#i have the framework set up so that it WILL work without having to change the forms/tables

[thehardkandy]

every day at work lately is just locking in as deep as i possibly can. kinda gave the soft promise that i will be wrapping things up on this site in july, at least insofar as getting to meaningful testing goes.

like im already sorta entering the refining phase since from here it's kinda just adding more and more and more connective tissue to everything.

but there is a lot of connective tissue. so just gotta grind grind grind grind grind at it

i would love to be able to get my coworkers in on doing more bits and pieces but i just dont think there's a way to get them the necessary context?

[yuujispunches]

Of deadlines and desires ~ M.F. (Part 1)

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x fem!reader

Summary: Megumi Fushiguro infuriated you like no one else in that college, he knew how to get under your skin. You wanted to strangle him most of the time but a moment of weakness might just change everything.

CW (content warning): college AU (modern setting, no curses), academic rivals, aged-up Megumi and reader (in their 20s), smut, MDNI (+18), fingering, p in v sex, protected sex, some cursing, mentions of alcohol.

AN (author’s note): Hi guys! This is the first part of a small series I’m going to make, it’s the first time I’m really writing something like this but I think I’m really happy with how it turned out. As always a reminder that English isn’t my first language and I’m typing this in my phone so I’m sorry if there are any typos/mistakes. Hope you enjoy Andes me know what you think! :)

Requests are open so feel free to send them! (you can check the list of character I write for on my pinned post)

Masterlist || Part 2 || Part 3 >>

You hate Megumi Fushiguro.

That’s what you tell everyone. That’s what you tell yourself every time he walks into lecture, cool and aloof like he owns the goddamn room. It’s what you mutter under your breath whenever his name pops up at the top of the grade sheet, again, just a fraction of a point above yours. Every time he smirks when Professor Saito praises his thesis framework. Every time he doesn’t even look like he’s trying.

And it’s definitely what you whisper through clenched teeth when he strolls past you on the quad like you’re invisible, only to throw a lazy “Try harder next time.” Over his shoulder without even really looking at you.

Smug bastard.

But tonight? Tonight, you’re not thinking about grades or academic validation or whose literary analysis was more “emotionally resonant.” Tonight, you’re at a party.

Well, you didn’t mean to be. You told yourself you’d just stop by for a drink, show face, say hi to Nobara, make good on your practically empty social life. You’re the kind of person who highlights your planner. Who color codes your notes and sets calendar reminders for assignments you already submitted. So maybe, just maybe, you wanted to feel a little reckless for once.

It’s working. The cheap vodka’s doing something warm and unwise to your veins.

The house is buzzing with bodies and base-heavy music. Someone spilled something sticky across the kitchen floor. There’s a line for the bathroom and someone crying on the porch.

And standing in the middle of the living room like he’s some kind of dark omen is him.

Megumi Fushiguro.

Wearing a black t-shirt stretched a little too tightly across his chest. Holding a red solo cup like he’s seconds away from chucking it at a wall out of boredom.

You freeze. You could turn around. You should. You are about to. But then he sees you.

And he smirks.

“Didn’t think this was your scene.” He says, voice just loud enough to be heard over the music as he closes the space between you.

“Didn’t think you were capable of smiling.” You shoot back.

“It’s not a smile. It’s pity.” He retorts with a cocky grin etched on his face.

You scoff, already reaching for a drink you probably shouldn’t have. “What, you feel bad I’m here while you could be home reorganizing your books by existential crisis level?”

He laughs and that’s annoying too. Because it’s deep and smooth and doesn’t match the tightness in your stomach.

“You’re projecting again.”

You take a sip, even though your drink tastes like floor cleaner. “You wish.”

He doesn’t respond right away. Just lifts his cup, eyes scanning you with that irritating coolness he always wears like armor. But there’s something else there too. Something that makes your skin feel hot under your clothes.

“I thought you’d be in the library.” He says. “Grinding your teeth over our last essay.”

“I thought you’d be halfway inside your own ass about how smart you are.”

“Maybe I just wanted to see you off your game.” He scorns.

You blink, taken aback. What the fuck does that even mean? “What?”

He shrugs. “You’re always so... focused. Makes me wonder what you’d be like if you loosened up.”

Your pulse quickens and you hate it.

There’s always been tension between you. A low buzz under every debate, every paper handed back with too few red marks. You’d chalked it up to competition to the way two smart people burn when placed too close for too long. But now?

Now he’s looking at you like you’re not a rival. Like you’re prey. And maybe you’re drunk. Maybe the vodka’s making you reckless. But you don’t walk away.

Instead, you step closer.

“I’m perfectly capable of letting loose.” You say, voice low, defiant.

He tilts his head, clearly amused. “Prove it.”

So you do.

——————————————————————————

It starts with dancing.

If it can be called that. You have never been one to dance. But you press in close enough that you can feel the heat of him behind you. The music’s pulsing, people swaying and grinding around you in a haze of movement and bass. You’re not sure who closes the gap that separated you first, but one second you’re taunting him with your hips, and the next he’s got a hand on your waist.

You turn your head just enough to feel his breath against your jaw.

“You sure you want to play this game?” He asks, voice rough.

“I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.”

But his grip tightens, grounding you. You roll your hips back and feel the way his breath hitches just slightly, but you notice.

You’re dizzy from it. From him. And when his hand slides lower, fingers brushing the hem of your skirt, you know you’ve crossed some invisible line you can’t uncross.

You spin in his arms, grabbing his collar.

“We shouldn’t- ” You start.

He cuts you off.

“I don’t care.”

And then, before you can protest any further he’s kissing you.

It’s messy. Too much teeth, too much heat. You’ve spent the last two years arguing with this man words like blades, insults flung like grenades. But now it’s all hands and mouths and a feverish kind of need.

You pull him upstairs.

——————————————————————————

The room you manage find is thankfully empty.

He slams the door behind you, but you barely register it, you’re too busy fumbling at his shirt, yanking it over his head with the kind of frustration you’ve been building for semesters.

“You’re such a- ”

“- pretentious asshole?” He finishes for you, grinning as he backs you toward the bed. “Yeah. I know.”

You shove him. He laughs.

Then you’re both falling onto the mattress, a tangle of limbs and tension.

Clothes come off in pieces, your top over your head, his jeans shoved down his thighs. You can feel how hard he is through his boxers when he grinds against you. You gasp, arching up.

“Still hate me?” He murmurs, lips trailing down your neck.

“I might hate you more now.”

“You’re wet for someone you hate.”

“Shut up.”

But you’re gasping when his fingers slip between your thighs, stroking you through your underwear. It’s infuriating how good he is at this. Like he’s studied you the way he studies for exams, precise, unrelenting, deliberate.

He hooks your panties to the side and sinks one finger into you, then another.

“Fuck.” You whisper, nails digging into his back.

He kisses you again, swallowing your moans, slower this time, but no less intense. His fingers move inside you, curling just right, dragging pleasure out of you like he’s coaxing it from your bones.

You grind against his hand, shameless.

“I knew you’d be like this.” He says, mouth brushing your ear. “So fucking stubborn until someone breaks you open.”

“I’m not broken.” He hits that spot again, you gasp.

“No. You’re perfect.”

It’s the sincerity that does you in.

You don’t want him to see you like this raw, open, vulnerable. But he’s already pulling away to shed the rest of his clothes, and you forget how to breathe when you see him.

Leaning back against the pillows, you reach for him, lips parting.

You help him roll on a condom with a hiss between his teeth, pumping him up a few times, slow deliberate strokes and for a moment he swears he is about to loose it right there and then, no better than an hormonal teenager. He regains his composure just barely before it’s too late and then settles between your thighs, kissing you like he means it. Like he’s wanted this. For a long time.

When he pushes in, it’s slow. Deliberate. Like he wants you to feel every inch.

You moan, it’s not graceful. He swallows the sound with his mouth once again.

“Still with me?” He murmurs, forehead resting against yours.

“Harder.” You whisper.

He gives you what you ask for.

Each thrust pushes the breath from your lungs. You wrap your legs around him, you lift your, meeting him stroke for stroke. He holds your hips like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. You kiss him or he kisses you. At this point you can’t tell where you end and he begins.

You’re close. God, you’re so close. His name leaves your lips like a curse, like a prayer.

And when you finally come, it crashes over you like a wave overwhelming and bright and utterly unacademic.

He follows soon after, shuddering against you, jaw clenched.

For a moment, there’s only silence. Heavy breathing. Sweat cooling on skin.

Then you break the silence.

“Well.” you say hoarsely. “That was a mistake.”

He huffs a laugh and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “Totally.”

You lie there in the dark. His fingers find yours.

You let them.

——————————————————————————

The next morning, you wake up tangled in sheets that aren’t yours, Megumi’s chest rising and falling next to you.

You should feel regret. You should feel awkward.

Instead, you feel... oddly peaceful. Not that you would ever admit it out loud.

That is, until he cracks an eye open and says, “I still got a better grade on that Gojo paper.”

You grab a pillow and smack him with it.

He laughs real and unguarded. And despite yourself, you laugh too.

Maybe you don’t hate him after all.

Maybe you never did.

taglists are open so let me know if you want to be added for future works! :)

[trashprinxe]

Let’s have a talk about malleability and TTRPGs

I come from a theatrical background. Did theatre for most of my life, majored in stage management, the works. Plays and the way they function are deeply embedded in my psyche.

So when I design and play games, I come from that theatrical framework.

Now — on the one hand, you have Shakespeare. Fairly universal stories, yeah? You can cut it up, switch things around, put it into a multitude of settings. And it still works! King Lear in space. Romeo & Juliet as pirates. The Scottish Play (old habits die hard) done avant-garde. It’s malleable!

On the other end, you have hyper-specific plays about hyper-specific themes. Angels in America. The Laramie Project. Venus in Furs. Etcetera. You can’t remove the core themes, change the setting, switch scenes around: without erasing the core intent of the work and the story it’s trying to tell.

And in the middle, you have plays that are somewhat malleable. Almost, Maine, for instance. It’s made up of vignettes; you can do only some of them, if you so choose. It’ll still have the same impact.

I believe TTRPGs exist on a similar spectrum.

You have systems that can accommodate many different genres or play styles. People play dnd this way. Pathfinder comes with pre built settings that run the gamut

PbtA games are hyperspecific. Monster of the Week is about, well, monsters of the week. Remove that, and you’re playing a different game.

Call of Cthulhu can be set in any time period, but you still have to be up against Eldritch horrors. If you’re able to fight the monster, that’s a different intent than the game was built for.

Lyric games are akin to 4.48 Psychosis (everyone should read that, by the way, it’s a master work of avant-garde theatre).

And so on and so on.

Nothing is better or worse than any other. It just exists, on a spectrum, in the same vein as playstyle or crunch do. Everyone has their preference.

But with any game, there comes a point where you’re no longer playing that game.

10 Things I Hate About You is not The Taming of the Shrew, though it were based on it. There’s a limit to even the most forgiving game to where you’re no longer playing that game, but something you and your table have created for yourselves.

