#“but i have Ideas on how i'd write it while keeping the appeal of their allegedly complex relationship”

[beevean]

having the Brainworms for something you hate and being assaulted by the urge to rant at best and rewrite at worst is horrible. being a ranty bitch is fun and sometimes i even get lucky to attract discussion but i am fully aware i could channel that energy towards something i actually enjoy :( <- was scarred for life about being too negative on main

[eff-plays]

There's one convo with Astarion that's one of my favorites that I haven't seen mentioned or discussed yet happens (I assume) if you have high approval with him but play a good-aligned character. (This is at 60+ approval, start of Act 2.) It's probably because it's not a romantic cutscene so it doesn't get mentioned as much as the others (or because he's racist in it and some of y'all don't like to acknowledge that he has character flaws), but I think it's vital to his character and to explain his early relationship with a good-aligned Tav.

I would like to break it down a little, step by step. Because we are all cringe here.

First, he claims to feel a connection between Tav and himself, and the reason for this is because he believes he's identified "ambition" in Tav (and I'll explain why he's wrong later, but that's mostly headcanon territory, so we'll ignore it for now).

But, there's also clearly something holding Tav back from realizing their full potential, which is their naivete.

"Just that you ... have a big heart. You like doing what's right."

(The animations and voice acting here make him look and sound so fucking condescending, 10/10.)

However, Astarion doesn't tell them this is wrong, or that he disagrees. He implies it's a flaw, but doesn't state it outright. That's dangerous territory, see, and might predispose them to get defensive and reject what he has to say next.

No, he tries (and fails in my case, but it's cute that he tries, bless him) to manipulate Tav by appealing to that big heart of theirs.

"So I was thinking, what would be the right thing to do when we get to Moonrise Towers? When we come face-to-face with whoever is controlling the parasites in our heads."

"I'm just saying there's an opportunity here. If we can control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe and liberate the world from this evil."

See what he's doing? You like doing what's right, so what would be the right thing to do? We can keep ourselves safe. Liberate the world from evil.

It's very blatant, but he's trying to appeal to Tav's good nature by framing his questionable ideas as something that will benefit the greater good, something that's morally righteous that they would agree with.

And of course, it's incredibly funny when you ask how he thinks you'll do that, and he fumbles and admits he's not a "details person," but it's also revealing.

He thinks he's found in Tav ambition, when all he's actually found is ability. Tav exercises power proficiently, while Astarion does not. If he had the authority they have, he'd let ambition drive his actions, which is why he assumes that's what drives Tav when they exercise their power. A good-aligned Tav has very little ambition, I'd argue, but they have plenty of opportunity to exercise their power, which they do when their hand is forced.

So what Astarion is saying is, in effect, hey, you have power, I have ambition. Will you please use your authority/ability to do what I want? Here's how it'll totally be for the greater good, I prommy.

This is brilliant writing, and I really applaud Larian for managing to walk that fine line of making Astarion so sympathetic while he's literally trying to manipulate the player character. Because when I first got this convo, my thought was both "wow, I adore how blatant and terrible his manipulation attempts are, it's kind of endearing" and "he's so terrified, it's genuinely quite tragic."

If we control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe. This works only somewhat as an appeal to good-aligned Tav, because it could also potentially sound very selfish, especially if Tav is the self-sacrificing sort. So notice how, when he says "liberate the world from evil", it sounds kinda tacked-on, an afterthought designed to bury his main goal, which is keep "ourselves" (i.e. himself) safe. Like, yes, this will keep us/me safe, but if you're not into that, then it'll totally help the world, too! It doesn't quite work, because he still sounds ironic and like he doesn't believe they'd be liberating anything from any evil (work that 10 Charisma, boy), but that's the intent, I think.

Does he want power for power's sake? Yes. Is he gleefully powerhungry? Absolutely. But he's also fucking terrified, and that slips through just a little bit, even behind the smug and confident facade.

He's trying to get Tav, whom he's seen exercise their power over others, to lend some of it to him, so that he may never fear anything ever again.

All of this from a short, smug convo where he admits he's too stupid to figure out how to fulfill his dreams of world domination.

God tier characterization, 10/10.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm tired of my ideas always being big. It's overwhelming. I like seeing others' WIPs and ideas because they're just so simple... Like, that comic about a mermaid living in the ocean in our modern time and dealing with plastic trash. So simple and my own brain is bursting with ideas. But my own WIPs... they just start huge. I'd like something smaller... but I don't know how.

Stories Always Get Too Big

Stories can get out of hand quickly when they sprout too many independent threads. There are three primary culprits that serve as sparks that create these threads:

1 - Setting 2 - Non-Protagonist Characters/Relationships 3 - Back Story

The thing to remember, though, is that no matter how interesting your setting is, no matter how compelling your other characters are, and how fascinating the back story is, those things are not your plot.

Plot is the sequence of events through which the protagonist (and potentially other main characters) attempt to resolve the story's conflict by overcoming obstacles and setbacks in pursuit of a goal.

In other words, focus on this:

the protagonist > their normal world > the event that introduces a problem they must resolve > the goal they formulate in order to resolve that problem > the events that occur as a result of their pursuit of this goal > their attempts to overcome obstacles and setbacks encountered along the way > their attempt to solve the problem once and for all > failure or success > life in a changed situation/world

Anything else doesn't need to be there unless it is critical in order for one of the above steps to make sense.

