#this is the only class i'm gonna be having online in this class specifically

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

So I’m a minor (16 to be specific) and I frequently watch and read stuff with explicit sexual or 18+ content in it. I live in an extremely conservative Christian household and things like explicit fanfic are pretty much the only option I have for learning about sex that isn’t abstinence only. I do feel bad about it, especially when I see adults online say stuff like “oh i watched lots of inappropriate things as a teen that i really shouldn’t have” and it makes me feel like I’m ruining myself in a way that I won’t realize until I’m an adult? Right now I don’t see what the big deal is but i get the feeling that when i’m 24 or something I’ll wake up one day and be ashamed of this for some reason i’m not mature enough to know yet. Should I just stop and wait until I’m 18 to continue or what?

hi anon,

okay. I'm gonna hit you with something:

turning 18 does not actually change the way you feel about porn or sex or anything. the difference between being seventeen and 364 days and being 18 is nonexistent. there's not a magical switch that changes you as a person; that comes from lived experience. if you're 18 and your experience is still that porn and smut and what have you i something that you should feel bad about, it's still going to feel that way and a birthday won't change that.

look, the whole notion of "I saw [x] that I shouldn't have when I was young" is like. okay. so you saw something that was a little mature for you that you didn't quite get? awesome. did you die? no. most people's hangups about sexuality don't come from seeing a rogue titty when they were a teenager, they come from the culture that person was raised in that made seeing a rogue titty feel like something to be ashamed of instead of a completely natural part of life.

story time! when I teach my 4th-6th grade OWL classes (Our Whole Lives, great human development program) I always start by holding a meeting with the kids' parents. I've been doing this for seven years, and every time without fail some of the parents will recall seeing porn for the first time as a kid. these guys were kids when printed porn magazines were still a thing, so they were discovering them in all kinds of places - the bedrooms of their parents or their friends' parents, at bus stops, in the woods, once even stowed in some farm equipment. and they remember it feeling illicit and exciting, sure, and possibly making them confused or even horny for the first time in their young lives, but like... that's it. none of these people are irreparably damaged by seeing porn. in fact, they've grown up to be the kind of people who go out of their way to make sure their young kids are enrolled in a queer-friendly, body-positive, diversity-embracing sex ed class to counter stereotypes and misinformation they might receive elsewhere.

looking at things that arouse you is morally neutral. it can be a great way to help you learn about what turns you on, and even if it's not the best source of factual, realistic depictions of sex, it can still help you discover things - hell, I only figured out what the clitoris was by reading Young Justice fanfic (shout out Snaibsel).

you can't ruin yourself, at any age, with the media you like to consume. what makes you uncomfortable and anxious is the attitude you've been taught to have about that media, which is something that has to be actively unlearned, because it's certainly not going to just disappear on its own when you become a legal adult.

tl;dr obviously no one is making you watch porn and you shouldn't if it makes you uncomfortable, but if you drop it right now and come back when you're 18 don't expect to feel any different if you haven't done any more unpacking re: the conservative Christianity of it all.

[werewolfaday]

Any good werewolf content? Like books or movies. I really love werewolves and I rarely see content of them online

oh gosh uh see i'm like in the same boat as you. it's very hard to find quality werewolf media that's not alpha male type smut or bad horror movies (though some of those are fun) or . teen wolf, which i have only watched a couple episodes of and cannot in good faith recommend

an american werewolf in london, ginger snaps, and dog soldiers are really good movies with very fun practical effects. one of my professors actually worked on the werewolves for dog soldiers! the howling is not a good movie but i kind of love it i can't lie. OH and you should watch the wolf man even though i don't love that movie; it's just really important to understand where the modern understanding of werewolves comes from! (edit: SOMEONE IN THE TAGS also mentioned van helsing and that movie sucks in such A Way but the werewolf designs ROCK!!!! all of the monster designs do. i have had a very specific vision of it where i make the main character a butch. maybe someday i'll draw that)

i have heard good things about the marvel miniseries werewolf by night but i haven't watched it. and if you do watch it pirate it bc fuck disney + marvel.

wolfwalkers is a really well-made and sweet animated movie i would solidly recommend to anyone. beautiful art style, great message, and a really fun interpretation of werewolves.

dungeon meshi has some fun lycanthrope stuff in some of the chapters!!

there's a comic i really love called "After Dark" (on Webtoon) and I have to admit I only have the time to see the creator's posts on instagram, which are snippets of the story. but I adore the art style and characters a lot. you can follow them on twitter here!

Night Class is another (mlm/werewolf) comic and I'll link its twitter here. Really dig the art style too!!

uhh but lemme recommend some of my favorite werewolf creators on tumblr too! because truly we are lacking in good lycan media and i would recommend more indie stuff to fill that niche in more interesting ways:

@gorgynei

@nataliedecorsair

@wolfskulljack-art

@senkkei

@piskikone

@kinerxy

@trashasaurusrex

@blackbackedjackal!

lastly i'm gonna link a pdf of my favorite medieval poem, Bisclavret!! it's about a king and his werewolf.

[solarpunkani]

hi would like to make this clear that this is gonna be an unhinged rant about my college classes.

For context, one of my classes is a semester-long group project (hell) and I pitched the idea of solar powered community fridges to my group and we rolled with it. Here's a post i made on it previously. We don't have to make the fridges themselves, basically just talk about the problem our concept addresses (food insecurity in this case) and how we think this concept would work and how, in a hypothetical reality where we made it real, we would test to see if it worked.

Anyways we had to post the rough draft of our presentations so people in other groups could see what we were doing and comment on them with their thoughts and all. Yknow. Classic 'college class discussion board have to reply to at least one project with quality feedback' stuff. And

Man.

I am so frustrated.

Highlights:

My group keeps insisting that we should have an app for the solar fridges. I don't know why they think app design needs to fit into community fridges but they put it into the draft posted to the forum.

In this case they proposed the app would be kinda like Instacart? Where people who want to donate to the fridges but don't have groceries on them and don't feel like going to get groceries can put in money and then people will then go buy the groceries to put in the fridge. Or use the funds to help with fridge maintenance. And the fridges would have 'QR codes, links, etc. to connect community members for the common cause of helping tackle food insecurity in the community.'

Lots of the comments were pretty good! People liked the idea. There were some concerns about insulation and keeping things cool with low energy cost (the program is online but the college itself is in Georgia USA so many people are in Georgia) but yknow.

But the frustrating part to me I guess is that a lot of people seem convinced that people would use the fridges 'unfairly' and that we'd need to find a way to restrict how much food people can take out or how many times they can use it or something. Which frankly in my opinion defeats the purpose of it being a community fridge. Here are some examples of things people have said so far (comments are due tomorrow evening but I'm mad now so I'm venting now):

One student said "How will you know if the pantry is being utilized fairly?" and "How will the app work? In a dream world, this might be a way to help with tracking and accountability. (Just a thought…) Maybe folks would need to sign up on the app, they get a code… and the fridge acts as a sort of vending machine to deliver what they need. This would give you data to measure success. :)"

Which. I just. This feels completely antithetical to the purpose of a community fridge??? Or a community anything???? Little free pantries and little free libraries don't operate on a 'you get a code to access it once' vending machine basis?? We even mentioned community farm stalls/community pantries in the draft write up! And showed examples!

Another student said "Great thoughts. I am concerned about one person taking all the food for themselves. It might be a great idea to have them in an enclosed area with access control through the app that would log and lock out people who are overusing the resource. Perhaps a barcode could be added to Apple Wallet to track each individual's arrival? Possibly having a mechanized lock and opening mechanism that would only allow each fridge to be open for a specific time before automatically closing and locking? Each scan would only allow access once each 24-48 hour period, preventing "password sharing.""

I cannot emphasize enough that this is the comment that has brought me here today because with all due respect what the flying fuck do you think is the point of a community fridge! I'm already prickly about the idea of limiting access to the fridge itself to only people with cellphones, but to this degree?! Like maybe its because I'm the one who came up with the concept and I care about terms like 'mutual aid' and 'community building' and 'judgement free accessibility to food' but have these people not heard of the concept of helping people?!?! With no strings attached?!? If someone takes all the contents of a community fridge or pantry--which, seriously, how likely is that--they're probably hungry and need it! The concept of putting community resources behind a lock and limiting accessibility is just repulsive to me???

Like someone else commented with this excellent point--"As several have addressed above, I am also wondering how would you monitor use? If you use the simplicity of the honor system, it could easily be taken advantage of. However, I feel like if you were to create some sort of access code, how is it to say that they people needing the use of the fridge will have access to the necessary technology to get the code? It's a tricky situation to think about." For the purposes of this hypothetical assignment where we'd need to track how many people are using the fridges? Yeah I guess we'd need to be able to track how many people use it and when. But in reality??? In real life reality where people are living and struggling and hungry??? I just don't really give a shit!! Helping five people is better than helping none, and locking access behind technology everyone pretends is universal but really isn't is not the way to help!

And of course one of my groupmates is already commenting on all these posts like 'oh! I really like the idea of restricting access to a code! :)' even when someone said 'hey my family struggled with food insecurity when I was a kid and I think this would be helpful but not if you could only access it with an app some of the most vulnerable citizens wouldn't be able to access it I wouldn't have been able to access it' my groupmate was still like 'oh but that wouldn't be a problem today now would it? :) Maybe we should make a way to get a code without downloading the app :)' like maybe there shouldn't be an access code in the first place?!?!

Like am I crazy or like. What the fuck. Again I am here so I don't blow up on a bunch of masters students in a discussion post but like UGH

"you gotta be able to gague if the people who're using it are the people who actually need it" food insecurity can look so many different ways for so many different reasons and you can't always judge by appearances and income levels who is struggling to feed themselves or their families!! There are people who have nice jobs who are struggling because they're caring for sick family members or kids or dealing with student loans or ANYTHING! There are people with nice clothes who are trying to decide between buying groceries and paying rent! There are people living in their cars or couch surfing looking for jobs who also happen to own an XBox or a Laptop!!! "Sorry you can't access the community fridge because you don't look poor and needy enough to me. but if you do, good news--you can only use it once every 48 hours so make it last!" Bullshit utter bullshit.

