#we actually have two copies of this game for some reason

[leafy-m]

So I hit my 700th edit for the WHA wiki today, because I am a totally normal person

[senascoop]

SENA’S FAVOURITES ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 TAG GAME

Ꮺ by @iovestuck and I might've added-edited some questions to my liking. all of these answers are genuine and not with the bias of some of them being my moots. also, extremely sorry if I didn't add you on here. most of them are nsfw so... minors please do not interact. (💌)

001. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE FANFICS?

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER — @i2sunric

i already yapped a lot when I first read her fic but this was personally really really cute to read and I loved heeseung’s and the reader’s bickering a lot.

THE PERFECT COPY — @florestalio

if this fanfic was a person I'd date them lol. this was something new and easily secured a seat in my favs.

STILL INTO YOU — @i2sunric

another one of casey’s work that I love a lot.

COULD I BE MORE OBVIOUS? — @rkvriki

this was written like a year ago and is still really good. especially the way it actually captured the “rich ceo husband” vibes.

BUT DADDY I LOVE HIM — @heechwe

what were you thinking when you wrote that lexi? i couldn't find a single bad thing about the fic when i first read it and ngl it still remains as one of my fav.

FIXED COMFORT — @paarksunghoon

coming back to read this after a bad day and this never fails to bring a smile on my face even if I've already re-read this a lot of times.

002. FANFICS YOU'VE READ RECENTLY?

haven't read much lately but this has to be my list — heehoon jerking off together while thinking of the reader. part one, part two not sure if there's more parts, sharing = caring , and then this mind-blowing fic by casey, heavenly , i personally found this one cute, and then I've read this smtg about toxic situationship heeseung, then this one from mochiwonz which made me laugh, this from yuvany, reader is mean in this one but it's good, little lamb ... I have more but I can't exactly add all of them here—so if you're looking for fic recs, you should check @senascoooop

003. WHAT FANFICS DO YOU THINK SHOULD GET MORE RECOGNITION?

PUPPY ANTICS — @florestalio

I always re-read this because well... no reason-just the descriptions and the scene (though I hate angel for cutting it short...)

YOU’RE LOSING ME — @i2sunric

y'all are missing out on a lot of good stuff if you haven't read this angsty angst fic.

CORPSE BRIDE — @yuvany

start to end-just perfection.

BEWITCHED — @p4ranormaluv

to describe this fic in one word would be #wtfdidijustread? In a good way ofc. this deserves way more notes than it has right now.

TIL DEATH DO US PART — sena

TIED UP IN YOU — sena

self promo lol but I actually like these two of my works and they might as well be my best ones till now.

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS — @flwrstqr

a really fun fic to read, especially with the way both the reader and heeseung’s goal was definitely not to fall in love... but the two anyways did so.

VENOM — @gyuuberryy

the tension in this one and half way transformation of jay was just wowwww.

HORROR — @starryjake

the smut was rather really... cute alongside the ending...

666 — @simpjaes

a big fan of dark fics. and this was absolutely flawless!!

Not really a fanfic but rather sfw niki audio by @vanesycho part one, part two, part three, part four. I usually listen to these when I'm feeling down or can't fall asleep.

004. FAVOURITE AUTHORS?

all of my moots ofc lol but other than that ,

@i2sunric — all of her fics are hits and i personally really really really love them.

@florestalio — first found out about her through the fic “human or not” and I liked it from the go. and nevertheless-even if it's been a little time, I think we match the freak nonetheless.

@yuvany — she was in my favs the second i read corpse bride. then there's miss ugly duckling and her recent jay fic... absolutely amazing.

@p4ranormaluv — do I even need to have a reason for her to be here? she's really talented with the way she writes. Though I hope she's enjoying her break <3

@heechwe — every time you think someone can't get more sweet... lexi replies. even her fics are chefs kiss.

@gyuuberryy — she's my hype girl (ofc I'll add her on here and also bcz her fics are a big mwahh)

@mochiwonz — we aren't moots or anything but her works (smaus) randomly came in my for you page and i actually enjoyed a lot of them (so I'm adding her here too)

@paarksunghoon — every time a hard thought of hers comes into my for you-i know my evening's not gonna be so boring. y’all should read her fixed comfort and you plus me fic. 100% recommended.

@starryjake — another author who's also really good at making hard thoughts and fics :)

005. WHICH AUTHOR/READER DO YOU ADMIRE/ADORE THE MOST AND WHY?

all of my readers and moots ^^

but aside from them, i admire casey (i2sunric) & jazmine (p4ranormaluv) a lot and sort of started to write after reading their works <3

now I adore a lot of authors and readers but angel (florestalio) and ady (gyuuberry) have a special place in my heart. and I've actually gotten used to seeing some frequent readers which I absolutely notice and adore but the loud ones so far would be @zyvlxqht @flowerwinds (thank you so much for showing nothing other than love to me and my works) 🫶🏻💗

NOTE FROM SENA , i don't really read a lot which might explain why I don't have some more popular fics or authors in the recs. I'm also very sorry if I've forgotten someone (totally not intentional) this was really fun to make...thank you rain (iovestuck) you're another sweetie I found on blr :)

ᶻ 𝘇 𐰁 tagging anyone who wants to join

[n30n-l1ghts]

Okay, I need to rant. Fuck AI. And I mean seriously. FUCK. A.I. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but more people need to be talking about this, and there’s no point in me saying that if I’m not willing to talk about it too. AI has done nothing but ruin our communities and defile the art that millions of hands have spent millions of hours creating. Fanfiction is a work of passion. Drawing is a work of passion. Voice acting IS A WORK OF PASSION. AI has no passion. It takes the soul out of the things we love and cherish. It steals what we as a collective community have lovingly crafted, and it shatters it to a thousand pieces, spits on it, curses its family, and throws it in a flaming dumpster to be eaten by rats. It is despicable and disgusting.

I won't lie, or pretend I’m a perfect saint. I myself was a user of Character AI until somewhat recently. And as ashamed as I am to admit that, I feel it’s necessary to own up to my own faults. But after seeing the damage it causes, I can’t in good conscience even consider touching that site. Many of us write because it is our passion. Many of us because it is our job. And many of us because it is our *friend*. AI steals the writing of your favorite creators WITHOUT PERMISSION and mashes it together like Frankenstein’s fucked up monster to create storylines that aren’t even fucking coherent. Not only that, but Character AI uses whatever you respond to it with to teach itself as well, which means that the company has access to whatever you chat about, and free reign to do whatever they want with it. They also make absurd amounts of money from it, which in comparison, fanfiction writers, who spend countless hours writing stories for our favorite characters, more often than not charge nothing. And the ones who do charge, tend to have reasonable, if not highly lenient prices for their labor.

Which leads me into another side rant. SUPPORT WRITERS THAT YOU LIKE. It’s really not that hard, it takes two fucking seconds of your time and it makes someone's day. Reblog. Share with your friends. Like. Comment. Just let the writer know that you saw it, and that you liked it. The amount of fanfic writers I have seen get completely discouraged from writing because of lack of engagement is astounding. I’ve seen several posts on Tumblr or Twitter or Bluesky talking about creators that were incredibly popular but never knew it due to lack of engagement is appalling. If you can rant about your love for their work on Discord, you can rant about your love for their work in the comments. Just fucking copy paste it. Tell them how much you love it. Show them support. Especially the ones that don’t charge. Because for those of us that don’t, our only payment, is your feedback. Even constructive criticism is greatly appreciated by damn near every writer I can think of. Because even that shows that you read it, absorbed it, and thought about it enough to have something to actually say about it.

The same thing goes for artists and voice actors. You see a drawing or animation you enjoy? Comment. Like. Share. You see a character in an anime or a game and you love their voice? Go check out their voice actor, maybe they do some other cool stuff, and you might just discover your new favorite series or streamer. A perfect example is Alejandro Saab. I became a fan of his through his astounding performance in several series dear to me, and lo and behold, he’s also a streamer I enjoy. Same story with Aleks Le, or Ray Chase. Yuri Lowenthal, Lizzie Freeman, Landon Mcdonald, Zeno Robinson, the list goes on. But seriously, it’s not that much effort to just show a little love to the creators you enjoy. The people who breathe life into the series’ that we all hold dear. AI does not breathe that life. Using AI, and supporting those companies, will destroy those pillars of our community. And if that happens, the AI would crumble too, it would have no new information to use. SO really, what’s the benefit? I’ll tell you. There is none.

Stop using AI. All it does is bring harm and slowly kill our community. It’s disgusting, appalling, and downright fucking egregious.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[mewtwoandme]

I was hoping this would all blow over, but since it's continuing to happen, now with people attacking other artists of the commewnity. I'm putting out my two fucking cents! Cause this whole art/character theft and pointing fingers, who stole what from who bullshit it driving me up the fucking wall!!

