#and ive kinda settled on this way of drawing him for that bc it *is* fun

[justladders]

a friend asked "why do you draw springtrap like that?" and I flatly responded "so I can grab his tiny waist"

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #springtrap #my art #yn insert #id consider this a yn thing bc i know some of yall would like it #anyways if anyones actually curious its bc i used to always try drawing things really exact #like when drawing characters based on 3d models i would worry about every detail and just be really clinical about it #but one day i sat back and realized i didnt like it and adapting stuff to be more like my favorite animated media would be more fun #so i started stylizing things in a way that fit with how i liked to draw expressions/poses #and ive kinda settled on this way of drawing him for that bc it *is* fun #and i can grab his tiny waist #laddersarts

[lace-coffin]

Hi im that person that asked for the stufed toy thing and oh my god i loved it so much i loved everything and onece your requests are open sorry im asking while they are shut i had this sudden idea for a request sorry😭😭 ive also kinda got 2 ideas soooo sorry😅

But like a reader that is obsessed with drawing and loved to draw cute and sweet drawings to give to asa to do with their hyper fixation or every time they are with him they start ranting to him about it or them i dont know but he would be so educated on their hyper fixation unless its bugs then he would already know everything haha

Or idea 2

The reader likes to lick things randomly for no particular reason they just like to do it or they love physical touch and cant get enough of it always cuddling with asa at night as close as they can and just imagine them cuddling and they just lick him then he just gets confused that would be so funny to imagine😭😭

Or the reader for the same type of thing as the plushie one but instead music to calm them down and they would have like a tiny crying fit for their headphones bc i have had alot of meltdowns over not having my headphones its crazy i love your writing so much hope u have a good day❤️

Asa Emory x Autistic!Gn!Reader with a new hyperfixation

Requests are open!

Hi I hope you like this! I totally crammed my last two fixations into this < 3

Call Asa old but he wasn’t exactly up to date on video games. He defiantly was now at least, not that he had much choice. You were always flipping between interests, intensely talking and interacting with one topic for weeks or months at a time and then switching to another that catches your interest. It’s been Sonic The Hedgehog for atleast 3 weeks now.

He didn’t exactly picture his desk to be filled with pictures of anthropomorphic hedgehogs but here he is, he kinda signed up for this when he stuffed you into the trunk, knowingly or not. As long as you’re happy then he’s happy, even if he thinks you’re spending a little too much time on that GameCube you begged him to bring to hotel..

A few weeks pass and it’s now the Saw franchise. Victims being “tested” in disgusting gory traps by a man that fancies himself to be god? This is more up to his speed..pun unintended.

A series of excited knocks sound from the door of your masters workroom. Stretching his taught shoulders and neck he takes inventory of his aching muscles, he supposes he can take a break to spend some time with his puppy. Slumping back in the chair and swinging it to face to door Asa calls you in. “Enter”

Keeping your eyes pinned to the floor until given further permission you enter the room, shuffling over to drop to your knees in front of your owner, waiting for the order. The currently unmasked man drinks in your appearance, oversized jumper falling to sit on your neatly pressed together thighs and the collar he places on you every morning slightly twisted, the tag not where it should be.

“Eyes up pet” he says firmly, snapping his fingers to emphasise the point. Jumping a little at the suddenness you snap your eyes up to meet a fond look on master’s face, you relax a little, letting out a sigh.

Shuffling to prop his chin up with his fist in interest, Asa continues.

“What can I do for you pet?”

Visibly perking up and practically vibrating on the wooden floor you push the paper into Asa’s face, defiantly too close, there’s no way he can actually see it like that. Realising this you settle to put it in his lap and stare back at him hopefully.

“I drew more pictures! I wanted you to see..” you reply a little shy, suddenly realising how loud and excitable you had been, insecurity creeping in. Asa recognises you shrinking in on yourself and tuts. “Can I see, cricket?” He adds softly, prompting you to show him what you’ve been working on, he never wants you to feel ashamed about you’re passions even if you’ve been taught in the past to ‘tone it down’

Asa wants all of you, he accepted that from the moment he hoisted you into the box, to the moments when he firmly settles the collar around your throat every morning.

Soft smile settling onto your face you hand over the paper, not ignoring the way your knuckles brush against your masters during the exchange.

You wait with baited breath as he looks the paper over, you know he would never say anything demeaning about your art but you can’t help feel a little anxiety when letting someone in on something special to you. Todays drawing is a rough sketch of your for a saw trap, it’s grisly and frankly disgusting, you don’t envy anyone that would end up strapped down and desperate on the other end of it. Obviously you have no need for a contraption like that, but it’s only an (admittedly) sick fantasy.

After flicking through the diagrams and reading the notes as best he can (it’s not your fault he can’t read you’re handwriting well 🙄) a strange look crosses his face..it’s almost like you can see the cogs working in his brain. this could either be fantastic or a disaster, Asa isn’t one to do things half assed, it’s always all or nothing.

“Can I use this?” The silence is suddenly broken, his sclera eyes raising to meet your own, not any less eerie than when hidden behind his mask.

A strange feeling begins to pool in your stomach, should you feel exited? Proud that he wants to use your plans? Or disgusted? Sick to your stomach that the plans you never envisioned actually coming to fruition will be used to torture some poor individual? Unsure how to feel or respond you stare back at him, lips slightly parted as if trying to muster something up.

“These are wonderful cricket, they may need a little tinkering to make them functional but regardless this design is…fascinating.” A sickly sweet smile sits on your masters lips as he hands the paper back to you, ruffling your hair and placing a chaste kiss to the crown of your head.

Stunned and with a pit in your stomach you nod dumbly, leaning into the affection and practically purring. The idea that you’ve just essentially sentenced someone to their painful and unethical demise is soul crushing…but also a little thrilling? Has your owner really rubbed off on you this much? It’s not like you don’t know what he does day in and day out but it’s never been this..personal.

Asa slaps his knees (like the old man he is) and rolls back over to the desk, pushing away his current projects and random hardware to make room for your (his) new trap.

“Can you bring me the paper please, doll?. I would like to get started as soon as possible.”

Shaking off the ever building dread you pull yourself up, a little unsteady due to the burning in your thighs from sitting in one position so long. Placing the paper on his desk you stare back at him, waiting for further instruction. you’re not sure when he ended up ingraining that response into your mind but at this point it’s not worth questioning, it’s not hard to see that the pair of you are living in your own little world outside of normal society by now.

“You’re welcome to either sit by me as I work and give input considering it’s you’re design or you may sit on your bed and wait for me to finish”

You glance over at the cushy pet bed across the room from Asa’s desk…a lay down does sound ideal right now, maybe a nap will help clear your head? Or swallow the guilt.

“I’m gonna lay down sir, maybe nap a little, promise I won’t snore and distract you” you tease, giggling and feeling a little better in yourself.

Asa huffs out a chuckle at your joke. “I’ll be sure you don’t little bug.” He says, smiling gently at you. You turn to leave before being stopped in your tracks.

“One more thing, pet”

Cool gloved hands slide around your neck making you shiver at the contact, the small misplaced silver tag is slid back into its original place, proudly stating your name and owner on the front like a brand.

“There we go, much better”

Blushing a little you thank your owner and wonder off to the dog bed, curling up and lazily watching him work from afar.

#slashers #slasher x reader #slasher headcanons #writing #asa emory #asa emory x reader #my writing #the collection #slasher fucker #slasher hcs #slasher horror #horror fan #horror

[cutepervert]

ty to @tigertofu for the tag <3 dont have many friends on here yet but i'll tag the people that i can think of off the top of my head, @rreskk @chloe12801 @heisentwerk

Were you named after anyone?

not as far as I can tell. my mom likes to say im named after julius caesar but i think shes lying

Do you have kids?

no and have noooo interest it is simply not for me i think

Use sarcasm a lot?

yes, less so on the internet but irl i do a LOT

First thing you notice 'bout people?

it's hard to pick out one thing because i often interpret the totality of a person (like their vibe ig?) before i focus on any details. this is not to say that i dont focus on details i absolutely do but that's often long after i've determined the person has an interesting vibe based off their outfit/the way they carry themselves/etc

Eye color?

hazel. i think? like a light brown with greenish bits in the central heterochromia zone

Scary movies or happy ending?

hard to say tbh! I like a neat ending (not necessarily a happy one) and both scary movies and 'happy ending' movies tend to have neat endings (or at least neat enough to set-up for a sequel LOL). I like both, it all kinda depends on my mood

Special talent?

oh i struggle so hard with this question... like, i have several things i am moderately good at (writing, drawing, et cetera) but ive never been especially skilled or talented at a single thing like other people are. jack of all trades master of none that's the kinda bitch i am. also sidenote but i think talent isn't real. if it is real it describes nothing but someones desire to practice a given thing which then makes them good at it. nobodys born good at shit. prodigies are fake and they are all lying to u!!!!

Your hobbies?

lol. hobbies... what are those! no frfr i play video games write fanfic and once in a while when i have the energy to set up a workspace i like doing very hands-on sculptural art like papier mache and clay sculpture.

Any pets?

no i wish :( want a cat so bad but our aint shit landlord (who tbf is usually really fine and normal and chill so i guess there had to be ONE THING at least that sucked abt him) said no

Playing any sport?

LOL. no. fuck sports..... except i like watching basketball because those men are freaks of nature in the best way and i like to imagine in ancient times we'd have them do feats of strength like climbing up a very steep mountain face. i just love those lengthy boys. kevin durant especially is such an extruded guy every time he falls during a game (which as it turns out is way more often than i thought) im like okay this time his legs have to have snapped in half. and they dont! probably because he drinks his milk or w/e. takes him vitamines. wild shit. anyway yeah i dont do sports

How tall..?

5'7 last time i checked.... imo the perfect height. not too short not too tall but also not too medium. on the tall side of medium sized. love being this height.

Favourite subject in school?

hard to say bc it depended so much on the teacher but i loved most of my english classes and a good amount of my history classes. history is sooo girlypop to me like we're truly just sharing 100+ year old gossip like it's not nosy as fuuuuuck

Dream job:

i do not dream of labor but i think the ideal job for me is one that doesn't feel like it's sucking 100% of my soul out my mouth (will settle for like 30 to 50% soul sucking) and hopefully serves to help other people through creative expression (because i dont know how to do anything else LMAO). i basically have that job rn but it's still Hard and Annoying so i suppose nothing will ever b perfect

#about me #personal

[carnivorouslove]

For the F/Os you've been reblogging recently! 💖 - Does your f/o have any artistic talents? 🍌 - What is your f/o’s favourite snack? 🧡 - How long have you known your f/o? How close are you both? 💛 - Does your f/o have any special activities they do with you?

idk anything about them so also feel free to thrown in some fun facts too if you want ^^

this is probably gonna be rlly long but omg thank you for sending this 💕

💖 - they all do in different ways which is very fun!!!! charlie draws and makes music, so hes by far the most artistic out of the bunch bc hes pretty much always drawing. mac also makes music!!! but his is guitar while charlies is piano. and dennis writes!!!! he writes uhhh weird ass stories tbh akdjskdjjdjd but i love him for it

🍌 - this is SO funny because charlies favorite snacks, canonly, are paint and chalk. hes so fucking strange i love him so much. macs favorite is probably like, protein bars or something, and i dont think dennis has one...? unless alcohol counts aksjskdjjd

🧡- ive known them for years!!! i started watching their show (its always sunny in philadelphia) in like 2017, but i havent known i was ficto and considered them fos until like mid to late 2022!!!! i consider myself very close with all three of them because ive known them for so long and i really really adore them!!!

