#you can either bulletpoint list it

[mapleleavesart]

Would anyone be interested if I had a place where I'd post some of my WIPs specifically for y'all to critique them? It'd be kinda a regular (ish, whenever I'm working on something lmao) phenomenon. And I'd be willing to help critique your art as well (ive been told im an amazing critiquer) and plus, you'll get to see my process and sneak peaks!

Yes there's an important difference between non-artists' critiques and artists' critiques. Both can be very important due to the differences in how people perceive things. Both are welcome

[thegreatyin]

Your posts about Fallen London are slowly tempting me into playing it- do you have any tips to start or is it best to play it completely blind?

i have a few tips and tricks! mind you im far from a veteran and i basically got my hand held by tumblr for most of the game so take everything with a grain of salt. you can and should do whatever you want always. i don't personally play it blind, but you may get more enjoyment out of it if you do, and that's awesome and im super happy for you. this is what i can say from experience:

take your time with it. this is like. the numero uno fallen london tip. it's not a game where you rush to the end in a week. it's a game where you do 10-minute-intervals of a marathon to the end in maybe a few months if you know what you're doing. spending money on action refills usually isn't worth it when you can just mosey on through neathly life one storylet at a time. a vast majority of the game's content is completely free to everyone, and while the monthly subscription options are pretty neat and let you play some exclusive story stuff (that can be pretty fire- cricket anyone basically defined the scoundrel's entire character) none of it is required and 99% of the time you aren't missing out on anything by just taking your time and exploring the neath at your own pace.

you need to raise all of your skills eventually! this is, uh. something im horribly guilty of not following myself. you can (and probably should) pick at least two stats to focus on for your character (most of the time these will be your main ambition stats, aka the closest thing FL has to a main story questline) but eventually you Will be expected to have them all at around the 100 range, minimum. for certain Super Late-game Story Content, watchful 200 is mandatory to start it, so if you have trouble choosing i'd recommend leveling that bad boy first. don't neglect your other stats though!!! don't be like me. don't be like my poor poor neglected shadowy and dangerous. it's too late for me. save yourself.

friends are fun and free and you are legally mandated to exploit them for fun and profit. okay you really aren't mandated to exploit your FL friends list but you totally should anyway just for goofy sillies. to be less jokey about it, while fallen london is primarily a single-player gaming experience, the playerbase is super friendly and super open to helping each other out (especially new players!). go on reddit, ask around on tumblr, get yourself a few buddies and use them as resources to gain items and stats and menace reduction i mean. valued companions that im sure you will treasure forever and definitely not backstab to publish that inflammatory newspaper article you've been cooking up.

on a very loosely similar note, the fallen london wiki is your best friend. yes, we're following stardew rules with this one. this is the kind of game best optimally played with a wiki article or three open in the neighboring tabs so you can follow along and know what is what. there's tons of guides on basically every part of FL, and it's no shame at all to reach out to either it or the wider community if you get stuck or feel lost at something.

if an in-game storylet has bold text, it will never lie to you! except for when it does. but that's very very very rare. you can always trust the bold text. it is always your friend. i prommy. which brings us neatly into our next bulletpoint,

seeking the name is ill-advised because it's the only storyline that can permanently brick your account at its conclusion. don't worry, the ease at which you can avoid this is practically comical, and the game will Always give you multiple chances to opt-out if you somehow accidentally start it anyway. most people make a dedicated alt character entirely for the purpose of sacrificing them to the well of doom. unless you're playing with your eyes closed for multiple months straight, you'll never run into SMEN without deliberately chasing it, and if you somehow get to that point honestly man just ignore this entire bulletpoint and see how far the rabbithole goes. go on. it's friendly :)

batfucking is always the right answer to any problem ever

echoes/the game's standard currency should always be thought of as a method of gaining items rather than a strict hoard of video game dollars. money-making can be super difficult in the earlygame, but it gets exponentially easier as you go further on. you shouldn't be afraid to sell anything you don't need, though personally i'd recommend keeping an "insurance stock" of the most basic items just in case. this includes rostygold, moon-pearls, honey droplets, etc. by-and-large, these are the easiest items to get in a pinch, and it usually isn't worth buying them from the bazaar when you can otherwise get them naturally through other methods around london. once you've got a good lodgings setup and feel decently familiar with the earlygame zones and their options, you should aim to have at minimum 1,000 of these bad boys on hand at any given time, then feel free to sell any excess you make for some quick cash in a pinch.

menaces aren't as bad as you may think, but be wary of specifically suspicion! the four main menace qualities you'll encounter in the earlygame are nightmares, wounds, scandal, and suspicion. when one of these menace stacks reach 8, you'll automatically be trapped in a unique location corresponding to whatever menace you raised too high and will have to spend time working your way out. some (nightmares and wounds) tend to fly-by rather quickly, while others (scandal and suspicion) tend to take a bit longer to get out of. none of these mean the end of your playthrough or your character, and some quests even require you to visit certain menace-exclusive locations! there are tons of items and ways to reduce menaces and keep yourself out of Situations such as these, but suspicion in particular is probably the only menace you should avoid maxing At All Costs. when your suspicion gets too high and you get sent to its special menace zone too often, you build up a criminal record that makes it harder to reduce suspicion in the future. fortunately, suspicion is the only menace with this gimmick, and before this record gets too high it's just as easy to keep row as the rest of the lot. TLDR, death from wounds is easy to escape from, but avoiding the strongarm of the law is substantially more annoying and inconvenient.

or you could be like tumblr user @with-bells-upon, who's apparently avoided death at all costs and apparently hasn't died once in the entire several months they've been playing. i don't even know how they've gotten this far without doing that. it's kind of impressive, kind of funny. especially since their ambition is one the few requiring you to die to proceed. this isn't a piece of advice i just wanted to affectionately call them out because what the heck

speaking of ambitions, pick the ambition that's right for you! ambitions are the biggest overarching questline in the game, and their requirements and rewards span the entire neath and occasionally even beyond. all four ambitions are meant to be started early and last well into the mid and late game. outside of a certain special situation regarding the light fingers ambition (the only ambition that explicitly lies to you in-game when describing its premise) you can't change your ambition without spending money, so choose carefully and choose well. they're all (mostly) equally rewarding and equally fulfilling adventures that will define your player character and your journey through the neath. there's tons of advice and spoiler-free summaries of each ambition online, so i won't cover it all here. just do your research (or don't, if you prefer) and follow your heart. maybe playing the world's most high-stake poker game ever speaks to you. maybe you want to commit a murder. maybe you want to commit a murder in the name of justice and/or revenge. maybe you just want a really really big really really shiny rock. all can be found in the neath, and all shall (eventually) be well.

if you buy 400 lucky weasels you get a special achievement. i don't need to say more.

make up a guy. this is another legal mandate if you're a fallen london player. you have to make up your own little sicko victorian london guy and roleplay them while you play. trust me. it's fun. it's free. they're going to haunt you forever. the scoundrel got a nickname like 4 months ago and ever since my mind has never known peace.

and probably most important of all, fallen london might not be the game for you, and that's okay. it includes a lot of reading. and grinding. and i do mean a lot of reading and grinding. particularly the latter, which tends to throw people off the most out of anything. it's a very niche game for a very niche audience and getting into it can be an acquired taste at the best of times. but when you do get into it, it's some Really good writing and Really in-depth worldbuilding and the most fun you'll ever have imagining sicko victorian guys running around building train stations and railway tracks directly to hell. take your time, have fun, and most important of all, always look to love.

anyway yeah that's my fallen london tips and tricks list isn't it really short and comprehendible

[takaraphoenix]

What do you think about the changes to Luke’s confrontation with Percy ?

Got this ask, got really confused, realized the final episode was out, went to watch it, came back here.

So.

Mh.

As with the majority of the many changes this show made to the books, I have... mixed feelings on it.

Part of me loves this much more than the books - much - more. Because it made so much more sense. Luke, trying to recruit Percy instead of just... flat-out trying to murder him again.

And! That Percy was the one who figured it out, on his own. I love how clever this show makes Percy.

It was a really tense and interesting confrontation.

Now here's the part that made me dislike it. Because it made so much sense.

In the books, Percy not taking Luke's side made complete sense, because Luke just flat-out tries to murder him, for the second time, and he is screaming and throwing so much stuff out in such a frantic way that he does sound like he lost his mind. It's very easy to conclude "My guy, you're being brainwashed by Kronos".

But this Luke? And this Percy?

The Percy who literally spent the entire damn show MAKING Luke's points. The first half of this show, every single conversation between him and Annabeth was basically Percy reciting Luke's bulletpoint list of why the gods suck and demigods shouldn't do their bidding.

And now, what? All of the sudden, just because, what, daddy dearest showed up once and saved Percy's life from Zeus, he is Team Olympus? C'mon. That was weak as fuck.

A very brief summary of a point I've made in the past, I don't want to drag this argument out again but it's important to bring up in this context: PJO is inherently a story about keeping the status quo. It follows the very tried concept of giving the villain (Luke) a very good and valid motivation to rebel against an oppressive force, but undermining the good points he makes by adding something that nobody can argue is bad (Kronos controlling everything in the background), so the hero fights the immediate problem instead of the shared oppressors, instead of just giving the very good and valid motivation to the hero and have them fight for real change.

And in the books, at least there really wasn't much of a reason for Percy to join Luke, and Luke doesn't even really ask for it either.

