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hetalia-has-a-secretary · 4 years ago

Note

allies + eje human au headcanons

I had to look up what eje meant, which was Axis in Spanish 🌮 (there's no sombrero emoji, and I'm mad about it). This is mostly a college Human AU, but there's still some future stuff in there. Enjoy the longest list of Headcannons in one post lol

Human AU Hetalia!

Allies:

America:

Has rich parents, but doesn't tell anyone, and somehow his big house that everyone parties at doesn't give it away.

The only person who knows is Japan, and that's specifically because Japan's dad works for America's dad.

Is a college student, hoping to go for some kind of music degree.

A first year.

Black T-shirt and jeans. Has a plaid button up for everyday of the month, usually has it tied around his hips.

Has like, one basic tux and refuses to wear anything but converse or airwalkers.

Space nerd #1, except he's more into what's beyond our boundaries, and loves the constellations.

One of the most popular kids, and no matter how hard you try he's not easy to hate.

Gives off dumb college kid energy even though he's one of the A+ students.

His glasses are for show. It was meant to be a rebellious thing since Canada use to get bullied about his own glasses, now it's just an esthetic.

Skate boards and plays the acoustic guitar in his free time.

Jeans are usually missing the knee section.

Once set off firecrackers in a metal trash can as a school prank.

England:

Last year of college, majoring in history after failing his cooking classes.

Graphic tee central. We are unsure how many he has but he's up to 43 different shirts worn on campus.

Usually has his earbuds in, listening to punk rock.

Has an ungodly amount of bracelets. His favorite one is a black snap bracelet with little pirate skulls.

Was practically raised by his older brothers.

Lives alone, but is secretly an amazing writer.

Has a Tumblr blog he writes spooky stuff on.

Top of his class, but can be a dummy if he's put on the spot.

France:

No one is sure how he's been allowed to take nothing but art classes. No English, or science, just art.

Is also a transfer student, he's probably the second richest thanks to daddy.

Is the school stud, despite not sleeping with a single soul, and is actually extremely nervous about dating, and is just more comfortable with playful flirting.

He wants to be a fashion designer, or Model. Mostly a Designer.

Loose shirts and tight pants.

Has a weird obsession with belt sashes.

Plays violin like a god, and is a senior.

China:

Another senior in college.

Had the unfortunate event of being in the same cooking class as England before Arthur decided to switch degrees.

Still hangs out with him and Japan.

One of the few who is taking advanced classes, and is literally everyone's tutor.

Going for a Degree in Cooking. Wants to be a head chef.

His parents are over seas, but he promised to get them to America as soon as he can.

He wears a lot of colorful shirts that is always tucked into his pants.

Most of which look like bowling shirts, but he likes to add little Chinese patches to them. Has a signature jean jacket that is overwhelmed with patches.

Has a panda beenie baby keychain, so everyone knows exactly who it belongs to when he losses his keys.

Very quick to panic, and hates to admit he's wrong.

Russia:

Third and final transfer student, along with Japan, and France.

Poor confused child is trying so hard.

He's kind of shy, and is fully aware his social akwardness creeps everyone out.

Almost cried the day America and Prussia adopted him into the cool kid circle.

His broken english is probably the biggest turn off for the people at school. It's why no one really talks to him, mostly because they can't figure out what he's saying most of the time.

Biggest sweetheart though, and is painfully smart, but do to the english thing he's stuck in the average classes, but China comes swooping in and his english gets almost fluent by his third year.

He doesn't own a single thing tech, minus a flip phone, but somehow knows all the hot keys on the computer to every program, and it's only because he's lazy about it and it's the funniest thing.

Space nerd #2 but knows more about the planets and can name every single moon, and knows the history of space discoveries by heart.

Secretly a hopeless romantic, and doesn't realize he reads England's blog.

Is pretty much a closet goth, but likes bright colors too much to be seen in all black.

Knows way to much about torture devices and learned very quickly that gets you out casted in a school setting.

Isn't upset that he doesn't have many friends, but somehow attracts all the little kids from the grade school.

He likes his northface sweater, and loose pants. But his shirts are pretty colorful, and he likes collecting shoelaces.

He spends a lot of time in the woodwork shop, creating amazing figures and such.

Canada:

I can feel the dissapointed stares of Matt not being a photographer. Welp, guess he also gets a degree in art then.

Second year, Because he skipped one year in college.

Clothing style is long sleeves and vests.

He likes feeling fancy, and owns an endless amount of beanies.

One of the few people who talks to Russia.

His locker has a snot ton of polar bear stickers that everyone stuck to it, and he loves it.

Is baby but can kick butt in the wrestling club after school.

Has a tiny white Pomeranian that he rescued from it's mother who wouldn't take care of it, probably because the puppy was the runt of the litter.

Has a Harley Davidson and it's been painted black with the aurora on it, making everyone think it was his non-existent girlfriend's or something. Now it's a running joke.

Axis:

Germany:

He's not a jock, but he's friends with them.

Military Dad.

Is usually found hanging out in the gymnasium on breaks. It's quiet and no one is going to bother him. Usually.

Senior, and so ready to get the heck out of college.

Ladies love him, but he really hates the attention, like please help him.

Style wise he's pretty basic, but really loves his camo print.

Has owned countless doggos, and only attracted so many girls the day he walked to school with a fluffy poodle that France Hijacked for the day.

Doesn't ever go to dances after the first one and everyone tried to get him drunk, to no avail.

Had out drank some of the dumber students to shut them up.

Can be mean if you persistently pester him for dumb stuff, especially if he's already said no.

He's into construction and is working on a degree in Construction Management.

Japan:

Exchange student number 3

Degree in technology is what he desires.

Style = Geek, but like a stylish geek.

Him and Canada are in photography class together.

Japan is also part of the cool kids, but only when they're about to do some dumb stunt, and need a camera man.

Doesn't mind, loves watching them make fools of themselves.

Has a rebellious streak, and tends to be a complete sass.

As soon as something seems to go bad, he gone. He's heading towards the door. Been in detention once, and that was it.

Why does everyone go to him for advice when china is literally down the hall?

Rich kid #3 and his parents are traditional and are having a crisis over their son's rebellious attitude.

Italy:

Is a first year, and is oddly enough, going for a degree in history.

Really likes antiques and old artsy stuff.

Has a few shared classes with France, and they pretty much own those classes.

Rivals America's charisma, but isn't as popular due to:

Being seen around France, and not doing dumb and entertaining crap like america.

Gets picked on a lot Because he doesn't understand you can't be nice to the Jock's girlfriend without everyone thinking your flirting, even though you just needed directions on your first day of school.

Germany is now his bodyguard and he was kind of like "???" But they get closer the longer they hangout.

Fancy shirt man, like hand me downs from his Italian father. So they're really nice, and a lot of eye melting patterns.

Gets attached to people easily, and is sensitive when he gets taken advantage of during assignments, but toughs through it because he has too.

Has two cats literally named Mona, and Lisa.

Has cried at least once at school because he's a soft guy, but he gets a thicker shell the older he gets and learns to just laugh off other people's stupidity.

Romano:

Protective older brother gooooo

Second year in school, and his first year made him want to eat brinks.

Doesn't know what degree he wants, but settled for a degree in cooking.

Shares his brother's shirts practically and it confuses everyone Because, didn't Feliciano wear that shirt last week?

Immediately thinks people don't know washing machines exist Because of this, so his sass factor is high up there.

Doesn't really have friends, and also does not care. He's a bit of a lone wolf and needed something to do.

The amount of not caring attitude contrasts his high grades and his teachers are painfully confused by it.

Will jokingly tell people to fight him at McDonald's, and almost fought someone but literally laughed, and suggested they got something to eat instead.

He's somehow, in a bizarre and unwanted sense, everyone's brother which is just...

No one understands him, but they like him, and he doesn't know why and it kind of bugs him.

He's usually in the front of the school daydreaming about, god only knows what...

Is the epitomy of the "she doesn't even go here" joke from mean girls, except he does go to that school.

Why did he need a degree? Oh yeah, Because work places don't care what kind of paper, you just need a paper.

Prussia:

Rival friendship with america, and Russia has had to step in to break up petty fights.

He's not sure why he's part of the popular kids since he's so fricken chaotic and obnoxious. Or so he thinks.

Genuinely a sweet guy in his last year, desperately wanting a degree in mathematics. Like, no one understands why mathematics until he starts pulling card tricks from his pocket that deals with it, and blows everyone's mind.

He is also head of the newspaper club.

Has the style of a teenage band member and will not apologize for it.

Has hijacked the schools speaker system to blast evanescence, which gave a huge boost to his friendship with Russia, since the big fellow shares Prussia's taste in music.

Can eat a whole ghost pepper without batting an eyelash, and this is only Headcannon and a worthy note because he became sick the day after and the whole school had "in loving memory of Gilbert's stomach" posters all over the place.

Teacher's are very much done with his harmless antics. They're noticably stupid pranks, but only to the point it's annoying.

Like he managed to make all the teacher's computer backgrounds as Brad Pitt wearing a sombrero. There's no joke, and no punchline. It's just a poorly Photoshopped sombrero?

Races his brother to school every morning, and afternoon. Cops have stopped them at least twice due to other bystanders getting freaked out.

Him and Romano don't mix well, but try to leave each other alone.

#hetalia american #hetalia england #hetalia france #hetalia china #hetalia russia #hetalia canada #hetalia germany #hetalia italy #hetalia japan #hetalia romano #hetalia prussia #hetalia #hws #hetalia world stars #aph #human au

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dweetwise · 4 years ago

Note

Deathslinger x doctor or deathslinger x oni? Headcanons or fluff for whichever one you choose, I don’t mind :) (happy birthday to your blog!)

oh it’s been a long time since i’ve written sparkslinger! thanks for requesting <3 i made this as a continuation to my previous fic of them, i hope that’s ok!

word count: 1740

Caleb X Herman: Accidental martyr

Since starting his arrangement with Herman, Caleb had to admit that his time in this neverending hell had become a lot more entertaining.

Whether it was getting roped into questionable experiments, late nights drinking cheap whiskey in the saloon, or his own sporadic visits to the old hospital, being around the doctor was a great way to alleviate the boredom between trials.

Unfortunately, that often came at the cost of Caleb’s sanity.

This moment was a prime example of such an occurrence. After Herman had showed up to their latest encounter with a torn jacket and fresh wounds, Caleb was practically forced to play doctor to make sure the man didn't succumb to his injuries.

That didn't mean he had to be nice about it, though.

“Figures ye’d be cocky enough to try to take the bitch out on yer own,” Caleb snarked.

He attempted to clumsily dress one of the numerous gashes marring the doctor’s shoulders; the Entity’s handiwork, no doubt.

“What can I say? I’m a man who likes to push the limits—shit!” Herman hissed out a curse when Caleb tightened the bandage a little too forcefully.

“Don’t do it again,” Caleb growled, masking the uneasy feeling in his chest with anger.

Herman waved off both the threat and concern with a simple "Yes, yes, now get on with it" and Caleb went back to his mediocre job of caring for the wounds.

Since that first night in the saloon, they’d never talked about whatever this was between them. And that suited Caleb just fine; he was a man of few words, and if anything, he should thank his luck that the blabbermouth he kept for company hadn’t deemed it a subject worth discussing.

Apart from a few snide comments of Herman getting his ass kicked by the Entity, Caleb didn’t bring up the incident again.

And he’d probably have forgotten about it completely, if he hadn’t happened to pick up some spare parts from Autohaven a few days later.

“Are you alright?” Philip asked as soon as Caleb arrived at their designated meet-up spot.

“Just dandy,” Caleb drawled, inspecting the Wraith’s latest haul of scrap from the junkyard.

“You don’t have to act tough, Caleb,” Philip insisted, clearly not getting the hint.

Caleb whipped around to give the other killer a properly disgusted look that he hoped conveyed just how little he appreciating being coddled like a damn child.

“It’s okay; we’ve all been there. I understand,” Philip said, giving a look of sympathy that made Caleb’s skin crawl.

“The fuck you on about, boy?” Caleb spat.

“The Entity,” Philip said.

The Wraith flinched at his own words, quickly glancing around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping.

“It… punishes us when we’re not brutal enough or efficient enough,” Philip said, lowering his voice. “And after your leg—there have been rumors, you know.”

Caleb felt the anger bubbling up. Not only did he hate people bringing up his brief time of injury and subsequent uselessness in trials, he also had an inkling of just who had been spreading these specific rumors.

“What kind’a rumors?” Caleb asked.

“You’ve been going to the hospital a lot to treat your wounds,” Philips said. “Herman even had to borrow ointments from Sally, since you’ve been coming in so often.”

Caleb’s eye twitched as he tried to reign his temper. Herman knew damn well that Caleb was insistent on keeping their whatever-it was a secret, yet he seemed to happily gossip to anyone he came across.

“‘Scuse me,” Caleb said. “I’ma need to have a chat with the good doctor.”

When Caleb slammed open the door to Herman’s office, the man didn’t even flinch.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t break my furniture,” the doctor merely offered, not even looking up from his book. “I could hear you stomping here from across the hospital.”

“You,” Caleb snarled, grabbing Herman by the collar. “What did you do?”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that,” Herman said, infuriatingly calm even when face to face with a very dangerous and very angry gunslinger.

“Why does Phil think I’m gettin’ beat up by spider-bitch?” Caleb spat. “Why does Sally know I’ve been comin’ here and you need a bunch’a salve for it?”

“Oh,” Herman said, finally getting his point. “That’s not something you should worry about.”

“Try me,” Caleb snarled, tightening his grip around the man’s jacket collar.

“It might be easier to talk without the strangulation,” Herman countered, his voice strained from the pressure on his neck.

Caleb released his hold but didn’t back off, crowding the man against his office chair.

“Then talk,” Caleb commanded.

“Very well,” Herman said. “As you may or may not know, our Eldritch overlord closely monitors our performance in trials. However, if said performance isn't up to par, it isn’t afraid to take disciplinary measures.”

“So ya didn’t fight it, it fought you? That what yer sayin’?” Caleb asked.

“In a way, I suppose,” Herman said, still annoyingly secretive.

“So what’s that gotta do with me? And stop fuckin’ horseshittin’,” Caleb said.

“Well, in a nutshell,” Herman paused, as considering how to phrase the message simply enough for Caleb to understand. “There was word of the Entity being more agitated than usual. I concluded it was only a matter of time before it chose you as its target, and as a precaution, I deliberately attempted to draw its ire.”

If Caleb was confused before, he was even more so now. The doctor had… volunteered to be the Entity's pincushion? And for what?

“Why?” Caleb asked, hesitantly stepping back from the man and his unknown motives.

“You’re my patient,” Herman simply answered.

“Oh, like these sorry fuckers?” Caleb said, pointing at a human heart sitting neatly in a jar on the desk. “You wanna cut me up yerself, that it?”

“...No.”

“Then what? Ya get off on bein’ tortured?” Caleb prodded, angry at still not getting a real answer. “Well, what is it!?”

“I don’t know!” Herman snapped, slamming the book shut.

It was the first time Caleb had seen the doctor lose his composure, and on reflex he reached for the empty holster on his hip.