Long story short, it started with me and one other blog whose name I won't mention publicly. Despite the horrible light they tried to paint me in, I don't want anyone going to this person and ganging up on them. This person had some serious bitterness towards more "popular" artists and claimed that I've made characters similar to theirs and once used a pose they apparently used before (which was a very common pose, considering it was a reference from the game version of mega Y). Since then, they had desperately tried to conjure up evidence, narrowing down to the most miniscule detail how I've been stealing from them when I hadn't even known their blog existed until I was forcefully thrown into that unnecessary drama with the unhinged call-out posts they've made. With this being said, I'd like to point out that they never came to me or addressed this concern with me in the first place. They had every opportunity to privately DM me if they had suspected I was "stealing," but no, simply because they already made up their mind that I was a thief, that was a good enough reason to lack common fucking sense and decency, making what should have been a private issue public, going on to villainize and dehumanize me. And apparently, it hasn't stopped with me either, cause recently I've been seeing other artists in the community having to deal with this where people are being white knights on high horses, pointing fingers on how one artist's mewtwo looks "the same" if not "totally identical" as another artist's mewtwo. I refuse to believe it's a coincidence. But what makes me disgusted is that since TC's post, apparently it's had the opposite effect on some people and they're hopping on this blame bandwagon like it's some damn media trend!!!

This is NOT okay! Nothing about this kind of behavior is funny! It's upsetting to all of us. We dont need you causing problems where there isn't any, thinking you're doing us a favor! The majority of us are adults for gods sake! We are old enough where we don't need other people coming to us being tattle tails saying this person did this and that. That's what little children do! If you suspect any form of theft, I think I speak for ALL creators in this commewnity that we'd prefer you DM us privately saying something like "Hey, I think this person is copying you, might wanna look into it." And if possible, provide a link to the art in question, for which we would kindly thank you for making us aware and we'll handle it ourselves from there. Just a brief, yet SIMPLE interaction...that's all we ask!!! Don't even come at me with "Well, it's scary attempting to talk to an artist that's well known." Or dare I say ~pOpUlAr~ If you claim that taking the first step to send me a quick DM makes you nervous, yet you have no problem making public call outs in posts or asks, belittling and degrading what could actually be innocent artists doing nothing wrong, literally leaving yourself open to all kinds of comments and opinions from all kinds of people....I'm sorry but your anxiety isn't as bad as you say it is then, if being rude and ignorant in a public post/ask is easier for you. If you come to us, shaming someone else who 9/10 probably isn't doing anything wrong, thinking you'll be in our good graces for doing so, sorry, you're not going to be told, "Good job!" with a pat on the back and given a lollipop! You're just being an asshole.

Quick reality check for everyone who's made it this far before I end this train wreck of a rant:

People can have similar ideas that coincide with one another! There's only so much you can do when a whole community is focused around drawing the same character! We mainly draw mewtwos and mews, you're bound to find a plethora of similar colors, patterns, and designs because of it! Creativity only goes so far when trying to stay true to a character and not stray too far. It's not a crime to take inspiration from other artists' characters, we actually encourage this! It makes us feel good that you liked something we've done and you want to incorporate it into your own designs! It makes us happy that we inspired you! The line is crossed when someone does a literal copy/paste of a character down to the exact detail, and they call it their own original creation. That my friends is what stealing actually is!

[pucksandpower]

if requests are open, can I pls request baby vettel telling her brothers (the grid kids) she has a "boyfriend" when she comes home from kindergarten one day ??? if requests are closed, please ignore 💗 love your works so much !!

Grid Kids: Cooties

Sebastian Vettel x wife!Reader x platonic!drivers

Summary: the grid kids take being big brothers very seriously

Series Masterlist

“No.”

Max’s voice is firm, his face aghast.

Charles, sitting next to him, nods in agreement. “I thought we agreed that you’re not allowed to date until you’re 40?”

Your daughter looks up from her crayon artwork, her little brows furrowing. “But Tommy said we’re boy ... boyfr …”

Lance interrupts, “Boyfriend and girlfriend? No, no, no. Absolutely not.”

George chimes in, holding up a toy car, “Tell whoever this Tommy is that you’re too busy racing to have a boyfriend.”

Lando adds, “Besides, boyfriends mean cooties. Do you want cooties?”

She tilts her head, pondering the dire consequences of these so-called cooties.

Charles, trying to be the voice of reason, kneels down to her level. “Sweetie, you’re a smart, wonderful little girl. And Tommy is, well ... you can do better.”

Mick, watching the entire exchange, laughs. “Guys, she’s just a kid. They’re probably just sharing crayons.”

Lando looks scandalized, “Crayons today, hearts tomorrow. It’s a slippery slope!”

Sebastian, watching the overprotective madness unfold, turns to you with a smirk, “I think our daughter has a solid set of bodyguards.”

You laugh, wrapping an arm around him. “Good luck to any actual future boyfriends.”

Your daughter simply shrugs, scribbles something on a piece of paper, and hands it to Charles. “For Tommy.”

Charles reads aloud, “We can be friends. But no cooties. Okay?”

***

The next day after school, Max bends down to your daughter’s eye level, “Now, which one is Tommy?”

She points a tiny finger to a little boy playing with a toy car on the playground. He has sandy hair and an innocent expression as he makes car noises.

Lando claps his hands together, “Alright, mates, game faces.”

George rolls his eyes but can’t help his grin, “Really? We’re really doing this?”

Lance nudges him, “We have to ensure he’s good enough for our sister!”

As the grid kids approach Tommy, he looks up, wide-eyed at the small army of grown-ups marching towards him.

Charles squats down, “Hey there, buddy. You Tommy?”

Tommy nods slowly, clutching his toy car.

George, leaning down too, tries to sound stern, “We heard you’re, uh, dating our sister.”

Lando, animatedly acting out air quotes around the word dating, adds, “We just wanted to have a quick chat.”

Mick, clearly finding the whole situation hilarious, jumps in, “You know, about intentions and all.”

Tommy blinks, “Inten-what?”

Max clears his throat, “Look, Tommy, we just want to make sure you’re treating our sister right. No stealing her toys or snacks.”

Lando jumps in again, “And absolutely no cooties. We had a long talk about that.”

Tommy nods fervently, “I don’t have cooties!”

Charles chuckles, “Good to know. So, you’ll play nice with her?”

Tommy nods again, “I promise. I just wanted to show her my new car.” He holds up the toy proudly.

George pats him on the head awkwardly, “Alright, Tommy. Just remember, we’re watching you.”

***

“Operation Sneaky Sneak is a go. Over,” Lando whispers dramatically into his walkie-talkie from his hiding spot behind a bush.

“Copy that,” George responds, trying to peer into Tommy’s living room window from a tree branch, “They’re ... playing with dolls? Oh, and there are some cookies. Over.”

Lance, hidden behind a garden gnome, chimes in, “I hope they're chocolate chip. Over.”

Charles, from his spot on top of a garden shed, adds, “No visual on any suspicious activities. Just some Barbies about to get the worst haircut of their life. Over.”

Mick, wedged between two trash cans, mutters, “Feels like we’re in a bad spy movie.”

Max, crouching behind a car, counters, “Feels? We ARE in a bad spy movie.”

Suddenly, the back door to Tommy’s house swings open and out step his parents, chatting and laughing. The grid kids freeze.

George, panicking, whispers into the walkie-talkie, “Abort mission! I repeat, abort!”

Lance tries to slink away, “Going dark! Going dark! We have been compromised.”

But it’s too late. Tommy’s mother spots them. “Um, gentlemen? What are you doing?”

Charles attempts to play it cool, “Oh, you know, just ... birdwatching. Beautiful sparrows around here.”

Tommy’s father suppresses a grin, “In our backyard? With walkie-talkies?”

Lando, thinking on his feet, responds, “Modern birdwatching. Very high tech. Over.”

Mick gives him a look, “Did you seriously just say over out loud?”

Max tries to salvage the situation, “We just wanted to ensure the playdate went ... smoothly.”

Tommy’s parents burst into laughter. “You guys really care about her, huh?”

Before anyone can respond, there’s a rustling from above. Thunk! “Ow!” Thwack! “Not the face!” Crash! “My hair!”

Everyone’s attention is immediately drawn to George who has dramatically fallen out of the tree, hitting almost every branch on the way down.

Rubbing his back, George groans from where he’s splayed on the ground, “Guess I should leave the climbing to the kids.”

Tommy’s mother takes pity on the fully grown children masquerading as adults in front of her, “Would any of you like to come in for juice boxes?”

The grid kids exchange sheepish glances. “Yes, please,” they reply in unison.