But this Luke asked. This Luke very coherently expressed himself.

And this Percy has made his exact talking points in the past. And nothing, aside from Poseidon stepping up once in his fucking life, has really changed. If anything, I'd say the bad - Ares, Zeus, ATHENA - really outweigh the good.

Why is Kronos worse than Zeus? Because he ate his children? Zeus did worse things to his own children in mythology, to be quite frank. Show Percy is too clever - too knowledgeable about mythology and the past of their godly family and good at putting one and one together - and too bitter toward the gods to so fully dismiss Luke, in my opinion, especially considering we removed the "I will immediately try to murder you with a killer scorpion" and added Luke explicitly trying to recruit Percy.

And I'm not saying "Percy should have absolutely joined Luke's side", but I am saying that it felt far too much like a 180 on Percy's part to be defending the gods and pretend that Luke isn't making sense. I liked that Chiron called that out in the end, but... Percy's reply was even weaker because there was no foundation for why he would be so stubborn about this.

Even if you don't pull through with it, I think that an angle of doubt, an angle of temptation, should have been played up here.

[gauntletqueen]

wow is superstars really That Bad?? :(

In my opinion, kinda yeah :< (here I go writing a fucking essaybecause just listing complaints as bulletpoints isn't gonna get my thoughts across shafghghaf, this is all based on personal experience and opinion of course!)

(first off, the game uses Denuvo anti-cheat which eats a stupid amount of processing power, slowing down your PC, which is bad because there are better alternatives but SEGA keeps insisting on using this one) On a base level, the game is fine. The characters feel pretty good to control, the graphics are nice, I like that they brought back Fang and introduced Trip whom I love! About half of the soundtrack is very good too! But I just find so many problems that build on that base.

The level design, while fine overall, has a tendency to make you run or jump directly into obstacles a lot, partially because the camera is much to close to the player character. There is just no way to see these obstacles coming until it's already too late, or the enemies will shoot projectiles from off-screen, giving you no warning either. This also means it's harder to see jumps coming, making you fall down a lot. Not necessarily in bottomless pits, but it can be a bit annoying all the same to fall down to a lower route. The game also features several special powers you can activate, and the game wants you to use these at specific moments, but most of these aren't build into the levels fluidly at all. Instead they usually halt the momentum entirely just for a small gimmick that'll be over in a second and, in my experience, never adds anything, aside from the water power which lets you swim freely, which makes for a nice change of pace, but it's only applicable in water stages and using it anywhere else is totally useless. Most of the powers are like that, far too situational, to the point where I kept forgetting they existed unless the game reminded me. I will admit I am just forgetful so maybe this is a me problem.

The game's main selling point, the multiplayer, also makes these problems even worse. The camera seems to choose entirely at random which player it wants to follow, swapping at random as well. The moment a player leaves the screen, they despawn. Given that this game is about running fast, this means that you will despawn constantly. After despawning in this manner, rather than dying, you can press A to respawn next to the surviving player immediately, so it's not the worst, but still incredibly annoying when you can never get into the flow of the game. But it gets worse when one person falls into a bottomless pit, and the camera decides to follow that player. The other player is pushed offscreen, dissapears, and the first player falls to their death, thus killing both. These kinds of problems are a constant and make the multiplayer incredibly frustrating.

The bosses are a big gripe for me as well. In previous Sonic games, Classic especially, if you could hit the boss in their weak spot, you could hurt them. That sounds obvious at first, but a lot of games aren't like that, where you need to wait for a specific attack to leave the boss vulnerable or something. Most bosses in Sonic games don't have that, if you can duck and weave between the boss's attacks and get close enough to land hits quickly, you can really speedrun a boss and feel great about it! In Superstars, bosses can only be hit at certain points, which often isn't visually indicated, causing you to either bounce off of them, or take damage, despite the boss looking no different than when you can hit them. When you hit them, they flash white, indicating their invincibility frames, another common thing for bosses in games, but their invincibility actually lasts much longer than the flashing, which results in the player trying to attack them too early and bouncing off or taking damage again. This already drags bosses out a lot, but on top of that, a lot of bosses take a ton of hits compared to most Sonic games, which, again, breaks the game's momentum. The bosses end up feeling so tedious and long that I started dreading having to fight most of them.

But okay! You can just play the main game in singleplayer! The levels are usually fine and some bosses actually work well! It's not entirely unfun. However, there's more once you beat the main game. (spoilers ahead, though I refrain from talking about specific story elements)

After beating the main story, you unlock a second story. This story is just as long as the previous one, because it's all the same levels, but made harder. This includes the bosses, which were already a pain before, some of which become like torture now.

At this point, the game becomes an endurance challenge, just suffering through harder and harder variants of the same levels and bosses, which, at least in my opinion, stops being fun pretty quickly, since all the earlier issues compound. No new story is learned through this mode either (it's even difficult to understand whether it takes place before or after the main game until the ending which seems like an easy thing to do), so it really just feels tacked on to stretch the game length. and I've been told by a friend that the final boss is so stupidly difficult that it took them like 6 hours to beat. Considering how frustratingly unfun and difficult the game had gotten by the 8th stage, I can believe it! It was, in no small terms, one of the most soulcrushing experiences I've ever had with a video game. It just made me really sad and dejected.

After finally beating it, you unlock a shoddily integrated True Final Boss which comes out of nowhere, and that's a shame because I feel it could've been something neat, and I understand where they were going with it, story-wise, but just needed to be introduced better.

Overall the game has a great basis for a good Sonic game, but ends up getting more and more frustrating and demoralizing as it goes on, and ends up being one of the few games that's actually less fun in multiplayer! Impressive. I really can't say who's at fault here either, since there's so many choices here that I feel can't be due to executive meddling, and it's important to remember that these are the same devs as Balan Wonderworld, Yoshi's New Island and Hey! Pikmin. They don't have the best track record, yknow? Perhaps we'll get a huge patch someday that fixes all of my issues with the game, or maybe the fans will mod it, or maybe not! Whatever! There's better Sonic games to play! Play Mania or 3! Or fan games!!

okay thank you for reading <3

[lepertamar]

what exactly do you make of the kinda odd title of the šehhinah series, actually? like obviously it’s based on the term shekhinah but does that choice…..reverberate? in your view? (obviously i’m not asking/interested primarily in the Doylism author commentary lol, or i’d just ask the author directly, also there may be a reason why it’s never made explicit or obvious why the name was picked)

yeah obv I don't know what's intent vs legit interpretation vs me making insane person connections but anyway the resonances I've personally noticed might be easier to just kind of list in bullet point form bc it's not like I have any unified thesis of interpretation just various red string connections and overlaps:

jewish stuff at least regarding the shekhinah is about manifestation/presence of g-d as smth that Is G-d but also is sort of a paradox, like Solomon wondering in 1 Kings during the dedication of temple on the paradox of g-d being able to dwell inside the ark but also in the heavens and also like Wherever. afaict theurgy (of any soul) in sehhinah is, idk if 'based on this' or just 'happens to work on this same logic' but either way parallels the framework very closely, and the presumptiveness of applying a logic about g-d's self to other people's selves is probably the Main Feature of the series.

the fact the world is named 'šehhinah' and is the aggregate souls of everyone who has ever manifested, in particular angels, who are entwined with g-d in an embodied way, is a weird sorta backwards gesture at this too I think, but I'm not sure I have an 'answer' about 'how' the connection tracks, just that it's clearly There in some way. I've speculated before (unrelated to the naming) that there's a possibility that g-d has a (affectionate) contaminating, radioactive mutation causing, polluting effect (various minor inconclusive hints throughout the series).

regarding this applied specifically to sehhinah!g-d too, the fact g-d 'is nowhere' (has no body or location) but also 'can be Seen' and 'g-d's soul manifests physically as flame/burning/burnt-ness in that interface/reaction when this happens' parallels this even more than regular theurgy, kjorel even at one point has a thought almost the same as Solomon's;

but even more significantly, another aspect of the shekhinah is that it's conceived of as the aspect of g-d that went into exile with the exiled jews, though the ark and temple 'where' g-d was said to dwell are lost/destroyed, the shekhinah still dwells/is There whenever jews do [various actions]. there's a sort of chronological chiasmus reversal in sehhinah where g-d's exilic state (in prices, angel bodies, discarded dismembered body parts, stars, etc) is the preexisting standard condition and They are cataclysmically spatially condensed in a specific location in an abrupt event during Lives. (reversals or sometimes chiasmuses of chronology and meaning-of-terms between irl and sehhinah is a pretty constantly recurring theme in the series).

I always 'recognized' sehhinah!g-d 'as' mythical jewish g-d (hence the dash) but also with the caveat that not only are there specific differences, Their overall scope is narrower: there's more things sehhinah!g-d is definitely Not, or definitely Not Capable Of, or not in charge of/has not decided to ask for. a lot of the difference here seems to be a sort of, I can imagine sehhinah!g-d resulting from a canon-divergent-AU of antediluvian genesis where g-d was nonverbal and also certain foundational events shook out differently; but also the result, regardless of the causes, is that the more-limited sehhinah!g-d bears significant resemblance to the shekhinah 'aspect' of irl jewish interpretation.

for elaboration on the previous bulletpoint on a very deep and meaningwise/characterwise/selfhood/behavior level I'd point to this paper; but on a more superficial level the fact that in sehhinah g-d seems to 'speak' using an elaborate nonverbal telepathy that seem to use a sort of 'cantillation-marks' type of anchoring via features usually attributed to either the shekhinah specifically, or to angels -- wings in particular, feathers, eyes, wheels -- is. well actually I forgot where I was going with this actually but I won't bother backspacing it. I was going to say something about torah. shekhinah as a liminal phenomenon that dwells in the interface of action.

g-d is tesena's whore? subversioned bride. connects dots. sabbath bride. [schizo voice]. uh.

