#tbh i think its because i played too much in that first year and develop a trauma from stopping high velocity balls with my body

[not-poignant]

Im really sorry if this is too personal please ignore me if it is but i saw your post just at the right time and im just, im struggling in my twenties at the thought of possibly having did right now. And you say you "used to", can i ask how you healed?

A lot of therapy, anon.

It does tend to show up in someone's 20s, and I went the path of Internal Family Systems Therapy (also known as IFS or IFST) which is extremely useful alongside the three C's (Compassion, Communication, Co-Consciousness).

I wasn't aiming to eliminate any alters, and anyone who wanted to stay as a separate alter could, but I taught myself through the help of other/s to be self-compassionate, to open up opportunities and methods for communication (which also included art, writing, journalling, etc. in fact the very first tumblr that 'I' ever made was actually made by an alter, and was originally called artforartists - it's now renamed and run by 'me' because Dani has absorbed back into the system, but you can still go to the earliest entries and see her in them.

It took a few years and I didn't rush things. The main thing to know is that while it feels extreme, it usually comes about as a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation, and it usually becomes very manageable with self-compassion (to all yourselves), impartial judgement, open communication, compromise (i.e. if you have an alter that wants to play video games 24/7 to the point that you're losing weeks of memory, find out small areas of compromise where they can be given something in exchange for something), and sharing consciousness where possible (co-consciousness).

It's very scary at first but imho for me personally, it has been the 'easiest' of all of my diagnosed disorders to deal with. I still have severe treatment-resistant depression and I still have severe treatment-resistant PTSD/C-PTSD, but my DID went into remission after about 4 targeted years of therapy. It's now DDNOS (Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) which means I don't have the symptoms enough to qualify for DID anymore, but I still have a system prone to dissociation / derealisation / depersonalisation and I have days where some alters are fronting a bit more than the central self, but I usually just use it as a sign that I'm really stressed and overwhelmed, rather than a sign that there's something wrong with me.

I'm extremely zen about it, tbh. And look, I didn't have the goal of 'absorbing' my alters (or them dying or w/e), I didn't set out with the idea of getting rid of it so much as learning how to live with different people who have different opinions about things in my head. But through the course of IFST and giving everyone a voice, that started to happen anyway. Healing doesn't always mean 'getting rid of alters' it mostly just means getting a handle on the memory loss (which is the most severe part of the disorder for me) and the polarisation so that it becomes regular dissonance and not so distressing it causes someone to switch. A person can be fully healed from DID and still have alters that front, if there's co-consciousness and communication for example. This was actually what I was aiming for, it just didn't end up being my outcome.

You may not be able to access therapy or IFST, and it can be hard to find DID-friendly therapists who know what they're doing, but you can actually look up and explore IFST on places like Instagram and in books like No Bad Parts and start doing the work gently already. (IFST isn't just or only for DID patients, but it is uniquely very well suited to them).

It can be very scary at first, anon, to think you might have this. Because it's a highly stigmatised and misunderstood disorder. At its root it can be understood as 'a child who didn't understand how to cope with something, at the time of personality formation, just developed a new personality to deal with it. But as a result of this, their brain got so good at developing new personalities that it became a maladapted coping strategy, and as an adult they can learn ways to cope that aren't splitting, switching, or losing memory with compassion and self-understanding.'

And honestly we all have a lot of maladapted coping mechanisms and the whole journey of life is learning to unpack them, and repack some healthier coping mechanisms into the lunchbox. And that's really about it. Still very scary and upsetting to go through, but also not a mysterious, "insane" thing. <3333 If you can reach out for help, please consider it, but otherwise do look into IFST. I started working on those strategies long before I found a suitable therapist and I honestly feel like just the mindset of radical self-acceptance and self-compromise and self-compassion was - while extremely hard to do often - the key for me, and some of those things will at the very least be helpful for you.

#asks and answers #personal #there's a lot more resources now for DID than their used to be #but there's also a lot more self-exploitation for likes and clout #just admitting you're worried something dissociative might be going on #is very brave and you're already on the path to healing anon #even though it doesn't feel like it yet

[elanorpam]

Hey, ive been a fan of your cultstuck series since i first read it 10 years ago and its one that i hold dear along woth toastyglow and their siblings' works. Given that we are all adults now with very busy lives, i dont expect you to kerp up with an old project like writing a fan novel fpr free, but i am curious as what ur current plants for earthbent are, if there are any atm.

(Tbh id be happy with any answer you provide, whether its a detailed outline, an unsure shrug, an excited wink hinting at a deadline or an announcement of permanent hiatus. Youve given so much with your writing, thst i just want you to be happy with whatever plans u have)

hey there! i'm going to go with unsure shrug as an answer here.

see, I did have a detailed outline for cultstuck-- i wrote it all down at around ...2015? very soon after the second eridan chapter, and sent it to my beta, who then proceeded to ghost me forever. I was already sensing she was growing disinterested in the fic/the fandom, giving constant excuses, and I myself was dealing with an anxiety/depression combo that would sharply nosedive by the time the finale came around, so i just... let it go. She didn't care. I wasn't in a good mental place to care. We went our separate ways.

I decided to take a mental health sabbatical, and now, after a few years of sertraline and therapy, the thought of picking it back up is very, very far down my list of priorities. I have so many other fics I want to write, for media which hasn't let me this profoundly down! And also, Cultstuck was conceptualized in the post-cascade hiatus, in chat logs and rough outlines, and was never supposed to take later canon into account unless it dropped any interesting, matching lore...

...but late act 6 took such a dump on the characters and the setting that it took the joy right out of playing on my patch of sandbox, fenced off as it was. And I couldn't connect with the Retcon timeline at all, but some of its developments are so popular and so deeply entrenched that I hesitate to contradict them even though i kind of hate the whole thing and never meant to take it into account?

Let's take the strongest example: Davekat. Dave and Karkat in Cultstuck were never meant to be anything more than mutually annoying acquaintances connected only indirectly via Terezi-- Dave was to be her moirail, and aro-ace besides. This was because for the entirety of the comic, that was the only vibe I got from Dave as a character, and from his interactions with Karkat as a whole-- he and Karkat felt too similar in mutually unpleasant ways, like a cousin that's just enough like you to give you second-hand embarrassment. So by the point the comic was playing coy with pushing the New Dave and New Karkat action figures together, you couldn't get me to care about Davekat if you put a gun to my head. This really hasn't changed in the least. And that means whenever I think of dealing with disappointed Davekat fans in the future of the fic, I just feel an all-encompassing, soul-deep exhaustion.

but i also don't want to drop the fic altogether, for some reason? Like, I might not feel this way forever. So idk, i'm keeping my options open i guess. Subscribe to the fic/series and maybe 10 years from now you'll get a notification like a holiday miracle. Who knows.

#cultstuck #homestuck #homestuck thinks

[rollercoasterwords]

ok sorry thought i was done but just. like the places where i see discussion to be had abt misogyny re:wlw ships/fics getting less attention/hype/whatever in the marauders fandom is like

1. the fact that the source material is sexist in its portrayals of women and the sexism underlying how pretty much the only characters w any canon to build off in the marauders era are men

which like. this is a valid thing to point out, sure, and it's a valid thing to be aware of, but it isn't any individual fic writer's moral responsibility to rehabilitate the text by giving female characters development that was not afforded to them originally, y’know? fanfiction isn't activism, it's a hobby. and because it exists outside a profit economy, nobody really has any right as a consumer to demand certain standards of representation. so it's like. there is a conversation to be had there, but it's not a conversation that everyone is obligated to take part in, and it's not a matter of pointing fingers and going "you're sexist if you only write fic about boys!!" like that just isn't the way you act if ur trying to build community. sure, i think it's good to be aware of how the original biases in a text impact our engagement with it, but at the end of the day i'm not going to frown upon someone for looking at a handful of characters and picking the ones that were more well-developed in canon, yknow?

2. The Rosekiller Conundrum

see this is where i feel like a lot of this discourse hinges because when point 1 is broken down i often see people go: yeah but it's not just about which characters are well-developed bc evan rosier literally has no canon personality either and neither does barty and tbh neither does regulus so why are they so popular!!

and it's like. first of all, is rosekiller actually as popular as u are making it out to be? one quick search on ao3 brought up 4000 works tagged dorlene and 778 tagged evan/barty. so. i am curious about how this popularity is being measured (of course, timeframe plays into it too--if most of those 778 fics have been written in the past year, that probably is a lot more growth than most wlw ships see). but honestly i wonder how much of the seeming popularity of rosekiller is just internet echo chambers, yknow?

but also. people going "why/how did this get popular if not flat-out sexism??" like. it seems pretty simple to me. pandemic -> tiktok explosion -> atyd virality on tiktok -> marauderstok -> jegulus surge. a few fic writers somewhat randomly decided to write evan and barty as regulus's friends, their fics happened to go viral through no fault of their own, and bc of the way tiktok interacts w fanfic where everyone talks abt the same few popular fanfics bc that's what will get their videos views (which makes those fics more popular, which makes more people talk abt them for views, etc etc) evan and barty just happened to become new beloved characters. tbh i think it could just as easily have been any other two death eater/slytherin boys if someone had happened to choose them to be regulus's friends and then their fic went viral.

so like....to me rosekiller has less to do with sexism and more to do with the way that tiktok engages with fanfic through this framework of consumer economy. and so continuing to interact w it through the framework of a consumer economy is just gonna perpetuate the issues u are ostensibly trying to critique.

and like, yes, there is of course room for a conversation of like. what role misogyny plays in the seeming boom of rosekiller popularity, and whether this is indicative of a wider trend in which people get attached to male characters much more quickly and easily than they do female characters. but that is not the only factor at play here, and it is not necessarily the most important one, or a factor that's even going to be at play for every single person, and certainly not for every single person the same way. so like--sure, let's have those conversations! i've shared my thoughts on this blog before abt how i think misogyny might impact our abilities to relate to female characters. but nobody is obligated to take part in those discussions because, once again, this is a hobby that exists outside a consumer economy, and it is neither practical nor productive to act like everyone should be constantly and militantly policing each other for any behavior that could potentially be influenced by misogyny. this is supposed to be a community. if u want to have a conversation with someone, you don't start it by pointing a finger in their face and yelling about how you're morally superior.

#added a cut bc this got long! #of course! #who is surprised! #anyway tldr is like yes let's talk about misogyny but not as a form of pointless virtue signaling #ranting and raving #txt

[abey-baby-apologist]

clone high final episode spoilers below! (9 n 10)

holy fuck im so happy. even though im super annoyed how they keep throwing a bunch of really good ideas for relationships and plot in the trash- im just so happy with what we got. 

OK FIRST EPISODE 9??? THE ANIMATION WAS SO FUCKING GOOD AND I HAD TO PAUSE BECAUSE WHEN WESLEY WAS FLAILING IN THE SEA, IT WAS DAMN smooth and pleasant to watch, as morbid as it sounds lol. that whole scene with the comic-esque vibe was so so pleasing. 

and that whole episode was super like, sad but funny. i literally stood up and yelled when Mr. B was getting near the edge. like i probably woke up every single one of my neighbors in like.. a 50 mile radius it was that bad im so fucking annoying about this show. 