I talk to people in my life about things like community fridges and little free pantries and mutual aid and the like and people are always like 'ok but theres gotta be strings attatched' BUT ACTUALLY NO THERE DON'T GOTTA!!! Maybe we could change how we view our fellow human beings and stop assuming that everyone around you are greedy little demons looking to ruin everything good and that you are the only holy and righteous saint on the streets who understands the concept of 'community resources' and 'sharing' maybe??? It's like that post about community fruit trees where people are like 'oh but what if people steal all the fruit' like HELLO? how do you STEAL a PUBLICALLY ACCESSIBLE RESOURCE

I'm tired of this goddamn class I'm tired of this goddamn group project if anyone actually has the ability to make a solar powered community fridge you have to promise to keep it accessible and not put it behind locks and QR codes and limited access and facial tracking BS promise me promise me promise me

[pinkacademiaprincess]

Hi! I’m about to start uni in October (law)

Can you give me a list of to-dos to mentally and physically prepare for this new journey? Like, things to bring, items to buy, notebooks etc 🥹💘

Operation Straight-A Student: A Comprehensive Guide to Prepping for a Successful Uni Experience 🎀📚💗✏️

ty for the ask! i'm not a law student, so this is gonna be more general uni advice that i hope can apply for you. best of luck in your journey, you're gonna do amazing things!!

step no. 1: plan, plan, plan!

for me, being organized & prepping ahead of time has been so helpful. even if things get a bit hectic or tough, having a routine to fall back on is key. here's how i do it!

google calendar

as soon as i have my class schedule, i input all my class meeting times on google calendar. then, based on whatever free space is left over, i allocate time for schoolwork and studying. here's the schedule i designed for this upcoming term:

make sure your study/ classwork time accounts for whatever online courses you're taking too. you should also include blocks for work, club meetings, etc. if they're recurring. i have google calendar linked to my phone so i get notifs for each time block.

planner

i recommend having a good planner. whether this is online or physical, depending on your preference, a weekly planner of your own is helpful for staying on top of work & having peace of mind.

the planner i use is the moleskine weekly planner. here is what it looks like inside:

on the left side i write all the tasks i have on each weekday (similar to the google calendar). on the right side, i list all the tasks i have to complete during that given week - i open the syllabi for all my classes and input whatever hw, assignments, projects, etc. are upcoming. i write them down in a checklist along with the date they're due. then, during my study blocks, i can check this page & decide what to work on!

note-taking & classwork

you should also have supplies for note-taking. some ppl prefer to take digital notes, so this means using your laptop or a tablet & stylus. personally, i like to take handwritten notes, so i bring loose-leaf lined paper & pencils to my lectures. i write the class name & date as the header for each page. when i'm done taking notes, i write the key topics in the top left-hand corner of the pager (in "no-man's land") so i can easily find the notes on specific topics when i'm flipping through them.

in terms of classwork, i recommend having a folder for each of your classes where you can store notes, assignments, tests, etc. i know some people use one big binder for all classes, but if you have a separate folder for each, you don't have to carry them all around on days when you only have two or three classes. i like the brand five star bc the folders are very durable and i've had the same ones all throughout uni!

for me, i've never been a huge notebook person b/c i like to keep my subjects separate so i rarely fill up an entire notebook. you can buy one to start with, and see once school starts if you think you need more!

other supplies

in terms of supplies, i'm honestly pretty minimalistic. the necessities for me are my planner, a folder & loose-leaf paper, and a pencil pouch with plenty of pens & pencils. i also bring my laptop & charger with me to school bc i use that for my online classes.

i do enjoy having cute supplies! i have a cute pink pencil pouch, glittery mechanical pencils, and fun pens. i also put stickers all over my laptop to give it a personal touch. i did a bit of embroidery on my backpack as well. you don't need to spend tons of money on aesthetic supplies, especially if it's something you won't have for long. but, finding simple ways to add a personal touch to your items can be fun & motivating!

step no. 2: make an action plan

i feel like it's easy to tell yourself you wanna do certain things or be a certain person during school. for example, i always want to be super studious, outgoing, & involved, but i used to struggle sm to actually do that. instead of only thinking of how you want to be, create actual steps/ tasks for yourself. here are my action items for inspo:

sit in the front row of every class - this can be daunting, but in my uni experience, wherever you sit in the first week becomes your (un)official assigned seat. get to class early, take a deep breath, and sit yourself down at the front! you'll be forcing yourself to stay at the front, but i promise it's fine! i really prefer this b/c if you & the prof get to class early you can chat a bit. also, when i wanna participate, i can speak at my regular volume & they'll hear me (rather than if i'm in the back row and had to scream). if nothing else, you'll become a familiar face!

attend office hours for each class at least once - i sometimes felt nervous/ anxious to go to office hours and talk to the professors & ta. but when you do it once, you realize they truly just want to help! getting to know the ppl who grade your assignments can be super useful. they might give you advice or info you don't get in lectures. plus, they are super knowledgeable!

raise your hand once per week - this forces you to be engaged with the content. i used to have such horrible social anxiety & the thought of speaking up in class & getting an answer wrong was my worst nightmare. and when i set this rule & began forcing myself to participate, i did make mistakes. but guess what... everyone moves on immediately. you might feel like the world is ending. it haunted me for weeks after 😢 but no one else cares! in the end, ppl will only remember that you were confident enough to raise your hand & speak up, not what you said. pls don't let your education suffer just b/c you're afraid some classmates might judge you! if raising your hand to answer problems is too daunting, start with asking clarifying questions & slowly build up to whatever you're able to do.

start a conversation with a classmate - having classmates that you're friendly with is so important. if you miss a lecture, need help on a concept, etc. you'll have someone you can turn to. and that's the least of it - you can end up making long-lasting friends! yes, it's scary to talk to a stranger. so, force yourself to do it as early as possible in the semester. an easy one - if you see someone sitting by an empty seat, ask if that seat is taken. if not, yay! it's go time 😊 sit by them and find something else to talk about - give them a (genuine & non-creepy) compliment, ask them if they've seen the syllabus, ask if they know the prof, etc. just something to get the convo started!! figure out their name, major, and other stuff too. once you've talked with them long enough to feel like you're getting along (whether that's after one class or multiple) ask for their number/ discord/ whatever so you can keep in touch! if they share your major, you should keep in contact with them b/c you might have other classes together in the future. but, again, in the best-case scenario, you have a new friend!

wear a cute outfit once per week - sometimes i would get a bit embarrassed or self-conscious to dress up for class. i forced myself to do it once per week, starting the first week of class, to set a precedent for myself. slowly i eased my way into wearing cute, fun outfits every day! no one is judging you as much as you are judging yourself, so have fun & be true to you.

step no. 3: study smarter, not harder

attending class is one thing, but you've got to put in the effort to study if you truly want to succeed. but, not all study methods will work for every single person. figure out how to study so you don't waste time with methods that don't work for you.

determine your learning style(s)

there are a few widely accepted learning styles. you've probably tried all of them throughout your time at school, so think back on which learning experiences have been most and least successful for you. then, connect them back to these learning styles to figure out ways you can most effectively study.

visual:  if you learn by seeing info visually, such as with maps, graphs, diagrams, charts, etc.

auditory: if you learn by getting info in auditory form, aka when it's heard or spoken

kinesthetic: aka hands-on, if you learn by doing & applying

reading/writing: if you learn info best when it’s in words, aka by writing it down or reading it

you might find that multiple of these learning styles are effective for you, maybe there's one that sticks out as the most similar to your style of learning, or maybe one that just doesn't work for you. now, you don't need to assign yourself one and forego the rest, but you can adjust the time you spend on various study methods based on how well they work for you.

for me, i've realized over time that i am NOT a reading learner. in high school i would diligently read all the textbook assignments, spending hours getting through the chapters, only to retain none of it & do poorly on assignments & tests.

on the other hand, i respond really well to kinesthetic learning - when applying concepts hands-on, such as with practice problems, i have a much better understanding of concepts & retention.

fast forward to college - i spend very little time on assigned readings. in fact, sometimes i skip them all together 🫢 b/c if i spend an hour reading the textbook but retain none of it, that's an hour wasted. especially if the content from the textbook is going to line up with the lecture, i'm much better off paying attention & taking good notes in class, and then spending my study time doing practice problems. if i really do need to read the textbook, i have to make it interactive for myself - i answer the questions at the end of the chapter, take notes, quiz myself, etc.

now, my advice here isn't to skip textbook readings!! that's not something i recommend b/c for so many people, it IS effective and helpful! when it comes to studying, play on your strengths. don't try to force yourself to learn in a way that doesn't work for your brain. make modifications & prioritize your learning! here is an awesome guide to different methods that work for the various learning styles.

find your ideal study environment

you can also maximize the effectiveness of your studying based on the environment you're in. if you can decide what factors help or hinder your studying abilities, it will help you decide where you should make your go-to study spot!