There was more but I forgot. um. (?) anyway

[nevertheless-moving]

Hi! I love your writing snippets - have you thought about posting them on ao3

Thank you!! Yes, I have thought about it, for sure! I'm nevertheless_turtle on ao3.

(I have... six fics, all of them star wars, half of them unfinished, last one updated in January 2022. Unless someone decides to put a million dollars in my kofi jar, this is for Fun, so unfortunately once the hyperfixation fades...it fades*.

:( star wars back and forth tumblr fics with star wars mutuals my beloved... murderbot discord i loved collaborative storytelling with ya'll and i miss you...i don't know how to make friends on the internet i just talk blorbos in situations and my blorbos drift over time... hello stormlight archive fandom)

! anyone want to talk about putting my type of blorbo, which when i check my notes is a pathetic wet person who is very good at killing but somewhat tries to avoid it, if you want to talk putting someone like that in a Situation, Hey! i may or may not be your person. this ask is really getting away from me i might be tired from walking a bunch of miles today...

*i do historically cycle back around to fandoms! i was lurking on tumblr for over a decade before i posted anything and there was definitely a cyclical nature to it! i consistently knit furiously for 3 months and then take a 4 year break! star wars fics wait for me!

aNYWAY writing fic directly into Tumblr adn/or Discord or if i don't have internet connection then a fuckin shitty notes app appears to be the Key for me?? like i tried fic writing before that in Word or Docs and it just didn't go?? idk! I think it's like the comic sans trick.

wait i still haven't answered the question.

you know, the thing is, when i write a snippet at the end of 5 paragraphs of background meta for an au, or a literal bullet point list, i'm not really sure how to post that to ao3. can you post chatfic and bullet points to ao3? it feels weird? idk. real question for the crowd in the midst of an extremely incoherent ask answer. let me know what you think!

me to myself: the question. scroll back up. what was the question. myself to me: that was answering the question! somewhat!

Right now a bunch of fic writing is churning around and out of brain, and circumstances have aligned for better or worse such that i have time and mental energy and ideas to write. we'll see how it goes. Once I get a bit more posted on tumblr i'll probably put things together and either make seperate works for different aus, or a masterwork of different tumblr aus that i don't think i'll develop further. i may turn some of those bulletpoint lists into cleaner fics for posting, making my earlier point moot.

some of my aus i already have a bunch written on my phone over meals or stopped in the middle of a side walk or on bus and train rides (why would an ELEVEN HOUR TRAIN RIDE not have an outlet to charge my laptop??). so. if i clean that stuff up ill probably post it to tumblr, then immediately notice the spelling mistakes, edit, then post to ao3.

a perfect system.

for my most recent snippet, well, that's actually self contained (not an au that requires 6 paragraphs of background to understand the snippet) and not a chat fic, so i WAS thinking i would just post it to ao3 soonish. i asked in the tags if anyone felt like betaing for ao3, i am wildly but unquestioningly assuming that the sorta individual who would want to beta a fic for me are reading the tags on my tumblr fic post. if anyone likes betaing stormlight or is interested in betaing a specific au/fic idea i've mentioned, hit me up.

TLDR above, tumblr is a for fun rough draft looser writing form place for me. ao3 feels like its asking for a bit more polish and structure. i have writing bees in my brain right now so i'm slightly more focused on that then editing, but if anyone feels like doing some form of beta, reach out and we can chat about it. regardless, i will clean up at least some of my recent snippets and post to ao3 eventually.

[jefferythejelly]

ok more kidfic: do u have any pregnancy hcs? Especially for Foolish bc I've only rarely seen him as a dad :3

u have no idea what u've just unleashed 90% of the brainrot bulletpoint list i have for this au is pregnancy headcanons asjdfadkjs

this is like 90% just copy pasted from that bulletpoint list and slightly edited and also i've had this document since may of last year and have been slowly adding on to it every once in a while since then so FAIR WARNING this post is Quite Long

they try decorating the nursery themselves but neither of them know what to get or how to make it cute so then foolish calls up tina who eventually just makes them call up an interior designer XD

can you imagine them telling their friends abt it. can u imagine how cute auntie tina would be. she would be taking it so serious like she doesnt want any of the responsibility but she wants to be like the cool aunt y'know

random tidbit but i can so imagine a conversation between tina and foosh where they start talkin about the phrase "buns in the oven." like i think tina would think that phrase is really cute. i think that phrase is really cute tbh. hes got buns in the oven :>

following in the vein of nervous-but-excited-newly-pregnant-couple them going to foolish's prenatal care appointments and taking his health like super seriously. also ultrasounds. i dont think either of them would Cry cry but theyd maybe get a little teary eyed lookin at their kids for the first time

on some more classic omegaverse bullshit: punz had always been a bit possessive/protective as a partner and that very much continues once theyre mates and foolish is pregnant. like really frequently is holding his hand or has an arm around him, tries to be really doting and get him whatever he asks. not as common when theyre in public but one of his fave things to do is hug foolish from behind with his hands on his stomach

i'd imagine they have a few arguments esp when foolish is hormonal and does/says shit that annoys punz and he cant understand why. they work it out tho, bc they love each other <3

in the time leading up to foolish's due date his nesting instincts go crazy. theres nests everywhere in the whole house. when hes not sitting chilling in a nest hes making a new one or readjusting one

(this one is real long bc it is a vaguely drafted out scene oops) foolish's water breaks on stream/at least when he's in vc on someone else's stream bc like. i deffo think it would. u think this man would take a break? like the streams would get shorter especially as his hormones and instincts get more fucky but he would still be trying to be on that grindTM. and (bcuz this is the part i actually vaguely researched) he's been having like the irregular not actually real contractions (theres a name im forgetting it rn) so hes gotten used to just like feeling them, noting when the time is, and brushing it off when it doesnt happen again. so he's in vc with someone, i'm thinking tina lets just say tina, and he's in the middle of laughing really hard at a joke, but abruptly cuts off his windexing when he feels the whole "rush of fluid" thing and is all like o_o and tina's all like "foolish? you okay?" when he stops laughing like that and foolish is like "uh. i think my water just broke?" which makes tina go all "wait What?! like- like the baby's coming?" "yeah" "foolish!" (chat is freaking out. monkaS monkaW fukW) "shouldnt you like, go to the hospital?" "yeah, uh, bye chat!" (chat has been yelling at him since he said his water broke to end stream) he yells for punz who ofc comes rushing into the room like "whats going on do you need something" and when foolish tells him his water just broke he starts freaking out a little and then foolish has a contraction right then (is that realistic timing tbh its been a while since i did that google search. what i do remember is that theres apparently apps for timing contractions like isnt that neat. anyways) but then theyre like "sorry tina bye!" and then tinas like "good luck!" (is that a normal thing to say idk. even if it isnt it could be funny hashtag awkward girl swag /affectionate) and then they like drive to the hospital and stuff

i just have this image of like the night they come back from the hospital both of them in their nest with the babies laying between them oughhhhhh

listen i just think this is really cute but punz sitting on the edge of the hospital bed while foolish is in labor so he can lean into him and calm down with his scent

actually thought abt it a bit more and mayb this is more general omegaverse hcs but like i think omegas would have an instinct to give birth in a nest which obv is harder to do while also having the support of modern medicine in a hospital but maybe it is more normalized to bring some blankets/pillows/clothes/what have you to make a lil temporary nest in the hospital bed

foolish is way more absentminded/no thoughts head empty than usual (like forgets what hes saying in the middle of a sentence bad) bc of fucked up hormones pregnancy brain

he tries having one or two blankets wrapped around him on stream to be sort of like a temporary nest when his instincts start going wacky. sometimes it works sometimes he accidentally gets too sleepy and begrudgingly admits that he should probably end stream bc he can barely think thru the omega nesting instinct brain fog

actually on that note i think there a couple of times where punz basically forces him to take a break from streaming. it never lasts very long

i have decided that the timing of their baby is such that foolish is like 7/8 months when christmas rolls around bc i was at family christmas brainrotting what it would be like for them to have like cute domestic family christmas while foolish is still pregnant. he falls asleep on the couch leaning against punz's shoulder after dinner its very cute

they maybe do a thing where like they have christmas with one family on eve and one on day and have a slightly chaotic nighttime flight? do the flight times work out for that idk. but its bc their families wanna see them bc theyre all excited for the baby awwww

wait just remembered the whole scene i had imagined for this where they land in mass super late at night/early morning and once they get back to punz's parents house p much immediately go to bed but foolish cant sleep bc the babies keep moving and kicking and punz scootches down so hes all curled up next to his tummy and purrs at them so that they calm down and foolish can sleep

at the end of his pregnancy foolish is just like capital d Done like get these babies out my back hurts im tired my belly is fuckin huge. ive got tits now

punz very happily gives him back massages tho <3 even if he sometimes gets overdramatically whiny about it first

foolish is one day horrified to realize none of his usual foods are appealing and he is instead craving some weird ass food combo

when foolish starts showing more and its gonna be harder to hide on stream they do a cute lil classic pregnancy announcement photo where punz like has his hands around him on his belly (maybe taken by karl? or someone? i just realized i have no idea where i hc them living like i guess its always been vaguely nc but idk if thats like. necessary? idk whatever) but im imagining the one they end up posting isnt even one of the ones they were posing for its like a candid one where theyre looking at each other over foolishs shoulder or like laughing or something idk its cute its not staged and weird lookin

oh also at some point punz convinces foolish to do a maternity photoshoot (well kind of. its just punz taking pics of him in his underwear bc he maybe has a Thing for heavily pregnant foolish) and at first foolish feels kinda embarrassed and silly and punz keeps complimenting him and making him flustered (i have a couple of lil doodles of this + a few other ones related to this au in a sketchbook somewhere but i dont feel like digging them out + taking pics rn ajfsbajskb)

final note would like everyone to know as i was typing this foolish lost his water bucket in mc and he phrased it like "my water just broke" and chat was all like "wow congratulations whos the father." like what are the chances. also why is he like this. also can u really blame me for making this au when he is like this