So, let's take your mermaid example... though I haven't read that comic so I'm winging it here:

the protagonist = mermaid normal world = doing mermaid stuff inciting incident = finding plastic trash in the water goal = clean up/find the culprit and teach them to do better events = cleaning up, learning about humans, tracking down culprit climax = mermaid appeals to humans to do better finale = mermaid is living in a cleaner ocean

Now, let's say your brain starts to go off on a tangent about a deep oceanic rift and an evil merman wizard who lives there... stop right there. It's a fun idea, but what does it have to do with this story? How does it relate to the trash, clean-up, finding the culprit, or appeal to humans to do better? It doesn't. Theoretically, you could make it make sense... like, maybe the merman wizard likes the trash and wants the ocean to be dirty and gross, so maybe he is opposing the mermaid's attempts to clean up and to appeal to the humans. Okay, that works, so you can keep it. But, let's say you also have this idea about these creatures that live around the hydrothermal vents, and the mermaid meets and falls in love with a scientist who's studying them. Okay, again, interesting idea, but this one is much harder to fit in with the rest of the story. Sure, you could say the scientist is studying marine pollution instead... that brings it back around to the main conflict, but still, what does this relationship add to the story? How does it help or harm the mermaid's mission? How does it help to explore the story's themes or help deliver the message? It doesn't really sound like it does, so this would be an example of a thread you can probably snip.

And the thing is, it would be okay to follow a thread like that while you're plotting or writing your first draft, just to see where it goes and see if you can make it work. Part of why we edit and revise is to snip out the threads and elements that aren't pulling their weight. But learning how to curb them as they occur to you will help save you work later on down the line. Try writing those ideas down in an ideas document, and maybe those can be worked into different stories, a sequel, or a companion story.

One final note: I am very much aware that there are some epic writers out there who let wild tangles of threads sprout as they write, and they follow them all without abandon, relevant or not. That's okay, too. These are writers for whom that works, who don't feel overwhelmed by all of those threads, who want to write something bigger and more unwieldy. Maybe in time as you get accustomed to writing smaller, tidier stories, you embrace the bigger stories your brain wants to tell. Or maybe you don't. Whatever works best for you is all that matters. :)

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[qqueenofhades]

Do you have any idea why people are so fixated on Biden’s age but not Trumps? I know he’s 81, but Trump isn’t exactly far behind at 77: in fact he’s the second oldest. This keeps stumping me: it’s not a big gap in age

There are a few reasons for this, yes. As you might imagine, all of them are very stupid.

First and most critically is the way Trump's violent extremism has been completely neutered, mainlined, and normalized by the mainstream media. That's why we still have said media largely treating this as a normal presidential election, instead of that of a successful incumbent against literally the most deranged, unfit, treasonous, criminally and civilly liable, already-led-an-attempted-coup, deep-in-hock-to-Russia, adjudicated rapist, 91-felony-counts-indicted career cheater, grifter, and failed businessman who nonetheless appeals to the still-very-powerful isolationist, racist, white supremacist, and Christian nationalist elements in this country. Crucially, he also appeals to the billionaire class that owns the media and who will benefit from Trumpian tax, economic, and labor policies (especially now that Biden used the SOTU to once more call for a minimum 25% corporate/billionaire tax rate). The media also openly wants Trump back in office, as all the shitass insane things he did (and will do) are good for ratings, and allows them to act like the Principled Truth Tellers, instead of shilling so hard for a greasy orange fascist that we may well lose our 250+ year old democratic republic if he, God forbid, is elected again. Profit is more, well, profitable than truthful reporting, so the media has been completely disincentivized to cover this in any accurate way. We presume they will all wake up with shocked Pikachu faces when Trump packs them off to concentration camps with everyone else he hates, as he has openly promised to do.

Because we're also starting from an underlying premise that everything is the Democrats' fault, this means the party should be blamed for running said successful incumbent for reelection, even if he has low poll numbers which have in fact largely been produced by the media's relentlessly stupid and dishonest coverage. I was reading an article in the AP today about how 15 major student/youth groups have endorsed Biden and plan to work for his reelection; even so, the author could.not.stop going on and on about how Zomgz Old Biden was and how supposedly most Americans thought he was mentally unfit for the job (which is a straight-up lie produced by the endless "Zomgz Biden Old!!!!" handwringing have been subjected to without end. Weird how that works). That is also why we have all those idiotic "Biden should step down!!!" opinion pieces by Very Smart Pundits, notwithstanding the fact that a) it would be completely insane, b) it would be completely insane, and c) somehow nobody seems to think that hey, maybe the Republicans shouldn't nominate an openly seditionist generally god-awful fascist shitweasel who has already been the worst thing to happen to American politics in the twenty-first century (I'd say also the twentieth century, but unfortunately that was when we had Reagan).

In other words, Trump is just taken as a given, while the media spends all its time attacking Biden, calling on Biden to step down, amplifying "concerns" about Biden's age, producing idiotic narratives about Biden, distorting or ignoring the things Biden has done, and then writing concern-troll navel-gazing pieces earnestly wondering why people don't like Biden. (Apparently people's opinion of Biden drastically improves when they learn what he's actually accomplished, but the relentless parade of lies somehow makes it difficult for them to learn what those actually are. Again, weird.) Likewise the endless coverage we get of Biden's smallest slips or stumbles, while the media resolutely ignores Trump's full-on recent descent into absolute raving dementia. Hello, double standards!

This is also fueled by a heaping helping of racism and misogyny, because if God forbid Biden does die in office, what happens? The vice president takes over! We have a clear and constitutionally established precedent for this that has happened many times before! Except, oh no scary!!!, Biden's vice president is a brown woman, and that means SHE WOULD BE IN CHARGE!!!! TERRIFYING!!! So all the scaremongering around Biden's age, aside from being generally dishonest and stupid, has as its implicit message that sure, maybe you're fine voting for an old white man, but are you really comfortable doing that if it means a brown woman might also have the chance to be president?? I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD BE!!!!!

Anyway, yes. It's a complete straw man argument, it's fueled by bad faith and stupidity, and as with most things in the current American media environment, it's geared toward helping Trump win. Because you know. Something something BUT HER EEEEEEEEEEEEMAILS BUT BIDEN WAS OOOOOOOOOOOOLD.