BUT THEN SCUDS SAVED HIM AND I WAS SO HAPPY, LIKE THEYRE LITERALLY AN OLD COUPLE, AND LITERALLY THEY’RE FATHERS TO THEIR CLONE KIDS AND THEYRE ALL SUCH A BIG HAPPY FAMILY AND AUGHHHH im gonna draw family stuff with them so bad. I WISH THESE EPISODES CAME OUT BEFORE FATHERS DAY IT WOULD’VE BEEN PERFECT. 

ok, episode 10 i have to take a deep breath with. i am VERY happy. and idk if it was because the bar was so low, or if it was because i was so anxious i was vomiting everywhere because i needed content so bad, but i am overjoyed. 

THE ABETOPH CONTENT WE GOT WAS SO GOOD. WE HAVE LIKE... 3 NEW CUTE PHOTOS OF THEM HANGING OUT, AND LIKE A BUNCH OF MOMENTS OF ABE CARRYING TOPHER ON HIS BACK. was it because he was being tophers lackey? fine, sure, whatever. BUT AFTER THAT WHEN JFK BROKE TOPHERS PHONE IT WAS OVER (im upset it wasnt developed on further because people who didnt watch it in real time like us will surely be fine. so fuck you.) 

Also, ABE AND JFKS FREINDSHIP HOLUYDBIUJEWNFJKNF oh my god not to be autistic but i was stimming so fucking hard WHEN THEY HUGGED, I WAS LIKE YES FINALLY. FINALLLLLYYY!!! theyre my sweet boys and THAT WHOLE FRIEND GROUP HAS ME IN TEARS. LIKE abe and Confucius are already bros, as we see them playing in the school yard, and JFK and Confucius are already bros from the sleepover episode, but NOW JFK AND ABE ARE BROS. FUCK. YEAH. oh and tophers there too. i like how they treat topher tbh. like hes just there until he says something out of pocket and they’re just like stfu. 

but with the girls friend group.. oof. i honestly loved them so much, especially with cleo, but NOW ITS FUCKED. and its not even joans fault tbh. like when i was watching the scene where frida dropped joan i was like “damn” but then, JOAN MENTIONS HOW SHE HELPED EVERYONE BEFORE AND I WAS LIKE “DAYYYYYYUUMMMM UR RIGHT” so now im conflicted. But again like??? bruh i would choose cleo too tbh lmao.

Also, i’m glad clone college isn’t real. because jfk mentions about taking shelly to .. biology? which i think is a only 1st year class. and in the original clone high everyone is like “omg u hit puberty over summer” Which i feel is typically something thats potrayed in media AFTER middle school. but i could be wrong so, idk. just really glad they didn’t do the clone college bc i hate change. also theyre 16 lmao. OR MAYBE THEY WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT... in the future when highschools done?? IDK. IDC.

anyway. im scared for joans friend group and i fucking love joan, and i am in love with abe, toph, jfk, and Confucius’s little bromances and augh. im so happy. and THE CLIFF HANGER WASN’T TERRIBLE ALSO, IN MY OPNINON. 

im just glad joanabe wasn’t endgame. i mean, i would be pretty happy because im a sucker for childhood friends to lovers but also NOOOOOO joan deserves better. so. yeah 10/10 

if you read this far, holy crap, im proud of you, and ily 

that is my review on the finale so i’ll be making so much content now that im not on the brink of collapsing everytime i think of clone high. like trust me im gonna try and stretch out this fixation for as long as i can. though im probably gonna draw a surplus of abe and jfk art bc they were my fav in 2020

#i fucking love you clone high #clone high finale #clone high episode 9 #clone high episode 10 #long post

[autisticempathydaemon]

Have never done anything like this before but I wanted to participate because why not!

Hope I'm doing this right- this is for the RedactedAudio Match-up :)

1 - Ok so I have 2 song fixations, first one is "Used to the Darkness" by Des Rocs and the other is "Morning Coffee" by Chevy and Nalba

For Used to the Darkness the specific verse is the chorus, it's a bit long for tumblr but I'll give my reasoning. I've always loved this kind of rock because it reminds me of the 90s rebellion kind of era and this verse strikes me as 'society has forced me down by its standards and is leaving me in the dust because I've "made a mistake", but I'm going to fight because my life hasn't started yet and I'm too young to simply give up'. Every time I hear that chorus it gives me a second wind of sorts and reminds me to just keep going, to keep being stubborn and to keep being me unapologetically.

For Morning Coffee there is no specific line because I resonate with the whole song lol. I'm a very big coffee addict, like I need coffee or tea every day to make it feel right. The reason being is that it's a small comfort treat to help me feel better especially when some days just aren't the best and I need a pick me up to feel better, even if it's a little bit. I listen to this every morning on my commute and every afternoon on the way back home, it's such a big comfort song that I keep on repeat.

2 - 6! (subtype sp) 3 - I love a good video essay! My favourite ones are a bit niche but I especially love SovietWomble's essay about "The Forest" because it's a deep dive critique and explanation of what happens when lore is added to a game post-release and why it's so important to develop it as a whole rather than doing it in bits as it can be the difference of an amazing or completely underwhelming experience. As someone who writes for fun and loves to play games soley for the lore sometimes, I found it useful to develop and hone my skills in world-building and making my stories more coherent. Also because he did a face reveal at the end BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT!

4 - Gosh I haven't talked about my imaginary friend in a bit, her face evades me but I remember she would always help me sleep or play with me when no one else did (so everyday basically). She always wore a yellow dress and had her hair up in pigtails. I never gave her a name because she never needed one, I just called her 'friend', I miss her

5 - Put on a redacted audio vid and fall asleep to that lmfao (usually a david vid)

6 - I honestly don't know what I'd change my name to, sometimes I just wish I didn't really have a name because my self identity fluctuates so much

7 - Favourite redacted audio, hm, tbh any of David's audios. I find myself always returning to one of his videos but I think I like his camping one the most, I cry every time but hearing the stories makes my heart so full and like I genuinely want to comfort him.

8 - Huxley maybe? I love his pairing with Damien but I've never really liked or gotten into his story much, might just be a me thing- but hey he's gay so that's fun

9 - RWBY! Specifically volumes 1-3 because they're so iconic, love the entire series though, I quote it a lot to myself.

10 - Guy, he's as much as a dumbass and gremlin as I am and I THRIVE off of the chaotic energy so much. Plus he can make me pizza while we hang out so that's fun!

11 - Memes, I will start quoting memes. Either that or "Which character would win in xyz situation? A or B?" 12 - 7-11 hot chocolate but instead of milk I put a latte in it

13 - Karu's "How To Train Your Dragon" orchestra cover playlist 14 - smutty audios... idk I just find it fun to scour for a good audio on reddit lmfao

15 - I'm very argumentative and will debate anyone on any topic (I've been a debater for years), but I'm also very much a people pleaser because I like to give people gifts and do acts of service. Uh- does a plushie addiction count as something that'll tell you who I am? I like dnd and Critical Role

Thank you!

Ooh, I love you; you gave me so much information to work with! There were a good amount of possibilities I was working with, but if you’re an argumentative Six, who else can I pair you with but Avior?

You’re both similar in a lot of ways- a love of debate, prone to Acts of Service, Type Sixes who are loyal, thoughtful, and reliable. It’s these similarities but also the differences that make me think you’d be compatible. Avior and his sarcastic, sharp nature would be good at keeping your people-pleasing chaos in check. Your love of storytelling and narratives would be new and so refreshing to him as he’s never put so much thought into fantasy and fiction. He learns to accept your gifts graciously because he wants you to be happy even though he’s not used to it.

Your life together would be so fun; you’d make his life so fun. Avior does not understand your plushie collection, but he tolerates it and comes to terms with their watching eyes every day because he loves you. He also doesn’t understand any of your memes either; he pretends he thinks they’re insipid and pointless, but he actually thinks they and you are cute and silly when you quote them. Also, you’re totally coffee/tea addicts together, and you’ve got the best stocked caffeine cupboards in all of Dahlia.

Song:

Just tea for two and two for tea/ Me for you and you for me alone/ Nobody near us/ To see us or hear us/ No friends or relations/ On weekend vacations/ We won't have it known, dear/ That we own a telephone (oh, I hate telephones) (yeah, me too)

I couldn’t help it; you gave me a coffee song, so I had to give you a tea song in return! I also like it for you, because it’s cute, it’s sweet, it’s singable. It’s not just about tea but love and being together, having tea side by side for the rest of your lives. It’s the kind of song you could sing at Avior, and he’d have to try really hard to not be charmed.

Runner-Ups:

If you’re a DnD fan, I’ve got to give you Lasko as a runner-up; my brain would not allow otherwise! The two of you could write together and be so cute. Asher is your other contender because you’re similar in a lot of ways that would be really fun but more in a platonic, best friend way than romantic like Avior.

note: thank you so much for waiting~! I hope you like your match-up!

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

#redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redacted audio #redacted #busybee matches

[rappaccini]

tbh in my opinion the Biggest Issues with toh aren't actually that disney cancelled it before it could finish its story. even if the show had gotten a fuller run it still would've fumbled because the issues are endemic to the plot and were since the start.

specifically the show took too long to understand that it's not actually a fluffy slice-of-life story. it's plot-driven. in this regard it took the wrong lessons from its spiritual predecessor gravity falls. toh needed to introduce the plot and the main players much earlier and make consequences last if the sudden plot turn was going to have weight. not to mention make sure its character dynamics are prioritized by story importance and not fanservice yes this is about lumity aka wlw kataang happening instead of amillow/lunter, the ships that have far more relevance to plot and character development.

easiest ways to do that: introduce belos and hunter much earlier, give stakes to eda being a fugitive and luz being The First Human To Be Here In Hundreds of Years, and make amity and hunter one character to streamline the plot.

in this essay i will

so. season 1 au.

eda being a wanted fugitive has stakes:

they have to be sneaky when moving in public, possibly even disguised. getting chased by coven members. the owl house moves around constantly to keep them from detection. play it lightly/for laughs this season.

luz wants to go to witch school, but no one can know eda is her guardian. cue the golden comedic potential of them shoving king and hooty in a trenchcoat to pass them off as her parent.

luz wants to make friends, but she has to be evasive so no one can learn who she's living with. no taking friends to her house after school. no discussing her guardians.

they have to hide that luz is a human and pass her off as a powerless witch (... don't you think The First Human To Be Here In Hundreds Of Years would be a bigger deal??? especially to belos??? and even if belos wouldn't target her, eda has no way of knowing that.)

give her some like... fake pointy ears or something. a disguise she has to maintain that can be a source of comedy.