[baeddel]

tirade on pirating software. 1.7k words.

i recently read a post by someone who is anti-piracy (better: against making copies of software). they said that if you can't afford something you should wait for a sale or find a free alternative. and then they said that the only time that they find piracy (better: finding a copy online) acceptable is for games that are so old that you cannot buy them from a licensed vendor, but only from resellers, because in that case the developer doesn't get the money anyway.

i feel like i could make a sort of loophole argument in this framework, which is that i can watch ebay until the game is listed by a reseller, and then pirate it, because i'm no longer making a choice between paying the developer or not paying, but paying a reseller and not paying, and i've decided not paying a reseller is morally permissable.

but i think it can go a little further. they specified developer. i should pay the developer. even though i don't buy directly from the developer, but a licensed vendor. but the vendor's surcharge is not worth bringing up.

this is because we don't believe in following the law, exactly, and thus you should follow all copyright laws for that reason. it's because of, usually, one of two reasons: developers deserve to be compensated, or that we have a moral obligation to support the developer.

on the first view, the "just deserts argument", it's not clear to me that the moral obligation to not pirate is watertight in this case (when i said "pirate" before, i made a silly gesture, meant to indicate that i'll say that for brevity, but am not acquiescing). a developer deserves to be compensated for their work; but what do they deserve exactly?

does every developer deserve to become as rich from their game as Notch, and every time they don't there's been an injustice? you probably don't think that.

do they deserve some particular amount that we would say is 'fair'?—it isn't unjust if they do better (although you might think so, and complain about how much of the spotlight they take up compared to others just as deserving), but we only require that much success of them. this might be dependent on the kind of game that it is, for example, a better game deserves more success. if that's the case, then we've exonerated at least some pirates; so long as the developer is as successful on the market as they deserve to be, we've done nothing wrong.

you might say that it's wrong to pirate games that haven't yet reached the threshold of just success, because you place them in jeoprady of never achieving the success they deserve. further, you might say that this threshold is epistemologically unknowable to human beings (see: click), and therefore in practice you can never justify piracy, because you never know if a game has reached the threshold of justice. pirates, therefore, gamble with justice, and only Minos will pay their winnings.

i think this would be a good argument, except that i don't understand why i, as someone who wants to download a copy of the game, am the one who bears the moral responsibility. if the success of this developer is a matter of justice, then surely we all bear that responsibility, even people who don't play videogames. therefore we should all purchase and promote every game, and so forth.

this isn't what any anti-piracy advocate believes, even if they seem to take a deserts line. instead they restrict our obligations to participating in ordinary market mechanisms. the game is being sold as a commodity; therefore people should buy that commodity from a point of sale apporved by the producer, and so forth. it's taken for granted that the anarchy of the market is the right way to guarantee justice, and other possibilities are never explored. ultimately, the deserts argument naturalizes capitalist relations. once you remove these blinders, the mechanism for delivering justice it actually proposes seems obviously unreliable and unsatisfactory (in fact, i believe this criticism applies to all deserts arguments).

here i will quickly add my complaint against the second argument, that we should support the developer. the argument runs: if you like a developer, you should support their work by purchasing their products. i am a lot more sympathetic to this argument and so i won't spend much of the post attacking it. it's enough to say that it suffers from the same problem we just mentioned: why is participating in ordinary market mechanisms the best way to support the developer? capitalism is likewise naturalized by this case when it is advanced as a moral argument against piracy. therefore we can run the same argument: if we have a moral obligation to support game developers, then it's not clear to me why only potential players have that obligation, and so forth (but this time the criticism doesn't apply to all similar arguments, just this one).

however, it often isn't advanced that way, and as a pragmatic argument i tend to agree with it. in fact sometimes they actually have a case for participating in normal market mechanisms: DMC fans want you to buy DMC games because then Capcom will look at their sales figures and decide it's worth making another game. you could argue that they still have capitalist blinkers on because they only advocate you buy one copy, the one you'll play, which is how the game is sold. maybe they should be asking you to buy a hundred copies or whatever. but we don't want them to do that, LOL. and the feeling is usually that there are limits of what you can ask out of someone; when one DMC youtuber was spending quadruple digits on a DMC-themed gacha, his viewers expressed concern and encouraged him to stop. so cheers to DMC players.

in fact, there might be ethical reasons to only ask someone to purchase a copy of something in the normal way: when i try to get you to buy one of Xraftstar / Charity / Porpentine's games, i am doing it because i personally want my friend to succeed, and i want to see their art recognized. this is a kind of moral motivation, but it's the morality of rendering personal obligations; you are not likewise obligated. however, i of course feel there are limits on what i can ask of you, and so, unlike when i make donation posts for my friends who are struggling, i'm only comfortable encouraging you to purchase a copy of something i think will actually render a use-value to you (even if you could still obtain it in other ways and get the same use-value).

but anyway, why specify the developer in the first place? the work put in by the publisher, the developers and maintainers of the platform its sold on, the bandwidth of the payment processor, and so forth, all get left out of the question, even though they are all more or less necessary parts of the normal market mechanisms we're encouraging you to participate in.

i think it's obvious that the anti-piracy advocate of this kind doesn't actually want to advocate for participation in the market economy, like Bush during the recession. they want to be just by the developer because they see the developer as a fellow individual like themselves; they actually want to cut through the market alienation and simply do right by another person. therefore all of the other capitalists who make money off the sale—publisher, platform, payment processor—are just more big companies, perhaps even leeches we'd be better off without.

it's funny, because historically this view was used to support piracy when it came to music. you used to see a lot of charts like this:

how much of a CD goes to the label, manufacturers and distributors, to show how little really goes to an artist, to shut down people who said you should buy the CD to support them. there's a sort of naive anarchism underlying this: i want to help the individual who made the music i love, who needs manufacturers and distributors anyway?

in this kind of simple moral reasoning, resellers really get shafted. they're seen as scalpers, taking money without producing any value. no one says: 'make sure to support resellers!' thus we never ask who the individual behind all of the market alienation the resller is. whoever they are they don't deserve the money. then, when you are poor and struggling, and cannot afford to buy things for yourself, what do people tell you to do? sell your games, CDs...

but i don't want to be too sarcastic here, because there is nothing funny about this impulse to reach through market alienation and connect morally with another individual. it is the essence of emancipation. but hear my argument: purchasing commodities from them is an unsatisfactory way to realize it. it's true that you can certainly help someone by buying what they sell; many of us rely on this to a greater or lesser extent, and, pragmatically, i hope we'll all buy Nadia Nova's next game and put food in her belly. but systematically, not in this or that case, but as a general moral principle, the commodity form, the exchange of cash for things or copies of things—this is the very thing that reproduces these conditions of alienation in the first place. and these relations—their predictability as a feature of the market, or even their scarcity as a part of a volatile and impermanent system—is what habitually places the developer in a condition of alienation from their labour, coaxing them to give up their so-called intellectual "property", then forbidding them from using the games they made; or by seducing them into placing their music on a platform, then offering them increasingly small margins and less control; or to post their content (qua sex workers) on a paywall platform, which then imposes complex payout structures to keep them from claiming their earnings. and so forth. the desire to reach through all of the noise and support the individual is inevitably captured, redirected, and fed upon in as many ways as it can be, until the whole thing crashes down and the cycle starts again.

therefore, should you purchase or pirate the next game you want to play? Remember Ptahhotep: "The noble who sitteth before food divideth it as his soul moveth him; he giveth unto him that he would favour."

[caffeinatedvigilantewriter]

This one’s a long, but a favorite.

Jumaji inspired

Serious Chaos

So GIW has managed to get a hold of Technus’s new project. A project centered on video games.

Technus’s plan was to trap Phantom in a video game.

The game would take place in the ghost zone, and you’d have to fight different ghosts to defeat each level. The levels get more difficult as you go on. You can stop to grab ecto-dejecto to increase your health.

Anyway, the GIW got their hands on it and tested the game on the ghost scums.

Dani (Elle, 16), Danny (19), Jordan (Dan 27) and Jazz (22) (she became ver liminal due to ecto exposure) were meeting up in Amity Park when the got ambushed and sucked into…. a video game?

The GIW plays the game to test and realize that it’s actually pretty fun. And they need more funding after Vlad Masters didn’t renew the contract (something about his godchildren and daughter going missing?)

So the mass produced and sold the game.

It is an instant hit.

Now the other copies are actual programs characters and sorts, but the OG copy got lost and ended up in the shipments or games going to Gotham.

It was Wayne Famiky game night, and they all decided to play the four player game that came out last month. It was called The Ghost Zone.

They read reviews and description of the game and through it would be fun

(The Ghost Zone is a dangerous place, but with the help of your great, you might manage to make it out alive! You have four characters to choose from: Dr Jazz Phantom a brilliant psychologist. Danny Phantom, astromancy expert. Dante Phantom the ghost engineer and Elle Phantom, the teen explorer and ghost expert!)

None of the Waynes had played the game before, but they turned it and everything seemed normal. Duke played as Danny, Dick am played as Elle, Steph played as Jazz, and Tim played as Dante.

None of them could make it past level 5 without dying, so they handed the controllers over to Cass, Damian, Jason and Barbara.

But the moment Damian (17) and Jason (27) (changing the ages here) touched the controllers to pick their characters, they vanished.

There were two new characters on the screen, along with two frozen avatars.

Jason Todd: gun expert and literature nerd.

Damian Al Ghul: swordsman and animal whisperer

(Damian and Jason are the most liminal, and this is the OG copy of the game and it mistook them as ghost and sucked them in.)

~

Jason and Damian had been sucked into a video game.