[ddollfface]

𝐀 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝙅𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙃𝙖𝙣𝙢𝙖 𝙔𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙣𝙨 (Pt.2)

Warnings; bad writing, possessive behavior, really ooc (I'm 90% sure that I missed the mark on this one), talks of Diane's rape, yandere if you really squint ig. If I missed anything, then please let me know ♡ Oml, tumblr's being a little bitch right now, I literally cannot right now. I'm going to repost Pt.1 and Pt.2. I'm so sorry, I have no clue as to why I have a word limit rn... Just know that this is super ooc :/

When Jack falls, he falls hard, and let's just say that he's never fallen. Throughout his whole life, his only goal was to avenge his mother and bring back her honor, hoping to achieve this by defeating his father, Yuujirou Hanma. Jack, himself, has stated multiple times throughout the show that he has no interest in women, money, or fame, only wanting to achieve his goal of revenge. This obviously means that he has no experience with women, and unlike Kastumi, it's by choice. He doesn't want to fall in love.

I think that Jack doesn't believe in love, that it's something that's fake and fabricated to appease another. There's no such thing as love at first sight and wanting to hold someone for comfort and not just to get off. These thoughts are so out of Jack's worldview that he sees them as just fiction that others' are pathetic enough to believe.

And, adding to that, I think that Jack would have a hard time understanding Baki and his relationship with Kozue. Baki and Kozue have been there for each other, showing true love, something that Jack's never had. Jack eventually learns to respect Baki, after some trial and error throughout the series, but he can't seem to understand why someone like Baki would believe in something as fictional as love.

Moving on from that, I think that Jack's childhood developed this sense of disgust toward love and just being vulnerable in general. I mean, imagine being born to a woman who was raped by the man she was supposed to kill, that's obviously not going to be the best childhood.

I can't imagine that Diane, Jack's mama, would ever show him such motherly love that's expected from a mama to her son. I think that's partially because of how Jack was conceived and her personality. Diane, whether it was a part of her persona as 'Jane' or not, was portrayed as a cold woman who had little regard for human life, and I can't see how she'd ever show warmth toward Jack when he was young.

While we don't know much about Jack's childhood or what happened to Diane later on in her life, I'm assuming that she never pursued relations with any other man, seeing as Yuujiro's actions caused her such distress. This means that Jack never grew up with a father figure present in his life, rather than his absent father, Yuujiro.

I'd assume that Diane would never speak nicely of Yuujiro, seeing as he raped her, and it was her original intention to kill him. Because children are like sponges, Jack probably absorbed all of Diane's hatred and general negativity towards his father, as he should, and internalized this anger.

Overall, Jack's situation growing up left no room for him to experience what love looked like, in a healthy manner. He never had parents who lead a good example, keeping him in the dark about any positives of being in a relationship. And that's what I think the root is for his distaste for being vulnerable, and the idea of being in a relationship with another.

Not only that, but I think that his mama's rape only caused Jack to view sex in a negative light, seeing that's how he was conceived. Now, I don't think that Jack is repulsed by sex in general, but I just think that he doesn't find it as welcoming (?) as other men would. I'm not too sure how to phrase it, but it's just not appealing to him, compared to most men.

However, that changes when he meets you, you, you.

There's no such thing as 'love at first sight' to Jack. He has to know a person for a year or so before he even considers having a lengthy conversation with them, where he actually puts a little effort into speaking with them. Jack's a very closed-off individual who has severe trust issues, as most figures do, and he can't open up to someone he's known for a short time.

This means that for you to catch his attention, that means that there's something special that he saw, whether you notice it or not doesn't matter. Jack saw something in you. Maybe it was how transparent you were, possibly your wisdom, it doesn't matter too much.

(little side tangent)

Though I do see Jack enjoying a partner who's similar to a therapist, someone with a lot of advice to give, someone with a shit ton of wisdom. An observer would be a good fit for Jack, they don't have to be studious or very loud, and he doesn't mind either. It's just that he needs someone who can read him easily because Jack has his own language of sorts (@yandere-writer-momo has discussed this in some of her posts).

It's odd because Jack is oh so blunt, but he holds back whenever it comes to his emotions, wanting to avoid being vulnerable. He doesn't hesitate to threaten someone or tell them that he doesn't like him, he doesn't have a problem with that. But whenever he finds you pretty, or likes the dress you're wearing, even if he thinks you're not taking care of yourself, he'll always phrase it in a "brutish" way.

Instead of saying "Your hair looks nice today" or "Have my jacket, you look cold," instead, he'll say "Did you do something to your hair? It doesn't look like shit today" or "You're built like a stick, you should work out more" as he hands you his jacket (more so throwing it over your shoulders and walking away).

And that's why he needs someone who can read through his insulting behavior, knowing that he's just shielding himself from appearing weak. Being observant is a requirement to having a successful relationship with Jack, and possibly with most of the men in Baki. All of them are so emotionally constipated, that they need someone who can read them like a book to actually have a progressive relationship.

Because of your ability to allow him to open up without words he knows attached, always thinking about you, you, you. He needs to protect you, the one person who understands him on a different level than everyone else. You're able to calm him down with a simple nod, practically telling him that you understood what he was trying to say. You don't just see him as the son of Yuujiro Hanma or as the man who's ruined his body with steroids and intense training techniques, instead, you see him as Jack.

The initial attraction he had toward you, when you first crossed paths, was more superficial than what I was talking about in the previous paragraph. It's most likely a simple case of curiosity that drew him to you. You somehow stood apart from others, causing his eyes to drift to you every time he scanned a crowd. It's possible that you were overly positive, keeping a smile on your face no matter what, or you were oddly quiet, silently observing everyone.

It could've just been your looks that made you attractive! Though Jack is emotionally stunted, even he can appreciate a nice piece of ass!

Either way, throughout the time and as your relationship progresses, the more you two talk, the more he begins to respect your character. Jack begins to see you for who you are and understands that you see him the way he sees you. (sorry that was a confusing sentence lol)

I'm not too sure if any of you have seen the movie Avatar, but in the movie, they use the phrase 'I see you,' and I think that it fits Jack's personality perfectly. It's more than love to Jack, and he likely doesn't even comprehend that it's love in the first year or so. It's something deeper than that, it's understanding each other on a primal level. Jack doesn't just understand your body and how it moves, or what to do to get it going, he understands how you think, and how you feel. But not in a weird way, in a loving way, y'know?