(+the dramatic irony of human-world luz being her authentic self and getting rejected for it, coming to the isles to not have to do that anymore, and doing nothing but lie about who she is)

in general, luz has to realize that running away to the isles to be automatically accepted wasn't feasible; the isles are just as flawed as the human world, there is no easy world where she instantly belongs, and even if being yourself might not make everyone like you, it's still worth it because the people you do bond with are the ones who'll love you most, and you'll have a much better relationship with yourself.

introduce belos MUCH earlier.

starting off with light fluffy episodic fun is good. it helps the viewer get to know the world and characters. but we have to get the ball rolling much faster. it's insane that the show's main antagonist has no physical presence onscreen before the end of season 1.

we need to meet belos himself before episode ten, even if it's just in a brief cameo. and in the latter half of the season, keep giving us glimpses of him, leading up to luz's first meeting with him in the finale.

introduce the coven leaders as early as covention-- an easy excuse for them to be there: meeting their future followers.

and only have as many covens as you can use in the plot. ten was too much. bring it down to five or six (off the top of my head: emperor, plant, illusionist, abomination, potions, bard. construction can be divided into plant and abomination, potions can absorb healing (or be the 'powerless witch' magic option), beastkeeping can be an occupation instead of a magic track, oracle never did anything so we can cut it).

introduce the golden guard halfway through season 1 as a semi-regular antagonist. those Everyone Knows About The Golden Guard bits of detail from season 2? move that shit up! give them a presence in the worldbuilding in the first half of s1 through references in dialogue and background details and introduce them formally in the second half, maybe even in the same ep as belos.

do not unmask the golden guard yet because--

[pause for an aside. read this if you haven't already: amity and hunter are essentially two versions of the same character.

have you read it? okay. now ask yourself: how do we keep from repeating ourselves? how do we keep amity from falling into stagnation? how do we avoid rushing through hunter's development? how do we enhance lumity's narrative importance and remove the risk of it being overshadowed whenever willow and hunter wander onscreen, while also diving deeper into luz and hunter's connection and following it through to its fullest narrative-relevant conclusion?

here's the answer: combine hunter and amity into one character.

aside over.]

-- amity and hunter are one person.

from the original canon: since the golden guard is a legacy title, everyone already knows about them, but not who's under the mask. that works. that stays.

this golden guard is fresh out of the grimwalker soup. they have no history with any of the hexside kids, and were sent to the school specifically to spy on luz, using 'amity blight' as a disguise. dual reason: keep tabs on luz and give hunter the Loyalty Test to see if this one doesn't need to get pulped like the others.

listen. making a wood golem to spy on a kid by befriending them, and naming said golem amity is too good.

we just move the willow-bully-past plot to boscha (and probably the blight family drama if it really matters that much to keep; tbh you could cut the blight twins from the story and not miss much but if they really need to be here, they could just be boscha's siblings), and/or have amity-hunter (amter?) immediately suck up to the popular kids and participate in kicking willow around like a football, because that's the environment they're used to.

yes, amter is here for a Purpose, but they've also never been around kids or in a school before, and they're being distracted by how much they love it. as in canon, we establish that it isn't just luz that's going to motivate their turn; it's just as much the potential of having friends, going to school, enjoying extracurriculars, having a life, being a person.

spend that first half of season 1 with amter being one of the bullies, then shaping up. this smooths over the issue of luz Suddenly Forgiving the Longtime Bully Of Her Best Friend: now there's no years-long shitty history of amter targeting willow; they're a new student who was shitty for a minute, then shaped up. far easier for willow to forgive.

being a fellow 'powerless witch' is going to be a source of bonding for them and luz. they have to learn magic in the same ways. luz can learn what emperor-approved methods there are for powerless witches, and amter can get a glimpse of the wild magic luz is playing with.

also to achieve the best of both worlds, this character is trans.

either a trans boy -- (we'll make belos's brother his sister in this au)-- with amity being the performance, and hunter who he actually is-- i like the irony of a mask being a better reflection of his true self than his actual face.

OR a trans girl, with hunter liking being amity far better than being hunter. i don't mind which one is used. both could be promising.

as such, 'amity' gets the crush on luz first, but luz doesn't reciprocate until she encounters the golden guard. because luz (has a type, and that type is bad-but-sad rogues, so you know her ass would be into it, and more importantly, she) likes amter for who they really are.

and since 'amity blight' is a performance designed to appeal to luz, hunter can't be their real self around her. the only time that can happen is when they're behind a mask, quipping away as they face off, in the rare times when they're out of the palace/hexside and away from anyone who can report back to belos.

anyway we meet the golden guard in season 1, but the interactions are brief. amter does the dirty work sometimes, but is primarily still being amity (especially since lilith is still belos's number two at this point).

and near the end of s1, the audience gets to learn that amity and the golden guard/hunter are the same person. luz doesn't.

since the s1 finale still has luz live on tv interrupting a public execution, she can't exactly hide who she is or who she's with anymore.

season 2 builds on that:

all luz's friends and classmates know she's a human, she's with the owl lady, and they have to spend time processing that she lied to them and coming to understand why she felt she had to do that, and that she had no bad intentions about it.

they also have to sneak around to stay friends with her.

luz can't go back to witch school now that she's been outed as a fugitive. she has to do independent study with eda and her friends, which means the audience can get more context on wild magic and eda's circle of peers.

the hexside rebellion subplot of the truncated s3 can have a few threads here: now that the entire student body has realized that new kid luz was a human and a wild witch the whole time, they start to question what other lies they've been told.

more expansion on belos as antagonist.

take him more seriously as a threat: more moving around, more disguises in public places, now played less for laughs. even if he's holding back to lure her into a false sense of security while having amter get close to spy on her, eda doesn't know that. she's a longtime fugitive; she should probably act cleverly enough for us to buy why she kept evading capture. if eda thinks he has even more reason to go after luz, she should be putting more measures into place to protect her.

furthermore, luz's history with belos is great. as humans from bonesborough who came to the isles chasing magic and gained status among the witches, they have a lot in common.

we need more time spent digesting that. if he'd found her instead of eda, would he have initiated her into the emperor's coven? does he still want to? does he see her as a younger version of himself? a student? an heir or successor? when he interacts with her, is he a cold and frightening emperor, or warm, 'vulnerable' kindred spirit who wants to offer her all the power she can't reach with palismanless magic.

or given that she literally time-loops her way into giving him the power he needs to take over, does she hold a sort of spiritual importance to him? it'd be hard to believe that a puritan encountering the exact image of the girl he received divine assistance from wouldn't be A Certain Way about her.

and if luz isn't interested in living up to the mythology he's constructed in his head about her... he's not going to be happy about it.

additionally, we need to establish them more as foils (luz loves magic, belos hates it. luz bonds with and liberates the witches, belos dominates and subjugates them. belos abuses and confines amter, luz is going to set them free.)

luz's homesickness gets more focus.

generally, luz has to deal with the consequences of running away from home. she's genuinely homesick, and the situation with belos has her nervous about staying; this isn't fun anymore. she spends the first half of season 2 wanting to come home.

when luz does make it back, and sees that a basilisk has all but replaced her and her mother seems to get along with them better, she... gets upset? and when her mother realizes her child has been off in witchland instead of adult camp, has quadrupled down on the behavior she sent her to camp to get rid of, and is now in actual danger because of it.... she also gets upset?

it's wasted potential that such a big moment between luz and her mother (realizing that your mother seems to have replaced you with an imposter that lacks everything you like about yourself, and she seems to like that imposter better + realizing that your child disobeyed you, ran away from home and is doing all the things you don't want her to do and those things have put her in life-or-death peril) flatlines so hard in the show.

so here, instead, there's a messy fight. luz, being a teenager, decides that she's going to stay in the isles and makes her way back... only to learn that her significant other is a spy for the enemy. and spends the second half of the season All In on the boiling isles and proving herself as a true witch.

finally, when luz and the crew land in the human world at the end of the season, there's tension to her reunion with her mother and the basilisk that gets a cathartic release when they hug and apologize

on the amter end:

lilith's out of commission, and the day of u is approaching, so belos pulls amter out of school and gets them to work as the guard full time. plus, luz isn't there anymore, so there's no point. let amter miss hexside life.

i like the moment luz starts to crush on amity, so let's keep that. amter's first act of rebellion is, as amity, saving luz's ass. naturally, there should probably be a punishment for it, and a juicy ~but it's only part of my con~ excuse that definitely isn't true anymore.

i like drama, so let them get together at the same time as they do in canon. give them the nice fluffy first date and mutual admission of feelings, and a little honeymoon phase where they're a cute little couple...

.... and then, halfway through the season, comes the unmasking.

right as luz learns that her mom has 'replaced' her, she discovers that one of her closest friends/her romantic interest is lying to her and working with the evil emperor and has been this whole time.

they break up and we spend time dealing with the fallout. luz is upset and stays upset, and amter Has Serious Doubts about belos-- yes, because of luz, but also because of the support system, friend group and world she exposed them to while they were close.

near the end of s2, luz and amter learn all the golden guard grimwalker details. give them like. actual time to reflect on it together rather than having amter run off into the woods, luz inexplicably decide not to comfort someone she cares about at a time of extreme emotional distress and move on without saying anything, and amter randomly show up two weeks later with their shit handled.

with them being exes, luz not pursuing amter makes more sense. and with amter having history with willow and gus, having gone to school with them and dated their friend, so does them hitting it off.

since s1 spent time establishing the golden guard/amter as an antagonist, s2 can explore how conflicted they feel. there's now time built in for that disillusionment with belos, building a connection with the hexside kids, and face turn that were so rushed in canon.

end on the same note as s2: amter joins the hexside kids in the escape from the isles.

season 3

playing fast and loose here, imagining we get an actual third season with 15-20ish episodes instead of a handful of specials.

first half:

the standard 5-ish episodes of the kids settling into human life, luz going to high school. time to breathe and prepare them to finish their arcs.

(let's see high school luz bring some of her personality development back to a normal school setting. contrast her now with who she was at the start)

then a 5ish-ep miniarc of the hexsiders tracking down the way back and warming up to vee. specifically luz, the girl vee replaced, accepting their presence in her home and amter, the direct relative of the person who caused vee's refugee situation, getting to bond with them, experience a further level of deprogramming, and have an even more personal reason to want to later depose belos and fix the isles.

give gus all the human world exploration joy. let's bring vee's human friends into the story more. let the bonesborough kids meet witches, encounter magic, and respond with excitement and understanding, to fix the puritanism that drove the worlds apart originally.

amter and luz spend the first half of the season being Awkward around each other. the unmasking betrayal sting has faded, they're no longer upset with each other, but now they don't know how to act as they're sinking into their respective major worries. at this time amter's mostly bonding with willow and gus, and luz with her mother and vee.

luz's main concern is, as in canon, all her guilt about the collector catastrophe and whether she should never have gone to the isles in the first place.

amter's main concern is, as in canon, all that trauma about belos and determination to face and destroy him slowly consuming them. they still have to deal with all hunter's possession trauma.

since amity's role at this point in canon is to Be Luz's Gf, we're gonna go all in on the hunter stuff from here on out. and since amter is trans, work in some dysphoria theming here. maybe amter decides to Keep Being Amity because they've grown to love that name. maybe they ask the gang to start calling them hunter. maybe they decide to be someone entirely new. idk, seems like the right time to let that plot culminate.

