moaning as I rocked my hand into her. I slipped in a second finger, feeling the push of her pelvis against my hand. She started to moan. We had lift off. I let go of her hand and settled myself with her legs over my shoulder, moving my palm to replace it with my mouth. With soft, gentle kisses at first, and then powerful, stroking licks of her clit. The moaning intensified, and her hips bucked wildly. I pressed my hand into her lower abdomen to keep her still as I licked her clit and curled my fingers in her cunt. She tasted incredible. I could hear her breathing, labouring against her lungs, as they struggled to inhale. She was getting there. Just a bit more...

And then, suddenly, I heard the sound I had been listening out for - the sound of a heart in distress. I pulled away quickly, lifting myself out from between her to first check the machine, and then her. Her heart was beating, but much too fast, and she looked at me with panicked, swirling eyes. Her hands reached for her neck, desperate.

'It's okay,' I said, immediately switching to work mode, the safe version of me. I reached for a stethoscope from the caddy and rested it over her breasts, confirming the EKG machine's diagnosis. This was the attack she feared. 'We're going to get this heartbeat down, okay?'

She shook her head, as if to tell me she didn't believe me.

'Look at me,' I said, reaching for her face. I wrapped my arm around her torso and pulled her up so I could readjust the pillow to underneath her breasts, keeping her airway open. She was light and limp as a doll. 'I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?' She stared into my eyes frantically. I couldn't be sure she heard what I said. Instantly, I pinched her nose and pulled down her lower lip, closing our mouths together to blow hot air into her lungs. I could see her chest rising the slightest amount. When I pulled back, she was still staring at me, her eyes still moving in panic, not taking breaths on her own.

I did it again, sealing my lips over hers and blowing air into her, this time letting my other hand rest on her stomach to feel the rise. I couldn't tell where the air was going - stomach or lungs? I gave her more breaths, aware that the machine was still indicating her heartbeat was insanely irregular, as I applied more pressure to her body with my hand. One breath with a hand pressed to her sternum, and another with a hand pressed into her stomach. As I pressed to her chest, her heart beat wildly against my hand. It was slowing down, ever so slightly. As I gave her one more breath, I felt the rattle of her lungs as she took in my air on her own, and expelled it. Progress.

'Okay, Emily, you're okay. I got you. You're going to be okay. I'm not going to let you die on me.' Thankfully, she was still conscious, but immobile, and fear kept her paralysed. I sat up, surveying the situation and the machine. We weren't ready for defibs - this was a manual task.

'This is the part I said before - we need to give slow chest compressions while we stimulate, to teach the heart the proper way to beat.' I placed one hand on her sternum, though my hand was big enough to nearly cover her entire breast. I then pressed my other hand over her vagina, fingers resting on the opening, palm pressed and applying pressure to the clit. She was still wet and warm, so I slipped two fingers into her vagina - in and out, in and out, as I pressed down on her chest, all while watching her face for signs. At first, I kept my compressions and fingering slow, gentle movements that kept her calm, as her heart reacted on the monitor. I could feel it against my hand, as her nipple stiffened, almost against her will - she was so panicked, and so aroused at the same time. But I was completely in control of whether she made it through this, completely in control of her heart and her body right now, and I had to make sure I kept her safe.

She was still warm and wet for me, though she had stopped grinding her hips against my hand. I counted out 30 compressions and 30 'come hither' motions in her vagina before carefully removing my hand to rest on her stomach. With the other, I pinched her nose, and she opened her mouth, ready for my air. She closed her eyes as I breathed into her lungs, feeling the gentle rise of her stomach under my hand. The EKG machine was quieter now, slightly slower.

After a few more breaths, I looked into her eyes, smoothing back her hair to check that she was okay. Her chest was still heaving desperately, but she looked less panicked, and I knew I had earned her trust. My palm found her chest again, and this time, I straddled her, letting my stiff cock press against her clit as I secured her thighs between mine. Slowly, I pressed against her sternum, one palm over the other, as I calmed her heart to beat against the rhythm I set. She looked up at me, watching me press into her, calming her breathing. I nodded at her.

'You're doing so good,' I said. 'Just keep breathing.'

She breathed between my compressions, her stomach rising against me as she inhaled. I watched the EKG machine as it steadied the rhythm, steading slowly until we came to a pace. With every drop of the machine, I lightened the pressure of my compressions, until I was barely pushing at all, holding my hands pressed to her ribs. Her own hands raised up to meet mine, as if to thank me.

She coughed, and pulled herself up on her elbows. 'That was scary,' she said, in a small voice. Immediately I pulled myself off her, grabbing my steth and coming by her side. I put the ear pieces on and pressed the bell onto her breast, listening to her steady rhythms.

'It was scary for me too,' I admitted. 'I didn't want to lose you.'

She laughed, and coughed as she did. 'Bad for business?'

I couldn't bring myself to laugh along, I was still caught up in the thought of losing this magic that I had only just found.

'Well, I think it was working,' she said. 'I think I probably need more practice, though. Should we say same time next week?'