💛- yes!!! me and charlie like to draw together for sure. mac tries to get me to work out but i cant due to disability so he settles for having me talk with him while He works out (kinda weird but kinda cute!!!) and dennis and i love to play games of any kind together. hes not competitive with me like he usually is so its a rare moment of authenticity for him, and a rare moment of vulnerability whenever i win.

#THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!!!! #asks #mimicsapprentice #ck #mm #dr #iasip #fos #im so bad at consistently tagging things 😭

[aroace-ko-archived]

I posted 257 times in 2022

That's 257 more posts than 2021!

22 posts created (9%)

235 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@turbo-noir

@crazeymc

@shanedoesdoodles

@fruitycircus

@whattabop1

I tagged 257 of my posts in 2022

#reblogged - 231 posts

#ok ko fanart - 209 posts

#professor venomous - 109 posts

#lord boxman - 91 posts

#voxman - 78 posts

#kaio kincaid - 41 posts

#enid mettle - 37 posts

#ok ko fink - 35 posts

#ok ko raymond - 33 posts

#radicles x - 29 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#rly wish i watched this show sooner. i couldve had at least 24 hrs of enjoyment before i learn its getting wiped off the face of the planet

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

i have an idea for an ok ko animatic that i rly want to do but idk if itd be worth it because

a) all my animatics so far have been memes and the longest one ive done was 15 secs long. the idea i have would probably be at least a full minute and def more serious so itd take a while

b) i think the fandoms dying and i dont want to spends weeks on something two people will see

so anyway if anyones interested in a kinda angsty animatic about that one scene where boxman leaves bc shadowy venomous took over pls interact with this post in some way. id probably settle for like 10 notes (maybe less). just so i know people would watch it. and if anyone wants a dm when its done lmk

57 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

#4

i got bored and made a voxmore pin :D

60 notes - Posted August 28, 2022

#3

i wasnt going to draw this but then i remembered cringe culture is dead and i can draw whatever i want so its on my water bottle now

62 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

#2

no thoughts just boxman finding out that raymond has a crush on rad and ray expecting him to freak out bc rads a hero (obviously worried bc he told shannon he would discontinue her if he found out in rad likes robots) not knowing that boxman was secretly dating venomous when he was still laserblast. like father like son

102 notes - Posted August 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i havent been able to draw as much as i want to (ap classes have been turning my brain to mush) but ive been drawing on post-its so heres a doodle dump

See the full post

110 notes - Posted September 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[muggycuphead]

weird flex but ok i guess pt.4

3

War… Hold up, do we really need a warning for this one? Dunno, but however, watch out for slightly disturbing and kinda…disgusting imagery, trypophobic patterns, as well as ‘necrotic’ designs I made while having funky fever bc o h m y g o d do I get a little crazier every new quarantine day (and at this point it’s coming to be an usual thing for me, big sad). However, most are made no other than for the sole sake of satire, so y’know, no need to get your underwear in a twist

Friday Night Funkin’ BoyFriend’s Hood – AU fanconcept sketches [IV]

EDIT 25/10/2023: Updated the traditional drawing with a rescanned, more clean version

1.-BoyFriend’s in-game sprite concept (Hood clothing)

Beep bop beep beep bop, bap skidoo bep

I like this boy, his voice, his look, I stan must protecc

Reenacted the sprite without tracing it, edited it a little, and amazingly, managed not to make it look like trash

I’m proud of myself for that

Also, remember what I said in the first dump about the bite’s placing? Well, now it’s fixed here

Kinda sad about his shoes getting ruined though, F

2.-GirlFriend’s in-game sprite concept (Hood clothing)

You can guess I had fun making her by how (to put it somehow) ‘layer-loaded’ her clothing is

Anyhow, just so you know, her necklace is made out of gold

Not a really shiny kind of gold (cuz y’know, some of the undead –specially freakysteins- don’t like bright colors that resemble fire when they’re lacking on self-control), but it’s shiny enough to keep them settle

Though I should have though it better about w h e r e to place that golden accessory

I don’t think she would really care about it though (unlessitturnsintoastillstarethennosiridlikeyoutostoptyvm)

3.-Mendel’s in-game sprite concept

[Cutscene-styled scripts for storytell transition / character development sake –andbcwhynot-]

Scenario: BF’s hospital room, with GF, Mendel and his nurse in it. BF’s now recovered from his injury, and is about to be discharged.

Dr. Mendel

Well, it’s been almost a week now, and your condition has improved a lot.

Even if I’m aware this kind of injuries doesn’t take long to be assimilated, I’m quite amazed, to say the most.

GirlFriend

I think I know why he must have recovered so fast…

…Or should I say, we?

BF chuckles and nods to GF

Dr. Mendel

However ways it had to be, it’s aside the table now.

Point here is, your health is stable again, and therefore, you’re up to get discharged from here

BoyFriend

Excited. Beep? Boop!

(*Really? Cool!)

GirlFriend

Le happy face. Yay, finally~

Dr. Mendel

Woah there, you two

GirlFriend // BoyFriend

…?

Dr. Mendel

I understand you’re all for leaving this place. (unfinished)

oKAY Bois NOW we talking about stuff

FNF Static Memories guys where u at

Yes the smiling face is his losing icon

In fact, aside from Mendel, most of the undead show a glad expression when you beat them

I can’t blame them considering the circumstances he’s doing so –BF’s condition seeming to be better (Mendel) / slowly-but-surely fixing the power outage problem on the hood’s places he goes to-

And looky, I even made him a custom design for the ‘GO!’ title card

How cute (?)

…Actually, he’s also kinda cute

Don’t approve that much the fact he does the smoek though

(yeahesamaryjanestuntoowhaddyagonnadoaboutit-)

4.-Grawlbert’s in-game sprite concept

(…)

Similar case with Mendel, but this time it’s more zombie-related

…and funny enough, that custom card would appear every time BF faces an undead oops-

Even the mic is customized now lmao

No sprites extras this time tho, sad cri :^(

5.-Grave-nan in-game sprite concept

(…)

Everything cool till you take a peek at the icons, specially the one where he’s losing…

Get weird with it, my inner demon said

It’ll be fun, it said

I regret it

…a little

But I still kinda regret it

thoughconsideringbfiscanonicallygaythensobeitiguess-

6.-BF’s icon, but the sickness is getting to him a little harder

Okay now I’m worried

Like, you doing ok there pal? Ya need a drink or anything?

7.-BF’s modified mic

About to get serious, I see?

Again, this was made before I changed my mind about the crack in the mic and stuff, but it doesn’t take away the original intent for this

How does this work exactly? I’ll explain it short:

There’s no light in the hood, so BF has to keep his mic on somehow when he brings it with him outside his old house (or apartment, not really sure about it yet)

Boyfriend is basically the battery of it, since his own energy gets transferred to the mic and then turned into pure electricity (not exactly sure how that’s possible in concrete sense but eh-)

However, here’s what’s funny: Turns out the outage is actually due to a spell that made the electric zones malfunction, and the way to get them work fine again is through intense and well-timed frequencies…aka rapping

Yup, they ‘reload’ the same way his modified mic does, but only if they’re directly connected to it, and if he’s in a crucial zone near the power core, specifically where the bosses I’ve just thought out previously are at

…I basically resumed half the storyline here as a whole (or at least that’s mostly what it is supposed to be), nice move there Phids you magnificient rascal

Though, I needed to correct myself on the mechanics over there, cuz let’s be real, how do u get electroshocked when power is basically 0%??? It doesn’t make any sense

8.-Medicine

Can kill the zombie bacteria if you’re bitten by one…but can’t do anything when you’re in the Graveyard

thenwhatsthepointinusingitatall--

9.-Mendel’s microphone

ANOTHER CUSTOM MIC WOOOOOOOOO

Don’t judge me, I like making those, it’s really fun

5

#friday night funkin' #fnfau #bfsh #alt universe #alternative timeline #alternate universe #au #at #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[garlic-gun]

its hot and i didnt want to try to work from my computer so sketchbook for the day. i wanted to have vegito's outfit be a little more of a mix and i am thinking. questionably coherent design thoughts below

vegito always looked a little weird to me (not in a bad way, but when i had seen him as a kid my brain registered a bit of a visual mismatch that made him feel really interesting) and im trying to figure out a way to mix that with how i draw his components, along with trying to make his outfit be a little less like.. for lack of a better word segmented? like how he Just has vegeta's gloves and shoes with Just goku's gi with reversed colors. it works to show that theres a connection between them and while keeping him distinguishable, but i think there could be more and i'm messing around a bit to try it.

i in part designed him in contrast to how i draw gogeta but Thats in part bc i have some ideas about designing fusions in general. my concept is that, based on the fusion dance being a deliberate convergence with an emphasis on being in sync, while a potara fusion i feel is inherently a bit more chaotic, as two people could literally be at each other's throats and refuse to cooperate but still be able to fuse with the earrings, but the dance Requires them to trust each other and understand each other. i tried to have my gogeta design be like overall visually in-between goku and vegeta in a sense, whereas vegito's look is more like... some features may intensely be one or the other or they might not be immediately distinguishable. my idea is that gogeta's features are a little more balancee between goku and vegeta, but vegito has a more kind of unknowable mixture that may not even always make sense. i dont think any of This made sense lets talk about the clothes

im keeping the broad strokes of his outfit the same (trying to generally keep a similar silhouette and color balance), but alter the nuances. i draw goku's gi pretty baggy meanwhile vegeta apparently lives exclusively in tighter clothes, as even when hes not wearing the saiyan armor, he seems to gravitate toward something close and when he and goku fuse i'm pretty sure its the latter (im still in the android saga, i havent actually met him yet), and ive given vegito's clothes a closer fit as well as making the shirt a bit more of a tank top like vegeta's, and taking the fact that when i draw goku, his undershirt's sleeves are rolled up, for vegito i decided to not (this sentence fell apart). i wanted to combine the wristbands and the gloves and ive been thinking about giving him two-toned gloves for a while but i couldnt settle exactly on what else to do about how they'd look. i decided to roll them up (originally i actually made the gloves shorter but they started looking a little wonky) and have the palm of the glove be blue while the top of the hand would be white, and have that be reversed at the cuff of the glove. im not sure what exactly to do with the boots yet, as i'd like to make it look less like Just vegeta's shoes but he's still taking a lot clothing-wise from goku and if i were to, for example, make the boots white but with the patterns from goku, it would be kind of oversaturated by him. to balance out goku more, i've given vegito more of the shape language i would use for vegeta (theyre both pretty angular, contrast with goku and gogeta whom i have more soft and flowy) as well as proportions more like vegeta (vegito is taller, from goku, but his long legs and slimmer frame are from vegeta) but i feel like it isnt as apparent in part bc it ends up averaging out to basically how he looks in canon but a little different, as it feels like a little bit too much of the goku got kinda lost in translation. my intention was to have vegito overall just kind of be his own guy with the influences not Always being readily apparent from goku and vegeta, with him leaning more vegeta when they Are, but i might have done that a little too well. whatever send post

#my art #do i dare enter the tags.. #maybe i will another day #but i do want to do it for organization.. but i also dont want to tag him. #i dont know how to solve this dilemma bc i think the 'only first 5 tags are indexed' thing is outdated #but i have no way to like. verify that bit of information #again keep in mind i am Still in the android saga i do not know this man

[minamotoz]

my hbo degrassi wishlist bc i have a Lot of thoughts about it

• i want them to bring back fictional bands like gourmet scum or dead hand, maybe even release a song like they did with paisley jacket

• better neurodiverse rep, especially autism. no offense to my boy connor, i love him and hes one of my favorites, but he definitely feels like a stereotype more than anything and in his later seasons they treat him like a child and characters have to explain concepts like suicide and racism to him, despite him being 16-18 . i hope if they introduce an autistic character, they dont talk down to them like they did with connor.