(in fact, pair amter's coming out to themselves/the group with luz's to her mother. make this the moment where they stop being cool to each other and make the effort to be friendly again.)

around episode ten: the halloween special where the group heads back to the isles, aka the bulk of the first special but given room to breathe. make it a two-parter.

before we get into the meat: we need bonesborough to find out about magic at this point. philip and caleb were two small parts of a larger society, espousing that society's views. caleb was capable of change. why can't the town be too?

specifically belos needs to see that his bigotry isn't welcome here anymore. it's entirely possible for the town, and humanity as a whole, to embrace witches and magic.

they can only do that if they find out about witches and magic. so spend the first half of the season with vee's human friends and luz's high school peers interact with the hexsiders and slowly catch on that Something's Up, and have belos's attack during the halloween festivities reveal it to everyone. and have the town protect the kids and assist in beating belos back.

this is the point where amter and luz are comfortable around each other again.

and also probably where we should do something with the caleb-and-evelyne-are-symbolically-amter-and-luz's-past-lives thing? complete with flapjack having been evelyne's palisman? wild that canon drops that nuclear bombshell and proceeds to refuse to elaborate and pair them off with different people.

anyway. the takeaway needs to be that luz and amter will succeed where evelyne and caleb failed because they've learned what they need to solve the problem that undid c&e.

here's what we know about evelyne and caleb: wild witch evelyne gave caleb a reason to leave the puritanical world of bonesborough and embrace a better, freer life, but philip refused to let them go, caught up with them years later, killed them, and used their magic to remake the boiling isles in his image.

i'll reverse-engineer from that the crack in c&e's story that turned it into a tragedy: the first time around, caleb and evelyne didn't confront philip about being a puritanical witch-hater. they thought it would be enough to just distance themselves and move on about their lives with the hopes that he'd get over it and leave them alone. you know, kinda like the situation amter and luz are in right now, being stuck in bonesborough hiding out from belos, full of guilt and shame about associating with him.

and here's the issue: the hate that philip and his empire represents will only ever regenerate, grow and thrive if it is ignored or avoided (see: belos getting goopy in s3, and slowly scheming his way back into power). it will follow you until it's destroyed all your hiding places, killed all your protectors, and there's nothing to stop it from killing you and your loved ones too. you have to fight it head on, completely dismantle it and replace it with something better, to ensure that people won't fall back into the old system's arms when times get hard and uncertain.

point being: evelyne led caleb away from philip and helped him dismantle his toxic worldview... but in doing so they left the social contagion to fester and grow. luz led amter away from belos and helped them deprogram, but now she needs to lead amter back to belos to face, disown and defeat him, and replace his system of shame, domination and strict control with hers-- one of wild magic, love and acceptance. that's what makes the difference. that's the lesson they need to learn.

semi-nonsequiter but it has to go somewhere: vee needs a moment with luz and amter where they have to talk about the implications of going back and facing belos. vee not going is fine, but we need to flesh their motivation out as 'this isn't my fight to finish, it's yours.' it's not the responsibility of the refugee to dethrone their tyrant-- it's the responsibility of the people who enabled said tyrant: luz, amter, and the covens.

(as is it feels like vee only ever existed to provide an excuse for camila and luz to vanish for a while. they deserve better.)

second half:

part 2 plays out basically the same. let's expand on the collector-king connection, eda and lilith on the lam, belos getting progressively slimier and the hexside commune power struggle between boscha and mattholomule.

again, it's important for amter and luz to receive support from someone other than a love interest. amter and luz's respective bonds with willow-and-gus, and camila reassures them that someone understands them and doesn't blame them for their mistakes, which helps them let go of their respective guilts and inadequacies. this half of the season needs to be about their greater support group-- their friends and family.

speaking of family, idk where darius is, but let's add some kind of moment between him and amter. take the blight family divorce drama and scoot it over to darius, giving him a moment to shine, totally break from the coven, and show the audience the kind of family amter could have when this is over.

[aside: alador and darius. both abomination witches who have paternal roles to amity/hunter, carry out an evil system led by an abusive parent to amity/hunter, whose arcs both involve choosing to leave said parent and take the kid with them. ffs they're the same character too]

if boscha's getting amity's scraps, then let's do some rivals-to-crushes tension with her and willow when they're in the hexside commune. build to a moment where they fully bury the hatchet. plus add her to the moment where willow backslides back into anxiety and self-doubt. having her conquer it by both having her friends AND the person responsible for sabotaging that confidence present (who has told her she was wrong for doing that and is sorry) is far more significant.

plus, some kind of moment between boscha and amter where they acknowledge the brief friendship they once had. for all boscha's shittiness, she was also the first friend amter ever made. she might not have been a good influence, but for someone who's been alone all their life, what matters is that she was there. all the progress amter made first started with boscha seeing a friendless new kid at school and taking them under her wing. give her some credit.

finale:

let's keep the collector delusion but skip the 'let's respond to the badfaith audience who think luz is bad' and focus instead on channeling those insecurities through her status as belos's foil. since it's been built up in s2, we can get a glimpse of that world where luz WAS his apprentice.

and amter needs to have their own delusion too. look, the show decided to make the original sin evelyne AND caleb. it can't just show us luz, then show us hunter, and say 'oh, only luz needs to take part in this fight.' it has to be both of them.

both of them want to be understood and embraced by the people they care about. so does the collector, and belos uses that instinct against people to manipulate them.

and per the culmination of their arcs: they're 1) affirmed enough in who they are that they don't accept the illusion of acceptance in exchange for compromising themselves and 2) they understand how important it is to face belos and what he represents, so they resist the urge to hide from their guilt and fear to break through the illusion and face him head-on.

keep the collector being empathized with, forgiven, and the show refusing to give belos a pass.

that's the moment of change that evelyne and caleb weren't capable of. they couldn't recognize that philip was a problem that had to be addressed and removed. they dismissed it, forgave it, and ran away. luz and amter won't, and now we've switched from tragedy to comedy.

being that this is the climax, and it's time for arcs to pay off, amter and luz both must sacrifice something significant in order to tie off their arcs.

the strongest sacrifice amter can make is their life. it's the thing they've been seeking all this time-- a life, a future full of happy memories with people who care about them, where they are free to make their own choices-- that they finally have, and it's time to put it to the test: what's the point of having that life, if these people aren't in it?

given redemption arc standards, amter needs to face belos, denounce him, and literally or symbolically die fighting him and protecting luz and/or someone she cares about. it's how we set in stone that amter has changed for the better, their loyalties are with luz, won't fall for belos's manipulation and will face him without backing down.

i'm gonna dust off the old theory about luz sacrificing her palisman wood and using it to resurrect hunter and put it here.

if luz's true motivation was finding someone who understood her and she's convinced being a witch is the only way to get it, the strongest sacrifice she can make is giving up her pathway to be a 'true' witch to save the person who understands her best, because she knows now that she doesn't need to be a witch to be a good, valuable person who is accepted by the people she cares about, and that it isn't worth becoming a witch if these people aren't here to see it. it's the best way to show she's finished her arc successfully and completely forgives amter.

additionally, this brings us back around to the belos connection and definitively shows her as his opposite. when the chips are down, belos chooses power and isolation over humanity and community. luz chooses humanity and community over power and isolation.

+luz's method of palismanless magic is fine on its own. i feel like her getting a palisman after all takes away from the validity of palismanless magic. like all the work she put into developing a magic system all her own is less impactful, because it was just a placeholder all along until she could trade up for something flashier and a cute animal sidekick.

.......... (side effect being that amter gets the full powers of a palisman... but also has an empathetic connection to luz)

anyway all this to say i think this connection can be applied to titan-magic luz. it's wild magic at its wildest and most inventive, a totally new form of magic combined with the most ancient one in a way never seen before.

so luz's Ultimate Sacrifice? i mean i love it, but to be more efficient and align with the changes in this rewrite, let's give that to amter. they need to perform one, and there it is. so, they 'die' protecting the collector-- another lonely misguided kid being manipulated by belos who is rescued by luz-- and meet the titan in purgatory. as the reincarnation of the guy who helped cause this mess, i think the titan needs some words with them.

and luz using her palistrom wood to save them is what brings them back from the dead, and she can talk to and see the titan in purgatory too on account of that palisman connection she's accidentally forged. it works.

fuck yeah let's have eda and king help out, but amter has to help fight belos too for reasons already said many times at this point.

and belos ultimately dying undignified after being stomped to death by his former subjects and boiled by the natural state of the islands. as said elsewhere, smart sidestep of the kid protag can’t kill rule, and it lets the island itself have the final say.

let's keep the archive rescue. just pluck amter out of that scene and swap them out with, say, boscha and mattholomule.

keep the denouement. families reuniting. the isles abolishing the coven system and establishing a new college of wild magic. taking many years to rebuild and it still being a wip. vee has a life in bonesborough as a noceda. gus being a human culture scholar and willow playing grudgby. especially amter and darador becoming a little family, and amter getting a quiet life. and ending on luz returning to the isles (hell yeah let's keep that luz/amter kiss).

[scribbles over hunter and draws boscha under willow's arm instead. perfect!]

the most i'd do is add some mention of luz not entirely leaving the human world, or of freer travel between the two. maybe luz finishes high school in the human realm, and so do the hexsiders since their school is a pile of rubble. maybe some of the witches who moved to the human world to have somewhere to live during rebuilding want to stay. maybe more humans are entering the isles, the same way luz once did.

the isles and bonesborough get to exist together, aware of each other and everyone gets to expand their horizons, not just luz and camila. the owl house is a house for everyone.

#toh

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Whomst Rambles: To My Star Season 2, episodes 3 and 4 (spoilers)

I don’t know how they keep doing this, but this show subverts my expectations in the best way possible.

The ex, aha at last. I’m on the fence about her characterization. On one hand, I can respect that she’s an individual, she seems smart and self-aware, and her conversation with Seojoon was hilarious. She is definitely suspicious, but she’s not digging. Yet. What I don’t get is her motivation. Trying to see it from her perspective: she moves back home after a long absence and runs into her ex (maybe high school sweetheart?) who she knows is back in the area. They seem to be on okay terms, so if this is their general dynamic, it’s a little perplexing why she keeps trying to smooth things over, because he is distantly but genuinely nice to her, and that’s not a bad thing—I have this dynamic with an old ex from back home when we meet, and it works well for us. You don’t have to hate each other or be pining for each other, you can just exist as two people who used to date. I’m actually interested in why she was hanging on to the couple bracelet. My real question (and hear me out) is why is she still interested in Jiwoo? Tbh there is (perhaps deliberately) no chemistry there, even in the “look we are cooking together and there’s a kid running around, there could be a future” scene, he doesn’t seek her out or try to subtly do anything special for her outside of a polite neighbor friend, whereas after 24 hours of Seojoon in the house, the guy who loves cooking already started altering his meal prep for him. In a weird way, she’s similar to Jiwoo, calm and stoic in appearance, blunt and practical. I wonder if that had something to do with it.

On that note, I do now have a working theory about the breakup, based on both the little we know about her and some of the things Jiwoo has voiced aloud as (concealed) fears: I think they dated and he very quietly fell for her very hard but she got the opportunity to study abroad and broke up with him before she left. Jiwoo has a chip on his shoulder in the first season about the idea that he’s just a passing interest to Seojoon, a brief thing to play with, and I wonder if that has its roots here—it would explain both her guilt and the reason she still seems fond of him.

So, theories on the breakup between Jiwoo and Seojoon—I agree with some others on here that we get cues about money still being an issue between them, and that around a year ago, Jiwoo was uncomfortable with the car Seojoon gave him. However, I don’t think it’s just about the money, either—he doesn’t list it in his fake little “why I dumped you” speech, and he’s had no trouble bringing it up with him before, so why wouldn’t he just say it? I wonder if it’s the whole package that’s become too much—Seojoon’s sociability and stardom that’s taken off again, the busyness, maybe someone he’s sees with a crush on Seojoon who he thinks would be better for him. Whatever it is, he clearly didn’t realize what breaking up with Seojoon would do—he isn’t cruel, just a little socially awkward and stubborn, and I wonder if his insecurity made him think Seojoon would be better off without him—which as of this episode, it finally seems to sink in that Seojoon is not doing okay. Interested to see how this will develop.