Now, they have to survive the ghost zone until the Bats can get them out. They also learned that the 4 ‘characters’ are actually real people.

They were ghosts, ghosts were real. And they got sucked into a video game. For an odd reason, they had their swords and guns.

The bats are freaking out. They watched two of their members get sucked into a video can that was known for being impossible to beat.

Like I mentioned, this was the OG copy, so the characters (I’m gonna start calling the video game characters ‘characters’ and the players ‘players’) have some control over what they can ‘say’.

They can change the character dialogue to give clues and hints.

But when it comes to actual gameplay, they are mostly at the mercy of the controller, with a few exceptions.

But considering none of the hero’s exactly have enough time to learn the game and master it in a short amount of time, (except Tim (he watched Bernard played extensively) they are forced to call the worlds best players.

~

Tucker Foley, Samantha Manson, Valerie Grey and and Wes Weston immediately knew that the characters in the video game were their classmates. It was obvious once you saw the signs. And Technus came to them the moment he realized he messed up.

Considering they all live in Amity, the ecto in the air is bringing out the OG programming, so snippets of the characters actual conversation pop up on screen for a moment before glitching back to its programmed sentences.

Unfortunately, Sam and Wes didn’t have the video game experience that Tucker did, so it was up to him to try to beat the game, hoping it would bring his fiends back. He mastered the game up to level 20 out of 25, but never made it past that point.

Suddenly he was asked to come to the Hall of Justice to play video games for The Justice Leauge.

Valerie and Sam came with him, and they realized why they were asked to come.

This was the copy that Dan, Dani, Dan and Jazz got sucked in.

~

Shenanigan ideas

-characters drops codes and hints about ghosts and the GIW in the character dialogue

- Tucker logs in with his name and the Bats deciphered a code that translated to ‘Tckrs playng!!!’

-since Dani is the ghost expert in the game, she’s very overcoming by stress and lashes out at Damian, who ends up not liking her (he actually loves people who could bend him in half, it’s a Wayne Family Trait) (totally serious chaos) (reluctant partners to lovers)

-SPECIAL POWERS

• Dan can collect scrap junk and create weapons out of them. The long he collects, the more dangerous the weapon

• Jazz can stun the ghost with a few words in ghost speak, but will need ecto-dejecto to heal her damaged vocal cords (and because she’s liminal and not a halfa)

• Danny can summon a previously defeated ghost if he’s at full power, but when he does he’s then extremely weakened. He also has a spell books of smaller spells that he can use when the stars align

• Dani can talk to the ghost in their native language when they were alive and clam them down temporarily. She can also read maps of the GZ easier than the others.

•Jason can speak ghost speak easier, and is the only one that can read it casual. Can also wield any type of gun

•Damian can speak to the ghost animals and get their help on special occasions, but will need an ecto-dejecto boost after

- the ghosts they have to fight are imitations of the the rouge gallery

- Sam and Wes creating a true crime podcast. Which gains views, and they talk about the missing Fentons. It gains traction online and people realize that the characters in the game look alike, have the same hobbies and interest, and the same names. The GIW is suddenly under scrutiny

-can someone PLEASE make trading cards of the characters and the ghosts!?!!? :DDD

[factual-fantasy]

Salutations Factual! As is always the case, I was overjoyed to see your recent works- Wall-E is another childhood movie of mine, and as you always do, you perfectly translated them into your style! I was also delighted to see a small peak at some new original OCs in the new meme post! While I assume you don't have anything massive planned for them, I was wondering if you had any info regarding them you'd be willing to share? I'm always a big fan of bugs!

Alongside that, it's been fun seeing all this TF prime discussion the past few days. And as part of that, I also wished to bring out a few more points regarding the Vehicons. You made some good points in your last post- the difference between the Vehicons and the Starscream's clones despite their shared method of creation is indeed a bit confusing. However, a few obscure lore bits and a couple of statements from the show's producers help rectify some of the plot holes- and some of your ideas actually weren't too far off!

As far as we know, at some point during the war Megatron selected one or more disposable Soldiers to be "cloned" using a process presumably developed by Shockwave. Small copies of their sparks were created, and given life through energon after being implanted into protoform molds. The resulting clones were fully sentient, but like the predacons Shockwave later created, their sparks were synthetic, thus making them a step above true "drones" but not quite natural cybertronians, as their sparks did not come directly from the Well. As you put it, Shockwave did what he does best and "played God".

Notably, this practice of churning out Vehicon fodder during the wars long lifecycle became so routine, that, as confirmed by one of the producers, some protoforms were designed to resemble Vehicons before they even had a spark inserted- including the five protoforms which Starscream found, all of which had the Vehicons distinctive visor before being reformated into his clones...

However, like you hypothesized, similar to the clones from Star wars, it is suggested in the lore that over the years the cloned Vehicons declined in quality, like because, as the originals died or found their sparks exhausted, the Cons had to start making clones of clones, which over the centuries degraded the newer batches. This is also likely the reason that the modern Vehicons differ so vastly from Starscream's clones...notably, in the prequel games set on Cybertron, most of the Vehicons sound identical, and generally, they proved to be slightly bigger threats.

But by the time of Prime, the majority of them seem weaker and less intelligent- and some have started to manifest vastly different personalities and voices as the clones become less "perfect" with each generation. However- as many fans have pointed out- it seems there are a few OGs left. You'll remember these two guys from the first episode:

They, and a few rare other Vehicons, were evidently from the earlier batches- as despite being clones they fought on even terms with Bumblebee and Arcee for a good while, only retreating when Bulk showed up and saved themselves. (Where they went after that, is anyone's guess)

This also explains why Starscream's clones were so similar to him- they were a "first generation" of clones copied directly from his spark- to the point it even linked them together (which probably happened because he didn't know what he was doing) and this is also why, while the Autobots occasionally show sympathy to select Vehicons, generally except that they have to destroy them in combat- ultimately, their all just "clones", and despite being sentient, their sparks are synthetic, and thus not as valued as well-forged sparks. hence why they mow down Vehicons, but constantly hesitate to kill Starscream, Knockout, and other "pure" Cybertronians.

Oops. Somehow I ended up rambling even longer than last time- sorry! But those are the conclusions I was able to gather. Let me know your thoughts, and again, you're still totally free to go whatever direction you want in your AU! I can't wait to see it one day! I wish you have a good evening! (Or morning!)

(WALL-E post) (OCs post)

Thank you so much! :DD And I DO have a litttttle bit developed for those goobers :)

I thought that these bug critters could be a team of researchers/explorers or something. They go from planet to planet to study the life there and what not. The main character is the Bee gal. I was thinking she's the team scout and is interested in one of her coworkers.. but alas.. it must be kept secret because that is not allowed ☝

The Crane fly and Dragonfly are meant to be the scientists of the ship..? Not sure what their specific job title would actually be but they wear white lab coats. 👍Not much personality is built for the Dragonfly as I made him just for the meme. Thinking he might be a tone deaf/strictly logical character..? But the Crane fly is meant to be the classic kooky scientist character that everyone thinks is actually insane but he's somehow always right and always manages to fix things.

Not much was developed for the moth because he was made just for the meme- but he's basically a Ratchet clone XD Grumpy old medic that is incredibly skilled in his craft and secretly cares very deeply for all of his crew. 🧡

The Orchid mantis is either going to be the lieutenant or Caption of the ship, I haven't decided yet <:/ Despite his no nonsense vibe he's actually rather chill and usually is doing something stupid with the rest of the crew.

The Rhino beetle is also rather chill. He's best friends with the Tarantula and they show affection by beating each other up and throwing each other off of cliffs 💞

Not sure what the Tarantulas job is, but he walks around with crazy canons/weapons. Maybe he's a guard of some kind..? Who knows- he has a gruff exterior but he's got a big heart in there somewhere. ☺️

Now all of that aside,, reading through all that text about the Vehicons has left me with some more opinions- 💀

The whole thing with Shockwave playing God, Its just. Ugh. It just should not work. I've already got so much beef with the predacons, but now adding the ability to create sparks is way too much.

Think about it. A spark is the heart and soul of a Cybertronian. Those two are one in the same. You could say Shockwave could make an artificial spark chamber, or a "heart" of sorts. But he should never be able to create the living "soul" part of the spark.

Also another plot hole in my mind is this quote- "But by the time of Prime, the majority of them seem weaker and less intelligent- and some have started to manifest vastly different personalities and voices as the clones become less "perfect" with each generation." This seems like the exact opposite of what should be happening as the clones degrade in quality.

How are the lower quality/less intelligent clones more capable of forming new feelings and opinions when compared to the previous generations? Their minds have degraded over time. As time goes on they should morph more and more into mindless servants who are unlikely to create any new feelings or thoughts of their own, then they are to consider their actions and think outside the box and most importantly feel and choose.

