#but also because of relevant characters that... aren't mine

[pastorfutureletthembe]

Checkmate ♚

Apparently a temporary AR (Otome) game is coming soon and the artwork for it is just breathtaking! It is also full of details I want to explore OF COURSE. My brain is doing tetris things again, oops.

Looking for a senseless meta about chess pieces? You're in the right place, come on in~

>> Chess Theme

White vs Black

The first topic is obviously the chess theme. Of course, this part is to be taken with a grain of salt since the pieces aren't correctly disposed on the board. However, the characters themselves are walking on their respective squares except for Vein (because he's all powerful and he's above your stupid rules. Probably). Notably, Liu Xiao himself seems to be leaving a white square. And if there is any meaning to it, I'd like to believe it makes a gray character out of him.

Now, what can we say about the chess pieces themselves?

White: rook, pawn, knight

Black: rook, mystery piece, king

Each character is paired with a chess piece.

The most reassuring clue to me is that a white piece has been given to Xia Fei. Which, there is a fat chance this makes an ally out of him. He might be only a Pawn ♙ for now. For those who are not familiar with chess, a Pawn can only move ahead, never back, one square at a time. It has some cool moves too but it depends on the game you want to play. If the path is open, a Pawn can reach the other side of the board, turning it into a Queen ♕. If a Pawn can only move ahead in small range, a Queen literally rules over the whole board. She's quick, vicious and dangerous once she has enough space to move as she pleases. Of course, he can also be a mere Pawn, a tool to manipulate Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi.

[Edit: since I always turn mine into Queens because I like to inspire fear and admiration from my brother, a Pawn can also turn into a Rook, a Bishop, or a Knight. I like to think of Xia Fei as a Queen but it's very interesting that he could turn into either Vein/CXS, Liu Xiao or Lu Guang by the end of Yingdu Chapter. ]

Cheng Xiaoshi and Vein both getting paired with a ♖ Rook ♜ could mean they use the same kind of power or are equivalent in some ways. Rooks have a large range, can move horizontally and vertically, ahead or back. They are better used when paired with other pieces, though, cause a lonely Rook ♖ is an easy pray. I think the main focus here is the similarity more than the piece itself. Lu Guang seems to be the one being punished and haunted, but Vein probably offered his power to Cheng Xiaoshi (or Lu Guang, according to the last Yingdu Chapter PV). My personal theory is that Vein mirrors or shadows Cheng Xiaoshi's shape because he is the source of his power. Vein's position, if there is any relevance to it, keeps Lu Guang's Knight ♘ from moving at the center, his natural and most efficient position.

Toppled King

Liu Xiao has two pieces by his side, a King ♔ and a mystery piece. The merch revealed the later to be a Bishop ♝.

Note that only amateurs tend to topple the King. It is regarded as some kind of pop culture-only approach to chess. Because of this, let's take a look a what an actual checkmate is (where we don't get to step on the vainquished).

Checkmate is any game position in chess in which a player's king is threatened with capture and there is no possible escape. In chess, the king is never actually captured. Checkmating the opponent wins the game. The player loses as soon as their king is checkmated. In formal games, it is usually considered good etiquette to resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated. (cf. wikipedia)

If Vein, the current character we might recognize as the ultimate villain of the season, is only a Rook ♜, equivalent to Cheng Xiaoshi, who does the King ♔ represent? My personal opinion is Time, Fate itself. The song "Mastermind" supports this theory, and Lu Guang himself really is defying the natural order to save Cheng Xiaoshi, after all. It would make perfect sense. Stopping the clocks at a tournament is the sign of surrender. So basically, the game is over when one gives up and stops when the King has nowhere to go.

The character of Liu Xiao is given a lot of care in this specific artwork. He actually always stood out, since his very first appearance in the season 2 artworks, walking past Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's portrait, looking away from us. Here, again, he's not interested in the audience, focuses on the photograph of what fans reckon as Lu Guang from "Dive Back in Time".

The truth is, he's playing the long game, he has no time to spare, and he regards people as puppets. There has been theories about him having a hidden agenda, independently of Vein, using/working with Li Tianchen and Li Tianxi for his plan. His intervention in "Trial Train" speaks volume of his strategic mind, "they wanted to escape but didn't realize I blocked the exit a long time ago". Also, one hundred years wouldn't be enough to escape.

This merciless sharpness makes the Bishop perfect for Liu Xiao. Funny story, the Bishop ♝ is not actually a priest, but it represents a war elephant. Historically, the war elephant's main use was to charge the enemy, break their ranks, and instill terror and fear. That's fitting.

Another possibility regarding the toppled King could be that it refers to Liu Xiao's background. The fallen piece could be a resolved situation but the motivation behind Liu Xiao's intent to manipulate the timelines. Perhaps he played this game before and lost. Does Lu Guang know him or is Liu Xiao a mere stalker? Did they play this same game together or against each other?

There's a lot that can be speculated but it is hard to say what these pieces represent for now. As I said before, this read is based on popular imagery of what chess is, not on the actual strategy on the board itself. Secondly, these three new characters we have yet to meet, they don't have a defined role in the canon, not until Yingdu Chapter finally aires.

>> Tokens

Each character is giving a object. I guess it might be relevant to the type of gameplay the AR game will offer but for the sake of this meta, we're still gonna try to understand why those in particular.

Cheng Xiaoshi has a camera. I don't think it deserve further analysis, his powers exist through the lens after all.

Xia Fei has a clock. Guess the time? 10:10. For those unaware, it is a very recurrent time. Put the promotional poster aside, I recommend you pay attention to the time on the clock in the Studio, above Lu Guang's head, right before the gang gets a ominous call from Xu Shanshan's phone at the end of 1x09. If it should mean anything about Xia Fei himself: I won't say it enough but, really: DO NOT TRUST HIM. Or, you know, perhaps he's doomed: it is worth mentioning that except for Xia Fei's Pawn ♙, each character is affiliated to a piece which can move forward and backward on the board.

Liu Xiao has a gear. I find this one intriguing because, so far, this object has belonged to Cheng Xiaoshi's imagery (cf. "BREAK!"). For someone on an ambitious project such as controlling timelines, he is giving a small tool that cannot be used on its own, is part of a machine. Could be relevant to the way he does things, never getting his own hands dirty, working through others. Or it could be that he's himself just another player, played by Fate. Or perhaps, he has the missing piece that Lu Guang needs to save Cheng Xiaoshi, who knows?

Vein is already using his own item: the pipe. He's the only one owning his object and aware of it.

>> The Case Study of Lu Guang

Because of course, our favorite character is actually the shadiest of all, I will dedicate a whole section about him specifically. Why do I insist on calling Lu Guang shady? We know and we see his chess piece is white. But you have to take a closer look to make out the White Knight ♘. The value of a Knight ♘ is equivalent to the Bishop's ♝. But ultimately, its worth less than Cheng Xiaoshi's Rook ♖.

L shaped path

Moving only in an 'L' shaped path, Knights ♘ are the most effective from the center of the board. This is because they get a broader reach in all directions from the central part.

Now, this is very important. Why should it be a mystery that Lu Guang's piece is a knight? What is a Knight ♘? The answer resides in the mechanism of his maneuver.

Part of the idea of the knight maneuver is to flank. And since the Knight is not a horse but a man on a horse, the odd maneuver reflects the knight's ability to guide the horse he's riding (to an extent). In other words, since the Knight comprises two entities (the man riding the horse), the move should sensibly consist of two parts as well, to reflect the added agility of the athletic horse. Conversely, the Knight has access to a maximum of 8 squares (as opposed to the "equal" Bishop's maximum of 13) because the horse is still an animal with a mind of its own.

Note that if you place a Knight ♘ somewhere on the margins, its efficacy will diminish exponentially. Additionally, if he only moved two squares, straight or diagonally, the Knight ♘ would always be restricted to the color squares that he started the game on.

Lu Guang being the Knight ♘ doesn't only means that he moves unconventionally. It is reflective of his duality. Perhaps, the fact he's using his power and Cheng Xiaoshi's. There is another aspect of him we could address here:

Burning Palace

For one thing, "BURNING PALACE" brings back the theme of strategy board game with the checkers this time (you see black pieces falling). It also introduce the Four Heads from playing cards. The fact they bothered to mention it implies a Fourth character.

Xia Fei: ♠

Liu Xiao: ♣

Vein: ♦

The fourth color ♥ is missing and I'm secretly convinced that it's Lu Guang's color.

