#typically i dont like hating on things because of the amount of time; work

[sweeneydino]

So, decided to watch the first bayverse movie to prepare myself for the gutpunch I'm boutta get from the 2012 season 4 finals and honestly... it's not bad

Only complaints is why is the exposure so high in these movies-

I can not not think of people in motion capture suits everytime I look cgi stuff . But that's just a me thing lol

Wait

Bro I was robbed...

It's honestly not as bad as I thought it'd be, it was actually pretty fun. Even with the amount of slow motion shots, but it's like 10 years old so idc.

Oh there is one thing I'm gonna say.

I do not like their faces in the movie... that's a given, but one thing I can't forgive is that stupid fucking shredder suit

He literally looks like one of those shit characters staring into a pool of water little me used to make in 1st grade at the back of my English notebook while listening to pain by three days grace.

What is this.

How does he even fight like that. I just... I can't take him seriously... he's not even scary-

Who thought this was scary? Intimidating?..

Don't answer that, I already know.

I had a whole rant about how much i hated his design but all I'll say is that there is not enough words for how I would describe the pure, visceral hatred I have for that fucking knife mech suit. If they just got rid of those knives, it would've been decent, he didn't need to rob hells kitchen for his first time dressing himself for school.

Anyway, I think I might redesign them. Just a teensy bit(and maybe a little inspired from the concept arts). I'll post it when I'm finished. I'm not touchin the knife man.

Lemme know if you like em when I do :>

[drdemonprince]

i was on NPR talking about Autism shit two weeks ago, and i have the book sales figures from that week and that national media appearance had.... absolutely zero relationship to sales. on the typical week these days, 1,400 to 1,500 copies of Unmasking Autism will sell. The week that I was on NPR there was a slight dip; only about 1,300 books were sold.

i have done a lot of press for my books. For Laziness Does Not Exist I did easily a 100 damn podcasts and radio shows and newspapers and excerpts in magazines. none of it corresponded to a noticeable bump in sales. the biggest "get" my publicist found for my latest book was the Glennon Doyle show, a booking she and her team celebrated and then spent months clamboring excitedly for... it, too, had no obvious relationship to sales.

Unmasking Autism became a bestseller because some other guy made a tiktok about it, and then a bunch of tiktokkers made videos about it too. all on their own. without any prodding from me, or any relationship to me. it was completely organic, passionate, and sincere, and rooted in the book's true merits and usefulness to other people, and that's why it inspired lots of sales. and continues to more than a year and a half later. all the press I did for Unmasking Autism prior to the release of that tiktok did relatively far less. NPR, Goop, the LA Times, Lit Hub, Jacobin, Huffpo, the New York Times, the Financial Times, MSNBC, Business Insider. Didn't matter. at least not much. so why do i bother?

publishers really ride your ass trying to make you give lots of interviews and show up for lots of events but it's all based on the worship of traditional media and magical thinking that it will somehow convert listeners into buyers. and that's just not how it works. the truth is 95% of books never sell more than 5,000 copies, and most people don't buy books or read them. i love reading but i dont think this is itself some terrible loss, as most books are padded-out commodities made for sale more than a work of true artistic passion or scholarly merit, and sometimes listening to a 90 minute interview with an author tells you the bulk of what you need to know.

it's freeing to know that the effort i put into getting my books out into the world have almost zero relationship to the books' success. marketing just does not work. it's a relief. unmasking autism did fabulously because it's actually both good and useful. laziness has had a long life span because it speaks to real problems in people's lives and gives them a message they are desperate to hear. but no amount of thirsty ass online shilling will make somebody realize that and it's maddening to try. you just gotta focus on doing good work, work that you enjoy making or need to make and that you feel good about, let things flop if theyre gonna flop, and keep on living your life.

which is all good news because i really do hate a lot of these fucking interviews. how can i stomach being on npr or in the atlantic or whatever these days given how complicit nearly all major media outlets are in justifying this genocide. like who fuckin cares about them, who wants their approval. who needs it. it's of no value

[andreal831]

I've been wondering about Hope's sire bonds and specifically Hayley's because they never address it in-show. we know Hope's sire bonds work like Klaus' (ie they dont require love/obsession like vampire/vampire ones ex - Damon/Elena) in that whoever her blood turns is immediately loyal to her until they break it. during the gap between s1 and s2 of TO, it's said that hayley spent a lot of time as wolf roaming around the bayou grieving and i like to think with Hayley's previous work breaking hybrids' sire bonds with Klaus, she knew how to break her own and that's when it happened.

on the topic of Hayley and werewolf transitions, it's such a shame they'd killed her already when they had Hope transition as Hayley being the one to talk her through it would make so much more sense than Klaus (also i wanted to see Klaus' wolf form with wolf!Hope, would've been cute) as we'd seen Hayley with the girl in s3 during the road trip and she was always much more in touch with her wolf side than Klaus was. Klaus never seemed like he cared about being a wolf, just what it represented (the power that was stolen from him by Esther & Mikael).

totally random but Legacies deciding that post tribrid transition, Hope could magic herself clothes after turning human from wolf form was so funny to me. it just felt so dumb.

I like your theory about Hayley breaking the sirebond. I think she definitely would have needed to break it being so far away from Hope. She was already missing her the normal amount a mother would be after sending her newborn child away. But with the sirebond on top of it, it would have driven her mad. It would make sense that was what she was doing in the bayou. But I fear you have spent more time thinking about it than the writers. Much like the Damon/Elena sirebond. They wrote it in for a very specific purpose and then just pretended it didn't exist anymore.

I also hated how the writers changed the different bonds to fit the plot. Why would Klaus' sirebond operate any differently than a typical sirebond which requires preexisting feelings. Purely for plot device.

I absolutely hated that they centered Hope transitioning for the first time around Klaus. The man didn't even transition once after he broke the curse. He felt nearly no connection to wolves and didn't understand or try to understand pack life. It should have been Hayley with Hope. Hayley understood being a wolf on a deep level, and as you pointed out, helped people in the past. It was such an unnecessary dig at Hayley to kill her as a vampire. They stripped her of the thing that made her feel most her and then killed her.

I also agree that Klaus didn't care about being a wolf. He cared about power. He needed to be the most powerful, including next to his siblings. TO Season 1 kind of teases Klaus being interested in his wolf side but then it is completely dropped. Except for Klaus shouting about being a hybrid every five seconds.

I feel like all of Legacies was just one big joke honestly. They twisted the rules and laws of the world they spent nearly a decade establishing because they were lazy.

Thanks for the ask!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if i warned interviewees/incoming potential employees at my job that it sucks here and also they wont earn any commission pay?

I work in an auto shop and the estimators' pay is a base flat rate plus commission based on how much the shop earns each week. If we dont earn enough in a week for them to earn commission, they still get the flat base pay but they're basically in debt to the company and will not earn commission until that bad week is made up for (so if profit was 50% of budget one week, if we hit 150% the next week that balances out and he hasn't earned any commission. To earn commission that second week we'd need to go over 150%. Multiple bad weeks in a row quickly add up. In theory if someone quits while in the hole they would owe money from their paychecks back to the company). We currently have one estimator and he earns a bit of commission most weeks, nothing crazy. In the past we'd had two for several months and they were both in the red nearly the entire time because (potential) commission earnings had to be split between them (based on the jobs assigned to them), and after going back down to one estimator it took a month and a half for him to dig out and earn commission again.

My manager thinks we need more help on the admin side of the shop again and is trying to hire a second estimator. I work the front desk and overhear them explain the commission in interviews, acting as if they'd earn any. Me, our current estimator, and a few of the techs all think we'd benefit more from hiring a dedicated production manager instead, because we (me, estimator and general manager) currently all juggle the typical production manager job duties, which results in those things often getting done poorly, slowly, or not at all. It seems the current bone being picked is we need to write more estimates to pull in more work, but i handle the schedule (very difficult & fickle without having someone wholely dedicated to managing production that i can discuss it with...) and i dont think a second estimator is fully necessary for the amount of business we're getting. If our estimator had a little more time on his hands (& got a little more practice/got a little faster, he's still relatively new) him and i could bring in a lot more customers.

In the past, corporate has told us its not possible to have a production manager, however plenty of other locations do have one (this is a very large company) and in fact all of our job training constantly refers to the production manager role, even recently updated job aids. It felt like half my training was "the production manager will do x so that you can use this to complete y". Its simply cheaper for corporate to have two estimators earning 0 commission rather than have one estimator earning commission and someone else on a production manager salary.