The two of you are like other halves, you'd have to be for Jack to pursue you. Jack has to know that you're meant for him. He's never even considered dating another person, let alone revealing himself to someone else.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

CH2-13 Thoughts + CH2-14 Predictions

Hello DRDT Fandom! CH2-13 came out about four or so days ago as I'm posting this, and I finally mustered up the energy and mental strength to write down my overall thoughts, and also general predictions for what I think is to come in the next episode. A lot happened in this episode and we have a lot to cover, so let's get started! Before we do though, I think I should give us a reminder of where we currently are in terms of the swear chart and the bingo card, as of CH2-12 Swear Statistics

Bingo Card

Just like the last post, I'll be separating my talking points into character categories, so let's jump straight in with the big man himself...

Levi

Quick Disclaimer: I myself am still trying to unlearn the mindset that having low or no empathy is in any way a moral failing. If I say anything wrong or rude, please politely correct me. Remember kids: Your feelings, thoughts, and emotions, what you feel and how you feel them if you do at all, do not have any moral weight, they are simply aspects of your brain and you cannot control your brain. The only thing that has moral weight is your actions.

So as we learned in the previous episode, Levi has the murderer secret! And as we learn in this episode, he apparently killed four people, one of which being his father. DRDT continues to take Danganronpa's standard tropes and incorporating them in unique ways, in this case Levi represents the trope of the Chapter 2 Serial Killer reveal (Genocide Jack, Peko, Maki). I love that DRDT keeps doing this and I hope it keeps it up You know what else is staying consistent, though?

(x) Levi: That incident happened when I was in my junior year of high school. Levi: My junior year was also the year that Hope's Peak scouted me as the Ultimate Personal Stylist. Levi: To my understanding, it would've reflected poorly on Hope's Peak to recruit a murderer, so they pressured the court into not pressing charges.

US-HPA being morally corrupt as all fuck, that's what! Like no, seriously, it makes more and more sense as for why Xander David and Mai were most likely forming a revolution against this damn place, cause wow. The choice to scout out Levi during his Junior Year, when he was still in high school, is...interesting. Given that this Hope's Peak takes in College-aged students, why not just wait until Levi has graduated high school? In fact, that probably would've been even better because by then Levi definitely would've perfected his skills in styling by then, and thus would further justify him being enrolled in the academy. We don't know whether or not Levi was scouted before or after his incident, but given how Levi explains the events, I'm willing to bet this was after. Which...makes thing especially strange. But I'm sure it's no big deal. I mean, it's not like we have any evidence of US-HPA preying on vulnerable childre--

(x) Min: The Ultimate Contest for Eminent Students was made for a very specific target audience. Min: Those children who had no talents, who would consider spending their entire lives preparing for one single test for even a chance to become an Ultimate...

Oh. Well isn't that funny, huh?

Part of Hope's Peak's branding in general is the promise of a better future, which is something that Levi clearly wants. So I can most definitely see why the idea of being enrolled in the academy appealed to him. Levi being a delinquent in his teenage years definitely tracks, given how we know that his family was full of bad influences (including himself more than likely). And I am absolutely not surprised that Levi ended up killing his father. I think a lot of us theorized for a while that the person he killed was linked to his family.

I'd absolutely adore to learn more about Levi's family situation and what exactly their relationship with each other was, because "We were bad influences on each other" can mean a lot of things. Given the fact that not even the police cared about the death of Levi's father, I'd be pretty willing to believe that Mr. Fontana is a wanted man who has done a lot of criminal harm to others. That might even be where Levi formed the mindset that people are defined by their actions. Maybe, that's my best guess and it doesn't even include his mother and brothers, lmao. Anyway, that's enough of Murder, Corruption, and Daddy Issues. Let's talk about the other thing that was revealed about Levi this episode, or more-so put into words. His low, if zero empathy. Firstly, those who are headcannoning Levi is ASPD, I see you and I love you. So much. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that my first thought upon watching this scene was "Levi is so Autismcoded" lmao But in all seriousness, I absolutely adore this side of his character. In general something I've always loved about Levi is the fact that he, to put it bluntly, does not know how to act. He's constantly seeing what others do and copying them, and asking them for guidance when he doesn't know what to do. His first appearance shows him using Xander and Teruko's appearances to wager what kind of person they are, which is more than likely how he got into styling in the first place. He's basically masking and trying to appear as what he views as normal because he's aware that his lack of empathy is not something most humans possess. And his actions reflect that of what he thinks a good person would do in these scenarios, whether that be your friends not inviting you to an event, or someone profusely bleeding from their neck. To put it in simple terms: He's masking. I love that. It really reminds me of the experiences had by my neurodivergent friends, and even though Levi is not canonically neurodivergent, the fact that so many people headcannon him with ASPD or Autism really goes to show how DT-Dev nailed that kind of experience, and how well they wrote Levi's low empathy in general. Well-done, DT-Dev :D ...Also I think it's safe to say that Accomplice!Levi is not happening. Damn it, I really liked that theory lmao.

Ace

[not even three minutes later]

...See, this is why I always believed Ace was telling the truth about David and Arei's conversation, because wow this man is competing with the former in the Shitty Liar Olympics.

If Ace's sense of security around Levi wasn't already shattered, it sure as hell is now. Which is very upsetting to see, but also very entertaining to me as an aficionado of toxic yaoi. I was never really an Acevi girl, it was just never something I was attracted to (probably because for a majority of CH2 Part 1's airing I really didn't like Ace lmao), but this combined with the Other Thing I'll talk about later has definitely sold me on it. I hope they get worse.