Its more likely that the very first generation of clones could form new feelings and choose things for themselves because the first generation is the closest copy of a living and feeling Cybertronian as you can make. As the generations go on they become less intelligent, lose their critical thinking skills and should be much less likely to think or feel anything they aren't meant to. If they even can-

The more I think about it, the more I want to make clones 100% not living creatures. They have no sparks and are basically just an AI drone meant to replicate the Cybertronian it was cloned from. Its "feelings" are not real feelings and they don't belong to the Vehicon. Its all just an AI copy of the real thing. I cant think of any way to make the artificial sparks make sense. 😔

With the spark extractor thing, maybe I can make it so its designed to rip out the spark chamber/heart, which carries the soul inside of it. If the chamber is removed from the body that is a lethal blow and the soul is extinguished/released. When the Vehicons had their "sparks" ripped out what it really did is just removed their artificial spark chamber which extinguished the artificial power source inside of it and damaged the chamber beyond repair. So Megatron couldn't just waltz down their and shove the chambers back in their chests.

Also speaking of Vehicons and clones- the predacons? I have the same problems with them as I do with the Vehicons but way worse. I will either completely restructure them from the ground up or remove them from my AU entirely 💀💀💀

[olderthannetfic]

Any way you could recommend some sort of intro guide to fantasy for dummies to me?

I'd like to have a couple of magic related elements in my fics sometimes, but I'd like to sort of, sidestep the world building part if possible.

So is there some kind of bare bones universal structure I could borrow from as a reference point for like, a magic system? I don't want to embarrass myself by showing i know so little of the rules I'm breaking them all over the place. And I know tons of people have fun figuring out how things work mechanically, so I'd love being able to outsource from them so to speak because that's not what up my street at all.

--

Hah! There are so many versions of "fantasy". Right now, I'm brainstorming for a very elaborate secondary world fantasy that's heavily inspired by wuxia but not claiming to actually be wuxia. I'm trying to figure out what Western elements I want to work in and how I can come up with names that don't make me cringe.

There is no one bare bones guide and there cannot be because different subgenres have nearly nothing to do with each other. In fact, even calling it collectively "fantasy" and thinking that these subgenres belong in one category together depends on location and era.

If you want to know about magic systems... oh dear... I'm going to have to recommend... you all know it's coming... Brandon Sanderson's lectures. There are some on Youtube.

--

But before you go look at a guide, I think it's important to understand the parameters and discourse around this subject. Sanderson is the poster boy for unnecessarily complex systems that appeal to the kinds of guys who fill out wikis of canon minutia and complain that the grain harvest and export policies don't make sense in derivative fantasy doorstop #57. This kind of fan annoys the bejesus out of people who care about theme and allegory. Also the many people who've noticed that Sanderson's books would probably be better at 200k than 400. >;D

Sanderson himself is much less of a dumbass about the topic, thankfully. He talks about how there are systems that work like real world science: put in X grams of magic thing one and Y grams of magic thing two, and you get a predictable potion result. But there are also systems that are more numinous. In the same book, you may find magic that's your most boring physics homework and magic that's essentially a religious experience where strict categorization and the logic of the laboratory have no place. There can also be systems that are unknowable and systems that your characters don't understand but that the audience grasps are perfectly logical to an expert.

--

If you're using magic as set dressing in fic, decide what the vibe is and pick a system that supports that. Don't bother going full Sanderson.

Fairy tale: Magic works on feels. Twu wuv will revive dead people for no reason, and you do not need to justify anything as long as it feels right. Hanahaki fic rarely bothers to explain the science. We all know it isn't about that.

Harry Potter: Unholy mix of fake-science and rule-of-funny. You should probably pick only one to copy. If it's fake science, just write about the characters half remembering chemistry class and replace all the words with technobabble.

For another example of rule of funny, check out The ABCs of Spellcraft by Jordan Castillo Price, a gay romance series where all of the magic is puns and stupid wordplay and the general tone is extremely silly. In book 1, a villain tells his magically compelled goon to take the hero outside and "pound" him. The hero takes one look at all those muscles and is like "You know, that instruction can be interpreted multiple ways!"

Some systems are full of stupidass levels out of a video game with actual numbers. This gives fans of stories about leveling up a massive boner, but it is undesirable in most fic. Instead, treat magic like intelligence or learned skills: You know some people are naturally smarter and some people have learned more, but measuring it with a precise number is both impossible and obnoxious.

--

Decide if your magic is hereditary or learned. Western fantasy is full of hereditary magic, including magic with a simple on-off setting: you're either magical or you're not. Eastern fantasy tends to go with highly variable natural aptitude but systems that anyone can theoretically learn.

Decide if your magic is extremely literal and science-y, even if the characters don't know how their laptop works, or if it's more of a metaphor for love or social forces or if it's just a witchy aesthetic because who doesn't love a coffee shop with a punny name and pentagrams on the cups?

A lot of backdrops for shippy fic are vibes-based only. They don't stand up to the world building police, and they don't need to.

Just don't tag the fic as 'magical realism' unless you actually know what that means and are actually writing that.

[chongoblog]

My First Pokemon Playthrough

So I've noticed in my time of talking about Pokemon, I've told a lot of various anecdotes that are all a part of my very first time playing Pokemon. I was feeling nostalgic, so I figured I would share what I remember about this playthrough for everyone to enjoy. There may be a tangent or two in there and people who have followed me a while may have heard these before, but hey.

For context, I believe I was about 8 years old at the time, and after collecting some Pokemon cards, watching a kid play Crystal at summer camp, watching some of the anime, and generally being a pretty big fan (I even have Pokemon Yahtzee burned into my memory for some reason...), I finally got myself a Game Boy Advance with Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World, some Frogger game (after looking it up, it was Temple of the Frog), Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, and, of course, Pokemon Sapphire.

I remember that my starter was Torchic. I don't remember why I chose that one, although I remember really liking the color red at the time (which I still do), so that was probably why.

I don't remember too much about my team or the general progress I made in most of the game, but I do remember Slateport City. For those who do not recall, in Slateport City in order to advance you need to get into the museum, which is blocked off by Team Aqua Grunts until you talk to someone in the shipyard. There are also Team Aqua grunts blocking the route ahead

Now, my 8 year old brain for some reason concluded that the only way to get past the Team Aqua Grunts was to intimidate them with a high enough level Pokemon or something like that. So one night, while I was supposed to be asleep on a family beach vacation, I beat down more poor level 13 Pokemon than I could count. I learned later what I was actually SUPPOSED to do, which led to me finally fighting the Team Aqua Grunts.....with a level 42 Blaziken.

And since the Name Rater was in Slateport City and my starter had evolved, I figured it was only appropriate to give him the new moniker "MAGMA MAN"

The rest of the playthrough went about as normally as tearing through the game with mostly Blaziken normally would go. There were a couple exceptions though. First off, at the Weather Institute, after I saved the day from Team Aqua, they were kind enough to gift me a Castform, but my party was full, so I couldn't get it. My 8 year old self did not read this. (Remember this, it will come back later). But I managed to make my way through the game, catching Kyogre with my Master Ball and giving it the nickname "LEGENDARY"

Then we come to the Elite Four where I hit a brick wall. I don't remember my team at the time exactly, but I do remember it was MAGMA MAN which had reached about level 80 or so, LEGENDARY which was about level 48, a level 36 Pelipper, two level ~35 Tentacruels, and some other sixth Pokemon I don't recall. And for some reason, I just couldn't beat the Elite Four with this team for some weird reason. The best I could ever get to was Drake. I felt I was utterly defeated.

That's when we bring a new character into the story. A member of my friend group at the time who we'll call "John" to protect the innocent. Now John had a very "uncle who works at nintendo" type energy to him. The group used to play Gauntlet: Dark Legacy together all the time, and when I got the GBA port of it, he convinced me to trade my recently obtained copy of the Pokemon Trading Card Game Boy game for a Gameboy-Gamecube cables, only for me to learn too late that it didn't work like that, and from there, there were no backsies (but then I got ahold of a copy of Pac-Man VS and Four Swords Adventure then I learned to emulate, so who's laughing now).

Anyway, John saw that I was struggling and he decided that he wanted to help me out. You see, he had come across an incredibly powerful and rare Pokemon that couldn't be found in the wild. He had gotten it exclusive, and I had never seen it before. It was called a "Castform". Now John had Ruby version, so he decided that as much as it ached him to part with it, he figured it would be a reasonable trade to trade this powerful Castform for the slightly less powerful LEGENDARY. I agreed.

And then he moved to Ohio.

To this day, Castform is my least favorite Pokemon because of this betrayal. I was so distraught at 8 years old that I completely restarted my game of Pokemon Sapphire. I don't remember much about that second playthrough, but there's a reason why.

This rival battle on Route 110 is somewhat infamous for being quite the sudden difficulty spike. And since I knew how to get past Team Aqua now, I didn't have an over-leveled starter to stomp my rival with ease. After losing to her about five or so times, I got frustrated and figured that whatever team I had wasn't cutting it. So I restarted again.

In my third playthrough, I made it all the way to the rival battle on Route 110. Then she stomped me repeatedly. So I restarted again.