[vampstel]

Oh hiiii um I had a quick question.. Ik I asked one already but can you teach me how to write scripts for videos ;-; I talk way to much without scripts or guidelines and it annoys me SO MUCH I wanna make a video about the problems / issues of rh and there is so much to cover it’s wild and I already see myself sitting there for like 1 hour + rambling about random stuff ;w;

This is going to be a very long answer so buckle up:

All of what I’m about to say in this paragraph is optional. I use Google Docs for my scripts since it’s easy to navigate and format on mobile. Before writing anything, I always make sure to change the font to make things easier to read later on during recording. I also make sure to space out paragraphs and even sentences by their own to make the script more comprehensive. Spacing things out is also a great way to show emphasis on one-liners and avoid too much rambling.

(Just as an additional note: I use Times New Roman in 11pt for my format. You can use any font that you find more readable)

After I’m done with formatting, I always set an outline for the script first. This is extremely good if you struggle with rambling since this is where I brainstorm ideas and points to add in the video. You can be messy with this but be short and concise; Use bulletpoints. Write down what topics you want to discuss, what points you want to make, etc.

After brainstorming, I then organize these bulletpoints into categories that will then determine what my video chapters will be about. If you have several bulletpoints about… let’s say, the Royale High devs, you can put that into one category. Then if you have bulletpoints about the community, you can put that into a category as well. It’s a pretty simple process but can be a bit time consuming when you’re not used to it.

After you got your categories ready, organize them as well and determine which ones you should discuss first. For me, I often go by a chronological order. I either:

Rank them by least to worst (Such as my 30 minute Royale High rant)

Rank them by least important to most important (Such as my latest DWM episode about my interests)

Rank them by time of events (Such as my Kooleen video)

You also might want to get screenshots (+ links) and add them to your document as well so you don’t forget any proof you need to show.

Once you’ve got all that done, you’re ready to start writing. Always remember the outline of your script and use page breaks or horizontal lines to signify where a category ends. You can always write drafts first, organize paragraphs and remove unnecessary rambling later on if needed.

Also, make sure to title each category in your document. Whether it be by numbers or the topic name itself so you don’t get lost navigating through your script. If you’re listing down things in the script, always remember to use bulletpoints to make it easier to read.

( PS: Don’t forget to explain and add context to what you’re talking about. Not everyone will know what you’re referring to so it’s best to first start off the script with a basic rundown of what happened or what you’re discussing. )

Just as an example, here’s a quick sneakpeek into one of the rants I have ready to go for the new channel:

Hope this helps 🫶 You’ll get used to scripting the more you do it. Just don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You can always delete them after proofreading. Good luck!!

[bereft-of-frogs]

ao3 wrapped [writers edition] how about 10,11,29, or 30?

10. What work was the quickest to write?

It was either closure or the lack thereof, which I technically wrote 2 drafts of and posted over a weekend but I did have that idea kicking around since 2021, so from concept to post it was probably either with teeth we've come this far or I feel like I'm borrowing all my time, because I came up with the ideas for whumptober and finished them. All the others existed as idea bulletpoints or little jotted down paragraphs before Sept 1 but those two were completely contained.

11. What work took you the longest to write?

While the dark ocean duology did take me all summer after I'd initially thought it would take a couple weeks tops, the winner has to be the first chapter of omens and all kinds of signs which was at 60% done for 2 years. I honestly don't know that I would have finished it if I hadn't decided to post it serially, so yeah little plug for writing serially. It was really just to get back on the horse after having an off year last year.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I really like this bit where Greez is like 'wtf' in 'I feel like I'm borrowing all my time':

This all feels like an overwhelming, insurmountable task. Greez wishes he hadn’t been chosen for it. He knows how important it is, wants desperately to find the kid before he can be hurt, but it really feels beyond him. He misses the Mantis, misses the rest of the crew, even the little droid and the stowaway bogling. He misses feeling like he understands his place in the universe. His mind struggles to keep up with how long it’s been. A couple of hours? Days? Five years but wound in reverse? He knows it shouldn’t feel like five years, but it kind of does. It feels like the warmth and safety of home is something he lost long ago, or perhaps never had. Now that Cal’s missing from his proper place, it all feels like none of it ever actually happened. It both exists in his memory and doesn’t, like a distant dream. Greez shivers. All of this is very, very wrong. Cere is staring at the fire again, an inscrutable look on her face. Greez decides to fill the silence with: “I guess we have to hope they didn’t take him to Nur.” Cere whirls on him abruptly. “Of course we have to hope they didn’t take him to Nur.” “I just mean that��” Greez swallows. It’s started raining harder, raising more steam and smoke from the fires. The smoke makes his eyes sting. Cere waits for an explanation, brow furrowed. “Don’t we have to avoid…I just mean…you shouldn’t meet yourself, right? That’s one of the rules of this sort of thing, isn’t it? At least, it was in the cheesy dramas my grandmother was always watching…” “Oh.” Cere turns back to the fire. “I hadn’t considered that.”

Apologies for the length of it but I like it both for the 1) 'it shouldn't feel like five years but it does' bit, just leaning into time travel being WEIRD. Also I think I slipped up a couple times responding to comments and referred to 'timelines' but as best I can come up with for fitting time travel into SW worldbuilding....there are no alternate timelines really. Because time isn't really...real. So Greez is right, once things have started changing, they change in the future as well so it all both does and doesn't exist at the same time...idk if I ever went further on the time travel concept it would be along these lines, rather than having distinct alternate timelines.

2) the very human moment of filling an awkward silence with the exact wrong thing. XD It's such a little thing but I ended up LOVING the "Greez decided to fill the silence with" dialogue tag. XD

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

I'm going to answer this one with a screenshot of my ideas list I found while cleaning it up this weekend:

I don't want to sound like too much of a curmudgeon (though the ship has probably said on that one)*, but I can't stress enough how surprising it was that one of my biggest 'nope, would never write' became one of my favorite fics of the year. Now I feel like I can't said I'd never write something. Growth?

(*and just to stress, like...for me writing/reading, don't take this personally. I use the exclude tags but please don't take this as like a judgement, I just have never really liked them and got a bit grumpy about just how popular they were when I came back to reading Star Wars fic a couple years ago)

[ ao3 wrapped ]

[alliluyevas]

extremely nerdy statistics-based Mormonposting incoming:

So, I was examining some data about Brigham Young's wives and children, as you do, and I came to a very interesting realization about two of his wives, Lucy Decker and Emily Partridge, having quite strikingly parallel childbearing history. I'm going to just list their kids in bulletpoint and then analyze the two sets of data together because I think that will make the most visual sense.

Both women had seven children with Brigham Young. (Lucy also had two children with her first husband, but I'm only discussing kids fathered by Young in this analysis).

Lucy married Brigham Young as his first plural wife in June 1842, when she was twenty years old and he was forty-one. Their children were:

Heber (born in June 1845)

Fanny (January 1849)

Ernest (April 1851)

Shamira (March 1853)

Arta (April 1855)

Feramorz (September 1858)

Clarissa (July 1860)

Emily married BY in September 1844. She was either his fifth, sixth, or seventh plural wife (he married three different women in that month and we don't know the exact date of Emily's marriage). She was also twenty and he was forty-three. Their children were:

Edward (born October 1845)

Emily (March 1849)

Caroline (February 1851)

Don Carlos (May 1855)

Miriam (October 1857)

Josephine (February 1860)

Lura (April 1862)

As you can see, five pairs of these two women's children were born very close to each other (Heber + Edward four months apart, Fanny + Emily about six weeks apart, Caroline + Ernest also about six weeks apart, Arta + Don Carlos three weeks apart, and Josephine + Clarissa five months apart). Three of these pairs are extremely close in age, and in all five cases Lucy and Emily's pregnancies would have overlapped. I thought this was very interesting and also seems pretty statistically unlikely, but they seem to have been on what I will call a synced-up childbirth schedule for lack of a better term.

In general, both women are having children approximately every two years, give or take a few months, but there are a couple notable exceptions, including the one instance in which their childbirth schedules get really off track.