Enygmatic Tokens

The portrait behind Lu Guang is Lu Guang himself, from "Overthink". This image appears in the first bridge, when the lyrics goes "how did my sight got stolen once more?", superposing Lu Guang's face with mysterious shapes, erasing his eyes/power. This particular line comes to confirm what we already know: Yingdu Chapter isn't a resolution, let alone a happy ending, but a repeat of a tragic event in an unchangeable node. The end is the same, once again. Lu Guang's hope and happy ending has been stolen once more. And STOLEN also implies that there is an intent behind this failure.

A portray is still a photograph though, and it can be used to dive back in time.

What is the most curious to me is the familiar eagle on Lu Guang's chest. Eagles belongs to Cheng Xiaoshi's imagery so why does Lu Guang is wearing them here?

An interesting take would be that Yingdu Chapter isn't actually from Lu Guang's perspective, but from Cheng Xiaoshi's, diving in a picture taken by Lu Guang. This would be some kind of plot twist and would definetely makes the big reveal easier but not less painful.

I'll probably make a whole meta about this symbol at some point but in the meantime, I'll let you know the eagle is associated with strength, power, wisdom, and freedom. The eagle's ability to soar high in the sky was believed to be a symbol of divine protection and spiritual guidance. Additionally, eagles are tied to the sun. Some people see them as signs of a bright future on the horizon. As a symbol of light, they embody both the intensity and heat of the sun as a fearsome force of nature, as well as the warmth and benevolence of the heavens.

This positive symbolisms are deeply rooted in Cheng Xiaoshi's nature, but if Yingdu Chapter actually brings us back to one earlier repeat, we can assume that Lu Guang had initially a brighter outlook on his mission.

The glasses are back and I'll say it again: once is weird, twice is a coincidence and thrice it's a pattern. The portrait shows Lu Guang without eyes but his item is a pair of glasses. Might be a subtile hint of denial there. As far as glasses go, pink is a peculiar color. It helps to 'voir la vie en rose', as the french says: "look at the world through rose-coloured glasses." Meaning, being delusional.

Might it be the eagle or the glasses, I'd say they're both representative of Lu Guang's state of mind at the time: hopeful.

~

[Edit: I recommend you take a look to these threads regarding this very same artwork: | X | X | X | I don't agree with everything but it's always cool to have other perspectives.]

[blossomthepinkbunny]

I wanna talk about the pride artwork for HB, because like a lot of other people I have some thoughts.

Firstly, positives:

It overall looks pretty good imo. The colours are bright and the picture has nice energy. I don't mind the HB/HH artstyle in general, it's mostly the designs that are the problem (the designs in HB are better than in HH). It is very cluttered, but I sorta learned to deal with that and I don't mind as much here.

Millie being there for Moxxie is cute and she looks amazing.

The outfits for some of the characters look good.

Sallie May being a Lesbian is nice (idk why, it just is).

Verosika looks great and very pretty (as always).

I like the idea of Loona taking Octavia to her first Pride parade. I like the idea of them hanging out in general and I want to see more of that.

Beelzebub looks cute.

I like the face Barbie makes (idk either).

Now onto the things I don't like:

Some of these sexualities seem kinda like they were just made up on the spot. Loona being Bisexual is nice, but she literally only ever showed interest in guys and there was never anything that could lead us to assume that she's Bi. The same thing goes for Mammon or Andrealphus. For Andrealphus it seems like they just made him gay to excuse the weird comments he makes about his Sister and especially since a lot of people started using their weird relationship to imply that Stella has some problems as well and isn't just a heartless bitch. Now they can basically just say: "Andrealphus isn't weird towards Stella, he is literally gay, why would he harrass her". I don't mind as much with characters like Bee or Barbie, because they only showed up once and it would've been pretty difficult to confirm their sexualities.

A lot of people mentioned Mammon being Ace just seems like an excuse to not put him in sexual merchandise or something. He is the only fat character in HB (who is actually relevant) and he is one of the two ace characters. It feels sorta disingenuous when the only two ace characters are a teen and the single fat character you have. Especially since, if I remember correctly there were a lot of people (including me) who found Mammon attractive and were looking forward to more sex-positivity for plus sized folks, especially when in Vivzepops shows theres only him and Mimzy (Adam as well maybe).

Why do a lot of the pansexual demons in this show feel stereotypical. Bee and Asmodeus are fine, the background demons as well I guess. Blitzø is super horny all the time and could fill a whole party just with people he slept with. Verosika and her followers are succubi who we saw sexually assault Moxxie. Barbie Wire manipulated a teenage/barely legal human to do what she wants by using her body. And Chaz is a literal and very open sexual harrasser/abuser. The only joke he has are making unwanted sexual remarks toward Moxxie and being horny. He has a sign that says: "I will fuck anything", which isn't what pansexuality is and the wording makes it really weird ("anything" not "anybody"). And he looks at Andrealphus weirdly. Him and Blitzø are also naked for no reason.

I would've loved to see some nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer characters. We don't have one confirmed genderqueer character. How about nonbinary Octavia or Vasago. Or genderfluid Moxxie. Or bigender Barbie or something. I just wished we had anything like that. Also a personal headcannon of mine, but Asmodeus should probably be Polyamorous. He is the incarnation of Lust and with how they wrote him in the show it's kinda hard to believe/doesn't make sense that he is in a monogamous relationship.

Where are Mayberry and Martha? They were confirmed to be sapphic and so far they're the only sapphic characters in an actually sapphic relationship we see in HB. Why does Wally get to be there but they aren't? Why is Vasago there instead of them, when he hasn't even showed up in an episode yet? Why is Vasago there in general? It's not like i'm gonna be happy with him being confirmed to be gay because there is nothing we know about him yet.

Why is Tex not there? Did they just forget him? He might be straight but he could still be there to support his girlfriend and isn't he literally Verosikas bodyguard. He was at the weird Blitzø hate party with her, but not here?

Isn't Chaz dead?

Why would Asmodeus and Fizz go to the same parade as Mammon, when the only episode with Mammon so far has dealt with how much he hurts Fizz.

You might say: "This isn't supposed to make sense, it's just a more interesting way to confirm characters' sexuality for pride month, so it doesn't have to make canon/logical sense". Which I would agree with, if they didn't excuse Stella and Striker (two pretty important characters) not being there by saying something along the lines of: "Do you really think they would attend a pride parade?". Maybe not, but I also don't think Chaz would attend a parade, being dead and all. I also don't think that Barbie would go out of her way to go to hell, just to attend a pride parade, especially since her brother is there too. I also don't think Andrealphus would go out of his way to go to a parade filled with imps and people he doesn't like. I also don't think Mammon would be there because it's nothing that brings him money or something. Stella might be straight and that's the reason she isn't here. But her brother (who she seemingly likes and confines in) is there and she could go to support him and her being straight isn't even confirmed, so she could very well be queer. And isn't Striker queer as well? Im sorta confused with that, because they try to make him a bigot (probably also homophobic), but the scene he has with Blitzø in "Harvest moon festival" seems very queer. His offense at sexual remarks could also imply that he is a very sex-repulsed asexual or Demisexual or something. Unless of course they want to use the fact that he doesn't like sexual remark from men as a way to make him seem homophobic (even though him reacting bad to unwanted sexual remarks doesn't mean he's bigoted, like that's well within his rights to be uncomfortable). It's not as if Viv shows restraint with making villians/antagonists queer in general. Mammon, Chaz, Andrealphus are all antagonists in HB and are also there. In HH they literally went out of their way to confirm Vox being in a relationship with Valentino, a rapist. It seems like being Straight/Bigoted/too much of an asshole to show up only applies to the characters who actively dislike Stolas and to the only main female antagonist.

[autumnhortsnort]

Hello coauthor! A Residuum reader here. One thing I really like about your comic is how the consequences of the characters' actions feel so plausible, but what stands out to me the most is the pacing in how they're presented throughout the story. Do you have any tips for structuring a plot? Every time I try to outline mine, it feels a bit incoherent, and the scenes don’t seem to flow well together. I’d appreciate any advice 🐢

best advice? Write the whole outline down as much and as far as you can, doesn't matter if it makes sense, that's for editing you to figure out. Then edit the ever-loving daylights out of it, add in connecting actions, and take out things that don't work. Residuum has had Five different drafts, with major tweaking as we go. The outline is not set in stone.