“I’ve spent over a decade studying the human psyche, and I don’t know,” Herman said, moving to stand up. “I have no illusions of morality, yet seeing you in agony over your leg—”

“I was fine!” Caleb rebutted.

“The thought of inflicting more pain on you was simply out of the question. So I offered myself up in your stead, until you were recovered. And then I… just kept going.”

“Hold on,” Caleb realized. “You’ve—for all this time!? It’s been, what, months?”

“Fifty-three days, according to my calculations,” Herman said, so matter-of-fact.

“You’re fuckin’ bonkers,” Caleb said. “That shit ends now! ‘M not about to let you deal with my punishment!”

Herman was silent, for once, and Caleb could see his jaw clenching and unclenching. There was a sudden realization that Herman probably felt the same way that Caleb did, a few days ago when he saw the man badly hurt.

Protective.

The anger slowly released from Caleb’s body, and he took a step toward the doctor in a silent peace offering.

“I’ma big boy, doc,” Caleb said. “Been through shit none of yer experiments even come close to. I'm not fuckin' made o’ glass."

"I realize that," Herman said, sighing. "It wasn't my intention to patronize you."

"Pfft, like that ain’t your goal most days," Caleb shot back, the good side of his face drawing into a smirk.

"Well," Herman said with a dry chuckle. "Not in this particular instance."

An apology was left unsaid, but Caleb didn't want one. Still, he kept unwavering eye contact, waiting for a promise that never came.

"And?" Caleb asked when neither of them were budging.

Herman sighed in annoyance, most likely peeved at having been out-stubborned.

"I will make sure it doesn't happen again," Herman reluctantly assured.

"Good," Caleb said, and then inexplicably felt unsure about where that left them. "So, uh… we good, or…?"

Herman smiled. He usually just grinned, or giggled or laughed like a psychopath, but now he looked stupidly handsome with a smile stretching over his lips and making his eyes crinkle at the corners.

"Splendid," Herman said.

Caleb could only withstand another few seconds of looking at the damn smile before his patience ran out.

"Get over here," Caleb said, tugging the doctor closer by his lapels and into a kiss.

They didn't do this often, and feeling the warm, chapped lips against his own, Caleb couldn't help but think what a damn shame it was. After the injury to his jaw that felt like a lifetime ago, Caleb didn't think he'd be doing much kissing for the rest of his days, but Herman never seemed bothered by it.

Large hands settled on his hips and Caleb could feel the dormant energy lying underneath, electricity always at the doctor's fingertips. It was absurd to think that their hands, constantly used for killing and more often than not caked with their victims' blood, could be used to hold each other this gently.

Realizing he was getting alarmingly sappy from nothing more than a kiss, Caleb pulled away from the liplock and reluctantly stepped away from the doctor's embrace. He adjusted his hat in an attempt to hide the reddening of his sickly pale cheeks.

"Alright, now come on," Caleb urged, cocking his head in the direction of the door.

"Are we going somewhere?" Herman asked.

"Yer comin' to Glenvale where I can keep an' eye on ya," Caleb said. "Don't trust ya not to break a promise."

The words came out harsher than he meant to. Luckily, Herman didn’t appear to take it personally, instead going to grab some of his things without any further fuss.

"If you wanted a romantic getaway this badly, you should have just asked," Herman teased.

"Shut up," Caleb said half-assedly.

Watching Herman pocket a jar of an unknown substance, Caleb suddenly remembered something crucial.

"Oh, one more thing," Caleb said.

"I'm all ears.”

“Tell Sally to keep ‘er fuckin’ trap shut,” Caleb snarked.

He received a fit of maniacal giggles in return, and Caleb realized that the sound that once grated on his nerves now brought a sense of belonging.

He still didn't know what this was between them, but he'd be damned if he let it go.

#dbd fanfic #caleb quinn #herman carter #sparkslinger #dbd deathslinger #dbd doctor #dweetwrites #dbd #dead by daylight #request

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rpbetter · 4 years ago

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Sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I'm in need of advice. I have a canon character I truly adore, but I haven't gotten muse or any opportunity to write them at all. My blog is collecting dust and the fandom is kinda dead at this point. Not to mention, it's hard to find compatible writing partners, especially with how picky I can be. I'm honestly considering deactivating the blog (for the nth time), but I don't want to lose the writing I have. I know I could archive, but I hate having blogs just sitting around.

In short, I really want to write the muse/keep the blog but I'm not getting any incentive to do that.

Hello, Anon, it’s totally the place to ask!

I will say, though, that since finding and keeping muse can be flavored rather personally, I can’t promise that what works for me is going to work for you. I’ll even confess that in over two decades, I’ve never personally lost muse. I don’t know if it is due to underlying, neurodiverse style, fixating, or if it is due to keeping myself continually invested in both my muse and writing regardless of what else is going on. (Probably a combination of both, though, and the things I do to keep myself highly in touch with my muse I’ll be recommending.) I’m definitely happy to try to help, however.

That really is a very frustrating spot to be in, wanting to write the muse and keep your blog active, but logging in every day to be reminded of what little reason you have to do so. Since we’re drawn to the characters we are for reasons of personal appeal and writing in itself is a pretty personal form of art, it can also feel depressing on top of the frustration.

However, that’s also the good news, in my opinion, because your incentive here is, or can be, yourself.

You were drawn to this character because you connected with them. They mean something to you, you can relate to them, maybe they have qualities (good or bad) that you wish you could experience. Whatever it is, there’s a reason why you had this draw. Writing is like that as well, there’s a reason why this is a hobby that drew you, that you get enjoyment out of. Again, though all art (it doesn’t matter if it is a hobby) has personal bits of the artist in it, writing is uniquely personal. When you write, you’re exploring thoughts and feelings, giving them life in a character that matters to you. I know, all of that sounds really convoluted and hokey, but it’s true.

And it’s good! That means you always have a reason to write and that you have the tools necessary to find and keep muse without any outside push necessary.

I’d say, firstly, work on getting muse back.

Get back in touch with your muse the next time you feel a particularly strong urge to write. Instead of spending time trying to find people in a silent fandom or forcing yourself to write something you don’t want to, just do some exercises that will help you get back into your muse.

I don’t know what media type your character comes from, but especially if it is something like movie or show that you can have on in the background of what you’re doing, do that. If it’s a comic or a book, think about your favorite scene and read it over first. If you’ve ever made some playlists for writing/your muse, you can always do that instead or as well. The point is to do something passively inspiring while you actively create. Now, that creating...

You want to do something that requires you to think about your muse so you can get in touch with them, not something that is going to make you feel overwhelmed and shut down. So, maybe don’t pick writing prompts for this - you can work up to that. Try out headcanon and character development memes and other question lists instead for right now. Things you can scroll down a list of, find questions that jump out as interesting (or even simply answerable to you at this point, you’re jump-starting a dead battery, it’s alright) and answer them. You can also do something as simple as write down what you like best about the character or their story, or put down the basics of filling in missing information that has always bugged you.

The beauty of this is that it is all on your own terms, your only objective here is to answer what you want, as much as you want. You can stop any time, but you can also answer a single question for three hours, making it eight pages long if the inspiration strikes you. It’s only about recharging your inspiration and establishing a connection with your character again. (This is also going to help you with getting back into writing, or approaching it for the first time, with a more internalized focus of interest.)

When you feel like you’ve done that, you can branch out on these exercises more. Answer the memes more in-depth, answer more of them/the ones you don’t have immediate answers for. You can also try writing out scenes from the character’s canon from their perspective, if it wasn’t already so, adding in their thoughts and feelings, or changing the scene in some ways that would be interesting to write out. This is the point where it’s a good idea to try a writing prompt or two, as well! Take the prompt as a sort of starter sentence from a mutual, you’ve got the situation, fill in with your muse.

Write when you feel like writing. The RPC is great at saying this when it comes to muns not wanting to write, but kind of ignores the other side of the equation. The side where you want to write, have the inspiration and muse to do so, but it might not be the best time. As in, you’re not home/wherever you usually write, with whatever device you tend to write on accessible. No, you’re not going to be able to get as much done, but you can write without the usual situation and device regardless. You can write a scene or ideas down using your phone or tablet, or go old school and use a notebook. If you’re at work and your job isn’t applicable to being able to get down a single sentence, that still doesn’t mean you have to wait 8+ hours to get home; while you’re taking your break, write a little bit. It is a break, and writing is your hobby, it isn’t work. It’s good to do things you enjoy on breaks, and far more fulfilling to have also accomplished something you happen to enjoy.

Not writing when you have the drive to do, putting it off and holding it in until “the perfect moment,” is a great way to lose your inspiration and never actually have that moment. If you feel like doing it, that means it is the perfect moment. Life is restricting, don’t impose even more restrictions on yourself by having to be at home, in a specific spot, with a specific device, at a specific time, on a specific day. Was that annoying repetition? You’re right, it was. And that’s how your creative mind processes all the crap piled onto it that doesn’t allow for creativity.

Now, the other problem, the fandom situation.

There isn’t anything you can do about that, to be absolutely honest. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you to be positive, wait it out, maybe the fandom will spring to life again. You know, maybe it will...but you could be waiting literal decades for that to happen. Not cool. Please, take my word for that, it’s personal experience that it blows even more than you imagine it will.

What you can do is take the matter into your own hands in other ways; putting yourself out there with more availability in multiple ways.

Are you a single-fandom blog, or are you crossover friendly? If you’re not crossover friendly, try to think of a single, relatively popular fandom that you enjoy. Don’t look at it like a hassle, but rather, just another creative exercise. A serious pitfall of creating alternate universe versions of muses is to take the simplest route, merely picking something you want from that other universe and applying it to your muse with no relevant changes that would naturally occur from it. It isn’t just reductive as hell, it’s not remotely creative, it’s like sticking a sticker on your muse’s forehead and saying that’s a whole different muse. It’s neither attractive to potential partners nor going to sustain your own interest for long. You want this to be a passionate investment on your own end, for yourself.

What not to do:

Let’s say the fandom you picked to do crossovers with is based around magic, the main characters are witches, and they are divided into factions based on how their magical talents display and develop. Not only do you decide to make your muse a witch, you pick the most badass faction. It’s the one full of assassins and action and (metaphorically or literally) sex appeal. Well, that’s also going to be the most popular faction in the fandom. That means there will not only be plenty of big name canons there but also that there’s going to be a plethora of OCs designed just for this universe...and other crossovers from other currently active fandoms.

While that might sound like it’s great for maximizing interaction chances, it’s really not when you’re just starting somewhere new with a character from another fandom that might not be known or liked. It can also take a minute in another fandom’s RPC to identify where the good partners are. Every now and then, it is the most popular and over-populous era/faction/etc., but most of the time, it isn’t. People who write with considerable dedication and talent fairly rarely are in the popular kids club even in their fandom choices. By inserting yourself into that area, you might be bypassing (and being bypassed) by better partners on the assumption that their characters are simply going to bore you to death since they’re not within the scope of your focal point.

It’s not a situation of not being allowed to be picky, you not only have that right regardless of your situation, you also should be. This is not a “beggars can’t be choosers” situation, you’re not beholden to anyone on the basis of being new and bored. However, some of my best, and longest lasting, writing partners over all 23 years I’ve been RPing didn’t/don’t fit with all the exact surface details that automatically draw my interest. It is as true within my own fandom as it is in dealing with crossovers. Opposites (with enough similarities) really do attract and work out well together!

Don’t judge and write people off for anything that isn’t an issue of compatibility with your muse, your writing, or yourself. Decline someone because they do one line only and you are novella, they write topics that are upsetting to you, you can see no way your muse and theirs can interact without instant murder, or because you cannot stand writing with someone who is pulling 90% aesthetics and purple prose. Not because their muse is a witch who uses life-based magic, loves nature, is a healer, and into their health...while your muse in this AU is all about the death, only appreciates an urban environment and is grossed out by animals, kills as an occupation, lives on cheeseburgers and caffeine. You see what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily!

What to do:

Did you consider if, in that hypothetical idea of a fandom, your muse based on their purely canon self would even fit into that faction? Or is it just something you wanted to see? If you didn’t consider this, or it was the latter, fix that. That’s bad.

If you’re not absolutely dead set on that and only that, think about what really does fit the muse better. Maybe, they would be better as a healer, someone who messes with the very fabric of reality, or someone who manipulates natural elements at will. Then again, they might not even be a witch. They could be more mundane in terms of power, but more accurate and interesting as a normal, human (or whatever). They could even be greatly opposed to the use of magic and witches. Use your muse’s original canon as a base to decide these things.

If you are absolutely dead set on it, though, you have a lot of work to do making the character into what amounts to a markedly different one while still retaining some recognizable aspects of themselves. Consider what events, in this new universe of fandom, might have happened to alter the character thus. Keep in mind that even small changes can have great consequences in a character’s development, and you might need to think about the myriad ways in which that can display, how it changes still more things for this character.

While that job becomes so much more intense when you haven’t planned out a path that matches your muse’s canon characterization at all, it is still an important part of constructing an AU, of any kind, in general. Ask yourself what experiences led to the character you know as you already know them (including your own headcanons, yes). Then, find similar possible experiences within your new fandom verse that can have the same effect. Again, though, it’s important to understand that you are never going to have an identical set of experiences, so you need to explore relevant changes still.

When you do this, you’re allowing your muse to more seamlessly fit into this other universe in a fleshed out, interesting way. Interesting both new partners and yourself.

Okay, next obnoxious question from me! Do you have multiple verses, or are you single-verse?

Whether you are already exploring new fandoms or not, by creating a variety of verses for others to interact with, you’re increasing your chances for interest and activity. When you have a verse from a different fandom you can then, additionally, advertise your presence in both that fandom’s tags when you do a promo or applicable open starter and on active RPer lists for that fandom.

Every popular fandom has such lists. You can get on them by messaging/sending an ask to the blog or by reblogging their post to be added, following the directions. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t allow for crossovers. You simply have to tag it as stated in the post, such as “your canon’s name here - original fandom name - crossover.” By tagging your open starter or promo as “-insert fandom here- rp” and “-fandom here- open starter” you allow people in that fandom to find you to interact. Either way is excellent for getting started in totally new places with a character others might be unfamiliar with.

Please remember that if you tag a promo as “promo,” it’ll not show up in searches off of your blog. You know, where it actually needs to be searched. Thanks, tumblr, for being janky! Being more specific as to the fandom and character will help others actually find you. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by tagging it as “promo.”

Make your verses accessible on your blog itself, in the nature of those verses, and how you set up your page or post that lists them.

Don’t put any page behind an impossible or complicated aesthetic. You really shouldn’t anyway, but when you’re needing interactions, it’s actively hurting your chances. Many people don’t want to have to play a game with your theme, it’s a turn off. Try a pinned post that lists all of your links to important pages like rules, verses, and bio instead. It means that, even from the dash, that information can quickly be found while other muns are first interested, and also that anyone who might be using the app can access it more expediently. (I’m genuinely not a fan or big supporter of doing google docs for rules, verses, bios, etc., as it forces people off site, so I can’t personally say, in good conscious and honesty, that I’d recommend it, but you do you!) You want to keep things quickly accessible is the idea here; when people are interested, you want to catch them right then and there before they have a chance to forget and lose your blog.