You can’t take the queerness or religion out of Angels in America. That’s a different play altogether.

It’s a spectrum.

I choose to design in the specific. That’s what resonates with my brain. You may want to play something that’s capable of handling more universal narratives. That’s fine too!

But we can’t ignore the bones of the system, and it’s incorrect to say we’re putting on Hamlet, when we’re actually performing The Lion King.

So: the Theory of Malleability (working title).

I don’t have a great end to this. Just musings. But I hope it makes sense to you too.

[pyros-hollow]

Okay hear me out on this. Dad!joel checks your phone without you knowing and sees that reader got alot of pics of her male celebs that are as old as joel. Joel gets jealous and sad because why do you have pics of male celebs?? Is he not attractive/hot enough?

This one is silly lol so I'm just gonna do a short lil thing I hope you don't mind

Ain't Good Enough?

Dad!Joel

Don't Like Don't Read pleaseeeeee

I don't condone this type of relationship IRL but it could be read as a normal relationship if you change it around in your head

Just silly jealousy, and some Pedro-ception

---------------------------------------

Finally, he was home from work. A couple hours of making framework for one of the countless new homes in Austin was backbreaking and all Joel wanted to do was relax.

Except you weren't home. He knew about your plans to go to the mall with your girls; but then he heard a little ping come from the dining room table.

Your phone.

Which was odd to Joel since you hardly ever left home without the damn thing. So he went over and picked it up, seeing whatever notification you got.

Instagram: lensofstacy sent a reel

A reel? What was a reel? Joel shook his head and tried what he thought was your password on your phone. But it didn't work. Did you change it? The phone buzzed again.

Instagram: lensofstacy: omg our man looks so good in this

Our man?!

Joel had to get into your phone now.

He tried your birthday, his birthday, 12345, password, anything he could think of. Then he was subsequently locked out of your phone for five minutes. Damn it!

He paced around a bit before going to your room, he knew you kept a notebook in here maybe that has the new password...

So he checked around and found the damn thing, flipping to the most recent pages with writing on them. Scanning each and every line for something he could use. Then there it was.

Papi's birthday: 4/2/75

Who the fuck was papi?!?!?!

This was just riling him up by now but he pulled out your phone again and typed in 4275. Unlocked.

"Fuck's sake..." Joel muttered to himself, finally swiping onto Instagram and seeing whatever your friend sent you. It was a flashy montage of someone he didn't know exactly who he was. Too old for you though. His eyes scanned the caption, Pedro? Is Pedro papi? He huffed to himself and decided to see what else you were hiding.

Joel knew enough about phones and you to know you probably kept all your secrets in your gallery. So that's what he opened and good lord-

You must have needed some help. All the guys in here were old, older than he was. Did he not raise you right? Did he give you daddy issues?

Joel recognized a few of these guys. One that was in those X-Men movies, some other superhero physique having men. They all seemed so much better than him. It made him feel... hurt.

Did he not look as good as these guys? Were they better than he was? Joel didn't really know. So he decided it was time to stop looking for his own sake, and put your phone down elsewhere. Maybe sulk a bit.

After around a half hour, Joel was laid up on the couch watching reruns of whatever sitcom came on that day. And the front door clicked open. There you were.

"Dad? What are you doing?" You asked, setting down your purse. Not waiting for him to respond, you started talking again. "Also, did you see my phone? I forgot it here."

"Yeah I saw it alright." Dad huffed, not moving from his spot curled up on the couch. You raised a brow, going and plopping onto the couch next to him with a sigh, cuddling close like you always have. But he still wasn't having it.

"Tell me what's wrong." You sighed, resting your head on his shoulder and blinking up at him a few times.

"Who the hell is 'papi' and why is he your new password?" And you were both silent for a second.

Before you burst out laughing. Joel didn't understand it, he was serious damn it!

"Dad, holy shit- wait you went through my phone!" You gasped, reaching and hitting him gently with one of the pillows on the couch; where he promptly scolded you.

"Maybe. Why the hell do you save so many pictures of those old fuckers anyway? Dad ain't good enough?" He shook his head, shoving at you lightly.

"So what I've got crushes dad. I've seen how you look when Reba is on TV."

"Well, Reba is timeless-"

"Still a crush." You nudged your head into his. He gave a little sigh of a growl, tugging you close and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"Fuckin' rascal. I can't stay mad at you." He shook his head, patting your back. "You're gonna end up givin' me gray hairs."

"You're already gettin' em." You stuck out your tongue, rubbing one of your fingers on his graying stubble. He gave you a tighter squeeze, a silent plea to shut up.

"Whatever you say, kiddo. Whatever you say..."

[ranticore]

I wanted to keep drawing some pern dragon stuff because I'm now writing a full AU set in weyr but I didn't want to put this stuff on my main blog or patreon due to it being basically for my own reference, though i felt others would like it too! so here is My Take On Dragon Wings By Type...

It's no secret I love drawing bird wings and prefer them a lot over traditional dragon wings. Growing up, I read the pern books featuring cover art of dragonfly-like wings with lots of little translucent panels, which I always loved. So I thought I'd try to nail down some wing shapes & structures by blending those two things i like together. I am aware dragons fly by telekinesis but I prefer a more realistic type of creature design so I will be choosing to ignore that fact. I do not care about strict canon compliance but I do like to keep some of that framework there as well, for fun.

The wing is made up of three main sails, as well as a propatagium sail (in front of the elbow). They are relatively polymorphic and can expand or contract to an extent to change the shape of the wing in response to flight demands, like the wing of an airliner. The trailing edge can expand and the slots between the spars of the 1st wingsail can deepen or become shallower (where those are a feature). The main structural matrix is opaque, while the membranous 'sails' are translucent and let light through like stained glass. These are a bilayer of membrane with air sandwiched between, which forms part of the air sac & respiratory system.

It makes sense for the original engineers of dragons to diversify dragon wing types by colour so that when fighting Thread, there's a dragon for every conceivable aerial job.

[individual descriptions under the cut]

Queens have the longest wings, though the largest bronzes can rival them for surface area. Gold wings are high endurance - a queen can fly further than any other dragon in active level flight, leaving even the swiftest bronzes behind if they can't muster up the energy reserves to catch her. She is an effective flier at all elevations and can pass very low over terrain without issue as well; she is an expert at taking advantage of the ground effect, where extra lift is generated within one half of a wingspan above land. This way, she can pass low below the main wings fighting Thread to catch any stragglers without expending too much energy. However, she is not very agile and may need a bit of a run-up or cliff-edge to get airborne.

Bronzes are suited for command positions during Threadfall, rising highest and maintaining that altitude effortlessly by soaring on thermals. From this vantage point they can easily survey the wings of riders below and make tactical decisions to direct the tide of battle. They have the size and stamina to chase queens, but might find it difficult to keep up on the flat, so they continually select for fitter hatchlings as only the best manage to mate. It takes a very clever and agile bronze to catch a green, if they are so inclined.

Browns are swift, highly agile, and the fastest vertical fliers, ideal for diving through the Thread mass from top to bottom while the other types pass horizontally. During earlier Passes, browns were capable of using their speed to catch queens, but as queen & bronze endurance gradually increased, browns struggle to keep up if they haven't managed to immediately catch their mate in the starting scrum, which is unlikely due to the bulkier bronze dragons being able to shove the browns aside.

Blues are fast on the flat and nicely manoeuvrable, with enough endurance to last a full Threadfall. Good all-rounders with a characteristic vertical take-off, they work best in the horizontal plane in battle but really they can do a little bit of everything. They often beat browns to catch greens, being very precise in flight and almost as manoeuvrable as their green mates.

Greens make up for their low stamina with their extreme manoeuvrability. Their short and elliptical wings let them turn on a dime, hover, and even fly backwards if they are sufficiently skilled. They have the fastest wingbeats, flying with a distinct thrumming sound. Of all the types they are least likely to be hit by a stray Thread, but they tire easily on the flat and have no soaring ability at all, often tapping out midway through battle in favour of replacements. In battle, greens excel at catching odd and skewed clumps of Thread that don't fall as predicted, or ones that are missed by the other riders. Green mating flights are a whole different beast to gold mating flights, where extreme aerial acrobatics are favoured instead of endurance and altitude, and these flights may be over within seconds. You need to be able to withstand a Lot of G-force to be a green rider.

[daiziesssart]

a humiliatingly long character analysis of lily evans

Someone sent me an ask that briefly mentioned how misunderstood Lily is, and before I knew it I was typing out this monster. I am. sorry. This is literally just me rambling about her, what I find compelling about her character, and why her character is so often misunderstood.

This is long as hell so I'm putting it under a read more lolol

Part of the reason I like Lily so much (other than my being ginger and projecting onto any redheaded female character I see) is that even though she isn’t explored as much as her other Marauders Era counterparts, we know enough about her to start building the framework for her character. And what I see is a girl who was incredibly interesting, kind, and flawed.

One thing I always think about in regards to Lily is that she was dealt with a pretty unfair hand. As soon as she receives her letter, she’s basically torn between two worlds, both of which have been less than welcome to her. On one hand, we have the muggle world that she’s known all her life, but once she starts integrating into the wizarding world, she likely feels a bit of a disconnect with that world. To twist the knife further, her sister- whom she loved dearly and grew up so close with- starts outwardly resenting her with such unbridled hostility that they likely couldn’t even be in a room alone together without major conflict. 

On the other hand, we have the wizarding world– a world she’s not as familiar with and one she soon learns holds a demographic of people who hate everything she is and would rather see her excommunicated or even dead. And even though finding out you’re a witch/wizard is probably such an exciting and life-changing moment, I can’t help but also take note of the difficulties, especially if you’re the only one in your family with magic. You’re essentially uprooted from the only way of life you’ve known at an already complicated age, and now you have to quickly become acclimated to this new world that you only just found out existed. Not only that, but now you’re suddenly attending a school with classes that are primarily focused on this world of magic (which is still brand new to you), and you have to work extra hard to play catch up in order to do well. Like, that all seems like… a lot for a kid to handle.

And then I remember how young she was when she was thrown into that mess. She was only 11, and kids that age desperately crave any sense of belonging. I mean, that’s something that still holds true for adults, but it’s especially critical for a developing child. So imagine Lily, ages 11-15, struggling to stay afloat in this weird purgatory between these two parts of herself, both of which have been the cause for major and traumatic experiences relating to rejection in her life.

(I say it was the “cause” even though it’s obvious that those things were never her fault at all, but when you’re a young kid navigating the world, the only thing you’re able to process is that the common denominator is you, therefore you’re the one who must shoulder the blame.)

So now we have this tween-teenaged girl who has a dysfunctional relationship with two major parts of identity and probably feels absolutely lost. 

This is why her hesitancy to end her friendship with Snape makes sense to me. Even though by fifth year he’s already well past toeing the line with the dark arts, Lily was willing to overlook some pretty egregious and troubling things in order to maintain the relationship. I kind of interpret that as her way of desperately clinging on to any sense of belonging she has left; her relationship with Petunia has already been poisoned, and now there are people who resent her existence as a witch; if she loses Severus too, what and who else does she have? And what tone does that set for her, if everyone and everything she’s come to hold close to her ends up turning her away?