Also don’t share it outside of friends, that can make you feel pressured to stick to (the previous plot) even when it doesn’t work for how your story has progressed. There’s a reason we didn’t share any of the potential endings when we were still trying to figure out where the story was going. When the first arc was being posted we had an idea of the plot til about halfway through arc 4, but we didn’t actually have a concrete ending.

how we structure a plot (and do pacing)

Write out your main plot points and then write what the characters need to do to make that event happen. We basically do the plot mountain structure, but for each arc (there are 4 of them) we tend to make the climax of each arc into turning points or decisions that the main characters have to make that they cannot undo. here's a good article to read about structuring plots. (Note! This is for the broad spanning major plot beats, each update actually gets written as needed, they aren't written into the outline.)

When it comes to character decisions it’s more about, “what would make the character do this?” rather than, “would the character do this?” You can make characters do things they normally wouldn’t if you give them the right incentive.

For the pacing with residuum, because it’s serialized, we try to have something progress with each update. Either you learn something new, the plot has progressed (aka the status quo has changed), or there's set up/foreshadowing for later, most updates actually have all three. When writing in a serialized format (each chapter getting its own release) it’s a good idea to treat each update as a complete chunk. Try asking yourself: what is the goal for this part? are you using this update for anything actually important? are you conveying anything new and/or important to the plot? Is this something you want to focus on? Are you writing this to meet audience expectations or because you want to? There are parts where residuum gets almost no interaction but, importantly, those parts still meet our individual update rules. If you're writing for audience engagement you are going to get discouraged from writing long spanning plots very quickly. The audience doesn’t know whats coming, so they won’t interact with anything that doesn’t have their current blorbo™, even if it’s plot important.

for how we make the consequences make sense

Make things make logical sense? honestly i don't what to tell you.

We read. a. lot. I used to read 400 books over a school year, beaze has read about 13.6K fanfics on Ao3 over the course of 4 years. plus a ton of manhwa and manga, and that doesn’t include nonfiction, stuff from sites outside of Ao3, course assigned books, reddit fiction, royal road. Most of how we understand and structure plots is instinctual because we fire hosed our brains with them for years.

I'd recommend watching watching Overly Sarcastic Production’s Trope Talks, and reading stuff that's not rise related, as well as researching nonfiction stuff that's relevant to what you want to write we are at a place where we aren’t writing the outline anymore, just editing it if needed. We use the outline structure to make each update because it gives us a objective for the update, and gives us a road map for when to place the set up for future updates. But if you struggle to use outlines you can just… not use them. Garden writing is a valid writing strategy, I use it for one shot AU’s of residuum.

For long spanning stories written garden style the first draft can be your outline. Just edit and flesh it out once you’ve written it.

[wisteriasymphony]

What do you think about the idea of the complaints of Adrien probably not being in the Tokyo Special as a "boys vs girls" issue?

Personally, I feel like its fine if the writers wanted ML to be a fully girl power show, but like, if you wanna do that, just don't make male characters???

I mean, this issue with male characters not being present because of focusing solely girl power can just be fixed by, you know, just not making many lore important male characters?? Rather than filling two-fifths of your superhero team (I think thats the ratio) with men and then just using them for filler (which I know also happens with a lot of the girls who aren't important too)?? My Little Pony did it. Ever After High did it.

Notwithstanding the possble misogynist interpretations of a female Adrien, since the writers don't seem to care much about them, and you can chuck them out the window anyway when you make Girldrien, you could just make him a girl, or give a girl the plot relevance and make him into a side character if the gender of the characters and message of the show are both taken into consideration.

Which actually doesn't even matter, because the character who does the most work around the show, for the first arc at least, is Felix? So it just looks like the writers have a bone to pick with Adrien specifically? I mean even Nathaniel and Ivan got focus in the recent episodes, and got to actually have personalities, whereas Adrien has the agency of a background character.

(The Felix stuff does have more to do with Felix not living in France and thus the writers being allowed to pick and choose when to include him, thus side-stepping problems that come with being an episodic show, whereas if say, Juleka, found out secrets, we'd have to deal with acknowledging those every time shes on screen, which is a lot more if you count casual appearances, considering she lives in France.

But that misses the point - guys can do stuff in ml. Also, if you wanna do girl power anyway, why not make Felix a girl? I mean, he does stuff on screen, is one of the smartest character in the cast, and can have a queer relationship with Kagami, whos already hinted to like Marinette. If you still wanna do twin switches with Adrien, just give him short hair, the same face, and a good voice-acting ability. The latter isn't more far-fetched than being the younges graduate in England anyway, nor is it more unrealistic than him already being a billionaire in canon or whatever. I mean, the forced kiss scene might be viewed as having homophobic implications in that case, but you can just cut that out.)

Point is, if Miraculous wants to focus on girl power, why don't they have a mostly-girls cast instead of sappint the most prominent guy in the cast of a personality? Or just make him a girl? Or just don't tie the most prominent guy to every single plot line in the show when hes not allowed to actually do anything about them, and instead tie them to Marinette, who can do stuff and also should have plotlines she already has inherent ties to, or just stumbles into without connecting them to any specific character, especially any character they're not gonna actually use anyway?

Well, to take the question non-rhetorically... The intent was also to try and give us a heterosexual romance. A colleague of mine made a breakdown post of why this particular aspect of Miraculous, the "girl power" versus the romance, conflicts so often.

The easy solution then would be to just make it a Marinette and Girldrien romance straight-up, but up until Season 6's refreshing attempts at putting their money where their mouth is, I've personally found a lot of the gay rep.. spotty? I don't know. It feels telling that for most of its runtime the gay couples were either merely implied without being outright confirmed (ex: NathMarc) or relegated to unimportant background cameos (ex: Bustier and her wife). Sure, the gay rep is certainly the least poorly handled out of any of the other minority representation, but still. I have my doubts as to whether Zag, especially 2016 Zag, would have signed off on a romcom with an explicitly queer focus.

Anyway, I agree. It feels like the writers don't even really care to use him as his own character, and regardless of what Adrien is that should never be something the audience is able to pick up on!

[mission-light-if]

Mission Light - Lawyer Path Part 2 - Out Now!

Hello guys, it's me again :)

First of all, I know I said that I would try to upload the update by the 8th of April, but yeah, that didn't happen, obviously.

Before my top surgery, a lot happened, and I had no time to finish everything.

I also lost some of the things I had written because I was careless.

I was frustrated about that, and after the surgery, I needed some time to recover. I also had a few complications, and university started again.

By now, I've managed to rewrite a lot of what was lost, but not everything.

Since I finally want to put something out there, and it's been six months since I originally wanted to finish the lawyer prologue, I've decided to upload what I have so far.

Which, in itself, is also a lot—I'd estimate it to be around 170,000–180,000 words :)

Now, there are still about 3-4 things missing, but when you play the new update, you'll notice that I added a short text/info when that's the case.

I will add those sections in the future. There are also some more minor things I want to add here and there, so my work on the lawyer prologue isn't finished yet.

However, since I have worked on it so much, I’m really tired of seeing it at the moment. So maybe I'll start working on the next chapter first and then get back to what’s missing in the lawyer prologue later on to regain some motivation/fun in writing. I've been wanting to start the next chapter for so long; I finally want to write all the scenes I've been planning and more.

Honestly, it’s been an up-and-down process. Sometimes I was really motivated, sometimes I wasn't, and there were just parts I kept putting off because I had no fun writing them, but I needed them for the progression of the story. So, the quality of the writing may differ in some parts.

I also have to fix the scaling and the relationship/flirt points for some characters/parts, but that's something that only concerns me for now since they aren’t really relevant at the moment, but yeah.

Starting now, I want to do weekly updates. That means, at the end of every week, I’ll upload a new version with everything I’ve written and done during that week, so please remember that. It could be a new choice, just one new paragraph, or maybe a lot of new content.

I will always tell you what I added/changed, though.

If you find any bugs/code problems, please let me know on Tumblr :)

I also try to answer the remaining asks at some point, but it may take some time since I have an important exam coming up that I can’t fail because it's my second-to-last chance to pass.

Nonetheless, I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved.

It’s been almost a year since I started working on this project, and even though I would have liked to have published more by now, I’m really happy with what I’ve done so far.

The way it’s going right now, I’ll probably be writing this for like 5 more years, but that’s okay—art takes time, and I know I function differently than others, in the way I work, think, and how my energy levels work.

I’ve worked for at least three hours almost every day on this project, at least on the days I was home and not out, and it's the most, the longest, and the most consistent thing I’ve ever done.

Even if my writing, storytelling, progression, and choices aren't perfect, I’m happy I started this. Otherwise, it would have forever remained a dream of mine.

This is the project I always wanted to do: writing, game mechanics, my art, and my characters. So, I think this will be sort of my life project.