• idk how possible this will be, but i want them to bring back major characters acting as background characters like they do in degrassi classic. also, but likely even less possible, it would be cool if the child actors could give feedback on the scripts to make things more realistic like they did with DJH/DH. idk i just think everything about the way degrassi classic incorporated the actors into almost every aspect of production is so cool

• i want characters with more relatable interests. i want characters who are into music without being musicians, or characters into drawing or anime or something. idk maybe this is just bc im a terminally online loser with no real life, but its kinda embarrassing when the character whos interests are the most relatable to me is the bigoted, almost a school shooter incel.

• look, im a NC apologist until i die, but i hope the way they go about writing social issues into the show is less... idk.. on the nose than NC was??? like yeah cool lets talk about feminism and how the internet dogpiles women for having harmless opinions, but the entire thing with maya and the feminist club vs the gamers was so over the top and all the characters, especially goldi, felt like caricatures. later parts of NC got back on the right track with more nuanced topics in a less cheesy way (saads story arc in NC4 my beloved <3) but it was a bit too little too late.

• i want the show to incorporate the cultures of the characters into their stories more. like, im somali and hazel is literally the only explicit somali rep ive ever seen that isnt a stereotype, and her culture and background is only mentioned ONCE (she isnt even played by a somali actor which Sucks but also isnt andrea lewis' fault) and degrassi is a pretty diverse show, so it really sucks that very few characters of color have had their cultures explored.

• hottest take of all time: I DO NOT WANT THE OLD CHARACTERS TO HAVE MAJOR ROLES. the amount of people who say that this new show should be a reunion for the earliest TNG cast do not understand the purpose of degrassi as a franchise at all and its baffling to me. it would be cool to have maybe a couple of characters show up but i dont want the show to have storylines about adult characters bc 1. thats not what degrassi is about and 2. it was boring 80% of the time TNG did it. i dont want a spemma divorce storyline, i dont want any character that isnt snake and maybe marco to come back (and i single out marco bc hes one of the only characters that would make sense for them to come back as a teacher). let the show be about a new generation of kids like degrassi has always been about.

• now this may come off as contradictory to what i just said, but i want references to past seasons and characters. i want someone to be like 'isnt it so weird that this school has so many famous alumni like craig manning or manny santos haha' or 'this school is cursed didnt you hear like 5 students have died here' or 'my cousin went here like 10 years ago did you know degrassi had uniforms at one point' idk it would be funny. hell it doesnt have to be dialogue it could be easter eggs in the background like the jt yorke memorial garden or how NC had posters for romeo and jules and captain who in the background

• a trans character who explores multiple different identities before settling on one. no offence to adam and yael, theyre both great, but adam came into the show with his identity already figured out and it took yael one episode of exploring their gender to find an identity they feel comfortable in, and thats fine! but i think it would be cool if we had a trans character who tried different labels and pronouns before settling on one they thought was right, maybe in a multiple episode arc. mainly just bc i know that not every trans person instantly knows what they are. on the topic of trans characters, maybe cast trans actors this time ????

#degrassi #long post #idk im just talking out of my ass

[shattersstar]

bluebelle

and if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent (part one)

pairing: alucard x reader

excerpt: it seemed as if each corner of the castle held something of you; a bouquet of flowers you had picked for one of the halls in the east wing, a book you half read discarded in a barely used study, the faint flour fingerprints on the railing from when you made banana bread and had gotten so excited it turned out well you dragged Adrian into the kitchen despite the mess on your hands. The brush of your lips even lingered on his skin, the softness revered and remembered. It was warming to find all the parts of you in the tomb that had become his home yet again. (title comes from bluebelle by frank carter and the rattle snakes)

warnings: alucard being loved and appreciated, fluff, minimal angst

a/n: well I couldn’t work on requests till i got this out of my system. kinda stressed abt posting for castlevania bc i dont think? ive talked about it on here before? buuut i can’t stop thinking abt alucard after rewatching season two so here we are. anyways feedback is appreciated.

—

You weren’t by his side in the morning, the sun slotting from the vaulted windows cascaded a stream of warmth that didn’t touch your skin. He startled, fingers curling into the cool sheets. You’d been gone for a while and he hadn’t heard you leave, he—

Adrian had slept. Through the night.

That thought was almost as jarring as your lack of presence. He let his palms dig into his eyes, sliding out from under the covers and dressing quickly. His steps were always light, even against the old floors of the castle. You once mentioned you didn’t think he walked around the castle, merely hovered when you first moved in. Mostly because it was easy to find you, your step not nearly as cautious as his, your scent always lingering through the air, like a trail of crumbs.

Although now, it had become harder to find you because of it, it seemed as if each corner of the castle held something of you; a bouquet of flowers you had picked for one of the halls in the east wing, a book you half read discarded in a barely used study, the faint flour fingerprints on the railing from when you made banana bread and had gotten so excited it turned out well you dragged Adrian into the kitchen despite the mess on your hands.

The brush of your lips even lingered on his skin, the softness revered and remembered. It was warming to find all the parts of you in the tomb that had become his home yet again–but still, it made finding you down a bit more difficult.

He’d begun to rely on sound more, listening from the dragging of ladders around one of the many libraries, the boiling of the kettle or even your voice muttering nonsense to yourself. Sometimes singing, but once you realized he could hear it at great distances, your face burned hot and you only hummed absentmindedly these days.

Your love also reached great distances, bounding higher then the gothic walls you two dwelled in, tendrils of your affection brushing over him like calming waves, as if you somehow purposely emitted your feelings. A secret empath perhaps, humming with love and nudging at his scarred chest until he let you in.

He knew all of that was facetious, nearly musings to keep his thoughts on you as he made his way calmly through the labyrinth castle. You had called it that, still getting lost in it to this day and shouting for him when you’d get frustrated enough. You’d pout when Adrian would casually walk over to where you found yourself, nonchalant and even a little amused. Though, the spike in adrenaline that flowed through his system each time that happened contradicted his calm demeanour each time he approached. He always moved in a flurry, zigzagging and hunting through the daunting walls till he could locate you. He didn’t want you to worry, to see his first thoughts went to danger, he knew you wouldn’t be happy with that. He knew you’d stop calling for him if it meant his fear would take over, that you’d likely stay lost for a lot longer all for him.

It was a dangerous thing, the way you loved him.

He sometimes wished you had been together before his mother died, so that his love wasn’t weaponized against him. There was always going to be a fear attached to his love, everyone waiting for the day he’d break like his father, that his love for you would drive him mad and the cycle of destruction would repeat. It was destined to happen in so many minds, cycles were tricky like that, promoted to be broken, but never as easily as suggested.

That was until you made it easy. You pulled him to your chest and toyed with his hair, skin drying from the bath and voice speaking all the truths he needed to hear into existence. It seemed as if the path he was supposedly destined to be on crumbled before him. He didn’t actively choose to be different, be good, be better, there simply was never the option to be bad once he realized he loved you.

Even now, unable to find you, fear trickling into his stilled heart, there was no anger bruising his soul. The thought of losing you hurt, more than any adjective could place, but it’s a wallowing kind of hurt, the cold grief stricken kind that doesn’t ignite hellfire, but tears. Adrian hadn’t even realized his eyes were brimming with them until your voice carried, a small shout followed by a laugh. His head all, but snapped up, focusing on it and soon he was in the doorway, a sense of calm replacing the creeping anxiety as he found you atop a desk, trying to place a box onto one of the many shelves in this study. The study you had claimed as your own, in love with the large circular window that overlooked the forest instead of the crumbling estate. You didn’t fear the Belmont’s as many had, but rather didn’t find the appeal in staring at a pile of wreckage.

A huff of amusement echoed in the back of his throat when you’d said that casually over dinner, coming to regret the statement when it was passed onto Trevor the next time he visited. Amusement almost laced his mind now as he watched you for a moment, you shoved the box a few times, its contents rattling as you were just a bit too short to rest it securely. He contemplated offering his help, but sure calling attention to himself would startle you, the box likely to fall.

Instead he moved swiftly, behind you in a half a breath and reaching over your shoulders to push the box the rest of the way. You still startled, jumping with a small gasp, your arms dropping back down. You both stood there for a moment, your back rising and falling against his lean chest, his arm slipped to his side, fingers brushing yours as he did. You glanced over your shoulder at him as he climbed down from atop the desks surface. You smiled as he extended a hand to help you, palm face up. He guided you to step onto the chair before settling on the floor, fingers shifting to interlace with his as you pulled him close, chests bumping. “Good morning beloved.” You hummed.

“I believe it’s past noon.” He commented, earning an eye roll.

“Well then good afternoon.”

“No beloved?”

“You’re being quite the tease for someone who’s slept in—leaving me to my own devices this morning.”

“I can see that didn’t go too well.”

You feigned offence, both hands now in Adrian’s as you stepped back, a mix of a gasp and scoff falling from your lips.

“Someone’s in a mood.” He contemplated the statement, drawing you back in with a light pull in his direction. It used to be alarming how easy it was to get you close, how you didn’t shy away, how you were ready to feel him as long as he’d let you. Your chests bumped again, your hands sliding up his arms and around his neck. “And don’t say its because you woke up alone.”

“Hm.”

“Ah, I know you too well. That means you owe me a kiss.”

“It does?”

“Of course, my intelligence deserves a reward, no?” A grin flickered over his face, fangs flashing as he let his slender arms wrap around your frame, one hand resting between your shoulders blades—urging you even closer, your head tilted and lips meeting his slowly.

“Everything you do deserves a kiss.” He sighed, breath fanning over your face.

“Maybe I’ll hold you to that.”

“I don’t object.”

“Good.” You kissed him again, this time a little harder, a bit more than a greeting. Your fingers curled minimally in his hair, tongue swiping against his bottom lip, a silent ask of permission. He granted it with ease, tasting the berries on your tongue and inhaling the warmth of cinnamon radiating from you. Maybe you had been baking again, he wondered momentarily, lips still moving against yours. You pulled away first, chest rising and falling visibly as you let another smile warm over your features. He was almost a little dazed looking at you, barely noting the strands of hair that fell over his face, your fingers quick to tuck them back behind his ear. “Your hairs messy.” You commented, holding his face in your hands as you leaned back, taking him in. Your smile shifted into something curious, brows pulled inward as your gaze flickered across his face. You studied him, the gears in your brain churning out questions you already had the answer too. “Did you think I’d gone? When you woke up?”