Im tempted to find a way to warn incoming estimators about how much it'd suck for them to work here so they dont actually hire anyone while we try again to convince corporate that we need a production manager instead, but we're not sure if our manager is fully against the idea of a production manager or if she just doesn't want to stir the pot with corporate (they're already not in love with her), and without our manager on our side, there's a 0% chance we'd ever get a production manager. I do like our manager besides this, and she's generally usually attentive to employee needs, etc. So i would hate to throw her under the bus or sabotage her in any way, but we simply don't see the logic here.

What are these acronyms?

[milo-webp]

Maybe Friends Aren't So Bad

FIRST FIC!! This was a request by @fefe-the-cat! I hope you like it :D

TW for: Canon typical violence, a good amount of swearing (cmon it's Dallas Winston)

773 words

Dallas's day was not going well. Hell, his whole life wasn't going well. He had woken up with a hang over, which was never enjoyable, but he could survive that. It wasn't until he found out Sylvia had cheated on him once again had things really turned to shit.

Dallas needed to pick a fight to release all the pent up emotion he felt. And he did end up finding some random soc to rile up; what he failed to realize was that this particular soc wasn't alone. In fact he had several freinds that Dallas had failed to notice. Friends who were much, much larger than Dallas.

So here Dallas was, limping his way to the Curtis house with blood dripping into one eye. God I hate it when blood gets in my eye Dallas thought as he roughly wiping his eye, just agrivating the wound further.

His plan was to just go in, get cleaned up, get out. No one should've been thereat the moment. Soda and Steve were both working at the DX. Ponyboy, Johnny, and Two-Bit were all at school. Darry should be at his roofing job. Life, however, had other plans. Or rather Darrel Curtis had other plans.

" Glory, Dal, what the hell happened to you?!"

Dallas flinched when he saw that Darry was in fact Not at work. Squeezing his eyes shut for a second to ease the pain from Darry's hollering bringing back that damn hangover headache. Dallas shouldered his way past Darry, trying to get to the bathoom where all the first aid supplies were.

"I'm fine Darry. Now shut it, will ya'? I've got a migraine." Darry wasn't having it though. Stepping infront of Dallas, Darry gripped Dally's shoulders trying to examine his injuries.

"You look like you got the shit beat outta you. Did you get jumped or something?" Dallas glared at his friend… wait…friend? God Dallas really was getting soft. When did he start thinking about the gang as his friends? He never thought about his old gang members back in New York as friends. Why is this any differant. He needed too change the perspective of the gang . They weren't friends. They were allies. Only al- Jesus fucking christ, could that cut stop bleeding?! Blood was dripping into his eye again. He hated when blood got in his eyes.

"-allas? Dallas!?" Dallas was shot out of his thoughts by Darry's worried voice. "Are you ok? I asked you if you needed help cleaning that cut up? it looks like it needs stitches…"

Right. Dallas needs to clean the cuts that littered his face. One of those cuts kept getting blood in his eye. He hated having blood gets in his eye. He wiped his eye again. "Jesus, Darry, I told ya'. Im Fine. I just don't keep any first aid shit at Buck's."

Darry's eyes scrunched up in worry. "Are you sure? Because it looks pretty bad… I've done stitches a few times. They may not be pretty but it'll get the job done."

Dallas gritted his teeth. Why couldn't Darry just let it go? It's not like he should care! Dallas Winston was a no good JD. A hood. He was a bad influince on Ponyboy. He never did anything that was good or useful. All he did was mess up.

In his emotion, Dallas hadn't realized that he was saying his thoughts outloud. But what he did notice was Darry's pained expression. Fuck. Darry wasn't supposed hear that.

"Dal…" Darry's voice was strained with worry. His eyes were soft. Softer than anyones eyes should look while looking at Dallas Winston.

Some emotion that he didn't recognize started to build up in Dallas. And of course Dallas turned that emotion into anger. Because anger is all Dallas knew how to feel.

"What the fuck is that look? Are you pittying me? Dont fucking pitty me Darrel. I'm not some little kid who cant handle himself. I don't need you to worry about me. And I don't— GOD DANMIT WHY DOES BLOOD KEEP DRIPPING IN MY EYE!" Dallas furiously wiped his eye, just worsening the cut that was causing him his strife.

In pain and in a shit emotional state, Dallas began to do something he hadn't done in years. Cry.

It was as the first sob hit that Dallas felt a pair of arms wrap around him. Dally started to cry even more. He hadn't had a hug in… he doesn't even know how long. He melted into his friends arms. Maybe Darry did care about him. Maybe having friends is a good thing. Maybe friends aren't so bad.

[thatneoncrisis]

20 questions for 20 writers!

tagged by @waitineedaname thxx

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

21 works, i feel like thats a healthy number

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

i have 439,385 words, a very large chunk of that is from We Have Always Lived in the Apartment

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now its the locked tomb, used to be homestuck, i have some crossovers with the magnus archives and one with john dies at the end

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

We Have Always Lived in the Apartment -- TLT horror mystery modern au

Insert Jesus Allegory Here -- solkat focused continuation of karkats pesterquest route, i NEED my new fics to get more popular than this oh my god

Gehenna the First -- TLT houseswap au with harrow as god

the gap between a tragedy and comedy (in this life its just you and me) -- TLT coffee shop au.

What's Eating Gideon Nav?  -- TLT catholic boarding school horror au

5. Do you respond to comments?

not typically, theres some weird thing with my head where i kind of hate that it counts my comments in the total comment amount. i cant explain it i just dont like how it looks, plus just repeating variations of "thank you!!" feels hollow after a while. im more likely to answer direct questions about the story rather than general commentary i do love talking about my thought process and intentions

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ok so i cant actually tell you this because none of those fics are Done yet but all you need to know is that i consider all of my TLT fics tragedies to some extent. take that as you will. i dont even Like the word angst really it portends a level of melodrama id like to avoid

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'd say its a dead tie between A Brief Lesson In The Occult and Shit. Let’s Build A Fort. i can barely look at these anymore and if you read them and feel compelled to tell me you like them: dont. i can do better now

8. Do you get hate on fics?

never to my knowledge has anyone ever publicly disliked one of my fics. in fact sometimes i dream about someone posting it in their discord group chat and making fun of it because im so curious about what theyd say

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yes i have. i do it almost exclusively as satire or character analysis as i find like, the physicality of sex to be inherently kind of goofy. liek the second you have to describe a dick or boobs with words the magic is gone it just becomes weird silly looking flesh. so i like focusing on weird and bad sex, unsatisfying or clumsy sex. sex that changes you in no significant way

10. Do you write crossovers?

yes i have. A Brief Disappearance and Statement of David Wong are both TMA/JDATE crossovers and i DID write a homestuck/TMA crossover but its not on my ao3 i guess? odd

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

no? does that happen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i think once someone asked but i have no clue if it happened

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

@notedchampagne is my co producer in all things forever but ive basically written everything myself and they help polish it up

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

shiiiiiiite uh. jade/davepeta still means a lot to me. i think there are a lot of really engaging ships in TLT but i always kind of default to griddlehark i just kind of understand them the best

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

eventually SAM and i would like to circle back to our fanventure Therapystuck but we both got really busy with school, work and a general lull in the HS fandom. also maybe someday ill go back to Insert Jesus Allegory Here i liked the direction of the story i just have to get myself back in that headspace. being into homestuck Does something to you, like psychologically

16. What are your writing strengths?

after asking some friends theyve told me im good at tone, prose, funny metaphors, and dialogue but a caveat for the last thing as "I have yet to see how your Own guys talk and how you'd handle distinct voices from scratch so I'm only giving you about 80%"

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i hate like. writing Around the important bits of a scene. i love the physicality of characters and what it reveals about them, along with pieces of the scene the narration deems important or interesting enough to mention to the audience. but im always worried im jsut fucking yapping. also i hate like, political scenes theres a rhythm to them that i dont quite understand. people sitting around using specific language that Feels important in a way that doesnt make it clear im bullshitting like 99% of what theyre talking about

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

AHAH. GOD. i actually looked this up the other day because theres an original story i want to write where i want to make it clear theyre basically speaking french the whole time, even though its written in english. i only speak english (i took some french in hs, its left me though i want to pick it up again) so i wouldnt know anything about how it reads to polyglots but i guess theres really only so much you can do outside of literally learning a new language just to write a story for free. ive seen a whole host of tips so i gues sit just matters how you employ them

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Homestuck. my only regret is that i wasnt a better writer

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

FUCK christ uuuuh. favorite right Now would be The Apartment but EVENTUALLY id like it to be Gehenna the First because its the hardest to write and i need it to pay off. if you havent read it uhhh. hi. hello. you should do that. i think its really cool and fun and junk

CHRIST who to tag i dont follow big writers uuuh @tranquilitybasehotelcasino and @accidentallyadorable sure have fun