Those last few moments seemed crucial, not only for confirmation that Jiwoo has not remotely moved on from Seojoon in his heart (duh), but also because of what we learn about Seojoon’s mental health. Kim Pilhyun mentions he isn’t taking his medication anymore but doesn’t elaborate, and we’ve seen some signs of depression and reckless behavior. Im worried about our golden retriever pup. I think we must be getting closer to the core of Seojoon’s trauma, too—there’s something there about glass breaking, a weird light flashing in front of a child that almost looks like the light on a set, and anxiety over a child being lost and alone and frightened, especially with that casual mention of knowing what it’s like to not have your parents at an important school function. I have a feeling we are going to learn something awful happened when he was a kid that he has some kind of PTSD-related trauma about in addition to his general anxiety about things. Jiwoo’s slow shift in this episode says so much with so few words, and the sleepless nights are as much a cue to the audience as the gentle tone he eventually takes with with Seojoon—he can’t stop wanting to take care of Seojoon, he tries to comfort him in his own blunt way, and admits that the only reason he is being calm about the little girl missing is because Seojoon is panicking (with the unspoken implication that he is forcing himself to repress his own panic to watch over Seojoon and reassure him while he’s scared).

He actually comes to him, walks over and extends a hand/olive branch. It’s so curious that he asks Seojoon if he’s hungry before telling him the little girl is safe—maybe he’s so relieved he doesn’t think before essentially asking Seojoon to get food with him? Let me know if you have thoughts on this, I may have just been oblivious to some underlying tone and I am a little confused about what that question was about. He gets close to Seojoon willingly for the first time this season, and the kisses leave no doubt that he loves Seojoon.

So WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED I SWEAR—

Anyway. I need it to be next Sunday right now. I need Seojoon to be wrapped in a blanket asap and I need Jiwoo to keep up this honest streak and I need our boys to start communicating. (Please)

#whomst #to my star 2 spoilers #to my star 2 #jiwoo x seojoon

[islandsaoirse]

I enjoyed the ONE ending tbh! Cheesy had a clear message to say, He wanted to say “hey object show community, let’s play a little bit with the conventions of the genre and let’s explore the hopelessness underlying some of the tropes of object shows” i think as a complete whole it’s good! I wouldn’t call it a “critique” of object shows as I’ve seen but rather an exploration of a genre which let’s be honest tends to lean younger. I think the ending while maybe for personal taste a bit *too* cliffhangery (I don’t mind the hopelessness or the darkness I just personally feel if a little bit more was given answers, we could have more definite cliffhangers and a more “definite” open ending that would feel more satisfying to theorize and explore)

Now my light criticism which really is a compliment is that this feels like “babies first exploration of a genre” what I mean, is that ONE really *does* explore the genre from the weird voting pages in the first season, to the multiverse of objects that includes how other object shows visualize their objects (from a more modern world, to objects suddenly given life, to objects that have simply always existed in a gameshow). This might be the horrible horrible Homestuck (and 17776 fan) fan in me. But I regard this as a masterpiece of object shows but really a masterpiece of a genre that’s still maturing, in my opinion, the object show as a genre is still in its infancy! What ONE is, isn’t what Homestuck was to webcomics, it isn’t what 17776 was to sportswriting, nor is it Undertale to jrpgs, Watchmen to comics. You see those three I just mentioned are hugely influential explorations and to a degree critiques that explored the limits of the genre, went beyond while having this obnoxious simple *love* for what they are, Alan Moore didn’t make Watchmen as a critique of comics, he made Watchmen because he loved comics and wanted to explore everything about them! Homestuck explores so much of my internet culture and I adore it!

You see ONE is the Citizen Kane of the OSC, you see these days if you where young and saw citizen Kane you might go “damn this is just like the Boss Baby” it’s a movie whose influence was so huge not because it was *the best* but because before Citizen Kane, you didn’t tell stories like that, you didn’t edit like that, you didn’t write like that and the movie makers saw it and looked at the tricks it used, analyzed them and movies completely changed. I genuinely feel ONE a will be foundational, specially for a lot of younger folks whose first access to something like this *was* ONE and in a few years as the OSC continues developing we might get another huge show like this, that now with much more maturity, an older audience and a wider more varied landscape of object shows. One I will proudly talk even *harder* about than I did ONE to my friends, except this time my non-OSC adult friends will watch it and go “HOLY SHIT” rather than “oh that’s a neat story!”

CONCLUSION: ONE is an insanely neat, simply well constructed story, an ending that hey, I wish answered just *a little* more not because I want a definite ending but because I feel just one more little reveal would’ve hit me with the hopelessness wayyy harder. I’m insanely excited for all the object shows and creators that will be inspired by this show and *seriously* diversify the object show landscape even more, I want more varied shows, weirder shows, weirder plots! The future of the OSC is looking bright and hey we got #objectOC trending for a second there on twitter! Let’s make more weird object shows, as personal or as exploratory as we want. And I hope one day we get *that* object show I can tell my homestucks, my undertalers, my final fantasy friends, “hey this isn’t good just for an object show, this is,,,you should obsess over this actually”

#onehfj #one 17 spoilers #osc #object shows #object oc #cheesy hfj #one cheesy hfj #cheesy hfj one #review

[zevranunderstander]

i dont really wanna start beef w this but the companions from dragon age inqusition are all so shallow in how they are written tbh?

like. in dao you had characters like zevran, who never expresses his real thoughts and emotions and who you could read as a completely diffrent person if you didn't put actual effort in getting to know him and who has so much complexity to him and his own relationship to his past is *so* interesting to explore. or anders, who slowly develops from a person who wants to help and do good into a deeply resentful and bitter representation of vengeance who sees no other way out than to commit a brutal act of terrorism. or alistair, who is almost a complete inversion of the "rightful heir returns home" trope, who is nothing like you imagine him to be when you first meet him. or isabela, who lies to you from the moment you first meet her and who starts to regret what she did and actually trust you enough to put her life in your hands.

i could go on forever with this, actually, but in the first two games, almost every companion has a very insteresting depth to them that makes them a fully diffrent person than you might expect them to be

and in inquisition, all characters feel lowkey shallow in comparison? first of all, almost nothing the characters do ties into the main story? the stories in dao and da2 would be fundamentally different without your companions, especially da2 is almost entirely character-driven. and the character quests in dai are literally just random, plot un-related stuff. like. its cool that blackwall was a grey warden or that the iron bull secretly is a spy, i guess, but what does it add to the plot of the game? what made it so cool that isabela and anders were lying to you was how *you* suffered their consequences. what they did didn't just tie into the main plot, *you* were associated with them and *you* had to deal with the fallout of their actions. and it's like, cool that blackwall has this dark past but there are no stakes for you in this. why *wouldn't* you sympathize with him and forgive him? the game tries to paint these moments as "*gasp* you lied to me!", but really, this is nothing like the betrayal you feel when isabela basically hands you out to the qunari and runs away and you have to work this out with her

and there is so little to discover about the dai companions, too? like, i think the only character i really like in dai is vivienne, because she is the only character that has some depth to her you can explore. i still don't think vivienne can hold up to most characters in older games, but she actually has motives and if you get to know her, you actually change your opinion of her a bit and while her character quest also has zero impact on the main plot, she still made sense to me as a character and didn't feel completely one-dimensional.

im mainly making this post, because dai was my first dragon age game and i found a lot of old fanart recently and back then i *really* liked dorian. and that got me thinking for a moment because now, like 5 years later, i don't really give a shit about dorian anymore? like, i played dao and da2 after dai and there is so little to his character. his whole plot basically revolves around him being gay, his only character traits actually seem to be that he's a genius mage and, more importantly, that he's gay.

and like, his character almost feels regressive to how sexuality wasn't even a topic in romance in dao and *especially* in da2? and dai almost post-adds homophobia and coversion therapy into a series that didn't really need to have a homophobia problem, just to be like "see? we're being deep and serious right here!", and his story is, like all character quests, very predictable and very generic? and aside from that, there isn't that much to learn about him. most of his other dialogue is either sassy disses of other characters or lore dumps about tevinter that aren't all that related to him

this also brings me to my next point. you don't have an actual group dynamic? like, yeah you can sometimes *ask* a character what he thinks of another character but there isn't much interaction between the companions? like, yeah, some characters are friends/like each other, like sera and blackwall or dorian and the iron bull, but? like, you don't really intiutively know what cassandra thinks of vivienne or what blackwall thinks of dorian or if they have ever even been in the same room or spoken to each other.

da2 obviously excels at the whole group dynamic writing, but also dao (which was way less character driven than da2) put a lot of effort in the dynamic characters had. like, banter in dao usually was used to show how 2 characters interacted with each other, like zevran's and wynne's interactions being about them trying to make eachother incredibly uncomfortable, or alistair and morrigan berating each other - it gave you a very clear idea of what it might be like when you all sit by the campfire and talk. you know stuff like that alistair doesn't trust zevran, that leliana tries to be friends with morrigan, that ohgren feels like wynne is looking down at him, etc. there is very little like that happening in inquisition and banter often is just one continuous joke, like vivienne and dorian making fun of solas' clothing and demeanor or sera making silly jokes to everyone she talks to and somehow you feel like these people just dont talk to each other at all when you aren't around.

say what you want about some characters in da2 hating each other for 10 years straight and still being in the same friend group but when you went to do a quest for merrill, she would be chilling with isabela or anders and varric would be playing cards or your family was up to some shit again, but it felt like all of these people would actually regularly hang out with each other? and in dai these people all live in the same fucking castle and you see them being away from their standart spot maybe once? there is one scene where they all play cards together but tbh for me it did the opposite of what the game wanted me to feel in that moment because i was confornted with "wait, dorian and blackwall really exist in the same world and in the same building? sera and leliana exist in the same game?"

like this game sucks at writing characters and tbh im bitter and i have actually zero hopes for dragon age dreadwolf bc dai feels like a cheap copy of the other two games that really is frustratingly mediocre in every way. like, there is really no aspect of inquisition that it actually excels at or a thing it does better than the older games and dreadwolf seems to want to go in the same direction like dai with the plot being suddenly all about solas and the end of the world and. tbh. i don't think they will pull this off in a way that won't genuinely frustrate me

#myposts #da #dragon age

[amratsu]

after reading @ryo-maybe 's recs, compiling my own rider recommendations/breakdowns, in chronological order of release, with the general approach of 'here's what you may enjoy' and 'here's what people love/remember it for'. den-o onwards to zi-o cause I need to rewatch the older ones tbh. I've watched all of these myself once, and (barring ghost) with @stuffman-main and @icedfairy so you can poke them for opinions too probably.

>den-o the first 'comedy' rider that really leaned into its mascots, so much so that said mascots are kind of still around to this day like 15 years later. this tends to give the wrong impression though, because den-o still takes a surprisingly deep and melancholic look at its themes of existential dread and being remembered. it's a generally fun time that'll also pull at your heartstrings at surprising times, and takeru satoh (of current ruroken live action fame) really does portray the growth of the protagonist from a complete non-person into a still-nervous-but-will-throw-down hero nicely.