[unseemingowl]

About this plagiarism and misinformation business

Amongst all of the schadenfreude over James Somerton being put out to dry for being the plagiarist bullshit-spewer that he is, I just want to underline – no, double underline! – the point that he’s not the only one.

As Hbomberguys’ video rightly points out, this is a widespread issue on youtube (or on any of the decentralized media platforms really – podcasts are another excellent example). Even though James Somerton is a particularly egregious case for stepping all over people from his own community and the way he panders to some of the worst impulses amongst the leftist echo chambers.

Now I love a video essay as much as the next person, Todd in the Shadows, who does the fact checking video of James Somerton, is a creator whose music criticism I’ve greatly enjoyed for years for example, but man…

I cannot help but feel that the way that the established visual language and structure of the youtube video essay has made it a lot easier to hide in plain sight. Actual good producers have done the heavy lifting that these fakers are cloaking themselves in to pass off their work as legit.

Like, I wish that the rampant misinformation or plagarism in James Somerton’s videos was what made me tune out after watching a video or two of his. It wasn’t. His videos had the superficial signifiers of a competent video essay production on topics that I did not know much about. What it didn’t have though was a host with any kind of charisma, and there was something decidedly off about the tone – as far as I recall I checked out of the Jeffrey Dahmer video because the tone was just so… I wanna say vile. If I want to be generous to myself, maybe it was the bullshit I was picking up on, but maybe not.

That’s of course not the fault of the good video essayists who have elevated the genre, but it does put a much higher demand on viewers to engage their critical thinking skills. Which goes for podcasts too by the way. It sucks, I know, sometimes I’d love to just kick back and relax and let myself be a vessel for fresh information too.

Now, I’m not an academic, so there are people much better at speaking to the intricacies of academic citation than I am, but I have spent the better part of ten years in journalism and media. I generally don’t speak much about this on tumblr, because frankly, that’s not why I come onto this site, but unsurprisingly, that means I fucking care about the topics of proper sourcing and misinformation. And a lot of these plagiarists and bullshit-spewers are trying to pass themselves off as doing proper journalism and being documentarians. They are - it should go without saying - not.

There are definitely people on youtube who have researchers working with them, and editors who do more than just figure out which kind of transition to use. But a lot of them don’t. Because it’s expensive. And why should these people do that? They’re not ashamed of what they’re doing! A lot of these actors even want to spread misinformation. And we're vulnerable now that we're heading into a big - BIG - election year. There's a reason why the EU are trying to force the big tech platforms to scale up on misinformation efforts rather than scale down.

That’s why big media organisations are good actually, as much as I know it’s popular to hate on them here on tumblr. Because big media organisations can afford to employ fact checkers, editors and researchers.

And no, big media is not infallible by a long shot, but here in my country at least, we have a press ethics committee, strict guidelines we need to follow, hard limitations on how much we can source from the work of other journalists. We are forced to acknowledge when we fuck up, we can’t just smokescreen everything on social media and claim that people were harassing us when we’re being called out for getting the facts wrong.

I have had to make corrections in my articles before, and it sucks, it’s embarrassing – and I’m very willing to be proven wrong here too. But these people are peddling half thought out or worse, willfully or ignorantly misinformed bullshit. And again, I wanna stress, they are not ashamed of doing that. They don’t care about integrity of information or journalistic ethics.

I don’t know, maybe I am just becoming a grumpy old person, but I do sometimes wanna despair about the trends that the new media platforms have created.

Like, these media platforms obviously have their merits. The main reason I watch video essays is largely to listen to inputs from lgbt+ creators and/or creators of color, because yes, both are heavily underrepresented in traditional media, but there is just so.much.noise now that those voices are drowned out more and more anyway. By grifters like James Somerton, or those like him - or worse than him! People who know how to game the algorithm. Enshittification is making it harder to find those voices. So I cannot help but feel that the focus should not be to put more power into these decentralized media platforms, but make sure that lgbt+ people, people of color and women have better access to seeing themselves represented in media and/or make sure they have access to proper media jobs – and the same thing goes for academia or publishing for that matter.

Anyways, I am actually angrier now than when I started writing this, but if you made it this far into this rant, this is your reminder to go read the BBC or The New York Times or something too, and not just get your information off of video essays. 

I'd argue that the most valuable currency we have in the current climate is healthy critical thinking skills.

[oc-challenges]

WELCOME TO THE OC NEW YEARS CHALLENGE!

Since the winter challenges struck out, we're crawling home. Luckily, the new years oc event is here and hopefully it will be the toast of the town. So before we all have to clean the glitter off the floor after the party, we're going to hold onto the memories of 2023 and looking forward to 2024. This event comes from @aliverse (me) and @elmunson with suggestions and feedback from the OC Challenges & Potluck discord, and it spans from the 26th of December 2023 to the 1st of January 2024. With the hope that you may never become a stranger to the oc community, let's go over the rules and then get to the challenges!

Rules

DO NOT copy others edits, if you feel someone has stolen your edits, follow these guidelines!

If you are doing crossovers, PLEASE make sure that the creator of the other oc is okay with crossovers.

If you want your post to be reblogged onto this blog, it must contain the hashtag onyc23.