[lord-of-the-bundle-of-sticks]

me sin posting anyway

sins when sicky wicky going in whatever order idk im eepy

Wrath: somehow even more edgier.. rots in his bed most of the time. he doesnt even bother to do anything productive because he finds no point in doing so

he gets mad when people try to make him get out of bed or invade his personal space. he also hates certain medicines and prefers to eat specific foods that he wouldn't eat otherwise ("they're sick foods, why would i eat them if i'm not sick?")

he's not very skilled at taking care of sick people. he just listens to what they want and ask for, and he doesnt try and bug them unless he truly feels like he needs to (ex. if someone is violently coughing their lungs out or throwing up)

Gluttony: he's reduced to a baby. thats it thats the tweet /j

he tries to stay in bed for the most part, but he does also do his regular work out routines and makes his own food. he typically just makes a stew or a salad for himself and only drinks warm things when he's sick. he's the type of guy that you kind of have to force into bed instead of running around and doing stuff

when it comes to taking care of others he coddles them a ton 😭. he makes their food, makes sure they're okay, and stays close so they don't have to go very far to ask for something. he'll encourage them to do some workouts with him but he respects it if they dont want to

Pride (guys pretend its yellow plz): he's dramatic asf but we love him. he complains a lot about his sickness and makes it known that he isn't happy about it in the slightest. unlike wrath he enjoys getting all the extra attention especially if they make him feel superior even while sick

when it comes to taking care of people it's kind of like tough love. he really only takes care of people he truly cares about and even after that it's followed with a "you should be glad i spent time out of my day to take care of you!" but he does take the time to actually make sure you're okay. he feeds you the medicine himself and probably tries to make you feel fancy, even if you're all stuffy and snotty

Envy: oh wow okay

envy's already kind of bad at taking care of himself, so when he's sick it's pretty bad. he has to practically drag himself out of bed to make himself food or to just use the bathroom, and he either forgets to take medication or takes an awkward amount of it. it's safe to say that a caregiver would benefit him, but he hates being a burden to anyone, and he doesn't like feeling vulnerable either

he worries a lot when it comes to taking care of another person while they're sick. he tries not to come off as pushy or annoying as he tries to make them feel better, but sometimes that doesn't work. he's not a great cook but he does follow some recipes for the person so they can at least eat some good food

Greed: ew. anyway

i think greed would probably hate being sick since he feels like nobody actually takes him seriously, which ticks him off because he likes to have power, and a lot of people don't take him seriously in the first place. he doesn't like to come off as weak either

however if he was taking care of someone else i feel like he'd be so overly nice it's uncomfortable. it feels more like a fake kindness than anything, and of course he'd find a way to fuck around with you any chance he could get.

Sloth: sloth is pretty prone to falling sick. he's very similar to envy, not really taking care of himself properly, but he does a lot of sleeping. i think he'd probably end up sleeping more than he already does while hes sick.

he's always kind of in a daze when he's sick. he's honestly in a daze in general but it seems like whenever he's awake he's dissociated or just delirious

he's pretty bad at taking care of people however he does have good intentions. he makes the bed as comfy as he can, but he is pretty lazy so he's probably not the best person to be taking care of someone. he does get the person whatever they want if they ask for it though.

Lust: he tends to be kind of dramatic too, but not as dramatic as pride. he loves self care and making sure that he's healthy, so he reminds himself to take medication and even logs when he takes it so he can measure how much time should pass before he takes another. he likes eating oatmeal and other soups for the most part, and he's likely drinking broth or some hot chocolate.

when he takes care of people he pampers them with everything they could possibly need. he logs everything in a notebook so he knows when the person needs to take more medication, and he's there for comfort and company. he feels pretty alone when he's sick, so he wants to make sure that the person feels happy despite not being in the best shape.

@stanleyvampire14 come get ur food

[kissabledyke]

when i read smut i love when the girl with a dick is a tgirl who loves herself, sometimes i like it when there is some doubt and introspection and the story ends with her being happy.

but sometimes i also love the subversion when someone is really evil and is/isn't punished by the end, like when a futa impregnates a bunch of people and then shows up to do it again a year later.

i love smut narratives like that, which is why i read smut fics instead of watching porn, porn just doesnt go at a pace i can comprehend, or it goes too slow.

also im asexual and amab but i just... dont feel gender? i hate my body hair but it doesnt cause me any dysphoria, i hate my face-hair and sometimes i wish my penis could just stop existing. but at the same time i dont want to be a girl, i just love it when girls are girls.

i just want to renounce all of these manhood things, i hate it when my dad or uncle says something about my body is 'manly', when i try to articulate what i want they get confused because i practically want nothing, i dont want to twirl skirts (though id like to try) or do makeup or be referred to in any hyper-feminine manner.

also i think im masturbating wrong? im constantly hurting my penis to the point of bleeding, am i supposed to use lube? i never learned how to use lube and i dont know how to learn now tho i am very (privately) proud of my ability to do it in the work bathroom, its satisfying to know that im being paid for time i spend jorking it to gay smut

ok this is kind of a lot. i'm going to respond to all of this as kindly as i can but you should know that this is like. A Lot to send anonymously to a stranger. like i know that i reblogged this post but this is a bit beyond the scope of the implied social contract

anyway, again, responding to all of this point-by-point in the best of faith:

yessss i love gender affirmation and a happy ending. i listen to audio porn a lot and my favorite genre is "mushy romance (and sex 😳) for trans woman listeners"

please don't use the word futa around me, and also i would caution you against using it in general. it's a gross derogatory term born from particularly dehumanizing pornographic caricatures of trans women. that said though i do like an evil woman. that particular scenario is darker than i'm generally into but i see the appeal

i totally agree, your typical mass market video porn is intensely uninteresting. yawn

i don't mean to speak over you but "i hate my face-hair and sometimes i wish my penis could just stop existing" sounds a LOT like dysphoria to me. "binary trans woman" is not the only other option you have available to you, and in fact i would argue that "binary trans woman" is an oxymoron. enjoy women (god knows i do) and explore who you are and who you could be. i too had to suffer through years and years of being reassured that i'm so manly and tough and boyish but as much as that sucks you can't let that stop you from being the person you wanna be. also spinning in a skirt is absolutely worth giving a shot at least once, go for it

yes you are masturbating extremely wrong, please please please stop doing whatever it is you're doing. go to the grocery store and buy some ky jelly or something and when you get home squeeze a generous amount on your favorite hand before trying again. for the love of god just do anything other than your current technique

lmao nice #quietquitting

[iindigoeyed]

Sorry to complain on main but

i had (have) 3 fucking longfics planned and one of them is actively being written and it's so nauseating because i didn't think to write an outline from the beginning and just wrote the first few chapters the same way i write my shorter stuff (aka: Whatever The Hell Happens, Happens with very little planning) and now i'm suffering and wayy in over my head and honestly considering dropping the whole thing because other people have taken the same concept and done it better for a different ship and it's a genre i'm not typically versed in writing and every time i think of ways to fix it i just make it worse and more convoluted and now i'm just discouraged from working on it and feel like i've wasted 4 months of my fucking life. I swear i'm never doing this again but the other two projects are ones i'm very excited for and yet, i hate hate hate having to plan so much and figure out the minute details like i just want to give up. i open my google docs (all 7 of them) and look at the gargantuan amount that i have to complete before i can even remotely POST chapter 1 and it makes me want to puke. I dont know how you people do this

[vanoefucks]

el: 6, 10, 12, 16, 30, 39 / fennel: 3, 7, 11, 15, 17, 24 / 19 for both of them and also nalfein pls gimme the crossover lore

omg ok this is gonna be a lot >:)

EL:

6. What weather does your PC prefer? Why?

Overcast/stormy days were a fave before the game because of the gloomy atmophsere they gave & it made it easier to fall into the shadows while tracking his bounties. Post game they're a fave because on the stormiest of days he's able to be outside with Astarion with some caution.

10. How does your PC fidget?

He will forever be fiddeling with his weapons they are rarely ever in their straps if they've stopped for a break.He runs his fingers over the edge of his blades/spins his arrows around before the others tell him to put them away. Just likes to keep a hand on a weapon at all times.

12. If your PC had to set up a date, what would they plan for it?

He is sooo inexperienced with dating, hasn't had many people he could say he's 'dated'. Would not have much of a clue when it comes to typical dating rules/ideas so would probably just try to spend doing something they both enjoy, or taking a walk through a quiet part of town before going home for a nicer dinner than normal. any time spent together is considered a date to him he is big on quality time.

16. What scents do you associate with your PC? 

He would always be smelling of dirt/various plants that he's been tending to for his poisons which luckily to most would just have them think he's a keen gardener. through the game though blood sticks to his clothes, the materials he wears dont make for the easiest to clean and back in the city he got his work done without coming into contact with blood usually.