You did know him, far too well.

“For a moment, yes.” He had learned it was better not to lie to you, to hide things at times, yes, but to outright lie left a bitter taste in his mouth (and you’d always figure it out anyways).

“Well I’m sorry for worrying you my love, if I had left the grounds I would’ve written a note, or woken you up even, but I didn’t think about doing that if I wasn’t far.” You explained, eyes full of sincerity. It was so human, something he mimicked, but never obtained in the same way you did.

He nodded at your words, forehead resting on yours.

“But is that not it?”

“What?” He recoiled slightly, unable to hide the surprise that found its way onto his face.

You did know him far too well that this had to be magic, you had to have read his mind and understood something deeper. He still found himself alarmed at this moment, your ability to read him surpassed even that of his mother.

“There’s something else isn’t there? You’re upset about something else.”

“I’m not upset—“

“Adrian,” You warned, his mouth snapped shut, “Please don’t lie to me.” He relented, his shoulders tight with defence dropped as your thumb brushed over the porcelain of his cheek. “But we can talk about this later. Okay?” You knew when to push and when to pull and when to give in to him just as he needed. You smiled up at him, nose nudging his affectionately. Love dripped through your words and danced in the corners of your eyes

Yes, later is fine. Right now he needed to be held.

You let your fingers slip into his hair, toying with it, nails kindly swirling against his skull. You were good at soothing him, words, actions, everything. It all calmed the choppy waters that stirred beneath his rib cage and he melted into you. Adrian let his eyes fall closed as you pulled him into a hug, one hand still tangled in his hair while the other wrapped as best it could almost the expanse of his shoulders. He let his arms hang limp, nose pressing into the side of your neck as he breathed you in. Taking in your scent, not where it hung in the stale castle air, how it lingered on door knobs to forgotten rooms you likely tried to open or dwelled on the various pots and pans.

He took you in from the source, your perfume and rainwater from the previous night washed over his senses, along with that still confusing note of cinnamon. Maybe he’d bring it up later, but for now he wanted to love in the safety of your arms.

#i just wanna hold this half vampire for..hours #alucard x reader #alucard imagine #adrian tepes x reader #adrian tepes imagine #castlevania x reader #castlevania imagine #castlevania #writing

[ask-the-chaos-creation-crew]

Just to any mods in general: When designing a character do you go through many design changes before settling on a final design?

I'll put it under a cut since it's kinda long.

Ellis:

not rlly tbh , tha only one's who'v rlly gone thru any sort of design changes was alien , tyrant , teen , an horror (an even then most were 4 sake of convenience/amplifying their characteristics y'kno ?)

4 example:

- while alien may hav gotten a new Frill around his neck now , he also used 2 b able 2 split his mouth all tha way down 2 his abdomen . not sure y i had that but i don't now

- horror's monster form design was a Lot different from how it was back then (never posted it publicly tho) . biggest difference was that he had eyes and a nose !!! an also chains on his wrists an ankles

- tyrant had a Lot mor scars , altho they were simplified 4 convenience sake . him being blind in one eye was ALSO not a thing originally ! ended up adding it bc ,,,, idk lol thought it looked neat

- i jus made teen look mor liek a ,,,, well a Teenager . fuckers sixteen now he can b a little edgy as a treat <3 also unrelated but fun fact he has three parents ! i forgot 2 include one of them when teen reveals who stars parents r whoops

Pearl:

Q:

For me I just kinda .. make the character design and then … keep it like that until I look at it again and go “ew”

Spinmp:

usually when i have an idea for character design i make a few sketches on paper to see what i like. ive usually talked about personality, characteristics, backstory etc beforehand so i have a vague idea of what i want it to look like!

-OWA's design changed a lot, more specifically his outfit and its colors. He used to wear a jacket until I decided that he probably wouldn't enjoy the restrictive movement that comes w it, and also drawing his scars seems cooler to me than just a normal jacket.

-Burnt Toast was going to originally be humanoid before the final design! He was going to have only one eye and a lower jaw, and he would wear a mask around people he didn't trust. After changing his story slightly, he ended up being the giant time noodle seen today :]

-Lizard RHM was actually very tricky at first. I knew I wanted him to be a lizard, but it was very difficult to decide how humanoid he would be, what his color scheme would be, what kind of lizard he would resemble, etc. Orange and spikey stuck out to me the most! im a sucker for orange. i love orangh

Sam:

i kind of just accidentally make design changes over time and go "oh i guess this is how i draw them now lol!!"

the most common thing for me to do is to make hair fluffier over time or make the character shorter by accident

Bliss:

I tend to stick fairly closely to the original design (in Alex's case, I have not changed anything about them, but that's just because I got attached to the silly), but more often change the character's personality over time (Alex went from someone barely making ends meet and working paycheck to paycheck to a popular YouTuber because of a joke AU I made).

There's an example and exception contained in one OC of mine, who went over a huge personality overhaul (went from sad to thembo) and also had a lot of his features changed as a result of him actually being given an ethnicity (he didn't have one before), after which I changed his features accordingly.

I'll also change a physical design if the old design has bad memories attached to it (I recently redesigned a character because his outfit was created by my abuser).

Milkyway:

Personally, I haven't really changed anything much design wise for my aus (except for my modsona she got a redesign recently). Triple Treat really only had this one rather dark joke I have since tossed aside I guess. However, how an au of mine did go through a bit of a change... Kid!

Initially, Kid was meant to be a rather shy and quiet child. He didn't really talk with people or other kids at his daycare, his only friends being his toys. Mama V also wasn't part of the initial concept, coming from a suggestion that one of the other mods had

As you can tell, Kid has perked up quite a bit. He's a LOT more friendly and cheerful, and a lot more... Peculiar to say the least, with some of the things he's able to so ;)

Well, I guess there's also a lot of the ideas I had for Reaper! I just, haven't really been able to implement them.

If you want an example... Well, let's just say...

Reapers... Aren't always Reapers :>

#ooc

[kimnjss]

wait pause 😔🤚🏻

jungkook (ignoring the multiple girls) is actually sweet.. obviously bc its arya, but he really do be looking out for his own friends.. him going out his way to do what he feels is best for his friends, even though he knows he shouldnt insert himself into every problem the couple has (i kno he always does it bc he likes to push their buttons sometimes cause hes a lil shit but he knows when to draw the line) he may be a fuckboi but he just really wants his friends to be happy 🥺 when he thinks he doesnt deserve the same for himself 😔

jungkook saying “doesnt want to go thru the shit arya n joon go thru” when arya asked him when he was gonna have a serious relationship kinda felt like a half truth.. idk he might be like kinda hot!hoseok in this case.. living in the moment type of thing and is in no rush to be in a serious relationship and if it happens, it happens. however rn his feelings are directed towards a girl who is his friend and is already taken by his other friend, so he’s creating as much distance as possible. and the it-was-actually-one-drunk-person-and-the-other-sober-drunken kiss didnt help his situation..

idk why but i feel like jk, joon and hoseok are similar when it comes to their feelings/emotions.. dont get me wrong, they are very affectionate, physically and vocally.. but all three live inside their heads for too long..

jungkook isnt being honest with himself, when he does realise something about himself and his feelings, he dismisses it and blocks it off, and distracts himself until he forgets about it and then it comes back, rinse and repeat.. namjoon isnt communicating with arya properly (neither is she but im like comparing the boys rn LOL) and when he does start showing emotion, its really passive-aggressive (??), its almost like he’s saying something but he isnt saying anything at the same time?? did that make any sense 🤡 idk sometimes its like he expects arya to read his mind and vice versa.. (ALSO not them going back to making out as if nothing happened.. they better have talked 😀👊🏻) but they do love each other, its the communication thats 🥴

and hoseok, if that last part was anything to go by 😬, but whatever he is thinking about to create boundaries to address the co-dependency from his side (dialling it down maybe??), he better be careful bc yn isnt stupid and she picked up on mood change quickly, he’s gotta communicate with her or else it aint gonna be easy in the long run.. yn isnt a mind reader and if he wants things to go smoothly like the past few months have been, he has to speak up and make yn understand how he feels from his pov.. he really be thinking about his feelings about yn and pleasuring yn at the same time.. king of multi-tasking??

(have i connected any dots yet 😳 i swear im getting rusty AJDBAJEBSKAJ)

okay also its either i read thru this chapter quickly or my eyes are playing tricks but i swear this is one of the quicker party fucks LMAOO 😳 although it makes sense cause there’s still a party going on downstairs LMAO but not like its stopped others before 💀 but also hoseok was kinda getting overwhelmed with his feelings/thinking there so..

whew its been a while since ive written something this long 🧍🏻‍♀️idek what ive said anymore -🤼‍♀️

PHEW THIS WAS SO LONG I’M JUMPING !!

okay !! first ., jeongguk has a lot going on the inside ., but when it gets down to it - he’s a really great guy . like his bedroom habits aside . he’s always honest nd clear abt what he’s looking for . he plays around ., but not in the ‘ruin my life’ type of way . his friends always come first to him . there aren’t any times where he has left them hanging nd them being happy correlates to him being happy . same when it comes to arya . his feelings for her are strong nd once he noticed that ., he set boundaries for himself bc of joon . he never crosses them . the only thing he wants for her is to be happy . 

it’s a mixture of both really . he’s not miserable . he enjoys having a line of girls nd meeting new people nd doing his thing . he’s young nd thats how he has his fun . buut if the right girl were to come around - he would not be against settling down nd being in a serious relationship with her . buut the right girl for him right now is already the right girl for someone else - who happens to be his best friend ., so there’s really nothing else he can do . so he buckles down into his hoe life . 

yesss! you got it exactlyyy . they are the exact same when it comes to how they handle their emotions nd all the stuff relating . lmao they’re best friends for a reason . 

the main thing that jeongguk keeps to himself is his true feelings . like on the surface he’s this cool guy that doesn’t care nd has girls knocking down his door nd he’s just out there enjoying himself - not getting attached . nd he’s so into that lifestyle nd focused on making sure that’s who he is perceived as that he ignores everything else that doesn’t fit . not to say he’s not himself ,. jeongguk is himself all the time - his feelings just tend to take a backseat (especially the ones he has for arya bc of how much damage it could do) . // joon definitely wants arya to know what bothers him without properly communicating anything . that comes from the fact that they’ve been together for ten months so he expects her to just know what will make him mad . nd when she doesn’t get it he gets pissy . (they both do that btw) but what they don’t realize that they’ll never go anywhere if they don’t just talk things out . (no they did not have a conversation before making up they just missed each other too much)

his biggest issue is that he’s in his head too much . he’s freaking while realizing that he’s falling in love with her nd that he doesn’t really like being away from her (he’s also extremely dramatic ., it’s not as co-dependent as he thinks) but bc in he’s confused himself when it comes to his feelings for her - he’s more inclined to just shut down nd figure things out on his own . buut that’s not going to fly when it comes to yn ., she’s not the type to take the no communication nd wait around for him to get his life together . even if he doesn’t know what he’s trying to figure out - she’d want that to be told to her so she doesn’t overthink . 