It’s also important to note that not only is Severus one of her few remaining connections to the muggle world, but he’s also a wizard who grew up in the muggle world; he understands her, and I don’t doubt that he gave her some stability at times when she needed it (her finding out about her being a witch, her having trouble acclimating to the wizarding world, etc).

I see this as being one of her flaws and I can actually appreciate how relatable and realistic it feels. Lily is not a bad person; on the contrary, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone to describe her as such. Not to get all clinical and boring, but the interesting thing about (unhealthy) coping mechanisms is that it can actually be really hard to identify them in your own behavior. Unless you’re in therapy and/or are actively psychoanalyzing yourself, you likely don’t even realize how many of your common behaviors are born from self defense mechanisms put in place by your brain after past events.

To me, it makes sense why she avoided actually confronting the idea that Snape was too far gone. We know that she was aware of the path Severus was taking, but it almost seems like she was still convinced that she could save him, and could possibly steer him back in the right direction. It’s only when she becomes the target of his bigotry that she realizes that the Snape who called her a ‘mudblood’ was not the same Severus who was the one who held her hand and introduced her to this new, exciting world.

In a general sense, yes, it is selfish, to only take a stand when something starts affecting you personally. But I also think it’s important to note that it’s unlikely that this was a conscious decision on Lily’s part. In my eyes, it was easier to delude herself into thinking she still had a chance to save him before it was too late when she was able to separate him from his actions (considering, a lot of the time, she was only hearing about them after the fact, rather than seeing them firsthand). But the elusion is shattered once she sees that the Snape she grew up with– her friend, Severus– is, in fact, the same person who’s out there calling other students slurs, dismissing the malicious use of Dark Magic on others as just “a laugh”. There we see a Lily who is actually revealed to have been somewhat aware of Snape’s involvement with the darker side of magic, and genuinely feels pretty ashamed about her inaction.

That moment in SWM is probably somewhat of an epiphany to her. It’s like a dam that’s been broken, and now she’s overwhelmed with the realization of exactly how much she overlooked in order to keep their friendship afloat. And for someone like Lily Evans, someone whom we know is opinionated and unafraid to call others out on their bullshit, that can be hard to swallow and feel pretty mortifying and shameful. And I think this was a huge turning point for her- at that point, she doesn’t have the luxury of avoiding uncomfortable truths anymore and now that she’s getting closer to graduating and being thrown out into the world on the brink of war, this was probably a really sobering discovery.

This is where we don’t have as much info to go off of, and a lot of it is up to interpretation. But we actually have little crumbs to go off of following her graduation and leading up to her death.

One of my favorite little tidbits isn’t in the books, and @seriousbrat's post reminded me about it. Here's the actual entry on Pottermore for anyone who's interested, but I'll summarize: after James and Lily began dating, Lily brings James to meet newly engaged Petunia and Vernon. Everything goes downhill, because Vernon is a smarmy asshole, and James is still pretty immature and can’t help but mess with him (which… fair, I guess). Petunia and Vernon storm out after Petunia letting Lily know that she had no intentions of having her as a bridesmaid, which causes Lily to break down into tears. I mention this because I also think it’s a pretty important aspect of her character; like we’ve seen in her past friendship with Snape, Lily seems more than willing to forgive others most of the time. Petunia is a bit of a complicated character herself, but she was objectively very cruel and unfair to Lily once it became obvious that she was a witch and Petunia was not.

Something that always stands out to me is just how desperate Lily is to earn Petunia’s trust and approval again. Even up until her death, she was more than willing to mend the relationship, were Petunia ever to consider. 

This is a detail about Lily that I feel is misunderstood quite a bit. I’ve seen a lot of instances of her character being reduced to a one-dimensional archetype with little to no complexity. And often, that archetype is “know-it-all, prudish, self righteous bookworm who is also a goody two-shoes with a stick up her ass”. What annoys me is that the reason for this is most definitely the scene in which she blows up at James in SWM for bullying Snape, and hurls quite a few insults at him directly after an extremely devastating and overwhelming situation for her. This frustrates me because we know for a fact that she’s the polar opposite of this archetype I’ve seen her reduced to. 

In actuality, she’s referred to as popular, charming, witty, bright and kind. From flashbacks we also are shown that she’s opinionated, bold, and not afraid to challenge others. With other context, like her interpersonal relationships, we can also see that she’s pretty emotionally driven and wears her heart on her sleeve. 

(I know Remus didn’t mention Lily much in the books, but I really love how he described her in the movies. He tells Harry that the first thing he noticed about him was not his striking resemblance to his father, but his eyes, the same eyes Lily had. He also calls her a “singularly gifted witch” and an “uncommonly kind woman”.

“She had a way of seeing the beauty in others, even and perhaps most especially, when that person could not see it in themselves.”

I know there are mixed feelings on whether or not the films count as canon source material, so take it with a grain of salt, but I personally cannot see a world in which Lily and Remus didn’t become close friends.)

Here we have a direct description of what she was like and who she was, corroborated by recounting of memories of her, and yet for some reason, this feels like the thing that is most commonly lost in translation.

I don’t think I can say why I think that is without mentioning the dreaded M word (misogyny- it’s misogyny), but I also don’t want to get too off topic so I’ll be brief: female characters are typically not given the same grace as male characters. When we have an undeveloped male character, he’s awarded the assumption that despite his lack of depth, there still exists a complex and multifaceted character– it’s merely just potential that hasn’t been tapped into. Whereas when we have underdeveloped female characters, they are taken at face value, meaning that not much exists beyond the little information we have of them. They are not presumed to have a life or a story that exists beyond the surface of what we know like male characters are. That’s why I think characters like Regulus, Evan, or Barty (just to name a few) are more popular than Lily, despite being less developed than she is.

(Before anyone gets defensive, no, I don’t think it’s an individual problem that you alone need to be shamed for. I think it’s the result of a deeper issue regarding misogyny in media as a concept; these are things that we’ve all unknowingly internalized and while it’s not our fault, we still have to do the work to deconstruct those learned prejudices.)

What I find really cool about her character is that despite how much she’s been hurt, she’s also still known as one of the most loving, kind, and considerate characters. There were so many times in her life where the love she received was conditional and ripped away from her– and I think that’s what makes her sacrifice even more poignant. She was able to protect her infant son from an extremely powerful dark wizard, wand-less, knowing that her husband was just murdered in cold blood, just from how much love she felt for Harry. Her love was a force of nature on its own, and I just think that’s such an amazing thing about her. 

I know I’m biased, given that she’s one of my favorite characters, but even upon delving into this, I still just find it so incredibly hard to understand how anyone can actively hate her (not indifference, but actual dislike). In my opinion (again, no one is unbiased, and she is a favorite character of mine, but trust me when I say that I’m trying to be objective as possible when I say this), she’s probably one of the most likable characters of the Marauders Era. I think perhaps a lot of people haven’t given her a chance or really taken the time to learn about her character, but it could be a myriad of other reasons that I’ll never understand. 

There's so much more I could say but this is long enough and I will stop myself

Lily Evans, u will always be famous to me

[dailyadventureprompts]

DM Tip: Creating a Campaign Skeleton

Learning to be a better dungeonmaster was a protracted process. A younger me was often so stressed out by the desire to be a better artist that I'd have legitimately mauled a person if it would've revealed to me the wisdom I sought (with my hands or even an actual maul given the chance).

One of my biggest hurdles was the idea of a universal framework for d&d adventures, a guideline that would tell me if the things I was creating were on the right track. It was sorely needed, I loved the process of being creative but without an understanding of how my creative energy was best used I ended up sinking days, weeks, or even months worth of energy into projects that went nowhere. Worse yet, when I DID get a chance to put my ideas into practice at the table they'd frequently spiral out of control and crash, resulting in even more stress.

Over time I learned from these mistakes, I got better, and then I got good. I moved from conscious incompetence to competence, and I ended up having a run of absolutely stellar campaigns that were everything my younger self could have dreamed of: stable, enjoyable, meaningful, and most importantly an absolute delight to my players. Routinely I'd have people, including folks that'd only played with me a few times, mention that getting together to roll dice and listen to me babel on in silly voices was a highlight of their week.

It was as one of these campaigns began to wind down (three years! a satisfying conclusion on the horizon!) and I started looking for a followup scenario that I decided to study all my really successful campaigns and figure out what connected them. The end result was something I'd been looking for for nearly a decade, a reliable format that I could build campaigns around.

I want to preface this section with the understanding that while this information is laid out in a vaguely chronological fashion there's no guarantee that these ideas will occur to you in any particular order. Inspiration is a funny thing, and each idea flows into the others to make a cohesive whole. Due to foreshadowing and setup reasons you're also going to need a pretty solid idea about all of these when starting a campaign, though exact details will likely change/ can be vague up until the moment they're needed.

The Reason: Who are we and what are we doing?

Gives your players a solid background to build their characters around and give them a reason to travel together, rather than having to ad lib one on the spot. Likewise sets expectations of what the campaign is "about" that you can build on or subvert in time. The reason doesn't need to hold true for the entire game, just long enough to serve as a framing device. EG: The Witcher starts out as a "monster of the week" setup and then uses that framework to pivot into politics and prophecy once we've seen the premise play out.

The Pilot/Crashtest Adventure: What's first?

I’ve already written about these, but the general concept is to give your party a mostly contained first outing that doesn’t have any larger bearing on the plot so they can focus on learning how their characters play/building the party dynamic.  By the time the party's finished this first adventure they'll have already started putting down roots in the world: they'll have in jokes, npcs they've started to care about, an understanding of what's on the horizon, and an idea of where they want to go next.

The Central Gameplay Pillar: How does this all work?

It's important to have an idea what your campaign is going to be about in a mechanical sense in addition to its plot and themes. There is a difference between an adventure that has the party delve a dungeon, and a dungeoncrawling focused campaign. I like to lead with these outright during the campaign pitch so that players can know what they're getting into. Your playgroup will likely have strong opinions about what they like and dislike, even if they don't have the words to describe it, so you might need to explain the ideas for them.

The Hub: Where are we?

I think every good campaign has a hub, some kind of settlement that the party returns to between adventures to offload loot, pick up supplies, and sift through the latest gossip to look for the next questhook. Letting the party return to the same place lets them build up a relationship with it, clarifying the picture in their mind as new details are added and they grow more and more attached. It's possible to have multiple hubs over the course of a campaign, but I'd advise really only having one per arc to best concentrate your efforts. Fill up your hub with distractions and side adventures, shorter stories that the party can get tangled up in while the larger adventure slowly reveals itself. Returning to the same hub also means returning to a familiar and expanding cast of NPCs, which helps your party become more and more invested in the setting

The Main Event: What's going to happen?