at home or in public? sometimes, studying in a public place can be unproductive. it might make you feel more stressed (like the sensation of having your teacher look over your shoulder during a test 🫣) or distracted. for me, studying in public is actually useful b/c i'm less likely to get disctracted. if i'm in my room i might get tempted to open up tumblr or pinterest, but in public i feel like ppl might see me get off topic which deters me LOL. however, studying at home is nice b/c you're in the comfort of your own personal space - you can change into pjs, cuddle your pet, grab a snack, etc. i do a mix of studying in public & at home b/c i feel like they both have their benefits

quiet or noisy? do you study better in a silent environment, or do you like some sound/ white noise? personally, i cannot deal with ANY noise when i'm trying to study, it totally breaks my focus 😭but some people like the ambient/ white noise of a coffee shop

music or silence? similar to the last one, does having music help you stay focused, or distract you? i know ppl will swear by different things - classical music, upbeat music, songs in different languages, etc. again, i personally cannot handle any sounds 😅 but if music keeps you alert, plan accordingly - have earbuds or go to a coffee shop that has a playlist going

nature or indoors? maybe you find it stuffy to be indoors all day & studying out in the open air helps you stay grounded and calm. on the flipside, being exposed to the elements might just make you more distracted. if you like studying outdoors, try public parks with benches, and also see if your campus has outdoor seating areas. some libraries do too. for a happy medium, you can study someplace with large windows/ nice view.

independent or collaborative? do you study better on your own or in groups? you can join a study group or go to office hours to get a sense of studying in a group setting vs. alone. group studying can help hold you accountable, make it more interactive, and keep you focused. that being said, i def prefer studying independently. i like to go at my own pace, and tbh i get easily distracted w/ others and will begin to just chit chat

based on how you answer those questions, you can decide what your ideal study environment is & pick a go-to place! for me, based on my preferences, my most effective study environment going to the library alone or studying in my room.

that's all for this post! i feel it got very long but i had so many tips to share. there's no "one size fits all" guide to navigating uni life. but i think everyone can benefit from prepping in advance & being mentally prepared. knowing your own strengths + having a plan of attack will guide you in stressful/ uncertain times!

overall, take the time to get to know yourself & figure out how you can be at your very best. apply whichever bits of advice resonate, and ignore anything that's not gonna serve you. this is YOUR journey!

and remember, even with all the planning in the world, things can go unexpectedly. you are more than equipped to deal with whatever life throws your way! when you are faced with unexpected things - pause & think, assess the situation, & determine your best course of action. above all, YOU'VE GOT THIS! 💗

[toshio]

I wanna get even half the chest and body that you have. I know you said you basically just did push ups so I was wondering if you had any specifics. How often? How many?

Gonna use you as inspiration lmao

hey anon! i know it sounds CRAZY simple but yeah. literally just push ups at home on your carpet or hard wood floor will DO IT. whatever you find comfortable. i think pecs are SURPRISINGLY easy to get, and gay men and straight women love a nice set of boobies on a man, they really give you that "macho" look LOL so definitely try for it. you can probably get some smol but fierce tiddies in about a year.

gonna do a [read more] so i can yap to you in full detail:

if you're a complete beginner, start with like 10 push ups, if you think that's nothing and you're not fatigued yet, do more than that, like 20. keep doing that until you can do an insane amount of push ups and then stop when you start getting tired/failure. do that daily. the more the better. you can take some rest days, on those days you can like walk or jog or something to get more lean. if you consider yourself slightly overweight, definitely walk/jog daily.

and when you do push ups, make sure they're not half assed. like, when you see that skinny guy in your gym class going REALLY fast but stupidly out of form, that's probably doing nothing but injuring him LOL. go on youtube or look up an article about push ups, there are lots of evidence that prove you can get boobies with them. i learned pretty much everything from online btw, go on youtube and just look up how to get pecs at home if you're too cheap for a gym membership (like me. i don't have a gym membership)

here's a random image i found on google, don't worry about any of this other stuff in the picture for now. just do regular push ups for now and you should have results. but another thing i'm leaving out is obviously you need to eat right. try to eat like 0.7-0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. some protein rich foods you can eat are stuff like chicken/beef/pork/fish daily (with rice) or low fat greek yogurt, beef jerky, and buy some protein shakes at the store. almost anything protein tastes nasty to me btw but beauty is pain.

also some life hacks because my fat ass (and lazy ass) loves fast food/eating out in general, go to panda express and just get a bunch of chicken and broccoli LOL that shit has so much protein and it tastes good. goddamn. basically just consume meat daily for gains.

also ONE more thing in terms of eating [moderately] healthy (i still don't eat healthy but i try) stop drinking soda, stop drinking alcohol, stop doing drugs, just drink nothing but water, green tea, any tea you want, just make sure it has no sugar. if you crave sugar, get diet soda like diet coke (it's 0 calories) but avoid drinking too much of that because aspartame.

THIS IS A LOT OF INFORMATION but i get asked about stuff like this a lot so hopefully this is enough. LOL. i'll get asked again probably haha but oh well. and again i'm not a fitness expert, just an enthusiast. good luck. remember anon, BEAUTY IS PAIN. and youth is only temporary, so you might as well look sexy before you get old.

[ftmtftm]

Hey!

I enjoy following trans guys on here because they tend to talk about masculinity in complex and interesting ways without tending to fall into MRA type pitfalls that are a lot harder to avoid in a space like Reddit. My question with that as a cis(ish) guy is always like...do you...want solidarity from cis guys on stuff like this?

Given that tumblr is kinda unique among social media spaces in that the norm is posters who are either women or queer, I don't see a lot of conversations between cis and trans guys for me to go off of as a norm. Y'all seem way more busy dealing with (what must be very tiring) discourse with women about whether being dudes automatically rounds trans men up to being oppressors.

Like, the defense I usually see mounted against that very simplistic mentality is--as you've said a fair bit and I would absolutely agree with--that patriarchal society doesn't give a fuck how you identify and short of someone who's managed to "pass" going completely stealth, there isn't even the option of being granted a very contingent male privilege. 

Building off of that response I tend to go further and say "Yeah, and I mean, even if you were a cis dude, the hurdle isn't suddenly over if you're assumed to be biologically male, broad swaths of male privilege are contingent on performing hegemonic masculinity. If you don't, won't, or can't play that role, you're just trading being viewed as a failed woman for being viewed as a failed man. And again, that's only if you're someone who can "pass" and who is willing to go stealth in the first place."

But I don't know if me saying that would be recieved as...helping? Considering me saying "yeah, dudes aren't suddenly welcomed with open arms if they have a "he/him" pin and some stubble, there are absolutely core social advantages compared to women, but there are also punishments for failing to adhere to patriarchal standards that some men will be constantly incurring" causes a knee-jerk "THATS MRA BULLSHIT" response in the average tumblr user, which you seem to have to deal with plenty even when you're just quoting bell hooks or something.

So yeah, don't know if chiming in on the experience of grappling with hegemonic masculinity is like... helpful solidarity or muddying the waters? But I figured I'd offer at least.

Oh this is a very fascinating ask because in many ways I'm inclined to say yes absolutely, it can be incredibly helpful. There are some ideas presented here I'm a little hesitant about and I think it can be situational because of that. Ultimately though it is probably more dependent on your own personal threshold for dealing with bullshit than anything else to be frank.

Like I was just saying in response to a previous ask - some of the most productive conversations I've had personally about gender were actually with an older, disabled, cis man who was my coworker. The social perception of his gender was really dependent on his age as a man in his 60's, his class as a blue collar maintenance man, and the disabilities he had due to life circumstances and his lifetime of physical labor. This was also, socially, at odds with the fact that he was a poet and an artist and a deeply emotionally aware/intelligent person - which goes against a lot of Patriarchal expectations for men. The Patriarchy doesn't really give a shit about the emotionally in touch, disabled, working class, maintenance poet because he is not an asset to maintaining system.

So I do think there is absolutely space for solidarity between trans men and cis men in that regard! There is always more that joins us than divides us. Always.

I do think, however, that it might be smart to gain more experience - of any kind - outside of online discourse before entering into specifically online conversations (though I'm also guilty of jumping into this one too sometimes I'm not gonna lie).

When I say "experience of any kind" I really mean it though. Be that life experience, academic experience, interpersonal experiences, etc. I would just start with talking to people about their lives and engaging with their lived experiences and also letting them engage with yours!

I think here in this specific conversation on Male Privilege cis men hold a dual positionality of both people impacted by the same systems and as allies. To specfically be a stronger ally is to spend a lot of time learning before speaking yourself - while also never forgetting that the learning is never "over" - in my opinion.

Like, that's expressly why I took a break from writing about gender theory for a few years to explicitly spend time just reading racial theory so I could be a better ally as a White person and understand the ways in which White Supremacy both uplifts and harms me and the social positions I hold due to my race. I'm currently spending a lot of time reading intersex theory, but not directly involving myself too much, for the same reason. It's a similar concept here but with gender and Patriarchy.

I do also want to make sure it's very clearly stated that this conversation isn't really a binary "men arguing with women and vice versa" issue - despite it often being framed that way. Many of the people who have been the harshest towards me personally have actually been other trans men and nonbinary people and less so women. At least in this particular conversation, as I've also dealt with my fair share of TERFs/Radfems but that's unrelated to the convo on trans men and male privilege.

All in all it sounds like you're on a relatively solid path though. The solidarity and allyship is nearly always appreciated - especially when offered in good faith and with the intent of growth. I'd still really, genuinely recommend taking kind of a circular path outside of online discourse into academia (institutionally or on your own!!) or ground work or something like that before coming back around into engaging with the internet directly if you're able to though! It does wonders for the brain and helps give you more space to examine potential biases in safer environments than Tumblr or Reddit imo.

[gipzisays209]

No way! I feel flattered!!!

Remember what I said before? About the sysmed server not knowing I exist? Well! It appears as though that would now be an incorrect statement! (More under the cut)

Let's go at this like it's English class, shall we? Dissect this post for it's contents?

"If you get this server taken down, we'll just make another server. ... If it comes to that, we'll just share the links in private GCs ..."

Well. Ain't that a kick in the head! If one server gets taken down, it's entirely possible to take another one down for the exact same reason! And saying you'll only hand out links privately... hate to break it to ya, but I, the host, am a Theatre kid. Acting is a hobby, and one I'm damn good at. You hand out links privately, only to people you deem trustworthy? Honey, that is my forte. ;)

"You're getting mad and defensive over us calling you out ... Instead of wasting your time reporting our server, maybe focus your energy on reporting servers that are actually harming people?"