- their smut scene was a little quickie upstairs since they were in yoongi’s room nd the party was going on downstairs still . but hoseok was so deep in his thoughts that it made it seem faster ., he was so overwhelmed with his feelings that being wth yn was like at the back of his mind... (he still did a great job tho so props lmao)

#🤼‍♀️ anon #asks; 💔 #hoseok sm au #asks; kez 🍯

[soldier-poet-king]

OKAY SO ROCKETMAN

(this turns more into like????? my angst than actual critical thoughts on the movie, but like, that’s absolutely to no one’s surprise, but yeah be warned it’s mostly my own whining and turns into kinda dark self-pity)

it destroyed me in very much the same ways that bohemian rhapsody did (surprise surprise im a Musical Gay full of self loathing and depression)

like they’re different movies to be sure, BH was more of a biopic that featured music and rocketman definitely a musical, as in the characters broke into song and dance throughout the film

but thematically???? im a mess???? perhaps i shouldn’t be drawing comparisons between the two but like, two queer musicians who defined musical eras and played with gender presentation in ways very important to me, who dealt with substance abuse and depression, were in abusive relationships and for a time stayed in said relationships because they were afraid they were unable or undeserving to be loved?? like??? fuck that’s me

one the one hand the Predatory Gay trope can go DIE, but like, these were real life events too? and maybe it’s common because the music and movie industries are predatory regardless of sexuality, and maybe it’s because queer people are particularly vulnerably, especially if they’re not out publicly, always afraid and hiding and believing that you dont deserve love so you stick with whatever scraps of affection you can get, abusive as they might be and it’s heartbreaking bc there’s the scene where they’re in bed together and afterward he’s being held for the first time and you think maybe things are okay but it’s not

like, there’s this one scene in rocketman where he comes out to his mother and she tells him that he’s doomed to be alone and that he’ll never be loved properly, and a recurring theme was his desire for a hug, such a simple thing from a parent, and i??? thought i was gonna throw up in the theater because of it, watching p much my worst nightmare with my parents play out on screen

and yet, and yet, i am so deeply moved, because i understand it, i fear the same for myself, constantly, im already depressed, ive got incredible amounts of self loathing, i know how easy it would be for me to become an alcoholic if i were less paranoid and less careful about it and just the slightest bit more sad, 

most of all, how i KNOW i’ll never be loved properly, for so so so many reasons, im not allowed to date women however angry and reluctantly obedient i might be about that, finding a nice safe man seems impossible, let alone a nice safe man who is catholic? who *i* like? who can overlook my insecurities and appearance, my mental illnesses, my bisexuality without being a homophobic asshole? they say oh find someone who doesn’t just love you despite flaws or the things you’re insecure about, but loves you with and for them, but i know, i know in my heart that i’m so likely to settle for some scrap of affection, for someone who barely tolerates me, just because i am so desperate to be loved and so so starved for it

i hate that about myself, maybe it’s human nature, maybe it’s just me and fragile fools like me

regardless, i’m so tired

#fran's personal posts #mental bullshit tag #homophobia tw #abuse mention #substance abuse #idk what else to tag this as lemme know if i forgot something #im going to uhhhh cry and maybe play some dragon age #i wanna restart da2 #but i gotta do awakening first #i dont necessarily like awakening #but love nate and i love anders #so here we are #sigrun is also a sweet angel #plus if i wanna import my worldstate to get the find nate quest in da2 #i gotta play awakenings #bc last time i imported a save just from origins by accident and i didnt get to see nate :(

[gayspock]

wotch me... ramble about  bodcast

alright first of all: rqg has been the first actual play podcast to really do it for me in a while- and notthat i tried a lot, in all fairness, but god am i DIGGING it. like i did quite like fatt, but couldnt rlly chew through s2 (too much game mechanic stuff, and heavy lore kinda weighed it down for me) and even in s1 i always felt disproportionately invested in boat party side than ice party but I DO HOPE TO REVIsIT IT ONE DAY, TOO!!!but rqg has like... literally.. LIKE OKAY with any podcast maybe the first few epi or two do be a little WOH as you settle down into things BECAUsE? i remember, like- ben and bryn.... bOTH confused me a little, given their names are. THAT similar and also i struggled a little discerning voices (but tbh... i always do) BUT THAT. Is.ME. LITERALLY NITPICKING!

BC REALLY its been one of the easiest things to really. go bonkers yonkers for, in terms of actual play, that ive listened to in a while, and maybe that's just my tastes because they really.... like they really nail down the balance i like, of storytelling but also...YOU KNOW, allowing the PCs to have a handle on the story, and allowing for the game itself to have a  chance to dictate stuff?? like its a fantastic balance- a really good one- and a lot of podcasts are too prone to swing one way or th other and lIKE. NOT TO MAKE THIs ABOUT TAZ, AND IM NOT TRYING TO DUNK ON TAZ bc i love it BUT IM THINKING MORE ABOUT IT NOW WITH THIs AND maan like.

idk if like... i dont agree with ALL the criticism of griffin railroading but like god listening to this and lso, liek, fatt it does make me think sometimes that man i really. WIsH he did o  more in the way of offering... players more decision and i love taz i really do and i think ffor certain dnd was important to balance even if just for the running theme off them absolutely cocking it all upp all the time but like when i look at amnesty part of me sometimes even just... WONDERs why they even bother with, like, a game system and i dont mean that. CRUELLLY but like god i do feel like, sometimes, griffin would be much more comfortable if they just ditched it entirely and let him dictate a story that travis&justin&clint experienced bc. having these other comparisons to draw from now it rlly.. feelslike he does want to steer them a lot, even now - and a lot of the choices he allows are kinda shallow, and more so illusions of freewill and i feel like its getting to the point where. MAN JUsT. take the dice away bc its encumbering it more andobvously. ur JUst wanting to tell ur story and . DOEs that make sense bc even like...

like this rlly Is me just rambling but two things that stick in my mind most notably are, like- the fact that i remember travis for what was two episodes, at least, wanting to split off to go talk to someone (maybe im misreembering a little??) and it took him . a WHILE to get there whereas... like. that would literally not rlly ever be a problem otherwise bc of course. he should be able to, and nobody said no but the fact it took so long, and like the whole thing- like amnesty itself is strucutered insuch a way wher they can make choices and decisions but theyre all... like it feels more like flavour , if that makes sense, than actually directing thing?? and yet another concsequence of the nature of amnesty ass a whole is,well, ....

consequence!! WHICH feels... really minimal. like in amnesty i do recognise that duck losing his power did happen BUT... i feel like- like given the preparedness, and the nature  of it, it felt like that ALWAYs was gonna happen regardless of what decision they made?? does that make sense? or at least a very least, it was a very thought out path- like as if, some element of it was a very binary, or rigid branching decisinon that was neatly laid out, rather than a reaction o a thing-  and THERE IsNT. ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT AT ALL and im not saying it is inherently BAD bc hey! most narrative is that way- thought out - and it benefits more from being so than not but.... BUT..... I FIND THIs VERY HARD TO PUT INTO WORDs BUT: like it feels like taz, rn, is being wishy washy? like i feel like it isn't defining itself too strongly as either an actual play format, or just a straight up audio drama with a twist an its straddling the line in an almost uncomffortable way. like i think balance worked bc it broke expectations well, and that played into the charm of it all- given it was more of a candid journey, of them fumbling with the game, and ultimately just kind of going WOOPs WE'RE DOING sTORY NOW! but amnesty doesnt adhere to that ssame, one off vibe and so it kinda feelslike... LIKE, you know a character that develops? but then after theyve went throughtheir arc, andd experienced it all the author is far too aattached to their pre-development personality and identity so they kind of keep trying to lean back into that even though theyve changed? like i definitely think changing from DND was a good idea for amnesty bt man i feel like... MAN I JUsT FEEL LIKE IT ALL FEELs sUPERFICIAL. maybe thats the right word. like too superficial, letting them roll dice right now, bc it just... it doesnt DO much. and so it just sits in thaat grey area of: wellit isnt giving the charm of a totally spontaneous, and uncharted dnd podcast but it also is broken up by dice checks and isnt as refined as a big cohesive story.

like man, for a consequence thing.. remember when ned should have been... you know, hospitalised but it didnt rlly have any bearing on the story? YEAH. like- like just... rather than  have siutations like that, i feel like they should just. let griffin take the reigns, and have him just make decisions and. do it.. diffenepowegj dj - YOU KNOW. WWHA T0IEI-P M 9AJFJ BECAUE I LOVE  . AMENTY I REALLY D BUT THE  .itne,djp LITEN

bc alloff thi.... man im just so into RQG and i fucking love alex and the fuckging. I KNOW THIs Is sUCH A ... "well, duh eggs!" but god like-like it rally a-ci - DOEsaohfh LIKE alex is... a fuckgn baller DM and i think whats shaking me especially about it all is that im so UsED to taz that im like "well they cant die... they can...t. bring in a backup player" when uhhhhh YUH they can or they can leave or they can fucking . go off and do smething else and their fucking. choices have . really big fucking consequences and the dice actually. LIKE. HAVE BIG IMPACTs ON THINGs. like that whole- like that whole scene with the fucking rooftopp, and literally an old man trying to rn away... THE WAY EVERYTHING WENT CATAsTROPHICALLY WRONG BC OF DICE ROLLs, to the point hwerethe party split up and some of them almost fufkcing died in one single encounter and it changed the whole thing and set bertie on a  side quest- like that is fucking baanan\icja-9joADH 9ofj  AND THE. LIKE LIsTEN. LIT DFOIJF...... like if eel like,even when they do have narrow branching paths- like bertie in the channel tunnel, deciding whether to go which way or the other- it still... doesnt feel like that, weirdly enough? like alex is...  GsOODD at reacting, i think- like OKAY LET ME. TALK sPECIFICALLY BAOUT THAT LIKE THE....

like i dont know how to describe it but itslike. you know when u can TELL they have decision branches lined up, like how i said with taz? like, they have a very strict- you choose this, or this; then you choose this, or this... it doent feel organic and is more the illusion of choice and its FINE TO DDO THAT sMETIMEs bc its like. man who could do something wack and not plan anytyignb but GOD LIKE. id ont know. I DONTTT KNOWWW MAN. i dont know what im thinkign about or ho to put it itsjust... ffuckgigoivjoj .. IT doesnt feel organic. you know. in the same way a computer, operating on a decision tree will never truly compare to human thought with what we have right now. LIKE. its like its like ur trying to give them options, but specificall THEsE OPTIONs and not letting them . do what they wwant andpoakcpjfj I ONT KNO.I DONT KNOW

and maybe  i can write thisbetter, rather than just offering a very disjointed . stream of consioucness. but like i keep mentiongign consequence and im thinkign more baout it as im writing this annd man it just... LIKE that kinda ties into the lack of decision more bc like. another aprt of whatmakes a lot of the taz decisions feel kinda fake is the lack of follow through bc . either not much happens, the same end is achieved, or thebig thing that happens was planned and would have happened anywhaheih 0AND LIKE. like its like i said like. thats whats charming about dnd games and what holds them up in comparison to like. usual audio drama style story and written literture but LIKE.  like mananoimcpk LIKE, MAN. like i cant rmmber.aa-fkf..   LIKE IT Need. more. like. 

another single moment of appreciation: bc man speaking of consequence. fatt really did havethat too. i need to revisit it, even if sometimes i think there's TOO much game mechanic (and also? too many pcs, and austin soetimes discussing why he thinks a thing is cool, and discussing it all in a very meta sense and disrupting the narrative flow could be offputting for me persnally) bt fucking THROWBack TO HELLA in season 1 slaying fucking triste and sending everything to asolute sHIT. god i miss that too . GOD!

bc i feel like taz never... rly DID TRY TO DO THAT? LIKE IT HA MOMEMNET BUT. ID OTN KNOW. I DONT KNOW ANY MORE. I DONT KN

#egg.txt

[scarletrebel]

⭐star⭐ waffle at me about your favourite lines youve written

ohhh friend you have opened a pandoras box and i hope you are ready also thank you aha

so i started…….. picking some lines and made the Executive Decision to just do one fic because i was planning on doing a couple from a handful of fics but turns out im far too prone to waffling about this kind of stuff because i love picking things apart and figuring out why they work because i love fuckign words and the things they evoke and stuff so yeah this is just some fave lines from most recent fic, requital. 

this was part of a ‘directors cut’ writer thing and if anyone has any more prompts, feel more than free to send them my way! 