It's really, really far in the future, but at one point, I would love to add maybe a mini webtoon, mini-games, a better sidebar, more lore, game mechanics like a diary or letters, a timeline, some voiced lines, etc., stuff like that, and maybe even a character creator drawn by me, where you can create your own character.

That way, when I finish everything, I’ll truly have my dream work of art, incorporating all forms of art I like and everything I mentioned before.

I am grateful for every person reading and liking my story; it means so much to me.

Now for the update

This update includes:

Updated Prologue and First Part:

I changed a lot of the writing/internal struggles of the main character

I added the possibility to play matchmaker between Hongyu and Marcos/Maria

I added more depth to the main character's past with Noel and the lingering effects

I also changed a lot of the choices and their outcomes

I added a new system for Noel and the main character's dynamic (hate him, believe in good/nostalgia, afraid of him)

The New Second Part:

Meet Noel again and deal with him in different ways

Learn about your coworkers' superpowers

Pick one of two choices, leading to two entirely different fight paths

Awaken your own powers

Decide how to approach the fight with Noel (on both paths), leading to many individual fight outcomes (the two different broader paths with 4 main splits and even more choices on one, and 2-3 splits on the other)

Meet another agent, Min, in the aftermath of the fight and deal with everything that happened

Ask more questions and figure out more about what’s going on and went on behind the scenes

Prepare/start to get ready to confront Noel and his group in the next chapter to finally end things once and for all

Meet more agents (Sinan and Nayla) in the end and meet your group's pet dog, Vin :)

That’s it for now :)

Take care,

Jakob

Play here

[greencheekconure27]

Up past midnight inventing new and exciting ways of weaving together Tin Man and Wicked universes with a sprinkle of Emerald City for a canon divergence fic I will probably never write. (BTW if anyone wants to take this over please do I'm begging you)

Anyway so far:

Elements from the Emerald City:

-Langwidere, Jack, Ozma/Tip (plotlines remain mostly unchanged)

-Langwidere having beef with the Wizard

-maybe also Jane but she's not Dorothy's mother here or from the same time/universe/dimension as the Wizard (interdimensional travel us unpredictable ok).

-Four Cardinal Witches used to be a thing in the past

-The Beast Forever

-"Only a witch can kill a witch", each witch having a very individual set of spells, ancient tradition of preserving a witches magic as part of her funeral rites (abandoned/outlawed in this universe).

-Eamonn as Captain of the Gale Force instead of Fiyero (One wonders if that skin & mask came from a lion or a Lion).

Elements from Tin Man:

-The royal family are sorcerers but they're not the rulers of the whole OZ, just the South

-Emeralds are still relevant to the story but not because of a magical stone. Instead it's just OZ strip mining Quadling Country for gemstones like in the book, atrocities towards the local population and widespread ecological and magical (Nome King?) devastation included.

-Azkadellia=> Witch Queen of the South, (Quadling Country) not possessed* in this 'verse, currently in hiding in Finaqua after the rest of the royal family was killed and her sister disappeared

-*but possibly using the magic of dead witch ancestors to boost her own like Mistress West had Ozma do in Emerald City. Which gets twisted into "She's a creepy twisted necromancer possessed by an ancient evil spirit" in the Wizard's propaganda

-DG/ Dorothy Gale is still Azkadellia's long-lost sister but closer to her movie self

-but they're not descendants of movie!Dorothy like in the miniseries as DG and Dorothy aren't separate characters in this.

Their father Ahamo** is not the same person as the Wizard and neither is Mystic Man, the other Wizard stand-in (I think it's better to leave the latter one out altogether).

-**but he might have been one of Oscar Digs' old colleagues from the carnival and known he's a fraud

-Toto is a Dog not a shapeshifter (though he can still be the princesses' tutor. He spent the last decade or so looking out for Dorothy in Kansas).

- Glitch/Ambrose, Cain and Raw are still there but they start out as Az' companions here

-Raw is still a Seer but he's an actual Lion here that escaped while the rest of his pride was captured and imprisoned. Which possibly included a certain Lion Cub

-Wyatt Cain is the former captain of the royal guard, roughly the same backstory except they were attacked by the Wizard's men instead and he was found& freed from the tin suit by Glitch a few years earlier. He's currently Azkadellia's bodyguard.

-Jeb Cain is still a resistance member, either in Elphaba's cell or just some local guerilla group

-Jack from Emerald city is also Wyatt Cain's son

-None of these three know the others are alive

-Glitch/Ambrose is still the former royal advisor and weird genius scientist who remained loyal to the previous Queen and got arrested for it, but the reason why he "lost his marbles" is different.

-He was actually the (captive) scientist behind a large portion of the technology we see in Wicked +not that the Wizard let him take the credit). Eventually he refused to cooperate, either because the Wizard and Morrible had asked him to make something particularly horrifying or because he knew something re: Azkadellia and Dorothy's survival and whereabouts. In a last-ditch effort not to give anything away, he managed to shield large parts of his mind even from himself with magic (he has a little because he's some distant relative of the Queen)

- it's powerful but very crude and results in severe amnesia, "glitching", and other problems as seen in Tin Man. He did however manage to make himself so useless to his enemies they eventually just forgot about him and allowed him to escape.He eventually managed to wander back to Azkadellia's people but now they can't access the crucial information either.

-Dorothy will become the next Witch of the East

-Yes I still ship Cain/Glitch for this 🛢️🐦‍⬛👑

And now Wicked (mostly 2024 movie for Act 1)

-most of the story up to Act 1 finale remains the same

- except Glinda escapes to join Elphaba, either on the broom or shortly later with Fiyero

-yes this will be Gliyeraba

-Fiyero & Feldspar take them to Kiamo Ko sooner and they start organising a rebellion

-Elphaba makes her visit home earlier and she and Nessa design the enchantment for the shoes together with plenty of input from Nessa on what she needs and wants from it. Nessarose learns a lot of magic in the process and continues to develop her powers after Elphaba leaves

-She still becomes the Wicked Witch of the East unfortunately. Maybe with some dark magic corruption (let's put that hand-held mirror of hers to good use) but mostly because getting out of the wheelchair won't fix her other problems (such as Boq not loving her romantically, her sadness over Elphaba leaving, grief over her father, being unprepared for her role, her father's shitty parenting etc).

-The Vinkus aren't happy with how OZ government (Dominated by the Gillikinese) has been treating them either so the rebellion had supporters there.

-Fiyero is a prince but he's a spare with plenty of siblings ahead of him so officially his parents pretend to have disinherited him. If asked they will claim they haven't been able to contact him since and they definitely have absolutely no clue where he is.(Luckily Kiamo Ko is obscure and abandoned due to being in a particularly inhospitable and empty part of the country with no major routes in the vicinity. It was originally built as a fort against some ancient forgotten threat at the border and full of old magic).

-They free Doctor Dillamond sooner before he loses speech because I said so.

-Boq and the other Munchkins still get enslaved by the Witch of the East.He does manage to escape her eventually and goes to find Elphaba to ask her for help against her sister.

-He turns up at Kiamo Ko a few years after Nessa became governor, much to everyone's surprise. Turns out Fiyero told him a lot of stories about his home back when they were roommates at Shiz and he remembered enough to puzzle out where they might hide (It was actually a bigger risk than he thought and Fiyero is franky shocked he managed to survive the journey with so little information and not get lost and die out there in the wilderness somewhere).

-He also found this traumatized young Lion on his way and what the hell, Fiyero, did you just leave this kid alone to fend for himself in the woods after you rescued him? *

-*(Fiyero didn't, actually, but the Animals he left him with got raided soon after and Brrr got lost)

- Boq treats Brrr like his kid brother

-Unfortunately Nessarose'has managed to curse him after he escaped and he's been slowly turning into tin these past few months. Body horror ensues.She promised to lift the curse if he returns to her but he can't bear to do that.

-He's also traumatized as fuck after the whole enslavement ordeal and terrified Nessarose will find him again

-Glinda feels guilty

-Boq finally gets to get over his crush on her

-The spell is one of Nessarose's own design this time and Elphaba doesn't know how to undo it( as per Emerald City, "a witches spells are her own". ) It doesn't stop her from trying to save her friend though, and she and Boq embark on a series of experiments.

Azkadellia and Elphaba-Glinda-Fiyero form an alliance to overthrow the Wizard together

-Nessa meanwhile is starting to get worried her curse might've been more serious than she bargained for and will wind up killing Boq, as he refuses to return.She contacts her sister for help.

-unfortunately that's when Morrible drops a house on her. Which happens to contain Dorothy, who had her memories modified as a child and who knows nothing about her Ozian origins as she wasn't meant to return until she's an adult.