Here we get to the meat of the issue, the big story you want to be telling using this campaign. To pull off the sick narrative kickflip you wish to perform, you're going to need to lay a lot of groundwork, seeding in details left and right as well as giving the party a chance to stumble across evidence of your schemes without ever realizing the whole thing. To do this, you're going to work in the building blocks of your big reveal/twist/pending disaster into the setting along with those side adventures from the hub. This will give your party an idea that something is going on, but with more pressing matters to take care of they're going to be distracted up until the moment you decide to pull the trigger.

The Setting: What's over there?

While things like genre and tone are definitely things you should have a handle on from the outset, I personally feel like the details of a setting are best constructed on an ad hoc basis, either in a direct response to something required by part of the narrative (be it side story or main event), or pencilled in at the margins as the party explores the world.. That said, creation of the hub and setting often go hand in hand because it's important to match the settlement to the environment and then shape the environment to the quests inside the settlement. As for what's beyond your hub, I happen to have just written something about building out settings.

Now, this next option is one that I recommend you start thinking about only once your campaign is fully underway, so it doesn't clog up your creative process by focusing on something that you might not even get to

The Change: What the fuck?

A little while after the main event has kicked off and your party is off on the quest that will turn them from mere adventurers into heroes, they start to hear rumours of strange happenings. It's certainly not related to the present scenario, it may even be an unexpected windfall, but it's not something they have time to look into. Time ticks on, the land is saved, and the party is able to enjoy their victory lap as well as some dearly needed time off. Before they can get comfortable however they're slammed by some strange occurrence that they could have never predicted that changes the state of the world. A neighbouring kingdom invades, an important ally is murdered and they're blamed for it, a dragon starts rampaging through the realm. Its important that this event is outside the party's skillset, not necessarily diametrically opposed, but counter to what they were planning

artsource

[novlr]

I’m not sure where the heart of my story is. How do I figure out the theme of the story so I can flesh out the details (without changing my mind next week)? Do you start with a theme and build a story around it, or does the theme emerge as you write?

Themes are so personal, and different writers with different goals will approach it differently.

Many writers struggle with pinning down their themes, and it’s no wonder. Themes are deeply personal, emerging from our own experiences, beliefs, and the questions that keep us up at night.

Some writers meticulously plan their themes before writing a single word, while others discover them organically as their story unfolds. Neither approach is inherently better. Personally, I do a mixture of both. What matters is finding a process that works best for you.

What is a theme?

At its core, a theme is the central message or underlying meaning of your story. It’s what you want your readers to take away after from the story after they’ve turned the last page.

Your story’s theme is the truth or observation that your narrative explores. This can work on multiple levels:

Universal themes are the big ideas that resonate across cultures and time periods, like love, grief, redemption, power, or identity. These broad themes give your story a foundation that readers can connect with.

But themes can also be more specific and nuanced. A story about a chef might explore the theme of “food as memory,” examining how tastes and smells connect us to our past. A novel about siblings could delve into “the complexity of shared childhood trauma,” looking at how different people process the same experiences.

The most powerful stories often layer these themes, perhaps combining a universal theme like “the search for identity” with a more specific exploration of “how social media shapes modern self-expression”.

Starting with a theme

Some writers like to have their theme tied down before they write. Personally, I take a hybrid approach. I usually have a universal theme I know in advance that I want my story to cover, but I let myself discover the more specific themes as the story progresses. But I know many writers who work theme-first and develop the story around it.

Starting with a theme can be like having a compass for your narrative. It guides your creative decisions and helps you stay focused on what you want to say.

Benefits of starting with a theme

When you begin with a clear thematic intention, you gain:

A strong sense of purpose and direction.

A framework for making plot decisions.

Clear character motivations and arcs.

Natural unity across story elements.

Built-in conflict possibilities.

Focused opportunities for symbolism.

How to develop story from a theme

Let’s say you want to explore the theme of “sacrifice for family.” If you knew this in advance, you might consider the following when developing the plot. It may help you:

Create characters who embody different views on family obligation.

Design plot points that force difficult choices between personal desires and family needs.

Build a setting that reinforces the weight of family legacy.

Develop subplots that echo or contrast with your main theme.

Include symbols and motifs that reinforce ideas of family bonds.

These examples are to a specific theme, however, the same can be applied to almost anything. If you know your theme in advance, all your character, setting, and relationship decisions will combine with that knowledge so you can be targeted in how you approach them.

Making it natural

The tricky thing about having your theme fully decided before you start writing is that it can be hard to let your theme inform your story without dominating it. Your readers shouldn’t feel like they’re being taught a lesson, which can very easily happen if you overwork your theme. Instead:

Let your characters struggle with the theme in natural ways. Treat them like people and let them react to situations that way.

Allow for complexity and nuance. Not everything has to be simple or easy to understand.

Include moments that challenge or question the theme.

Balance thematic elements with a well-paced plot and character development.

Leave room for readers to draw their own conclusions. Don’t spoon feed them all the information.

Discovering your theme through writing

Letting your themes emerge naturally as you write can be like archaeology. You’re carefully uncovering the meaning buried within your own subconscious as you write. Some of the most profound themes come from this process of discovery, revealing truths you didn’t even know you wanted to explore, but it does require you to pay attention to yourself and your writing process.

A theme won’t necessarily just jump out at you. You have to be open to the process of discovery and be willing to make changes and edits when you finally settle on what you want to say.

Benefits of discovering theme

When you allow your themes to emerge naturally, you gain:

Thematic development that grows from your story, rather than building your story around it.

The freedom to explore your narrative without your own preconceptions.

Layers of meaning that surface organically.

Themes that will surprise you, and therefore will also surprise the reader.

How themes emerge through writing

If you’re letting your themes reveal themselves to you as you write, then there are some things you’ll need to pay attention to as you go. These might include:

Character decisions and their consequences.

Recurring patterns in your narrative.

Conflicts that keep appearing in different forms.

Questions your characters frequently wrestle with.

Imagery and metaphors that naturally arise.

For example, you might start writing about a character leaving their hometown, focusing on the plot and character development. As you write, you begin to notice patterns. Perhaps every major decision involves choosing between comfort and growth, or your descriptions keep returning to images of roots and wings. These patterns can reveal deeper themes about belonging, self-discovery, or the tension between stability and change.

How to recognise and develop emerging themes

Once you notice potential themes in your work, you must:

Pay attention to recurring elements in your story. Make sure you’re not overusing them, and that they form something cohesive.

Look for connections between different plot threads. If you mapped them all out, is there a unifying strand that connects them all?

Consider what questions your characters keep facing. What are there primary conflicts, and do they have any connections?

Notice patterns in your metaphors and imagery. Do you use certain imagery regularly? What does it mean to you?

Think about what draws you emotionally to certain scenes. What did you have the most fun, or the hardest time writing? Why do you think that is?

Allow yourself to explore unexpected thematic directions. Did your plot move in a direction you weren’t expecting? Is there any underlying meaning to that shift?

Practical ways to develop theme

No matter what point of your plotting or writing journey you decide to look at theme, here are some questions you should always ask:

Look to your characters: What do they want? What are they afraid of? What lessons do they learn? How do they change?

Examine your plot: What conflicts arise? What choices do your characters face? What consequences follow their actions? Are there any patterns that emerge?

Look to yourself: What subjects interest you? What questions keep you up at night? What experiences have shaped you? What beliefs drive you?

Draw from real life: What universal struggles affect you the most? Which human experiences touch you emotionally? What social issues are you passionate about? Is there any moral ambiguity you see in the world around you?

Questions to ask yourself

When developing themes, consider:

What questions does your story ask (even if there’s no clear answer)?

What truths does it reveal?

Why does this story matter?

What do you want readers to think about?

How does your story reflect human experience?

Whether you start with a theme or discover it along the way, what matters is creating a story that resonates with meaning. Trust your creative process. Whether you control the narrative completely or stay open to discovery, just make sure you have something to say.

[stillness-in-green]

in an ideal world, how would you have written mha's endgame?

That’s not a question with a short answer, I’m afraid.  There’s a lot I’d do differently, in ways it’s hard to even sum up all of because a lot of what I’ve thought about revolves around things I’d want to do differently with the Heroes (and dating back much farther than the second war, at that) with the changes to the Villain side of things being, I don’t doubt, equally drastic but currently much more vague.  I’ll cover my biggest contention in a general way above the cut, but if you want some of my more specific ideas for how I’d approach changing things, look below the cut!

The most pressing problem is that the story built so many of its themes on a framework of Saving People and then let the endgame dissolve that central idea into an incoherent, mushy slurry of saved and unsaved, alive and dead, smiling and unsmiling, free and imprisoned.  For the story to work under its own established parameters, the kids have to truly save the Villains—not just their souls, but also their lives, and not just the ones the kids personally care about, but all of them.  Nothing less will fulfill the twofold promise the story made to its readers with great specificity: that The Greatest Heroes are those who save everyone and that this is the story of Deku/Class 1-A becoming The Greatest Heroes.

That’s not possible in the Hero System as it currently exists, which is my other big target for the thing that needed to change with the endgame: addressing the problems with the status quo.  Class 1-A has to confront the reality of their failing system and realize it needs drastic change, if it can be salvaged at all.  The kids cannot be hailed in the narration as the group who became, collectively, The Greatest Heroes if they inherit and uphold that selfsame failing system.  Regardless of how positively the story tries to spin things in its epilogue, if society doesn’t treat or conceptualize Villains any differently than it ever did,[1] then none of that society’s long-term problems have been solved.

1: And it doesn’t; the vast majority of the epilogue’s focus is on how the kids’ actions have reduced/are reducing the number of people who become Villains, with little to no focus on how their new-and-improved society deals with Villains themselves—either the already existing ones left over from the war or the future ones who still arise despite society’s best efforts.  An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, but the pound of cure is still important to have—BNHA’s epilogue very pointedly lacks it.

Saving the Villains who are right in front of you, and making sure the people you can’t be there to help still get saved anyway are ideas that are inherently, inseparably connected.  You can’t do one without the other because each of them requires the other to stick. If individual Heroes don’t give a shit about helping those deemed Villains, then Hero Society will follow their lead, and if Hero Society doesn’t give a shit about helping those deemed Villains, then no help individual Heroes offer will be guaranteed once the Heroes have gone.

Toga is the clearest, sharpest example of the problem, in that no help Ochaco offers her means a thing if the larger system to which Toga is remanded doesn't support Ochaco in giving it. Horikoshi's inability to solve this conundrum is presumably why Toga had to die.  The short answer, then, to the question of how I would write the endgame is that whatever I’d come up with has to be a story in which Toga could be saved in the sense that Shimura Nana meant the word—a resolution that would see her both smiling and alive.

As to specifics?  Well, again, I don’t have the details ironed out because a lot of my ideas are unconnected “I didn’t like how canon utilized its set-up and characters; here’s an idea I like better” spitballing, but if you’re interested in what those ideas might be and how I’ve started lassoing them together, hit the jump.

So, I may have, on occasion, made reference to “the fix-it fic(s)” around here.  This is a pair of scenarios I call “Forward Different” and “Backward Different,” with the idea being that both would be canon divergent from the moment Heroes launch their attack in the first war, but the divergences would immediately go in very different directions based on changes to the underlying material.