Lucy's Heber and Emily's Edward were the first two Young children born to plural wives, and the only ones born before the majority of the church left Nauvoo in early spring 1846. For the next two and a half years, Emily, Lucy, and their husband were mostly either on the road or living out of tents, wagons, and makeshift shacks. For most of 1847, Brigham was actually absent because he was part of the "vanguard pioneer company" that first reached the Salt Lake Valley and most of his wives were still back in Nebraska. I'm guessing this is why there is a larger than average gap (about three and a half years) between both boys and their younger sisters. Once they reach Utah, another sibling joins each woman's family in short order.

This is where the timelines diverge the most significantly. Lucy continues to give birth about every two years until her late thirties. Emily's third and fourth children, on the other hand, are more than four years apart. In November 1852, Emily's three children became seriously ill and seven-year-old Eddie sadly died. Afterwards, Emily, who seems to have felt that she was parenting and then grieving alone without any emotional support from her husband, wrote to Brigham asking for a divorce. It's unclear how he responded, but they stayed married. I'm guessing it took time to reconcile, and this is why Emily's childbirth pattern "skips" a period where Lucy continued to have pretty evenly spaced children, before getting back on the same general track when they both have sons less than a month apart in 1855.

Emily has her remaining children about one every 2.5 years and, like Lucy, has her last child at age 38. Having tracked this, I think it's very interesting, because you can see both how their childbearing trajectory conformed both to their own general pattern and to the patterns of the other, and also some pretty glaring anomalies that are probably connected to different dynamics in Emily and Lucy's respective marriages. Also, in terms of the social dynamics of polygamous marriage--it must have be weird to get pregnant and this other woman is immediately like "oh me too" and this happens five times. (Many of the other plural wives had a lot fewer children than either Emily or Lucy, and more seemingly "random" child spacing, so you don't really get any other instances where the same two women are repeatedly giving birth around the same time to this extent).

[indomiinus]

💗🍨❤🥰💖 [ leon my beloved ]

💗 - How long does it take your muse to fall in love?

Leon is quick to get crushes, though they tend to be fleeting. He isn't super aware of his own feelings about people, and he tends to talk himself out of his feelings because of various reasons. Too busy, too shy, too awkward, not the right time to entertain thoughts about a relationship, no clue how relationships even work, etc, etc.

But love?

He's pretty slow to fall in love. It's like Friendship+ for him honestly, where he has to be friends with the person and know them like that before he falls in love, and if the relationship ever becomes dating first and friendship second, he gets a little lost and put off. Friendship is always going to be a first for him.

🍨 - What are expectations your muse has had about love that either was false or impossible to live up to?

Despite how inexperienced he is with relationships, he kind of has always had a pretty grounded idea of romance and love thanks to his parents examples. He thinks about it in the way that his mom and dad were: very loving and communicative and accepting no matter what.

What he never realized was just how hard it is to communicate when he's spent his life as a people pleaser, and that every fight can't be avoided simply by talking it out. Especially with his work schedule to take into account and his inability to say no.

So, while it isn't really a false or impossible expectation to live up to, it certainly is a hard standard to meet at times.

❤ - What's something you feel like your muse needs to work on for a relationship to happen or for a relationship to be healthy? Do you think that's possible? Or is it something that'll likely never happen?

It's possible for him to have a healthy relationship, but it definitely is a Process™.

He's a workaholic and has been since he became Champion, and has a really difficult time saying "no" and expressing his wants and needs. So even if he's uncomfortable, chances are good that he'll just smile and go along with it anyway because he doesn't want to rock the boat by being disagreeable. He can be a flake on top of that, and will usually end up putting work before his relationships unless he's told directly not to (and no matter how much Leon wants to take the day off, if Rose tells him to come in, he will).

In order for a relationship to work, his partner has to be extremely forward with him and make him make room for them. They also need to remind him that he isn't just the Champion, but he's Leon, and he has needs of his own.

🥰 - Is your muse good at telling when others have feelings for them?

Absolutely not. He isn't even good at telling himself when he has feelings for someone. If someone wants him to know they have feelings for him, they need to tell him to his face and very bluntly.

💖 - What traits does your muse find physically attractive?

I have to sit and think about this for a second and make a bulletpoint list.

Taller than him (with or without heels)

Big hands

Sharp teeth

Infectious laughs

Gives great hugs

Strong

A really nice ass

[fire-fira]

I posted 3,721 times in 2022

That's 695 more posts than 2021!

39 posts created (1%)

3,682 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@linzerj

@brightlotusmoon

@radioactive-earthshine

@ladoescurodalua

@hookahpop

I tagged 3,721 of my posts in 2022

#lol - 663 posts

#beautiful - 308 posts

#vid rec - 234 posts

#tbl - 228 posts

#cats - 207 posts

#i love cats - 202 posts

#my life - 182 posts

#for anyone who needs this - 181 posts

#queer - 145 posts

#lgbtq - 141 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#but in lakota i have zero difficulty differentiating between 'this' 'that' and 'that over there' or 'these' 'those' or 'those over there'

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Just out of curiosity I decided to check the possible ship names that are floating around for La’gaan/Coral/Rodunn, and it’s resulted in:

Lacoro

Lacordunn

Polyamorsea

Trident

Ngl, I lean toward either Lacoro or Polyamorsea-- both because they each put all three on equal standing (Lacoro has the first two letters of each of their names and Polyamorsea doesn’t foreground any of the three of them ahead of the other two) and because they’re easily searchable and unlikely to be buried (unlike Trident).

Idk, I guess I’m just throwing this out there to see if we can reach any sort of fandom consensus over what their ship should be called.

62 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

#4

Thought:

Now that La’gaan’s Aquaman that brings up the question of if he’d change his outfit at all.

HOWEVER

I RAISE YOU

La’gaan not changing anything about his outfit other than adding a clip-on Aquaman emblem to the waistline of his shorts because he gives no shits.

68 notes - Posted April 7, 2022

#3

Everyone who talked shit about La’gaan since 2016 owes me $50.

I freaking called it on the fact that

He’s queer.

He’s somewhere under the bi umbrella.

He’s great with kids.

He’s got a lot of love to give.

He’s a good character with a lot of complexity and depth to him.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnddd by the way--

His name is La’gaan. L A ‘ G A A N.

(If you tag his name as anything else it’s not going to show up where it should.)

Oh, and uh, final note?

MY FISHY SON IS MF AQUAMAN BITCHES!!!!

84 notes - Posted April 7, 2022

#2

“La’gaan’s improving.”

“La’gaan’s getting better.”

“Maybe now La’gaan will apologize.”

“La’gaan’s getting a redemption arc.”

LA’GAAN NEVER HAD ANYTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR. HE NEVER HAD ANYTHING HE NEEDED TO BE REDEEMED FROM. FFS.

170 notes - Posted April 17, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Okay, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but kept getting derailed. Thankfully I’m fully caught up on Rise (though it took me forever) and I was able to mostly sort out the in-universe order for the episodes.

Because fun fact-- something I noticed way back in season 1-- is that the episodes weren’t released in in-universe order. This was true on cable, this has held true on netflix and hbo-max paramount+ (I goofed, oops), and while [turtlepedia] does have them listed in tv broadcast order and has the episode production codes listed, neither of those entirely match up with the various in-episode context clues for what order things happen in.

And believe me, some of those context clues, those in-episode “signposts” are subtle enough to be blink-and-you’ll-miss-it details (like the fact that the background video for Donnie and Mikey in Hypno! Part Deux! implies that it’s happening at the same time as Repomantis). Needless to say it’s taken a lot of work and a lot of paying attention. And thankfully season 2 wasn’t as all over the place (mainly due to more of the episodes not having any distinct signposts beyond things that made it obvious they took place after season 1).

(I’ve done my best to get it as nailed down as possible. Episodes that occur at the same time are listed on the same bulletpoint in recommended watching order.)

So good news if you’re like me and you’d like to watch the episodes in in-universe order, because this is that list!

Without further ado, I give you:

The In-Universe Rise Episode Timeline

Season 1:

Mystic Mayhem

Origami Tsunami

Donnie’s Gifts

Smart Lair

War And Pizza

Newsworthy

Repomantis & Hypno! Part Deux!

Down With The Sickness (Due to not really having any more than one possible signpost, this one could take place either before or after the previous point or The Purple Jacket. I don’t think it’s any later than that, but it’s debatable.)

The Purple Jacket

Minotaur Maze

The Longest Fight

The Fast And The Furriest

Stuck On You

Hot Soup: The Game

Mascot Melee

The Gumbus

Shell In A Cell

Pizza Pit

Bug Busters

Mrs. Cuddles (Like Down With The Sickness this one has very few signposts, only two that I spotted and one of those is debatable, but it does take place sometime after The Fast And The Furriest.)

Al Be Back

The Evil League of Mutants

See the full post

457 notes - Posted August 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[talisidekick]

I hath been summoned! Henlo!

You'll need to be on desktop to use the link posted above, be aware of that. But I've been summoned to info-dive and give a rant, so without further ado:

Before the November 1st 2024 update, there was already three problematic "guidelines" in the Content Classification system. These are:

Section II: Sexual Themes

Non-educational discussions of sexual topics or experiences. 

Non graphic conversations related to sexual activities, preferences, fetishes, etc.

Directly encouraging or eliciting conversations in chat that would qualify as containing Sexual Themes as listed above.