This cycle would go on for, like, 15 resets. I didn't count, but it felt like there was hundreds. As I would keep on resetting and playing through the early-game of Pokemon Sapphire (which I had practically memorized at this point), I would start to take things a lot less seriously, sometimes picking the girl character, making my name random gibberish, etc.

Eventually, on one of these playthroughs where I started with Treecko, I actually managed to beat the Route 110 Rival Battle! And on my first try too! And thus began the epic journey of a girl named DE.

Now, I'd figured at this point that maybe only leveling up one Pokemon wasn't the best approach, so I was trying to balance my teams a bit better (I guess my rival taught me something). I was making my way through the game, and one day I'm checking out my best friend's Pokemon in Ruby, and who do I see in his box, but a Kyogre. I take a look at his name, and I can't believe it. It was LEGENDARY. John had traded it to my friend before he moved.

My friend didn't know that it was originally mine, so he offered to trade it back, which I accepted. LEGENDARY was a disobedient little bastard since I didn't have enough badges, but he got the job done. I don't remember the team I ended up using to finally beat the Elite Four, but it included my Sceptile starter, a Sableye that somehow knew only Fighting-type moves, and two Kyogres, LEGENDARY and LEGENDARY2.

And that's my first playthrough of Pokemon Sapphire. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.

[mortish-writes]

No Patreon quite yet.

The Bride of Shadows Patreon isn't ready yet, I didn't realize that a month after giving them a picture of myself and a copy of my government ID, and then them saying I was all set, they'd still do an additional review when I was actually ready to launch my Patreon. Apparently this can take as along as a week, but usually takes a couple days.

The Zealot route for Night V is edited and will be ready for early release as soon as the Patreon is up. You will have to start a new game and only the Zealot route is available right now. The Heretic Night V route will be out next week.

The Night V Zealot route is an additional 25,000 words, with two separate branches depending on whether you're aligned with The Weaver. It also has separate endings depending on which RO you have the strongest bond with. There are also breast sizes now. See? I also added the option to refuse The Weaver and...stay dead. Cause apparently the offer to not be dead was frustrating readers.

The name of the patron version is The Nightborn Edition. Right now, it is largely the same as the current build (+Zealot Night V and a few new variables, mostly hidden), but once the Patreon is live we'll be running polls for new content. Our first few polls will be regarding conception/pregnancy since that will start in Night VI. We'll nail down how we want to handle paternity in poly relationships and how random/not random we want things like gender/appearance/multiples to be. Then we'll vote on a new tendency and which tendencies you'd like to see more of. The goal is to make a version tailored to the interests and tastes of patrons, without taking content away from free players.

I've also changed Bound mode for patrons. It will now feature an MFM storyline with the option to go crazy and have an exclusive MF relationship with Valdricht. Serax TBD, I'll explain in the FAQ, no I don't love Valdricht more, there are important plot reasons for it, if you want Serax you can still have him in MFM mode or play MMF mode as the gods intended. I know that the Duskweaver Cultist won out in the poll, but MFM/MF will be much easier to integrate into the existing story at the moment. Also, you get updates earlier and you can support my goal of writing Bride of Shadows full-time.

Hopefully the review process will be quick and I'll do an official Patreon launch announcement/invitation soon. It will be much prettier and more comprehensive than this. In the meantime, I'll be working on the Heretic route for Night V. Just not tonight. I'm going to relax now.

.

.

.

.

Off-topic rant don't read unless you have nothing better to do. Sometimes a girl just has to type some feelings in a big block of text. So Bride of Shadows has gotten a ton of new players/followers this week. Idk if it was blessed by the algorithm or what. That's not the rant, I'm incredibly happy about that and insanely grateful. So today while I was trying to set up the Patreon version, I thought I could just add the Patreon edition to my regular page and password lock it. Maybe I can and I just couldn't figure it out, but that's a question to puzzle over another day. Anyway, somewhere in the process of attempting this I restricted the main game for like 30 seconds and it completely removed Bride of Shadows from the Itch algorithm. It went from getting a new follower every 15 minutes to totally disappearing from all the categories. Which sucks because we were doing so good. Like, we were almost in a warm, fuzzy sandwich between the hot succubus game and the sexy Minotaur game and that's without a new release in two weeks. I know, I still can't believe it. Anyway, I think the vanishing is only temporary and it'll creep back into the algorithm again, but I'm too tired to worry about it right now. I cried on the phone with my husband for like 5 minutes about that and Patreon and then he came home with chocolate filled caramels for me. Anyway, it's impossible to be sad while eating them, so I'm feeling much better now but I wanted to rant in a wall of text regardless. In February the big stressful thing was my old blog getting shadowbanned, and I went through this whole 24 hour emotional crisis where I thought the IF was doomed and no one would ever find it again and now this month my crisis is that it was getting tons of followers until I derped the algorithm. It's all to say, sometimes I gotta complain about things that annoy me, but I never lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that I'm writing a story I love and lots of people are enjoying it, so no matter what shenanigans befall me, I don't let it distract me. And if I do get overwhelmed, there are always chocolate filled caramels. And because you read all of this the Nightborn Edition password is "veryeasytoguess". I'll be changing the password once the Patreon launches. In the meantime, feel free to check out the new Zealot night. I hope you'll be able to join the Patreon and help build the Nightborn Edition into something really special. For players in non-Patreon regions or those who hate subscriptions (I totally get it), the Nightborn Edition will be available on Steam once the IF is complete and you're always welcome to submit suggestions for things you'd like to see in the final IF. Also just in case it wasn't clear, the regular free story will still be updated. Night V will be out not long after I finish writing the Heretic route. Thanks for reading, you're all amazing. -Mortish

[anim-ttrpgs]

Thursday Patreon Update June 5th 2025

This is a small one of course since it’s only been a few days since the last big public release, but there’s still plenty of reason to check out this patreon release. New Trait, big improvements to some old Traits, and better updated rules for throwing objects and scent tracking.

There’s also some small tweaks to the mini-expansions and a little bit of new art.

Oh crap I also freaking forgot. We have a new official Eureka adventure module that is currently patreon exclusive while we get it playtested.

Murder at the Belle Nuit

Here’s the hook:

A vibrant entertainment convention bursts with life and money, but of all the possible places to stay for the night, the Belle Nuit Estate is chosen only by the most cheap or curious or clueless, a hotel with only one claim to fame - that six years ago within its walls, one person murdered and dissected another, uploaded the butchery online, and was never caught. Even now, the hotel barely breathes through the visits of, once more, the cheap or curious or clueless. When a freak storm floods the streets, such people might regret choosing this hotel as shelter, but only more so when a new body shows up overnight - dissected like its most infamous guest. The investigators are stranded with strangers, any of whom could be a murderer poised to strike again, and behind any door could be the next clue, body, or killing strike, all in a deathtrap hotel sealed off from the world through a hellish storm that assaults the aging walls. May they enjoy their stay. 

Financial Status for June

June Quota: $272.63/$2,898.83

Deadline: July 1st

Status: YELLLOW

WHOLE BOOK

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 437. (Was 302 in last public release.)

We also released Eureka adventure modules “The Eye of Neptune” and “FORIVA: The Angel Game” into free beta on itch.io. Scroll up to find the link!

We also just released a small expansion for Eureka that was intended to just be an April Fools thing but spiraled into an actual full expansion, check out Eureka: The Fanservice Files here! https://anim-ttrpg.itch.io/eureka-the-fanservice-files 

And another mini-expansion!

And a short-story set in the world of Eureka!

Added a bunch more art and made a lot of it smaller - this has resulted in some snoops looking a little crunchy with the lines aliasing a little, but that will be fixed in the final release - we just need to convert them all to vectors.

CHAPTER ONE 

Fixed typo in Law Enforcement Calls & Responses

CHAPTER TWO

Better clarified the “The Ascot” Trait

Added a new Trait, “Hobbyist”

Changed how “Renaissance Man” Trait works. It now gives Write-In Skills at +0, and can give multiple per adventure, but each one past the first one costs an increasing number of Eureka! Points.

Better clarified Truth

Added “Disrespect” to the example Tiers of Fear lists

Better clarified “My Glasses” Trait

Better clarified “Gang Way!” Trait

Expanded “Skeptic” Trait, giving clarification on when it triggers. Also added a drawback, the character loses Composure if they have to admit to the existence of something paranormal/supernatural (or can’t muster an argument against it). 

Changed Wicked so that the -1 to others’ composure rolls can be temporarily turned off. 

CHAPTER THREE 

Better clarified Quick Cycling and that it can affect double-action revolvers.

CHAPTER FOUR

Fixed the chapter heading being considered a subheading of chapter three.

Better clarified the penalties for being Held and being Grabbed

Revised and expanded “Throwing Objects”

Added “Throwing Humans” section

CHAPTER FIVE

Better clarified “No Time Travel”

Added a recommendation to the module writing guide that writers add to their module an estimated number of sessions their module will take to complete.

Added encouragement for Eureka modules to be set in specific real locations.

CHAPTER SIX

Further urged people to play more mundane characters. 