Forward Different keeps everything established by canon up to that point as-is, but only what’s been explicitly established, so there could be some surprises with things like character motivations or secrets that had not yet been examined.  Backward Different, meanwhile, would have huge differences incorporated into the backstory, stuff that goes at least as far back as the training camp attack, that would not be made immediately apparent to the reader.[2]

2: The hypothetical reader, I should say, since I have no plans to ever write these out in full, my track record with longfic being as woeful as it is.  But I do want to hammer out the plotlines just to have them, share them, and maybe write some excerpts from them when the mood strikes.

I’m not going to share everything I’ve got in mind right now, but there are a few major points I can talk about, and some fun ideas here and there that I’m willing to share.

The single biggest difference between the two timelines is how they treat Deku, Shigaraki, and (to a lesser extent) AFO’s respective relationships to the One For All and All For One quirks.  Basically, I think it’s tremendously unfair that we see two almost totally incompatible versions of Vestige Fuckery in the story and it just so happens that the main character gets the version that makes everything easier for him while the Villain get stuck with the shitty version that make everything harder.[3]  The fix-it fic AU(s) are in large part about equalizing that balance.

3: And god knows I don’t buy that Deku gets the good version because he’s the good guy and he deserves it because Good Karma or whatever, while Shigaraki gets the bad version because he’s the bad guy and has Bad Karma.  You don’t give bad guys or good guys the fruit of the seeds they’ve sown two-thirds of the way into the story.  That stuff’s for the climax, goddamn.

The Backward Different timeline (the one that’s somewhat better developed at this point) is also called Splintered Wills.  In it, Deku and Shigaraki are both dealing with multiple vestiges that have minds and desires of their own who can choose to be helpful or to cause problems.  In effect, it’s giving Shigaraki access to the same potential benefits Canon!Deku enjoys while making Deku deal with the same potential downsides that Canon!AFO (who’s basically working with Deku’s version of the vestige mechanics; his vestiges just all hate his ass) has to deal with.

In Shigaraki’s case, that’s a huge step up from his canon situation, where he gets devoured by one (1) uber-powerful vestige and spends the vast majority of the last two arcs totally out of action.  Instead, he finds that his head is now full of quirk ghosts and, while many of them want no more to do with him than they did AFO (especially the vestiges of civilians and Heroes), plenty of others have no great love for Heroes or their status quo and thus are much more open to helping him.  Maybe they’re willing to hold back more hostile vestiges like AFO's; maybe they have memories or experiences that could be useful.

Shigaraki also pulls away a chunk of OFA the first time he and Deku fight post-surgery.  Specifically, he picks off All Might’s “vestige,” and All Might’s vestige, unspeaking though it is, and technically powerless, has lots of opinions on who he’s more inclined to help when given the choice between his career-long archenemy and his master’s grandchild.

Meanwhile, on Deku’s side of things, Deku’s newfound desire to save Shigaraki Tomura combined with Shigaraki Tomura stealing one of the eight spirits in One For All sends his headspace into a tailspin.  He spends much of the post-war arc with his powers on the fritz, as the OFA vestiges clash and argue and have mixed feelings (or very strong negative ones) about what he and they should do going forward.  He no longer benefits, as his canon self did, from OFA behaving as basically a unified collective; Yoichi can’t win Kudou and Bruce over for him with a sweet line or two.  Indeed, Yoichi doesn’t even want to because Yoichi is inclined to agree with them, though he’s not without sympathy—he never did stop wanting his brother to change, after all.

The other big factor influencing Backward Different/Splintered Wills is that the class size steadily shrank over the course of the backstory.  Aoyama was revealed as the traitor all the way back at the training camp.  Momo’s parents pulled her out of UA after the attack and enrolled her at Shiketsu instead.  At least one student will turn out to have Liberation Army ties that pull them away from the group.[4]

4: Probably Iida, but I’m not firmly decided yet.  MLA!Iida is very near and dear to my heart, though, so he’s definitely going to be in one of these timelines.

Several students aren’t allowed to do active Hero work because, without Aoyama to rally around during the license exam, they failed the first round, not even making the cut for the remedial course.  One transferred out of the Hero course for less dangerous work.  Maybe one gets critically injured during the first war.  Maybe some aren’t willing to buck the system enough to follow where Deku is going.  And so on.

The smaller class size serves two purposes, one character-based and one meta. First, starting big and winnowing down allows the story to actually write the students as distinct people rather than having them melt into an undifferentiated blob of Unified Niceness.  We shouldn’t have had a story with twenty kids who all, ultimately, react the same way to the crises they face!  If modern heroics has a problem with people who are just in it for the fame and money, or people who expected it to be relatively easy work due to the peace All Might established, then we should have seen that reflected in the class, too!

(That’s not to say no one who leaves or fails can ever show up again!  I have specific scenes in mind already for how Aoyama and Momo return to the story as allies, for example, and Shishikura plainly shows in the canon that failing the license exam in the first round doesn’t mean you can’t still find yourself doing Hero work anyway.  But the students’ paths should be ongoing threads that diverge and reconverge throughout the story, not a solid monochrome stripe that runs across the entire story-cloth like someone fell asleep at the sewing machine.)

Secondly, the smaller class size facilitates one of the major changes I have in mind for this timeline, which is that when the class confronts Deku post-first-war, they do it not with the intention of dragging him back to U.A., but of joining him in staying outside.  I have a ton of stuff I want them to see and interact with and be forced to acknowledge and reflect on, and that doesn’t happen if they just go back to school and wait for their next assignment.  Navigating all of that as a group trying to feel their way to a better future against the efforts of both jaded authority figures and Villains who’ve been burned one too many times to trust so easily is just simpler with a smaller, more focused, more strongly characterized group.

So, the Splintered Wills timeline, in summary, goes all-in on OFA being a repository of different people who are allowed to have different opinions and reactions to things, paralleling the dissolving of Team Hero’s united front; Deku & Friends have to struggle and clash, learn when to compromise and when to stand their ground, in order to build their way back up to unity, while Shigaraki is allowed the chance to continue coalition-building and consolidating resources under his own banner mentally in the same way he spent the entire series doing physically.  As Team Hero’s collective grasp on society collapses, Shigaraki’s grows stronger, reversing their positions such that Deku and company have to come back from the actual underdog position they fall into compared to BNHA, where they never 100% fall from the seat of power the way readers are encouraged to believe.

The Forward Different timeline is also called, for now, Creepy OFA.  It goes in the opposite direction by making Deku deal with the same kinds of problems Canon!Shigaraki has to deal with vis a vis being possessed of/by a quirk with a single domineering will of its own.  While Splintered Wills portrays OFA and AFO alike as being full of people, each with their own unique motivations and desires, this story underlines and reunderlines that quirk vestiges are ultimately biological impulses, not people.

OFA is an originally simple force that’s been compounded in complexity and appearance of rationality every time it’s been passed down, but is still ultimately just a quirk, mindless, unreasoning, imprinting its bearer with its own dictates and not caring a bit if the bearer likes or agrees with those dictates.  “OFA must be passed on,” “AFO must be destroyed,” “The bearer must be the Symbol of Peace,” and so on.

Making Deku and Shigaraki have to struggle against this loss of autonomy due to an out-of-control quirk vestige puts them on a similar level of challenge, the better to give them some common ground for understanding.  Whether they have to fight or help each other in the end, they’ll do it as free agents, people who have both had to figure out a way to throw off the weight of the lineages trying to mold them into  a desired shape. The help of their respective friends and allies—and maybe even some of their enemies?—will, of course, be immeasurable with this.

Some ideas I want to incorporate (or have already so started) into one or the other of these timelines include:

I want the PLF to do better no matter what timeline we’re in.  Currently my idea is that in one timeline, they had a well-placed mole somewhere whom Hawks and the HPSC didn’t sniff out, so the PLF knows the raids are coming and have laid traps for the attacking Heroes.  This could still go haywire, of course, ‘cause Heroes are very good at what they do, but it definitely won’t be a total blowout as it was in canon.  Then in the other timeline, the PLF don’t see the attack coming, but are given more license to act like the organized, effective threat they were initially portrayed as—they have sentries and security cameras posted, so while they only get a minute or two’s warning, it’s still better than absolutely nothing, and the outcome is way more chaotic and fraught for both sides, such that the country ends up dotted with PLF holdouts in situations that are part-siege and part-extended hostage negotiation. That gives an opportunity to show at least a partial version of what a PLF takeover might look like in practice, though it remains compromised by the ongoing conflict.    

As part of treating the PLF better, both timelines will have characters revealed to have MLA ties.  As mentioned, MLA!Iida is for sure in one of them; my strongest concept for a second choice is Ochaco having to grapple with the government’s heavy-handedness getting her parents arrested when they barely know anything about what they got themselves into,[5] but really, it could be practically anyone, including parents or mentors.  All I require is that the kids have a reason, any reason, to care about the fates of the tens of thousands of people the government sent them out to mindlessly arrest. 5: This would be a scenario in which I just went with the makes-more-sense-as-canon-anyway idea that being a Hero is the only way to get a quirk-use license so Ochaco is pursuing Heroism because she can’t get permission to use her quirk to help with her parents’ construction business.  She doesn’t wind up MLA herself, but her parents—trying to be supportive but not thrilled that their daughter decided to pursue such a dangerous career for that reason—get handed some dodgy pamphlets, after Uraraka moves out to attend U.A., about a group trying to get the laws changed to be more in-step with the universality of quirks and the principles of bodily autonomy and economic self-determination.    

I think the time between the first war and the last confrontation should be longer, introducing more new characters and developing many characters BNHA showed only in passing.  I have ideas like new heroic types (students or pros) who are brought in from other parts of the country because they have useful quirks for the raids, a heteromorph ex-Hero student who bails on his school when he realizes that the people handling its shelter operations are turning away heteromorphs, someone who catches Nagant’s backstory confession on video and has to decide what to do with the bombshell about black ops extralegal Hero assassins, a support/protest group consisting of people who’ve become jaded about Heroes after things they see on the day of the initial attacks (people like Can’t-Ya-See-kun, the medical staff who tried to defend their beloved Doctor Garaki, people who lost family to the mass arrests and so on), people from branches of the government that aren't specifically associated with law enforcement, etc. Seriously, I want a story that acknowledges that there are people who could possibly be relevant and important to events that we haven’t already met circa the first war because something like The Total Collapse of Society will naturally stir up activity all across the country!  Maybe people who the 1-A kids have never met before could bring valuable input to the table!!  Gosh!!!    

Changes to the traitor plotline.  I mentioned Aoyama being outed circa the training camp for one; I’d like to run with Traitor!Hagakure in the other.  I’m thinking she goes missing during the first war and the students are worried sick about her because no one’s sure what even happened.  Did she run away?  Was she hurt?  Was she killed?  Would anyone even know, if she stayed invisible even as—as a—as a dead body, Bakugou is the only one willing to actually say out loud.  She is, of course, not dead, but the class won’t find that out for a while.    