Requital, Chp. 1: 

His honesty, wrapped tightly underneath a chivalrous act; a throwaway comment to soften the exposure of such a question, draws her closer.

She kisses him, and hopes that even though the motion is countless in the amount of times they’ve come together, that the answer is plain enough. A claim, she hears her own words in her head, tasting the tobacco of his morning cigarette on her tongue, the warmth of the pull at his hands on her hips.

so whilst i cant say this section was directly inspired by the ecdysis book, what i can say is that there is definitely some influence going on here, in particular these two lines from the page ‘synesthesia’:

“Wu Ming is a bonfire in the darkness, and she crawls toward his warmth.”

“Wu Ming leaves his questions by the wayside as he is drawn inexorably into the gravity well of her desperate honesty.” 

and thats not something i realised until i was writing the final draft, and im pretty pleased with myself considering not only is requital going to examine some of the similarities between avia and drifter, but also the fact that ecdysis is probably my favourite book. i mean…… ‘drawn inexorably into the gravity well of her desperate honesty’ what the FUCK KIND OF LINE its gorgeous i cant deal with it or this book or this page or how desperately gorgeous the tragedy of drifter and orins relationship is 

also…… look. im a hopeless romantic. always have been, probs always will be, so when i say avia and rook are soulmates i mean it in the cheesiest way possible. right before this is rook feeling a bit self-conscious about the whole awoken engaging thing, and theres no way avia can actually put into words how irrevocably in love she is with rook. so she kisses him, and hopes beyond hope that she can put those feelings into motions if not words. i also enjoy the small bit of possessiveness that came out of her too, because the whole ‘claim’ thing with the awoken was there since the first draft but this section came in the final edit, she thinks of it so casually but when she goes on to say that she’d actually duel anyone who came between them i…….. would not put it past her to be 100% down to do that. 

rook isnt a bonfire in the darkness, he’s an anchor in the deep, a solid tether when the sea becomes a storm. 

(ayyy where the FUCK WAS THAT WHEN I WAS WRITING THIS) 

Requital Chp. 2:

Here’s the thing, if you’ve gone through the trouble of decrypting this (a fortified certain-eyes-only encryption that took me a couple of hundred years to perfect, thank you very much), it at least means you’re interested, so hear me out.

i like this line a lot, for a few reasons. drifter knows avia well enough at this point to be well acquainted with her temper and lack of time for dealing with his nonsense. it’s the first flick of the coin between the two of them, drifter laying the proverbial gauntlet down and at the end of the day, its up to her whether or not she picks it up. 

and she does, avia asks levi to decrypt it, and the first thing she sees is drifter acknowledging that shes done so and asking her to at least hear him out. he’s kind of caught her out, and she can respect that even if thats not at the forefront of her mind. avia also has her own brand of curiosity when it comes to people like the drifter, so this is kind of the first inkling of that. and it also (i hope) makes you wonder if drifter is aware of that curiosity that she has, if he sent the message decrypted on purpose to get her interested. 

She smiles at the note, throws her legs over the bed and stretches around a yawn. Five minutes later, Levi puts her in her armour.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stick around?” The Ghost asks. “We don’t have anything urgent to do. There’s breakfast here.”

Avia hums, considering. She moves into the kitchen, glances over the fridge, the cupboards. She looks then onto the sofa, the sprawled pillows, untidy blankets. Suddenly the armour on her body feels heavy, out of place, like the metal has no right being somewhere like this.

“No. I’m not hungry, let’s go.”

“Okay,” Levi says in that tone of voice that lets her know they aren’t buying it. “Should we walk, or transmat?”

Avia notices the balcony door is still open. She walks over and closes it, the streets barely alive as one or two civilians walk to and fro, glancing idly at each other as they pass. “Transmat.”

avia immediately makes an comment about being all domestic with rook in chapter 1. its just not something that suits her in her own mind, and that line (even though i havent waffled about it bc dear god theres too much here already) was something i immediately knew i wanted if i was going to write a day of domestic bliss with her and her fiance, because i knew it’d be a hard thing for her to just get on with like a normal person aha. 

so, we get this part in chapter 2. the domestic bliss is over, and what avia knows best, what shes always known best, is a set of armour and getting back to work. however this part of herself contradicts that which she’s experienced for the past day, and especially the line ‘Suddenly the armour on her body feels heavy, out of place, like the metal has no right being somewhere like this.’ i put in to really reinforce that idea. its not the metal that feels out of place in this scene, its the person in the metal. and her eagerness to transmat straight to the tower rather than walk through the peaceful city streets shows her tendency to run from such thoughts.

this part came really naturally, actually. its a small snapshot into a bigger struggle avia has with herself (especially given the dreaming city, the reef, petra and now potentially going back to the worst part of the shore with drifter) of where she belongs, and more importantly, if she deserves to belong. which is why levi talks to her in that tone because they know what shes doing, theyve seen it so many times before – avia in a scenario that resembles something normal and running from it with no one around to stop her, because in her subconscious she doesnt believe she deserves it. 

“Ada-1, I believe, has fully settled into the Tower. She becomes more and more tolerable of the Guardians by the day. And with the discovery of Niobe labs, her mood has been favourable.”

i had no idea how fun scarlet was to write until i got to this part. she almost has her own language, really. writing ‘im really proud of ada because i spent all morning with her and she was only snippy with like two guardians and shes been really uplifted and im really happy for her since they found niobe labs’ in scarlets own ‘okay but heres the relevant information’ way of explaining things is a challenge but FUN. like, really fun?? 

because scarlet wouldnt be mentioning adas mood if she didnt care, ya know? and its not that she cant say that longer thing about being proud and stuff, its just that she doesnt see the sense in it and its not important information. like, if avia and eden were to spend a dedicated amount of time whittling her down she would absolutely say ‘i am so proud of ada and also i wanna smooch her face how do i do that as an exo’ but its just not a thing for her. but part of the reason why ada and scarlet being together was an idea that i had was because i imagine that line of thinking probably suits ada. 

“It was at Ada’s request. I had more knowledge of the area in its current state, and felt more comfortable talking to Ikora and her Hidden agents than Ada did…”

supportive exo girlfriends. that is all. man ive gotta write more about these two

“Hmm,” Ada wears a concerned stare masked behind a formal rigidity that Avia knows her Warlock teammate best for.

if im being honest, i just really enjoy this line. i imagine its hard for exos to show concern, esp a character like ada and my girl scarlet, so avia has spent a lot of time dissecting certain facial cues and yeah im proud of how this description came out aha

…as if she hadn’t spent the past few months clipping sidelong comments and threatening him when his Gambit veered out of the realm of her control.

avia is a control freak. plain and simple, and i wanted to make that as obvious as possible considering this sentence is only a few away from avia choosing to go and talk to drifter. 

there’s a certain amount of ‘i need to understand this thing that i have limited knowledge on so i can predict/control/plan for it in the future’ in how avia views drifter in general, its a kind-of warlock way of thinking about things but the big difference is avias need for control in these situations is a) selfish and b) only applies to things that she knows she has a good chance of understanding/taming. shes not going around learning about the hive because she has a good understanding that thats a cosmic threat that can only be defended against until it comes. drifter on the other hand is on her doorstep.

i also really loved the contradiction in putting ‘gambit’ and ‘control’ next to each other in a sentence, i kinda hoped it showed how conflicted avia is about going and talking to drifter, and maybe even how naive it is of her to think that it could turn out okay. 

She was incensed, maybe, at the way he spoke to Ada, needed to go and stomp the idea out of his head but he got her talking, like he does

i like this line bc its avia acknowledging that she knows how shes viewed. she knows everyone sees her as a hot-head, she knows her anger veers away from her sometimes and whilst she’s gotten better at getting a handle on it, it’s still an aspect of her that people who dont know her well enough find it hard to get past. 

i also enjoy how new people to this fic/avia in general might not know that this is a big part of her? so she’s trying to use it as an excuse, ‘well no one can blame me if i say i got really mad because thats what i do’ and it (hopefully) tells new people about that aspect of her character without having to show the worst part of it, the convo with ada being an introduction to it i guess – especially since the past few scenes have seen her a lot softer than im used to writing aha. 

“Dammit,” she mutters under her breath. And walks towards the Drifter before she can make a better decision

fun fact – this line was originally ‘and walks down the corridor before she can make a better decision.’ 

i changed it because i wanted to make it more obvious that avia is making a conscious decision to choose drifter, that she’s walking towards a path that she knows is not a good idea. it provides foreshadowing for the allegiance quest and referring to him as ‘The Drifter’ cements it as an idea that she’s walking towards and not necessarily a person. 

#ask thing #thanks buddy!!! #this was really fun #im such a fucking nerd someone put me in the bin honestly ahahaha #jadeisadork.txt

[pokemaniacal]

Something that’s been on my mind for a bit that your professional word may be able to help with. Would you happen to know how ethnically diverse the Greek and Roman empires were?

very

next question please

…

…what, you want more?  Oh, fine, but for the record this is not the sort of thing people just “happen to know.”

Okay so I’m assuming by “Greek empire” (remember, kids: there was never a politically autonomous and unified state called “Greece” or “Hellas” until 1822) you mean Alexander’s empire (320s BC) and the Hellenistic successor kingdoms (323 BC – 31 BC), and by “Roman empire” you mean Rome starting from the time it becomes a major interregional power (say, following the second Punic War, which ended in 201 BC) rather than just Rome in the time of the Emperors.  You could spend like most of a book on each of these just corralling the data that might let us answer this question, but whatevs.

Lesson one: the ancient Greeks and Romans did not think about ethnicity in the same way as we do.  In particular, they were not super hung up on the colour of people’s skin – skin colour in ancient art is more often a signifier of gender than race, because women are expected to spend less time outside and therefore have lighter skin (which is another whole thing that we shouldn’t even get into because this is an aristocratic ideal of female beauty and of course lots of Greek and Roman women would have worked outside).  Arguably the most important signifier of ethnicity to the Greeks and Romans was actually language, with everyone who didn’t speak Greek or Latin being a “barbarian” (traditionally this word is supposed to come from the Greeks thinking that all foreign languages sounded like “bar bar bar,” although I’ve also heard a convincing argument that it comes from the Old Persian word for taxpayer, barabara, and originally signified all subjects of the Persian king).