>kiva oh I absolutely agree with the general consensus of crazy aesthetic (fucking STAINED GLASS VAMPIRES?) but whack-ass writing, but as my first rider I have a big soft spot for it. it was also the first rider I watched together with stuffman-main and iced-fairy as an introduction to deeper weeb enjoyment. make no mistake, kiva is deep in the late 2000s sauce of plot via lack of communication, but at the same time it's still kind of charming how earnest it is about it? it's just 100% vampire melodrama inside a kamen rider. and also the time period gimmick is, in retrospect, one of the weirdest and most ambitious plot threads toei's ever tried. I can't even straight say I recommend kiva, but if you can stick around after they only really get better. (fun fact with kiva: the default suit was so fucking heavy BECAUSE IT HAD ACTUAL METAL CAUSE THEY WANTED NATURAL CHAIN JINGLING that they had to introduce the super mode like a dozen episodes early or else the suit actor was literally going to be crushed)

>decade anniversary series. meme origin point.

>w I think if any series really leans into its subgenre the most, it's a toss-up between W and Exaid, but W is way more universally loved. it's a tight noir experience, the duos done so well that it'd fuck with rider writing for multiple series to come (for better or worse). the way it plays with its supporting cast really makes the city feel alive in a way that makes it as easy to love Fuuto as much as shotaro does. the rider tropes themselves are also handled very well, with little arbitrary power ups or alt forms, and an absolutely unheard of total of two riders, period, until you go into side materials. and the writing very much benefits from its ability to focus on them to the exclusion of anyone else. extremely easy recommendation, and its 2 episode format also makes it very easy to watch in short sessions.

>ooo where W lives and dies by its two-episoders, OOOs uses it to support the developing relationship between protag and 'mascot' while also pursuing a much more ambitious overarching metaplot. the nonlinear nature of the belt/suit 'upgrades' leads to an pretty exciting shuffle of transformation trinkets between the protagonist and villains; you never quite know who has what, and in that sense it's almost closer to a rider royale with how the characters jockey for the macguffins. eiji's also a generally very refreshing protagonist who will still do Dumb things, but not Stupid things, and that's a fine line to walk/write I appreciate a lot.

>fourze anything I could say ryo(?)'s already said. it's just fun. it's very different from a lot of other riders though in that you won't see the same emotional ups and downs in the plot you would elsewhere. gentaro's just immune to that shit.

>wizard oof. I'm going to be bold here and say I find haruto, the protag, fine. lots of people say he's boring and one note, which I disagree with; he shows a fair amount of subtle growth as a person over the course of the series. nito, the side rider, is also great. aesthetics are also great fun. but wizard is absolutely STRANGLED by its one note supporting cast, a peanut gallery full of drag-you-to-the-lake-bed cement that's just impossible to care about. if you can deal with the generic kid's show level of eyeroll carry-on cast, you'll probably have an okay time here.

>gaim gaim gaim gaim. oh gaim. I love you so much. and this is contingent on spoilers, but, I think urobuchi plots honestly fine if there's a happy ending. and there is, because SPOILERS that facilitate post-series xovers. like of all the ways we've seen urobuchi wank about the cruelty of the system, the futility of struggling against it, and the tragedy of life, gaim's protagonists arguably end up doing a lot more to win despite it. and also I find the thought of urobuchi simmering in his dark little corner because toei forced him to write a happy ending really, REALLY funny. can't recommend unless you're in the mood for urobuchi though.

>drive honestly? drive is one of the most inoffensive riders. nothing really wrong about it. it leans into its subgenre a lot in the vein of W, so if you're in the mood for a cop show with androids and robots it'll do you good. the protag is also a tall drink of water. definitely a fine starting point.

>ghost oh god. no. by this point in the time line, the 'cool rider=sucky show' meme is really in full force. there's really not a lot I can write on ghost that hasn't been said by other people, but in short it's just very one note with very shallow characters, and a lot of shoehorned merchandising that messes with what little coherence there is (the super form is a seperate belt all on its own, never used by anything else. why???).

>exaid again, ryo(?) has me covered here. worth pointing out though, ex-aid is a perfect otome game cast: clumsy good boy with some spice to him, tragic serious elite genius, jokey lovable trickster, abrasive jerk with heart of gold. so that's fun.

>build build's AMBITIOUS. the conspiracy/amnesia plot goes deep, and it almost forsakes a monster of the week and all the tropes attached to that entirely. whether it lands the plot is up to debate but at the very least the characters are all very well realized and live. they all struggle with 'who am I' in their personal ways, and the way they clash up against each other (ESPECIALLY the villains) is exciting.

>zi-o another anniversary series.

#kamen rider

[multi-lefaiye]

for the ask game, 1, 5, 7, 20!

HELL YE thank u!!!

What’s your longest wip right now?

Okay I answered 1 already, but I'll go ahead and explain a bit about the abandoned WIP I mentioned called Spotters' Quest, because that's still my longest piece of original writing! Somehow!

Spotters' Quest was a dark fantasy thing about a group of characters accused of different crimes being offered a chance at redemption, if they can find a rare artifact that many don't believe truly exists. It was kind of a mess of a story but I had a lot of fun with it!!! Maybe.... maybe someday I'll try and revive it in some capacity.

Anyway.

Do you listen to music while writing or no? If yes, what’s your favorite kind of music to listen to?

For me this really depends!!! I definitely listen a lot to music while I'm brainstorming, because listening to music and thinking about OCs is my favorite way to develop a story, but when I'm actually writing I actually don't listen to music very much. Instead, I tend to listen to narrations of horror stories, or video essays, or movies I've watched a hundred times.

I find that music tends to distract me when I'm writing more often than not, and it tends to influence the mood of whatever I'm working on. Listening to something spooky or that I've listened to a hundred times fulfills my need to have background noise while also not distracting me too badly. I do the same thing when I'm drawing!

Of course, there is the risk of whatever story I'm listening to affecting whatever I'm writing, but that hasn't been too much of an issue for me tbh.

Do you outline before writing? If so, what’s your outlining process like?

I didn't used to do much in the way of outlining, but in recent years I've tried to make much more of a habit of it! Generally when I outline I just try to write down a basic list of every event that needs to happen, and then as I develop the story I fill it out more.

If I'm really having trouble getting into something, I'll plot out a whole scene by essentially listing everything that happens.

How much I plot something usually depends on how important it is to me that I know what happens going in, but I find that outlining something too much tends to actually make it harder for me to write the scene!! I work best when I have a basic outline to go off of and can kinda.... do whatever feels best based off of that.

As an example of what my basic initial outlines can look like, here's a snippet of my initial outline for a scene in Fragile Things:

Arthur is helping cut Noah's hair short for the first time and he's doing a bad job.

Noah doesn't really like the final haircut, but he doesn't want to make Arthur feel bad.

Arthur can tell Noah doesn't like it, though, so he lets Noah cut his hair too as payback

Noah does a similarly bad job

They both laugh about it and they're just having a nice time

This is an example of one of my beefier outlines actually (in that it's not just a one-sentence description of a scene lol), but it's still short and sweet enough for me to play around with it.

How do you usually come up with story ideas?

I answered this one already as well, but I'll talk a little about my inspiration for Bleeding Over Eden specifically!

So Bleeding Over Eden was initially inspired by two series that are near and dear to my heart: a TV series called The Finder, and a creepypasta series called Infected Town Case Files.

Bleeding Over Eden 100% started as a ripoff of The Finder, because while I care about that show and I think it's super cool and creative, I also think there's a lot of.... issues with it.... that make me uneasy (mainly in its treatment of its Romani characters, in that it has non-Romani characters freely use the g-slur and just hhhhhh not great). Essentially I just like... took the basic archetypes for the main cast and made new OCs based on them, which I later developed and expanded upon.

The second bit of inspiration came from Infected Town Case Files, but it was kind of a, like... vague concept. Infected Town Case Files is the sequel series to a different creepypasta, but I've never read the original and honestly I think that kinda adds to my experience a little, in a weird way. Because Infected Town Case Files is the story of a character AFTER his big paranormal adventure, dealing with the aftermath and his trauma and grief, and that was SUCH an interesting concept for horror for me that I kinda.... yoinked it... ASDJFKL

So the original concept of Bleeding Over Eden was just a character dealing with the aftermath of a massive supernatural event, with a touch of the basic character archetypes from The Finder (the quirky protagonist with some sort of supernatural power, the supportive best friend, the delinquent, the love interest, etc.), but since then it's grown and changed and (hopefully) become its own thing distinct from its inspirations.

Though tbh I might lean a bit into the inspo from The Finder again, because I was rereading my original notes for these characters and I actually really really like a lot of what's there.

#talk to the bunnykitty #chaotic queer disaster #long post #ask game #bleeding over eden #lmao sorry for how long this got haha!!!! #i had a lot more to say than i first thought #thank u for the ask tho!! #fragile things wip

[spaceman-spaetzle]

sorry 4 this but now you got me interested: how did u develop ur style? :D its distinct n vibrant n i love it

there's absolutely no need to apologize! this will probably become an incoherent ramble so i'll see what i can do! thanks again for letting me learn about your style too :) <3

i've drawn since i was a tot tbh. i've been told that i was always a bit self critical (do not recommend 0/10), and 3 year old me once complained about how what i drew looked like a potato. but with that came determination and a genuine free feeling that came with drawing.

i think i started actually keeping sketchbooks since i was maybe 9-10? mentioning this because keeping sketchbooks is intrinsic to my work. and like a lot of artists this generation, i was very inspired by anime. i definitely drew anime girls awkwardly standing stiffly with hands behind their backs, LOL. i couldn't decide on a distinct style for a long time though, but throughout my childhood i grew inspired by pop artists like roy lichtenstein.

i hung out with a lot of animators during my uni days, and i found myself studying a lot of artists and animators who had these crazy, dynamic poses and vivid characters. i was in the fandom for a long time, but in the middle of college, i took a break and really began to experiment! my love for inks, which was introduced to me when i was about 14, stuck with me and from there i was able to develop my style.

like you, i've taken all sorts of art styles ive appreciated and sort of made it into my own thing, but from what i learned from my animator friends' art and my brief time taking animation classes, i really wanted to make my art feel bold and full of movement. i still struggle to capture movement the first time when i draw things, so i still have a long way to go! but i guess what really helped me develop my style was establishing my values in my art practice. what do i want to see? how do i wish to draw for myself? those kinds of questions! and that meant crossing out things such as same face syndrome. i also find it really important that character designs say something about the character's personality. so for roderich, i like drawing him in a mix of sharp and soft angles. his pointy nose, chin, and sharp shoulders to me resemble a judgmental aristocrat and the softness resembles the contrast between people's assumptions of him and aspects of him you would have to get to know him in order to learn. i also just generally think he's a bit on the thicc side and a bit soft to touch, haha. i also like trying to vary the body types i draw.

sorry that this was so long! as for artists i like, i tend to follow a lot of twitter artists that have very fleshed out, distinct voices in their styles and i like to learn from them. one of my fave artists is victoria vincent/vewn! and growing up, artists i enjoy include erte, alphonse mucha, and Plenty more. and lately i've been feeling inspired by egon schiele. he makes me want to play with exaggeration and proportions a lot more!

thanks for asking and please know your art just feels very vivid and tangible, if that makes sense? like they're clearly stylized but it feels like there's so much thought put behind the characters! they almost feel real in a sense.