As to the nature of the verses themselves, give people real options. Don’t have 20 verses that all read same way. Same themes, plot possibilities, and backstories, or incredibly similar names. Have a diverse list of verses that can act as foundations for a variety of different muns. As many fandoms as you can reasonably have a good portrayal of, and different types of fandoms; not all the same genre (all fantasy, all horror, all scifi). Verses where your muse has substantially different goals, occupations, and other life situations that will involve another muse; don’t make your muse A Warrior™ in every verse, you can keep plenty of those aspects without being that literal. People love “modern” verses set in our own universe and, usually, in our own era. That doesn’t mean you have to go stereotypical or otherwise bore yourself by doing the standard “high school/college verse,” for instance. You don’t even have to designate that sort of thing, let alone make it the focus; simply create the verse by considering what your character really would be like if they existed within your reality.

As a final note on verses as pertains to this point, when you’re doing crossover verses, it’s alright to do some verses where your muse from their own canon existence somehow ends up teleported or whatever to another fandom’s reality, or even our own. Just don’t make every verse like this, it puts the onus of a great deal of creativity and effort onto the other mun by default; your muse has cluelessly dropped into the universe, and while it is high drama time for you, the other mun has to babysit, educate, deal with fallout, etc.

On making the list of your verses accessible, you want to focus on ease of browsing and not being overwhelming. People tend to look through a verse page and not read every verse listed, rather, they look at the titles and breakdowns to see if it is of interest, then read it. Don’t try to make everyone read them all, it isn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t change your effort any as the right people are going to find the verses that interest them...if you make it clear and easy enough.

Have a basic format you stick to, firstly. I do it this way: small verse banner, title of verse (linked to its overall tag so that muns can look through the tag at headcanons, aesthetics, pictures of the FC, and threads), muse age/age range, small blurb, possible triggers found uniquely or just heavily within this verse. In that order, one following the other in a simple, but pleasing way. Below that, is a more in depth breakdown of the “verse canon.” Sometimes, that is giving a brief rehashing of canon itself and anywhere my muse differs, be it in this verse only or overall, ending with where my muse is in this verse. Not literally where. I mean their present occupation, emotional and general state in life. At the very end, I provide any other relevant links and/or an expansion on the triggers mentioned at the top of the verse description if they’re that serious/recurrent so that muns can decide this isn’t the verse for them. I happen to have a potentially triggering muse, triggering verses, and writing triggering topics, though. That’s not something everyone needs to do.

Secondly, group your verses in a sensible way. I do my short list of default verses first. (And, I do mean short, you don’t want this be any more than four or five, it is overwhelming right out of the gate.) For me, that is two default verses of canon at different points on the timeline, one default AU that is a bit of a reversal of canon, and one default “modern” verse. Then, I list the verses that are in line with the altered canon one, just different possibilities, changes, points in history. After that, the different “modern” verse options. Then, verses for other fandoms, the crossover verses. And so on. This way, a potential partner can find the type of verse that might appeal to them and have an easier time picking from those possibilities and getting ideas.

Lastly, don’t be so succinct that you give too little information and underwhelm, but also don’t be so excessive that it takes all of the mystery of interaction away and overwhelms someone. It can be a difficult balance to strike, and some verses require more information than others, just experiment a bit. Additionally, it’s fine to link to pertinent information for the other mun to view aside from this, but don’t just link people to a fandom wiki as your “description/bio.” That isn’t giving information on how you write this muse, approach this fandom, or what another mun can otherwise expect. Keeping your descriptions interesting is important, you’re not giving a boring lecture, you’re trying to inform someone while making them hyped for their choices. It’s more interesting, and informative, to read if you do them with an ear to the “tone” of your muse in that verse. Is it a sad one? Sound that way. These can, indeed, function as snippets of your writing, so be sure you are writing them with the same care you should be giving your replies; spellcheck, good word flow and use, mind the grammar, and read over what you’ve written for common, easy mistakes.

Again, by giving a genuine variety of verses to choose from, you’re allowing for a greater reach in potential partners. Everyone from those still in your original fandom to those in new ones, all the way to fandomless muses will be able to interact with you this way.

Finally, in regards to what you can change or do when you’re in a dead fandom and seeking interactions; make sure you are increasing your reach by using proper tags, being honest about what and how you write, and don’t wait for others to stumble across you.

When you use tags properly, you’re increasing your chances of being seen at all. Every time you post something at all applicable on your blog, tag it with relevant things. Tag as described above with whatever fandom it is and “RP,” your character’s name, “open RP,” character name and RP, indie RP, open starter, and so on. Be sure you are optimizing your tags by placing the most relevant to finding you in the first four, those are what show up in site-wide searches only. Anything after that isn’t going to appear in a search across all tumblr.

By tagging your character’s name, as a canon, you should know that you are likely to get personal blog interaction. I’m pretty against being nasty to personal blogs for no reason, as I don’t appreciate personal and fandom blogs being shitty to me for the sole reason that I am an RPer. Please, use clear, short, attention getting directions for them. If you want no interactions with them, put right in the description of your blog “RP blog, does not interact with personal blogs.” When you say things like, “personals dni,” or “personals blocked,” you’re not doing anyone any favors. Personal blogs often don’t even know what the hell a personal blog even is! They do not denote themselves this way, to a personal blog, they’re just a blog. By designating first that you are an RP blog, you’re making it clearer that they’re the personal; they’re obviously not an RP blog, so that must make them a personal. Follow this up in a pinned post, right on top. Give a note to personal blogs that describes them as “any blog that isn’t an RP blog” first, then either tell them in brief what they can and can’t do or that you don’t interact and will block.

I don’t recommend taking your blog off of being findable, however. That’s alright once you have the RP activity you are looking for, but until then, it’s working against you. Other RP blogs cannot easily find you either, they will only find you if you’re on a list or appear in their recommended blogs, if you interact with a mutual, or are recommended by a mutual. You’re not just lessening your chances of personal blogs finding you, so if you have that turned off, turn it back on.

Don’t entirely rely on others finding you regardless, though. You can’t be 100% passive when you have no interactions, and by relying solely on serendipity you’re far less likely to get them. I know that everyone here is terminally shy, but seriously, you have to do more than put your silent will into the universe that someone perfect find you. You have to make this happen. Once you get a few people, you can afford to be more passive. Not only do you have some people to write with, you will be more visible to their mutuals, and more established as a presence. I’m not saying this is easy, or that it will become easy, not awkward or stressful, if you have a legitimate issue behind the shyness. Just that it is the only way to really proceed, and I believe you can do it!

So, go looking for interesting blogs. Be crossover and OC friendly (again, this doesn’t mean “accept everyone,” there are valid reasons for not accepting people you won’t work out with that have nothing to do with their fandom or being an OC), and search those fandom’s RPCs, following any blogs you think you might work out with upon reading their rules and other pages. Search for fandomless OCs and do the same thing. Fandomless OCs aren’t just floating around in the ether, they just weren’t created expressly for a particular fandom and within its confines. What is excellent about that is their ability to have a wide variety of verses and many possibilities to fit into any fandom or verse. So, don’t count them out solely on the basis of being an OC and fandomless. It doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does!

Do not stop at having followed 50 blogs. I mean, other than that you probably should stop following people for a bit. That you should do, as you need to be building writing relationships here, not following so many people that you cannot get to them. Don’t just stop at the follow, though. Since you’ve read their rules and information like a good RP partner, you should have some idea of what their interests are and where they align with yours, as well as how they prefer to be approached, if they accept memes right away to start, need plotting, have a rules password. When they’ve followed you back, proceed with interaction!

Ask if they’d like to plot when they have time, you’re really looking forward to writing with them. But...have some idea of a plot, please. It is a serious turn off to have someone message you wanting to plot, only to reply and get “lol I don’t have any ideas, anything works for me/whatever you want to do.” That isn’t plotting, it’s one party coming up with ideas and constructing a plot while they’re being told “I’m fine with anything.” That may be true, but it’s disheartening and a red flag for many people. If you genuinely can’t come up with anything, pick verses that match up well and suggest doing something within them.

“When you have the time, would you be interested in discussing writing? I was looking at your verses, and I think your verse -name- and mine, -verse name-, would mesh well.” Is a good way to start. Once you have a discussion flowing about the verses meshing and the muses, it’s typically easy to organically develop some plot ideas to go off of.

If both you and the other mun are alright with plot-free interaction and memes, you can send a meme any time. If you can’t find any memes on their blog, look for a wishlist or navigation page that shows you the tags for memes/wishlist. Still can’t find it? Ask them if they’ve got a wishlist or meme tag you can look through.

Additionally, if open starters are a thing you both do and are alright with, find some of theirs and respond. Post your own, tag it appropriately to be found in general and on your blog, and reblog it once or twice. Don’t excessively reblog it, and don’t get upset on the dash if no one interacts with it or any memes you reblog. Both are demanding to outright guilting, and not a good way to get partners. Just provide them with the ability to easily interact by making the posts available in the first place and by making them findable on your blog search and navigation.

Provide something for potential partners to see. Since you said you already do have writing, that’s great! That’s content on your blog that your partners can view. However, since you’re also having the issues you’ve stated, it’s likely that you haven’t many new posts. Show that you are active, interested in being here, and how you write your muse (and in general) by posting some newer content. For original content, do a headcanon or some meta, or post about new verses you are adding, the changes on your blog, a promo. For reblogs, things pertaining to your muse like canon imagery, fanart, quotes from canon or that generally express your muse, and aesthetics relevant to your muse are all excellent things to queue.

Use that queue. Not only do very few people appreciate having dash spam of similar content for the comparatively short time you might be around, but also, running these things on a queue means you spread that out for maximum view. While there are hours of heavier activity, you’ll have mutuals who are on at unusual hours due to their life and preferences or their timezone. This way, you’re not appearing inactive, if not outright invisible, to those mutuals. It’s not a bad idea to use a queue tag so that people know if they interact with a post that’s been queued, you might be here to quickly respond.

Ultimately, to fix your fandom and lacking partners problem, you just need to up your availability and reach beyond that fandom alone. Be proactive in following and approaching, decline blogs based on not working out only, utilize tags and fandom RPer lists, have everything on your blog easy to follow and not overwhelming, and have your verses meet as wide of a range of people as possible while also not being overwhelming.

Try updating your promo, as well, by the way. They’re not dead, they just really tanked when people kept making them based solely on aesthetic principle instead of being at all informative about the muse. They do seem to be coming back, so it’s a thing to consider.

Yes, make it visually appealing, it will draw people to reading it. No, do not just use a song lyric or quote with words highlighted linking your rules, verses, bio. Tell people basic info like the age of your muse and yourself, if you are multiverse and multiship, your muse’s canon verse and a couple of big interest verses of other major fandoms or themes that tend to be of interest to people, and what kind of RP you write - one line/para/multipara/novella. Absolutely give links to rules, verses, bio, and either memes, wishlist, or open starters, but give them just like that; make it very clear what this link is to. Put a very short statement of interest on there denoting that you’re expanding to new fandoms and looking for writing partners.

Do not sound desperate, demanding, or devaluing of yourself. Don’t say shit like “because my fandom is dead,” “trying this before I give up and delete my blog,” or “I suck at interaction/writing/ooc interaction/being a person but welp giving it a try, so follow and hit that heart.” (Conversely, calling yourself derogatory things and implying that your partners are too, such as the “we’re all just losers here” shit.) All of the above are not attractive, and they’re not even surprising enough to stand out anymore. It’s another reason to scroll right by that promo because nothing at all was different or of interest.

And as a wrap-up/rehash of the first topic, getting muse back: try starting over at the beginning by approaching the media involving your muse that has really stuck with you emotionally over the years, and exploring and developing your muse again.

Don’t tell yourself you can only write, for example, at home, on the laptop, after 7pm, and with a pop toy staring at you. The best thing about writing, as opposed to so many other hobbies, is that you can do it anywhere! So, do that. Do it any time you both feel the inspiration to do so and aren’t going to get fired or expelled for it. This isn’t work, it’s something enjoyable that does take effort (like literally all creative activities and skills do), but approaching it as though you need to follow novel writing advice from someone who has never published anything of note and isn’t you on the internet, with strict rules for success makes it feel that way. So does being frustrated with a dead fandom, no interaction. It’s disheartening, feels as annoying and fruitless as work often does. You probably need to break out of that mindset, and you can only do it by beginning to allow yourself to be creative on your own terms, entirely for yourself.

Do write simple things at first that you are inspired to do (you can’t get a scene out of your head, or a bit of dialogue), and/or headcanon/character development memes and question lists. Build from there as you get back in touch with your muse, writing things primarily or entirely for yourself still. Expanding on headcanons, doing some meta, or maybe writing out a missing piece of canon or what you’d be interested in seeing happen in canon if some event was altered.

Doing this sort of thing, you are getting in touch with your muse again and back into the real spirit of writing creatively, simultaneously.

Whatever you find most inspiring, do it. If it’s watching the movie or show again, do that, have it on while you write or simply think on the character’s actions, thoughts, and emotions during those scenes. If it’s reading the material again, do that, and read snippets of personal importance before you write. Maybe it’s some past playlists you can have on while writing, or even while you’re cleaning, walking the dog, driving or riding somewhere. It could even be your own previous writing! Go ahead and re-read that, it sounds like you still appreciate it, and that’s truly promising. If you find that you’re horrified by some of the things you’ve written in the more distant past, hey...that’s not just valid as hell, it’s natural. You know what else it is? An inspiration. You can clearly see that you could do better, that means you now know how to do better and are ready to do so. Validate yourself, prove it to yourself by rewriting or fixing something.

Don’t delete the blog or archive it. It is unpleasant to have a dead blog around, but don’t keep it dead. Use the same blog and simply transition it into wider things that will net you more partners and the interactions you deserve.

Look, even if you weren’t the most popular blog in your fandom before it went quiet, you really appreciated the blog, muse, and writing you were doing. You’ve defined that it wasn’t something you did to cause this situation, you just had the shit luck we all run into eventually of being in a fandom that ran out of material or interest. People are really fickle, so by taking a wider approach and fixing on the writing and muse instead of fandom now, you’re stopping this from repeating. Seriously, on a long enough timeline, every fandom dies or goes into hibernation. If you make a whole new blog with a different muse, it is going to happen again eventually.

So, don’t feel like you’re ridiculously clinging to the past and need to move on, you’re just sticking to something and can continue to stick to it through the next five fandom deaths. Just because it is the most popular thing to do to drop muses, constantly add new ones, and have this attitude that you can “blog refresh” your way out of recurrent, and inherent, problem doesn’t mean it is actually the right thing to do. It’s not even the most sensible, and certainly not the best thing to do with anything you’ve spent time and effort on.

That’s your incentive; yourself, the time and care you’ve put in, and your continued interest in writing and the muse. You’ll find good people, and bluntly, everyone else can fuck right off when you’re incentivized by yourself. It becomes a self-fulfilling activity at that point, I swear, and it feels really nice.

Just get back in touch with your muse and writing itself so that you can begin to expand and start interacting again!