In the modern world we have designations of ethnicity that are super broad and grow in large part out of early and long-since-debunked anthropological theory that divided humanity into three biologically distinct races, Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid, and don’t really reflect a lot of important components of ethnicity.  The thing is, as the internet will happily tell you ad nauseam, race is a social construct.  Like, yes, designations of race describe real physical characteristics that arise from variation within human genetics, but the way we choose to bundle those characteristics is arbitrary, and where we choose to draw the lines is arbitrary (like, for a long time in the US, Greeks and Italians weren’t considered “white,” but today they definitely are, even though nothing changed about their genetics).  If we today were brought face to face with a bunch of ancient Greeks and Romans, we would probably be pretty comfortable with assigning a majority of them to the big pan-European tent of modern “whiteness,” but if you had asked them about it, they certainly would not have felt any kinship with the pale-skinned people of northern and western Europe from whom most English-speaking white people today are descended.  Those people were every bit as barbarian (and every bit as fair game for enslavement, for that matter) as the darker-skinned folk of the Middle East and North Africa.  Ancient Greeks and Italians also had loads of internal ethnic divisions – like, the Latins (the central Italian ethnic group to which the Romans belonged) were a different thing from the Umbrians to their east, the Etruscans to the north and the Oscans to the south.  In Greece, you had Dorians in the Peloponnese, Ionians in Attica and Asia Minor, Boeotians and Thessalians in central Greece, Epirotes in western Greece, and DON’T EVEN ASK about the Macedonians, because boyyyyyyyyy HOWDY you are NOT ready for that $#!tstorm.  The point is, race and ethnicity can be basically anything that you think makes you different from the people in another community.

So yeah, Alexander’s empire.  Alexander the Great conquered Persia, which was already the largest empire the world had ever seen at the time and incorporated dozens of ethnically distinct peoples (including many Greeks of Asia Minor, some of whom willingly fought against Alexander) through a philosophy of loose regional governance and broad religious tolerance.  Now, here’s the thing: Alexander had no idea how to run an empire of that scale.  No Greek did.  No one alive in the world did – except for the Persians.  Alexander didn’t have anything to replace the Persian systems of governance or bureaucracy, so… he didn’t.  Individual Persian governors were usually given the opportunity to swear loyalty to him and keep their posts; vacant posts were filled with Macedonians, but the hierarchy was basically untouched.  Alexander himself married a princess from Bactria (approximately what is now Afghanistan), Roxana, and had a kid with her, and encouraged other Macedonian nobles to take Persian wives as well, to help unify the empire.  Unfortunately Alexander, of course, had to go and bloody die less than two years after he’d finished conquering everything, and tradition holds that on his deathbed he told his friends that the empire should go “to the strongest,” which was an incredibly dumb thing to say and caused literally decades of war, which we are not even going to talk about because it is the most Game of Thrones bull$#!t in the history of history.  All you need to know is that when the dust settled there were basically three major Greco-Macedonian dynastic powers: the Antigonids in Greece, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids in Persia.

In terms of ethnic makeup the Antigonid kingdom is in principle the most straightforward because they’re basically still running the same Greece that Alexander’s father had conquered.  Even then, you should bear in mind that a) most Greek cities had legal provisions for allowing foreigners to live there under certain conditions (“foreigners” often meant Greeks from other cities, but in principle could be anyone), and b) the Greeks had a lot of slaves (many of whom were, again, Greeks from other cities, because that’s fine in ancient Greek morality, but a lot of them would have come from all over the place), and even though the Greeks didn’t count slaves as “people” or consider them a real part of a city’s ethnic composition, WE SHOULD.  The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt seems to have had a relatively small Greco-Macedonian upper class ruling over a native Egyptian, Libyan and Nubian peasant majority.  Members of that ruling class seem to have been kind of snobbish about any mixing between the two – only the very last Ptolemaic ruler, Cleopatra VII (yes, that Cleopatra), even bothered to learn the Egyptian language.  However, the Ptolemaic rulers did make some important cultural gestures of goodwill towards the Egyptians.  They took the native title of Pharaoh, which previous foreign rulers of Egypt hadn’t, and adopted a lot of traditional Pharaonic iconography like the double crown.  They also worshipped some of the most important Egyptian gods, most notably Isis, and may have kind of… deliberately created a new Greco-Egyptian god, Serapis, by blending together Osiris and Dionysus (Serapis actually becomes super important in the Roman period and is widely worshipped even outside Egypt).  And then there’s the Seleucids, an empire that did nothing but slowly collapse from the moment it was established.  They have a rough time of it because they have the largest land area to cover and dozens of distinct ethnic groups to bring together, and it doesn’t help that they kinda keep doing the Game of Thrones thing for about two hundred fµ¢&ing years.  They often get a bad rap in history and have a reputation for oppressing the non-Greek populations of their empire, but that’s probably at least partly because some of our most important sources for the Seleucids are Jewish, and the Seleucid kings’ relationship with the Jews broke down in a fairly spectacular fashion during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175-164 BC).  It’s not clear whether that’s representative of the Seleucids’ normal relationship with their subject peoples, or a worst case scenario.  Also, the Seleucids tend to get painted as villains in the historical record by both the other Greek powers and the Romans, and never really get much of a chance to defend themselves because we don’t have Seleucid histories.  What is clear is that they inherited all the ethnic and religious diversity of the Persian Empire, and most of their rulers were half-Persian because they followed Alexander’s example by marrying into the Persian nobility.  After an initial period of conflict they also seem to have maintained cordial relations with the Mauryan Empire of India, their neighbour to the east, for several decades, and contemporary Indian sources talk about sending Buddhist missionaries into Seleucid lands, so… like, there might have been a bunch of Greek Buddhists running around the empire; that’s a thing.

Whew.  Okay, so that is a criminally brief answer to-

OH CHRIST YOU ASKED ABOUT THE ROMANS AS WELL

WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME

Right.  Romans.  One of the major schools of thought on how the Romans were able to create such an enormous and long-lasting empire in the first place is that their openness to accepting foreigners into their community gave them an enormous manpower advantage over every other ancient Mediterranean state.  Greek politics generally operates on the level of cities; even in the age of Alexander, individual cities have quite a lot of legislative autonomy.  Citizenship is also something that works on the level of cities: you aren’t a citizen of, say, the Seleucid Empire; you’re a citizen of Antioch, or Tyre, or Babylon, or whatever.  But then the Romans happen.  The Romans are weird, because they will sometimes just declare that all the people of an allied city are now also citizens of Rome.  In the early period of Rome’s expansion in the central Mediterranean, this meant (or so the theory goes) that they could draw upon larger citizen armies and sustain more casualties than their rivals.  This is how they beat Pyrrhus, the Greek king of Epirus (r. 297-272 BC), when he invaded Italy in response to disputes between Rome and the Greek colony of Tarentum; this is how they beat Hannibal, the legendary Carthaginian general, even after he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever fielded at Cannae during the second Punic War (218-201 BC).  Now, at this point they are basically still just bringing in Italians, which we might consider ethnically homogenous even if they didn’t, but there’s more.

Once they really start to get going, the Romans enfranchise entire provinces at a time, like when the emperor Claudius (r. AD 41-54) decided to make everyone in Gaul (modern France, more or less) a Roman citizen.  The really interesting thing about this particular decision is that we actually have a copy of the speech he made to the Senate in Rome at the time, so we can examine his rationale.  Claudius’ argument is basically that being inclusive has always been what has made Rome stronger than its rivals, going right back to their mythological past, when Romulus populated his city with disenfranchised criminals from other communities (and, uh… women that they kidnapped from the next town over).  The Romans believed that everything great about their civilisation had originally been learned or borrowed from someone else – metalworking and irrigation from the Etruscans, infantry combat from the Greeks, shipbuilding from the Carthaginians, etc – so it wasn’t a huge stretch for them to believe that all these people should eventually become part of Rome as citizens (well… the ones who weren’t killed or enslaved in the conquest, anyway – no one ever said the Romans were saints).

The reason Claudius feels he needs to justify all this to the Senate is that citizenship (rather than any of the forms of semi-citizen rights that Romans would sometimes grant to their allies) will make rich Gauls eligible to become Senators themselves, and occupy other high-level posts like provincial governorships.  The decision affects the ethnic composition of the Senate, so even though he doesn’t actually need their permission to do it, he asks as a courtesy (the emperors’ relationship with the Senate is a weird and complicated thing).  Even without being a citizen, you could actually do a great deal in the Roman government in Claudius’ time.  Many of the most important jobs in the empire were ones that had existed during the age of the Republic, when Rome was theoretically a democracy, and all of those were restricted to citizens even after they stopped being elected positions – but there was also an imperial bureaucracy that answered directly to the emperor and his aides, and he was free to choose literally anyone to fill those positions.  As a result, a lot of emperors deliberately picked slaves and former slaves for loads of senior positions, specifically because their lack of citizen rights meant that they could never be political rivals, and because they were a useful counterbalance to the power of the blue-blooded Roman aristocracy.  And, again, slaves can be from basically anywhere.  A lot of these administrative slaves were Greeks, because Greek education provided useful skills for running the imperial bureaucracy that the Romans themselves often didn’t have, but emperors could and did commission literally anyone for these positions.

Eventually the emperor Caracalla (r. AD 211-217) just decided it wasn’t worth keeping track anymore and declared that every freeborn person in the entire empire, which by that point stretched from northern England to Morocco to Romania to Jordan, was now a Roman citizen.  All of these people are now “Romans,” regardless of their language or culture or religion; the only criterion is that they not be slaves or former slaves (and even if they’re former slaves, their children will be Roman citizens).  And these people can move, in ways that were never possible before the Empire existed, because Rome is the first – and so far the last – political entity ever to unite the entire Mediterranean region, which allows them to wipe out piracy almost completely and jump-start trade and travel in ways that would never happen again for over a thousand years.  My own research on Roman glass has led me to encounter glassblowers with Syrian or Jewish names working in northern Italy – people who were probably integral to spreading the technology of glassblowing to western Europe.  The Roman army also moves people around – like, a lot.  You might enlist in your home town in Syria, then serve on Hadrian’s wall and retire in northern England – in fact, we know that this happened because we’ve found stuff like inscriptions in the Aramaic language in Roman Britain.

Also Rome had, like… a whole dynasty of African emperors one time.  Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211) and his successors were part Italian, part Punic (of Carthaginian descent – ultimately Middle Eastern, since the Carthaginians were originally a Phoenician colony) and part Berber (native North African), and Severus grew up in what is now Tunisia.  And that wasn’t really a big deal for the Romans, 1) because Severus’ Italian ancestry made him a Roman citizen, which trumps all other signifiers of ethnicity, and 2) Rome had already had a couple of emperors of Iberian (= Spanish) descent by this point who were considered some of the best ever, and the Iberians are just as “barbarian” as the Berbers as far as Rome is concerned.  Other Roman emperors of varied ethnicities include Philip (Arabian), Diocletian (Illyrian), the three Gordians (probably Cappadocian), and Elagabalus (Syrian, and incidentally the gayest Roman of all time; like, normally I would warn you to be super cautious about using modern labels like “straight” and “gay” for Romans because they just didn’t think about sexual orientation in those terms, but I make an exception here because Elagabalus was super gay).