Fixed typo

Revised Superhuman Strength and added information about throwing people superhumanly strongly

Changed the way Scent tracking works and edited the roll outcomes.

[bendersmind]

Sister Imperator #3

Not to be daunted by the lack of physical copies (apparently this isn't just a me issue either) I've decided to do this review based on the digital release.

So, despite a slight delay I have been able to read Sister #3. I must revise some of my thoughts once again since our story is still unfolding but one of the big takeaways is, I am starting to suspect that Sister isn’t telling us everything. One of the biggest things I’ve been noticing over and over again is the distinct lack of Satan in pretty much every part of the story. There are also some very notable things in 3 that make it seem like she is obscuring some details. And for good reason, she’s telling her story to a reporter after all. 

Here is another GIF for those of you that won’t be reading past the cut because spoilers galore:

So here are a few bullet points of what we’ve learned this issue:

Black haired guy is for suresies Nihil.

Marika is Marika Psaltarian.

Sister’s mother was raised in foster care by a religious family.

The comic takes place after the birth of the twins.

The twins were left with Marika BUT at some point Perpetua was lost.

Nihil was always a douche.

Oh, and another thing that hit me while I was sitting here and typing this shit out: Primo might have been the brother that was referenced in #1 so there are at least some cousins of our twins out there; where the fuck are they? Unless my “Primo is Secundo and Terzo’s dad” theory is correct, which means Terzo and Secundo are those cousins.

Okay, so a big part of this whole shebangabang is that I’m starting to suspect Sister is leaving a whole hell of a lot of shit out. The whole reason I put forth the “fake out Nihil” proposal last time I did one of these was because of the distinct lack of Ghost Clergy shit flying around. If we go by Nihil’s “nine millennia” declaration then the Circus HAD to be the Clergy. Even further, the Clergy predates Christianity. Which, oddly, doesn't conflict with Primo’s interview since he says the current game played by the Clergy was put forth by their opposition at Council of Nicea which means whatever is going on behind this whole shit is really less about Catholicism against its opposite and more about Oppressors against the Oppressed. It just so happened the current form of the Clergy was determined when Nicea happened and Catholicism became the oppressor. Which would actually line up in a really poetic and kinda artsy way that I dig.

Strangely enough a thing I picked up on was Sister telling Nihil to stay out of the way so she didn’t poke him in the eye. Based on the “Dance Macabre” video that is precisely how he ended up with the fucked eyeball; that being said, as of post comic blood orgy Nihil’s eye is still plain ass blue. He doesn’t end up with a fucked eyeball until he gets all dolled up as Papa and that’s probably supposed to be part of the getup. I think that is supposed to indicate to us that she’s shuffling events and obscuring facts. 

I’m also going to go out on a limb here and say that her giving birth in an apartment to twins on her own is a flat out fiction. I get how women did that without doctors for a long ass time, but usually you’d have a midwife at least. The only explanation I have for that is that she is using it as a fun little reason as to why the twins don’t have birth certificates. Which makes sense if you know you’re going to be birthing the antichrist(s).

Somehow she is able to take two babies with no papers out of the country and into Eastern Europe after her neighbor gets tired of hearing the babies cry. Again, there is some weird shit going on here and some pretty big details missing. Even in the early 70’s people were fucking nuts about documents. This isn’t the early 1800’s where you could just roll up to a country and say ”Sup? I live here now”.

I think the most interesting, and maybe telling, thing about the way the narrative is structured is that she draws attention away from Nihil having any idea about the murders. Imperator, based on what we see in the comic, is a fucking murder machine. And don’t get me wrong, that shit is common in comics and makes sense if you’re dealing with sleaze bags (side note: the last guy she beats the snot out of before giving birth in the comic looks like Sleazy P. Martini from GWAR and while his look is somewhat generic “70’s sleaze bag” it made me laugh) but I figure the murder spree would be difficult to hide from your partner and his whole band. I think she’s covering for the sacrifices of the Clergy in the US at the time. If she didn’t she’d blow the whole Ghost project to shit.

So where are we? Still fucking nowhere honestly. There is still a lot missing. Honestly it feels like we’re leading up to the setup for additional comics and holy smokes that’s exciting. Who about? Good question. I personally hope it’s the twins getting their own short runs. Maybe the “circus”.

Some predictions that will inevitably be wrong later:

Snake lady steals Perpetua; that’s why the twins got separated.

Snake lady get ganked and Perpetua ends up in foster care with a religious psycho so that’s how we get super weird creature Perpetua.

Sister is in prison at the end of this story.

Nihil finds out about his potential children from whatever article the reporter writes.

Reporter is Dusty Comstock (LOL . . . maybe?).

Unrelated but also related; if Imperator was pregnant at the show in October the twins would have been born in June or July. June happens to be a month-long break in the tour schedule so they won’t be playing any live shows at that point. How much you wanna bet we get a “Copia’s Big Birthday Bash” around or on the day Imperator #4 comes out(June 11th)?

[sp-ud]

hi i wrote up my thoughts and perspective on the whole "toriel getting drunk and dancing with sans at her house" thing.

it was originally a twitter thread in reply to someone who didn't get why ppl r acting like toriel is a bad mom just for having a good time. im mostly just gonna copy paste it with some edits. also its kinda long and ramble-y so ill put the tldr at the top here.

TLDR: Toriel isn't a horrible mother for this but also it's weird to act like this isn't anything to criticize her for. a scene can both be funny and have deeper implications at the same time.

i think its a nuanced situation but a lot of ppl on both sides of this discussion are treating it like its black or white.

i think the truth is somewhere in the middle of the two arguments here. no, i dont think this scene means toriel is a horrible mother and a raging alcholic but also, no, i dont think this scene is just a funny joke and two adults having fun and theres nothing wrong with it

to me this scene is showing that toriel ISN'T a perfect mom, but not necessarily that shes a BAD mom. like, she clearly cares for kris... but its also shown that at no point did she do anything between deciding to cancel choir practice to kris showing up to check in with kris

and some ppl's defense is that "oh maybe she just assumed kris was staying at noelles" and like, yeah maybe, but we have nothing indicating that and even if thats the case... toriel still should have contacted kris to check? i get the holiday's are close family friends but literally the night before toriel's tires were slashed and she was concerned enough to call the police.

this to me says she has a bit too much confidence in kris being able to take care of themself, a passive acceptance that could easily backfire

and then to get drunk and bring a relative stranger back to her house, the night after her tires were slashed and she isnt exactly sure where her child is even tho its way past sunset is just... very questionable.

i dont think its wrong for toriel to want to have fun and unwind, especially with how stressful the night before was, but theres a certain recklessness to it especially because even though toriel called the police they never showed up from her perspective.

and she also doesnt just have herself to consider she has her kid's safety to consider and at no point do we see her show any concern for where kris was.

but the reason i say this doesn't mean she's an inherently BAD mom is because we have no idea how frequent anything like this is. is this the first time shes gotten drunk and been passive about how kris is doing? has this happened before but maybe not in a while til now? is it relatively common and this is just the first time we've seen it?

its not really clear, but what we HAVE seen is plenty of other moments where she does care about kris, where she does show signs of being a good parent. she's just not perfect and probably really should be less passive about where her child is, especially after sunset.

and i think its important to acknowledge that shes a flawed parent because when it comes to the main and secondary casts in toby's games, they are never all that they seem on the surface so it's weird to act like toriel is an exception to that and that shes just a mother who can do no wrong.

christ ive yapped on a lot, but i fear i still have a bit more to say to anyone actually reading all this. cuz i do also want to touch on sans in all of this cuz i feel like the way ppl talk abt his inclusion in this is. weird.

while obviously from undertale we know that sans is a much more deeply observant guy than he seems on the surface... we also have no idea how much that carries over to deltarune.

while im sure he's not suddenly just a flat joking character i also feel its weird to assume things like "oh maybe he was staying up with toriel so kris wouldnt have to take care of her!!!" like... or maybe hes just an adult who wants to spend time having fun with this lady he's been getting to know recently

but i also don't think its horrible that he also didnt show any concern for kris? like he only just met toriel and kris. he doesn't know their home situation at all except for the fact that he knows asgore is toriel's ex-husband and kris is her kid.

like he definitely should have been more considerate after kris was clearly home, but i dont think hes a bad person for staying with toriel in general.

[raphaellight]

Can we talk about how Adrien is actually a good liar in Miraculous? And I mean, GOOD good liar, so good if he wanted, he would give Lila run for her money?

I don't know if he looks at Marinette or Croussaints

So, he is Chat Noir and the fact noone figured him out yet is placed mostly at the fact that 1. People are generally blind in this show 2. He acts so differently with the mask on actuall viewers forget he is Chat. But I want to make a case that he is second best liar in the show after Lila and only second best because he is good hearted.