Asking users in chat to describe their first sexual encounter

As these are left vague, it leaves them open to interpretation as to what a "non-educational" discussion consists of, and as well as what "sexual topics or experiences" are. This is problematic because a to a conservative interpreter or a company with conservative values, this can mean anything LGBTQ+ is a "sexual topic". And simply saying "I like women" as a woman, or "I like men" as a man, or identifying as trans and stating either can be interpreted as a "non graphic [conversation] [relating] to ... preferences, fetishes ...". So ... yeah, that's not great. And while I agree that asking users in chat to describe their first sexual experience should be tagged, that example is not the limitation of the point listed above. Simply asking chat "are there any gays in chat?" can be seen as "Directly encouraging or eliciting conversations in chat that would qualify as containing Sexual Themes as listed above." by a bigoted conservative interpretation. It's not a stretch, conservative bigots have done this in the past, still do today, and will in the future because classifying anyone queer as inherently sexual lets them define themselves as inherently 'pure', and thus beyond accusation of wrong-doing by mistreating queer people verbally and physically.

And while this is already bad and can be misused to harm queer people, lets talk about the NEW section as of November 1st, 2024:

Section VII: Politics and Sensitive Social Issues

First up, right out of the gate:

"Twitch is a place for people to express themselves and discuss the world around them. We require streams to be labeled when the focus of the stream includes discussions and debates about political or sensitive social issues such as discussions about elections, civic integrity, war or military conflict, and civil rights. Examples of content that require a classification label include but are not limited to:"

Please note the LAST line. "... not limited to:". This means every point made next in these guidelines is not the limitation, so when we see the bulletpoints:

Discussing ideological or socio-political views on topics like gender, race, sexuality, or religion

Discussing legislation related to a sensitive social issue such as reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, or immigration

Immediately, if you are queer, this system can be used to put you behind a curtain that the average user that DOES NOT HAVE AN ACCOUNT will not see. That means you'll only see traffic from accounts that signed up, and have turned off their filtering, as a streamer if you're a person of colour, transgender, queer, an immigrant, potentially of a religious minority ...

This is bad. Real bad. PoC, Queer, Immigrant, Religious minority folk, beware, talking about your life may get you smacked with a warning, or a permanent content lable.

Twitch is gonna start kinda censoring queer people and it would be really helpful if you could read the next few sentences and then also go to a link and click the word vote.

They're implementing a new rule where if you discuss "sensitive social issues" at all you have to flag your streams as such, these issues include things like war and political unrest but also any lgbtq topics (once again our existence is political).

Essentially a streamer will have to choose between never ever mentioning anything queer (or even just discussing their own life if they're queer themselves) or flagging every stream with "sensitive social issues" and scaring away 90% of viewers.

If you have a twitch account you can go here and log in and click vote. They do listen. Please vote.

[howlingmoonrise]

Dear Yuletide Writer (2024)

Hello and welcome!

I hope you have a lot of fun participating this year, and the below is meant to help you with that! As usual, the only things that are hard lines are the squicks listed on the Yuletide form, but I'd prefer if you respected my other dislikes/squicks as well, even if our likes don't match and you chose not to use any of these prompts! Feel free to mix and match what you like ;)

I'm a very wordy person overall, so I mostly tried to place things as bulletpoints. I'd rather you have plenty to choose from and a good grasp on my likes/dislikes if you don't have an idea in mind already, than you wanting ideas and not finding any you like!

As a warning, the fandom-specific sections are exactly as in the form! They're here mostly for treats and archiving, so there is no need to read them again if you already went through the assignment info!

I hope you have a great time!

--

GENERAL LIKES

Truly egregious amounts of pining! Truly egregious amounts of increasingly obvious denial!

Non-established relationships - what I love most is the progression of the dynamics between two characters! The "pre-relationship or gen" tag works great for me!

Fake dating - it's one of my favourite tropes if you want to give it a whirl. Same for time loop fics!

As more or less stated on the second item, either gen or romance is fine! What really does it for me is the development of the dynamics between the characters, and how they find unprecedented levels of kinship and trust and intimacy and comfort and understanding with each other, not necessarily romantic acts. In fact, I don't particularly like huge romantic acts either, and would love a more subtle sort of thing if you're going down the romance road! (also if you wanna do like REALLY messy crunchy love-hate-leaning-on-hate relationships i also love those, but there should be some genuine fondness somewhere beneath all the rest);

If the characters are already petty by nature feel more than free tokeep that in, I love petty bitches;

Sticking to the tone of the original characterizations/canon/humour is definitely a plus! I love when ways of speaking and running gags and references to the original material show up!

Casual intimacy! CASUAL INTIMACY! I'm a sucker for this and it's super fun, especially if placed amidst bickering or an otherwise negative relationship - it throws a whole different depth to their interactions and really shows how comfortable the characters are with each other. DOUBLY so if they have some enmity going on at that point since that makes it downright hilarious and/or really interesting imo. A pair that communicates without needing to use words is also so intimate and great (regardless if they have a friendly relationship at the moment)! I love this kind of thing;

Trope subversion all the way!!!

Usually smooth characters not really knowing how to react at the possibility of feelings or the presence of the person they may or may not have feelings for, I'm so weak for that;

Enemies/rivals-to-reluctant-allies-(to-maybe-friends?)-to-lovers are *chef's kiss*;

I really need to emphasize how much I don't need a full romantic resolution or even a full story/ending resolution - like I said, what I like the most is how the dynamics between the characters evolve, both in gen and in romance! Ambiguous endings are fine both in terms of relationships and plot.

GENERAL YIKES

I really cannot overstate how much I don't want to see pregnancy or motherhood related stuff, mpreg and babies/toddlers included. Kidfics, babyfics, next gen fics, anything related to pregnancy or kids at all. This is my biggest squick alongside scat. Fandoms which have canon moments of this can reference it but I'd prefer if you didn't go super into it (and in the context of MJTY I'd rather it go unmentioned in general);

Unhappy endings (ambiguous or hopeful endings are more than okay!);

On the completely opposite direction, the stereotypical 2.5 kids white picket fence sort of happy ending;

For these fandoms, I'd pass on playing around with gender when it comes to characters that aren't canonly prone to it (RNZ and LQS), and even for those nothing permanent;

Most hard AUs (like merpeople AU or high fantasy AUs) are a pass from me. Further specified under each fandom;

No going into the hows and whys of a character's sexuality or gender or huge discussions of it - if they're bi/ace/etc, then they're bi/ace/etc and that's that, going into the backstory of it and other people's reactions (including their own) is a no from me. I would prefer if there were no depictions of homophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia, etc, even from the mouths of villain/background antagonistic characters;

A huge focus on a character's mental health/neurodivergence/physical disability; do feel free to include them (in particular if they exist in canon) but not center the entire fic on those issues;

Huge dramatic declarations of love (unless it's for a con or a bit);

Huge time skips. Except for some specific situations it makes me feel as if I've missed way too much development, which is my favourite part when it comes to relationships and character development;

Angst is.... *waggles hand*. I don't dislike angst, but it really depends on the kind. I'll give it a hard pass on stuff to do with major character death (unless they get better), sexual abuse, self-harm, gender/sexuality angst, and suchlike. I'd also rather not read one long torture/depression fic. Other than that, feel free to go ahead (but please don't give it an unambiguously bad ending!);

Huge non-canon past trauma;

Cheating and infidelity are HUGE no-nos, and even if you're not writing the characters as a ship please don't place them in other relationships;

Sickfics, dysphoria, deep dives into mental illness and other disorders;

Script-based or roleplay fic is not really my preferred format, I really enjoy prose instead of nearly 100% dialogue!

Tons of gore, permanent disabilitating injury (it's fine if it's like… one limb of your chosing or one eye getting fucked up, but more than that I'll pass), etc. I don't mind it, but I'd rather it not be the main focus of the fic. Note that I mean this for the main characters in particular, if you want to get really into background characters exploding into little bits I'm not stopping you;

Fully unrequited love between the main characters;

Flashback/nightmare/dream sequences.

--

IF YOU'RE GOING FOR SMUT

Kinks

Moderate masochism (pain is nice - anything from spanking to knife-play is A-OK - but maiming or an actual beating for sexual situations not so much. Dry penetration with no prep is no good (F/M or M/M), but the character being underprepped/understretched or too little lube used if M/M is fine!);

Bondage (especially predicament bondage or unconvencional bindings or paralysis, AKA got stuck in a compromising position somewhere or some way normally no one would get stuck);

Breathplay, knifeplay (would rather not see either of these two in KoD though), nails digging/dragging on/breaking skin, moderate bloodplay is also cool;

Edging/desperation play. If bottoming/subbing, RNZ or LQS in particular being super flustered, red-faced, maybe a bit teary-eyed is *chef's kiss*;

Ladies topping and calling the shots!

Lowkey cannibalism imagery and hunger, biting;

Cunnilingus (if M/F) or rimming (M/M only)

Squicks

I already put an entire bucket list on the form so. yeah. those. I'll repeat/elaborate on some here just in case, exceptions listed on the AO3 form under each specific fandom;

Scat, vomit, bed-wetting, farting, wound-fucking, castration (this last one more as applied to the main characters);

Dehumanization, slavery, pet-play, A/B/O;

Mommy/daddy/baby kinks, age play, anything involving diapers, pregnancy kink, mpreg or pregnancy of any sort;

Praise kink (this one isn't a hard line but I'd pass on this);

Forced feminization (exception: LQS's canon semi-forced crossdressing);

Stuff very involved with body hair;

Outright vore and/or shrinking;

Super big breasts (unless we're talking about Gong Shangjue, in which case... feel free to go ham on the man-boobs), super small breasts, microdicks;

Humiliation or degradation to do with any physical characteristics of a character;

Non-con betwen these characters or with others. Dub-con such as fuck-or-die or sex pollen is fine;

Would rather have no anal sex if a female character is the one being penetrated.