I can't remember what post it was, but I remember seeing someone talk about Ace very much projecting a friendship onto Levi that was never really there between them, and looking back, I absolutely agree. I mean, where the two of them really friends? I do think that Levi does, or did, genuinely like Ace. I don't think he would've been hanging around him in Chapter 1 if he didn't. But it was simply just that, he liked Ace. Ace loved Levi, and saw him as his lifeboat in the midst of this scary unfamiliar situation. Even if everyone else either was annoyed by or straight-up disliked Ace, even if he could die at any moment, he could still rely on Levi as a presence of safety and security, but that all came crumbling down.

ace can you please change your sprite

The fact that Ace, the man famous for jumping to conclusions, not thinking anything through or in depth, and switching his opinions on others on a dime, is even asking for Levi's defense at all, is proof enough to me that even after everything Ace still wanted to cling onto the fantasy of their friendship he had built up in his mind. But upon hearing that Levi never cared about what happened to him, he can no longer do so. ...And why do I think Ace got attached to Levi so quickly?

(x) Ace: I was totally right all along to burn our friendship--No, I can't even call it it "Friendship." Ace: There's only one person in my whole life who I've ever been able to call my friend. That I ever thought, even for just a short time, that you and I were "friends" is an insult to his memory.

Yeah it's time to talk about this.

So for those who are not in the know, DT-Dev confirmed in a now-deleted ask that this friend of Ace's is named Taylor Riley.

(thank you to @/nicohakobyan / weightedblankett on twitter for providing this screenshot)

We know very little about this man other than his name, his gender, the fact that he was Ace's friend, and that he's dead. We don't actually know that fourth one, but I think "insult to his memory" speaks for itself lmao. As such, we do not know the details of his relationship with Ace... But I've made more out of less before, so let's get to talking. Here's what I think:

I think that Taylor was a presence in Ace's life much similar to how Levi was to him in Chapter 1: A strong protective figure that helped to make the scared-of-everything Ace feel a sense of safety. And then some form of incident happened that resulted in Taylor's death, leaving Ace alone, heartbroken, bitter, and terrified. That sense of security he once had was ripped away from him, and without Taylor, he doesn't know what to do with himself anymore.

And then in the killing game, he meets Levi, who provides him with a similar feeling of safety. Immediately he begins to project the memory of Taylor onto Levi and as such becomes attached, quickly considering Levi a friend because of it. And I'm not entirely pulling this idea that Ace was projecting Taylor onto Levi out of my ass, either.

Ace: dark blue/purple (reasoning: refuses to provide reasoning)

When we first got this answer, most people assumed this was referring to Levi, but I honestly think it is more likely that this is referring to Taylor. But those colors are still part of Levi's design, which automatically sets up a parallel between both Levi and Taylor Ace projected his relationship and the memory of Taylor onto a man he barely knew, and when that man lost his patience with him, his fantasy was swiftly kicked with the steel-toed shoe of reality. Hell, Ace's reaction after Levi snapped at him may had been due to his illusion of safety crumbling beneath him, but going down the road of this theory, Levi snapping at him might've been the first time Ace truly saw Levi and not Taylor. He had been giving this man a script and a role to play, and Levi responded by tearing up the paper and telling him to fuck off. In a sense, you could say that in that moment, Ace lost Taylor a second time.

Since I don't think Ace is going to be the killer as he was knocked out and thus did not have any knowledge of the murder mechanism (at least not including the theory that he tried to kill himself, which... Is a possibility, but I don't think that's the case). And if he does live past his chapter, I honestly think Chapter 3 will mark his breaking point. Any fantasy of Levi that he was clinging onto with his pinky has now shattered into pieces ten times over, the person who tried to kill him is still alive and for all he knows, could do it again whenever the hell they want to and people will take their side over his own. Next to no one in the cast likes him and they make that explicitly clear, and worse of all, he will still be trapped in this godforsaken...whatever facility this place is meant to be. So to cap off this section that got way too long, Ace Trauma Dump is on my Chapter 3 bingo card, and if we get to see Taylor and his design includes dark blue and purple I will actually become spaghettified. Please survive Ace, you are finally starting to become not C-Tier

Hu and Veronika

Lumping these two together because I have about the same amount to say about both of them and their secrets were revealed together. Hu's secret is the Hopeless Child one, and Veronika's is the Self Harm one. I think after CH2 Part 1 most of us predicted as such, but it's still very satisfying to be right. What I'm more interested is this supposed pact that they made off-screen. I have to assume that Veronika went to Hu pretty quickly to reveal her secret to her given her general disinterest in topics of suicide and self harm. So I'd wager this pact was probably made at around CH2-5. Not that that really tells us much about the actual conversation, but it's nice to have a time-frame for reference.

I don't expect the actual conversation to be shown because from what we currently have it doesn't really add much of anything, but it would definitely be cool.

(x) Hu: I've been quite selfish this whole time, keeping my secret because I didn't want you all to think less of me...

I've said this before in this post, but I absolutely believe that David eventually coaxed and pressured Hu into revealing her secret to him, as well as why she kept it for so long. And I also think David implanted, or I guess more accurately watered the seed in Hu's head that she was inherently selfish for not sharing her secret. That, I think we would benefit from a flashback, but maybe I'm just biased because I desperately want Hu lore. Please DT-Dev, I'm on my knees Hmm... what else?

(x) Veronika: After all, my own so-called secret isn't even the worst thing I've done. Isn't that so utterly disappointing for this motive?

Oh yeah there's that. What the fuck, Veronika? Like, I feel like this is something I should've expected this, but for some reason I didn't. I'll be honest here, I really have nothing right now. But whatever Veronika is referring to here, I feel like it has something to do with her 'dearest friend' mentioned in the CH2 Q&A (who's name is Alyssa Belyaeva.) What Veronika actually did? I do not have the slightest clue, you can never know with this girl. But no matter what she did, I will probably love her even more for it. Glad that DT-Dev seems to agree with the precedence of supporting women's wrongs.

Teruko

...So I'm glad to see we're all in agreement that that is not her fucking secret. I mean, I'm sure it applies to her. She is an orphan, her parents are out of the picture, and though we don't know the whereabouts of her brother and neither does she, she most likely assumes he's dead as well. But honestly, given the fact that again this is not her fucking secret, I'm starting to wonder if that's really the case... Can Teacher Tawaki theory still live on? I'll save that for another post.

Anyway what was I talking about? Oh yeah, that is not her fucking secret.