-She's a witch though and apparently "Witch A (Morrible)drops witch B (Dorothy)and her house on top of witch C (Nessa)" counts under the "only a witch can kill a witch " rule.

-Elphaba shows up to the meeting with her sister, finds this whole mess, and attempts to kidnap Dorothy so she can take her back to the base where she and Glinda can sort out this mess together.

-she's unsuccessful because the Munchkins still believe her to be Wicked and call the Gale Force on her (she's not really helping her case either let's be honest) and she's forced to flee.

-also will they be able to lift Boq's curse before the tin gets to his heart now that Nessa took her spell with her into the grave?

-The soldiers try to escort Dorothy to the Emerald City (Mme Morrible is starting to have suspicions as to her true identity) but she escapes on the way there

-Meanwhile Azkadellia has been keeping an eye on the whole thing via magic. She also has her suspicions as to Dorothy and sends Glitch, Cain and Raw to escort her.

-the whole Tip/Ozma plot is still happening except instead of Mistress West as a mentor they get Azkadellia

-Elphaba becomes Dorothy's mentor

-Ozma the lost Princess turning up is also very convenient politically for the rebellion as they need someone to replace the Wizard.

-eventual Ozma/Dorothy

-maybe future Boq/Jeb Cain ?

-Glitch and Fiyero bond over their love of dancing

- sequel where they deal with the whole apocalyptic Beast Forever problem

-Btw the Great Drought? Yeah that was the last time the Beast Forever came

-And yes the name "Beast Forever" absolutely gets used by the Wizard's propaganda to link it to old conspiracy theories about a Worldwide Animal Conspiracy against HumansTM

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi! first off, thank you for the labor you put into this blog as a resource. I am writing a short horror story and wanted to run a character problem by you. The two leads are journalists in a lavender marriage in the early 1960s, and while the wife, Vera, is Black, I am back and forth on whether her husband, Bonne, should also be Black or if he should be white.

The reason I ask is because, to sum it up quickly, at the end of the story Bonne is 'sacrificed' by the white antagonist in order to bring back the antagonist's dead son in his place (via plot contrivances that aren't relevant here). While this is obviously framed as something awful, scary, wrong etc. I feel that if Bonne were Black it would unintentionally incorporate a racially-motivated element to that ending of the story that, because I am white, is not necessarily mine to incorporate/use.

At the same time, if Bonne were white, it would be disingenuous to not incorporate the fact that he and Vera are in an interracial marriage into the story given its time period and setting (a small town in Louisiana), and that also does not necessarily feel like mine to incorporate/use in a story to a degree that would be genuine.

Basically, I am looking for some advice on how to pick my poison, haha. Thanks in advance!

I mean, a white antagonist selling out a Black man in 1960 because he wasn't concerned about his humanity would be both racist and accurate lmao. That happens now for a corn chip. It completely checks out. I think it makes easier sense than an interracial marriage that would definitely be illegal and dangerous in Louisiana in the 1960s, on top of the lavender one. It also works better for your horror angle- it is a very real, very valid fear, that a white person's whim will end your life. And given your time period, it'd be inaccurate to suggest that you can't incorporate it because you'll have to incorporate it. I say commit.

[foreverephemeral]

Could you tell us more about your rain world slugcat ocs?

Sure! I gave them all some shoddily made title cards, because that's way more fun than just a block of text

As a heads up, (with the obvious exception) I give all of my slugs full names, iterator-style, and usually refer to them as such. Their titles are more of an afterthought

Silver Spun Insolence was the first rain world character I ever made, way back on the 14th April '23, which was when I played the game for the first time! It all went downhill from there. Inno as a character is very heavily based on how I navigated through the world during that first playthrough (and my interpretation of what I thought was happening, as I didn't have much of a grasp on Survivor as their own character and really only saw them as a vessel to play the game through, hence Insolence's creation)

They're the one to blame for the slugcats-with-iterator-names situation, as all I knew of the lore when I played was that there were cool robots with cool names, and I assumed that naming scheme applied to all characters in the universe lol. Even when I realised that wasn't exactly true I thought it was fun and ran with it anyway. The name "Silver Spun Insolence" wasn't actually intended for the slugcat, though, and was originally given to a green lizard I was particularly fond of and wanted to turn into a character! I never did though, but at least their name lives on (it was the one that spawns in HI_C02, if you're curious)

Insolence's gimmick is storage; they can hold up to three spears on their back and are also capable of storing two items in their stomach rather than just one, which they typically use to hold pearls. However, while keeping any items in their stomach their cant store food across hibernations. In-game stats-wise they'd pretty much just be another Surv, except with five required food pips and only two additional.

The general premise of their story is pretty bare-bones; follows an overseer from their colony which leads them to an iterator who takes them in. They're tasked as a messenger to keep three of the local group members in contact (classic slugcat role) and are content doing just that.

Because of the nature of their creation as a character, Inno is sort of like... a sona to me? But also not really? I guess you could call them a mascot of sorts. They're not a self-insert, but they represent my in how I play the game. Whatever they are, they hold a really special place in my heart and are alongside the likes of Polar and SNH as some of my most important and beloved ocs, even if they aren't heavy on the lore

Also, as you probably noticed, I stole UI's fanon nickname for them. Sorry. Mine now

They have a DMS skin, too!

(art by failed-inspection and mossyfella)

I hate this freak.

The Saviour is a part of the Apparition storyline, with Polar and NYR (who are getting their own lore post . ..soon . probably). Despite their striking resemblance to the former, they were created by NYR with the sole purpose of traversing the cold and barren arctic wastelands between him and his neighbours to deliver them a life-saving cure to the ware and damage they'd suffered over the many centuries they'd been abandoned there. And they do that! And it works! Just kind of a little too well. It's a long story...... ..lore post coming soon (<- guy who would never procrastinate anything)

Saviour is in a weird spot of simultaneous forgotten background character level irrelevance and aching painful frustrating bashing my head against a wall responsible for the inciting moment of the story relevance. And I mean that quite literally, NYR (by using Saviour) caused the moment at which Everything That Could Go Wrong, Went Wrong. Sort of. Somebody was already dead by that point but. It can get a lot worse than just that. They also, however, have the unfortunate trait of just being a slugcat and so apart from that they don't do much outside of being a cute pet to the iterators and a menacing force to the local wildlife

I never intended for them to be so similar to Saint in... a lot of ways. Similar name/namesake, brutal and cold residence, furred, complicated relationship with iterators, constantly closed eyes, and The Dreaded Themes. I don't even like Saint that much, but I think the parallels are kind of funny so I kept it like that.

Saviour's title obviously comes from their role in helping to save the iterators of the Apparition group, but title aside they do actually have a canonical name that NYR gave them. It never comes up though, and you're not getting it out of me ^_^

They were designed by @lovelyarps, who I really cannot thank enough (they also designed NYR!)

They Perform Perfunctory Tasks really shouldn't be here, because it isn't really a slugcat. It's more a mess of other creatures mixed together and disguised to imitate a slugcat. It's more closely related to eggbugs. Some iterators really need their biological engineering licenses revoked

Prior to being called The Imitator, Tasks was known as The Mother, due to the purpose it was created for; raising a litter of slugpups made by the same iterator that created it, each hybridised with a different lizard species. Only the white lizard pup survived infancy, and due to the grief of losing all but one of its children it abandoned the pup outside the facility grounds and ran to live alone in the wild

Most of its life (including its time raising the pups) was spent inside its creator's can, under their careful supervision. They weren't exactly pleased at it running away, but they haven't bothered to bring it back and instead opts to have an overseer guard it at all times, as an extra assurance that nothing happens to their precious asset

Tasks' appearance was very heavily inspired by whiskered auklets! Its own "whiskers" are kind of weird. The upper pair and functionally akin to antennae, as the long strands of fur that make up the whiskers serve to cover the actual organs. The lower pair is just decorative

Its appearance overall borders an almost uncanny affect for other slugcats. Their unnaturally massive size and uncomfortably large eyes are the main cause, but they also adopt what would be quite the painful posture for a regular slug and act very unlike what one should, which certainly doesn't help

Tasks and Insolence live within the same local group! They've never met, but they do share a common relative

The other ones! Cool! The guys not quite important enough to warrant their own rants. From left to right:

See as Stars Fall, "The Subject", was Insolence's cousin, though they essentially raised each other and have a sibling-like bond. They were the one to adopt Petal and provide them with their mask. After Inno went missing, Fall went out in an attempt to find them and return to the colony. Instead, they were found by a slightly less considerate iterator than the one who took their cousin in and spent the rest of their life as what was essentially a lab rat, eventually being sent to ascend just to see what would happen.