Changes to how Hawks and Endeavor’s partnership plays out.  I want Endeavor to die during the first war in one story, allowing the rest of the family space to navigate that plot without him even as it pushes Hawks off the deep end, leading to him going rogue such that he gets what was in canon the Lady Nagant fight.[6]  In the other story, Endeavor survives but tries to make better decisions about how to handle Touya, leading his and Hawks’ stellar partnership into rough waters when it comes out that Hawks very much just wants Touya dead. 6: And freeing Lady N to show up elsewhere in some totally different capacity.  There may be ample evidence that her fight was originally intended to be for Hawks, and in that version of the story she probably never existed at all, but I love her potential far too much to erase her completely, even in a timeline that reverts her plot back to Hawks.    

Gran Torino living and having a change of heart about saving Shigaraki in Splintered Wills, but dying and becoming a loss Deku has to weigh against his desire to save Shigaraki in Creepy OFA.  More named and important losses in general, actually, and more time for the characters to react to those losses, be it with grief or with mounting rage.  Students who lose teachers and mentors, Heroes who lose peers and sidekicks, Shishikura losing his father, the League losing Twice, civilians who are allowed to be justly angry about their losses without being drawn like unreasonable screeching harpies for it, and so on.    

The Lady Nagant fight cuing up the way it did in canon only to abruptly end when Deku just straight-up agrees to go with her willingly because finding AFO and Shigaraki is what he wants, so why would he turn his nose up at the opportunity?  This leads to him getting a lot of exposure to Alternate Perspectives via Lady N’s history, Overhaul’s shattered state, and whatever’s going on with the League in this scenario before he eventually escapes or gets rescued with neither him nor AFO/Shigaraki able to make concrete progress on saving Shigaraki/stealing OFA.    

Playing more with All Might’s mental connection to OFA.  In Splintered Wills, Shigaraki gets his vestige, which means he loses the connection to Deku/OFA completely and instead starts having horrible nightmares of rage and death and Decay.  I’m still making up my mind about how things go in Creepy OFA, but I like the idea of All Might having his own mind back after 30+ years of being under OFA’s influence, and having a front row seat for what that influence is starting to do to the teenager he so unthinkingly gave that power to (or, more accurately, gave to that power?).    

Ditching the stupid mech suit in one timeline and letting Toshinori Yagi find ways to be relevant and meaningful without it; alternately, letting him keep the mech suit only to run it square into the rogue AI teeth of the lone free-willed survivor of the U.A. robot uprising, the R2D2-looking PLF advisor in Toga’s chain of command.    

Consequences for Deku’s fucking arms. He developed a kick-based fighting style; he can damn well use it. Also handle his problem with losing his temper by making him fuck up something that can’t get unfucked by having an ally nearby to save him from the consequences of flying off the handle.    

More, and different, interactions between Stain and All Might.  More extended ones, for a start; I want Stain to rescue a heavily injured All Might from the car attack and for them to then spend days together while Toshinori recuperates enough to be moved.    

Better material for Kurogiri and Gigantomachia.  And plenty of other Villains too, really, not just the PLF.  I’d like the Tartarus escapees to be human beings suffering a variety of ills from their extended solitary confinement; I’d like the Shie Hassaikai to make another appearance; I’d like Mustard to be relevant again. Et cetera.    

Let stuff like the quirk erase bullets and quirk singularity have more significant airtime.    

Spinarakiya.  AHEM. My willingness to be self-indulgent about ships I know good and well would never be canon has yet to be determined.

And that's some ideas! I have lots of others, but I don't want to completely turn this ask reply into a dumping ground for the many (many) ideas I have for that dyad of stories. If you read all of these, know that I appreciate you deeply. And thanks for the ask, @friedeggpajamas!

[gynandromorph]

Does only the part of the story in the book actually "exist" within the Canon lore? Like did events before the book, like the side comics you've made or speculation on character's backstories, actually "happen" in-universe?

idletry exists across 2 books so the story itself already exists between discrete chunks of media. things that happen in side comics literally happened in the story. however, they happen outside of the narrative of idletry and sometimes without the narrator's (jessie's) knowledge. this is the tl;dr.

stories are a structured string of focalized events presented with the expectation that what is being presented is relevant to a unifying conclusion. anything that is not necessary to reach that conclusion should not be included. in best practice. so with that in mind, events in side comics may accentuate or elevate the story, but they aren't necessary, and thus aren't included in the narrative itself. idletry specifically refers to this narrative -- the contents of the books. idletry's universe is larger than that narrative. this is most evident in the fact that the audience assumes things happen with the characters that they don't see. when spring becomes fall very suddenly, the reader doesn't assume the characters went into stasis or stopped existing until fall (even this would assume that any time at all had taken place rather than the entire setting changing instantly). they assume things happened, but that they don't need to know about those things, because they are unimportant.

what counts as canon is... incredibly contentious, depending on who you're talking to. some people believe anything that happens outside of the story's text itself is not canon, even if the author said it. this has practical purposes for evaluating the text's quality, but most people just want a hill to die on, because it is feasible to sometimes include and exclude relevant information within an analytical framework when interpreting a story. it has, up until recently, worked relatively well as a belief about canon, though, because it used to be that most literary works ONLY had the text of the novel as their canon. there was no twitter for the author to write extra useless tidbits about the story. this didn't necessarily apply to series, so it wasn't unheard of for "living canon" to exist.

basically, things exist in the canon once they are written. things don't exist in their reality until that point, even if we assume those things happened. even though we assume that time passed in between spring and fall, they literally didn't. there was nothing. the characters may later reference something that happened in between spring and fall, and then it happened. that did not exist in the canon until the moment it was written in some form, though. the event formed retroactively. i've tried explaining how their reality works before and it seemed to just confuse people. it is not supposed to make sense in a logical causative chronological sense. there is a cause for the canon: it's the writer. there is no such translation for events in our reality. the story is very much trying to force you to be aware of how it's working and what doesn't "make sense" in narrative convention, in the way our minds form meaning and make assumptions. so, when i say, "yeah that thing typed onto a tumblr shitpost is literally canon," it can be. because it was literally written. i do try to avoid being so black-and-white with text posts about the characters and canon because things change. sometimes you forget some small detail in the established canon in the moment, and you would have noticed and fixed it in a longer production like a book. what serves the narrative best ultimately is what becomes canon. i wouldn't say a text post about, say, evelyn's mother is NOT canon, but i have usually called it "soft canon." i'm of the belief that canon (and continuity) have a hierarchical nature to them where some parts of canon are "more canon" than others -- some parts are more integral to the narrative's structure, identity, etc. than others. things that happen in idletry are the highest grade of canon. in a contradiction between something literally in idletry and a shitpost, it should always be assumed that the events in idletry are the actual canonically true events that agree with the other events of the canon and their unifying purpose.

i've wanted to make a post for years about my thoughts on story continuity, but i never got around to it. it just didn't seem that important. the closest i've done is a list of more and more extreme continuity errors -- highlighting that some continuity errors are more dire than others.

i noticed the stain drawn on the note card and the extended notes on the hand i'm about to start crying--

don't know how much of this has made sense. maybe on a better day i would have been less wordy.

[actual-changeling]

i cannot resist a piece of good, painful angst, so have a little something inspired by this post by @quoththemaiden and the tags i left on it

-

Aziraphale returns to heaven in a haze of heartbreak and fear, his lips still tingling with Crowley's kiss, his fingers twitching with the urge to reach for him. The white sterility welcoming him only encourages his mind to drift further, allowing him to tune out the Metatron's words and focus on simply setting one foot in front of the other. If heaven has not changed in the last few thousand years, and he knows very well that it hasn't, there will be more than enough paperwork detailing anything and everything he is being told.

"Any questions, Aziraphale?"

They have stopped in the middle of a long, empty corridor, his eyes stinging with the bleach-dry air, and Aziraphale blinks, the smile on his face never wavering; it is a mask he knows he will not be able to drop for quite some time.

"Do I have an office?"

"You can make yourself one if you deem it necessary. I will leave you to it, then."

With a small flash of light, he is gone, and Aziraphale is alone. Right.

A few hours later, he has an office no miracle in the world could make cosy, enough paperwork to last him an eternity, and a persistent itch in his left hand. It is more irritating than bothersome, an anchor keeping him from floating away into the land of celestial regulations and legal frameworks, and he is trying (and failing) to keep himself from thinking about Crowley.

He needs him to deal with this, that much is clear without knowing anything at all about how exactly the second coming is going to transpire, but for the first time in six thousand years, Aziraphale finds himself wondering if Crowley will be waiting for him when he reaches out.

Absently, he scratches the back of his left hand, the itching seemingly working its way to the surface, and picks up the next folder.

'Re: The matter of opening a direct communication line between the Department of Miracle Accounting and the Department of Miracle Archiving.'

"You'd assume they'd done that ages ago," he murmurs, opening it with a sigh and squeezing his eyes shut when he sees the first document dates back to 3076 BC. A sudden wave of sympathy for Gabriel washes through him, which disappears rather quickly when he remembers he is probably having the time of his life on Alpha Centauri.

(Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo we can-- go off together.)

(Go off together?)

Aziraphale slams the folder shut and pushes it to the side, creating a new 'unimportant/for later' pile since the other one is already structurally unsound and he'd rather not have to reorganize it when it inevitably collapses under its own weight.

He scrubs a hand down his face (I could always rely on you) and forces himself to take a deep, steadying breath (You could always rely on me) before reaching for the next one, halting when a shimmer of gold draws his attention.

(And I would like to spend-)

On his left hand, in the exact spot where the itch is… was Aziraphale corrects himself, and in its place, curled around his ring finger and weaving its way towards his wrist, is a golden snake. No, not a snake, he slowly realizes, it's Crowley's snake in all its glory, uncurled and with wide open, unblinking eyes, staring up at him.

"Fuck," he breathes, his right hand rapidly furling and unfurling. After not spending more than an hour or two in heaven at a time for millennia, he had completely forgotten about his angelic markings, which had looked very different before Eden. The exact images are hazy, washed out by time and apparently a fundamental change in his essence, because the snake lazily sliding around his wrist and closing its eyes as if to nap is both new and strangely familiar.

(Listen. Do you hear that?)

Tremors run through his body, fine and yet strong enough to keep him from opening the file, from reading, thinking, planning, his mind filled with fire-red hair and golden eyes and the taste of love on his tongue.

(I don't hear anything.)

Aziraphale cradles his marked hand against his chest, pressing his knuckles to his lips and trying to recall the few seconds during which he had felt whole. Happy.

(That's the point. No nightingales.)

The snake hisses quietly, or maybe he is already starting to lose his sanity, and its glittering scales provide what little comfort he can access in heaven, missing the white noise of London, the dusty quiet of his bookshop, missing Crowley, Crowley, Crowley.

[oldandcrusty]

It was red lyrium all along!