And this little bitch knows that for a fact.

I won't go too deep into this because there have already been people discussing it better than I could, but this silent agreement the two of them have to not share Teruko's true secret is so palpable and interesting to me. David knows that Teruko's secret isn't that, but for whatever reason, he is keeping his mouth shut. And he just gives Teruko that shit-eating smirk. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Teruvid? I fucking love Teruvid. But yeah, I still think 100% that Teruko's secret is that the killing game is all her fault. It just does not make sense for Xander and Min's secrets to belong to anyone other than each other as they are dead. And in general it just makes sense for Teruko's character and her role in the story. And I can't help but feel like Teruko's actual secret will be revealed at the end of the Chapter.

Eden

... I mean. Do I really need to say more? I swear I made this exact joke in the previous thoughts post, but I can't help it. It applies perfectly to this CG. When this CG, this fucking JUMPSCARE of a CG, popped up on my screen, I'm pretty sure I ran around in a circle screaming in my room for a total of ten minutes. The first of two times I would do that during this masterfully crafted scene. I want to think of some kind of insightful analysis, but the truth is basically in your face. Eden was the one who gouged out Xander's eye. Why did she do it? Where does this fit into the overall lore? I DON'T FUCKING KNOW What the fuck am I supposed to say? This CG is basically all we have, and we'll definitely have to wait for more information. Especially since Eden is totally the culprit, but we'll get to that in the predictions section. (yeah if you can't tell my writing juice is starting to run out, but if I get this out any later than today I will kill myself)

David

(...for a scumbag, he's kinda cute.) So first of all, David is slowly becoming the funniest character in the cast in my opinion, which is a huge achievement in a cast full of very funny characters. And in general I think as a character he perfectly captures DRDT's general tone of half-and-half both silliness and angst, like yin and yang. Secondly though, the big thing that David did in this chapter (besides keeping Teruko's secret and being funny) is lying to Eden about the rest of the conversation he had with Arei. Ultimately, I think David himself saw that action as a good deed.

Think of it from his perspective: This is a man who has had hope and change presented to him on a silver platter multiple times, and then had it violently ripped away from him. And the most recent example of that, Arei, presented him with a better future and the possibility of change only to be killed upon trying to act on said change. If he told Eden that Arei still had hope, that she still wanted to change, it would aspire Eden with that same hope that in his eyes is destined to crash down on her. So instead of inflicting that same pain onto her, he instead chose to say nothing at all Maybe I'm giving David too much credit, what he did was still at the end of the day, incredibly dickish. But that interpretation is what makes the most sense to me personally. That's all I really have to say in regards to David... So, let's move onto what was, in my opinion, the star of this week's episode.

Arei

Arei Nageishi.... Ohhhh save me Arei Nageishi.... Arei was already one of my favorite characters in the cast due to her personality, design, voice acting, and most of all the character development she had throughout the course of Chapter 2. But this episode, this scene... It cemented her a well-earned spot in my top four, sitting only behind Whit, Teruko, and David.

The flashback scene of Arei and David in this episode is honestly up there with some of the best scenes in the whole show to me, almost solely because of how it caps off Arei as a character postmortem, and the story that she, along with Chapter 2 as a whole, is meant to tell. This whole chapter has been themed around the idea of what classifies a good person, and this flashback scene provides such a great payoff to that theme and it is everything I could've ever wished for. The message I got from Arei's story is that, ultimately, the idea of a "Good Person" and a "Bad Person" are nothing more than just that. Ideas. And in being ideas, they are above anything else, arbitrary, subjective, and at the end of the day, incredibly meaningless when it comes to discussing actual human beings. Insistence on categorizing yourself and the people around you into boxes of "pure saint that can do no wrong" and "irredeemable demon who will burn in the pits of hell" is a fast track to viewing a complicated, colorful world into a few shades of black and white. That's how David views the world, and has viewed the world probably for years. And I'm going to be honest and say that I think before being confronted with the truth of David's actions, Arei was heading right down the same path that he had headed.

(x) Arei: Of course I wanted to change myself. Who wants to be a grab-bag of negative personality traits? There's not even anything positive you could say about me. Arei: Still, for the longest time, I thought it was stupid to even try. I'm rotten to the core, and I might as well be a different species from saints like Eden and you. Arei: A pig never hopes to grow up into a human, because it knows that such a metamorphosis is impossible.

And this is the line that really, really makes me think that. She calls David and Eden saints because (up until this moment) she viewed both of them as the ideal of what makes a good person, similar to how David views Xander. And on the contrast, claims herself to be rotten to the core, ontologically evil with no redemption in sight. She's even performing David's habit of self-dehumanization, likening herself to a pig in the same way David likens himself to a cat in the LGI video, which goes to show how this mindset of black-and-white is, above all else, a dehumanizing view on the human race that relegates people into cardboard boxes with the flaps taped shut. If she didn't find out the truth of David's actions, I am confident that she would've done down the same path that he did, becoming convinced that she will be a terrible person until the day she dies because she cannot reach this worthless standard of a good person that she has set up in her head. But we know that's not how it goes. Arei does realize that the man she once thought of as a saint might be, in his words, a lying manipulative scumbaggy piece of shit. And upon realizing that, the second half of the message unlocks itself. There is no such thing as irredeemability.