#rp advice #rp problems #rp help #muse loss #dead fandoms #rp better #Anon E. Mous #answered

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askaceattorney · 4 years ago

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Dear youngbounty,

Co-Mod: I didn’t see any clones, but thanks!

Dear BDC,

Co-Mod: That idea sounds interesting, but unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Dangronpa to be able to pull that off. I can see if the other mods do, but I can’t promise anything more than that.

I agree with you about the Proto Badger, though. I hate him more than Dr. Eggman hates “that hedgehog.” Sadly, it looks like we’re stuck with him for now. Why couldn’t you have taken him with you, the Mod?

Dear MB,

Co-Mod: I’m glad (and impressed) that you were able to free yourself in such a creative way, but it’s all good. I used to do the same sort of mockery with submitters’ letters before someone pointed out its potential rudeness, since some of them don’t speak English as their first language, so I've got no room to complain. In fact, I’m a big stickler about getting my spelling and grammar correct, so please feel free to point out any errors you find.

Dear Anonymous,

Co-Mod: Which ones, specifically? I know that some of the ones from the Court Record are glitchy (and I failed to inform the new moderator about that), but I haven’t noticed anything unusual in any of the letters. Show me an example, and I’ll see what can be done about it.

(Previous Letter)

(Link in Letter)

Dear Anonymous,

Mod Vera: That’s a good point! I must have missed that Easter egg. I was also originally going to make a joke about Ga’ran needing wigs for herself, but decided to keep it to something closer to canon.

For real, though, with Maya, Iris, Inga, Ga’ran and now Dhurke, it’s really convenient for spirit channeling disguises that so many people in this world have long black hair!

(Previous Post)

Dear AnthonyDeadman,

Co-Mod: I don’t know if I used this sprite before, but it captures how I feel perfectly, so I’m going with it:

Wait, not that one. This one:

Actually, they’re both pretty accurate.

This letter means a lot to me, not just because I love knowing that my work and dedication have paid off in some way, but because I’ve been going through some serious struggles lately (more on that in a later post). Being part of a blog that brings fun characters from an fun video game series to life has been awesome enough, and watching it grow into something bigger than it was has been even more awesome, but being able to provide some much-needed opportunities to laugh, smile, and escape from reality during a time of sorrow, fear, and uncertainty has been nothing short of a blessing for me. Not to mention it’s helped me to enjoy life in new ways, so thanks for that, Capcom.

What I really appreciate, though, is you and so many others wishing me the best for the future. It just so happens that the future has been one of my biggest fears for a long time, so hearing this kind of support, even from people I don’t know, is precisely what I need right now. Allow me to offer my heartfelt thanks for it, and to wish each and everyone one of you the same. The world needs people who can withstand any sort of circumstance right now, so don’t give any less than your best!

Stay gold yourself, pal.

(Previous Post)

Dear mungeondaster,

Mod Vera: Aw, thank you so much! I’m really happy to be here, and to have Co-Mod help me learn the ropes. I also love Vera! Her appearance is brief, but I do love the withdrawn artist trope, especially with a Pearl-level ignorance of the outside world.

Plus her design is just so dang good! Almost as if she drew herself.

(Previous Letter)

Dear ajanisapprentice,

Mod Vera: Ahahaha, twas I who thought of that! I count that as my first report card as the new Mod!

(Previous Letter)

Dear mungeondaster,

Mod Vera: Oh, you know Nick relied on Maya’s budding big sister energy while he was figuring out single fatherhood. As Maya would say, he’s hopeless without her.

Though my personal favorite new headcanon is Pearls helping Gumshoe win Maggey’s heart. (I still need that fanfiction to happen!)

(The Previous Posts)

Dear yuesworld,

Co-Mod: It’s great to hear from you again! Dang, it’s hard to believe your first letter was sent 2 years ago. (As if turning 30 didn’t make me feel old already...)

I both appreciate and admire your dedication toward translating the letters we’ve answered here. I hope you’re able to continue doing so in one way or another, but even if you aren’t, I’m still glad you’ve been so willing to share our character portrayals with a broader audience. In fact, we might even have you to thank for part of our increased follower count, so thanks just in case!

I’m glad you enjoyed the essays, too. I honestly hadn’t considered the possibility that I’d have to write some of those myself after the Mod left, but I’ve had some fun with them, and I hope they helped to make the characters they were about more enjoyable, or at least more interesting. I’m still planning to finish the remaining requests after my departure, by the way. Hopefully I’ll be able to post them a little more frequently than before.

I’m happy to report that I’ve been staying healthy and well (although I feel like I keep dodging bullets with people around me getting infected), and I hope the same can be said for you and for everyone else reading this. I won’t lie, things have been tougher than usual for practically every human being lately, even aside from the pandemic. Thankfully, we have someone who’s all too familiar with trials and tribulations to provide us with a helpful reminder:

That’s Phoenix speaking, by the way, in case you forgot.

In other words, this too shall pass, as the Persian adage goes. In the meantime, stay healthy yourself, and thanks for the reminder that we’re not alone in these challenges.

Dear AnthonyDeadman,

Mod Vera: Thank you so much! I’ve also been a fan of this blog for years, for almost as long as I’ve wanted to be a writer! It’s such a weird elated feeling, to go from being a fan of something to working on it. I almost feel like those people starting their first day at Pixar or something!

Mod Kristoph: Thanks for the kind response! I’ll be sure to get some letters in there when I get the chance!

Mod Paups: Thank you!

(Previous Letter)

(Video in Letter)

Dear BDC,

Co-Mod: Me too, except I’d add a few more “nope”s.

Mod Vera: Hahah, same. But I’ve have politeness so ingrained into my being, I’d probably throw in a few “no thanks” just to be safe.

-The Mods

#youngbounty #bluedragoncody #Anonymous #AnthonyDeadman #mungeondaster #ajanisapprentice #yuesworld #Mod Post #Co Mod #Mod Vera #Mod Kristoph #Mod Paups

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rivetgoth · 4 years ago

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I had this friend I met in the Hetalia fandom in like 8th-9th grade who was like, a lot older than me (I was like 12-13 when we met and she was like 17 or so), and we were REALLY close for a really long time, we'd talk and call every day and it got to a point where she was really dependent on me in this awful way where she would like constantly threaten suicide if I didn't answer her texts fast enough and shit like that. She was really rich cuz her dad was a doctor and one time she bought me an entire fucking Xbox One (I did not ask for it like... I'd always been a PlayStation gamer LOL) because she didn't have anyone to play Halo with her. My family still has it and uses it as a DVD player/Netflix machine.

Anyway the really batshit thing about this person (BESIDES the fact that she was like, definitely a pedophile who loved shota and frequently sexted me after she'd turned 18+ and I was like 14 and she also had both a bestiality and incest fetish that she'd talk to me about constantly — I was a kid I had no moral concept of anything and just liked being edgy and feeling mature) was that she was like. A chronic liar who constantly faked identities. And for years after cutting off contact with her I would look back and realize that she had faked even more than I had noticed at the time. The thing is, I knew for sure she wasn't lying about her home life -- Her address, what she looked like, her dad's profession, her age, her house, her pets, etc, were all things I had proof of. But when I knew her she was constantly remaking her Tumblr to escape drama she'd start, and she would constantly make side blogs under pseudonyms and pretend it wasn't her (sometimes it would be random shit like aesthetic blogs under different names or ask blogs for characters or smthn, other times it was like, callout blogs for people she had gotten into drama with where she would pretend to be someone else defending her). I assumed back then that I was always going to be in on it, because she would always tell me whenever she made one of these fake accounts, and sometimes she would encourage me to make a new account too as a sort of roleplay thing where we both pretended to be people we weren't... Until I learned that she wasn't always telling me. Every so often, I would become mutuals with a new account who would start messaging me about my interests and strike a conversation with me. Then something would slip and my "new mutual" would admit that they had actually been my friend all along... Which should have made me immediately cut contact because that's weird as shit, but I was young and she was a close friend, so I would just sorta accept it.

She ended up being like, horrifically transphobic. She got run off her blog twice for being specifically transmisogynistic, first insisting that she was allowed to headcanon canon trans women as feminine men and then on her next blog insisting that lesbians couldn't be attracted to trans women. I was still young and closeted and she was one of my closest friends and was constantly messaging me that the situation was making her suicidal and she was just wording things wrong and totally supported trans people and people just weren’t giving her the benefit of the doubt and she was still learning so I tried to just stay out of it without losing her. Then... I came out as trans lol. She stopped replying to me when I first came out and then made a bunch of vents on her tumblr about how much it upset her and about how “using he/him pronouns for AFAB people is triggering” for whatever fucking reason. She told me her “best IRL friend” who she had introduced me to once on Skype but who never logged in again after and who refused to ever do a group call or anything (definitely another fake account) said that it was irrational for me to expect my friends to respect my pronouns so soon after coming out and that I shouldn’t be upset if I get misgendered. Then she apologized but told me my name and pronouns would never fit me. As you can imagine, as a little baby trans kid who was closeted from my family and terrified of even having come to terms with being trans, I didn’t really have a great defense.

Soon she started being really woke like 2014 style Tumblr SJW to save face, she came out as nonbinary and told me in private it was because she felt bad when people called her cis during discourse (she absolutely wasn't nonbinary) and she coined a "new sexuality" that was "attraction only to people you perceive as feminine, regardless of how they identify" -- what this actually meant was "attraction to cis women and not trans women." She ran an aroace help blog despite not being aroace? And made a bunch of pride flags that I still see around sometimes to this day. She would start fights a lot and try to out-woke people and got into a bunch of drama with other SJW types of the day, got into a bunch of drama with TumblrInAction and Mogai-Watch and shit like that, and she claimed for a short while that she had a headmate (FWIW I totally believe DID is a legitimate thing but like. Trust me on this one.) who was transphobic and that it made her so sad, she told me that it was actually that headmate that had been transphobic before, and every so often her headmate would front out of nowhere and misgender me and use really abusive language like calling me a cunt or a bitch or whatever. She started making these "intersex nonbinary" OCs who she would constantly make porn of under the guise that they were representation for LGBT people who were just like, extremely fetishistic cuntboys and dickgirls (they were “intersex” to explain why they could be “girls with natal penises” or “boys with natal vaginas”).

At that same time, she somehow always managed to have these random, very sporadically active trans women mutuals who were apparently amazing friends of hers, who shared some interests with her but also would defend her when people brought up her past, with these long-winded “Well, I’m a trans woman and I think what she said is perfectly justified and everyone makes mistakes and she’s always been a good ally!!” Then one day some trans woman received an ask from her account where she claimed to be a “black trans woman” (she was, of course, a white cis woman) and she freaked out and claimed she had “been hacked by TiA or 4Chan to make her look bad” — I realize now she had just been sending anon messages pretending to be things she wasn’t and forgot to hit anon LOL. Late in all of this she also got into a bunch of hot water for being really antisemitic and saying she didn’t trust Jewish people because they were just like Christians and like, 5 seconds later she came out as Jewish and wrote this whole long sad vent about how she had had internalized antisemitism and then started going by a random Hebrew name LMAO.

In the end the final breaking point was when I found her secret TERF blog, where she had been making posts for months about how trans men are just insecure women who are trying to escape misogyny by stepping on the backs of “fellow women” and using me as a fucking example, and also saying that me not coming out as a trans man had been “basically rape” since she had been SEXTING me when she was 18+ and I was 13-14+ and that it was traumatic to know someone she had trusted was secretly identifying as a man LMAO. She was also obviously saying all sorts of transmisogynistic things, but also had these really bizarre fetish posts about wanting trans women to fuck her...? I confronted her about it and she literally fucking out of nowhere told me that she was in the emergency room with a mysterious illness that might kill her and she was allowed to have her phone but due to privacy laws couldn’t send a picture as proof. While “in the hospital” she deleted the TERF blog and her personal blog. I had known her for literal YEARS at this point (we had met when I was 12-13 or so and by the time we no longer spoke I was a few months from 17), and I was completely stunned to fucking hear this person trying to pull “I’m in the hospital with a deadly disease” at being confronted for some shit like that LMAO. I made a post about it on my public and another “trans woman friend” of hers logged in to vehemently defend her by saying that there’s nothing wrong with AFAB women being untrusting of trans people because female oppression is uniquely traumatic and that there’s nothing wrong with women expressing their sexuality by sexting minors as long as the minor consents and that I was the real predator for “hiding that I was a man” (remember, I’d been a 13 year old closeted trans boy), before never logging in again... 😭 One of the last times we ever talked was when she demanded I refund her for the fucking Xbox and I refused.

Anyway, the long-term aftermath of that is that a few people online (in some random cringe areas of the internet) who archived some of her antics still think that I also wasn’t a real person, since they caught onto how much she lied about too, so they think I was also a sock puppet and I have no interest in clarifying and making myself known to those people LOL. I have no fucking idea where she is now, she deactivated everything after her being a TERF came out. There’s like, so much more to that I could say because I knew her for YEARS and, like I said, she was one of my “closest friends.” Her parents had wildly expensive pure bred designer dogs that she would make Vines of. She wrote Beatles real person fan fiction. For her birthday one year I made her a shirt on Zazzle with an inside joke about one of her OCs... does she still have that? Either way, she was easily the most batshit person I’ve ever known closely online and I will forever associate the Hetalia fandom with people like that.

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prof-hemlock · 5 years ago

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Hello!

I would like to first introduce myself and detail the purpose of this blog as well as its inspirations. First, you can call me Professor Hemlock. I am a college student with enough time and resources at the moment to devote myself to a new side project to entertain myself, which has become necessary as we were all sent home due to the current pandemic. I have been a longtime fan of the Pokemon franchise since I was about three years old and have been an avid and devoted fan ever since.

This blog is founded upon one question: “What would our world look like with the addition of Pokemon?” It is far from an original question, but it is a question I would like to explore in excruciating detail. I have always asked this question, as I am sure the majority of fans have, but I have always taken my explorations a few steps further by inquiring into how such a change would affect governments, politics, religion, education, and other facets of our culture. Furthermore, how would our relationship to Pokemon differ to that shown in different source materials such as the games, anime, movies, and mangas?

The first purpose of this blog will be storage for a collection of “dissertations” that I intend to post that will dissect each of these topics and more as I work with my “colleagues” to further develop this “AU” as you may call it. Secondly, I would love to engage the community for feedback into this concept. I cannot be an expert in every field, and there are bound to be fans with more expertise than I who could be better suited to develop some aspects. My ask box will be open, I will be available to message, and I encourage others to leave replies and comments on my posts. Third, I hope to artistically interpret different facets of this world through designing gyms, gym leaders, or simply drawing slice of life examples of how I imagine this world to be. In summation, this blog will be dedicated to making my vision come true.

While the origin of my interest in this topic comes mostly from my own wandering mind and passion for how I would have changed the design of Pokemon Go, I do hold much credit and inspiration to a few specific sources. I will display my cards proudly for the purposes of transparency, to lead interested fans to these sources, and because I believe nothing is without influence. In the past, I’ve used some of these sources to determine, for example, where certain Pokemon could be found depending on varying biomes and habitats. It would be plagiarism for me to present my take on this information without giving credit to those sources. So, I implore you to check out these sources if you have an interest in these topics, and I thank them for all the ways in which they’ve inspired me.