Oh, and just because someone will definitely bring it up if I don’t, there was a big fuss in the news a few years back because someone discovered the skeletons of what they claimed were Chinese people living in, of all places, Roman Britain.  And to me, one Chinese family in Britain in the first century AD is not particularly a dramatic stretch of plausibility (a handful of people could easily slip through the historical record and just never be mentioned), but the evidence in this particular case falls some way short of “proof.”  There’s chemical data that suggests these individuals grew up somewhere far away from Britain, which is well and good, but the thing that points specifically to China is not the isotopic analysis but a study of bone morphology, and trying to determine someone’s ethnicity on the basis of what their bones look like, on the universal scale of things that are sketchy, ranks “sketchy as all fµ¢&.”  Again, I’m happy to believe that they exist, because China (Seres in Latin) and Rome (Dà-Qín in Chinese) definitely knew about each other, and we occasionally find Roman artefacts and coins in eastern Asia, or Chinese artefacts in the eastern Roman Empire, but the specific evidence for these individuals isn’t there, in my opinion.

…that was a brief answer.  Let it stand as a warning to others.

#QandA #not pokemon

[kkukkung]

Im crying in the school bathroom rn I seriously love wonho so much I'm in pain why is he my ideal guy in every way he's so amazing and handsome and sweet but whO CARES BEVause he don't kno me haha am I right

big mood all the time im always in pain bc he rly................ doesn’t KNOW i would let him shave off my eyebrows if he wanted 2

tardy replies as usual under the cut!

(sorted from oldest to newest)

I wouldn't even care if wonho was a high maintenance boyf tbh I'd just sit and comb his hair all day and tell him he's pretty

hdjkfh this was so long ago but i think i was mostly kidding abt him being a high maintenance bf... like he would do so much giving? but i guess the only thing he’d need is constant reassurance that his s/o loves him imo jfdhgjk... i also think he’d b someone who either doesn’t settle down ever or does it very late in his life!

annie 🌹literary queen ❤️ literally crowned with a laurel wreath! not be drum attic but this midsummer nights monsta au is so!!!! give me sistar as the four star crossed lovers then drag me to h*ll and give me this doctor faustus au i'm itching for with kihyun as faustus and k.will as mephistopheles bc i love to watch my faves s*ffer but don't let me rip until i get my much ado about nothing au with the entire cast of starship ent and a lil cameo from giriboy!

(in refence to this monsta x as shakespearean archetypes ask!) fjdshgkjs shh i lov u... why is k will as mephistopheles so Accurate esp no.mercy k will lmao. um u should write all of these? in fact if... if anyone has mx literary aus.... hmu...... i’ll n*t

another thing about that incident is that it seems like the fan doesn't think Changkyun and Jooheon undersood them?? (an extension i guess they assumed they don't understand english very well) and that's pretty problematic. it seems to me that when they didn't respond the fan assumed they didn't understand and kept repeating it, as a joke. but they literally did That to the two with the most proficient english in the group... it's rly a mess all around. it's disrespectful through and through

(in relation to that gross “d*ddy” incident from a while ago) ik i feel like some intl fans think korea is a land completely culturally and linguistically alienated/divorced from the rest of the world or something and while cultural relativism is real to some extent... the idea that koreans are completely unaware of ~outside~ things is deeply racist. like mostly white ppl think that diasphoric poc are completely Different from them? when my mum went to the states 15 years ago some ppl literally asked her if there were newspapers in china lol...

i just randomly thought of monsta x as sesame street characters mostly bc i wanna see kihyun and wonho duke it out as bert and ernie (kihyun w/ the waste paper bin on his head and wonho asking 'where's the waste paper bin' and kihyun saying 'ask me that again and look into my eyes') and also minhyuk being elmo tbh...

JKGHKJDF PLEASe!!!! when will something like this b photoshopped... minhyuk as elmo is... spot on... i remember once elmo appeared on a now-discontinued late night talk show program i used to watch when i was in primary school and he was like “elmo likes wasabi, that’s why elmo has no eyebrows” and idk why ive never been able to forget this????? very lmh. also this made me think of a monsta x muppets au n minhyuk is the pic of ass-gape kermit.... next post of mine will b monsta x as kermit reaction pics

Hyungkyun is such an under appreciated ship. Like, they just get each other so well? Why do people overlook it. ㅠ.ㅠ Do you have a moment that made you ship them? How would you describe their dynamic?

it’s bc they’re intp x intj they don’t rly... Understand each other with minimal effort/real communication lmao it’s very efficient. both quiet lil darlings who aren’t emotionally That Open but enjoy their own little space together sometimes?? their dynamic is like... they’re weird in different ways but they’re v chill together. u can tell hyungwon is super fond of changkyun like he has this Expression when ck does anything at all.... i think these two rly love each other’s personalities bc they’re both kind/gentle/peaceful types and their overall ?? vibe is just highly compatible... they’re absolute darlings... v soft together... i can’t think of a favourite moment but i rly rly love their birthday messages for each other last year like changkyun’s message for hyungwon was like “ur rly cool bruh ur rly such a great person” and hyungwon’s message for changkyun was rly... just him obviously doting on him n finding him cute jksfdhg i lov them a lot :(

soyou: i know how to make hair pretty :))) knetz: dirty fckn iljin why can't she be out there being being PRODUCTIVE in society by having babies and learning how to be a good wife for her future husband ://// smh how dare she be successful now when i'm stuck doing what society wants me to do but also anonymously attacking ppl i don't personally know on the internet bc THATS respectable the irony of ugly knetz is so transparent

The whole thing about Knetz and wonho's "scandalous" past reminded me of something. As a PSA to those people who are so insistent and pushy that idols aren't allowed to have sex/date/be anything but straight: Fuck all of you. You do not own these people, and if you really cared about them you'd be happy if they were happy. Like tbh, if anyone that famous and busy could also balance out a relationship at the same time, I'd be so happy for them. It really bugs me how all idols are supposed (1/2)(2/2) have this squeaky clean innocent image where they have to look and act a certain way and have these stupid fucking dating bans because once they don't meet up to that image their success suffers. Idols already give up so much privacy, and the last thing they need is millions of people scrutinizing every little thing they do. I don't even know where I started this rant from, but basically, GIVE IDOLS PRIVACY AND DONT JUDGE THEM FOR THEIR PASTS OR FOR BEING IN RELATIONSHIPS OR WHATEVER

yeth ty for highlighting the gross obsession w purity and productivity (like the first anon said -- a very confucian sort of ideal)... i don’t rly have anything else to add here i think. also i would fight for soyou i fact i would fight lmh who said she was his ideal type in no.mercy era... she’s rly one of my faves and the way she was slandered for the hairdressing thing was one of the most ridiculous things knets ever did lmao honestly yuk

u a kihyun stan now👀👀👀

im a @fhiz​ stan it’s the same thing tbh

ahh so i saw your tags on that jh gifset! as one of the few jh stans (or maybe there are way more than i think there are lol) i rly love his "reversal charm." he has a lot of what i lack as a person: a strong presence and a lot of confidence! i respect him so much as a person alth i rag on him a lot LMAO. sorry if this is a bit long winded but i just rly wanted to put this out there ;;

this is rly cute i lov hearing ppl talk abt their faves lovingly it rly... Heals Me. i think it’s strange how underappreciated jooheon is in this fandom especially bc he’s usually the one who catches ur eye first bc he’s so hyped by starship as being a one-in-a-million talented rapper u know? and he rly shines in mvs and no.mercy but............. y does he have the least fansites jkfhdg ?? you’re v right abt the reversal charm thing but i feel like sometimes it’s very overdone like... on lots of shows he’s asked to do aegyo when rly he should be asked to... idk... rap or dance or something?? i actually think jooheon is the most serious member of monsta x sometimes bc he seems to have a sense that he’s.. the pillar of mx if that makes sense? and that’s why he’s always pushing himself and working tirelessly like he feels very Responsible for this group, more than anyone else. idk if that makes sense!!! i love him and i want him to... unwind a bit bc sometimes he looks so stressed and tired but he still feels the need to pretend to be energetic like my heart rly hurts for him :/ this got so emo im sry i do rly love to hear that u respect him sm i love jooheon stans :(

i can see what u mean about jooheon being 1 of the most masculine. (iirc u also talked abt kihyun being that in a post a while ago) like with his face and his physique he really is striking; his body=like that slim,upside-down Y that you'd learn to draw men w/ in Anatomy 101 , but i think.. ,--not that u asked, but,, i think the jury's still out on if he's comfortable w his masculinity with the way he acts feminine lyk misogynistic comedians Can sound like dead ringers for women,? idk & i take +

(not sure if there was a 2nd part to this? there’s nothing else in my inbox so i’m sry if there was and tumblr ate it) yeth i think i meant that his demeanor is the most ~~masculine~~ whereas i think kihyun is still the most... idk... mature-masculine?? if tht makes sense, and i definitely agree w u on that second point! i didn’t think of that at the time but now that i... do... think abt it... ur right and also the way he comes back from it by putting on the >swag demeanor again in an attempt to polarise it is definitely a bit 👀👀👀 he probably doesn’t want to risk his Manly Rapper Image for real u kno? that said it’s ingrained in kpop that behaving cute --> “girly” entails that sort of “comedic” high-pitched voice + compact body language etc.... like i’m not condoning that ofc but i definitely think it’s broader than this particular case! :/ hm

maybe i'd be doing better in school if i could major in kihyunology ;~; i stan him but i def think we still don't know much about him even after all this time after debut. especially when i look at him compared to wonho who wears his heart on his sleeve (bless him i love wonho sm, gotta protect this bun at all costs!!)...but ya it just makes me wanna learn more about him like who is the real kihyun??

i want to write a kihyun meta when i have time... i feel like i Get him a bit more these days but it’s also very hard to put into words bc u kno when u kinda sorta mb get some1 but it’s a feeling rather than anything conveniently expressable gkjdhfjk.... idk if anyone wants to send in some Kihyun Thoughts + Meta feel free! :>> i don’t think he’s actually... as complex as we sometimes make him out to be lol like his behaviour is actually kind of predictable? more on his later

wait is the february comeback actually true? ugh i'm so conflicted cuz on one hand i'm excited if there's really gonna be a full length album, but i also think they need more rest but then there's the matter of getting their first win and idk i'm super psyched but i'm also worried that the boys are being overworked

i still feel like they had a comeback like yesterday lol like looking at their schedules stresses me out bc they do so much..... im glad wonho got to go to his mum’s cafe recently tho! all we can do is have faith in them rn and when it’s time... stream, buy things if ur able to, spread the news and the hype etc. i am definitely Worried abt some things like the competition they’re up against but.... gotta have faith u kno... and i feel like all active idols are kind of... permanently worked very hard but i think currently only jooheon and shownu are a bit Overloaded. also has the date been confirmed yet... it’s february already...

#i planned 2 answer more but im... sleepy... #soon... i will... catch up... and make this blog neater + more navigation-friendly #ask #compilation #Anonymous