Change is a part of being human. Humans are not built to run in a hamster wheel for the rest of their days, reliving their mistakes over and over again wallowing in their self-hatred and guilt. Eventually, they have to get off the wheel and start taking the steps necessary to grow, change, develop and flourish to properly better themselves. (This applies to yourself just as much as it applies to the worst, most depraved individual you know by the way) The alternative is living in a four-by-four black box of self-loathing and relentless stagnancy, which is not productive for the person or the people they've hurt. It is only when you reject these black-and-white categories of "Good Person" and "Bad Person" and accept that no matter what you've done, you're capable of becoming better, that you can achieve true growth and change. The way this message was executed, especially through a character that dies before the halfway point of the story, is something that I marvel at as an aspiring storyteller. DRDT's beating heart will always be its character writing, and this scene is one of the primary examples of that. Thank you, DT-Dev, for making Arei Nageishi and the rest of your amazing cast of characters. :D

Extra Thoughts !!! - FURUYA FANDOM (me) THE TRACK PLAYED LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO!!! - I am very excited to find out more about Nico's attempted murder given all of the questions surrounding it. If the method of murder really was replicated, and Nico wasn't the culprit themself, you guys should take a wild guess who that implicates. (this is probably obvious by this point, but I really don't believe in the theories that suggest that someone other than Nico was responsible for Ace's attempted demise, be it Hu or Ace himself. I feel like it doesn't line up with the current narrative direction that Nico seems to be going in, the physical evidence of them stealing the turpentine, and...I'm gonna be honest, I just don't like it lmao. I'm sure DT-Dev would do it well, but just as a premise I do not favor it. Nico's attempted murder + subsequent regret from it felt like such a big moment in the chapter's narrative in relation to the themes of All That Glitters and the cast revealing sides to themself that weren't as prevalent before, as well as the themes of change and moving on from the past littered all throughout the chapter. I think if Nico's attempted murder was responsible by anyone but Nico, it would just dampen the impact of their overall story for me. That's just me though.) - WE FINALLY GOT ANOTHER NONSTOP DEBATE LETS GO BOYS!!! Nonstop debates I MISSED you - "Hey why does Whit know so much about hangi--" Look. This man is so unbelievably suspicious in every single way that for the sake of my sanity, I'm just gonna assume DT-Dev chose a random character to give the hanging explanation. It is the only way I will survive this chapter - But hey, at least we got this

- As always, I adore the new sprites we got this episode, especially Ace's new ones. It's probably the first sprite of his that actually appears emotionally vulnerable when he's not bleeding profusely from the neck. And of course, I loved David's shit-eating grin towards Teruko, I hope he never changes. - Speaking of Teruko, us getting Tutor Teruko was lovely. She is perfect, she is a little bit of everything all of the time.

(x) Whit: If you're so inclined to complain, Sir Light Pollution, why don't you try and think of some good evidence? Charles: Light pollution? Whit: You know… Cuz he had stars, and now he doesn't, and light pollution makes stars disappear… or… or… something….. Charles: I am truly impressed…by how bad that was.

- I love these dorks so much. I can tell DT-Dev has a lot of fun writing them.

- Teronika Consent animation! I guess after Acevi's Soap Opera, DT-Dev decided to feed the yuri crowd as well. Love it when we get to see those little sprite animations, too.

Predictions for CH2-14 - The episode is 40 minutes long, the longest episode we have had so far. (40 minutes of DRDT content... I'm excited just thinking about it!) Because of that, I think I will just start with my biggest prediction: I think we're getting the culprit reveal this chapter. I don't think that just because of the length either. When you really look at it, we have basically used every piece of evidence at least once with the exception of three: - The conditions of the gym (which I assume will be discussed next) - The scuffs on the ground - The ball of starchy clothes All three of those pieces of evidence I think can definitely be cleared up in the span of 40 minutes, especially since full focus is now on the murder case. I don't necessarily think the trial will end in this episode, but I think we have at least one more trial episode to go before the post-trial + execution + ending of the chapter. - And as the culprit reveal is approaching, I have formulated a tier list of who I think is least - most likely to be Arei's culprit. I will provide my reasoning for each.

No. 17/16 - Xander Matthews + Min Jeung I mean, what it says on the tin. They're dead, and thus couldn't had committed the murder. No. 15/14 - MonoTV + Arei Nageishi There are explicit rules against them being the culprit. Rule 8 and Rule 11 in particular. No. 13 - Teruko Tawaki She is the protagonist. Didn't stop Kaede, but I highly doubt that's where DT-Dev is going. No. 12 - David Chiem Other than the previous five who I've all disqualified from being the culprit, David is probably the character I suspect the least. He has an alibi for the time of the murder, getting breakfast with J and Veronika, and thematically...well, he's basically being set up as the antagonist. I don't think we'll be rid of him this early lmao. No. 11 - Charles Cuevas Charles has a fear of blood and dead bodies, and though I wouldn't say that completely disqualifies him from becoming a culprit in the future, in a case like this with such a complicated mechanism like this where he'd have to be in very close proximity with the body at all times? I highly doubt it. He also has an alibi for the fish (He was with Whit). No. 10 - J Rosales J both has an alibi for the fish (Arturo following her around), and an alibi for the morning (getting breakfast with David and Veronika), and both of those alibis can be confirmed. I don't think she did this. No. 9 - Veronika Grebenshchikova I'll be honest, I really don't see Veronika committing a murder at all. She clearly wants to see this through to the end, and killing someone would come with the risk of her being executed, which I don't think she would see as a satisfying conclusion to her story. That, combined with the fact that she has an alibi for the fish (bothering Teruko) and an alibi for the murder (getting breakfast with David and J) makes me think she didn't do this. No. 8 - Nico Hakobyan You might think it's weird to place Nico this low on the overall tier-list despite them not having an alibi for the fishes, and their morning alibi being...somewhat flimsy but I'll get to that with Hu, but here's my logic. Nico was driven to attempt murder from very specific circumstances. That being, Ace's relentless bullying and abuse towards them. Nico has said before that they'd understand murder if the perpetrator didn't like the victim, and while I don't think they exactly liked Arei, I do not think they harbor the same animosity towards her as they did towards Ace. I truly believe that Nico would only ever resort to murder if they truly despised the person in question and saw no other solution. So that is why I feel comfortable placing Nico at eighth. No. 7 - Hu Jing Hu is also another character that I think some will be surprised to see so low, but I don't think this was her doing. She has an alibi for the fish (cleaning up with Eden), and though again her alibi in the morning is very flimsy (having tea with Nico in the morning,) I do believe she is telling the truth because if she was lying about her alibi, I think the brutally blunt Nico would call her out for it. I'm sorry, I just simply cannot imagine Nico letting that shit slide regardless of how many theories I read. Not to mention I can't really think of a motive for why she would kill Arei specifically when, if she really did want to kill someone, Ace is right there. No. 6 - Whit Young Whit is supremely fucking suspicious and a lot of his behavior in the trial is literal shenanigans, even more so given the fact that he doesn't have an alibi for the actual murder. But he does have an alibi for the fish (again, he was with Charles) which is the main sticking point of Whit!Culprit. His other sticking point is his lack of motive, both in terms of the secrets and Arei specifically. I don't know like- just look at this man, do you think he did this? /joke