Whoa, slow down there, hoss. Take a breather. You ever thought about why we're here? In your Discord? Taking screenshots and leaking them?

It's because, surprise surprise, fakeclaiming is harmful. It doesn't matter what it is, if you're getting fakeclaimed over a unique and individual experience/identity, that can (and sometimes will, sadly) cause a spiral that can lead to some nasty places. Depression. Isolation.

Even places like self-harm and suicide.

We are here because your server is harmful. We are here because you present an active threat to the community. But of course your HIGHNESS can't bear to think they're the problem!

"Addressing the ban claims, at one point we did ban a lot of faker systems from our server while rooting out a mole. Everyone from that event has since been unbanned. If you are still banned, its for a reason. Claims of us 'banning just because we can' are false. I could take a screenshot of our ban list and give a reason for every single one."

*Sips cup*

Yeah, I think we can move on from this one.

And now, the quote I've been so desperately wanting to address...

"Gip, because I know you’re in here, kindly stop sucking Ghost’s dick and get your own opinions, it would do everyone good. That goes for all of his little zombie followers. If your lives revolve around people on an online messaging app screwing around, re-evaluate your life choices."

Wow, where do I start with this one?

Blatant misgendering, bordeline going against their own rules when it comes to naming people on the server- I have 20 followers! And even then, you're still going to drop a version of my username? Just like that? Mmmmm...

I have my own opinions, thanks. I don't need a circlejerk discord to make me feel better about my own shitty fucking existence, cuz I have the balls to outright admit I'm a petty asshole with no fucking life. And my opinion is that people like Sophie, people like Cambrian and Lunastas and Guardian- all of them are fucking right. They have all proven they do their goddamn research, they actually give back to the communities they inhabit, and most of all, they aren't leeching off of people just by fucking existing, as hard as it is for you guys to believe.

(Also, if you're gonna insult someone, get it fucking right lmfao. Ghost is the goddamn host, Sophie is not Ghost. Two different people. Also, I'm fucking Asexual, so um, projecting much?)

Wow. As of writing this, they literally just got worse!

Well. You see, while I personally choose to censor Discord usernames to close loopholes like this, it's actually not the same as if you sent a Tumblr handle. What you're seeing in those screenshots are not identifiers, they are server nicknames. Which are specific to THAT SERVER ONLY. Unlike places like Tumblr and Twitter, where seeing your name automatically means someone can find you, on Discord it's actually not possible (that I know of) to doxx someone through a server nickname alone. So no, actually, Sophie didn't leave your username out there, only a server nickname, and the two are not the same. So yes, actually. Because Discord is it's own site with it's own way of handling usernames, it is perfectly acceptable what Sophie did (although not perfectly ideal), because nobody is going to be able to use those names alone to doxx and/or harass.

And finally, the final update as of writing this post... the almighty @ everyone ping...

Damn. I don't even have to AP English IV this shit, they already did it for me!

To sum it all up, phew... I guess I'm a target now! Which I'm honestly pretty damn fine with! But just know, I don't fuckin hold back. I will be a bitch for the sake of being a bitch, because I don't care how petty I am. I don't care about what people think of me, or whatever the fuck you could ever do to me.

I care about defending people from the likes of you.

So go on. Give me your best shot, then. You have the balls to call me out in front of your entire Discord server?

Challenge accepted, motherfucker.

Challenge accepted, motherfucker.

Challenge accepted.

Let's get 'em, bitches!

[yourfavepookiebear]

Introduction (again 😭)

Requests: open (?)

I'm currently less active since I have exams coming up, so I'd rather answer any requests once my exams have passed. I'm gonna post my WIP soon, I just have to finish it first

Again, my only side account is @thepookiestpookiebear

Request Rules :

Character limit : generally 4 unless it's a group

I don't write incest, racist, homophobic, or that kinda stuff

Uhh I don't have much rules

I can write yandere stuff, I can also write self aware stuff

I write for twisted wonderland and genshin impact, and maybe tokyo revengers too !

And that's all, moving on :

Feel free to chat, I LOVE MAKING FRIENDS and i love talking/chatting ❤

If you don't like my works, just ignore them. If you don't like my account, block me. If I offend you somehow, either ignore me or block me.

I don't argue with people (most of the time)

I'm a pacifist, I have a teeny weeny wittle tiny eety beety bitty bit of anger issues

I haven't made a masterlist yet bc I don't know how to sorry

Do not steal my works, they are mine. Do not do anything with my works unless I consent to it, please. Don't copy !

Pookie, come and have some chai with me ♡♧ (or some coffee if that's what you prefer idk)

Hi pookies! I'm a beginner fic writer. I write for twisted wonderland, self aware twisted wonderland, and a slight bit of genshin impact, but mostly sagau. I'm a ✨FaLLeN AnGeL✨ /HJ SORRY 😞

My pronouns are she/her

I'm half European half Asian (specifically middle-eastern asian) my first language is French and my second language is English (chronologically), oh and I can speak in total 3-4 languages.

Edit: I have a lot of names and nicknames, so you can call me whatever you'd like, but here is a list of what most people call me, both online and irl :

Jess

Pookie

Pookie bear

Bear

KitKat

Jessica (rarely)

Cathy

Cath/Cat

Catastrophe (a nickname my previous classmates used to give me)

Sometimes even Catharina, or Catherine/Katherine

In conclusion, I have a lot of names and nicknames, so just call me whatever you'd prefer to call me, I just gave that list so maybe you'd have an idea.

Sometimes I'm dumb sometimes I'm smart, it all depends and varies.

I'm a girl, bisexual + greysexual (basically a biromantic greysexual). I'm a huge simp -> (edit: sometimes), and I like cute things.

I LOVE CATS

requests are almost always open pookies

Proud member of the pookie nation.

I will call u pookie or pookie bear no matter who or what you are.

I'm a pisces, my birthmonth is March. I'm not a huge fan of astrology but I do like astronomy tho

Subjects/topics I like:

Fashion, modeling, models.

Astronomy

Biology

Physics

Chemistry

Science (general base)

Philosophy (self-explanatory)

Edit : Sometimes history/SS too

Things I like/LOVE:

Vacuum cleaners ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤💖💞 (love of my life <33333333333333)

Food (everything except some seafood and mushrooms)

Cats (self-explanatory)

Cute things (self-explanatory)

Animals

Social media (sometimes, depends on the type)

My friends

My (new) classmates

My old school

Fast-food (KFC especially, OMFG I LOVE FRIED CHICKEN WINGS AND OML FRIED SPICY CHICKEN WINGSSS <333)

Chicken nuggets

Dried bacon

Bacon and eggs

Scrambled eggs

FRIED CHICKEN

Sandwhiches

Hotdogs

Riceballs

Tuna fish cans (canned tuna fish 🔛🔝)

Basically any food

Chocolate, ex : chocolate cakes, chocolate milkshakes, chocolate bars, chocolate tablets

Nutella/chocolate milkshakes

Writing (depends, sometimes)

Dancing

Ducks (And he waddled away waddle waddle waddle 🥲.)

CARS

Motorcycles

MONEY (no need to explain)

My extra-curricular classes (kinda, sometimes I also hate them 😞)

Uh, a Lotta things, I'm just too lazy to write all of it (it would take hours)

Music too

My personality type:

I'm ambiverted actually so it depends, so idk.

Edit: I'm an INTP pookies

Little details about me:

I could talk about food for hours. (It's one of the only things I like more than astronomy and money.)

I can't focus for too long.

I have a wild imagination (not in a bad way tho)

I love mostly everything, except for a few people/things that I still hold grudges to. (For a good reason tho).

I have a super packed schedule most of the time, it's mainly cuz I go to 2 schools at the same time, along with extracurricular classes, and both school's homeworks, and school projects

My hobbies:

Horseriding

Rockclimbing

Hiking

Writing (sometimes)

Reading

Studying (only rarely)

Jogging (but mostly cycling)

Track running

Cycling (every day, except for when I'm sick or not in form)

I don't like:

Judgemental people

Sh*t-talkers

People who have massive egos

Roaches

Spiders

Dirtyness

Dirty people

Dust

Unsanitary people

Dirty food

Dirty water

Unhygienic people

People who don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom.

Some things you should probably know if you're one of my mutuals:

2. Also not that inportant, but I try to be nice to people because they already have enough problems and I don't need/want to be one of them. Sometimes though I may be rude or mean on accident, srry.

3. I LOVE ALL OF MY MOOTS ♡♡♡

4. Also not important but I don't really think much before subscribing to someone, if I see a random stranger on the internet who has good humor, then I'll hit the plus button. Sometimes though it can be troublesome, since i don't really check people's bios.

ALSO this is my beloved creature that I found on the streets on a snowy day, it's my best friend now @farfarurfav

I'm in a lot of fandoms, mainly Twisted Wonderland, Genshin impact, Attack on Titan, Jujustu Kaisen, Honkai Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Boruto, Assassination Classroom, Spy x Family, KNY, Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken/ That time I reincarnated as a slime, Obey me, Dark Fall, Etc etc and also I'm a manga, manhua, manhwa, and anime enjoyer and I also know some webtoons too !

ONLY Side account : @thepookiestpookiebear

Must read to navigate through my blog :

Tags :

See "#yourfavepookiebear" for anything related to me !

See "#pookiebear rants" for whatever rants I've posted !

See "#pookie talks" for me talking with people or just chatting and stuff like that

See "#thepookiestwrites" for some of my newest works !

For now these are the only tags I'll introduce.

for all the dividers ! ⬇️

Oh btw @cafekitsune , love your stuff

[ckret2]

Now I'm curious about Bill's family. Can you share what they were like?

Now, I haven't fully fleshed out his family, so the details are subject to change. I haven't even decided on what shape his dad was.