I'm doing a series of posts on institutional change in each Dragon Age game. My one on Origins only got 3 notes but I'm doing this for my own sanity TBH. Feel free to read the Origins post for more context on why I'm doing this and what frameworks I'm using.

Anyway. Let's make like Hawke and nosedive into a class war.

Hawke is privileged

While Hawke arrives in Kirkwall as a refugee, and possibly an apostate, Hawke has a great deal of privileges which enable them to backflip their way to nobility.

Hawke is a human with exceptional physical skills. They gain a positive reputation for being good at their criminal job, leading to opportunities presented by Varric and others in Kirkwall. By the start of Act 2, Hawke is so rich that they have risen back into nobility. And, by the end of the same Act, they are so adored by Kirkwall that even Meredith cannot lock them away if they are a mage.

Hawke is also immune to being held accountable for any illegal activities. Hawke gets away with all manner of activities, including vigilantism. They can even sell Fenris back to Danarius without consequence (seriously, what the fuck, BioWare). Meanwhile, Hawke's cop friend Aveline is set on arresting the elves who hid among the Qunari, even when they did initially try to go through the legal route.

This is not to dismiss the challenges and fears which Hawke faces, nor the work Hawke puts in. But their work gets rewarded and their crimes get ignored because of these privileges.

The privileged change agent

Hawke flourishes in the institutions of Kirkwall. However, not all of Hawke's companions do the same. Anders, Fenris, and Merrill are particularly marginalised.

Anders is hiding in the sewers, hunted by Templars and fighting what feels like a losing battle for mage rights. Fenris is trying to fully free himself of the man who enslaved, tortured, and sexually abused him. Merrill is an apostate Dalish blood mage living in an alienage. She is a pariah to all the societies she encounters, despite her kind and curious disposition.

Hawke has an opportunity to help their companions. There is growing literature which seeks to understand by privileged people sometimes become agents of change for causes which they would not directly benefit from. (If you're curious about this, two cool studies - Ruebottom & Auster, 2017; Feront, Bertels & Hamman, 2024).

This allyship - true allyship, not just the performative type - often means the change agent will bear the consequences of standing with them. Indeed, if Hawke sides with the Templars, they are rewarded with becoming the new viscount. Meanwhile, they must flee the city if they stand with the mages.

Thus, Dragon Age 2 has a really good set up to explore what a privileged person may do for the unprivileged in the face of institutional evils. However, I think the game falls short in exploring this in a few areas.

For example, the game does not adequately address Aveline's blatant corruption, racism and double standards. In Act 3, she reveals that she employed one elven woman to the guard, and the game treats this as enough to absolve her of her past actions. If justice mattered at all in Kirkwall, she would have been at the very least kicked out of the guard.

But there is one, big, red problem which I think sorely derails Dragon Age 2's attempt at exploring institutional evil.

Red fucking lyrium

The main plot culminates with the revelation that Meredith has been driven mad by red lyrium. Red lyrium is a type of Big Bad, similar to the Blight (it is blighted lyrium, after all). It is a force outside of institutional evils which causes harm to people. A real world equivalent would be a disease or natural disaster.

However, red lyrium does not do this in Dragon Age 2. Instead, it diminishes the accountability Meredith and (in particular) the other Templars. In fact, the Templars fight her not because they care about mage rights, but because she's written off as crazy due to the red lyrium. This turns the Templars into heroes. Meanwhile, all the mages in the Circle are dead - aside from Bethany, if she was there.

In Origins, the Blight exposes the flaws and evils in the institutions of Ferelden. This is just like how natural disasters and diseases disproportionately affect people who have less privilege in their institutions. So, having a Big Bad in a story does not necessarily weaken explorations of institutions. It can actually be an effective way to spotlight the existing inequities.

One can argue that the red lyrium highlights Meredith's hunger for power and hatred for mages. I personally do not find that compelling; we know that Meredith has these traits, and the Kirkwall Circle is already considered the most oppressive of the Circles at the very start of the game.

Essentially, red lyrium eclipses institutional evils rather than highlighting them.

[carionto]

Pressure and Release

Human: *hmm-ing at a set of dials and gauges*

Alien: What seems to be *translation unit catches up with the information they're displaying* OH MY GOD IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!!! GET TO THE ESCAPE PODS NOW!!!!

H: Shh, it's fine, I'm just experimenting.

A: OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY!

H: Hey! Rude. *turns a dial causing a loud hissing noise* It's just air compressors and hydraulics.

A: *due to not dying, is beginning to relax* Why do you need up to 200 atmospheres running through these systems. We have invented alloy-specific magnetization mechanisms. Please, why do you keep insisting on these volatile and explosive means?

H: *turns the dial up* Because... *releases the pressure again, loud sudden hissing sound again* That's a cool sound.

A: Just because you think something is 'cool' doesn't make it-

H: *interrupts with another air build up and release sound without breaking eye contact*

A: *leaves*

H: *continues to play around*

_________________________________________

Okay, so I wanna get this off my chest. I find myself now for the fourth time starting a fun little activity, doing it for months on end, having a blast, and then almost suddenly dropping it entirely. First time I wrote some short stories or something every day for about six months and put it on deviantart. Then some longer form stuff started cropping in, sort of continuous narratives or whatever, and I stopped. Second was running a open D&D campaign with a persistent world but ever changing party, each session a sort of one-shot with a decision that would impact the whole world and what future sessions would exist. Not even 10 sessions in I felt under pressure to continue and build upon what I had already and just couldn't and stopped. Third was another kind of TTRPG, this time running my own server for Lancer. Again, open one shots, but less connected and I would hopefully get some of the players to want to run their own games within this freeform framework that I directly lifted from a D&D server I was in, even had some of the same people join as players. Few months later, I felt this massive pressure from myself to run games and come up with new scenarios that I just froze up. I cancelled game after game and just eventually abandoned the server and the resources I had made. Fourth time was here on tumblr itself. Back to writing some short form stuff on a fairly regular basis, almost daily for some time even. Had a blast, and then longer form content started creeping in. I thought I wanted to write some stories with an overarching plot and recurring characters and connected storylines, build up and pay off, that sort of thing. Again, I created this massive pressure by myself for myself of myself to do something I apparently can't. I created this sense of expectation of myself "Well, I started this, I should finish it, but where do I go, what do I do, how can I connect this?" And then this self-inflicted pressure got to me, again. And I stopped.

What I have known for a while, but couldn't put into words is that I don't want to tell a big long epic story or anything like that. I don't have one of those in me and forcing something like that only makes me shrivel up and run away. I have a world, several in fact, in my mind. Entire continents of a low fantasy character driven political intrigue and drama based world with tons of rules and restrictions, thousands of years of history, strong personalities for the main actors and so many individual scenes with them and the supporting cast, and a timeframe for when the overarching story happens and how it ends. But no story itself. Just scenes. I have a high fiction sci-fi world, again, with very distinct factions and races, most of the details I have written out back when I was a teen in a physical notebook with pen and pencil. Lots of historical points and events, how the races work, their domains if you will, near magical powers I try to explain with plausible science. Tons of specific details. Even drew each of their common symbols, how one of the languages is structured, schematics of how their cities are planned, and details on other planets in the system and how those might be important later. But, not a single individual character or story. Just dry facts. And then we have the loose sci-fi world I've created here. Bunch of different angles and perspectives, some comedic, some more serious, even put Cthulu in there. Many short and mostly self-contained stories and episodes of various humans doing things an exaggerated version of humanity would do. There is potential for a number of expanded and longer form stories here, some I attempted, and as mentioned, what ultimately made me stop. I don't have a book in me, and I don't want to write one. I just like to write little snippets and I want to get myself to accept this idea that, no, it does not need to become more than that. Because every time I start going down a path where it feels like it should be more than a one page thing, I seize up, start thinking that I need to do this, panic when I can't come up with anything, go silent, and give up. It just does not work for my brain. And that's fine.

[catt-nuevenor]

The Future

Time to establish what's going to happen from this point forwards.

The vast majority of you have been exceptionally patient this last year, and for that you have my deepest thanks. You've given me the time to not only write a book, but edit it, and send it off to literary agents, something I would have long given up on doing without the continued support of those who enjoy my writing.

Now that the book is off doing the rounds independently, it's time I got back to Myrk Mire.

Originally Myrk Mire was built in ChoiceScript, a scripting language created by the Choice of Games company. Choice of Games control what is done with their script, understandably, they own it. This does pose some restrictions. I can't, for example, release any paid material built using ChoiceScript unless it is directly through their publishing label. If I do publish under their label, I maintain IP or Intellectual Property Rights, however I also grant them the exclusive rights under perpetual license to publish the multiple choice game 'electronically'.

Source: Choice of Games.com

As you can see from the outline above, they do make exceptions for stories published in non-competing formats, and for sequels, prequels, and spin-offs. However, traditional publishing houses might require stricter control over IP, distribution, and exclusivity. It will only become more and more complicated as things progress, and being locked into a perpetual license agreement of any nature is not a decision to make lightly.

As some of you may be sensing from the tone of all this so far, I'm going to be moving Myrk Mire away from Choice of Games and ChoiceScript, and into a new medium/format.

After tinkering, and trialling with a few alternatives, I've decided to go with Renpy. Renpy, while largely used for visual novel style games and stories, provides a very workable framework for interactive fiction, and is an Open Source script, it isn't beholden to publishing contracts, licence cost, or exclusivity.

I'm not going to be diving into transferring Myrk Mire right away, it's a huge piece of writing, in an entirely different scripting language, and as previously stated, there are a lot of changes I want to implement with the cast. Instead, I'm creating a trial story: One Háḟest Day. My Patrons have been aware of all this for about a month or so, and have already seen some previews.

One Háḟest Day takes place in Aldmirham before the events of Myrk Mire, around the time the Main Character and the Wanderers first arrived in town. The reader will have the choice to follow one of the romanceable characters through a single day, with opportunities to explore their lives and relationships before the Main Character and Child come along. I hope it will provide a proving ground for the changes that previously caused debate, and an opportunity for people to try out the new format and interface.

My plan is to distribute One Háḟest Day through Itch.io, working with their early access framework and voluntary payments for such as soon as one of the character routes is ready to play from beginning to end, updating regularly with the other characters as they too are completed, and with additional features as required. Once the full game is complete, I will release a separate full build with a set minimum price that can be discussed with the community as we move forwards.

At the second, I'm aiming for a web hosted format and a desktop/laptop downloadable format, with phone compatibility to come later down the line once things are stable.

I will post production updates and info when I can to tumblr, though a lot of what I'm doing now is very python coding heavy, so perhaps not that interesting?

I've included some screenshots below of very early development, featuring a Character Log and Word Log that I hope will allow readers to more easily navigate the story. I'm toying with the idea of having a Mysteries Log as well that will keep track of snippets of information gleaned from each character's route, but that can be a tinkering feature for now.

Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or excitement, though do keep all messages objective and polite.