Feel free to ask any questions, I promise I'll stay even when your scared, and I'm lost, and you're running away.

Everything is up to the creators interpretation, although I have tried to include some examples for help!

Have fun!

Day One: What A Tangled Web We Weave

On the first day, let's take part in one of my favorite trends this year—web weaving! Weave a captivating web incorporating quotes, images, screencaps, and more for your OC. If you're not familiar with the concept of web weaving, here's an account with a lot of examples.

Day Two: I Polish Up Real Nice

Sometimes we get tired or bored of an oc or an edit, but there still things we love about them. To reignite our love for these things, we're going to revise and revamp. Choose an oc, a story, or an edit to to refine and enhance to its fullest potential.

Day Three: In My ＿ Era

On the third day, let's reflect on the defining periods that have shaped either us or our original characters. Despite the initial impression, and my well known obsession, this is inspired by The Eras Tour but doesn't have anything to do with her.. We delve into the various eras within our OCs' lives, whether categorized by tv show season, movie, age, or any other criteria you can think of. Alternatively, share insights about the current era your in as a creator, like "in my hunger games oc era" or "in my gifset era".

Day Four: Everything New

Now that the studios have stopped being bitches, we can acknowledge all the remarkable releases of 2023 (a special shoutout to the talented individuals who contributed to their excellence). On day four, craft something inspired by a creation that emerged this year, whether it's an entirely new series or just a fresh installment in an existing one.

Day Five: Don't You Forget About Me

Though 365 days sounds like a long time, it doesn't always feel that way. In the midst of our activities this year, some things may have been unintentionally overlooked. Fortunately, there's still time to make up for it. Take this opportunity to craft something for an OC that took a backseat this year, bring to life that edit you've been yearning to create all along, or share that chapter you've been gradually working on throughout the year.

Day Six: In With The New

Let's not do out with the old, but we could certainly do in with the new. For day six, introduce a brand new oc or story you hope to be your newest muse for 2024.

Day Seven: Exchange The Experience

Tidings, tinsel, and a year of beginnings. It's start of a new chapter of our lives, especially for our original characters. Be sure to celebrate this new chapter by signing up for the OC Potluck New Years exchange and spreading joy.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Yascha Mounk

Published: Dec 21, 2024

After Donald Trump won reelection, scores of Americans once again failed to make good on their loudly shared and oft-repeated plan of moving to Canada; but a good number of them did partake in a different, rather less cumbersome, exodus. Complaining that Twitter had been unrecognizably transformed under the ownership of Elon Musk—whom they also blame for supporting Trump—hundreds of thousands of progressives decamped to Bluesky.

Widely touted as a “kinder, gentler” alternative to X, Bluesky aims to emulate the up-to-date news and specialized information-sharing in which Twitter has traditionally excelled. It also promises to cut all the toxicity. In the past weeks, the platform announced plans to quadruple the number of moderators it employs. "We’re trying to go above what the legal requirements are, because we decided that we wanted to be a safe and welcoming space,” Aaron Rodericks, the head of the Trust and Safety Team at Bluesky Social, vowed.

The platform has some features that really do put the user in charge in appealing ways. In traditional social media networks, the executives of profit-driven companies control the algorithm that governs the content which is presented to individual users. Especially on micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, this feature—since well before Musk turned it into X—meant privileging controversial posts that elicit angry debate over milder, more consensual ones. On Bluesky, each user can choose between a great variety of open-source algorithms, which theoretically makes it possible to curate a less rage-inducing experience.

When Bluesky launched, I hoped that it would succeed. But the platform has quickly shown that it is hard for any social network to deliver on its promise of being the place for a kinder or gentler discourse. At its best, Bluesky has become a giant progressive echo chamber, with Blue MAGA accounts freely sharing “misinformation” such as the notion that the vote count in the 2024 election was fraudulent because millions of Democratic votes inexplicably went missing. At its worst, it openly revels in violence—so long as that violence can make a claim, however tenuous, to defend or avenge righteous victims.

In accordance with the platform’s policy of moderating content much more aggressively than X has done under Musk, Bluesky’s moderators have been quick to act when users flout the site’s ideological consensus. In the last weeks, both small accounts with few followers and well-known writers with an established audience have seemingly been banned for such trivial “infractions” as suggesting that the Democratic Party leaving X would be a counterproductive form of “purity politics.” And yet, it was on Bluesky that prominent journalists—including, but not limited to, the infamous Taylor Lorenz—openly rejoiced in the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. As long as progressives perceive the victim of a crime to be morally evil, the moderators on Bluesky appear to believe that threatening violence against them is justifiable.

More recently, Bluesky users with major followings reveled in the prospect of violence against Jesse Singal, a center-left journalist who has ended up in progressive crosshairs because of his reporting about detransitioners and involvement in other heated debates regarding trans issues. Some consisted in crude death threats: “I think Jesse Singal should be beat to death in the streets,” one wrote. But a surprising number explicitly justified calls for violence as being necessary to defend themselves against the ways in which he supposedly put them at risk. “Jesse Singal and assorted grifters want us dead so i similarly want him dead,” another user wrote.1

Though they blatantly violated Bluesky’s restrictive community guidelines, the platform hardly took action against such accounts. It even failed to ban users who shared what they believed to be Singal’s private address or made especially graphic threats against him. Evidently, the people making decisions for the kinder, gentler platform don’t mind actual death threats—as long as they are directed against those who, in their judgment, have it coming to them.