Countless Petals Waver, "The Chameleon", is the only surviving hybrid pup from the litter assigned to Tasks' care. After they were abandoned by it, they were found by Fall and raised by them as their own, with some help from Insolence. Like white lizards, they can change the colour of their fur to blend in with their surroundings (and similarly lose control with it when hurt), however they can't change camouflage their white markings. They almost always wear a carved yellow vulture mask, for safety

Unnamed..?, "The Host", slugcat if it was Awesome and Had Lizard Frills and Three Eyes and Safely Hosted A Rot Cyst Within It Without Taking Any Harm. Hell Yeah Brother

Sorry this ended up being so long, if you give me any opportunity to ramble about my characters I Will Take It. This isn't actually everything I originally had written, there were a good few paragraphs I ended up cutting for the sake of this not going for forever

If you'd like an extended post with more ramblings or rants or pieces of trivia or if you have any questions you should let me know 😏I Will Take It. Slugs, man. Slug!

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hey, I really appreciate your answering sex ed questions and was hoping you might be able to help me out. Sorry for the long tmi I'm about to give but I don't know how to ask this except by listing out everything relevant I can think of.

I'm afab (cis-ish in the sense I don't particularly see myself as a woman but don't bother trying to get other people not to, but that isn't really important here) in my mid 20s and a virgin, and I don't know much about sex drive but what I do makes me feel like maybe there's something off about mine? I used to consider myself bi ace until I realised I did feel some degree of physical attraction to women that I don't to men so now I call myself a lesbian but the attraction I feel is still very... vague? Like, I'll see a pretty woman and get some kind of rush of feeling, but it's not really a particularly physical feeling of arousal (though I am autistic so it could be I just don't recognise it as physical because of interoception difficulties), more like... sorry if this is an inappropriate metaphor but. More like the urge to pet a really cute cat. I've made out with women and it felt vaguely nice (certainly nicer than with men which I've also done but it was awkward and vaguely uncomfortable) but no more than that. I don't get anything from my physical partners biting down on my neck or nipples or other common erogenous zones though I feel like they expect me to, and kissing is kind of nice but kissing with tongue feels awful. I'm not sure if I'd ever actually want to have full on sex, the thought of letting someone near my sex organs sounds unpleasant. I sometimes masturbate by rubbing my clit and there's a moment that feels like a climax where it gets really hard and sensitive and I used to think that was an orgasm but reading your recent description of an orgasm I'm actually pretty sure I've never had one. I've never had the urge to stick anything in my vagina, only tried it because I heard if it causes pain it might be a cause for medical concern (it didn't cause pain - it felt kinda nice, not anything special though and certainly not something I'd do without prompting). When I masturbate there's only one specific non sexual scenario that gets me off (though maybe about once a year at most I can successfully get off to sexual scenarios with fictional characters but never with real people and it isn't as effective). I used to masturbate more than I do now (I know it dropping off suddenly can be a cause for medical concern but it wasn't sudden, just spikes of activity getting gradually shorter and rarer - I can think of months when I'd do it every night to fall asleep but those are very much outliers scattered across the years rather than my baseline, which is occasionally doing it absentmindedly while falling asleep but very rarely intensely and on purpose). I probably should have sought out more sex ed at some point but sex just never felt very important to me.

Anyway I guess my question is. Is all this normal? Am I actually ace after all? Do I just have a low sex drive? Is any of this cause for medical concern? Do you have any idea how I might be able to actually get an orgasm, if what I thought was that actually wasn't?

hi anon,

all of this is incredibly normal. what I'm hearing is that you kind of like kissing women and aren't particularly interested in sex? that's awesome. kissing women is great, strongly recommend, and if that's all you're interested in then that's just dandy. no need to pretend to enjoy anything just because a partner expect you to; a polite "no thanks" will suffice, followed by kicking your partner to the curb if they don't listen to the no.

whether or not you call yourself asexual is up to you, that's none of my business and I can't pick for you. there actually isn't a secret barcode hidden somewhere on your body that will reveal your Real True Sexuality, you can just pick whatever words you want that kind of get the gist at any given time. would calling yourself asexual feel nice or helpful to you in anyway? if so, awesome! does it not appeal to you at all? okie dokie! don't do that then.

literally nothing you have described sounds like something that would be cause for medical concern, unless I missed something that's regularly causing you any physical pain or discomfort.

I think focusing on orgasms isn't that important, actually, and you can actually just touch yourself in whatever way you want for as long as it feels good, and then stop when it doesn't!

[cerenemuxse]

so i finally filled up my sketchbook that i started back in may of 2022 💥

since most of the doodles were TTTE related, i thought i'd share mine, starting from the very first one from july of 2022. it was the summer before my senior year of high school when i got into ttte. however, i didn't join the fandom until months later, around november. i say around because my first ttte post i deleted (it was a 2d model sheet i drew up of Edward but someone reblogged it so its definitely out there somewhere lul)

now, about 2.5 years later, im still in the fandom, enjoying ttte. i've met some amazing artists and writers, and while i dont speak as often with you as i would like, do know that im glad ive met every single one of you. i haven't had such a positive experience since my Sonic days and (somewhat left the fandom) Hermitcraft days, let alone a fixation stick around for so long like my Sonic fixation (2013 - 2020). we'll see how long ttte sticks as my fixation for but i have a feeling it will be for a long time, considering the people i've found myself with.

so as a bit of a commemoration and for the sake of seeing improvement, i'm sharing some sketches of the engines i've drawn over the years from that sketchbook, from the very first sketch to last page i just finished. :)

personal art notes below. feel free to skip! these are just observations of mine that i made from looking at these!

what was consistent: the recognizable art style. you can still tell that its my artwork, and i think it comes down to the eyes, depite the style of those changing the most.

i've gotten better at faces, especially different designs, but i still need to keep them consistent.

i still suck at perspective. this is why we use reference images.

say if i had joined the fandom just now, and this is my first post. i think you'd assume that edward is clearly the favorite lul.

there's some spoilers so i wont be commenting on anything about the designs, save for a few!

for images 7 and 8, i used highlighters and a red pen for coloring :D

i did rebecca early on and i hate that it happened. also the notes for her aren't relevant anymore! They're now based on 34102 Lapford.

character design notes:

image 6: Lexi is the LSWR T7 class. Theodore is the LSWR F9. For anyone curious, Merlin stays the same. Im not sure if I ever changed the specific engine he is. I remember talking about it but i can't find any info anywhere ;-;

image 7: Whiff is a GWR 3571 class. (not visual) Stanley was built by NWR in Crovan's Gate.

image 8: (not visual but affects his accent) Based on his number, Ryan was built in Scotland by the North British Company.

image 9: Rebecca is the rebuilt version of SR West Country class. Belle is a GWR 6100 (as originally planned for the TVS). Hank is a USATC S160.

[allpiesforourown]

Hey, so sorry to be using your inbox like a fuckin confessional, but getting that dream thing off my chest literally cleared my skin and I've just got this itch that needs to be addressed so I'm taking it out on you again. Reflecting on this thought the second after I had it made me think, "Oh, I get what Shen Yuan was on about now," and so here I am, typing this shit out ig. fucking embarrassing, anyway.

So, like. I watch those gacha react videos on youtube. Like a concerning amount of those gacha react videos, man. I fuckin love them so much, even if I wouldn't admit to it under pain of death to anyone I know or love. I have a seperate youtube channel I made under a fake email that I made specifically to watch them. It's bad. I remember back when it was just me and the FF.net filter system before they added the 'Without' section at the bottom and trying to find crossover content in the LoZ tag between games. 10th circle of hell; my 13th reason. Gacha react videos in concept are heavensent for my inner child, and on the rare occasion I find one of those 'fandom react' series that are active or complete and well done, it grants me joy on par with nigh nothing else.

This being said, I understand that the main demographic for this content tends to be a handful of years younger than me. I've seen community posts on some channels mentioning their time in college, but these are few and far between in my experience. I appreciate these teen's artistry in putting these all together, because god knows I'm not, but like,,, --and I know I sound like an ass right now but bare with me-- it feels like with the conclusion of Arcane came a flood of reaction videos with no real substance. I've watched upward of what feels like thirty seperate videos --at least,-- on the show and its the same ten to twenty edits I've seen on repeat and I'm watching them by pressing the skip key and catching half the dialouge only to come out the other side tired and a little miffed. Then I feel bad, because they created something and all I did was mindlessly consume and feel entitled to complain. Ugh.