(A purely Flatland backstory would be like, oh, probably a nearly-equilateral isosceles triangle unless something weird happened; but Flatland was written as a satire of Victorian society and the Victorian class system, and I'm not interested in satirizing Victorian society. So I've yet to decide what sort of shape descent rules make the most sense for the kind of story I'm telling here. Maybe I'll like, make his dad a rhombus, Say Nothing, and watch the people who read Flatland riot in the comments.)

But for right now, unless my thoughts change as I go, his parents are kinda like,

Bill: *meets Stan & Ford's mom* "Oh that's hauntingly familiar."

Bill: *meets Gideon's dad* "Oh THAT'S hauntingly familiar."

Meet itty bitty baby Billy. 

(this is the post i made this picture for. Isn't he cute.)

Bill was born with what could loosely be called "psychic powers" and more specifically be called "the ability to see into the third dimension." Saying "Bill can see into the third dimension" is kind of like saying "this human can see into the fourth dimension" when you mean "this human can constantly see what's gonna happen thirty seconds into the future like a blurry image superimposed over the present." Constantly seeing thirty seconds into the future would be useful for avoiding car crashes or cheating at roulettes, but there's nothing particularly mystical about it. That's equivalent to the level Bill's ability was on. Especially since, in Bill's dimension, the power to see into the third dimension was an extremely rare but known and scientifically-documented ability, not mysterious magic.

However, when Bill started saying stuff like "The neighbor is coming over to visit, I can see her through the door" or "Yeah I can guess what's on your card, it's two red dots, I can just see the back of it from here, can't you see it too?" or "there's a bunch of white dots outside the world and a really big white circle that moves back and forth and I think the circle controls light"—

His parents went, "You Could Make A Religion Out Of That."

And that's how Bill got a cult.

I haven't done much to flesh out Bill's parents in terms of their looks personalities interests etc (though his mother is more developed), but I've got a pretty firm idea of the impact they had on him. In a way he didn't have "parents"—they did a pretty poor job of parenting—rather, he had business managers posing as his prophets. For putting together his childhood, I'm drawing on histories of cults, but also on other industries that are dependent upon exploiting children by putting them in the limelight—like beauty pageant children or kidfluencers put online by their parents. Things like this article with a kid who said she wants to stop making youtube videos and her father told her that was their livelihood.

So here's Bill growing up being told "you're special, you're SO special" by his parents; but also he's just the performing figurehead of his parents' new religion; but also he's so powerful and so influential; but also he's just a kid completely under his family's control; but also his family's prosperity and welfare is completely on his shoulders; but also nothing he says really matters and they could replace him with anybody who could say the same things; but also he's totally unique (and thus alienated); but also there are other people out there just like him (and they're dangerous to his position); but also he has the perfect platform to tell the world about the truth as he sees it; but also people only listen to him when he lies; but also everyone worships everything he says as gospel; but also the whole world knows he's a scammer and a joke.

And now he's a messed up adult who still acts like a kid (you can't grow up if you never get a childhood); and he makes new friends and helpers by bombarding them with textbook cult recruitment tactics; and he's more comfortable with waltzing into town square and appointing himself God than he is with talking honestly about his childhood.

Also between then and now he ended the world.

I see Bill as an only child, for a couple of reasons:

First, because of this in Journal 3: "Apparently, his thirst for power caused him to destroy his home dimension — including his parents and everyone else he’d ever known." If he did have siblings—or if we were even intended to feel like the possibility was open that he might have a sibling—it would be weird to emphasize "his parents" instead of something like "his family." The implications feel like we're supposed to believe his parents were the only immediate family he had. (And, since Journal 3 was kinda the last gift from a completed series, I'm doubting the wording was a red herring to obscure the fact that he's got a secret identical twin or something. ... Wouldn't that be so funny though—)

And second, because he seems like the kind of person who wasn't shoved in close quarters with another child and forced to learn how to get along. He was always the specialest boy and never had to share the spotlight.

The only reason I think I'd give him a sibling is if I found it was somehow essential to help develop/highlight some facet of Bill's character—like, if I wanted to do something with the "golden child vs forgotten child" dynamic to mirror what the Pines have going on, or have him underestimate the relationships between human siblings because he's projecting based on how he grew up. ("You probably think your brother is some burden you're shackled to by blood, like a non-consensual forced 'friendship' you wish you could break off!" "Um, no? I don't think that? I love him?" "Because you were coerced into loving him." "No???") But right now my goals for him are complimented more by the social isolation from being the only child in the household and limited opportunities to make friends on the outside.

[dullahandyke]

yippee yippee yippee yippee eimear con haul!!!!

Hi. It was my birthday recently and I'm bad to shop for so instead of gifts I got money to spend at Kaizokucon. So here's a haul. Under the cut bcos I couldnt fit it nicely in one picture and I wanna ramble

ok we're gonna take it one picture at a time ^_^ the ID in the alt text explains what everything is if u just wanna see what i got without the rambling sure to come with it. links in rambling r to the artists of the fan stuff where i can find em ^_^ only one of them is a direct link to the product tho bcos some ppls shops r down and some ppl dont have all their stuff online. lemons_arent_green youre a real one

Ok the flat stuff!!! black rock shooter poster bcos i already have a figure but i liek her... badass anime girl ily.... was so so sure i saw a reigen keychain but when i went to go get one there weren't any so i got this sticker sheet instead :3 SPEAKING OF KEYCHAINS!!! yippee yippee kaguya i love you youre my special little tiempsy. yue you are a gay anime boy with a cool design. tomoyo ive always felt a kinship with you and its because im a desperate dyke. monokuma is here ig 🙄 i put him on my carabiner and hes fun to stim with. i am not immune to the sdr2 fanboying. also full disclosure ive not watched naruto (its in the spreadsheet) i just thought funko pop sasuke keychain was really really funny. my son who stares into my soul. comparatively i dont have as much to say on the badges!! luka luka fever for real girlie ily. the bandori ones were blind bags and i got himari on my first try <3<3<3<3<3<3 sorry eve i kind of dont care. 🙁 the dr girlies i kinda picked at random based on who i've been vibing w lately.

THE POKEMON DIORAMA!!!! its soooo cool, staff were setting up the trade hall so i was in there all day friday and this shop was one of the first to set up their stands and i was literally staring at it all day... so fucking awesome. the rings n the necklace r from the same shop look at them... im fucking obsessed w the catgirl necklace. literally look at her. i dont thiiink shes supposed to be a specific character but she might be. oh well. cat girl ily. aaaand the arisa stand is actually a little clip for papers n stuff!! she was also a blind box but specifically for popipa so i was gonna b happy w whoever <3

MIIIIKUUUUUU MY PRINCESS MY EVERYTHING!!!!! she was calling to me she beckoned..... shes actually rlly big irl shes the biggest figure i have, replacing my kokoro one... shes the one where i audibly said 'it was my birthday i can buy things' bcos figures spencey... she wasnt too bad actually i just like bitching. 6 euro axel for scale

BOOKS 💥💥💥 i was reading nana a while back and i dropped it but i gotta pick it up again... rlly pretty and awesome... aaaand the summer hikaru died!!! kay if youre seeing this then know you posting abt it convinced me <3 i originally got it bcos i was on door duty in a quiet area and didnt wanna spend my time draining battery life on my phone but after i bought it i realised that that was literally a terrible idea so <3 we'll get around to them soon

FINALLLYYYYYY TSHIRTS!!! the top yellow one was my staff t-shirt, it has 'staff' on the back i was wearing it all weekend and yippee i love it.... emotional bond.... and if this is a safe space can i just say. if kaito was a woman? would. next up FAYE FUCKIN VALENTINEEEE!!! do u remember that post i made going thru all the sellers that were gonna b at the con that started like 'i hate shounen fans. name a woman'? well this is the seller i was talking about but all was forgiven in the name of FAYE ! GODDAMN ! VALENTINE ! ugh i love you girlie. and the last t-shirt was given out free to staff after the closing ceremony!! it was the tenth anniversary of kaizokucon so we got this awesomes design yay.... wore it to classes today hoping somebody would comment on it and nobody did 😌and in the middle i got CLOW CARRRDS BITCHES!!!!!! i saw them and immediately all thought left my fucking brain. i needed them. so important. the seller also recognised the axel in my fanny pack yippee!!!! a few people recognised him over the weekend actually and i was always like yes!! the him

anyway. yippee! yippee! yippee! yippee! yippee! yippee! yippee! yippee! yippee! con con con con con :)

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Running on Spite and Fumes by Amber McLain

Written for the Phic Phight Prompt: Wes decides to investigate one of Danny's rogues (from @bookhoard)

AO3 Link

[Warnings from past character death (Ember) and fire]

Wes was just about ready to throw in the towel. No matter how many times he said it, no matter how much evidence he provided, no one was ever going to believe that Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were one and the same. He'd been trying to show people for almost two years now with nothing at all to show for it. Maybe the time had finally come to give up the ghost and direct his efforts toward something else.

He sat behind and to the left of Danny in physics class. That half-ghost bastard was chugging ectoplasm out of a clear water bottle without a care in the world and nobody but Wes thought there was anything suspicious about that. Not long ago, Wes would have practically thrown a fit over it. Shouted, and pointed, and demanded, "Are none of you seeing this!?" but he didn't today.

Even when Danny turned around to make direct eye-contact with Wes, specifically to antagonize him, he didn't take the bait. "You know what, Fenton?" he said. "You win."

Danny blinked in surprise and put down his water bottle. "What?"

"I said, you win," Wes repeated. "Fuck you, obviously, but I give up. I'm not wasting any more of my time. My reputation has taken enough of a hit already. I'm moving on to newer, better things."

Danny scoffed and leaned on his hand, shooting Wes a mildly amused and thoroughly unconvinced look. "Like what?"

"Like, you know," Wes hadn't really thought about it yet, but he'd be damned if he was about to admit it to Danny. "Ghosts that are actually cool!" he spat. "Like Ember! Phantom is old news. I'm gonna figure out who she is, or—was."