What can possibly explain the descent of a platform populated by progressives who claim to abhor all forms of violence into an echo chamber that revels in violence against anyone who defies its taboos or threatens its ideological conformity?

Some of the dynamic likely has to do with the nature of social media in general, and of microblogging platforms like Twitter and Bluesky in particular. There is also an ideological element—a justification of violence has been interwoven with far-left ideology for well over a century. But as I puzzled over the strange transformation of Bluesky, I was also reminded of a series of interesting social science papers published over the course of the last years. They suggest that the tendency to justify violence by the need to help virtuous victims serves a strategic purpose that is less than benign—and may even have worrying psychological roots.

-

Traditionally, most people have wanted to avoid being seen as a victim.

In “honor” societies, like the aristocratic milieus of early modern Europe, the impression that you could not defend yourself spelled dishonor and invited further attacks. When someone failed to pay you the respect to which you believed to be entitled, you did not claim to be a victim; you challenged them to a duel.

The same aversion to casting yourself as a victim persisted even after feudalism gave way to capitalism, and aristocratic “honor cultures” transformed into bourgeois “dignity cultures.” For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, people who were maltreated in some way would insist that such forms of disrespect did not have the power to undermine the dignity we all have as humans. If the duel is the canonical encapsulation of honor culture, the canonical encapsulations of dignity culture are an adult’s determination to keep a “stiff upper lip” in the face of adversity or a child’s resolve that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words shall never hurt me.”

But as Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning have argued in The Rise of Victimhood Culture, we are now entering a new era. Dignity culture is waning rapidly. In its place, we are witnessing the rise of victimhood culture. This new dispensation “differs from both honor and dignity cultures in highlighting rather than downplaying the complainants’ victimhood.” Under these circumstances, people who portray themselves as victims enjoy an elevated moral status. And that, Campbell and Manning write in one of their papers, “only increases the incentive to publicize grievances, and it means aggrieved parties are especially likely to highlight their identity as victims, emphasizing their own suffering and innocence.” (Anyone who has spent time on social media—whether it be Bluesky or Instagram or TikTok—in the decade since Campbell and Manning first wrote that line can’t help but feel that it has proven to be prophetic.)

Ekin Ok and three co-authors from the University of British Columbia pick up on this thread in a 2021 paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Because of the spread of egalitarian values and the paramount importance they give to alleviating suffering, Ok et al argue, contemporary Western democracies have become highly responsive to people who are perceived as victims. Under these circumstances, making a claim to victim status may allow a great variety of people “to pursue an environmental resource extraction strategy that helps them survive, flourish, and achieve their goals.” As a result, “claiming one is a victim has become increasingly advantageous and even fashionable.”

But being a victim may not be enough. Even in contemporary Western societies, the perceived moral status of the victim is likely to influence how much assistance they will receive. As Ok et al demonstrate, for example, respondents are more likely to offer financial assistance to a man who gets shot while volunteering at a charity softball game than they are to a man who gets shot while patronizing a strip club. For “victim-signalling” to have the desired effect, it needs to be accompanied by “virtue-signalling.”

Some people, of course, really are “virtuous victims.” They have suffered genuine injustice. But since managing to establish your status as a virtuous victim is potentially lucrative, it also stands to reason that others will falsely claim to fall into this category. As Ok et al write, some people “intentionally and repeatedly convey their victim status as a manipulative strategy with the explicit aim of altering the behavior of receivers to the signaler’s advantage.”

The authors of the study even have a hypothesis about who is most likely to do that. People with Dark Triad traits such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, they argue, are especially likely to engage in “self-promotion, emotional callousness, duplicity and [a] tendency to take advantage of others.” Narcissists seek the limelight. Machiavellians are obsessed with gaining and exercising power over others. Psychopaths don’t care about social norms and disregard others’ emotions. People with all three traits are thus likely to be hugely overrepresented in the “subset of the population both adept at and comfortable with using deception and manipulation to attain personal goals.”

In a succession of clever tests, Ok et al provide plausible evidence that their theory is borne out by reality. Their first striking empirical finding is that people with dark personality traits are also more likely to falsely portray themselves as victims. In one of their studies, they ask you to imagine that you are an intern who is asked to work closely on a project with a peer who is competing for the same full-time job. The other intern is friendly to your face but you get a bad vibe from him. He doesn’t take your suggestions seriously, and you suspect that he may be talking badly about you behind your back. How do you respond?

That seems to depend on who you are. Asked to report on the behavior of the other intern, most participants in the experiment shared some negative opinions but refrained from making false or exaggerated statements. Respondents who had scored high on the dark personality triad, by contrast, were more likely to falsely report that the other intern had engaged in discriminatory behaviour such as making “demeaning or derogatory comments.”