#ask 4 me #:D #this was. really long and i wish i listed more artists but my brain is tiny #also to improve my style i'm gonna try to use color palettes online and improve my sense of color theory #we'll see where things go haha #but Yes you're still welcome to message my dude!

[beegandy]

Thinking about how the only forum I ever participated was on kissanime.to

Then it shut down for good shortly after. I guess that was my only real attempt to reach out to a community that fit me. One thing that crosses my mind frequently is how alienated I feel amongst my friends and co-workers. But I should try and make a effort to meet people who make me feel normal. Find those that let me talk and listen to what I have to say. And hold an actual conversation. That's my hope, so if you find common interests with me, feel free to reach out.

I love music, in a weird way. There isn't a day that passes without my phone blaring music. I love rock, it's a drug for me. Goosebumps shoot down my arms when I hear an amazing song (that rush of dopamine is indescribable!) . There have been so many sub genres that I've listened to. Bands that I loved and grew out of, searching for that next high. And maybe a couple that I'll revisit from time to time (like Underoath and their recent album Voyeurist ) My taste is always evolving. A couple artists I'm listening to right now is Andromeda, Animals as Leaders, and whatever prog metal auto plays on YouTube. I look forward to sharing the songs I love with someone I feel will appreciate it. Because my music is so personal and cherished that its like a window into my soul. I don't remember the names of the songs or know the members of each band member (or any). Their significance on music, or special techniques they use. My ADHD brain isn't all that great at remembering that information (unless I studied it often which seems like a chore tbh). I just embrace that song or album till my interest fades. Like the song Chino Moreno did with Polyphia 😂 listened to that song on repeat with no shred of self control.

Video games are my shit, if I show my steam library 💀 there's a ton of titles. And a lot of money senselessly spent. Senselessly because the only title that I keep coming back to is Apex Legends. Everything else is temporary. Although Overwatch 2 is a lot of fun! Still frustrating at times but it provides the challenge and multiplayer competition I enjoy. Maybe you game too and we can clap cheeks together!

If I'm not playing video games or don't feel like it. You can find me either watching random channels on YouTube or anime. I'm gonna apologize in advance, a lot of popular titles are lost on me. The ones that I'd probably have in common with most fans are Attack on Titan, Chobits, Psycho-pass (only the first season) Demon Slayer, and Steins Gate. Studio Ghibli is good as far as movies go but the ones I absolutely love is "I want to eat your pancreas" "A Silent Voice" "Josee, the tiger and the fish" and "Her Blue Sky." My absolute favorite anime series is Ergo Proxy. Funny cause my current DnD character's name is based off Vincent. It's an older title, super confusing and the anime doesn't give viewers the backstory to understand the significance of proxy's and their role given from their "creators". It's not regarded as an amazing anime. But for me, it's the similarities of Vincent's character development to my own. I didn't realize it till recently after I moved on from my own issues that I ignored for a long time. Vincent has his memory wiped to forget his past self and the anguish he faced. His new companions give him a new perspective on life. And when he faces the reality that he tried to escape, his experience with the people he cares for helps him overcome that shadow. I love you mom for helping me let go of the weight I held onto for so many years.

Lastly, my cat Mei who I got from an old co-worker when I worked at pizza hut. This cat is like the 10% of felines that isn't a Dee Dee mega doo doo head. Seriously! Mei won't jump on the kitchen counter tops, dining tables, or my PC desk. She's super gentle when we play. Like I use my hands to wrestle her and she never bites hard or claws me. Nor has she done this with my friends. And as much as she doesn't like being held, she tolerates it from me or a complete stranger with zero aggression. Honestly, she's one of the best things that has happened in my life. I love her. And yes I named her after Mei from Overwatch which is a perfect fit.

I guess that will do for now. Editing will have to wait 😂 thank you for reading if you made it this far! Bye bye!

#anime boy #new friends #new tumblr #progressive metal #pc gamer #journal

[rsmrymnt-tea]

「 🐳 」 ohh my goodness i remember the wedding event so well because i kept on trying to coax my friend into playing obey me by showing her satan's bit with the storybook, hehe <3 mammon's proposal was super cute too, from what i recall.

and ... you have seen my posts because the reason why i even discovered your blog was because you gushed on one of mine beginning around a year or so ago (•́⌄•́๑)૭✧ since then, i've been checking up on your blog often since it's rare to find people in the obm fandom that i actually agree with and aren't insufferable and who don't get the treatment of my notorious and yet, agreeable, “so no bitches?”, attitude many have claimed to admire purely because i'm able to find a way where i make the other shut up with my swd veteran discount card without seeming like an asshole.

and oh my goodd i feel you with those intimacy levels so much sjdnfskjd i've never bought vip in obm in my life, so trying to grind for satan in particular is SO much more difficult than it needs to be but it's okay because he's like a stray cat that glued itself to its owner and you can't help but love it, even if he is distant and closed-off on some days.

i remember when the nowdateables FIRST came out to be available for the homescreen ... they skipped solomon's birthday a few days after it was implemented and yet, he still had his birthday dialogue. i was so sad for him that i agreed to keep him on my homescreen and working and farming levels for him out of love and pity </33

respectable intimacy levels, by the way! i wish the level for my diavolo was lower because i just couldn't stand him in season 4 and i felt as though it were a clap back to when s2 was first released and the first thing i thought when solomon showed us the dagger was, “please tell me that's for diavolo, i don't accept anyone else”. not to say that i hate him !! he's just ... euurrhrhhggg (/neu) to me, yk??

on the brighter side of season 4, we got hilarious hard mode lesson stories! one was of solomon acting hilariously catatonic, similar to a dementia patient, after sleeping all day when he researched all night, and it basically went

solomon: 🧍

raphael: 👁️ ⬜️⬜️

simeon: ??????

solomon was acting like an old man, simeon begged for help, but raphael went “i Do Not See, i'm busy staring at ... uh ... the wall”.

in the hard mode chapter for lesson 80, leviathan was summoned to the human realm by mc, who was with solomon, and since levi was dressed in a tsl outfit and wouldn't stop yelling in the middle of a train station, solomon went, “stfu rn you cringe ass” (reality: “okay, i get it. could you quiet down now?” and the reason why this is so funny was because he had the ( ^^;;) look before putting on a blank face once he heard levi's explanation and went 😑). eventually, he and mc took leviathan to a book signing for simeon's newest tsl edition. and i just ... ended up crying tbh because why the fuck did all of simeon's character development go into the HARD MODE CHAPTER OF LESSON 80???

it was so beautifully well done imo and simeon spoke very vulnerably about how he took up writing as a way to cope with the loss of lucifer and his brothers, and how he is now accepting of them and himself and i think that finally, after all of the avoidance lucifer has done in relation to the shared trauma he has with simeon (and due to simeon's ignorance of not entirely understanding their situation at the time), i think they'll be ready to finally confront each other so im crossing my fingers that s-lmare will not fuck this up like the obm fandom does everyday

anyways, super glad that you think back to what i mentioned about bird song and dolasach :,)) and hopefully, my new response will help you become inspired, too!

Honestly after seeing the Wedding Event's proposals I'm like... Well idk what's going to top this in terms of romance anymore? (and then Satan's 2021 bday UR showed up and murdered me with private proposal at the end sdfhgkjhg)

Definitely couldn't get over Mammon's proposal, but like... More because it's fun and cringey then thinking it's cute skhjdg can't believe he managed to get the Purgatory Boys to join him 😭

Also??? Insane??? And more than a year ago??? Nonnie you're killing me, who are you!! ;A; Also you've been lurking on my blog for that long?? I honestly think I'm pretty insufferable but I'm glad I didn't get that treatment from you >.<

Does VIP make it easier to level up the intimacy? Iirc it just doubles the XP you gain from doing dance battles and doubles the chances of getting drops from the Jobs but nothing about the intimacy...? Can't get RedxRed Apple Pies from the jobs anymore anyway, we get the stuff the side boys like + the stuff that I'm assuming will be for the newbies once they're dateable too

nkjkbfgb I guess that kind of adds to my theory that the devs don't really do any long term planning even when it comes to major decisions like that? Because I feel like they'd have celebrated Solomon's birthday with a proper event if they did since he was already an Intimacy Uppable character by then, even if it was like, a few days after...

shfjdfg Tbh I only have levels with Diavolo because he's one of the only Gluttony cards I've got... If it were up to me I really wouldn't have levels with him hkjdfg he's interesting as a character but I don't like him, personally. Same as you, I find him really annoying in S4 and like... Idk? He purposely says and does some of the most infuriating things both in main story and in events >.> I often think about how during the part in S2 where he tries to comfort MC after telling them about the effects + possible options for severing the ring, Dola would not let him anywhere near her and would never let him hug her the way he got to hug canon MC.

Like why would she find comfort in the guy who's caused her all this trouble?

And sdjhkgdhjfg Fuck S4 for leaving all that in hard mode?? After all the pointless bullshit we had to deal with, we get the good shit like Simeon opening up like that trapped in hard mode when it should've been in Lesson 80 itself? I think hard mode should be for bonus fleshing out snippets like sneak peeks into life at Purgatory Hall like the scene with them you described, and for bites of foreshadowing... Characterization like that being locked there is so :/

Tbh I'm not even going to try and hope for anything in S5 anymore lmao I'm going to keep my expectations to rock bottom so that I don't get burned like I did with S4. I genuinely thought that the reason why we had S3 be more on character development (or attempts at it, in some cases) was because we'd have something more plot heavy once we got S4, especially with everything they were dropping and hinting at with the Celestial Realm and with something major going on with Simeon. Plus I thought that MC being an official registered sorcerer would be of more interest than it did?

So idk. Solmare has the ability to write well, but will they actually do it should they decide to have Simeon and Lucifer have a proper conversation? Or will they let me down the same way they did with almost the entirety of S4?

And ofc!! I have nights when I just lay down and listen to the Spotify playlist you sent just thinking about Dola and planning things out >.< Insane really...

#chat & colloquy #🐳 nonnie!! #getting to these slowly >.< i woke up feeling great with a clear mind hehe

[icharchivist]

Tbh that's my issue with a lot of modern video games

I don't need photorealistic graphics. I want things to look good and clear and interesting

Trying to make your humans look like real humans only leads to the uncanny valley and it usually ends up dating your game because by the time the next generation comes out, your graphics are outdated

Also, I play video games to get away from people

It's completely fine to stylize things. It looks better, even in twenty years, it avoids the uncanny valley, it can still be expressive! And it cuts down on rendering and ideally on development costs. Like, I play the new Baldur's Gate and my computer is not high-end, but the game runs fine. Except for the dialogue scenes, where sometimes the expressions are weird and it kind of lingers uncomfortably for a few seconds before going to the next dialogue. Again, probably a problem with my computer, but it's a bit weird every time

Meanwhile I'm looking forward to Relink, which is a very stylized Anime game and I'm sure it's still gonna look good in 20 years

Or like, Super Mario. The new Zeldas. Stuff like that

There's also the argument that back then, games had to sell you on their narrative and story and gameplay instead of just graphics. I personally don't have an opinion on this, there's plenty of ugly games that also suck as well as pretty games with good stories. But I'm also not one of those people who throw a fit about a game not running at 60 FPS

But yeah, Final Fantasy games could totally embrace their Anime roots, I'm sure they'd be better for it

Fortunately, animation in movies at least is moving towards more stylized and I think that could be cool

Video games are art as well, after all and I'm happy for each one that isn't trying and then subsequently struggling with this self-imposed realism where it's not actually needed

You don't have to publish this ask btw, this just popped into my head just now and I have a lot of thoughts about animation

TOTALLY AGREE, 100%.