30. How does your PC flirt? 

badly no but he doesn't have the best charisma and any flirting he's done in the past relied more on looks than his words but again he's not too practiced or interested in flirting and was sort of stumbling through the affections of Astarion & Halsin. his approach is to just keep things going if someone comes onto him.

39. What would your PC put on their pizza? 

he is a plain guy he only vibes with a margarita like me

FENNEL:

3. How would your PC describe themselves?

I dont think he would know how to really. Not past the physical traits. probably unlucky if anything.

7. So if your PC had a car what kind of car would it be

after failing his test a few too many times he would get some random second hand that he doesnt totally hate the look of. preferable a grey one but he would not be a massive car person.

11. How does your PC show affection?

words! when it comes to platonic affection and lots and lots of touch with a partner. He ends the game pretty much attatched to gale at the hip. hes just tall enough to rest his chin on gales shoulders if he hugs him from behind & he loves sitting close enough for their legs to touch around the fire.

15. How does your PC feel about marriage? Weddings?

the moment gale said ily and showed him waterdeep Fennel was writing his vowes in his head. he finds two matching bands and keeps them in his pocket for the rest of the game. he worries about his past all through act 1 & 2 and once he finds out who he was and has the support of the others it gives him the confidence to put it behind him and he knows that he wants a meaningful future with gale, even with the small amount of time theyve spent together.

17. What are your PCs favorite fruits?

Blueberries. he'll gather a whole basket and eat them in one evening.

24. If your PC found a book that detailed their whole life, from birth to whatever death they’ll have, would they read it and why? 

I think he would hate read his durge days. remince over the span of the game skipping him killing alfira and stop the moment the book catches up with the present.

19: What is your PC’s Pokemon Gym Leader type and Signature Pokemon?

El would lead a poison type gym & his signature would be a Scolipede

Fennel would lead a pyschic type gym & he would have a Gallade

Nalfein would predictibly lead a dark type gym & his signature would be absol

[glowstone23b]

UAGSHDHFK ITS SO FUNNY U SHOULD MENTION TOOTHLESS FROM HTTYD BECAUSE WHEN I WAS DESIGNING A CONCEPT FOR SAGE’S WINGS (which im still in the process of making) HE WAS MY FIRST REFERENCE :’’’) I LOVE NIGHT FURIES

but also to answer some of those previous elytra questions because they have been on my mind . i’ll sort of just be quoting them audvdhfj ive been thinking about them all day

“What if the elytra (after having been fully fused, I guess, but early users apply too) runs out of durability?”

— okay so pre-fusing the elytra is sort of. brittle. not fully but like regular durability you get in normal minecraft; it wears down after a while and this is because of a couple factors

1.) still adjusting to the host, hasn’t gotten the proper intake of blood and nutrients in its wings to fully sustain itself for the while yet so it’s trying to run off what it currently has (which tends to be very little resulting in them damaging over time if not fixed)

2.) it doesn’t wear down post fusion because the mutations and genes mixing in with the host lets it sort of stabilize by itself and become a part of the host entirely; once the “magical” properties of it are slowly simmering and is replaced with blood, skin, bacteria, etc (on that note the tendrils inside the host’s shoulder blades etc also sort of melt and become new veins/paths for blood circulation to take) (dont ask me how that works uhhh magic and minecraft stuff idk)

“Are the wings something you yourself can feel once they’ve fused with you, or is it more like… a neurological thing, where the elytra just know what you’re thinking?”

— OKAY when the tendrils slip in you’ll feel some generous amount of discomfort but pulling them out hurts more than letting them sink in

— new elytra users need a small bit of time to adjust to the wings and get a grasp on how they feel. its sort of different for everyone but at first it feels like a very strange version of pins and needles- you can move the wings around but it feels weird.

— although yeah the parasitic-ish parts of the elytra kind of do. connect with your brain (DIY lobotomy /j) in order to both A.) get the brain to move the wings around and B.) to do all the increased reaction time and instincts shabang (these stay permanently after fusion)

“Could you feel them as an extension to your body? If they get hurt, would you be able to feel it as if it were your arm or something, or would it be numb?”

- new elytra users get a numb sort of sensation when the elytra gets damaged via an arrow or something

- older (fused) elytra users get the similar sensation to the webbing of your fingers being sliced or punctured (owie)

- also at first they do feel like weird body extensions before eventually adjusting and them becoming literal body parts aisnfwidhfjfk

“If you run out of durability on fused elytras, is that something you could ever fix?”

— yes actually!! healing potions + usually phantom membrane is an efficient way of patching up deep wounds— depending on the type of wing it might just require a lot of healing potions and bandages, but eh its different for every user

— although if a massive chunk of those wings is like torn off then oooh. ouchie thats like having ur arm torn off. yeah that probably wont heal

^ — however . you can get fixes where they attach like a leather-like wing and hollow light silver(?) rods onto where the bones end to make a makeshift wing repair (leather is typically dyeable and able to be decorated)

bonita drawing ik . but you get the idea !!!!

“Would you be able to get a new pair if you hadn’t been fused yet?”

— YEAH

— if you get the new pair from another person who used it previously the process of the wings shifting to suit you better will take a while longer and vice versa

“Would you have to try to cut off your old elytra to replace it if you *were* fused?”

— yes

— not a pleasant experience but if you hate ur wings so bad then yes you could probably slice them off (i wonder what you would do with them afterwards?? Whats to do with sliced human-sized wings? … wall decoration?? Could you cook and eat them maybe?)

“could you potentially *pick* how your elytra form to look on you?”

— kkkkkkind of? the elytra by default looks like a weird mix of dragon and beetle wings all in one. good flight but also not infinitely durable like mentioned

— the shape of the wings, however, changes to fit the user from what the elytra can gather from their brain

(for example, Sage’s wings are based off night furies and peregrine falcons — fast speedy creatures due to Sage’s own history of enjoying fast speeds/being thrown or spun around and also from the lack of any fear of heights/falling)

(in fact actually enjoying those things) (yk how some kids ask to be thrown into lakes because they enjoy the sensation. yeah thats her)

“Like, if you tried to repair your elytra using a combination of some standard repair materials (phantom membranes, occasionally scales) as well as some other thing (like parrot feathers, for instance), could you possibly get the elytra to take on a form you’d prefer?”

— this is sort of tricky to answer because like. the elytra chooses what form of wings suits you best.

— mutations, though? Like having the elytra change from the dragon-beetle-ish look to having feathers and bright colours? That’s still achievable!! Theres even the possibility to mix and match different biological materials from the desired creatures however if you add in too many the elytra might like. kill you by accident or something (im talking more than like 5 or 7) (usually people opt to have only one or two main repair materials) (3 is teetering on the edge slightly i imagine because of like. neurological effects with all the mutations both physically behaviourally and mentally etc etc)

this also kind of raises the question of “how do you get bug wings” and i’ll be honest w u i have no idea. I imagine there’d be *some* strange way to achieve it? go ham many methods for elytra repairing

( mini rant of sage vv)

(Her way of flying is very similar to toothless in the first two movies. shes sleek and elegant in that cat-like fashion but she also does dive bombs and spins and rolls and is overall extremely confident, nigh cocky with how she flies. a lot of control too!! ,,,, most of the time has definitely crash landed several times) (not to mention speed,,,,, in certain situations when she picks up enough velocity you can hear a whistle coming from the air being sliced by her wings . no idea how to explain but you get the idea)

ALSO THE PHANON TAG IS ALR !! she/her pronouns for me but idrc if you use they/them ajdbfjk

Apologies for the late response, I wanted to make some quick doodles for this at the least!!! It's so fascinating to me! A sidenote before I forget-- what do you think about rocket-propelled elytra flight? Would that be possible at all, or do we pretend canon isn't there for it? It's very silly to think of, but I don't think it'd be very safe, lol.

Here's a rough gif of how I think it might work! (emphasis on might). The 'elytra' (used to refer to the parasite in this sense) feels like a bug to me... like a palm-sized ladybug, sort of. Just the right size to fit on the small of your back pretty easily. Once you set it there, it'll like... pinch/hurt a bit as it sets in its initial veins & whatnot to connect to you, but it just chills there otherwise. I feel like for pre-fused elytras, trying to take one off would feel kinda like a tick? Gross, but hey

I also use "elytra" in the literal sense-- the hard, chitinous sheaths that cover bug wings-- here, so I could draw it in my head. I think that wouldn't be very comfortable to sit back on, to be honest, if you were in a high-backed chair or something. Anyways, like bug wings they'd unfold and the blood that goes through them would fill them up to full size like you said! It'd likely happen in a matter of seconds for long-time users, but take up to a couple minutes for first-timers.

I've also got a couple post-fusion drawings here, under the cut bc it's kinda veiny and a little gross, so if you're averted to that thing, look away!