[taemcains]

do you think requiem's update was weak?

in general, now that there only final episode left, what are your thoughts on season 2?

what a mess.

not one thing i would've predicted about s2 months back is now true, nor does it even feel like the same story. everything i loved about hsr and what made it distinct and unique — the snowy landscape, a desolate small town crumbling under its own history and sins, how the setting perfectly reflected lane's insides, the mystery of the lis, not knowing who we could trust, if we could trust lane herself, her trying to understand and come to terms with the humanity ripped from her — all of it sacrificed for... what?

nothing is eerie, and with how the most horrific events happen so casually and are brushed over in seconds — the shredder, kira's death — the shock value is starting to wear off, and what's left underneath does not hold up. what i'm confused about is why and how it feels like she's both rushing through and at the same time it's snail paced.

i think she has a few major plot points in mind, and is filling the gaps between them with whatever (which is what the entirety of season two has been) which is fine but 1. she could've spread the events out over a longer timeline 2. she could've used this time to deepen our understanding of lane's psyche and her relationships with the lis instead of fitting in every apocalypse fantasy she can conceive of.

everything is stagnant. lane, the plot. i can't even call the lis stagnant because when have they ever felt vivid? they have a defining trauma and she ran with it — dmitry and pavel, greg and emma, and since anna doesn't have any we have a 'i'm a girl and i like girls?!' situation at their grown age in an apocalypse. she's following the same format as s1 for s2, but in s1 it worked as the equal parts allure and wariness made sense for two people born/made closed off and suspicious yet yearning for connection. but in s2, a time to deepen and split open the past, motivations, to provide a solid ground for the basis of their affection, they're staying afloat on physical attraction and half-assed omg their trauma 🙁

a main character like lane deserves character arcs to be treated with as much importance as plot progression. the mercy/no mercy stat feels like a convenient way to wash her hands off actually showing how lane gets to that point. it's unnatural, and it leaves me frustrated with lane who is still the same girl we saw in s1e1.

what has changed in two seasons, both plot and character wise? if s1 was utilized to set the framework for the rest of the story, such as by giving us glimpses of her childhood, then s2 should've delved into the emotional aspect of it. while the impact of it on her views and relationships is shown, nothing ever seems to challenge it. events pass by without a reverberation in her soul; all her inner monologues are some vague opinions she believes as fact about humanity and its nature and nothing, not the plot, not the lis, ever seem to make her question it. i'd thought the whole point of writing a character like her in a setting with high-risk, deadly, tense situations is to force her out of the shell she confines herself to, and make her look at her own light as well as darkness. what is the point if she's never forced to confront them?

so of course the romance routes are lacking in truth and depth. cain has the excuse of subtext and parallels and soulmateism, but what about the rest? i don't know too much about dmitry, but greg's route is both painful and baffling. on what basis does he dream of domestic bliss when he knows as much about her as any random member of the squad? at the end of s2 (2/3rd into the book!) their romance is still based off 'you're a fantasy, you're my reality.' while cute, is that all she can think of for them? some vague unexplained attraction and lane liking to be desired? greg has nice shoulders and a sister, then what?

she could've shown them seeing an aspect of themself in her (where i assumed dmitry's route was heading), or sympathise with her, but how are they falling for her without knowing her depths? based off an inexplicable attraction alone. more than halfway through. it's so unbalanced. does she even like them? does she even know them? (yan 😴) does it make sense for a mistrustful character like lane to fall for some rando? with cain, she shows affection in her own way but greg's scenes are just pitiful.

no need to speak of anna. i'd argue someone shouldn't be telling you to not be homophobic, but let's set that aside for now and look at writers who have at the very least heeded the fandom's criticism and concerns and took a step towards providing better representation. i don't care what vision she has (which isn't even counting how anna hasn't been given a consistent personality – why would she pull away in disgust when she made it abundantly clear she's into women in s1?) if the people you're attempting to represent tell you it's problematic and uncomfortable, you listen. it reeks of arrogance on her part.

the -2 female characters in this book get such... strange treatment. anna appears to plot dump about the infection, or be lane's walking wardrobe. kira... not to be the friend that's too woke but every single man in the squad sustaining some kind of injury and bouncing back but kira had to be explicitly sobbing and sniveling to lane for a chance to live, and still die, after that whole 'i'm going to move on' epiphany? nick and noah who were kidnapped and held by the cultists for forever, lestor who got eyeballed by an infected, but it was kira who had to die by falling into a pit?

the only defense i hear anymore is of the plot and it's unique, twisted charm and. well! we haven't made headway in an entire season, and keep getting dragged off into useless side plots. as a friend @cainlane 🤍 aptly put it,

i was talking to a mutual today ab how funny the plot looks when the entirety of s2 follows the formula of squad finds out something and goes there -> cult is (and by what means i have no idea) already there -> they fight -> cult goes away (once again by what means idk)

the foreshadowing is ridiculously vague, all required information is somehow conveniently preserved in documents, and it's getting exhausting to read it all over again every update, when we all know how the scintillating potential of s1 could've carried over into s2.

i tried very hard to think of a positive, something that has improved from s1 and nothing comes to mind. oh well. i'm still going to be (tentatively) seated for the rest of the book but know it's with a heavy heart.

also the diamond choices are ridiculously expensive for nothing ❤️ suck my dick

[ladyiristheenchantress]

Morals and Ethics

Hello Friends!! to preface: This post is not here to police anyone on what is the 'correct' way to practice. My aim on this post is to be culturally and magically informed, so this isnt going to be a take down of any belief or path line. Instead this post is offered up as a way to not only build your own moral frame work, but get you thinking about where you stand magically and enhance how you practice! Our moral frameworks are all unique, something that would be a faux pas in your practice might be something thats culturally common in others, so lets throw on our thinking caps and get started!

What is building an ethical and moral framework?

Building an ethical background in witchcraft involves establishing a set of principles, values, and guidelines that guide your magical and spiritual practices! In essence It helps ensure that your actions align with your moral compass (Wherever it may lie). This background can help you make informed decisions, cultivate energy, and maintain a respectful and balanced relationship with both you and your magic.

Some religions and paths have their own moral and ethical framework, for example lyma is this idea of "something to be washed away" and is a big deal when practicing within Hellenic Spaces! It would be immoral to approach an altar without washing your hands if they were dirty, but on the flip side some cultures actively encourage dirty hands like people who worship earth within their gardens. Depending on your path you might have a specific framework.

Another aspect is moral frameworks change and that is ok!! Its important we aren't stagnate and its ok to change your mind and feel like you want to change things up. That is totally reasonable and people do it all the time like with politics, religious affiliations, jobs, and more! Ethical and Moral compasses can change just like we do.

How to build an ethical framework

Self-Reflection: Start by exploring your own values, beliefs, and moral code. Reflect on what is important to you, what you stand for, and how these values relate to your magical practices. Also now would be the time to decolonize your beliefs and explore your biases. Its ok to acknowledge your bias, as long as you are working through it. If you dont know what decolonizing your beliefs is I left a helpful video above, just click 'decolonize your beliefs'

Research and Study: Deep dive into different ethical systems and philosophies. Familiarize yourself with various witchcraft traditions, such as New age spirituality, Pagan magical systems, and country/area specific + their associated ethical guidelines. Read books and articles about ethics in witchcraft whether you agree or disagree. During this time you are simply collecting as many perspectives as possible and comparing them to how you feel, don't feel pressured to follow something if you don't feel it applies to you.

Connect with a Mentor or Community: If possible, seek guidance from an experienced witch or spiritual space who can share their ethical insights and offer advice on building your own ethical framework. The best part is, different spaces will produce their own ethical codes of conduct. For example some spaces don't allow love spell discussion for example, which is an ethical guideline.

Create Your Own Code: Based on your self-reflection, research, and guidance, create your own personal code of ethics. This code should reflect your values and guide your magical practices. It might include principles like harm none, respect nature, work for the greater good, or take no shit. Wherever you feel you sit, walk with it. Whatever comes natural to you explore it. Write down what you believe as a symbol, but do so in pencil so you can change it as needed!

Regularly Reevaluate: As you gain experience and your understanding of ethics evolves, revisit and update your ethical code. It's important to grow as your spiritual journey progresses like I mentioned above. You are not a static person, allow yourself to experience your moral compass and how to bends. Allow yourself to be fluid and honest. Not everyone is 'love and light' or 'fuck authority' your allowed to be who you need to be!

Different Types of Ethics in Witchcraft:

Note: This is not every type of ethics, but rather a couple examples of the ethics you may see in your research and which group it belongs too. This area is not meant to endorse or critique an ethical guideline but instead showcase the many that do exist.

The Wiccan Rede: "An it harm none, do what ye will." This is a central ethical guideline in Wicca, emphasizing the avoidance of harm to others as a core principle. Another one is The Threefold Law, this law suggests that the energy you send out, whether positive or negative, will return to you threefold (three times what you sent out). This encourages practitioners to be mindful of their actions.

Green Witch Ethics: Green witches emphasize their connection to nature and the importance of nurturing and protecting the environment. Their ethical background often centers around conservation, sustainability, and working with the Earth's energies respectfully.

Personal Responsibility: Some witches adhere to a more individualistic code of ethics, focusing on personal responsibility and accountability for their actions.

Balancing Left hand and Right hand: For some, ethical considerations involve finding a balance between Right and Left hand magic, and acknowledging the potential consequences of working with both, one, or neither. The right and left hand path are types of magical systems that involve different attitudes towards magic, the right hand emphasizing healing and selflessness, and the left hand emphasizing individuality and shadow aspects.

Respect for Spirits and Deities: Many witches emphasize the importance of showing respect and gratitude to the spirits, deities, and entities they work with, recognizing their agency and autonomy.

Are there any absolutes that I should be aware of?

Absolutes are ethical things that you do need to make sure you are integrating! These are really important things to note when you are learning, because if you do choose to disregard these you could contribute to some really bad concepts that intrinsically cause harm to real people

Respect - Cultural awareness, avoiding appropriation, and looking out for other people can be important. Its important that you fully evaluate a moral system before indulging in it. For example: In the love spell discussion and lot of cultural practioners voices are left out of the discussion, same with baneful discussions. Its important to listen to many groups of people and take stances that dont turn peoples cultures into a monolith, demonize them, or silence them.

Hate groups and cults - Its important that you check where a belief comes from and see if it matches with any hate groups or cult rhetoric. These groups create really flashy and easy to digest claims to try and push an agenda kind of like a salesmen. Their whole job is to try and push you into their group so they can get money, power, fame, and in some cases carry out atrocities. This corresponds with that decolonization conversation from earlier, because it can help keep you and other witchy friends safe!

Nuance - Its important to keep nuance in the conversation. Don't take extremely black and white stances if you aren't knowledgeable on the subject. I think even advanced practioners need to remember to keep nuance in their opinions and keep an open mind when presented with new information or moral ideals. Keep an open dialogue when you are having conversations, and remember to keep asking yourself why you believe the things you do.

Remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building an ethical background in witchcraft. Your ethical code should be a reflection of your personal beliefs and values. It's essential to be true to yourself and to strive for a harmonious practice that aligns with your own spiritual journey! Enjoy the ride :)

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