Like i think trying to perfect some graphic is fine and all but it's been quite a few years now that the progress is genuinely not worth it. Like the constant rush for realism often end up bringing duller artistic choices (which is even more noticeable with the remake trend in general because you see how older games went around those "graphic limitations") and it's just... not worth it? not with how big and huge it makes a game in the end?

like i know BG3 is that big because it's a huge game and stuff, but the fact i need over 150GB of stockage to install it gives me hives. If a part of it is due to the overthe top animations and high res's designs... i'd rather them toning it down instead.

Final Fantasy definitely fall into this category as well. Like for crying out loud, they justified making the remake a multiparter because the assets for Midgar alone were too big to just make the prologue of the game (which it IS, the current remake that came out in 2020 only covers the PROLOGUE of the main game) and it ended up being the reason they went completely off script and made a whole new narrative instead. All because they wanted the whole city to be this HD? Like Crisis Core came out in 2007, it's not perfect graphic wise, but it plays well within its limitation. And most of it happens in Midgar!!! they just knew to limitate as much of the Midgar's sets as they could!! Seeing how its remake just basically butcher most of the artistic creativity just by replacing the models with HD models is genuinely so boring to me. What's the point!! what's the point!!

maybe it's nostalgia and all but i'm at a point where i feel like most graphisms from up to the mid 2010s, as far as realism go, have pretty much filled this artistic approach, and anything else is just more flashy just to prove they can do it.

like i keep seeing those Last of Us' remaster's comparaison and i feel so ill like, the first game already holds up fine!! it didn't need all those remasters what the fuck are you people on about!! how is it improving the game the slightest!! i mean i know it's all about money, but jesus christ it's SO not worth it???? (for the record i don't give a shit about TLOU, i just saw the screenshots and it makes me feel ill).

i've also seen comparaisons of some Metal Gear Solid's remakes comparaisons where in order to chase the realism of the effects of the jungle and everything, they just completely removed the stylized lightning and atmosphere because REALISM, amnt i right? how is that better?? i don't need 30GB+ of game on my computer just to nod like "ah yes this one cutscene was worth me uninstalling a couple of my old games for it. you got me."

at this point i'd rather they focus on the story! on the characters! allocate this time somewhere else!

and it comes with a major disregard for stylized games in general. Games that don't want to pursue realism and are doing just fine like this.

idk i'm also just rambling but it makes me so sad. I'm not even against HD graphisms, but i definitely think we reached a cap years ago already and most of the attempt at progress we've had since have been about removing the stylization to push the realism, and it's genuinely not the interesting way to push the medium forward.

and like i'm definitely at the age where i'm probably clouded with nostalgia and i'm just "old man yelling at clouds" (ahah get it because Cloud stri-) and all but this is genuinely something that gets me annoyed.

and with ff7 in particular i'm just so upset because the pursue of realism led to "the game is too big now because of the assets so we need to cut it into pieces" to "but the pieces we have don't have enough plots to explore all the assets we have so now we're doing an original story!" and every decisions the "remake" has taken outside of the remake portions have been making me sick in my stomach. And while greed is of course the main cause of it all, it just ends up feeling so disingenuous and now i'm at a point a remake i awaited for a long time just so the saga could have a coherent imagery together (because the OG's graphisms do in fact clash a lot with the rest of the graphisms of the others game of the saga) just now is something i want nothing to do with. (except to take screenshots when the characters look pretty. 3D model simulator only.)

so yeah. felt. so much so. it fucking kills meeee like whyyy

BUT ALSO YEAH it's why games like Relink is definitely up my alley on that. Finally a game that is trying to actually do some style and isn't relying on realism to sell you something. Fucking lord. At last. We just needed Granblue to save us istg.

#ichareply #anonymous #ichasalty

[craw-dacious]

Review of the making of the map by fox_pitch

I'm new to marauders, this is the second fic I've read.

Summary: I liked this fic, a lot. It was a fun read and I really liked the progression of both Wolfstar and James/Lili (is it Jilly? I can’t remember). A bit less angsty than what I usually read and some parts felt underbaked, but the author kept my attention INCREDIBLY. I stayed up about four hours later than I usually do binge reading this. Very good.

SPOILERS BELOW BEWARE BEWARE

Since chapters are shorter ill do bigger recaps infrequently throughout, but still little chapter notes

Chapter one

YES THEY’RE NOT GAY YET

Cannot wait to see this unfold <3333

Aw they’re so cute, definitely a wolf star focus

I hope this goes through seventh year so I can see James and lily play out

Chapter two

Why did I not process its the first day of term thats wild and crazy

Ok so lily still is buddies with Snape which tracks timeline wise I guess

Do they pants him at the end of the fifth or sixth year I can’t remember

I am confused on the lily dynamic tbh what does she think of the group

Chapter three

This one kinda ate, im liking the short chapters I get more invested in each part of the story

Obviously I know they’re not just gonna kill off Peter, but him dying in the shack did cross my mind

I wonder when lupin gets the potion stuff

Chapter four

MURDER MYSTORY??? HOW FUN

I hope remus gets over himself soon how was Sirius supposed to know how intense the situation was bruh

Blanket statement that I apologize for all shitty teenage boy behavior they need to chill

Chapter five

Calling him inbred is hilarious Im liking remus’s pov

Hes gay James stop

Literally he’s gonna go be ur wingman be happy

Good chapter very chill

RECAP FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS

I like the silliness thats been in this so far. I am NOT liking that remus and Sirius aren’t talking to each other. Is it a narrative device? Absolutely. But I despise it so much.

I think Sirius’ characterization is very good so far, I’m surprised they haven’t fleshed out the Regulus stuff more yet. Hopefully will get his pov soon

God I hope this is a save reggie fic cmon

I really hope this passage is the one to honey dukes.

Im sure the plots about to pick up more since they’re actually making the map

Chapter six

If I was lily I would’ve folded so fucking fast bruh

Like I know he’s annoying but like he’s cute, and likes her so much, and is clearly like progressive what is the problem

Anyway, sirius needs to chill if he wants to be gay

Chapter seven

Closet time closet time its time to be emotional in the closetttt

Calling him a cat is funny

Sirius is my fave because he’s also like a fixer upper with issues but he’s not EVILL he just has trauma

And he actually wants to be the best version of himself yk (unlike some dumb ass fucking bitches I know)

Chapter eight

SHE DID NOT JUST CRUCIO HIM

Cradling his head

Sirius licking him

God can marlene just fucking kill herself please

Chapter nine

Honestly there is no world in which I wouldnt feel awkward with my friends jokingly offering to kiss me as a form of like emotional comfort like thats not normal

Like my best friend gave me a big hug after I broke up with my ex she’s not gonna go “oh haha idk what else to do other than make out with you lol lol.” Sirius what the fuck

Anyway I love to see the lily and James bonding but I can tell it makes remus feel lonelier

Wonder if we’re gonna get Peter development at all

Chapter ten

I dont even want to write uodates anymore because im liking the fic too much

Hes so stressed abt being gay I thought he already knew he was gay bruh Sirius is clueless obvi

Chapter 11

JUMPSCARE FANART BAD BAD FANART ITS TERRIBLE

Love how the maps coming together

This is not going over well with Sirius im sure

12

Ok so bed making out

Im so fucking horny I need to make out with someone STAT

Preferably someone with a penis bc it confirms they like me but tbh I don’t give a shit

Its 1:12 am

So it did go over well with Sirius. I expected some internalized homophobia or something but he’s actually being chill for once

OKAYYYYYYY RECAP TO CHAPTER TWENTY ONE 💋💋💋

so i got so engrossed in the story that i forgot to write my chapter notes

but so far i feel fantastic about it

LOVE LILY AND JAMES' DYNAMIC ITS SO GOOD

the regulus thing is making me want to kms. i have like no hope for reg redemption bc the fic isn't long enough, and i feel like all that happens will be the murder mystery and MAYBE gay shit

sirius was SO STUPID with marlene like clearly remus has some issues with being open and you need to like discuss,, not make out with some other bitch

also them both being bi is not what i expected? feel like remus should be gay

peters character is... interesting. why are they friends with him. also he has bo gryffy qualities wtf.

Recap AGAIN but not done yet

Ok, the wormhole shit is interesting. Poor elves.

I wonder what happened to them, is this the in between place or whatever?

They’re being too romantic on the battlefield you gotta lock in guys

Also I thought an avada grazing you killed you no matter what

Also Sirius fully used crucio and nobody like cared other than remus. Like no commentary

WHERE’S JAMES BRUH

Hilarious. Peak comedy. Coming back to life and IMMEDIATELY kissing Lily. Her being grossed out. Literally perfect.

Ok the introduction of the OOTP, seems good.

Honestly really like what I’ve seen in the fic, but it’s a bit TOO silly for my tastes. I need more angst.

Like obviously I want Remus and Sirius to be openly gay and in love but it was too easy in this fic, like with Destiel its always SUCH an issue lmao.

TOTAL RECAP:

I liked this fic, a lot. It was a fun read and I really liked the progression of both Wolfstar and James/Lili (is it Jilly? I can’t remember)

I do feel like it was a little too light at times, there wasn’t a whole lot of grey area morally, and a lot of big issues weren’t fully fleshed out. I wish they’d dived into Regulus more, and Snape. I wish they’d addressed Sirius’ use of the Cruiciatus curse, and I wish they’d address Dumbledores failings more directly

Werewolf shit was fantastic to read, the angst, the fear, the violence, the drama. I thought the transformations were excellently done and I really enjoyed the progression of them figuring out the roaming/playing

Hogsmeade passage shut off? Strange.

I did not enjoy that I cannot be sure they are safe. That’s a benefit of post-hog warts fic, if its truly marauders James and Lily often don’t die.

Overall very happy fic. I did love the aggressive use of drunkness as a plot device, I liked Lily’s characterization for the most part, and it was pretty addicting in the middle.

I thought Characterization was good, not fantastic but definitely good. Peter threw me, not very likable. It’s hard to do him correctly and have him add worth to the story, but I just did not like him the whole time, and I felt like Remus and Sirius both didn’t care for him and found him annoying.

7.5/10 <3

My rankings are not supposed to be biased. Horrible shitty fic would get like a one, something readable but bad would get a fourish. Most fics that I read will be around 7-9 simply because I sort by Kudos and get recs from misuss so they’re better quality to begin with.

Great light silly read, with just enough depth to keep it interesting. I could see myself re-reading this fic once I get to know the marauders better.

Also, I do not like the fanart in this fic but I'm sure that's not universal. The artist is credited within the fic but I'd like to tag them here just to acknoledge the hard work that went into it. I checked them out and ADORE some of their other work, this one was just not to my liking. They have some percy jackson shit up that EATS.

@komodokai on instagram

#marauders #fic reviews #fic rec #wolfstar #gay shit #remus lupin #james potter #peter pettigrew #lily evans #sirius black #regulus black #jily #wolfstar fic #fanart i dont like #but im a fanart hater 99% of the time #let me actually link the artist i almost forgot to do that