Again, bonita drawing, but just to get it out of my head. The main "body" of the elytra would start to stretch down your back to get further up along your spine, where all the good veins are! Eventually, the body of it would be more vestigial than anything, because it no longer needs it to look for a host (do you think elytras in end cities would be able to wander freely before fusing to someone? Kinda funny to think of someone just getting like. hit in the face by a stray elytra buzzing around).

I do have this as bug in my head, because my brain loves making sense of things, so it's struggling to figure out how other wing types would work. I know it's magical, so whatever goes, but hmm... maybe the customization just comes after fusing, when the elytra doesn't need to expend the extra energy on needing to find a new host, and can instead divert it to making different, sturdier wings...?

I like the makeshift wing repair with lightweight metals or leather and whatnot, it'd be neat to explore that! Just like toothless :). Color & style customization, too! Do you think anybody gets wing jewelry or piercings just to show off? Like irl vultures with wing tags?

"(i wonder what you would do with them afterwards?? Whats to do with sliced human-sized wings? … wall decoration?? Could you cook and eat them maybe?)" -- I mean, if we're in a world with human-sized wings, there's most likely a market for them! I wouldn't be surprised if long-term elytra users were hunted for sport if they had a particularly unique wing type... Wall decoration, for sure, I think hunters would enjoy them! Also good for food in dire situations, as human meat is probably a lot more gamey than any other available source. Feathers or membranes would also be valued for use in repairing of other elytras, in clothing, ceremonial stuff, etc. Kinda neat!

Tell Sage I love her and her flying skills are unmatched. She's crashed before? Didn't see it. She rules

If any of this is coherent, congrats! If not, poke me so I can explain it! Most of my posts will be one long rant and not really read over again for mistakes or anything so godspeed, buddy! Overall I like your thoughts on the matter you rule!!!! Gives my brain more things to rotate :)

[jaylleoo14]

- 🌷🌷🌷 -

DNI

❌Do not mix my content with reality. If you cannot tell between fiction and reality then I ask of you to simply not interact at all

❌ I understand if you are disturbed or bothered by dark content, but I ask you to not bash at me. Simply not interact at all, I create sfw and lighter work for those who do not enjoy such content

❌ I will not allow any negativity on here, so have some basic manners will you?

❌ No incest/bots/homophobia/transphobia/bigots (The amounts of times i've been so enraged due to the disrespect and discrimination!) General hate/ Pedophilia

❌ Blank blogs. If you dont want me to interpret you as a bot please at least have some pfp and picture or bio on your page. SOMETHING to lmk ur not a bot because if not then I will block you!

❌ I ask of you to please not trauma dump when I do not know you

To Note

❗I would like to make my blog a safe space for everyone, please dont be shy to share your little rambles, dark or wholesome I'm willing to read it!

❗ I wont be writing/drawing anything NSFW (smut) bc im a minor, so it makes me feel a little iffy knowing that. Though I am fine with making dirty/sexual jokes for the fun of it. At most it'll only either be heavily/lightly suggestive or/and implied if I ever were to write/draw anything in that area or were to include it. (I have my thirst moments too after all)

❗I really like horror, so dont be surprised if I expand to gore or the general field of horror. Sometimes i like to focus on the horror aspect more, so [said character] may or may not be an automatic yandere for that purpose

❗ I love yanderes!!! I think they are personally fun to write about and think about. But of course I love characters who aren't in the yandere themes as well (such as Miyamura or Genya)^^

❗My Blog is Multifandom. Dont expect me to only post content for only one fandom. Though asks are open and free for you to ramble!

❗ I'm a little shy in all honesty but please dont be shy to say hi<3 I'll start warming up to you if we interact often and i'm pretty friendly!

❗If you want to be mutuals please actually interact with me first before asking.

❗I am alright with being tagged in posts<3

❗ I am open to suggestions, chit chat, or your little rambles! It might help me wrack up another idea to write or draw about ^^

❗Please depict the characters as 18+ please because I usually like to write in settings where you'd be of age to attend or do such things (such as working in a specific profession or going to raves) unless stated or interpreted as otherwise.

❗I do not condone any toxic or your typical yandere traits in real life, along with a lot of immoral and dark themes. I know what im doing, I simply enjoy these themes in fiction. Do not base me as a bad person in real life because of that

❗I wish to Indulge in you to put it quite simply<3

Request Rules

✔️ As long as you can provide me a scenario/situation/idea/plot of a character I can make do with it!

✔️ Preferably limit to 5 people when asking at most!

✔️I have the right to refuse a request if I seem uncomfy/iffy/or unfamiliar with what's being requested

✔️ It would be great if you were to be specific with what you would like to request, in that way I can fit it to what you desire! I'm willing to indulge in you <3 Though its fine if you were to make it broad or general

✔️Although being neurodivergent myself I would like to ask you not to be too heavy on such specific topics when requesting.

✔️ Theres no specific way to give an ask, so just go for whatevers on your mind! <3

With that, I think I added all that I could think of. So please do enjoy your stay, that is if you decide to🌷

~Sincerly, Jay/Jello

Due to be edited anytime if needed

[brad-bakshi-loves-bugs]

hey there!! as someone who loves writing (but never posts) but hates reading OOC fics, i need your advice, if you're willing!

how do you find that pocket of in-character, while still fitting the storyline?

sorry if this sounds delirious and jumbled. I really admire your writing and wafwaf :)

okay, this is going to sound absolutely ridiculous and I have NEVER told anyone this before EVER, and I have no idea if this is something other people do or if im just a fucked up human being, but here me out:

so basically. I roleplay with myself. like, I spend a lot of time alone (which is fine im just a Huge Introvert) and I get bored easily, so when I was a lot younger I would just pretend to be my favorite characters from media and then when I was alone id talk and act like them and pretend to talk to the other characters in their universe. it helped me flesh out their backstories and behaviors, and with the added bonus that it gave my young ADHD brain something to do that wasn't destructive in any way. so like. it's kind of like larping, because im somewhat acting out what im roleplaying, but im not dressing up and it's just me, alone, pacing around my house. in hindsight it IS kind of pathetic and maybe I should tell my therapist about it, but if there's one thing you should know about me it's that I do NOT like being me and so I pretend to be other people as an escape.

well. in doing so, naturally, im going to get better at acting out the mannerisms of each character. and by that point, if you can act it out, then you can write it out. im very much a visual learner, so being able to picture the exact gestures and expressions each character would make while they talk etc helps SO much with writing! and sometimes I even take notes about specific mannerisms I notice while im watching the show (like brad frequently interrupting people, david's voice cracking when he's upset, etc), so that I can reference them while im writing to make sure I stay in character. I also watch a lot of youtube compilations from the show, so even if im not going back and rewatching the whole series, im still exposed to their distinct behaviors and speaking methods. it REALLY helps to just pick one or two characters at a time and study them exclusively, because you tend to notice a lot more about a specific character if your entire focus is on them.

now, could I write ian, or rachel, or poppy well? probably not, because I dont pay attention to their mannerisms when they're on screen since theyre not characters im personally invested in. but when david and especially brad are on screen, you can bet your ass im studying every tiny detail and change in their expression and tone, so that I can recreate that in my writing as necessary. my goal is that people will be able to recognize each character I write with exclusively dialogue and zero names mentioned. like, let me give an example:

"Hey man, did you get that report I sent you earlier?"

"Wh- uh, what report? I didn't get a report. Are you sure you-"

"Yes, I'm sure I sent it."

"Oh. Well then I'll, um, I'll check my email again. Are you sure you sent it to my work email?"

"Well I didn't send it to dirtydave3377@hotmail.com, if that's what you're asking."

"Oh, okay. I'll, uh- I'll get back to you on that report then I guess."

"Thanks."

see? now obviously the email kind of gave away one of the speakers, but hopefully it was more apparent as the dialogue progressed that the first speaker was brad and the responder was david. because david stutters a lot and uses a completely unnecessary amount of filler words when he talks, so he's pretty easy to write! and brad (typically) doesn't talk excessively, so it's common for him to give short responses only a few words in length. I basically write brad like he's perpetually fed up with everyone around him, because that seems most in character to me based on what I see in the show! lots of eye rolling, groaning, and frowning.

my goal in writing is for people to be able to visualize the characters saying what I write for them as if it's quoted directly from the show. now, im not going to claim to always succeed at that, but being able to hyperfixate on these characters helps a lot! so does reading other in-character fanfics, because it's sometimes tough to convert tv show acting into writing. luckily, at least in most fandoms, other people have already done it for you!

whenever im writing, especially when it comes to dialogue, im always picturing the characters in my head. I'm seeing the way their expressions shift, the way their hands gesticulate, the path they walk when theyre moving. im hearing them say the dialogue im writing in their voices, which probably makes me sound absolutely insane but im like 90% sure it's just my ADHD so dont worry! being able to see and hear the characters helps SO much, and I wouldn't write half as well without that skill.

im sorry this turned into such a long ramble! everyone has their own methods of figuring out characters, but roleplaying with myself, visualizing the characters, and studying the show helps me immeasurably.

as an aside, im always happy to beta stuff and check to see if it sounds in-character, and offer pointers/edits for anything that sounds too ooc! I've totally been there before, and obviously im not perfect, but I enjoy helping where I can and at this point ill do pretty much anything to help get more mq fics out in the world LOL

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

A moment of silence for the golden deer girls...

jk jk! Personally I don't really hate any characters (even Edelgard, but I DO hate her stans LOL )

so to sort of reframe it.. As a writer (and in your personal opinion) how would you improve Bernadetta and Marianne as characters?