--

KALEIDOSCOPE OF DEATH (Ruan Nanzhu/Lin Qiushi)

Things I'd love to see:

Them being absolutely unhinged for each other (think LQS handing RNZ the axe barely after meeting them, RNZ trading the broken egg for his own, being willing to go hungry for the other's sake without letting them know, etc)

RNZ's canon gender fuckery and crossdressing, and LQS absolutely not being able to deal with it/being weak to Zhu Meng or Ruan Baijie; RNZ getting kind of jealous over himself; RNZ taking LQS's weakness to Zhu Meng/Ruan Baijie to get closer to him/flirt with him or fake-date LQS in front of others

The two of them being tender with each other while very much not being in a relationship (yet). Making everyone wrinkle their noses at them and assume they're together, especially if RNZ is the smuggest bitch on the planet and LQS remains permanently oblivious to how they come across; permanent heart-eyes

RNZ being possessive and clingy over LQS, bonus points if at some point LQS returns the possessiveness (bonus BONUS points if he doesn't even realize that that's what he's doing)

An exploration of the canon bed-sharing they keep doing inside the doors, how RNZ always loves eating LQS's noodles, etc; they trust each other more than anyone else your honour 🥺

RNZ being a bit of a masochist but ESPECIALLY if it comes to being marked by LQS (biting, bruises from getting forcibly dragged away from a door god, or he got cut by something sharp and LQS is cleaning it up/bandaging him and he's feeling Some Way about that pain, etc)

Any situation where they have to stay close together for a long amount of time (preferably if they have to huddle for warmth or space and get dazed by being so close to one another, or end up accidentally getting each other off due to the forced closeness)

Other considerations:

Frankencanon of the show/novel is great! Just please keep the names spelled as per novel canon, and don't use the ending of the show

DNWs:

Scat, emetophilia, bed-wetting, farting, wound-fucking, castration (last one okay for background characters in the doors)

Anything to do with pregnancy or kids whatsoever (unless it's for horror purposes on a background character)

Kid fic (characters as kids OR age play OR next gen/the characters having kids), or mommy/daddy/baby kink

Big time skips

Unhappy endings (open/ambiguous endings are fine)

Slavery or sexual slavery

Non-canon gender/sex/race changes to the characters (RNZ's canon gender fuckery is fine and encouraged)

Established relationship (with the exception of smut fics, but unestablished here is also preferred)

Hard AUs (AUs which change entirely the setting/characters, such as mermaid/pirate AUs, space AUs, flower shop AUs, etc). Obviously within the doors this isn't as strict since it's a part of the canon setting, but otherwise I like their canon situationship and I feel like a lot of it would be lost in a big AU.

Huge dramatic declarations of love (unless it's for a con or a bit)

Going into the hows and whys and backstory of a character's sexuality/gender/trauma/mental illness

Non-canon past or current rape/sexual abuse/trauma (other than door-induced trauma)

Cheating or infidelity of any sort

Other ships with these characters other than LQS/RNZ even if the fic is gen

Flashback/nightmare/dream sequences

A/B/O

Permanent character deaths for the main characters

Permanently physically damaging torture

--

ALIEN PREQUELS (David 8/Elizabeth Shaw)

Things I'd love to see:

Their post-Prometheus travel and how their relationship might have developed during that time and the difficulties that come with it;

David and Shaw learning to moderately trust/appreciate one another despite... well, everything. Growth!

Missing scene during Prometheus where they get to talk/debate some more and there's some mutual appreciation;

David trying to revive Shaw... and succeeding, to some extent. Either actually succeeding with no twist and having to deal with the fact he actually wants her to live, or bringing her back via experiments that might change her, or building a Shaw simulacrum as a fellow android or ship AI and having to deal with it not really being her anymore;

Shaw deciding to return home or to another colony because David is malfunctioning too much and they got close enough she can't make herself watch him "die" (and then have to deal with the void of space on her own);

A fucked up little relationship where they kind of loathe each other but also couldn't stand to think having to continue without the other;

Returning home for... reasons (David or the ship malfunctioning, Shaw getting sick, finding the Engineers turns out to be a dead end, etc) and Shaw/David having to deal with the terrible fact that they unfortunately want to stick together (whether they like each other or not is irrelevant, but David got used to her treating him like a person and no one else does, and to Shaw he's the only one who experienced everything she did that no one else can hope to believe or understand) and trying to figure out how to do so when Weyland Industries will surely try to get in the way, or how they try to go on to live a "normal" life after all that.

DNWs:

The fic set during/after Alien: Covenant, at least without changes to it to ensure Shaw's survival

Scat, watersports, emetophilia, farting, wound-fucking, castration

Anything to do with pregnancy or kids (characters as younger kids OR age play OR next gen/the characters having kids included, if you must include that part of canon please don't go super into it), or mommy/daddy/baby kink

Big time skips in the context of the fic (the fic starting after a 10 year cryosleep timeskip post-Prometheus is fine, but please no "10 years later" epilogues to the fic itself)

Unhappy endings (open/ambiguous endings are absolutely okay)

Non-canon gender/sex/race changes to the characters

Established relationship

Hard AUs (AUs which change entirely the setting/characters, such as mermaid/pirate AUs, space AUs, flower shop AUs, etc). Stuff like a different first meeting or the Prometheus mission going wildly different is okay

Huge dramatic declarations of love

Going deeply into the hows and whys and backstory of a character's sexuality/gender/trauma/mental illness

Non-canon past or current rape/sexual abuse/trauma

Cheating or infidelity of any sort, or side-ships with these characters even if you chose to write them as gen (references to past Shaw/Holloway are okay, but I'd rather not read about their relationship in depth)

Flashback/nightmare/dream sequences

A/B/O

David calling all the shots during sex or either of them coercing the other into it

Breathplay for those two, or David going for bloodplay/knifeplay without Shaw being at least a little into it; anal sex if Shaw is on the receiving end

Permanent character death for David or Shaw

Permanently physically damaging torture for Shaw (scars are fine, loss of more than one limb/eye are not, chronic pain shouldn't be entirely physically disabling but it's okay if it's a background ever-present thing)

--

MY JOURNEY TO YOU (Gong Shangjue/Shangguan Qian)

Things I'd love to see:

The spy vs spy game they're always playing with each other and their relationship is NUTS and I adore it and would love to see more interactions like that

Torture scene or post-torture scene interactions and exploration in regards to their mixed feelings at it happening and what came after (the near-touch, the recovery, the visit, etc)

SGQ and/or GSJ being conflicted about being reluctantly fond of the other despite all of his suspicions/her mission

Post-canon with them finding each other and having a situationship about it (they keep finding each other and spending the night together only for GSJ to keep waking up alone, or help each other when in predicaments/wounded and then run away before the other can catch them, or SGQ building a new identity solely so that she can openly flirt with him in public and him letting it happen, etc)

A slice of life scene of their sham marriage where they're actually fond/tender of the other and spend some time quietly together with mostly minimal scheming

SGQ topping, and this being a central point to their relationship in regards to them being honest with each other/to themselves regarding their own feelings towards the other (SGQ planning to leave; GSJ knowing she's a spy and doing it anyway; post-canon; etc)

GSJ gets wounded and SGQ is struck by how much she actually cares whether he lives or dies, maybe sneaks in for reluctant wound-tending while thinking he's unconscious (or, the other way around, post-torture scene wound-caring on GSJ's part)

Canon deviation FTW! For example, SGQ tried approaching him earlier, a scene went down differently, etc

DNWs:

Scat, watersports, emetophilia, farting, wound-fucking, castration (last one okay for background characters)

Anything to do with pregnancy or kids whatsoever (characters as younger kids OR age play OR next gen/the characters having kids included, if you must include that part of canon say she lost the child or lied or don't mention it at all (preferred)), or mommy/daddy/baby kink

Big time skips (in the context of these two, a year or two is fine, but please no "10 years later" continuations or epilogues)

Unhappy endings (open/ambiguous endings are fine AND kinda encouraged for this ship)

Non-canon gender/sex/race changes to the characters

Established ACTUAL relationship (being officially married or not is irrelevant to this)

Hard AUs (AUs which change entirely the setting/characters, such as mermaid/pirate AUs, space AUs, flower shop AUs, etc). I can deal with, idk, reincarnation and meeting again on another life as an epilogue at most. I like their messy canon relationship and I feel like a lot of it would be lost in a big AU.

Huge dramatic declarations of love (unless it's for a con put on for outsiders, or an inside joke)

Going deeply into the hows and whys and backstory of a character's sexuality/gender/trauma/mental illness

Non-canon past or current rape/sexual abuse/trauma

Cheating or infidelity of any sort, or side-ships with these characters even if you chose to write them as gen

Flashback/nightmare/dream sequences

A/B/O

Permanent character death for Gong Shangjue, Shangguan Qian, or Gong Yuanzhi

Permanently physically damaging torture for Gong Shangjue or Shangguan Qian (scars are fine, limb/eye loss are not, chronic pain shouldn't be entirely physically disabling but it's okay if it's a background ever-present thing)

--

I hope you have a fun time!

[starsoforionwrites]

So, I'm finally back to writing Nature of Purity after.... fuck me, 7 months without an update. And I thought I'd take a moment to talk a little bit about why I stopped updating it.