"Right, sure you are," Danny rolled his eyes and turned to face the front of the classroom again, grumbling, "Good luck with that," under his breath.

Wes scowled. He'd just made that up on the spot because he hadn't wanted to admit to Danny, of all people, that he didn't actually have a plan, but now he really was gonna do it. How hard could it be to figure out who a ghost was before they died, anyway?

As it turned out, the answer to that question was 'really fucking hard.' Wes had basically nothing to go on except her song. He ran his personal recording—yes he had a copy of it. Mind control aside, it was a good song!—through every music identification app and program he could find and came up with zip. Either she'd written that song after she died, or she was one of those ghosts that formed in the Ghost Zone and only seemed like a normal ghost, or she was such an obscure indie artist when she was alive that no one... remembered her.... Oh.

That would explain her obsession. Ghosts often became obsessed in death with things they wanted or fantasized about when they were alive, but never got. Finally, Wes had a thread to pull on. He went online, surfing indie music forums, the more obscure the better. He posted the same message in tons of different places.

Does anyone recognize this artist? Her name is Ember McLain, but I can't can't find anything about her anywhere! <remember_ember.mp3>

Usually it was buried right away. No one recognized the song, or no one cared. Several times he got made fun of for having to ask who an artist was, even though no one else on the forums knew her either. It was a few days before he got an actual worthwhile response, but he did get one, which broke the case wide open.

Could you mean *Amber* McLain? The music sounds similar to hers, but I guess she's pronouncing her name weird to make the rhyme work.

She's from my hometown, and I saw her perform a couple small gigs at local clubs and stuff, but don't expect her to drop any new singles any time soon. She died like eight years ago.

Bingo. That was definitely something Wes could work with.

It might be. What town? Do you happen to have any more of her music?

The response came several minutes later.

Milton, Washington. And it took me a while to find the songs, but yeah. She only had the one album, 5 songs on it, and she wasn't bad, so I bought it at one of her shows. <running_on_spite_and_fumes.mp3> <homegrown_arson.mp3> <the_curse_of_adolescence.mp3> <feather_heavy.mp3> <daddy_never_loved_you.mp3>

Wes started downloading the files before he responded.

How'd she die?

This time the answer came right away.

Mid-show, the venue caught fire.

One of the amps blew and everything went up in flames. The back door was blocked, I guess, and she was trapped on stage, never made it out. Like six or seven people died in that fire, it was a big deal for a while.

Burned to death in a concert venue, huh? Wes considered Ember, her flaming hair, the way she was dressed, the spectral guitar she could summon and dismiss at will. That would totally make sense.

Once the music downloaded, he listened to the first song. The lyrics weren't nearly as self-absorbed as "Remember Ember", but the sound was the same. It was distinctly her music, her voice, her playing guitar. It was her sound, from before she'd died. Wes could hear her inhaling at the end of a lyric, could hear her voice catch the way a ghost's voice couldn't.

This is her! Thanks so much for helping me find her! Sucks to hear she died, but at least I could hear a little more of her music.

This had been the breakthrough Wes needed.

Yeah, no problem man! Thanks for reminding me about her. The new song is a bop!

Grinning triumphantly, he printed out that forum exchange for his evidence folder. He knew who she was now. All he had to do was find some more evidence of her life. It wouldn't be all that easy to do when all of that evidence was in a small town in Washington state she'd never made it out of, but Wes was never one to shy away from a challenge.

Ember would probably be happy to hear that she did have at least one fan when she was alive. Not to mention, Wes would make an absolute killing burning CDs with all of Ember's songs from before she died and selling them at school. He finished downloading the files and burned one CD for his folder right away.

The next order of business would be scouring newspapers for articles about her. No matter how obscure the musician was, dying in the middle of a performance when the venue burned down was all but guaranteed to make the news, at least regionally. It took weeks to find even a single article, but eventually he tracked one down.

Six die in tragic bar fire in Milton.

The article contained details about the fire, the bar, the cause, and the victims, including photos of them. One of them, the performing musician, Amber McLain was the spitting image of Ember, stage makeup and all, even the guitar she was pictured with was exactly the same as Ember's.

He'd found her.

He'd really, truly found her.

Wes printed out the article. After a little more digging on the bar that had burned down, he also found a scan of a promotional poster for Ember's show that night, and he printed that out too. He slipped those, along with the CD he'd burned, and the printed out forum exchange, into a folder to bring to school.

"Guess what, Fenton, you asshole? I fucking did it!" Wes hollered when Danny walked into physics class.

"Did what?" Danny asked with a scoff. "If this is about proving I'm Phantom, I thought you said you gave that up."

"We both know you're Phantom, and I did give up proving it, but this isn't about that." Wes slapped the folder down on top of Danny's desk and dug his portable CD player out of his backpack. "Read it and weep, fucker. Not only did I figure out who Ember was before she died, I also got my hands on all five tracks of the only album she released while she was still alive." He put the CD into the player and turned it on.

The opening riff of "Running on Spite and Fumes" started playing from the portable player's single, shitty speaker, but the moment she started to sing, Ember's voice, or rather, Amber's voice was unmistakable.

"Holy shit, you actually did it," Danny said under his breath, looking down at the contents of the folder, his expression a mix of awe and horror.

"Is that a new Ember song?" asked Star from the front row.

"Actually, it's an old Ember song," Wes responded smugly. "I tracked down her real identity and got my hands on everything she released before she died. I'm gonna burn more copies later and sell 'em around school."

"Wes, can I talk to you?" Danny said. Snapping the folder closed, he grabbed the basketball player by the shirt and dragged him out of the classroom by force. "You can't do this."

"What? What do you mean?" Wes demanded, shoving Danny's hands off him.

"If Ember finds out you learned who she was in life and exposed her, she'll kill you," he said, waving the folder emphatically in front of him. "Bringing up a ghost's life or death is one of the biggest taboos in ghost culture. She won't just haunt you, she'll straight up murder you. Until you die."

"Oh, please." Wes crossed his arms. In all the time he'd spent trying to expose Danny as Phantom, Wes had studied up on ghosts and ghost culture quite intensely. He hardly considered himself an expert, but quite frankly, his knowledge was on par with some of the leaders in the field of ectology. "Her popularity will skyrocket once her old songs start circulating. Personal obsession trumps cultural taboo every time, we both know that."

"Not during the Truce," Danny refuted.

"Well, yes, obviously the Truce is an exception; it's the Truce," Wes said. "And I'm not so insensitive that I'm gonna tell everyone in school how she died, I just wanted to rub it in specifically your face that I figured it out, seeing as how you doubted me a few weeks ago." Danny narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Wes.

"You'd better not tell everyone," he said, but he took a step back. "And if you do, you don't get to implicate me in any of this, got it? I won't have her after me again now that we're not at each other's throats anymore." He shoved the folder to Wes' chest.

"Yeah, whatever." With that the two of them went back into the classroom, where pretty much everyone was listening intently to the tinny music still playing. Wes discreetly slipped his evidence folder into his backpack before anyone else could ask about it, and wrote down the names of people who came by his desk to tell him they wanted to buy a CD once he had them.

The next day, Wes started selling copies of the CD for ten bucks a pop. Within a week, he had enough money to buy himself a brand new camera to replace the one Danny had destroyed a few months back. He turned out to be right about Ember being cool with him selling her old songs, though she demanded he give her a copy. She was even a little nostalgic listening to them, and she almost cried when Wes told her he'd gotten them from an old fan of hers.

It got Wes thinking about what other ghosts might feel if he reminded them of their past. The next on his list, he decided, was the Box Ghost. Why him? Frankly, Wes just wanted to know what that guy's deal was.

[the-kestrels-feather]

So through listening to Broadway Gatsby's songs they've released an uh... Truly unhealthy amount of times, I've come to the realization that I like it as a show but not as a Gatsby adaptation, and that I also think that Gatsby as a book is fundamentally gonna be REALLY hard to work into a musical

Before I get too far into this I want to specify I'm specifically talking about Gatsby on Broadway in this post. I don't know much about Gatsby: An American Myth outside of a few production photos and a video I'll talk about in a second, so I don't feel super qualified to talk about it. Second, I'm gonna link Wait in the Wings' fantastic video right here. It mainly discuses An American Myth, but I think he makes a lot of great points about Gatsby as a musical that I'm pretty sure I'll end up parroting at some point and I don't wish to pull a James Somerton. Also I should add I have not SEEN Gatsby. I'm broke and live in the Midwest so that's not possible right now, I'm basing this solely off what is publically available online, a friend who did get to see it, set photos, music, and WITW's other FANTASTIC Gatsby video.

But so I wanna say again, I do really like Gatsby on Broadway based on what I've seen. I love Eva Nobelzada, the set photos are BEAUTIFUL, I wish the music that was released was jazzier seeing as it's the literal JAZZ AGE but I like it overall, and Jeremy Jordan is... Also there (he's fine and I think he's very talented, but like if I were able to go see it he wouldn't be the reason I went to see it. JJ Stan girlies please don't come for me), but in terms of like. How faithful it is to the novel, I think it's kind of fundamentally just. Not Gatsby. And I don't think that musical theatre specifically will ever create something that is. I think if Gatsby was a straight play specifically it would work better. The OG novel hides so many things and has a fundamentally unreliable narrator and has so much subtext, and I think that putting it into a medium where characters have to reach this heightened state of emotion where they reach a point that words fail and they have to sing their feelings doesnt realky lend itself well to that. That's part of the reason love stories work so well in musicals, and I think why Gatsby Broadway seems to be focusing on the love story.