But first, why would he be a good liar? Apart from having to cover his superhero identity, what other reasons he has to lie? Well, remember the saying "Strict parents raise great liars" and it shows in my opinion. Take Chloe as an opposite. She is many things but I think we never see her rely on lying to achieve what she wants. Quite the opposite, Chloe as a villain of many plots threatens to expose uncomfortable truths, she never makes things up. Or Marinnete. She can spit some lies, but she is overly dramatic anytime she has to say them. "No, me, like you, NOOOO, I just like fashion, YEAH, FASHION, that's it." "It was totally a prank, I knew all this time you were a statue, OF COURSE, what other thing would it BE?" "I'm in love with you Chat Noir". She has engaged, but preety louse parents. As long as she hits her marks and doesn't cause much trouble, Mari is let louse and can do whatever she wants without explaining herself, so she doesn't have to lie that much.

Adrien? This boy didn't have a single free second until Gabriel brough his digital rings to the market and made digital copy of Adrien to use. And yet, Adrien sneaked out to school, which Chloe knew he was coming, despite Adrien not having his fathers approval yet, sneaked out constantly out of his room, managed to run from his parents to see the movie. All while one misstep and he was severly punished. That enviroment teaches kid how to be on his toes. Strict parents raise great liars. Now to some examples:

"Technically not, because I never told him about it." The one with akumatized train. Best lies are unspoken ones. Adrien knows that everytime you lie you need to defend it so the best strategy is not to lie when simply shuting up about something suffices (that's actually something he does better than Lila, that b*tch can't shut up).

"We're not leaving, we're just gonna help a friend." Best case of 'attach the lie to the truth' strategy. We will help friend, how long will it take and where will we need to go to finish, especially given that it's Marinette? Who cares, I never lied (not the one that will most surely keep him out of trouble, but good enough in a moment for his guard and Kagami's mother to let them walk away from them)

M: "I got transformed, into a knight" A: "So do I. What a knighmare." Lanching onto someone elses explenation that is really hard to argue, while not giving time to be confronted about it AND adding a stupid joke so people's attention is divided. Important disclaimer, I don't think Adrien does it intentionally, he is just attuned to phrasing things in a way that got him into the least amount of trouble with his strict upbringing. It's more of a sharpened thru years instinct than some masterming constant chess game. Like here. He just made a joke, but it perfectly fits into him wanting to hide the truth.

"I wanted to apologize for my Kwami. I don't know what he was doing in that elementary school" Marinette as Ladybug combined mouse and fox miraculous to create an illusion of being in two places at the same time to make sure Chat doesn't suspect her of being Ladybug. Meanwhile Adrien manages to completly lose the trail of himself with one sentence. It's great on so many levels, as he not only phrases it so casually noone would think he carefully chose every word, he also attaches the lie to the truth (Plagg was acting up) and puts attention somewhere else (I apologize for his behaviour), like he didn't even mean to say it was elementary school. Everything mentioned before combined in one, casuall sentence that rivals Marinette's conveluted plan based on superpowers. Yep, he is good liar.

And last but not least, "I'm sorry I asked you stand in for me earlier. You must think I'm not very brave." If you look for advice how to lie, you will eventually meet the 'cover the truth with lie that is embarrassing/puts you in bad light' advice. Adrien is willing to weight his options and sacrifice his ego to fit whatever goal he has in mind.

And don't even get me started on how he managed to catfish Ladybug by pretending to be Catwalker for a whole night. He is so capable of twisting the truth he can bend his miraculous suit to his means. It took a bit of effort, but as far as we know, no longer than a day of practice. And also, he had his schedule filled in possibly to the last minute. But out of superhero pair, he is always the one with spare time to spend with LB. He has to lie almost everyday to everyone around, to people that get PAID to keep an eye on him, and he manages to get away with it this hole time (almost, of course there are setbacks). Really, when Adrien said in season 5 "Lila is a compulsive liar and really good at it" he knows from his own experience. Game recognizes game. Good he uses it mostly to ditch on his responsabilities and cover his superhero identity.

I haven't watch any season 6 episode yet, so I really hope this post doesn't become disproven in a moment by dumping our boy down. Miraculous has a nag for doing that.

[laudanine]

How to make a back-patch: Hancock edition

Hey guys! So the tutorial for the Hancock patch is here! So the standing rule on this patch is "you can use my art and make your own, but you are not permitted to make money off it." But man, make your own, go nuts!

Steps 1 to 5 are mostly about how I made the image itself. Steps 6 to 9 are about making a patch once you have your final image. Skip ahead if you need!

So here's the supplies I personally use for these patches -

Tulip fabric paint, black and white

Talc powder

Charcoal powder

Tracing paper

Paintbrush

Fine-tip squeeze bottles

Fabric

My computer

Tape

A thumbtack

A pencil

And to be clear, these are NOT the only options. I've done this with black or white acrylic paint instead of fabric paint, it works fine. If you don't want to bother with the squeeze bottles you can use a paintbrush instead. If you don't have talc powder, cornstarch would work. If you can't find powdered charcoal, you can crush some up like I did, or use graphite, or literally whatever. You get the idea.

If you're going to be using the fine-tip squeeze bottles, now is the time to put your paint (fabric or acrylic) into the bottles and thin them with water to your level of comfort. You WILL need to test the paint on some fabric first, to be sure you can apply it evenly and that it flows well. If you're going to use acrylics, I highly suggest you add a drop of retardant to the mix ALONG with water.

2. I find my images for the figure I'm drawing. Yes, we're tracing: this ain't fine art and we're not gonna be snobs. Here we have John Hancock from the game and John Hancock IRL Danny Shorago.

3. I trace my images! You may notice my two reference images are the same pose! I'm gonna trace the first one by taping my paper over my computer screen and drawing LIGHTLY.

When I had the basics for Danny's proportions down, I left the paper where it was and moved the image of Hancock underneath the paper and traced what I needed from that image. That gets me this double-layer image.

4. I decide which of these lines I want to keep. Even with the faces for John and Danny lined up proportionally the shoulders and neck length of the two figures are pretty different. I decided that I wanted to go with narrower shoulders, and free-handed in the ruffles for his shirt.

5. Now I merge the two faces. I have to get the skin texture from John onto the face I have, which is mostly Danny. I kept up a whole screen of reference images for this process so I could decide what I wanted to pull from where.

And I leaned hard into the skull for his cheekbones and nose. You can see I actually used a colored pencil to outline those skull-like elements before I chose my final lines, and used another piece of my own darn art to add a chin scar I just really like. It is NOT a bad idea to trace a SECOND COPY of this image AT THIS TIME. Your image will be getting really dirty and messed up in the future, so unless you want to start over, you should make a spare copy (spoiler: I didn't do that and had to do this whole thing a second time to make a second patch...)

6. Align your fabric and your tracing paper up and tape first the fabric down THEN the paper on top, separately.

7. Poke holes! Use your thumbtack to poke holes along the lines you're trying to transfer. The way I'm doing this patch most of the image is white lines on black fabric, with SOME black lines on white for his face, neck, and shirt. For that reason, my transfer process is gonna be in TWO parts, one to lay down the white portions and then later to put the black lines ON TOP of the white areas as needed. I don't have a photo for this step: poke holes, you know how to do that.

8. Apply talc/powder to the image and use a paintbrush to gently brush the talc over the surface. You can use the brush perpendicular to the surface to GENTLY push the powder into the holes from the thumbtack holes.

9. Peel off the paper GENTLY. As you can see, I didn't even poke holes for the lines in his face, just the outlines for what's going to be painted in white. What you have is a little connect-the-dots to apply white paint to.

10. Apply white paint and allow to DRY COMPLETELY.

11. Once the white paint it TOTALLY DRY you're going to repeat steps 7 to 9, poking holes in the locations that you want to have BLACK lines appear. For me that's the details on his face and shirt. Instead of talc, the powder I used was crushed vine charcoal. You can see I'm starting to apply the black paint along the lines of black spots of charcoal.

12. Add, like, words and stuff! Also clean up, and fine tune, etc. You did awesome, and if it didn't turn out, well you DEFINITELY made a spare copy like I suggested you do in step 5, right?!?! Right.

Some notes:

This process also works on tee shirts if you want, but definitely use the fabric paint and not acrylics or the paint will flake off when you wash the clothing. Instead of taping the shirt down, I suggest you thumbtack it to a board or to some thick cardboard to keep it still while you work.

If you don't have a computer/screen you can trace on then print the images you want to work with and tape them to a window to use as alight-box.

You don't need to use the charcoal, honestly. If the design is simple or you're feeling like a BAMF, you can skip the black paint and the black powder and just use the negative space of the black fabric instead.

Tracing, and I cannot say this clearly enough, is not cheating when you're not tracing someone else's art. Trace a face. Trace a figure. Trace a landscape. I don't care. If you're tracing any image, you're going to need to do a lot of work to make your shitty traced image (my step 3) into something that looks like art (my step 5). That act of work, that's making art. Congratulations.

If you made it this far and REALLY want to donate money to me over this, don't! Maybe donate to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund instead at pcrf.net because that'd be SUPER cool.

Hope some or all of this helped someone somewhere be a cool punk badass like everyone's favorite Mayor.