The paper’s second striking empirical finding shows that the tendency of people with dark personality traits to falsely claim being a virtuous victim may also give them cover for engaging in bad behavior. In another experiment, they asked respondents to play a simple coin flip game, which was manipulated in such a way that its participants could easily use deception to increase their monetary payoff. It turns out that people who have portrayed themselves as virtuous victims were far more likely than their peers to lie and to cheat.

This helps to explain some of the features about Bluesky and other social media platforms that might otherwise feel puzzling. The kinds of claims to virtuous victimhood that are so common on that forum don’t just create cover for manipulative people to serve their own ends; they also seem to create license for disregarding moral norms—whether these consist in a prohibition of lying about others to ostracize them or (apparently) even calling for them to be killed.

-

When the study by Ok et al first came out, it made some minor waves. My fellow Substacker and recent podcast guest Rob Henderson argued that people with dark personality traits do what they can in any particular social environment to obtain benefits like prestige or material wealth. In current circumstances, he concluded, “those with dark triad traits might find that the best way to extract rewards is by making a public spectacle of their victimhood and virtue.” The psychologist and podcaster Scott Barry Kaufman put a similar conclusion even more starkly: “Some people,” he wrote, just “aren't good-faith actors in this ‘victimhood space.’”

At the time, I found the paper by Ok et al to be intriguing. And I knew that both Henderson and Kaufman usually have a good nose for bullshit. And yet, I have refrained from writing about its findings until now. After all, social psychology suffers from a serious replication crisis. Time and again, findings that are a little too neat or pleasing—from the idea that a child’s ability to resist the temptation of eating a marshmallow predicts later life outcomes to the promise that striking a “power pose” can set you up for success in a job interview—turned out to be dubious or outright false. And isn’t there something a little too neat about the idea that all of those people attesting to their superior virtue are secretly just narcissists and psychopaths trying to manipulate you?

It also seemed to me that a piece of the puzzle was still missing. Some of the people who target others on social media really do portray themselves as virtuous victims. They claim that they are part of the group which the victim of their attacks has supposedly targeted. And many of them clearly have self-serving goals, ranging from increasing their social clout to asking followers to donate cold, hard cash. But others who gang up on, or even threaten violence against, anybody who breaks perceived community norms don’t claim to be victims themselves; rather, they invoke the existence of supposed victims as an excuse to engage in cruel behavior. For all of its strength, there is something about the phenomenon I’ve been trying to make sense of that Ok’s paper can’t quite explain.

But then my research assistant sent me a new paper about the same subject. In a major effort, Timothy C. Bates and five of his colleagues at the University of Edinburgh set out to test whether the finding by Ok et al would replicate. Based on a larger dataset and employing alternative ways to measure key concepts like virtuous victim signalling, they came to an unambiguous conclusion: virtuous victim signalling really does seem to be driven by what they call “narcissistic Machiavellianism.”

More importantly, the paper by Bates et al also adds the missing piece of the puzzle. The “willingness to assert victimhood,” they hypothesize, may also “be amplified by the motive of sadistic pleasure in the downfall of weakened opponents.” In other words, the people who invoke the need to defend victims in order to justify treating others poorly don’t necessarily have a concrete strategic goal in mind; some of them do so because they are looking for a socially sanctioned outlet for their sadistic instincts. In those cases, the cruelty is the point.

To demonstrate that this is indeed the case, Bates et al use a standard battery of questions to measure respondents’ tendencies towards sadism, asking them such questions as whether they would be willing to purposely hurt people if they didn’t like them. They then test whether people with such sadistic tendencies are also more likely to score high on what they call the “victimizer scale,” which asks them to report on such questions as whether they have recently “enjoyed helping cancel someone;” whether they have “joined in on the persecution and condemnation of an individual or group accused of victimizing others;” and whether they have “sought to hurt the reputation of someone accused by others of victimizing.”

Two things are especially notable about this. First, not all sadists claimed that they themselves were virtuous victims. But second, the claim that they were acting on behalf of such victims—whether themselves or others—was the crucial fig leaf they needed to get away with their behavior. This finding, Bates et al argue, supports

the suggestion that sadism may be adapted to exploit strategic opportunities, specifically the legitimization of punishing and inflicting harm on individuals or groups which is created by successful virtuous victim signalling. If individuals high on Machiavellianism and narcissism exploit the resource-release response of nonvictims, sadism appears, as predicted, to exploit the opportunity created by victims in the form of the moral license granted by non-victims, legitimizing attacks on the victimizer by removing moral protection from those accused.

-

Many people really do suffer genuine injustices. It is on the whole a good thing that contemporary societies are much more likely to give people who claim to have suffered undeserved misfortune a respectful hearing than they might have gotten in the past. While trying to keep a “stiff upper lip” may have its uses, we certainly wouldn’t want people to fear advocating for a more just society, or coming forward about ways in which they have been maltreated, because doing so might undermine their dignity or bring shame upon them.