There's also the fact that creating theatre that's critical of the Wealthy class for Broadway is... Extremely hard to say the least. Lindsay Ellis goes more into this in her Rent video, but Broadway is a business first and foremost and moreover is a business funded by the wealthy people who can buy tickets. I know that's obviously not a universal assumption, but whether we like it or not at the end of the most of Broadway is funded by the wealthy people buy $200+ tickets. And making any piece of art that is critical or alienating to that group is going to be, shall we say, a bit of a hard sell. Gatsby at its core is a criticism the American Dream and the idle rich. I just don't think a musical that attempted to hit those plot points well would've ever done well commercially, or if they'd tried to I don't think it would've come across as anything other than largely toothless. The only musical that has been on Broadway in the last few years that I can think of that has achieved mainstream success and hasn't closed within the year that does it fairly well is Hadestown, and even that one had its more anti-capitalist edges softened before it transferred to Broadway. So they choose to focus on the love story, no matter how tragic and at the end of the day not a love story it is.

I don't know if any of this makes any sense or if lit Tumblr (or even theatre Tumblr for that matter) will see it as a valid take, I mean, I also personally think 2013 Gatsby movie was pretty good, so I don't know if that decimates my credibility or not, but I needed to word vomit this out

[thedancingcockroach134]

Serious story from a Furrian (Furry and Therian)

"Furry Girl!", "Kill yourself!", "Awoo!", "Nobody wants you here! Nobody wants a Furry ass wetback like you!" More and more is told in front of my face or back every single day. This is sick and tiring, especially since they know that I have depression. School makes me being a Furry feel like I should be a closeted one. Only a few people respect me at school, but the whole 6th grade tells me very horrible stuff. I wonder what it's like to be appreciated and loved at school. I wonder what it's like to not be told to kill yourself and have so many friends. I wonder what it's like to not have been spreaded with rumors which caused me to almost get in a fight with something over something not true. I wonder what it's like to not be physically and verbally abused everyday. I wonder what it's like to not have an ex boyfriend that talks shit about you in front of people and forced you to sit on his lap. People at school know what I go through, most of them just don't care. People treat me like this for what? Because I'm a Furry and a Therian! People at school record me, post pictures of my other therian friend on Instagram, treat the 3 of us therian besties as shit for what? Being different and having different hobbies. I cry almost everyday at school, but I never tell my friends! My own friends! I one time got cornered by a group of boys and they were talking shit to me and asking me why I was a Furry and a "animal rapist". (They called me an animal rapist because I'm a Therian! Like, what the fuck?!) They were all laughing and one of them slapped me on the face. They did that while I was cornered! I almost get in fights for being a Furry and a Therian. Seriously, the boys were trying to jump me before just because I was a what? A Furry and a Therian. My math teacher embarrassed me in front of my class. She was using me as an example to a fraction problem and said "Now, Imma act like [My dead name]! The only thing I think of is animals and Furries!" Everyone was laughing at me and I almost cried. She knew what the hell she was fucking doing! I cried in my sleep because her sentence repeated over and over in my head, and so was other peoples. I just hate how society odds out specific hobbies, beliefs, or personalities.

Example:

Furrian: "Hello, friend!"

"Good" person: "Hello! What do you like to do?"

Furrian: "Oh, I'm a Furry and a Therian, so I like dressing up in my own anthropomorphic (did i spell it wrong?) character and I do quads-"

"Good" person: Oh! So you have sex with animals?! Bye! I hope you lose your virginity to an animal and die! Oh wait, you already did! Just go and die! Kill yourself!

Like, come on?! Are you really gonna start acting like that when you first encounter a Furrian? That shit is something I have to go through everyday. Trust me, in real life, it's sad. Guys, just don't bully furries or therians. Some of them could be suicidal and/or are depressed. I met a suicidal Furrian online. I helped them (It was a Non-Binary Furry and Therian) I just wish nobody ditched us for 2 specific or more things.

[pansyboybloom]

Wait so I'm confused here so bear with me; That post about the tmra thing, what is your stance on trans men talking about the issues affecting them specifically? I'm genuinely asking, cos it doesn't seem clear where you stand on this or how you view folks talking about trans man/masc issues specifically.

I know that seems weird to ask but I'm now so cautious in online trans space cos I apparently "don't have it as bad as a trans women" whenever I talk about my experience in the health sector dehumanising me and with queer spaces demonising me as a trans man or overall men or attractions to them, which just hurts because we have our unique issues. I'm just trying to understand what you feel.

You're welcome to ignore this if you want. /gen

this got soooo long im so sorry, but i wanted to give you a genuine answer so here we go!

so the person i was vauging about is a proud mra, like. 2014 men's right's activist opinions. obv im not gonna post his URL bc im not about that kind of life, but it's Bad. like, i 'explicitly hate women and im blaming them for the patriarchy hurting me, esp trans women' bad. the dude is a total douche.

now, as for us talking about our issues-- disclaimer here, i'm a white, gay, relatively gnc trans man who lives in the southern USA and passes well and im using that as my jumping-off point. I've been reading into some theory lately (whipping girl is great so far), but this is mostly my own experiences, not theory, based. I've mentioned it before, but i don't believe in misandery, and in that vein, i think that makes the concept of 'transmisndry/androphobia' misguided. in my interpretation of my transness, as someone who's lived as a woman for 19 years and a man for 5, I'm not facing discrimination for gaining manhood, but instead for losing womanhood. I'vd talked about that here and here, in reference to this quote but here are the highlights that are related to my opinion on being punished for leaving womanhood

trans men, on the other hand, are reaching for that 'ideal'[malehood]. we are trying to leave behind the despised and weak [womanhood], and that's so silly, so pathetic, you stupid little girl, you really think you can be the top in society? that's why radfems and similar 'feminists' say we are betraying our sex; they see it as leaving behind safety (women) for the enemy (men). to them, we are leaving them to rot in alone womanhood while we try to become the privileged ones stepping on their necks. this is also why the narrative surrounding trans women is predatory and sexual-- women only have power through sex, so a man would only want to leave manhood for sexual gratification-- while the narrative for us is that we are pathetic and tricked. women are stupid and delusional if they believe they could ever leave behind our oppression for privilege

and

that's why i don't see me being discriminated against as a trans man as something uniquely tied to anti-maleness / misandery/ androphobia / etc, but instead, just a facet of transphobia and misogyny (as well as ableism and such for me personally, but im talking bigger picture). I'm seen as a ruined woman because i betrayed gender roles. to them, im not transitioning because i am, ya know, actually a man, instead, i'm purposefully clawing my way out of the pit and hightailing it to the top, which is threatening. society doesn't like when women (trans men) are suddenly trying to be a class that is protected and privileged. im not transitioning to get access to privilege, but that's what it looks like to a transphobe, be them conservative man or radfem. im scary because im rocking the boat, not because im masculine, and they hate me because im showing their binary and hierarchy are false, not because im masculine. im stupid and delusional and a failure and a silly little girl and a bamboozled idiot tricked by trans women as well as a ruined woman and a rotten woman because of misogynistic binary power structures, not because im a dude. ya know? anyways, what holds me back is the gender binarist, cissexist, transphobic, and misogynistic stew that affects all trans people, just differently on a systemic and individual level

but i dont want people to think that we don't face our own issues. for example-- despite being on t for like 5 fucking years, I've had my period come back multiple times after switching back to gel. i panicked and went to a doc the 1st time, worried i was idk, dying, and she blew me off as not knowing my body and being hysterical. now do i think this was because i was trans? yes. do i think it was because i was a trans man? yes. but not because of the man part, but because of the 'was a woman' part. this doc was not seeing emil, the man, she was seeing emil, the stupid little girl who is playing pretend, and as such she treated me with the same disrespect she would a cis woman, just with different pronouns. I've found that most discrimination i have faced has more to do with people still seeing me as a woman and treating me as such, even when i pass and am very clearly a man.

now, do i think masculinity in the queer community is seen as bad? to an extent, yes, but i think that comes from gender essentialism more than any kind of misandry. butch women are abandoning 'the right kind' of womanhood, so they're bad. masc nb people, gnc people, and masc men are leaving behind the 'palatable' version of queerness that is, for lack of a better word, tied to femininity from a binarist and essenalist viewpoint. this femininity is an insult, wrong, so it is expected of queer people. this femininity is fake, easily dominated, flimsy, and docile in the eyes of a binarist and essentialist society. so queer people, who must be fake, easily dominated, flimsy, and docile to be safe for cishet society, must not be masculine. and like i said, even then it has to be the right kind of femininity. just ask any femme lesbian or trans woman or gnc trans man, like i am. we are punished for being feminine 'wrong' -- i could talk about this for hours, but i won't take up too much of your time haha. basically, i think that masculinity is punished in the queer community not bc of misandry/androphobia but because in the queer community, masculinity is being practiced in a way that breaks the norms we have internalized. it alllll comes back to the binary, gender essentialism, and misogyny.

obviously, my opinion is not the end all be all, and i welcome other takes and thoughts, (esp on this ask haha), but when it comes to other trans men, the insistence that a) misandry/androphobia/male oppression is real b) trans women are the cause of the problem or bad for calling us out when we say something gross and c) we don't need to do any soul searching on our own binarist, essentialist, or (trans)misogynistic thoughts, are when i have a problem. not when trans men want to talk about the oppression they face. i should be able to talk about that doctor's appointment, and you should be able to talk about your life experiences! just be sure not to fall into any internalized bigotry unintentionally in the process.

does that help? pls let me know if it does or doesn't, if it doesn't id love to dm and chat more

[izicodes]

Don't know if you've touched on this topic before, but do you have any advice on dealing with discrimination within comp sci (specifically sexism)? I have bad anxiety and have constant thoughts telling me how I'll never be good enough or don't belong. My brother who is a senior dev has had a passion for computers since a small child while I just developed an interest within the past two years. My family takes his career seriously but then turn around and tell me how great of a secretary I'll be lol. Thanks for your time!