Now, Because I've been cycling through these almost cookie cutter videos for ages --I used Arcane vids as an example before because its recent and relevant, but I do have this take for a whole slew of the fandoms I watch react videos on, and I picked this addiction up in 2021 so it's been a minute-- I've begun predicting the dialouge before it's come up and projecting what I hope the author will say. If I see a video with, for example, Giyuu from kny seeing Sabito in a video, I hope to see shock, yes, but also to see him comment or think about how he hasn't seen his face in so long, you know? Just... things that aren't just "OMG!!" or making the characters eyes widen. I've found now that I seek out these videos for the slim chance that they'll provide me with the satisfaction I get from these moments of true understanding with the presented characters.

Yes, I know that there really isn't any "true" way to understand a character, and that while we are all entitled to our own interpretations of media, the insistence that mine alone is more "right" or "correct" is bullshit, but I'm not saying that my preference has to be law, only that I get a rush of happiness whenever something I like happens to pop up in a video that I was already checking out of because it failed to really,,,,wow me. This is my bias speaking, of course, but its also the reality of my situation borne from overconsumption of this genre.

But anyway, onto the main point of how this relates to svsss. I was watching a video just a minute ago --an Arcane video, big shocker I know-- where there was a line from the creator's Vander character about how he wasn't ready to see Vi so grown up, because to him she's still his little girl. I thought, "Yes!!! This!! He's a father! He's showing realistic reactions to seeing your child suddenly grown up, and while he's proud of the woman she became, he still loves her as she is in the moment!!" ....I then watched the rest of the reaction, and was left cold and disappointed in the end. I'd clicked for Viktor, got three videos of him in a twenty minute reaction when the rest was the same four edits of jinx on repeat. Love you Jinx, but holy fuck. I thought then, "God, what a waste of potential." The creator of the video had insightful dialouge, clearly a decent grasp on character interaction, and the drive to create the video in the first place, but settled for pumping out another copy of the same video they've released three times previous on the same channel.

Then I thought, "Oh, like PIDW."

I need to get a life, Tumblr user allpiesforourown. If your blog wasn't so damn entertaining, I might even go out and touch grass one day. Take responsibility, damn.

(ty for reading my rant, if you did. have a good day regardless.)

I think you watching gacha react videos for characterization might be the one and only thing more baffling than Shen Yuan reading porn for plot. Hope you find gacha videos of Vander teaching his daughter how to ride a bike

[lyteofgod]

So tired of the unnecessary Mayhem banter and also the obscene amount of fucking posers who are LITTERING all things Mayhem. Are they actually the best black metal band? Imo, no, there's way better out there. The reason they're the most popular is because they're the most legendary!! I don't think Euronymous's riffs are actually that good, and I don't think Dead's vocals are actually incredible and set the standard-- but I respect their legacy and I respect the people who are in that band and who have been in it (even Varg....... a little bit) because they are/were real human beings and their only relevance in life isn't that they played in some fucking band, they had/have personal lives and thoughts. Just because Pelle is smiling and looking silly in a lot of his photos doesn't undermine the fact he was terribly unwell, he's not your fucking tragic golden angel, he was some guy you probably wouldn't have liked if you knew him personally. Tears didn't trickle down when he wasn't feeling too great, he cut himself and killed small animals?! And Euronymous wasn't some fat, ugly, gay dickhead, he was well liked among his peers!! People just hate men who aren't conventionally attractive (it's literally just that he didn't wash his hair) -- "He took a picture of Dead after his suicide!" DO YOU EVEN PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT THIS BAND HAS BEEN TRYING TO TEACH FOR LIKE, THE PAST 30 YEARS!?!?! It's about guts, gore, hatred, and everything antiChrist!! of fucking course he took a picture of Dead, dead. It was also most likely an incredibly traumatic moment for him!? Dude went off the rails after Pelle died

And why does no one talk about Hellhammer?? He was there!!

he's pretty :p And there's so many other guys who were/are in Mayhem, why is the focus always shone on Dead, Euronymous, and Count Dicksnack!!!?! Necrobutcher is sometimes mentioned... but only as a source of historical knowledge, even though he's a POS and incredibly biased ... because,, as I've stated before, these guys aren't characters in a play for you, they're everyday guys you maybe wouldn't even like... because they preach sin, death, and the devil...?

I've also seen some REALLY bizarre statements stemming from people who have a passion for shitting on Mayhem. Such as "Dead was self-centered" and the most insane take yet "Euronymous deserved it" FUCK OFF!!!!! He did NOT deserve death. I will defend Øystein Aarseth to my grave, I swear. I don't agree with, like any of his opinions and ideals, but I wholeheartedly believe he did not deserve to be murdered. Did he burn down churches? Yeah, and that's fucked up. Did he take a picture of his friend's corpse? Yeah, and that's fucked up. Did he deserve to be murdered? NOOOO!! Anyone who thinks he deserved to be murdered.... hear me now: I will fold you like laundry then shove you up my ass. You're actually fucking deranged to say that about a person.

Making fun of Mayhem everytime someone mentions it, even going out of your way to find someone talking about it... you will never be kvlt sorry :P you aren't cool you're just fat. "They're too popular" and you are listening to Darkthrone? Almost equally as popular? If not that you're listening to Bathory and Venom guaranteed

Also I am #1 Pelle Ohlin fan cause no one else who simultaneously really likes him also respects him as a person and as a deceased person. The crown is mine cause wtf?? All Mayhem fans on Pinterest should be banned

Finally, do I even like Mayhem that much? No, they're pretty mediocre. But they were the first band I was really invested in, so I will defend them and die on this hill.

[gardening--tools]

JUDE PERSONAL QUEST!! ?

ooh this is so interesting because... like is Jude the sole survivor still? is she someone completely different? is the player playing fo4 or are we in a post-game situation and the player is a completely different character? i, uh, got a little carried away oops <3

Jude's personal quest(s)

If Jude is still the SoSu and we're in a post-game game where the player character is completely different, I think her personal quest would be related to her coming to terms with everything that happened to her before the Great War.

She's saved the Commonwealth, saved her brother, and managed to pull the Railroad and the Minutemen away from the brink, and now— well now she'd probably be floating. Jude's personal journey deals a lot with losing her family and friends, but doesn't really touch on insecurities about her professional failures or the physical consequences that remain with her. The quest would probably begin with Jude giving the PC a place to visit. They would have to fight their way through it, and the bounty at the end would be some of Jude's racing memorabilia. Which would lead to a conversation about her past and she would try to really quickly move on from her crash and what happened to her after. Then maybe she'd be interested in fixing up an old car or bike. (Which would lead you to talking to the Atom Cats. Because I want them to be more relevant than they are in game lol.) And in so doing, you'd help her regain her confidence and have the ability to build up her abilities and her physical confidence. Cute!

OR Perhaps we aren't even in the Commonwealth. I could see the PC running into Jude on a pilgrimage to return to her childhood home in Oklahoma to see what she could reclaim—if there is anything to reclaim at all. If that were the case, she would absolutely be traveling with Dogmeat, and they would be an inseparable duo. A little cheaty, because you technically get two companions in one, but Jude would be on purpose a little annoying to travel with so I feel like that would be a fair trade lol. (Also, where's Shaun? Where's X6? Where's Preston?? Drama!) Her personal quest would probably still deal with themes of overcoming failures and insecurities, but would end with a veritable gold mine of Old-World media (books, probably a skill mag or two, new music that would become permanently available to the player. Perhaps it would unlock a new radio station?) The farmstead would also probably be unlocked as a settlement afterward, too.

OR If Jude isn't the Sole Survivor, and the PC is playing through the fo4 quest-line, then she would be tied to the Nuka World DLC. She would be Gage's cousin and would have been routed into the Commonwealth by the Glowing Sea, where she's trying to find information about him. In this AU, she'd be much more severely burned (from an accident tinkering with fusion engines, of course) and would have a mule companion called Junior Junior. (Short for Dale Junior Junior Jr. Because of course she'd still be a huge NASCAR/NAFCAR fan. She'd probably still be from the OK region, or even from farther north like Indiana/Illinois.) She'd be the "good" companion for Nuka World, but (in this perfect world) she'd still have opinions and unique voicelines for the mainland quests. Following her Nuka World questline would unlock a neutral ending for dealing with the raiders, as well as an ending where you could "rehabilitate" Gage but still wipe out the raiders in the parks.

behold, junior junior

[wayward-travelers]

GPosingway and gen AI

CTRL+F "What is" if you want to go straight to the "what is GPosingway?" section.