And how did Hopes do better in regards to Bernadetta?

NGL I was pretty surprised when I found out how popular they were. Though I can see them working for the JP audience moreso than the Western audience.

Like I can see why some may not like Bernadetta and Marianne when they both have passive personalities , can be extremely pessimistic, and are so wrapped up in their own anxiety and trauma to the point they don't have the capacity to deal with everything else that's going on (That and the writers 100% treat Bernadetta as a joke). Whatever the reasons are it's valid, sometimes characters just dont work for someone!

With Marianne she improves if she survives to post time skip.

With Bernadetta it kinda does and doesn't? though I think she improves in her supports with Raphael and is much more tolerable (in general) in her supports with Leonie.

This is super old and I forgot to finish replying to it but! Look! I'm replying to it now!

Yeah see when it comes to EdeIgard I actually hated her but like... not with the same vitriol I do now because of the stans. I already found the writing for her to be bad (must I once again mention for the unknown amount of times: Ashnard lol), but then the way the stans who go far beyond "I like this character" shove what you already didn't like down your throat? Yiker pikers on a stick. It's one of those things where I didn't like her, but then the fans just made it so much worse. :/

I'm definitely not a fan of the GD girls lol. I mean like I probably said in the last ask response, I don't hate Lysithea or Hilda, but I don't have a strong attachment to them. Really it's GD in general I'm not that fond of, because the only characters I care about from that house nowadays are Lorenz and Claude, with a side of Ignatz lol. That is, I'm not big on Ignatz but I do like him and he'll always have a special little place in my heart for being my very first recruit in my very first playthrough.

For Bernadetta, I posted about her in response to this ask here.

With Marianne, it's not so much that I like, actively despise her. I don't like that she's just... extremely aggravating. She does get better post timeskip for sure, but pre-skip is just awful for me.

I get having anxiety and being afraid and all that, but she takes it too far. Her insistence that "something bad will happen" is used so much that it begins to feel like a poor excuse. On the writers' part, this is irritating because they could've written a character who had anxiety and just... had anxiety. Instead they gave her the whole backstory of thinking she's cursed. I feel that she would be more relatable if she was just a normal person with anxiety.

Because of the supposed "curse", she behaves rudely to people and cuts them off to "yell" at them (not literally yell, but I think you get what I mean?). People seem to give her a pass for usually saying "I'm sorry" before leaving, but it's so abrupt and someone will just be trying to talk to her and/or be nice to her, but she makes them feel bad for talking to her and trying to be nice.

I don't know that it was meant to be intentional on the writers' part, but it comes across as disgustingly manipulative, because that's what people do irl who are trying to garner sympathy. They play the woe is me part and apologize and all that, but it leaves their conversation partner feelings badly toward themselves for doing nothing wrong.

Typically conversations with Marianne are one-sidedly complimenting her and being super nice to her with nothing in return. She makes them feel bad about talking to her, then they compliment her and are still all nice to her. It rubs me the wrong way.

The thing about Houses' supports is that even if you get to the timeskip, if you have C and/or B conversations left, the characters' personalities will still be their pre-skip personalities. Even if she's grown in her timeskip personality, I still end up having to get through supports of her pre-skip personality during the second half of the game. It makes feeling better about her growth a lot more difficult.

And like I said, I don't straight up hate her... but her attitude in the first half of the game is definitely something I wouldn't be able to put up with if I knew her irl. It also gets to the point of being so over exaggerated that I don't feel sorry for her at all anymore. At first you're like oh poor girl, but then it happens so often and with so many characters that it just gets annoying and irritating. It's a boy who cried wolf situation.

I do think she was handled better than Bernadetta in the sense that she was definitely not played for laughs, but I think that's also because there's a huge gap in understanding between the mental illnesses they have. Anxiety is much more commonly understood nowadays, whereas agoraphobia isn't taken seriously and is usually written off as lazy people who just don't want to bother going out. Since it's also become a trope, whereas anxiety is seen irl as a more serious mental illness that is almost always coupled with depression (which makes it even more extreme), it's used as lol look I know that trope, rather than actually diving into what makes people behave like that.

Marianne has some similar problems that make me not like her as Bernadetta, but they're not entirely as bad, she does get much better development, and her situation isn't meant to be funny. I don't mind her being passive and pessimistic - I mean hell I'm super pessimistic irl, thanks society! - but it's the way she treats the people around her and uses the woe is me excuse every single time.

She doesn't want to feel responsible for something bad happening, so she instead puts those bad feelings onto everyone else so they instead feel poorly and she gets to feel better knowing "nothing bad happened". It's like, oh wow, now I feel so much better since I don't have to feel responsible if they die, even though now they're upset because they think they did something wrong when they didn't. It's extremely selfish and while sometimes being selfish isn't a bad thing, imo it kinda is when someone else gets hurt for the sake of oneself feeling better about the situation.

I agree that some characters aren't for everyone! While you don't have to hate the characters to not like them, there can be some that irk you and some you just aren't interested in (I mean take Raphael for instance. I don't care for him either way. He's a sweet guy and I wouldn't want him to die! I just don't have an interest in that type of personality for a character, and also because it's so immensely tropey with little else to him that I'm just very eh about him).

So yeah, Marianne is more along the lines of I can't stand her pre-skip but I can definitely tolerate and appreciate her post-skip. The supports just make it a lot more shaky because like I said, the way they work in Houses just makes the part of her I didn't like come right back instead of me getting to see just the development.

[ana-cantskywalker]

YES TO ALL OF THIS OP, this is VITAL information, but also

Two riders can ride one horse

NO. I know how romantic it is for the male lead to rescue your heroine and carry her away on his horse but unless it is a VERY short distance or a VERY large horse (think draft) it is totally unfair and very bad for its back to make a horse carry the weight of two riders.

You can bond with a horse instantly the first time you meet it

Well yes, but also no. Sometimes you will just click with a horse. I know when we went to look at my mare there was just something in me that knew she was mine. But there is not going to be this magical moment when you meet a horse that it bonds to you and issues it had with other people are going to vanish. Like with any other relationship, it takes time to build a bond with a horse. And bonding doesn't just come through riding (on the contrary most of it happens on the ground). It happens during feeding and grooming, it happens in round pen work, heck it even happens when you go catch them in the pasture. And lots of people (myself included) when they want to build a relationship, they will make an effort to do things that the horse enjoys whether its a riding or groundwork exercise or a game.

And then some fun facts that i dont think have misconceptions around them but are still nice information to know.

Every horses brain works differently (and therefore there is no one size fits all training program.)

The best example of this I can think of is the difference between my sisters gelding and my mare. Her gelding Storm HATES groundwork, he has a very active brain and he finds it boring. My sister is a trainer and a firm believer in groundwork but she fixes most of his issues under saddle because thats what they both like better, and thats what he responds to. My mare Ahsoka however, loves groundwork. She is also very smart, but she enjoys doing things on the ground.

And not only is it a riding vs groundwork, but every horse is going to run into different obstacles in their training. Some horses are just going to have the personality to be scared of everything and will need a lot of confidence building, some horses are going to take every new thing they see in stride and not bat an eye. They're all different.

Horses have to constantly eat or they will get ulcers

This is something that I dont feel like is talked about enough in the equestrian community. Horses constantly produce stomach acid, so they have to always have something in their belly or they will get too much of a buildup and get ulcers that are very uncomfortable to them, and typically end up being very difficult and costly to treat. We try to make sure ours don't go more than a few hours without an opportunity to eat (ie: if they are at a show or on the trailler) and if we know it will be that long we feed them alfalfa to make a mat on their stomach to keep the acid down.

Lots of aggressive horses are just in pain

There are plenty of aggressive horses. Horses that have been mistreated and therefore react violently out of fear, horses that haven't been taught proper boundaries etc. But plenty of horses with aggressive traits are just in pain, whether it be ulcers or back issues or anything else they are just trying to tell you that they are hurting.