The World of Pokemon

What if they were real?

Goofy'sPokemonWorld-buildingcorner

Pokemon Headcanons and More!

pokemon in the wild and at home

Professor Cedar

Scientific Pokedex

Professor Peach's Adventures in Pokemon Recovery

#pokemon #pokemon au #pokemon headcanon #what if pokemon were real #pokemon worldbuilding #pokemon irl #pokemon in real life #the prof speaks #beautifly #hemlock artworks

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leatherxandxlead · 5 years ago

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Before anything.

This eventually will end up on a page on my blog, but I want it to be visible as people find me.

I’ve played Jason Todd since I was 18 years old, and because of that I have a very specific idea of who he is and I have basically told canon to fuck off.

The very basics are the same, so don’t worry its not some super out there take, but still.

here is a list of headcanon to start.

Jason was raised almost entirely on her own by Catherine Todd, who knew she wasn’t his mother, but never did anything but treat him like she was. Before she met Willis Todd; Jason’s father, she was an aspiring actress, and had become to make waves in the local theatre community before developing addiction problems she fought for the rest of her life. After Willis was arrested, Catherine began to fight towards true sobriety, to help support Jason. She died of an overdose when Jason was eight. He, to this day suspects foul play from inside the big house.

Willis Todd is still alive, currently survive two consecutive life sentences, plus 90 days for pissing off a guard. He has an option for parole ever ten years and not once has even come close to gaining said parole.

Willis’s sentence is bogus, he took the fall for Two-Face early on. Jason doesn’t care. He’s glad the old bastard rots.

Jason was killed, and revived before Joker gained the services of Harley Quinn. In fact, during his stint as Arkham Asylums newest John Doe, he was one of her few patients before the fall. He thought she was a good doctor.

Jason hates above all else drug dealers who sell to kids, and anyone who lays their hands on a woman. He’s pretty sour on animal abuse too.

As the Red Hood, Jason takes particular care to make sure sex workers are kept safe, and are able to get out of the life if they wish to do so, for those who chose to do such work, he promises them protection when he is around, and even has purchased and gifted buildings in Gotham to act as safe havens.

Jason has one cat, her name is Stripes. she’s an orange tabby. He was drunk when he named her.

Jason is a problem drinker, whiskey is his posion

Jason is a neat freak. His safe house is intensely cleaned and organized in between every major mission.

Jason’s favorite food is chili dogs.

Jason possesses a genius level intellect, he reads constantly, is a mechanical wizard and a tactical master. He speaks over a dozen languages, and is passible at about ten others.

Jason’s Russian is terrible, as is most of his slavic, but Russian particularly.

Jason is of Irish and Italian descent. His paternal grandmother was a first generation immigrant for Italy, his grandfather, second from Ireland.

He’s not sure about his ancestry from Shelia, his birth mother’s side. She seemed very white when he met her.

Jason drives what, visually at least seems to be, a black 1966 Pontiac GTO, internally of course it is a Batmobile, with all the bells and whistles. He calls her The Deadbird.

Because Catherine was a stage actress, Jason grew up with Showtunes and listens to them to this day, mixed in with the sort of music you’d expect from him.

Catherine was pregnant when Willis was arrested. The baby didn’t make it. It was a girl, her name was going to be Isabel.

Jason keeps a .500 Magnum handgun at all times. He never uses it, he just wants it ready because he wants the biggest, and most comical looking revolver to be the one he uses to pop the Joker’s head off. He’s fired it 4 times. He hates that he missed.

Jason’s helmet houses a micro supercomputer, hooked up to a backdoor version of the Batcomputer’s network. He’s pretty sure Bruce knows he’s there, but its sort of a “don’t ask don’t tell” agreement. He has a running HUD that helps him track, mark, and collect evidence. He had a rudimentary collision detection system as well, but it was just annoying during a fight. The hood can manage a full light spectrum, allowing Jason to detect large heat signatures, and several types of dangerous radiation. The levels of each need to be somewhat high, as fine and minute detection would take more memory than the space of the hood allows. He also has a rebreather present in the hood, which is air tight. He thinks it’s stupid so many people run around with their mouths exposed when so many villains use gases and spores.

Jason is blatantly embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from Bruce, again he’s pretty sure Bruce knows and lets him out of pity.

He really hates being pitied.

In order, from least to most Jason hates the other Robins, Steph, Dami, Dick and Tim.

In fact he’d go so far as it say he enjoys the company of Stephanie Brown.

He loves all the Batgirls. Not like LOVES, but you know what I mean.

At 17 Jason Todd was taken advantage of by Talia al Ghul. He doesn’t like to talk about it.

Jason developed claustrophobia after waking up in his own coffin. Its why his safe houses are all open design.

Jason’s a little bit bisexual.

He won’t let a man top him though. He doesn’t trust other men.

Jason Todd smokes Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Jason chooses to never attempt to fight the Sirens. They’re alright in his book.

Jason tends to stick to the Narrows of Gotham as his stomping ground. He will fight bats and birds who cross into his turf without asking.

#;headcanon #tw; non-con #tw; smoking #tw; sex work #tw; guns #tw; drug mention #tw; miscarriage #tw; death

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aqours-remade · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on Pillowfort so far.

I’ll do more posts when the site finally stops crapping all over the bed and works but here’s my analysis so far.

I won’t lie, I discovered tumblr when I was 18 specifically for RPing, so that does to an extent make up a big aspect of my thoughts, and I want to share it with both people who intend to be regular users and roleplayers in general.

Good aspects of pillowfort:

Community system is a feature not given by tumblr or twitter, and in an era where forums are becoming more of a niche if this takes off you’ll be able to experience forum-based interaction in addition to everything else.

Community system also gives a place to users who don’t like interacting with people heavily and so publicly like twitter and tumblr a place to use the site even if their blog itself is relatively untouched.

When you delete an OP post it deletes it from everyone else’s blog too. So if something goes bad with a post or you get embarrassed, blam! Its gone everywhere. Of course, this also means we might lose some good posts now and then...

Able to make reblogs and stuff private like on twitter.

Pillowfort’s TOS protects your intellectual property as an artist.

Built-in blocklist.

You can export your blog to your new pillowfort account.

ToS regarding harassing, callouts, mob mentality and the like specifically exists to oppress kinblr for the most part is very fair and reasonable and is specifically designed to keep the site relatively drama-free and actively punishing those who create lots of problems. People who do not like the drama associated with this website or the feeling of screwing up will be relieved by that.

When it works, the actual system for styling your post basically already has absolutely everything you could already want:

Bad aspects of pillowfort:

THE SITE DOESN’T FUCKING WORK YET YOU CAN’T USE THE WEBSITE IN ITS CURRENT STATE WITHOUT IT CRAPPING OUT EVERY 10 SECONDS.

I’m not saying that to be sarcastic or anything I genuinely cannot recommend the site in its current state until pillowfort’s team can stabilize the servers. As it is I can only recommend it if you’re determined to snag a good canon url now. It has a small anime community (rn its mostly Marvel) and not too much of a gaming community yet so... if it does take off now’s your chance to snag one-word name urls and just kinda bide your time until its actually functioning, that’s certainly an idea. I’m very happy I was able to get the dream url there that I wasn’t able to get here... but with the site Error 500ing me so much I can’t really use it.

We‘re still not 100% what the NSFW situation actually is, as the TOS is vague and there are conflicting beliefs about what .io’s policy on NSFW actually is. If you’re coming SPECIFICALLY because of the NSFW ban that’s going to be implemented I would encourage you to wait until we have 100% confirmation. Personally I like it already enough even if tumblr were to reverse the situation I think I’d use this place. I think Pillowfort really needs to come clear about this very soon, because if they don’t and people learn that “oh we can’t host NSFW after all,” despite claiming it a lot of people are gonna want their money back or at least wait until its free to use. The general belief is that as long as you don’t post NSFW in tags that doesn’t belong (like porn in #gardening) then it should be fine... so they say. We really need pillowfort to address people’s concerns, even though I think it’ll be fine, as this is a major reason why people are considering the move. The staff of pillowfort have said on twitter that they are in the process of finding a new domain. As such, as of this moment, pillowfort does not allow for nsfw. However, it will in the future. The best thing to do is be patient until then, I think the goods outweight hte bads.

Even though it’ll go away in 2019 you kinda. Gotta pay to use it right now. That’s kind of a thing.

No sideblog feature nor do I believe its planned, but I do believe the pillowfort team wants a system like the twitter app to quickly switch between full blogs.

While some people might consider this a plus, being able to add onto a post with text or photos has been a staple of both tumblr and twitter since the beginning. I see this changing as a major factor of whether or not people make the big move.

MCU, Detroit Become Human, Supernatural, and apparently hockey (and maybe Overwatch?) are the only big fandoms right now. While that already appeals to a lot of people, those of us into anime and the like have relatively few blogs from what we’ve seen. While this might change as time goes on, at least for the time being, anime and video game bloggers aren’t gonna have a lot for us. On the other hand, though? This also gives you the opportunity to make your claim as a fandom content creator.

Inability to make Communities private (right now) leaves that at potential risks of being raided.

(Minor) No custom themes it looks like, but that might be fore the better in the same vain? In your blog desc you can still link to other sites so now might be a good time to get used to listography instead of relying on custom links. To an extent you can control the colors of your blog though. Some people who hate eye-strainy themes on here or autodirect themes might actually find this a plus.

(Minor/Niche) Blogs themselves are bad for RPing if you’re into that. The forums however seem to provide an adequate place for forum-based RPing. But this would also make forum administrators responsible for upholding standards like “not jumping into other people’s RPs” and basic RP etiquette we have here. And forum-based rping would make finding RP partners outside of tags like #anime rp, #indie rp, etc to find people’s promos easier, depending on which becomes more popular. Even if you can add onto posts if you can’t trim the posts like we can on here (ty x-kit) it’d result in extremely long threads that would clog the dashboard significantly. I personally HIGHLY doubt the ability to edit other people’s posts or cut out replies will ever be a thing, so chances are RPing on pillowfort are gonna be Community-oriented and not on dash. At most people will make IC posts meant to be replied to and the like and headcanon memes while keeping actually threading in Communities, which will very well rely on the Community itself to be Not Shit.

Lacks instant messaging in its current state.

Despite the fact the bad really outweighs the good... I liked what little I could do. It genuinely feels like the only “true” tumblr alternative out there, even though its in beta. I just can’t really say much until the servers stabilize. This website is still in beta, so of course it has a lot of issues to work out, and of course it doesn’t have all the features this 11+ year old website has. I’m just stating these so people who are making the move who used this as their main website are aware of that.

I’m very excited to see this website grow, though!

#pillowfort #pillowfort.io #indie roleplay #indie rp #i'm just tagging it so ppl in tags see my opinions in general sda;lkjsf #bc a lot of people are waiting #mari explores pillowfort

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musicfeedsmysoul12 · 6 years ago

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Hey, I recently found your blog and I love your writing! Is it okay if I ask for some headcanons of Daughter of Hephaestus!MC from that one L&L/PJO crossover post? I know that it was it’s an older post.

OF COURSE, IT IS. Old posts or not, I definitely have ideas. I am super pumped people like my writing. Like… it super motivates me to keep going.

Alright, given that this is about a specific MC, I’m naming her… *looks up Greek Heroes* Atlanta. Atlanta Copperfield. As well, we’re going to have some general headcanons before going into the other ones.

LONG ASS POST

General

Atlanta fought in both wars. She’s not the best smith of the cabin or anything, but she was really good with armor and weapons.

All Hephaestus kids have a Spark that lets them build amazing things. It’s part of their gift from their dad.

Has one of those enchanted belts you can put anything in

Is wicked strong. Like scary, scary strong.

Is semi-immune to fire- not like Leo but can withstand very high temps.

Has a lot of scars from the battles and has a hard time being anything but a fighter.

Left camp due to her PTSD and hatred of herself as she did have to kill siblings during the war.

May or may not secretly hate the Gods.

Does love her dad but in a very distant way.

Her mother died protecting her from a monster when she was six. She really hates Hyrdas.

Witch Queen spell went wonky and the soul latched onto baby Atlanta. Her body changed to match the WQ appearance but no one really notices because God Genes are WEIRD. Seriously- her sister has purple hair. It’s weird.

Atlanta fully accepts she’s in a whole new world because she is used to weird shit.

Reiner

Reiner shows Atlanta around and she just freaks about the not so great armor some of the guards are wearing. Insists on making new ones for them. He shows her to the smithery.

Atlanta becomes a huge help in the castle. Reiner finds himself often sitting with her in the evenings as she designs things. The two build a strong friendship this way.

Thing is the generals don’t realize she looks like the WQ for a while. Mostly cause Atlanta isn’t thin and with long hair hanging down. She’s quite muscular and has her hair in a bun or a ponytail like 99% of the time.

They only figure it out when Atlanta lets her hair down while going for a walk with Reiner in the village, who all now know Atlanta isn’t the WQ cause she’s so nice and builds stuff for them.

Everyone ships her and Reiner. It’s adorable.

Demigods have super quick relationships because most die by like thirty so she is down for a wedding. Yep, oooh, can she make armor for them as their wedding outfits?

Atlanta being semiposessed by the WQ is really fucking scary cause of her demigod blood making her more sturdy and her Spark.

Now, it turns out the Gods are watching and when she gets possessed also get worried because even they feel the WQ is a big fucking deal. Soooooooo… they come to that world.

Yep, Gods appear in Reiner’s castle and don’t care they see them. (Zeus may actually like the fact they believe)

Atlanta loses her Spark to protect it from the WQ until she is either free or dead. Atlanta as well goes into a heavy depression and is very much a zombie during this time because a Spark is part of her soul.

Reiner is literally the only thing keeping her from giving in.

(Wow this is getting long) Being free gives her Spark back and she throws herself into building weapons and armor. It actually takes Solaire yelling at her to have her realize that Oh shit, Reiner is not acting like himself because she was in a giant fog of working.

Big fight with her and Reiner. Both are really bad at acting like adults with their work because he was worrying over her thanks to Ryland and she was worrying over him…

Atlanta is fucking scary with a shield. She is very strong and can even knock down a wall thanks to a strange metal that appeared in her belt one day. She thinks it might be an apology from her dad…

She totally takes him to Camp while in her original world before they leave. Sophie comes to now that she remembers. Chiron likes him and with his help they create a stable portal.

Her siblings approve.They do make them recite a blessing for Hera and jump over a fire but that’s it. They’re married.

Atlanta makes him a crossbow that is enchanted to shoot fire or ice arrows.

August

August totally thinks she’s the WQ for five minutes and then she starts ranting about his sword.

Nope, no longer WQ, now she is a sword buddy. They get along fantastic after that.

Atlanta doesn’t run off beginning season2, instead, she stays because running off would be stupid.

Atlanta dislikes sword fighting. She’s good at it and likes swords but she’s wicked strong so she likes to try and have her fighting resemble that.

She ends up making a wicked heavy sword that lets her smash all she wants. August is appauled.