Some context first

Screenshot made with Wi-Fi's preset Inflorescence (yes, it's AI and it's relevant)

A few days ago, a post made the rounds about GPosingway, Wi-Fi's presets and Leon Aquitaine's opinion on generative AI. What started as a simple post of someone setting boundaries about screenshots containing AI generated stuff (so far, so good) ended up, with the help of two people's additions, as a gaggle of shit based on hearsay, misinformation, fear-mongering and someone's personal vendetta that inevitably ended up as harassment.

For some reason, several hundred people felt the need to enable it. Because apparently what the "nice and welcoming" FFXIV community needs is pearl clutching over (only one brand of) copyright infringement, and bullying.

So I'm posting to hopefully share what GPosingway truly is, since apparently it was too much to ask to just go to their GitHub page and read three lines of explanation.

Just to be clear: this isn't permission to go harass them or anyone who uses GPosingway, with or without AI-generated textures. You're not twelve and being an abusive control freak isn't sexy. Behave.

Customary disclaimer

For the record, I'm not particularly comfortable with generative AI. I'm also not comfortable with porting assets from other games, unofficial merchandising (incl. commissions of your blorbo from the game), data-mining and taking screenshots of glamours that aren't officially available in game yet.

As I laid my eyes upon the Azem crystal I bought from a friend some time ago, however, I figured I lost my right to cast the first stone. And, frankly, sometimes those commissions are just really pretty.

But here's a stack for those of you morally pure enough to stone people over copyright infringement. I'm sure none of you has ever used a movie or anime character as a pfp in your life—let alone a stolen fanart—so have fun.

(Also please don't stack stones irl. It's bad for the little critters who depend on them to live and reproduce.)

What is GPosingway?

It's ReShade with a bunch of presets.

Yeah, that's it.

It's literally ReShade and it comes with a bunch of presets that are compatible with that version of ReShade and the game and don't conflict with each other.

No, it's not a fork.

It's ReShade. With a bunch of presets. That you don't have to hunt on three thousand discords, patreons, kofis, websites, etc.

Basically, GPosingway's main appeal if that it's less bothersome than hunting down presets on your own and making sure everything is compatible.

Anyway.

It's not perfect for reasons I'll describe later, so if you decide you don't want to use GPosingway anymore, here's what you need to do: nothing.

It's just ReShade. With a bunch of presets.

You don't have to uninstall ReShade to then reinstall ReShade like I've seen someone say, that'd be stupid and a waste of time. Just make sure the presets you use remain compatible with the version of ReShade you have and that's it.

And because it's literally just ReShade, it also means that you can add, change or delete presets like you would with any other ReShade install. And you can delete or just not use textures you find suspicious, because believe it or not, you're not being victimized by your shaders and the Devil isn't here to tempt you.

Do you know what GPosingway is not, though? A stain on your soul.

What's the problem with it?

Well, Leon Aquitaine, the dude at the helm of the project, is pro generative AI. And because he's pro generative AI, he will and has agreed to include presets in GPosingway that use AI generated textures, like Wi-Fi's*.

Which you can yeet from your folders in ten seconds top, if you've installed ReShade through GPosingway and didn't know it was there.

And that's it, really.

(*Neither of them hid it, to be clear. Though I will grant you that they could be more forthcoming on the GitHub page itself.)

Now what?

Well, now you can do whatever you want. Use it, don't use it, the choice is yours. What you're doing on your own computer is no one's business but yours anyway.

Just don't go harassing people or smearing them online because you disagree with them. It apparently needs saying, so I'll say it: bullying people out of a community is much worse than generating textures with AI or using said textures.

If you don't like that GPosingway exists as it is, here's a list of things you can do:

your own ReShade package

sharing a list of your favourites presets to make them easier to find

sharing existing lists

if you really have that much energy to spend, organizing with other people to lobby your government and put limits to what AI is used for and how

And absolutely all those options will be better for your self-esteem than callouts and harassment of a random dude online.

Happy screenshotting!

[paragonrobits]

on the one hand, jokes about comic book movie cinematic universes along the lines of 'lol what if lord of the rings made a tom bombadil movie like comic book verses do' always fall flat because the reason comic book verses can get away with this is because they're not self contained stories, they're absolutely massive settings with nearly 100 years of consistent stories and plot lines for the most extreme examples, and even some of the less old teams and concepts go back to the 1960s on average, and there's a LOT to mine for ideas and standalone stories in a way very few other mediums can even try

on the OTHER hand

for some reason even modern comic book movie verses keep falling flat, probably because trying to maintain that same level of constant output as the MCU is just not finanically sustainable and every single attempt to imitate it has completely collapsed so the MCU's success is more likely a fluke

and probably more relevant, a lot of the recent choices for character movies are so goddamn baffling. why the hell did they give Kraven the Hunter a standalone movie. He is a spider-man villain who's one of the more long-lasting antagonists but he also died in the 80s before coming back to life and its hard to argue that he's a high profile character. the ultimate universe did barely anything with him, do you know how weird that is?? ultimate universe did so many weird creative choices and they made him some kind of a werewolf thing, but not really because he just gets some fangs and then gets beat up offscreen??

he just honestly doesn't have that much material to work with as a character in his own right. its not the same as Venom (a long lasting and quite popular character) or the X-Men (WHERE DO I EVEN FUCKING BEGIN), where they all honestly have so much to work with that you could do so many movies indefinitely probably with just the material

so going back to my original point, the tom bombadil joke is a pretty insincere one that misses the point, probably because whoever made that joke in the original place doesnt respect comics as a medium and probably doesn't think about how much material there is to work with. Bombadil is a lousy choice because there's almost nothing about him; he was deliberately a strange fairy tale esque inclusion in lord of the rings because Tolkien thought it would be cool to have an unexplained mystery that absolutely NO ONE understands; part of the point of the character is just '???' all over, he's not someone you have enough information about to make something about him liek that

and most comic movies don't have that issue in theory. But for some reason Sony kept making spider-man villain movies and choosing villains that honestly don't have that much to work with, especially when you try to make them anti-heroes. With Venom, that WORKS. He's a Lethal Protector you know????? and they did good and it proves that Venom doesn't actually have to have anything to do with Spider-Man to work as a character, but its like the Venom movies are a serious outlier because everything else Sony tried falls flat and if you're gonna make comic book movies about characters that aren't high profile, ya gotta pick some that actually HAVE something you can work with

[joelsgoodgirl]

About Me

I figured I might as well introduce myself since I'm really diving into this fandom stuff again!

Name: Ashe

Age: 30

Height: 5ft/160cm (i feel like this is relevant because i give off tall apparently)

Orientation: Demisexual/Bisexual

Sign: Scorpio𖤓Scorpio☾Sagittarius⇡

Location: Midwestern United States

Main Interests: Joel Miller; but there's always room for all of Pedro's characters (especially you, Jack Daniels)

Hobbies: Reading, Writing, Bed-rotting. But in all seriousness, I love reading and writing. I'm an aspiring author (nothing as fun as spicy romance). I also enjoy crafting, overanalyzing television shows and listening to music. Don't ask me what type of music because I don't even know.

Daily life: I've been married to my partner since October '23. I have quite a few exotic pets; three ferrets, a boa constrictor, a leopard gecko, a pacman frog and a tarantula. We aren't afraid of the weird and creepy things in this household. I spend most of my time working, but when I'm not I've definitely got my laptop open and headphones on; reading or writing or doom scrolling. The non-obnoxious type of stoner. Shut the fuck up and vibe.

Other Interests: I'm a HUGE musical theater nerd. My favorite musicals are Wicked, Hadestown and Waitress. If I don't listen to at least one of those on any given day, there's something wrong with me. I spend my summers seeing at least one musical a week (support your local theaters!!!) and winters are spent longing for the summer.

My other musical love is 80s/90s rock. Metallica, Joan Jett, AC/DC and Rammstein are my top artists. Dad Rock too. Halestorm, Nickelback and Five Finger Death Punch. Biggest flex is I got to spend my 29th birthday at a Metallica concert.

I adore gardening. Sadly stuck in an apartment leaves me to a potted garden, but that's #1 on my list when we get a house. Homesteading is a big dream of mine.

Other Fandoms: Once Upon a Time, Doctor Who, Sherlock, James Cameron Avatar, Stranger Things.

I have been on Tumblr since ~2012, but I remade my account because my original held too much of my past that I no longer want to visit. I've been writing fanfiction for just as long, but I hadn't started publishing until about 2020.

Anyway, that's me! I'm a mishmash of aesthetics and personalities, so good luck really trying to figure me out.