Lots of other issues are also physically related. Whether it be an unwillingness to take a bit, or a refusal to move their body correctly when asked, or being saddle shy, a good horse owner always rules out pain before they see it as a training issue. They cant speak English, and reacting is the only way they know how to tell us.

Horses are walking vet bills

Its not an if your horse will get sick or injured its a when. Horses are smart but they are also stupid. They are going to colic on a Saturday when your about to leave to go out. You're gonna wake up one morning and somebody has their leg stuck in the fence (how? it shouldnt be possible but here we are) and now that small amount of swelling and tiny cut has cellulitis so now you're on antibiotics and coldhosing everyday. Just last week my friends horse who has trailered in that specific trailer hundred of times cut her eyelid open in the trailer while she was pulling out of the driveway and had to get stitches. (we still dont know how she managed)

Horses can and do get performance anxiety

My sister and Storm run barrels (me and Ahsoka will, we are working towards getting her ready). Their work at practice is perfection, but sometimes at shows (he knows the difference between a show and not) he gets nervous and doesn't do as well as he can because of it. They are not stupid, they know when there is pressure to do it the best. They will also feed off of your anxiety because they can sense that.

Spur PSA:

OP objects to spurs, which is fine and completely understandable, but I would like to share a little bit of information to people who don't know anything about them.

Spurs get a very bad wrap because there are lots of people who misuse them. When used CORRECTLY they are simply a signaling tool. They should not be jabbed into a horses side, they should never be sharp enough to cause any sort of pain. Spurs should only be used on advanced horses with specified cues that require spurs. They are less surface area so therefore they can pinpoint a specific spot for a specific cue so that a horse can work virtually completely off of leg pressure. (now this is coming from someone who's has a majority of experience with spurs in the ranch pleasure world). The difference of a very small amount of space can be the difference in a cue for side-passing or pivoting or just moving off on that side. A heel is too large to communicate those differences clearly. They are tool no different than a bit or a saddle or a crop when used correctly. But they should only be used by a rider that knows how to use them and on a horse that is ready for that type of cue. We use whats called bumper spurs, which are (forgive me i suck at explaining shapes of things) a curved piece of wire that attaches on both sides so they part that touches the horse isn't a point of any kind, but in the right hands traditional spurs can be used in a way that is perfectly fine. It's all up to that individual horse and rider team and what works best for both of them.

Horses: Since There Seems To Be A Knowledge Gap

I'm going to go ahead and preface this with: I comment pretty regularly on clips and photos featuring horses and horseback riding, often answering questions or providing explanations for how or why certain things are done. I was a stable hand and barrel racer growing up, and during my 11 year tenure on tumblr, Professional Horse Commentary is a very niche, yet very necessary, subject that needs filling. Here are some of the literary and creative gaps I've noticed in well meaning (and very good!) creators trying to portray horses and riding realistically that... well, most of you don't seem to even be aware of, because you wouldn't know unless you worked with horses directly!

Some Of The Most Common Horse + Riding Mistakes I See:

-Anybody can ride any horse if you hold on tight enough/have ridden once before.

Nope. No, no, no, no, aaaaaaaand, no. Horseback riding has, historically, been treated as a life skill taught from surprisingly young ages. It wasn't unusual in the pre-vehicular eras to start teaching children as young as 4 to begin to ride, because horses don't come with airbags, and every horse is different. For most adults, it can take months or years of regular lessons to learn to ride well in the saddle, and that's just riding; not working or practicing a sport.

Furthermore, horses often reject riders they don't know. Unless a horse has been trained like a teaching horse, which is taught to tolerate riders of all skill and experience levels, it will take extreme issue with having some random person try to climb on their back. Royalty, nobility, and the knighted classes are commonly associated with the "having a favorite special horse" trope, because it's true! Just like you can have a particularly special bond with a pet or service animal that verges on parental, the same can apply with horses. Happy horses love their owners/riders, and will straight-up do their best to murder anyone that tries to ride them without permission.

-Horses are stupid/have no personality.

There isn't a more dangerous assumption to make than assuming a horse is stupid. Every horse has a unique personality, with traits that can be consistent between breeds (again, like cat and dog breeds often have distinct behavior traits associated with them), but those traits manifest differently from animal to animal.

My mother had an Arabian horse, Zipper, that hated being kicked as a signal to gallop. One day, her mom and stepdad had a particularly unpleasant visitor; an older gentleman that insisted on riding Zipper, but refused to listen to my mother's warnings never to kick him. "Kicking" constitutes hitting the horse's side(s) with your heels, whether you have spurs on or not. Most horses only need a gentle squeeze to know what you want them to do.

Anyway, Zipper made eye-contact with my mom, asking for permission. He understood what she meant when she nodded at him. He proceeded to give this asshole of a rider road rash on the side of the paddock fence and sent him to the emergency room. He wouldn't have done it if he didn't have the permission from the rider he respected, and was intelligent enough to ask, "mind if I teach this guy a lesson?" with his eyes, and understand, "Go for it, buddy," from my mom in return.

-Riding bareback is possible to do if you hold onto the horse's mane really tight.

Riding a horse bareback (with no saddle, stirrups, or traditional harness around the horse's head) is unbelievably difficult to learn, particularly have testicles and value keeping them. Even professional riders and equestrians find ourselves relying on tack (the stuff you put on a horse to ride it) to stay stable on our horses, even if we've been riding that particular horse for years and have a very positive, trusting relationship.

Horses sweat like people do. The more they run, the more their hair saturates with sweat and makes staying seated on them slippery. Hell, an overworked horse can sweat so heavily that the saddle slips off its back. It's also essential to brush and bathe a horse before it's ridden in order to keep it healthier, so their hair is often quite slick from either being very clean or very damp. In order to ride like that, you have to develop the ability to synchronize your entire body's rhythm's with the rhythm of the horse's body beneath you, and quite literally move as one. Without stirrups, most people can't do it, and some people can never master bareback riding no matter how many years they spend trying to learn.

-You can be distracted and make casual conversation while a horse is standing untethered in the middle of a barn or field.

At every barn I've ever worked at, it's been standard practice with every single horse, regardless of age or temperament, to secure their heads while they're being tacked up or tacked down. The secures for doing this are simple ropes with clips that are designed to attach to the horse's halter (the headwear for a horse that isn't being ridden; they have no bit that goes in the horse's mouth, and no reins for a rider to hold) on metal O rings on either side of the horse's head. This is not distressing to the horse, because we give them plenty of slack to turn their heads and look around comfortably.

The problem with trying to tack up an unrestrained horse while chatting with fellow stable hands or riders is that horses know when you're distracted! And they often try to get away with stuff when they know you're not looking! In a barn, a horse often knows where the food is stored, and will often try to tiptoe off to sneak into the feed room.

Horses that get into the feed room are often at a high risk of dying. While extremely intelligent, they don't have the ability to throw up, and they don't have the ability to tell that their stomach is full and should stop eating. Allowing a horse into a feed/grain room WILL allow it to eat itself to death.

Other common woes stable hands and riders deal with when trying to handle a horse with an unrestrained head is getting bitten! Horses express affection between members of their own herd, and those they consider friends and family, through nibbling and surprisingly rough biting. It's not called "horseplay" for nothing, because during my years working with horses out in the pasture, it wasn't uncommon at all for me to find individuals with bloody bite marks on their withers (that high part on the middle of the back of their shoulders most people instinctively reach for when they try to get up), and on their backsides. I've been love-bitten by horses before, and while flattering, they hurt like hell on fleshy human skin.

So, for the safety of the horse, and everybody else, always make a show of somehow controlling the animal's head when hands-on and on the ground with them.

-Big Horse = War Horse

Startlingly, the opposite is usually the case! Draft and carriage horses, like Percherons and Friesians, were never meant to be used in warfare. Draft horses are usually bred to be extremely even-tempered, hard to spook, and trustworthy around small children and animals. Historically, they're the tractors of the farm if you could afford to upgrade from oxen, and were never built to be fast or agile in a battlefield situation.

More importantly, just because a horse is imposing and huge doesn't make it a good candidate for carrying heavy weights. A real thing that I had to be part of enforcing when I worked at a teaching ranch was a weight limit. Yeah, it felt shitty to tell people they couldn't ride because we didn't have any horses strong enough to carry them due to their weight, but it's a matter of the animal's safety. A big/tall/chonky horse is more likely to be built to pull heavy loads, but not carry them flat on their spines. Horses' muscular power is predominantly in their ability to run and pull things, and too heavy a rider can literally break a horse's spine and force us to euthanize it.