“Look, I used to ride a pegasus. Horses do not have wings. That is why i suck at this.” “No, you are simply bad at it because you are to stiff-” “I RODE A FLYING HORSE. OF COURSE I AM STIFF.”

August’s mom loves her when she ends up like fixing everything in their inn because her hands just won’t stop. Asta is like “Marry that woman.” August blushes.

The Gods come to yell when they’re in council. Apparently this is her quest and she must defeat the WQ because *some reason*. Her Spark is removed for a year as punishment for letting her gain a body.

It’s awful. August is terrified for her, she’s a zombie. He prays to the Gods, begging. Eventually Hep is like: fuck this and gives her back her Spark early. Just in time for battle.

Atlanta brings Sophie to the Camp. They all pitch in but still Sophie has to stay for now. She hates it but now knows other magic people!!

Atlanta also brings back necter and stuff but still ends up cursed in the end.

August Dad is eh about her. Heard rumors but didn’t believe until she lifted a tree off him and did some pretty cool stuff.

Also again, let her at the broken stuff. She’s good at it.

When August’s sword breaks she offers to make a new one but like… for some reason she can never make the right one. it’s super frustrating for the both of them and she is wicked upset about it. And then they meet Aisetha.

“I could make a better sword.” “No you cannot.” “I’m making one that talks to.”

Aisetha does let Atlanta make the armor to it’s wishes but it does look badass so fine.

These two fuckin hate each other, it’s the best.

The wedding has traditional vows and Chiron, as well as a bunch of siblings, come through a portal to party.

Saerys

Saerys does not think this girl is the WQ. It’s obvious she uses physical strength and the WQ is pure magic.

Atlanta does not go to his room in the beginning- she knows this shit is real. But she and Saerys bond over being really strong and soon they end up having contests with picking shit up.

Atlanta picked up Saerys who was picking up Reiner once.

Atlanta fixes everything still. Also builds random shit everywhere. Eventually, she has to stay with Saerys in his room cause Ryland and Solaire get annoyed when she takes stuff apart.

She can’t help it. Literally. She actually confesses she’s a demigod to Saerys because she feels alone here without any siblings. She may have left camp but she had called them.

Saerys gets being alone.

Atlanta ends up dropkicking Lennox out of town after she gives everyone a speech about his armor and how they’re all idiots for not realizing it was WQ general armor.

Atlanta isn’t affected by Saery’s heat or strength in Turbo Mode and can hold him down.

Dying at the hand of the Witch Queen but being brought back removes half of her Spark. She has a harder time making things and thinking. Saerys is there to help though.

Saerys and Atlanta spar a lot.

Chicago also brings them to find the camp and Saerys realizes they will be in danger no matter where.

The demon gods team up with the Greek Gods to bring Saerys back to life and restore the full of Atlanta’s soul. This also reveals that Atlanta is a demigod to everyone.

Atlanta’s Spark is twisted a little and talks now to her, urging her to create and build weapons. Like messed up weapons of mass destruction.

Saerys and Atlanta struggle a lot with the demon souls possessing Saerys- it’s hard to control them when you also have a nutjob Spark yelling to build things.

At least the stupid Souls like her now, thanks to the Spark giving them ideas.

They warn the Camps about the WQ maybe invading and they get ready.

Atlanta whispers a wedding blessing when they pass each other the rings because they’re already married demon style. Let’s do it demigod.

Altea

Okay, like Saerys she figures that Atlanta is not WQ quick thanks to Atlanta being shit with any magic that is not building things.

Atlanta is given scrap metal because of her need to build things. She doesn’t realize she’s making jewlery with one person in mind until she makes a pretty pair of pink earing and oh.

Atlanta’s crush on tiny Altea is hilarious. Everyone does given Atlanta is the type to give pretty things to her object of affection. Altea is very happy.

Only once did Altea ever agree to be picked up by Atlanta in battle. Never again. Very undignified!

“But fun.” “Stop it my raven.”

Altea meets her family in Chicago and they figure that Iris Messaging still works in the other world afterwards so they chat a lot.

Atlanta’s demigod status is revealed to Altea in Chicago and the two worship Hep and like Athena and stuff but it’s revealed to everyone when Hep comes to give her this special metal so she can make a sword for herself to fight the witch queen.

Atlea compares the Spark to Magic.

Meeting Mireille and finding out Altea’s a princess makes Atlanta feel scruffy. Sure, she’s a demigod but… princess. She’s just a smith.

Altea makes sure she doesn’t feel that way for long.

Atlanta makes a ring for Altea as a proposal thing. She loves it.

seeing her go fully Magical Girl Mode makes Atlanta fall for her all over again.

Meeting her family is hard, given she is very much a smith, but they do warm up. They also Iris Message some friends so that the Queen and King realize they’re telling the truth about Atlanta being from another world and the demigod stuff.

Lional now wants to learn to smith. Atlanta just wants him to stop poking at the fire.

Iseul

Okay, Iseul does not think she’s the WQ because she doesn’t have the right feel.

Atlanta may have punched him once in annoyance.

they may end up in a fight a few times. They just irritate each other to much.

Their first kiss is during a fight. Everyone was betting on it.

Atlanta’s Spark goes into haywire at seeing the bow Iseul has because she has SO MANY IDEAS

Iseul loves it. Every bit. He is always bragging about this girl to everyone in the village when she goes to get fun stuff to play with.

Imohn ends up liking her when she comes up with an arrow that when fired goes into a dragon made out of fire.

atlanta and Iseul are the worst together. Seriously. No, do not… Atlanta, do not make that! Iseul says it’s okay! NO!

The whole demigod thing comes out when the Gods come during a council meeting to yell at Atlanta for letting the WQ out. She points out she did not know what would happen and no one said this was a quest.

Zeus is not pleased but she lives. Barely. Her Spark is taken from her and she falls into a deep depression.

Iseul is struggling to help her and get his mother to accept her. It all really goes to shit when Ishara ends up in a coma without accepting Atlanta.

Atlanta manages to fight through the depression and help Iseul. They wake up Ishara who accepts her. She also gets her Spark back because that was a lesson she had to learn.

“It was a fucking shitty lesson.”

Chicago is nuts. “How on earth… you were supposed to be created only a few years ago!” “Go bug Chiron for that… or maybe like Hecate or something.” Camp is a nightmare.

Magnus is horrified the rumors of her being a demigod are true. Ha, fuck you buddy.

“I’m pregnant!!! OH! I HAVE IDEAS FOR THE NURSERY!!!” “NO ATLANTA!” “YES MY LOVE!”

Just these two idiots are awful.

#love and legends #love & legends #august falke #reiner wolfson #iseul idreis #altea bellerose #saerys #writing prompt #percy jacson

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pride-vns-blog · 7 years ago

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LGBTQ VN Week: Day Two! (6/19)

Welcome back for my second day of LGBTQ visual novel recommendations! If you didn’t check out my first post, I recommend at least skimming the "One note before we get started” section to get a handle on what this series of posts is. (And especially, as the case may be, what it isn’t.)

Today’s topic is “crafty creative design”, so I’ve pulled out Marccus’s Eldet, Geek Remix and ChicMonster’s Pairanormal, and Team Rumblebee’s Love Is Strange to talk about their development teams’ ambition (and ability to deliver), followed by a discussion with Boys Laugh+ about their 2017 NaNoRenO entry, //TODO: today!

Keep on reading to hear about treasure hunts with hot guys, mysterious twists and turns, power in reimagined narratives, and why taking time to look for brand-new visual novels you’ve never heard of before can be worth your while!

ELDET (MARCCUS)

Kickstarter Tagline: "A medieval fantasy themed visual novel with emphasis on LGBT characters and people of color.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy. Release Date: July 1st, 2017(?) (updated demo); TBA (full version). Content Warnings: Fantasy violence.

When it comes to aiming for new heights with visual novel storytelling and art, Marccus’s Eldet is one of the most standout examples of ambition — if it’s a possibility or a feature you could potentially implement, you’ll probably be able to find a mention of it somewhere in Marccus’s Eldet development updates on Kickstarter. They’re jam-packed with information about ways he’s exploring different ideas for interlocking narratives, replay value, or using the absolutely gorgeous art to its full potential. If the final version lives up to even a tenth of what Marccus has demonstrated working to include over the past two years, that ambition and drive to see things through as much as possible will almost definitely provide one hell of a visual novel.

Strictly looking at the demo alone, though, still provides a uniquely detailed experience where focus on trying out new things that suit the story is crystal-clear. The writing is sharp and captivating, with an interesting plot and gorgeous scenery that’s complimented by a smart use of animated effects. There have been more and more visual novels that have branched into the use of things like Live2D or animated sprites, but for me as a player, it’s been interesting to see how far use of effects like that can go before they just plain old start to be distracting. Idle animations or things like blinking and breathing can be charming, but the uncanny valley is very real and very easy to dive headlong into if you’re trying to include as many of those as possible.

So Eldet’s demo is noteworthy to me not just for trying out all of the visual effects it can manage, but even moreso for knowing by and large where to place those effects and varying sprites for the best possible impact. Characters are integrated into different backgrounds for special conversational scenes, or specific parts of event graphics glow, and none of it — to my eyes, at least — felt overused or poorly-executed. In fact, it all seemed especially suited to the fantasy genre Eldet is fitting itself into, with all of the pieces working together to create a world that feels alive and breathing. And it’s a world that seems well worth waiting for a final version of!

Eldet’s demo is available now on Kickstarter; you can also keep up with the final version’s progress on its development blog, or follow Marccus on Twitter and Patreon (18+).

PAIRANORMAL (GEEK REMIX, CHICMONSTER)

Itchio Tagline: "Love is a mystery and so are ghosts.” Genre(s): Mystery, romance. Release Date: April 1st, 2018 (Chapter 1); TBA (Chapters 2+). Content Warnings: Glitches and static (can be turned off); jumpscares.

There have been a couple "real person dating sim" visual novels in the past few years, but I've never really been all that interested in actually playing any of them; I can see the connection back to all those elaborate magazine quizzes about which celebrity you'd date, so I think they're interesting conceptually, but none of them have really pulled me in. I'm equally wary of the trend of Western visual novels from first-time developers that want to "subvert genre conventions" because of how many have fallen woefully flat of even understanding what that means beyond a very limited scope — I'm talking "oh, I don't really like or play any visual novels, the whole medium isn’t for me" visual novel developer commentary, here — so if an EVN promises a twist on a genre, or even if its players do, it's unfortunately a lot harder to sell me on it.

To my pleasant surprise, Pairanormal's demo sold me on both its "real person-inspired characters" aspects and its departure from the dating-based focus I'd been expecting into sharing space with another genre! I don't want to spoil anything about the plot, but upfront, the turn in the demo alone was a genuinely interesting look at a “blank protagonist” and well-served by being placed where it was. That’s to say nothing of the charming art style! Mechanically and visually, it's also one of the most interesting visual novels I've played; the character movement, the individual soundfonts, and the pacing of the dialogue all come together to work consistently well. (I love smartly-used soundfonts! Please give me all your VNs with good soundfonts!)

Even as someone who's watched a handful of YouTube playthroughs by two of the YouTubers being shown here, Mari and Stacey of Geek Remix, the writing in Pairanormal was sharp and fast-paced enough to actually make my brain draw a pretty easy divide between the real Mari and Stacey versus "Mari Sashimi" and "Stacey Croft". I'm sure there's plenty of rewarding jokes for their primary audience of a Geek Remix fanbase, too — but one of the strongest merits of Pairanormal for me as a player was the experience of having so little personal familiarity with most of the people these characters were based on and still finding the characters enjoyable, well-defined, and interesting.

Chapter 1 of Pairanormal is available now for free; you can also follow development of the coming chapters on Chicmonster’s Patreon, Twitter, and Itchio.

LOVE IS STRANGE (TEAM RUMBLEBEE)

Blog Tagline: "A fanwork based off of Life is Strange.” Genre(s): Slice of life, romance. Release Date: April 1st, 2016. Content Warnings: Drug use; underage drinking; mentions of severe bullying.

Do those characters and that title look familiar? If you’ve paid attention to the gaming scene at large in the past three years, you probably recognize the acronym "LiS” or Max Caulfield’s character design — Team Rumblebee’s 2016 debut project, Love is Strange, came to life as a Life is Strange (DONTNOD Entertainment) fanmade visual novel! In Love is Strange, set a year later after the original game in a completely different timeline, protagonist Max never gained her canonical magical powers and many of the tragedies that gripped Arcadia Bay never came to pass. Instead, she’s given a week to team up with one of her four love interests — Chloe, Kate, Rachel, or Victoria — and win a photography contest together.

There’s a lot to love about it beyond any connection you may or may not have to Life is Strange itself — everything, from the art to the music to the writing, pulls together seamlessly. But the biggest strength of Love is Strange as a fanwork, in my opinion, is the way it’s not trying to totally remove itself from the original canon tonally or trying too hard to conform to that tone without it seeming natural. Max’s character arc is reflective of some anxieties she’d had in the original story, which goes doubly for the explorations of her love interests’ arcs, but it’s fundamentally a different story where her priorities are different. Love is Strange loses what isn’t necessary or what doesn’t help the story — including the teacher-turned-[spoilers] from the original series, Mr. Jefferson — then fills in a lot of the blanks with the same charm and same compelling characters that captivated fans in the first place.

My favorite example here is Rachel Amber, one of the four routes but the lone one who never appeared in the text of the original Life is Strange itself, and a route that felt as wholly comprehensive as the rest. Love is Strange takes the perpetually absent, long-since-departed Rachel and recreates her from whole cloth, giving her a distinctive speech pattern, a history, and a set of beliefs that all work together as a perfect answer for the void around her character in the original text. She feels as real and authentic as the rest of the pitch-perfect cast, a character it’s difficult to imagine the original Life is Strange without. So in both enhancing the original text’s characterizations without ever losing its charm and standing alone as its own thoughtful, genuine F/F dating sim that is just as enjoyable without any fondness for the canon, Love is Strange easily cemented itself as one of my favorite visual novels — so strongly, in fact, that I’m still planning to cheer on Team Rumblebee’s individual and collective outputs for years to come.

Love is Strange is available now for free on the development blog. You can also follow Team Rumblebee on Twitter, Tumblr, and Itch.io to be the first to know if they decide to release anything next!

//TODO: TODAY (BOYS LAUGH PLUS)

Itchio Tagline: "A visual novel about figuring out life with the help of an AI.” Genre(s): Modern sci-fi. Release Date: March 31st, 2017 (Part 1); August 2018 (Part 2). Content Warnings: Depictions of severe depression.

Player personalization is one of the more tricky things for developers, largely in part because there’s no way to write something every player will be happy with; while some people prefer being able to insert themselves entirely into a protagonist with minimal predefined personality and more vague actions, so they can headcanon more easily, other audiences would rather explore specific situations with a smaller number responses that each more clearly reflect the defined protagonist’s personality. It’d be nearly impossible to please both of those groups at once — and there’s dozens of other, more specific takes that other players can have on visual novel protagonists!