Hiya 💗

Just some background on me: I haven't had any sexist experiences in during my whole journey of learning software development during my apprenticeship and now working as a Junior Web Dev. I'm the only girl in the Dev team (6 of us in total), the only other woman is the Manager of the Dev team but she does databases + business oriented work so she doesn't code at all. I'm the youngest in the team also so they see me as "oh let's teach the kid of the group" kind of thing. So at work I don't feel any type of sexism, the lads are really open to teach me a lot stuff which I am thankful!

I don't know any other irl developers besides work so I'll move on to online. Online I know a lot more women developers; Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter (or X whatever it's called). Maybe it's because I've like cultured the content I see to them idk. I'm really glad to have that constantly on my timeline as it inspires me to push and do/become better because if those girlies can do it, so can I.

Though all the teachers/instructors I had were all men, they didn't make me feel small or not worthy to be in Computer Science, they were the opposite and pushed me to do it more. My Dad did Computer Science with CyberSecurity at university and he always pushed me to do computer science when I got older - not force but inspired me to do it (wanted to do medicine but too hard so switched to comp sci/programming)!

So, in my experience, I never had a really bad sexist interaction because I did computer science. People are shocked I am in programming in general but more like "Oooooh that's cool! Didn't know you did that!" kind of thing!

Now, this doesn't mean I haven't seen sexist remarks online, because I have but more through memes. I always ignore. Everyone, man or woman, should ignore such remarks/meme and move on. Don't let a bunch of people determine what you want and what's best for you! If you did, they would be controlling your life and not you yourself.

I don't know if that's easier said than done for you because I'm a hard person on people saying bad things to me. I just ignore you literally. I'm polite yes, but what you will say to me will go through one ear and out the other if it's really negative. Pretty much a "I don't care about your opinion, I will do me anyways" kind of person. E.g. if my brothers were to tell me "oh you a girl, don't do computer science" I won't listen to them at all.

And at the end of the day, what are they gonna do? Will your family members that are saying those stuff to you physically stop you from learning computer science? Especially since it's so accessible online so all you need a is a computer? All around the world, women are leaning computer science one way or another to change their lives and/or the lives around them.

They are making so much effort so for me to say "oh well.. you know some lads in my comp sci class say I can't do comp sci so I shouldn't" or "oh well I don't think learning programming is a woman's thing yknow because it's so dominated by men" - excuse my language here but that's flipping ridiculous!

This isn't some feminist or even anti-feminist thing here, it's a plain simple human thing: proving yourself and even the people around you wrong. Go into it and succeed. You're not too old or too young.

Why are their programs like SheCodes or BGIT (black girl in tech) that are making effort to help women push into tech? There's more women in tech now than there has been ever so if you're a woman and want to go into Tech but some lads are saying no? Do it anyways.

If a company has lads like that in them, that's the company's fault for hiring a sexist non-team player - says a lot about that company.

As humans we are never good enough so just get that out of your mind, less stress. Good enough for a job? all you got to do is keep going out it. Keep learning the theory, keep building the projects, keep redoing your resume and applying for jobs - keep going.

You quit, you let yourself down - especially when programming/ computer science is your calling!

I went on a bit of a rant but I hope some of this helps 🥳👍🏾💗

[gren-arlio]

We are so back. Well, I somewhat am. Welcome to Episode 11 of (Waku) Puyo Extras.

(What a lovely image of Rulue and Minotauros as a team. Surely nothing bad will bestow him...seriously, this image is amazing.)

Hey everyone, Gren here, back from my break. It was a nice break, and I was able to focus on schoolwork. We don't talk about my Pre-Calc grade (just know I got a C) but I got an A in every other class. This episode is a little late because I was focused on the Splatoon 3 Splatfest (I was Team Handshake, GGS to all,) but it's here nevertheless.

As the year is slowly coming to an end, my workload increases. I think this'll be the last Extras episode until the NEW Episode of Waku Puyo Translations. Which means me dying to Kikimora text. Fun, yeah? Yeah.

So, with my absence, what game will we cover this time around? Well it's one I've mentioned a couple of times, which is...actually kind of nice, no researching history for me; Rulue's Spring Break of Fists...or Rulue's Iron-Fist Spring Break. For today, I'll use the first version.

This game is thankfully one of the easier ones to get footage of. Besides, the game itself is fairly interesting with its current casting, with people that you don't really see every day. And hey, this is the first time we've properly covered Rulue here, so there's a first for everything.

With this, I really hope you enjoy this and my derusting of my skills.

Oh, and random thing. My account turned 2 recently, though I began posting...in April of this year? Wahoo.

What's the Origins for the Game itself?

Similar to many games I've covered here (if only I had a good computer, I would probably make a funny YouTube series,) Rulue's Spring Break of Fists is a Disc System game released on Volume 14 of Disc Station Magazines in 1997.

(The opening to the game. Nothing amazing, but certainly an...opening?)

The game itself is somewhat of a Choose Your Own Adventure game, with you playing as the lady herself, Rulue. Here, you get to...choose your own adventure. There's three main things you can do:

Find the five divine treasures.

Explore the land. Or "The Wonderful Land".

Gather ingredients to cook.

It's interesting how the character most associated with fighting has a game where... you kinda don't fight unless it's a very specific circumstance, which I'll get into later.

Visually, I won't deny, it depends from person to person. If you like the 90s Moe eyes, then this artstyle is genuinely amazing, but if not, lotta characters look weird.

(This is a prime example, with Kikimora. Her eyes are huge, and personally I like them, but I can totally see why someone doesn't.)

So for this episode, I'll throw a question/poll:

This'll last a week, and I'm curious to see.

-----

How About Gameplay?

Something I want to note for this game is that in this... there's a LOT of different dialog choices. You're gonna have split paths all the time, though to my knowledge, they more just impede you until you guess right...or get a bad ending.

(Something like this. Also, rare Black Kikimora appearance, though...with an item Rulue gets, she transforms back into Kiki? It's odd.)

Whilst exploring and doing the routes, something you'll note is that there's a lot of quizzes, questionnaires, etc. Now why does this matter?

Because some of these questions are fucking hilarious man

What do I mean? Well, y'all know Momomo? Silly little shopkeeper? Well, they ask you a question for a quiz, and guess what the question is?

How much Yen will it cost to buy Disc Station Magazine Vol. 1 through 13 on their online store?

(This is Rulue trying to solve that question. Lowkey...I forgot the answer.)

This guy really thinks I know. And I think inflation has really made these prices seem cheap in the long run...

Oh, and another question, one I've mentioned before. You encounter Witch in one of the routes (oh boy), and she gives you a quiz also, albeit one that's...certainly biased towards her, asking stuff is "How cool am I?" And them sorta deals. Though, one question is literally "What is the size of my top?"

This game loves its odd questions.

-----

So, What's the Story? Well, Stories?

Well, simply put, apparently this game is after Chaotic Final Exam, and is MUCH calmer than said game. People from the game apparently have new personalities due to the events of the game, and Rulue...is delivering letters given via Masked Prince.

As stated prior, there's three routes in this game:

Characters that appear on all routes are Arle, Rulue, Masked Prince, and I believe Momomo.

Route A:

Rulue sets to find 5 magic items. Most notable characters here are Apparently Schezo, Serilly, Draco, Minotauros, and shockingly, Count and Vamp.

(Quite the shock, eh?)

This route...is certainly interesting. Between seeing Mino battered and bloodied by a fight, a literal possessed Arle by Count (or Vamp,) you FIGHTING Arle due to that, same deal goes for Schezo, he also got possessed, and a final fight with Count if he was overly buff...it's certainly one hellva route.

(This is...wow. What an experience.)

Route B:

Rulue, with envelopes given via Masked Prince, has one of them stolen by something, and she goes to investigate it. Getting sucked into a "Wonderland," younalso get some backstory about Rulue, notably hearing her grandmother. I'll tell y'all, I was given help by people who work on the Puyo Nexus and other Puyo Translations:

Rulue and her grandmother were very close, and she gave Rulue a music box when she was about 5 years old, under a Sakura tree. When she turned 6, her grandmother fell ill, and Rulue, upset that she wasn't spending time with her on her birthday, breaks the music box.

However, when Rulue sleeps, she has a dream about her grandmother, with her saying to not be upset with her...and when Rulue woke up, she felt like she'd never see her grandmother again.

(Edit:

Notable characters here are Kikimora and Black Kikimora, Serilly, Rulue's grandmother, and Demon Servant. Yeah, he's alive in this game.

I forgot to credit the main person who did this part, @klug. That's completely on me, my apologies. They did help quite a good bit for this, so thank them for the research and info. Wouldn't have gotten this without them. Again, apologies for not putting credit.

Here's their Puyo Nexus page. Go check em out.)

(YOU'RE ALIVE IN THIS GAME?)

So you know when I said this game was a lot more casual? I look real silly saying that now.

Route C:

Easily the most casual route, Rulue...is trying to cook. The grill calls for her name. I'm not joking when I say that the only characters here are Momomo and Witch. I guess Witch can cook?

This route is uh, odd. You spent most of the time doing quizzes and route splits because...I guess Witch and Momomo feel devious today. This route is notable for Witch asking that question in her quiz and only having 5 endings...Yep. 5 endings.

Something I've neglected is the ending to these routes.

There's about 30 of them.

Yeah. Good luck.

(Autism be damned, Witch can apparently cook. Just have fun on the quiz.)

-----

So, The OST and Final Verdict?

The games ost is honestly decent. I can't describe it well but a lot of the music is just flat out solid, with no real complaints here. I'd say check it out at least.

And the final verdict?

The game itself is honestly very fun to browse and look around. The game gives us Rulue lore RANDOMLY that I'll gladly accept, Demon Servant, Count, and Vamp make an appearance, and the game, while confusing, is really fun to watch.

I'd say for Disc Station, it's very solid.

With that...that'll be all for today. Next week I won't post due to Thanksgiving and spending time with my family, but next time we meet, we'll finally continue our Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon translations after SO long.

See y'all then. Hope you enjoyed the show.