Some of the best war horses out there are from the "hot blood" family. Hot blooded horses are often from dry, hot, arid climates, are very small and slight (such as Arabian horses), and are notoriously fickle and flighty. They're also a lot more likely to paw/bite/kick when spooked, and have even sometimes been historically trained to fight alongside their rider if their rider is dismounted in combat; kicking and rearing to keep other soldiers at a distance.

-Any horse can be ridden if it likes you enough.

Just like it can take a lifetime to learn to ride easily, it can take a lifetime of training for a horse to comfortably take to being ridden or taking part in a job, like pulling a carriage. Much like service animals, horses are typically trained from extremely young ages to be reared into the job that's given to them, and an adult horse with no experience carrying a rider is going to be just as scared as a rider who's never actually ridden a horse.

Just as well, the process of tacking up a horse isn't always the most comfortable experience for the horse. To keep the saddle centered on the horse's back when moving at rough or fast paces, it's essential to tighten the belly strap (cinch) of the saddle as tightly as possible around the horse's belly. For the horse, it's like wearing a tight corset, chafes, and even leaves indents in their skin afterward that they love having rinsed with water and scratched. Some horses will learn to inflate their bellies while you're tightening the cinch so you can't get it as tight as it needs to be, and then exhale when they think you're done tightening it.

When you're working with a horse wearing a bridle, especially one with a bit, it can be a shocking sensory experience to a horse that's never used a bit before. While they lack a set of teeth naturally, so the bit doesn't actually hurt them, imagine having a metal rod shoved in your mouth horizontally! Unless you understand why it's important for the person you care about not dying, you'd be pretty pissed about having to keep it in there!

-Horseback riding isn't exercise.

If you're not using every muscle in your body to ride with, you're not doing it right.

Riding requires every ounce of muscle control you have in your entire body - although this doesn't mean it wasn't realistic for people with fat bodies to stay their weight while also being avid riders; it doesn't mean the muscles aren't there. To stay on the horse, you need to learn how it feels when it moves at different gaits (walk, trot, canter, gallop), how to instruct it to switch leads (dominant legs; essential for precise turning and ease of communication between you and the horse), and not falling off. While good riders look like they're barely moving at all, that's only because they're good riders. They know how to move so seamlessly with the horse, feeling their movements like their own, that they can compensate with their legs and waists to not bounce out of the saddle altogether or slide off to one side. I guarantee if you ride a horse longer than 30 minutes for the first time, your legs alone will barely work and feel like rubber.

-Horses aren't affectionate.

Horses are extraordinarily affectionate toward the right people. As prey animals, they're usually wary of people they don't know, or have only recently met. They also - again, like service animals - have a "work mode" and a "casual mode" depending upon what they're doing at the time. Horses will give kisses like puppies, wiggle their upper lips on your hair/arms to groom you, lean into neck-hugs, and even cuddle in their pasture or stall if it's time to nap and you join them by leaning against their sides. If they see you coming up from afar and are excited to see you, they'll whinny and squeal while galloping to meet you at the gate. They'll deliberately swat you with their tails to tease you, and will often follow you around the pasture if they're allowed to regardless of what you're up to.

-Riding crops are cruel.

Only cruel people use riding crops to hurt their horses. Spurs? I personally object to, because any horse that knows you well doesn't need something sharp jabbing them in the side for emphasis when you're trying to tell them where you want them to go. Crops? Are genuinely harmless tools used for signalling a horse.

I mean, think about it. Why would crops be inherently cruel instruments if you need to trust a horse not to be afraid of you and throw you off when you're riding it?

Crops are best used just to lightly tap on the left or right flank of the horse, and aren't universally used with all forms of riding. You'll mainly see crops used with English riding, and they're just tools for communicating with the horse without needing to speak.

-There's only one way to ride a horse.

Not. At. All. At most teaching ranches, you'll get two options: Western, or English, because they tend to be the most popular for shows and also the most common to find equipment for. English riding uses a thinner, smaller saddle, narrower stirrups, and much thinner bridles. I, personally, didn't like English style riding because I never felt very stable in such a thin saddle with such small stirrups, and didn't start learning until my mid teens. English style riding tends to focus more on your posture and deportment in the saddle, and your ability to show off your stability and apparent immovability on the horse. It was generally just a bit too stiff and formal for me.

Western style riding utilizes heavier bridles, bigger saddles (with the iconic horn on the front), and broader stirrups. Like its name may suggest, Western riding is more about figuring out how to be steady in the saddle while going fast and being mobile with your upper body. Western style riding is generally the style preferred for working-type shows, such as horseback archery, gunning, barrel racing, and even rodeo riding.

-Wealthy horse owners have no relationship with their horses.

This is loosely untrue, but I've seen cases where it is. Basically, horses need to feel like they're working for someone that matters to them in order to behave well with a rider and not get impatient or bored. While it's common for people to board horses at off-property ranches (boarding ranches) for cost and space purposes, it's been historically the truth that having help is usually necessary with horses at some point. What matters is who spends the most time with the animal treating it like a living being, rather than a mode of transport or a tool. There's no harm in stable hands handling the daily upkeep; hay bales and water buckets are heavy, and we're there to profit off the labor you don't want or have the time to do. You get up early to go to work; we get up early to look after your horses. Good owners/boarders visit often and spend as much of their spare time as they can with spending quality work and playtime with their horses. Otherwise, the horses look to the stable hands for emotional support and care.

So, maybe you're writing a knight that doesn't really care much for looking after his horse, but his squire is really dedicated to keeping up with it? There's a better chance of the horse having a more affectionate relationship with the squire thanks to the time the squire spends on looking after it, while the horse is more likely to tolerate the knight that owns it as being a source of discipline if it misbehaves. That doesn't mean the knight is its favorite person. When it comes to horses, their love must be earned, and you can only earn it by spending time with them hands-on.

-Horses can graze anywhere without concern.

This is a mistake that results in a lot of premature deaths! A big part of the cost of owning a horse - even before you buy one - is having the property that will be its pasture assessed for poisonous plants, and having those plants removed from being within the animal's reach. This is an essential part of farm upkeep every year, because horses really can't tell what's toxic and what isn't. One of the reasons it's essential to secure a horse when you aren't riding it is to ensure it only has a very limited range to graze on, and it's your responsibility as the owner/rider to know how to identify dangerous plants and keep your horses away from them.

There's probably more. AMA in my askbox if you have any questions, but that's all for now. Happy writing.

[theincorrigiblegallovanter]

Masking

Masking is something I've been good at, being trans with ADHD and probably Autism I learnt to mask well, it was purely out of the need to survive, it wasn't until I was 30 that I dropped my initial mask but I still have so many.. and at times it's really hard to know what the real me is and what the masked versions of me are. I think in most relationships I keep my masks up because I've been hurt so many times that masking is default for being around any partner because I know they will leave when I drop my masks. I've been told many times that I'm "high maintenance" because my emotional needs have never been met, and at this age in my life I honestly think that no one can fill any of my emotional needs, they're pretty simple call me, want me, tell me you miss me, cuddles you know the basic things you'd expect from a partner.. I dont know how to communicate my needs because I've been alone for more than half my adult life and I've always taken care of me or my partners. I go above and beyond for them and get nothing back in return, I even bought supplies for one ex who repaired a bedside table for her to post she did it on her own.. like bitch I bought you those supplies and helped you and got zero credit fuck you.. and even still I love her and miss her, it's fucked.. I thought I stopped letting people walk over me but obviously I still can't get it right.

My bestie thinks I'll find someone but as much as I would like to think it will happen I can't see it. I'm picky with partners I've tried dating all types of what is around in my area which is just white Aussie girls and I don't think it works, there is one girl who I absolutely get along with but she's straight and seeing a guy just the typical way the universe taunts me. So it is possible I could find a gay version of her but the chance of that I slim to none. Life sucks being me.

I've had therapist amazed by the amount of crap I've been through and remain positive and happy like what the fuck else can I do, be miserable and self loathing I've done that It didn't get me anywhere so I just try and make the most of what I have and in the process try and better myself.

Which reminds me of my conversation to my bestie about being self aware, she hates being self aware because it annoys her that she is and yet so many others aren't and are just oblivious to being assholes and live carefree being shit. I get it tho, for me I've been self aware and continue to be and improve who I am not for anyone else's sake but my own and I guess it does suck because when you do and you realise others haven't a lot of people let people do things to them that are just not on..

Sometimes I wish I could just live without my masks, but with being self aware I know I need to put them up because people can't handle me if I don't. The girl I like that straight she is probably one of the few who has seen me without my masks because we are alike and it feels comfoting to not have to mask around her.

The more I drop my masks the more people won't like me and so I don't know how to handle life without locking myself away from this society that doesn't understand me. "Why can't you just be normal?!" Cause normal is boring!