As someone in the latter camp out of just those two examples, I thought //TODO: today’s handling of their protagonist Teal (plus their love interests Joyce and Phoenix) was right up my alley, so I reached out to Felix and Rohan of Boys Laugh+ to talk about their work on its story!

IVAN: Pleasure to be talking to you both today! Can you give me the elevator pitch of //TODO: today that you might give to an interested attendee at a con? You're both free to answer this if you'd like, haha.

FELIX: Sure, thanks for having us! //TODO: today is a slice of life visual novel about the aspiring artist Teal who already struggles to make ends meet but things get a little more complicated when an AI suddenly appears in their computer, with the intention to help Teal get their life back in order.

Perfectly put! (I like the phrasing of "aspiring artist Teal", haha, I feel like I'm reading their Twitter bio.) The gender/sexuality/pronoun options (and what I've seen of the dialogue variations) for the protagonist plus the romanceable characters are comprehensive, but never in a way that feels insincere or bland. I really feel like Teal's character — and that of both love interests — shines through strongly no matter what! What went into designing the personalization system as it currently exists, and why did you choose to include it in the first place?

ROHAN: Haha, yeah, Teal is the type who's a bit insecure about their art. So it's easier to say "aspiring artist" even though Teal has been drawing for a while. :'D Although our protagonist has their quirks and own background story we wanted the player to be able to identify with Teal. The player can choose to change Teal's name in the beginning of the game too. And the gender and sexuality options are based on this idea. :3

Back when we were developing the concept for //TODO: today in 2017, we had a close look at other recent VNs. And Date Nighto's Hustle Cat got us thinking about using "they" pronouns then. Hustle Cat's protagonist "Avery" has a gender-neutral design too. That got the ball rolling for us to think how we could make the typical romance situation in //TODO: today inclusive and enjoyable for queer people as well!^u^

FELIX: We also tried to keep the additional work for this fairly small. For the three main characters all pronouns and their variations are stored in variables. That makes it pretty easy to use the same base dialogue regardless of the characters' gender. But in addition to that, we used conditional statements to add some custom dialogue whenever it made sense. The romantic preferences are pretty much the same. They mainly decide the gender of the romanceable characters but there are a few moments where dialogue varies depending on the preferences the player chooses.

That also means that there are some things that people will miss if they don't make a specific selection of gender or romantic preferences but we wanted to make sure that those choices are also part of the characters and the writing and not purely cosmetic. All in all we tried to make the game as inclusive of LGBTQ identities as we could without making the scope unrealistically big for a two person team.

I think you definitely struck a good balance there! If I'm not mistaken, the two of you work in Ren'Py, right? What kind of Ren'Py limits or perks do you take into consideration when working to augment a story with more complex pieces of code other than dialogue variables, like deciding what your upcoming project Defaction's cellphone (?) can do? Anything you've unfortunately had to give up on? (And are there any lines of dialogue or features you're especially proud of including in //TODO: today?)

FELIX: Yeah, we're working in Ren'Py. I can't really think of any limits aside from smaller issues where different systems and languages intersect but there have definitely been a lot of perks! I really like Ren'Py's screen system which is where at least 80% of the work for the phone in Defaction happens.

The python integration is also really nice. In //TODO: today I barely used any python aside from if-statements and variables but being able use custom code pretty much anywhere in the script makes the engine really flexible!

As for feature decisions, so far we mainly based them on what we wanted to include from a narrative design standpoint and then tried to figure out how or if we would be able to implement them. I can't think of anything we had to cut for technical reasons so I think it worked out pretty well so far :'D

//TODO: today was the first bigger visual novel I worked on and aside from the gender and preference options for the characters, something I'm pretty proud of are the optional work and gaming scenes. They are pretty much the first piece of non-linear writing I ever did and it was a fun challenge to make sure they make sense regardless of what in-game day the player sees them on.

ROHAN: I think the most obvious feature we're proud of are the preference options we included, haha. We really wanted to take a few steps aside of the otome or exclusively hetero male-oriented genres out there. And to make the experience feel tailored to the player there are the dialogue features Felix has described before in combination with the visual designs of Joyce, the AI, and Phoenix, Teal's bookstore co-worker.

It's integrated into the story that Joyce has been made just for the Teal. Other AIs in the world would look different depending on their owners. That's why you get a feminine or masculine looking Joyce that match the player's preferences.

Of course there are limitations, I mean, we can't read the players mind to know what they like. And we couldn't include too many unique character sprites due to the scope. But I'm very happy about how the different designs turned out in the end. It was generally fun to visually design the game. Cute colours everywhere! >u<

On another note I think what really went well, too, was how AI Joyce behaves. We took some liberties with sci-fi magic, but Joyce is a being with their own set of characteristics, goals and values. They were made to serve, yet they're on eye-level with Teal and you get some funny situations out of it.

That's right, I'd completely forgotten that the work and art contest scenes weren't confined to the story's timeline on any specific dates — they definitely always felt like they matched up. And I'm so glad you brought up the designs, Rohan, that was actually my next question! The overall world design and character stylization of //TODO: today clearly had a considerable amount of care put into making sure they all meshed well and looked good individually! Can you talk a little bit about why you settled on the design aesthetic you did and what influenced //TODO: today's style or character designs? (Also, who are each of your favorite characters out of the cast, visually or personality-wise?)

ROHAN: Ah, well. First and foremost we were under a good amount of time-pressure during the NaNoRenO '17. Thus I had to decide for an artstyle that I could pull off for the game's assets to be produced in time. There's no complicated shading, not too much intriciate line-work. It was also the first time for me to create art for a visual novel. I was mostly a concept artist before. So I wanted to play it safe. That's one part of the story at least.

The other thing was that by the end of 2016 a lot of artists have emerged online who experimented with reduced palettes, pastel tones and comic and anime inspired shading. I was really intrigued by the charm of this combination. I wanted to make myself feel okay that although I'm a guy I can express myself in shades of pink, haha. This kind of aesthetic also matches the overall cute but realistic story of //TODO: today. I wanted the reality of the game to feel like our world but with some intense photo filters on top, haha. And my favourite character(s)? As the artist who designed them, I'd say visually all of them! xD But character wise, I think it's a close head-to-head of Joyce and SuuJ. <3

FELIX: I think my favorite character is Snow. I also really like Zen's design and his relaxed personality, but Snow was really fun to write! They're reserved and don't show much about their insecurities or problems, but Snow is still fairly confident and mature for their age.

I think a lot of that personality was also inspired by the art. Snow's design really brings across how introverted they are and because Snow doesn't have a lot of facial expressions, this definitely influenced the way I wrote some of their dialogue.

As a big fan of pastels/pinks, I can definitely empathize with that desire to express it more in art regardless of gender, haha! If you could each add any one feature to your projects that's currently beyond of your technical/artistic capabilities, a "wildest dreams" kind of thing, what would those two features be?

FELIX: I'm really intrigued by the idea of procedural narrative. Not in the sense that a story is random, but rather that it's systemic and somewhat non-linear. That's not really something you can just add to any project though and it probably also involves a lot of trial and error before it works but maybe one day :'D

ROHAN: Oh, nice question! I think it would be super cool to have hand-drawn animated cutscenes in a game. But that's completely beyond our budget of...everything...right now. TuT

Haha, I would love to play a procedural visual novel with animated cutscenes! (Although those two things combined would add even more work to each other, huh? #gamedev!) One final question — do you two have any LGBTQ visual novel recommendations from any other teams or creators?

FELIX: Ladykiller In a Bind left a pretty strong impression on me. In general, Christine Love's visual novels are usually really interesting mechanically in addition to their LGBTQ themes.

Most people probably already heard of Butterfly Soup but I really liked how heartfelt it is and the way the story is told!

And we already mentioned Hustle Cat, which is interesting in the way the main story and the romance routes are intertwined in addition to allowing you to romance all characters regardless of gender.

ROHAN: Hahaha, just imagine creating cutscenes for every generatable piece of story. That would be a killer xD And yes, I'd agree with what Felix wrote. The games by Christine Love, are really well written. Butterfly Soup is a fun ride and way too relatable for people growing up with Asian families. I also play The Arcana on my phone right now. I don't like the payment system too much but the story and characters are well-developed. And the artstyle is just gorgeous!

But one should also keep an eye on indie devs who aren't too well-known. Visual novels seem to generally be on the rise right now and we'll surely find some nice surprises if we keep looking! :3

Definitely agreed that people can find some really pleasant surprises by doing deep dives into places like Itchio's VN tag — or hopefully even from my list and these interviews, haha! Thank you both so much for talking to me, Rohan and Felix, it's been a pleasure.

The first half of //TODO: today is available now for free, or you can follow Boys Laugh + on their Twitter and Itchio accounts to find out more about their progress on the second half!

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anearthstruckalien · 6 years ago

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Giegue & George - viewpoint

As implied (or rather –outright stated even) by its title, this headcanon post will attempt to succinctly discuss how Giegue feels towards George and more importantly, why he feels this way about him. To this end, the following points will be discussed specifically: what kind of parent George was and the ‘base feelings’ that resulted from this; the influence of the Psions and how this impacted these ‘base feelings’; and how Giegue feels about George in the present-day. The main content of this post is under the cut as per usual.

GEORGE AS A PARENT & BASE FEELINGS

It goes without saying that Maria and George were nothing but loving parents (even with some initial misgivings due to the circumstances surrounding their encounter with Giegue) towards Giegue and made sure he knew it in their own ways. George specifically was the kind of parent that encouraged inquisitiveness and critical thinking… –to question things rather than just taking them at face-value, to seek out answers to unknowns, and to understand the value of accumulating knowledge. There was this emphasis on getting one to seek and figure out the answers to their own inquiries rather than blatantly giving an answer upfront (where possible of course) whether that be a simple matter of curiousity or gaining an understanding of why what he did might have been wrong; some amount of guidance might have been offered at times, but ultimately it was up to the individual to obtain answers.

As a result, this made for a more adaptive and open-ended kind of parenting that could be rather stern at some points BUT ultimately was never harsh and especially not void of affection. In fact, though George did spend a good chunk of his time attempting to learn about and better understand the Psions (aka the very aliens that had abducted himself and Maria) which itself culminated in the theft of vital information from them… it certainly wasn’t all-consuming of his time. Rather, despite the circumstances surrounding all of this to begin with, George made sure to participate in family life which (relative to Giegue specifically) ranged from playing games to indulging Giegue’s creativity to even letting Giegue observe or help out (in small ways) whenever he would engage in his hobby of invention; all of this and more were forms of affection that stood apart from more ‘obvious’ manifestations of it such as hugs or verbal expressions of such a thing.

Altogether, this produced positive experiences with George (prior to his escape which itself is discussed HERE) for Giegue and thus allowed for the formation of a genuine emotional attachment to him. In short, though he always was closer to Maria (even before said escape), Giegue still grew to love George for the time spent prior to the escape. In fact, it is unconsciously because of George that Giegue even bothered with learning about how to build things –how to engineer them, despite it not being a part of the purpose set out for him. And those knowledge-seeking and critical-thinking practices that were encouraged have continued to persist into the present. George might not have been as significant as Maria was to Giegue, but he was still important to him nonetheless.

INFLUENCE OF THE PSIONS

And so, suffice it to say… after the events of George’s escape from the research facility (when Giegue was 4-5 years old), to say that Giegue was merely upset about it would have been a massive understatement. In fact, that entire sequence of events left him feeling rather hurt, betrayed, and a little heartbroken thereby also becoming one of the worst memories that he has and is associated with the research facility… among various other negative experiences that he endured at said location. AND while initially, the impact that this had on Giegue’s feelings towards George were somewhat mitigated by Maria’s continued love, support, and affection during his subsequent time spent in quarantine (as briefly mentioned on this blog’s EARLY HISTORY PAGE), the pain that George’s escape had caused ended up re-emerging when Maria was removed from the experiment (when Giegue was 10-11 years old) which itself was painful and heartbreaking in its own right.

This in turn, made it easy for those feelings of his to become distorted by both his own unresolved and utterly disregarded (no Psion has ever shown any empathy towards him) pain and heartbreak over these events AND the independent influence of the Psion species themselves. There are several ways in which this influence manifested and worked to alter Giegue’s feelings towards George from their ‘base’ form, but the manifestations that are most worth noting for their impact in this context are as follows:

a. the consequences of George’s escape; from being stuck into quarantine to Maria’s eventual removal from the experiment (that is, she was killed by the Psions) and right down to even the intensive surveillance and control of Giegue’s activities during his integration into society—which is mentioned on this blog’s EARLY HISTORY PAGE—the consequences of Giegue’s own role in George’s escape were designed to make a point that would not easily be forgotten by the one experiencing them.

In other words, the Psion superiors (and other relevant parties handling this) ensured that 3 key goals were established by doing what is ‘rational’ and enforcing these consequences: ensuring that Giegue knew and understood why that his own actions were ‘wrong’; ensuring that Giegue adequately understood how dangerous the implications of George’s successful theft of information is (as further discussed in THIS POST); and serving as a way of deterring Giegue from stepping out-of-line in such a ‘dangerous’ and ‘irrational’ way again.

These were unpleasant experiences for him (without a doubt) and as a result, Giegue ended up being hurt as well as bitter and resentful of George’s actions (and thus George himself as well) preceding the escape (learning something that he shouldn’t have and stealing it) and during its progression. That is, Giegue ended up associating George himself with these consequences whereas the strongest George-consequence association was that of Maria basically being killed off by the Psion species. And this in turn, made it rather difficult to feel any way about George that didn’t involve bitterness and resentment mixed into it.

b. distortion of his own views on humans; because Giegue was exposed to mostly positive experiences with humans from a very young age and through his adoptive human parents, his opinion of humans as a whole used to be notably positive (in a naive kinda way due to his age at the time)… –BUT after everything with his adoptive human parents fell apart and left him alone in Psion society, this opinion was slowly warped to almost its precise opposite.

In general, Psion society viewed the human species as ‘weak’, ‘irrational’, and ‘inferior’… –as ‘lower life-forms’ whose only potential danger lied in simply how determined humanity could be in conjunction with a capacity for going to extremes (as further elaborated upon in THIS POST). However, George’s successful theft of important information from the Psions made what might have otherwise been just a potential danger into something that could more tangibly occur. Humanity became something that ‘deserved’ to be wiped out for its own ‘nature’ alone and that doing so would in fact equate to ‘doing the universe itself a favour’. AND Giegue himself became someone that attempted to eradicate the entire human race for these very reasons; to stop a potential threat before it actually became one.

That is, because Giegue was rather intensively exposed to this negative viewpoint of humanity from a young and still-impressionable age for approximately 90 years, his own views of humanity ended up being distorted from their original form and into something that over-emphasized and focused in on what’s bad about humanity and why they ‘deserve’ to be wiped out for it rather than trying to view humanity in a more fair and objective way instead (as he is now trying to do in the present-time of this blog).