But to be sensible and sustainable, every social dispensation—whether it consists in an explicit set of rules or an implicit set of norms—must protect itself against bad actors. When a platform or political subculture allows anyone to portray themselves as victims without any real evidence, bad actors will recognize an opportunity to swoop in. And then these bad actors will quickly weaponize false claims to victimization as an excuse to harass or physically threaten people who supposedly have it coming to them. In a culture of victimhood that has no inbuilt defenses against bad actors, things will—as the recent blowup on Bluesky reminds us—always eventually get out of hand.

Every community, however noble its stated intentions and however progressive its purported values, needs a mechanism for defending itself against the small minority of people who are prone to exploit and manipulate their social environment. If yours doesn’t have one, it’s inviting the sadists, the narcissists and the psychopaths to run the show.

-

1 Like many of the things that are said or written about Singal, this claim of course lacks any basis in objective reality.

==

When victimhood is currency, expect counterfeiters.

We must fully depreciate "victimhood" as a form of social currency.

[pittieandpoodle]

idk, pitbulls have such a complicated history (in america i’m american this post is us centric i’m sorry but i’m american so it’s what i know) that several things can be and are true at once

pitbulls are not inherently dangerous and violent and many of them do make excellent family pets

historically, pitbulls were bred for dog aggression and high prey drive, but not for human aggression

more recently, there’s been an increase in human-aggressive pitbulls, even though this is technically against breed standard

when pitbulls attack, it’s likely to cause a lot of damage due to their size, strength, and tenacity

not all pitbulls will attack dogs/animals/humans

some pitbulls will attack dogs/animals/humans

pitbulls are responsible for a portion of fatal dog attacks

pitbulls are not the only breed associated with fatal dog attacks

some pitbulls require experienced owners/handlers to provide them with a fulfilling, safe life

some pitbulls are happy with a first time dog owner and will likely never have a problem with safety or aggression

socialization is key to raising a pitbull

you cannot change the genetics of the pitbull you have

it’s almost like… this is an incredibly nuanced and complicated topic, and the “solution” to the “problem” of modern pitbull ownership is widespread, intense education for owners, rehabbing the shelter/rescue system (no more refusing to PTS dogs who cannot safely live in human society for the love of god), and establishing fair and enforceable guidelines for dog breeding.

to be quite honest, i don’t think i’ll live to see the day that pitbulls are not a controversial topic just by virtue of existing.

[psi-scribe]

Ok so after talking with the breeder about some scheduling, I’ve decided to go out there and see the kennel myself and introduce myself to Percival then before taking him home. Right now the breeder is away at a Ravenwing sporting event which is why it’s taking a while to bring the Scout home, which is no problem! I’m looking forward to seeing the kennel and this should help the little guy feel more at ease about his adoption and feel safer on the drive back, which was something I was worrying about, so this really does work out better. So while I sit around waiting, I figured I’d share some information about the Dark Angel breed! They are so interesting and diverse, comes with being such an old breed.

So let’s start with the Legion Breed! The original “Dark Angel” breed is one with a long history, founded by one “Lion El’Jonson” a Welsh gentleman, and he is Welsh, a lot of sources say he’s British, but this is incorrect, he was just educated in England and lived there for a long time but that’s a different topic. He bred the Dark Angels to be hardy, highly intelligent and cover several different kinds of roles. The original breed, which is still around to this day due to diligent and careful breeding, is known for their gleaming black coats in contrast to the “Caliban Green” that the modern Chapter Breed sports (Caliban being chosen in honor of the El’Jonson old castle). Though patterns like “checkerboard” are acceptable according to the pedigree guidelines for both.

Now I mentioned that the breed served in several different ways, and this was managed by organizing the breed into six “wings”, which are classified now as “variations”, or sub-breeds. This is something that was carried on with the Chapter/Successor breeds. This is partly to reflect the original Legion Breed and partly because Dark Angels genetically are so diverse and that effects their behavior, thus requiring different training. You can breed two Ravenwings together but not all the marinelings will turn out to be ravenwings. This genetic diversity has helped to keep the breed so strong for so long.

So, let’s talk about those “Wings”!

Most people who have poked around Dark Angel breed information sites, forums and such are likely familiar with two of them: The Deathwing and Ravenwing. Both are stunning in their own ways, fully grown Deathwing have pale coats dubbed “bone” and grow to be much taller than others of their breeds and variations. These bois were originally used for herding/guarding, especially during wartimes where they excelled (there’s actually a sad story related to that but maybe I’ll share that later). Chapter and Successor breed Ravenwing sometimes get confused for the old Legion Breed because of their black coats. The immediate difference is that ravenwing (regardless of breed) are always leaner and way more active, this is so not a variation for those living in cities, seriously.

There are or were 4 other wings belonging to the old Legion Breed but for various reasons, none of them are still around in great number. These are the: Firewing, Stormwing, Ironwing and Dreadwing.

Firewing were used back when the Legion Breed was really active in early wars, think when knights in armor and horseback were used. The best way to describe the accounts of their behavior is to imagine a highly disciplined Night Lord or Ravenguard but they were also dangerous because they could snap at any moment without warning (unless you’re familiar with the variation). But that’s what they were bred for, assassinations and such. From what pictures I’ve seen around and written descriptions, they commonly had red markings but there’s not much more beyond that.