The Setup

When I started posting NoP it was, I thought, mostly done. I'd originally intended it to be about 20k words. I had a sketch for the the overall plan, and I'd written what at the time felt like about 75% of it. In fact, I'd been sitting on those chapters for a few months already, working on them here and there as the whim took me.

One of the reasons I started posting it on AO3 was to try and push myself to complete it. I'd never finished a fic before. NoP was actually the first thing I'd written in years.

So I jumped in and started posting, knowing that if I stuck to a weekly update schedule I had a twelve week buffer to finish it off. That's ages! So much time! And I only had a few more chapters to write really!

Things went fine for a while, although I was still really struggling to stick to a schedule. I mostly managed though. I know some of you sit down and write in huge swathes, working steadily for hours and churning out 20k words at a time. That ain't me. I flit in and out of my fics, working for 20 minutes here, adding 150 words there. I'll get tired of the section I'm writing and move down a few pages, adding a section title with a couple of bulletpoints of things that will happen.

If I work at it, I can hit 1500 words in an hour-ish. I'm quite lucky in that once I start writing, I don't get stuck. Staring at an empty page means sometimes I never start, but if I put words to paper then I can keep going, flow of consciousness, pretty easily.

But usually, 2 hours is about my absolute maximum for a session, and I pretty much max out at 2 sessions a week.

Anyway, around June of '21, THINGS started to happen in my life. Here's a fun list.

I got a promotion at work

My mortgage came up for renewal

I ended up buying a new house instead

I had to buy a new car

I had a trivial argument with some close friends that got blown out of all proportion

This literally all took place in a period of about two months, which is right about the time I stopped writing. I kept posting chapters, but I couldn't bring myself to write any more. I ran out of chapters to post in August '22 (although I had been checked out mentally for a long time beforehand), and then I fucked off into the darkness never to be seen again.

So yes this is obviously a mental health post

I've always really struggled with depression. It's been a constant in my life ever since I can remember. I was sent home from school several times when I was around 10-12 because I was inconsolable over nothing. Or had been laughing hysterically for hours. Or I'd been staring at a wall for hours.

Eventually they sent me to counselling, which I did not handle well either.

Things got really bad for me around 16-20, and then slowly I started to level out a bit. Eventually I mostly got a handle on it as I learned to live with myself.

That said, I still find it really, really easy to fall into depression. Days when I wake up and just think "no" and go back to bed are still not uncommon.

This is all a precursor to say that, that bullet-point list above? Yeah, I didn't handle it too well.

The promotion at work came with huge amounts of new stress. I was now a client-facing, team-leading, systems-architecting badass, and my workload roughly quadrupled.

Buying a new house is also, it turns out, ridiculously stressful. This is the second time I've been through the process, although the first time round I had a partner to do it with. This time, it was just me, and on top of that I was having to deal with the transfer of assets due to my prior mortgage being in both our names, along with a wildly fluctuating market value of property. I'm aware this is not a particularly relatable thing to bitch about (oh no, poor me, my hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of material assets), but at several points in the process it genuinely looked like it would all fall through and I would be left homeless in one way or another.

The new car was a fucking ridiculous situation. I previously had a company car, as a perk because they didn't want to give me a raise. This meant I could sell my car and was very cool! Then covid. The company decided to cancel the car policy, and I no longer had one at all. Then the chip shortage! Remember that? The price of second hand cars skyrocketed. Again, very stressful.

And then the nail in the cake, my friends situation. I'm not gonna go into it, but it was ridiculous. Like, a genuinely stupid argument over absolutely nothing important. These are people I've known IRL for fifteen years. But the upshot was, I didn't feel welcome around them anymore, so I just stopped showing up on discord.

I haven't spoken to any of them since.

Sooooo, all this shit combined together to leave me a barely functioning person. I just about held things together enough to get moved in. I unpacked. And then I more or less fell apart.

Don't call it a comeback

Eventually I crawled my way back out of my pit.

This is, genuinely, in no small part thanks to the wonderful comments I received while still posting NoP. I have saved many of these comments. The fact that people were engaging with the stuff I was writing brought me so much happiness, I actually don't know how to describe it.

Reading the comments from you guys, who are out there reading my work, literally makes me cry almost every time. I get weepy over it. I have to go and have a little sit down. I can't stop smiling. It uplifts me, even if the comment is something small and throw-away for you. And Christ, some of you write such beautiful things. My God. Are you for real? I want to hug you so fucking badly.

But I was left in a bit of a pickle. I couldn't face going back to NoP. I'd sit in front of it, and I just couldn't find the voice anymore. The exact state of mind I'd been in when I was writing Hermione and Draco bitching away at each other in the library was eluding me. I'd sit staring at an empty chapter, which just had headers in it like "Talking to Luna" and "Nott a problem" and I was like who the fuck wrote this what does it mean??

But I wanted to write again.

And I had so many WIPs. Like no lie I have about thirty, that range from one-sentence descriptions of a vibe, to heres-a-complete-first-chapter-and-nothing-else-lol-figure-it-out.

And one of those WIP's was actually fun, and breezy, and easy to write. Epistolaries are so fucking easy my guy. Like they're so easy. You don't have to worry about any of that other shit! You don't need a plot, or to set the scene! You don't need to force yourself to describe what people are doing as they talk. They aren't doing anything! They're just writing letters! So easy!

For reference, I find dialogue absolutely trivial to write. It's everything else that fucks me up. So heck yeah epistolaries.

And it was a LOT of fun. Especially those first few easy-breezy chapters. Especially when you can leverage the fact that everyone reading knows EXACTLY what's happening in the background, so you can just drop allusions to it here and there in dialogue.

So I began posting The Penpal Program. And, because it was mostly canon-compliant, it got heavier and darker towards the end, but still stayed pretty light and fluffy. I had a few hiccups here and there where I (as I am wont to do) did no writing at all for three weeks and then had to have a massive catch-up session in the 11th hour, BUT I completed it.

And again, the comments throughout the whole process kept me going. It's actually crazy how much it makes my day to read a comment.

And, throughout all of this, I've been conscious of not updating NoP. I've had a couple of comments here and there asking for updates, and they've made me feel guilty. I've looked back at one specific comment made on the last chapter I wrote, letting me know they had faith in my storytelling. That they couldn't wait to see what happened.

And I feel like I let them down personally. Like I've just been the most useless, selfish, worthless asshole for seven fucking months. And I know that's crazy and depression and etc. etc. (I do know that), but still. I want to finish the fic. For them. And for the rest of you, who have commented, or not. Who hit the kudos or the like button or the bookmark or who didn't do any of these things and just kept the tab open and refresh it once every month or so. And also, for me. So it's done. Because it's not the longest fic ever written, or the fluffiest, or the darkest or the most realistic. But it's mine, and I'm proud of it. I've loved writing it. I love reading it back, because I'm a slut for reading my own stories. I love the way I feel every time I see someone else like it. I love sharing it with you guys.

And so, I'm writing it again. And I'm going to finish it. As I write this I have two chapters left to go and then it will be complete. I'm going to complete it before I start posting it again. I don't want to throw a single chapter up and then lose control again and disappear.

I said there would be four chapters to go, but there will actually be five. Three of them are written.

I also have a couple of "scenes from the cutting room floor", which I think I'll just chuck on here for you pack of reprobates to read. Or maybe I'll put them on AO3 as part of a series, loosely affiliated.

Either way, The Nature of Purity will be complete, and should be updating on AO3 within the next few weeks.

Sorry for wasting almost 10k words (fuck me) on this explanation of why I've not been writing, but I figured fuck it, you might wanna know.

Anyway as a little treat for reading so far have a little snippet form the next chapter of NoP.

"Merlin Hermione," George said, interrupting her. "I don't give a shit about your exams! Tell me about Draco dearest. I mean, when he stormed in here at Christmas and read Harry the riot act... Honestly, he got me all hot and bothered!"

"George!"

"Oh come on babe, I'm only human! Besides, I was only looking at him."

"Well keep your bloody eyes to yourself you git!" she snarled, as George and Ginny both giggled and exchanged significant looks.

"Relax love, he's not really my type you know? He was just all... I dunno. Commanding!"

"Oooh yeah," Ginny cut in. "I know what you mean. He's a bit... angular for me really, but he looked very.... stern didn't he Georgie?"

Hermione resumed drinking her tea, tuning out the background of Weasleys singing the praises of her betrothed. For Merlin's sake, Draco was right. They had no bloody decorum.

[willczek-art]

Art Requests Open! [CLOSED]

Hello!!

So last year I did Valentines Day Practice Week, which is just a fancy name for that time I took ship-centered art requests and made full drawings for~

And it went pretty well! Good!Delsin VS Bad!Delsin is still like my favourite drawing I’ve ever made! So obviously I wanna do it again!

So feel welcome to send me ships/multiple characters requests (+ scenario (platonic/romantic/whatever relation/situation you have in mind), any additional prompts (locations/props/references) are also welcome! :D

I would prefer canon characters (especially from fandoms I’m in), but of course OCs are welcome as well! C:

TL;DR

Art Requests Open: 2 or more characters + prompt (scenario: romantic/platonic/etc, location, poses, props, any kind of bonus information) Any fandom OCs are welcome as well No NSFW/nudity/etc

REQUESTS ARE CLOSED thank you so much for all of the lovely suggestions! <3