As a result, when those feelings of bitterness and resentment mentioned in the previous point intersected with this negative viewpoint of humanity, because George is a human… –these feelings ended up being notably amplified and further entangled in Giegue’s ‘base feelings’ towards him. Before concluding this point entirely, I think that it is worth noting that much like the alterations in how he feels about George, this distortion of his views on humanity DID NOT entirely toss out what he felt before --rather it all just mixed in and subsequently twisted into something that is both negative and marked by an inner-conflict (deep-down and only truly pulled to the forefront of his conscious mind in Mother 1) over this negativity at the same time.

c. the pressures of Psion society; as implied by this point’s title, Giegue was pressured and influenced by his own species (the Psion superiors especially) to conform to their standards and expectations (the extent of this is elaborated upon in THIS POST) while emphasizing a loyalty to the Psion species above all else, no matter who else is out there. And because Giegue was rather generally sensitive to the opinions and standards of others, he also ended up being especially susceptible to this and thus tried his best to conform accordingly (as alluded to in THIS POST).

The end result of this was that in becoming more so like the other members of Psion society (or trying his best to at least), Giegue was also inadvertently distanced from non-Psions in general. That Giegue was eventually tasked with eradicating the human species on Earth only further drove-in that distancing from non-Psion species, George included.

PRESENT FEELINGS TOWARDS GEORGE

Through the sequence of events that occurred in both Mother 1 and Mother 2 as well as the time that was spent thinking everything through in Magicant afterwards (post-Mother 2), Giegue has effectively learned from his own mistakes with those being: suppressing his own emotions rather than permitting himself to entirely feel and address them accordingly; and conforming to gain social approval and make others happy to the point of ignoring and suppressing a truer sense of self. And because he has also come to the conclusion that the Psions were wrong and that he was tricked by them, Giegue has resolved not only to self-improve and move beyond what he used to be BUT to also be more fair in how he views and treats humans –to see the good in them rather than just the bad.

The impact that this has had on his feelings towards George is that the bitterness and resentment (as mentioned in the previous section) have faded away somewhat, but still remain to an extent due to the unresolved nature of the feelings surrounding George’s escape. In fact, the best way to describe how Giegue currently feels towards George would be that his feelings are split right down the middle; there is a strong inner-conflict centered around a struggle between two different perspectives on the events that occurred during George’s escape.

To elaborate, Giegue rationally knows and understands that above all else, George meant no harm with any of his actions (whether it be that which preceded the escape or the events the ended up occurring during its progression) and that perhaps it was the rational thing to do… –to leave Giegue himself and Maria behind when a good opportunity for getting away arose, especially since this followed an instance where he was almost killed by a Psion guard at the research facility. Giegue knows that he has little cause to be so bitter or resentful of George in this light BUT at the same time, he cannot simply ‘brush-off’ how hurt he felt (and still feels) about that entire situation.

It isn’t really possible for Giegue to truly ignore the feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and slight heartbreak attached to the end result and following consequences of George’s escape. And because these feelings are so intense and have been sitting unresolved within him for so long, it’s quite difficult for him to move beyond it. He wants to move on, but as of now cannot manage to do so yet. There’s a lot of other emotional issues that he has and make it difficult to even begin to address something that’s so heavily emotionally-charged let alone disentangle and work through it all. However, at the core of it all Giegue does still care about George and because of that will eventually manage to move beyond this in the future; it is because of what was that he wants to move on and through the sheer force of his own determination will eventually manage to do so.

#.headcanon #.giegue #.george #I have FINALLY managed to finish this omg --it's so long and I was trying to cut down on length at that #it's just his feelings on his father are mixed --like very much divided and something that he has yet to work on resolving #I meant to finished this yesterday but stuff came up and I ended up being a bit busier than anticipated irl

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a-poc-alypse · 7 years ago

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your headcanon does not exist in a vacuum

Normally, on fandom issues, I reserve my criticism to snide tags, vagueing, and casual conversations in replies and DMs to friends that usually go unnoticed. However, I recently had an experience where my snide remarks lead to change from one really gracious user, and I felt super bad that all I did was be snide, when an open conversation would have been better for everyone. So here goes...

Your headcanon does not exist in a vacuum. And by this, I am referring to two different situations that I will address in one looooong and maybe risky post. bc fuck it

situation one: There’s a trend, has been for years, in the Good Omens fandom of headcanoning Crowley to be dark skinned, and Aziraphale to be not only white, but blond, with blue eyes to boot.

I imagine this largely originated from some book covers using this portrayal - however, neither these covers or the fandom are working from any kind of canon description. I think we need to take the time to figure out what it is that is influencing our headcanons.

The fact is, the angel being not only white but Super White, while the demon is dark skinned (typically Asian coded from what I’ve seen) is... racist. It's just racist. I know that's not the intention any of you have, I know many of you are following from the favourite designs of your favourite bloggers, or just really love fancasts such as Riz Ahmed as Crowley (I love that one too, it's perfect.)

But intention aside, we need to look carefully at A: where this headcanon is coming from, and B: what message it's sending. The overwhelming majority of Good Omens art depicting the demon as brown and the angel as superwhite sends a distinct message about what features are holy, inherently good, perhaps even more cultured and sophisticated (as Aziraphale is characterised to be), and what features are inherently sinister, demonic, unholy. It draws from a history of white supremacy and idealisation of white features - sure, it's an ultimately inconsequential trickle of the original poison, a fandom headcanon, but we still need to acknowledge that that's the history we're drawing from, and question if we should.

I'm not asking you to stop headcanoning Aziraphale as blond, as white, as blue eyed (although, really, all three?). I'm not asking you to stop headcanoning Crowley as dark skinned, fancasting him as various men of colour. I'm asking you to look carefully at that combination, and consider why it is so prevalent, and I'm asking you to consider other options.

and now. Situation 2.

So we have a tv show where both Aziraphale and Crowley are white. Could be worse, as I just explained. But I take issue with the defence 'your headcanon is your headcanon.' It's true, sure, but frankly I think it's a cop out.

I'm not pissed because Aziraphale doesn’t look exactly as I want him to (although, yes, me and fellow Teenagers On The Internet joke about it. It's not that deep.) I'm not pissed because Crowley isn’t 1 of 3 specific actors I dreamt of. I'm not even pissed, actually. Just disappointed.

I'm disappointed because of the statement the casting gives out, in the face of the potential they had. It's not that the casting is wrong in my eyes (yes, Neil, I know you've seen me whine about it with my friends. I've gathered you've been lurking. It's a bit weird when you reply though) but that I take issue with the idea that this casting - of two 'default' (white) men - is without a statement. About what we perceive as the norm, about what we perceive as both divine and demonic.

I don't particularly care to be reassured that, oh, don't worry, they might not be white in future theoretical productions, they’re still racially ambiguous (read: white, but in a taken for granted kind of way) in the book, your headcanon still stands. I care that in 2018 we're getting another show with two white, middle aged, middle class, male leads. That is a statement - about whose stories are worth telling, worth hearing, and whose perspectives are important. Maybe we don't read it that way, because it is such an abundant one, but it will never not be an alienating and privileged statement.

Now let's compare it to the potential - the casting we all dreamed of. We had our hopes raised by American Gods, certainly. There can be no pretence of ignorance to the statements being made through casting from the man behind American Gods. So after that, and after years of fandom vocally endorsing casting such as Richard Ayoade as Aziraphale or (more recently) Riz Ahmed as Crowley, we really were anticipating something more. To spell it out, the statements of casting moc as Aziraphale on his own, or both Aziraphale and Crowley, are these:

Most importantly, an Aziraphale of colour is such an effortless way to subvert centuries of racist and colourist cultural norms about divinity. It's so easy! You don't have to write anything, say anything, just cast someone! That's what makes it so frustrating that it didn't happen!

Then, there's the fact that these characters are both as old as the Earth, 'man shapes beings,' maybe they've had the same body/appearance since the beginning. Maybe not. But there's - at least for Crowley - an element of choice in appearance as well. Why does aracial need to be white? Why do these nonhumans, posing as humans, decide to be white? Why can't Aziraphale and Crowley, who predate whiteness, who didn't begin life in Europe, embrace a non-European appearance? Huh?

This one's less show specific, but oh my days British tv has such a big wall up against actors of colour. Especially the BBC. Maybe the BBC is why we have two white established actors as our leading men, I don't know. But imagine, with the state of things as they are now, having two leading moc in a BBC adaptation of one of britain's most popular modern books. i m a g i n e !

Ultimately, whatever - they're both white. That's happening, I can't change it, I've accepted it. I love Tennant, I've heard great things about Sheen, I have all faith I'll love the show. But I'm still disappointed, I still think 'your headcanon is your headcanon' ignores why people are disappointed. Just let people complain in peace, okay? It hurts no one.

In summary: white az + brown crow is a racist combination, everyone here needs to think more carefully abt the subtext of casting, and let people be upset about things on their own blogs, God, please.

#orig #txt #discussions #good omens #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #aj crowley #ineffable husbands #long post #admin a

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the-alchemical-key · 7 years ago

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A Brief Q & A with Luke

;; Okay, since I’m apparently becoming more popular than I expected I would because I am honestly garbage, it has been brought to my attention that I should write up a sort of.. Q & A post, to help people understand me, and how to interact with me, just a little bit better. So here goes.

1. Are you a selective rper?

Not intentionally. I can be a little bit sometimes, but I honestly do my best to at least give everyone a fair chance before saying, ‘hey, you know what, our styles don’t seem to be matching up too well, and it’s just not working for me’. By no means is this a way of saying I don’t want to still be friends, though. I don’t like to exclude anybody, but it does happen sometimes on account of my own personal preferences and comfort level. I have social anxiety, so it does happen sometimes, but I do not ever mean to be selective.

2. Do you rp with self-insert muses?

This right here, is a bit more of an interesting question, because.. Yes, and no. See, this is where some personal preferences come in, and so.. I don’t really rp full, lengthy threads with self-insert muses. However, I would absolutely love to receive in-character asks from your self-insert, and have some fun, short conversations that way. Maybe build up some interaction through the inbox, before getting comfortable enough to try a thread. Again, I don’t like to exclude anybody, so I would of course give you a chance.

3. Can I ask your muse about canon events?

Um, hell fucking YES!! Please do! Ask Varian about the science expo! Ask him about how he felt when Rapunzel ‘broke’ her promise to him! Ask him anything about canon events, I love these kinds of asks!

4. Am I allowed to ask about a thread I liked reading?

OF COURSE!! It’s not canon events, technically, but it goes along the same lines. If you want to ask Varian about the events of a particular thread, or ask him things in a particular verse, you can absolutely just go for it!

5. I saw you made a design for the Moondrop Flower, and it looks so pretty! Can I use it in a fanart I’m making?

Holy carp. If you want to do this, I would honestly be honored that you even ask. My Moondrop flower design is absolutely free for anyone to use in fanart regarding @ghosta-r‘s Moon Theory. All I ask is just a little note of credit for the design and we’re all good.

6. I really like the _____ thread you’re doing with ______! Can I draw fanart of your thread?

I admit no one has asked me this yet, but.. OH MY GOD. If someone wanted to illustrate one of my threads, I would probably scream, and cry, and want to hug you for the rest of eternity, because holy carp, that would mean so much to me. I love getting asks, and feedback on my threads, but getting art is like, such a high honor! If you want to illustrate one of my threads, you don’t even have to ask, just go for it!

7. Do you have any other blogs?

Yes. Like a million of them. Too many to list here, I’m pretty spread out across a lot of fandoms, sometimes with multiple blogs in a fandom. But.. If you want some of my OCs, I can put those here at least. Arsene, Jasper, the Ascension Crew, Kaelan, Joker, Krampus, Artimaes, Darrow, and my Lion King OCs are the main ones I can think to add for this.

8. Do you have any other blogs for ______ fandom?

Regarding other fandoms besides this one, it’s always a good idea to ask about a specific fandom you’re looking for, since there is certainly a possibility I have a blog in that fandom too. As for the Tangled fandom in particular, I do actually have a few other blogs and they’re actually all sideblogs on this one, so yeah! Those are Maximus, Quirin, Varian’s mother (who I’m calling Isabela), an OC named Kaspar (Old Man) Jenkins, and Owl.

9. Can I draw fanart of your OC?

Yes, please. Like I’ve already said, I love getting gift art. So if you want to draw Old Man Jenkins, or any of my other OCs as linked above, please feel free to do so.

10. Your threads and ask replies are all so well written! It’s like I’m actually watching an episode of the series!

Not really a question, but it’s been a consistent compliment I’ve received a few times now, and it still just makes me really happy to get compliments like this. I, like Varian, often crave praise, so yeah. Your compliments are always welcome.

11. I’ve seen you mention that you’re a novelist in your free time. Is there anywhere I could read one of your novels?

If anyone were to actually ask me this, I would die. I am certainly a novelist in my spare time, and if anyone is interested in reading my books, and if you don’t mind that they’re mostly unfinished/currently being heavily edited, then just ask me and I can toss a link your way!

12. I’m not actually an rp blog, but can I rp with you anyway?

Um.. No? I mean, you can send asks and things like that, but if you don’t actually have a muse, it’s very difficult for me to have a thread with a personal blog. Personal blogs are different than self-insert muses, and this goes for sending me rp prompt asks too. If you don’t actually have any sort of muse, please don’t send these.. The symbols and things for my muse to react too.. Can’t be reacted to without another muse there to react to.

13. Are you an exclusive rper?

Not really? I may give priority to people who I consider my mains for a certain muse, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to rp with someone else with the same muse as another mun I rp with.

14. Do you rp with duplicates of your muse? I have the same muse and I would like to thread with you.

Sorry, but I don’t do duplicate rps. I just can’t logically wrap my head around these kinds of threads, so for my own comfort, I just don’t do those. Nothing against you, of course, I love that there are other people who love my muse just as much as I do, and everyone’s portrayal is certainly unique! You’re of course allowed to send asks and stuff and make friends with me, but.. Just not in character, please.

15. Have you been ignoring my asks? I haven’t seen you respond and I’ve sent them several times.

Please don’t ask me this.. I will never intentionally ignore anyone, unless they start acting like this. Don’t send me repeat asks just because I didn’t get to you over the course of a few hours. Jeez.. And it’s no excuse to be a brat about it either, by the way. I am a busy adult with other things to do in my day, so just because I didn’t answer at the speed of light, it doesn’t mean I’m ignoring you.

16. I saw you posted an open starter? Can I reply to it?

Sure! Just remember to check my tags first, and if it’s tagged as mutuals only, and we aren’t mutuals, then don’t reply to it, and maybe check my blog for a starter that isn’t tagged that way.

17. I really like this thread you’re writing with _____! Can I reblog it?

Sorry, but are you my partner on that particular thread? If the answer is no, then please don’t reblog it. This especially goes for personal blogs. It’s just proper tumblr rp etiquette. If you aren’t involved in a thread, don’t reblog it. This goes for an rper’s headcanon posts and ramblings as well. Please don’t.

18. You made/reblogged such awesome art! Can I reblog it from you?

Sure, go right ahead. Art is different than a thread or headcanon post. It’s fair game for reblogging. Always. Whether it’s my art or someone else’s. Just don’t steal credit, okay?

;; And I think that should cover the important stuff? Thanks for sticking with me for this long stupid post, guys! I hope this clears some things up for some people! Thank you!

- Luke

#;; out of alchemy (ooc)#;; the mind behind the alchemy (mun)

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