Stormwing is more frustrating because I have not been able to find good pictures of the variation? No descriptions about what they commonly looked like or what they were bred for either. What I was able to find was that there were never a lot of them in the first place, something about the training and traits needed to be classified as one. The variation was bred for something specific during the “knightly” period but after castle sieges stopped really being a big part of battles, I guess there was no reason to keep the variation going sadly.

Ironwing! These are the heaviest and biggest of the variations, Legion Dark Angel Dreadnoughts were all classified as Ironwings when they were around in mass. You know how big dogs have deep barks? It’s the same with these guys, all their vocalizations are all deep and you feel it in your bones apparently. These guys often wore addition armor as well.

And then finally, there’s the Dreadwing. The first of the variations to be banned and breeding straight up forbidden. They were incredibly dangerous and not many people met the strict minimum required to even apprentice to handle them?? Lion El’Jonson was not messing around when he set up the guidelines for these ones. A lot of the records I managed to find (and read for that matter, old English is hard to read) were uh…gruesome. War-time variations sadly all have that in common.

Though on another interesting note! While the Legion Breed is still around and closely monitored for good breeding, there appears to be records of several “Fallen” Dark Angels around. Fallen is the term for the Legion Dark Angels that choose to abandon their owners for one reason or another/are abandoned and end up going feral. Sometimes they join up in squads but never more than that. A lot of veterans in the Dark Angel husbandry field have tried to trap and rehabilitate these Fallen, sometimes they’re successful too. Those Fallen are then dubbed “Risen” to mark that they were formerly feral and that means their requirements and needs are different. The kennel club I mentioned in another post has set up a program to help with finding and helping any Fallen they get calls about. They’re not all bad marines, they just need a second chance.

So, yeah, that my very rambling history(?) post about the Dark Angel breed!

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Kraegrat

Allow me to start with a disclaimer: I woke up sick this morning, so if it seems like I'm doing a worse job than usual stringing words together, let's all agree to blame fatigue & cold medicine.

Now, on to our beast for the week. The entry people are working from can be found here:

This is kind of an interesting one: not only is there no physical description, but the entry consists entirely of describing a single behavior that has at best a tenuous connection to reality. Nevertheless, a number of people indicated that they recognized it, because this is one of those "bestiary fun facts" that tends to stick in folks' heads.

As usual, we're going to go through the depictions in roughly chronological order -- let me know if I missed yours. This week, for some reason, my original post doesn't appear under the #Kraegrat tag, so who even knows what's going on there and I'm fully willing to believe yours is hidden for some kind of absurd Tumblr reason. (Maybe it got flagged under the "don't go nuts don't show nuts" policy -- I kind of suspect that's what happened with the entry post.)

Images below the cut, because (1) aforementioned nuts, though i'm pretty sure this is within Tumblr guidelines, and (2) i really should be doing a cut for all of these but i keep forgetting.

@mobileleprechaun (link to post here) has gone all in on the pathos, making the Kraegrat small, fuzzy, and sad. They describe it as "beleaguered and persecuted" and "a poor guy" which honestly I think is pretty fair for anyone in a situation where you're constantly being hunted for your testicles. They also cite "tanuki inspo" for obvious testicle-related reasons, and yeah, I see it. Very good Sad Gentle Beast here.

@embervoices (link to post here) has done a few different species of Kraegrat, all of which have kind of a lemur look. (They also provided their own alt text, which I really appreciate, thank you.) The linked post has an explanation of design decisions, and also references that Anansi story about tiger balls. (I googled it just now, and all the results reference American Gods -- did Neil Gaiman make that one up?) Anyway, excellent whimsical lemur thing, love the depiction of it throwing the testicles.

@mayhaps-magical (link to post here) notes their "appropriate medieval disregard for standardized spelling" and explains that they reinterpreted it as "Kragen-rat". My German is almost nonexistent, so I had to do a quick check...

... okay, yeah, I see how that comes into play. I also like the idea of playing around a bit with the spelling and etymology, because gods know the medieval authors did the same with no regard for accuracy. (The vastly-encyclopedic, frequently-inaccurate work that has led Isidore of Seville to be put forth as a potential Patron Saint of the Internet is ostensibly a book of etymologies.) Anyway, I like this guy here. It kind of looks like one of those big dogs that are always kind of shy and nervous around new people, which I think fits with the description as "gentle". Also like that it apparently has both claws and I think thumbs for the throwing of testicles.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) acknowledges that they're pretty sure they know what this animal is supposed to be, but they're trying to put it out of their heads. I think they've done a very good job of that: this is a pretty naturalistic drawing of a ground-dwelling mammal that doesn't quite look like any real animals, including the one that this entry was based on. The post linked above contains a description of the design decisions behind this critter, which I of course recommend checking out.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has, as usual, done a beautifully stylized rendition of this one. She cites the famous unicorn tapestries as inspiration, and I can absolutely see it. I think it's an interesting artistic choice to focus on the hunter rather than the beast in this drawing, but one that absolutely makes sense: the entry doesn't tell us anything about the Kraegrat except how it interacts with hunters. Enjoy your bounty of severed testicles, Sir Hunter... and, um, keep an eye on your dog if you want to make sure you still have all of them when you get home. I think it's contemplating something there. The linked post contains a brief description of design decisions, and also this line, which I enjoyed:

I'd also like to state for the record that when I started this challenge, I was not expecting to draw a field of severed testicles, but here we are. It was more fun than I expected.

@rautavaara (link to post here) has again taken an unusual direction with this one. They describe their interpretation as:

Medicinal plant-like lizard that loses its tail when scared off.

Considering this and the drawing, I think I can see the path of creative interpretation. The animal as presented in the bestiary entry is obviously ridiculous: a mammal that self-castrates to save its life is not an evolutionary success. So what could it be other than that? Well, lizards detach their tails to escape predators; what if there was a lizard with nodules on its tail that medieval people interpreted as testicles?

I can't swear that that is rautavaara's thought process, of course, but it makes sense to me as an interpretation of the material provided, and if that is what they're going for, I think it's quite clever. Also, as usual, the art style here is excellent.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) explains that her design process consisted of blending together various animal features and then giving it sparkly magic balls, because that's all the entry really provides. Which, fair. Also I appreciate the taste in choosing what I think is "tapir + deer" as the animals to blend here. Those tusks kind of remind me of musk deer, which is actually pretty appropriate, as we'll see later. The facial expression plus the sparkly balls strike me as very funny, I have to say. Good beast.

@karthara (link to post here) was apparently also skeptical about the idea of a self-castrating animal, and if you check out the linked post, you'll see a brief explanation of how they resolved that as well as some other thoughts on design decisions. The gist is that the Kraegrat has decoy testicles, which I love as an interpretation. Fantastic. No further notes.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has done another ink drawing that is, frankly, delightful. Love the Kraegrat escaping into the Nonspecific Medieval Trees. Love, love, love the hunter getting smacked in the face with a set of thrown testicles while his dog watches. The above linked post also provides an explanation of design decisions which I think is worth reading, go check that out.

@treesurface (link to post here) has drawn us a rat-kangaroo thing (not to be confused with a kangaroo rat) calmly displaying its lack of testicles. Looks fairly good-natured about the situation, really. They provide a brief discussion of their design decisions in the linked post, and also express a desire for more "weird scary beasts" in the future -- so I checked, and while I can't really define what is or isn't a weird scary beast, I think we should get at least one qualifying entry in January.

@pomrania (link to post here) has made the understandable decision that they aren't going to draw animal genitalia today. Fair enough. I also think this is a pretty good depiction of a Mammal that is clearly not any animal we're familiar with -- I'm impressed by how many of the drawings we're getting for this are Plausible Yet Unfamiliar Beasts. Anyway, pomrania provides early sketches and an explanation of design decisions in the linked post. They also express relief that this is not "Yet Another Bird", and I regret to inform you all that there is a small cluster of Bird entries coming our way.

Anyhow, let's take a look at the Aberdeen Bestiary depiction for this one.

I have to say I find this illustration very funny. That bizarre pose where it's wrapped around a tree is good, but what really makes it is the hunters. Look at those two. Spear Guy looks like his eyes are about to bug out of his head, while Axe Guy seems like he's going "hey, is that normal? should we be doing something about that?"

Anyway, as some of you guessed (and as I'm sure more of you picked up from that very accurate Aberdeen illustration above), this is a Beaver.

Yeah, the whole testicle thing is probably a misunderstanding of the castor sacs that beavers use to scent-mark their territory. Castoreum is still used today, mostly in the perfume industry I think, but apparently the medievals had some kind of medicinal use in mind. So the people who surmised that this isn't actually talking about testicles but rather some other anatomical feature that looks like testicles were correct. I have no idea where the idea came from that the beaver would rip them off voluntarily, though.

So! There's this week's bestiaryposting. I will now Retreat to My Chamber and Lay As One Dead (scroll Tumblr in bed until I fall asleep).

[pixelrushiguess]

So, now that the first episode of Dark Beginnings came out, what are your thoughts on it; and would you like to see more?

Personally, I think it's good. The animation was amazing, the tone was great, and the atmosphere was just phenomenal. Still have conflicting thoughts about the writing, though. Don't know whether it's good or bad. Than again, I'd like to see more episodes.

Yeah I’m kind of in the same boat. I thought it was pretty good, I don’t think it was like the peakest of the peak or whatever, but it was good. I think Ian really excels with darker stories when it actually feels natural. It’s not like the Metal Virus where everyone is super serious and melodramatic and it’s just no fun to read, I like how this was a little more introspective and surreal, it’s a good way of showing character without spewing exposition which seems to be Ian’s specialty. I don’t know if he had more guidelines to follow here with it being a series about Shadow whom Izuka is very particular about, but whatever he did it was pretty good.

I will say I need to see the other parts before I can really say anything, I think the writing was fine but there wasn’t much of it, it was carried more by the visuals. Not to say I disliked the writing we did get, like I said I thought it was good.