No. 5 - Levi Fontana The number one suspect in the fandom for a while, and he's only at number five. He ultimately lacks an alibi for the morning, and his alibi for the fish was that he was doing his laundry... With no one else around. Shady as fuck. But I think given his principles discussed in this episode ("it is a good thing to make sure someone else doesn't die"), and the genuine desire to be helpful he has expressed throughout this trial, I think him being the culprit is unlikely. That's why I was adamant on him being an accomplice for a while because I still thought he had some role in the case, but oh well. No. 4 - Rose Lacroix I'll be honest, Rose is only this high because her alibi situation is worse than Whit's and Levi's combined. Both of her alibis are that she was sleeping in her room, which cannot be proven and can be very easily lied about. But other than that, I don't think she is the culprit. I think this case requires too many physical maneuvers for someone as lethargic as Rose to pull off successfully, and if she were the culprit I don't think she'd bring attention to the missing grippy tape at all. No. 3 - Arturo Giles Arturo does have an alibi for the fish (following J), but does not have an alibi for the morning. Unlike basically every other character here, something else that puts Arturo above them is that he was capable of overhearing Eden and Arei's conversation and forging the note. But there is also a discrepancy present that is also present with every character here, and that is the fact that Arturo did not witness Nico's attempted murder or the condition of Ace's body and the gym, so there was no way he could've replicated the murder method used for Ace on Arei. So though logistically he is a more likely possibility, I don't think it was him. No. 2 - Ace Markey Ace, to me anyway, is the second most likely candidate to being Arei's killer. He does not have an alibi for the fish and could've very easily grabbed them after David and Arei left the Relaxation Room, and he doesn't have an alibi for the morning either. He has a very clear motivation for taking a chance at killing someone, of "someone literally sliced my neck open not two days ago and I know I am not safe here I need to get the fuck out." If you choose to factor in strength, Ace is one of the strongest members of the cast and would be more than capable of the physical maneuvers made to kill Arei. Though I personally don't believe in this theory, if you think Ace attempted suicide instead of Nico trying to kill him, he has the murder method down lock too because he tried to commit it onto himself. He has been shown to be nosy, so it is not improbable that he listened in on Arei and Eden's conversation. And lastly, he is one of the only two suspects who was capable of stealing the grippy tape that was used in the murder. All of the evidence is practically stacked against him... But there are a couple of problems. One, if you believe that Nico did try to kill Ace, than the point about Ace knowing the exact method of death goes out the window. He was knocked out by the turpentine, and woke up in extreme pain in a blinding fury of rage and bloodlust, I don't think his surroundings would be the first thing on his mind. But a much bigger issue we have is the question of... Why would Ace take the tape? Following this theory, his murder plan wouldn't had started until the day after Nico's attempt on his life, it would make no sense for him to take the tape then. These two sticking points are why, though a likely candidate, I do not think Ace is the culprit. That award of main suspect goes to...

No. 1 - Eden Tobisa Yeah, if you've spent any time on this account you probably know I'm an Eden!Culprit truther. There are many well-written posts about this theory that I'm sure you've seen so I'll try to keep this short, but though the theory does have a few flaws to it, the big one being Eden's alibi for the fish that she was cleaning up with Hu, I think Eden being the culprit makes the most sense from an evidence, thematic, and motive standpoint. I know some people have dropped the theory upon the fork reveal, but DRDT is not unbeknownst to killing off characters with certain mysteries left unanswered. That is basically all for my predictions related to the culprit, but I still have some predictions for the overall episode. - Nico's gonna get placed in the hot-seat, obviously, which will definitely cause a reaction out of both Hu and Ace. And I honestly feel like the two of them are going to keep interrupting Nico until they eventually snap. And I hope that happens honestly because unless you count the "I'll kill you" line, we have yet to see or hear Nico when they're actually angry angry. Nico obviously doesn't like conflict, but they might have to get over that if they actually want to defend themself knowing the other two. - I'm still holding out hope we'll get a Random Guess segment lmao - And lastly: I need Whit to break the forth wall at least once I didn't put that on the bingo card for fucking NOTHING

Conclusion I'm gonna be completely honest, I do not have the energy to write anymore and I just want this out lmao. But overall, this was one of my favorite episodes in the whole series. I loved the Levi and Ace stuff, I like that we now have all the secrets, and like I said, the scene with Arei is probably one of my favorite scenes in the show. CH2-14 is going to be a wild ride I can already tell, and if we do find out who the killer is, you will see me screaming. Regardless of if it's Eden lmao.

UPDATED SWEAR STATISTICS CH2-13

UPDATED BINGO CARD

[yanderes-galore]

Underfell AU Sans romantic concept please?

Sure! I tried to keep him as close to canon as possible while also putting in some of my HCs. He's actually really fun to write :) I hope you like my take... sorry if you don't. There's a gap in the middle due to Tumblr's formatting.

Yandere! Underfell! Sans Concept

Pairing: Romantic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Violence, Overprotective behavior, Violence, Anxiety, I wanted to make him more possessive (I might in the future but I never thought of it until now), Denial, Kidnapping, Mentioned possible mind break/Murder, Isolation, Stalking, Some jealousy mentioned near the end, Some manipulation, Forced companion/relationship.

I feel Fell! Sans has the possibility of being a terrifying yandere.

He's one of the strongest monsters in the AU and his powers tend to fluctuate due to his emotions.

He's also incredibly stressed all the time from what I've read.

Fell! Sans cares for his brother, they both care for each other actually.

They both want to portray themselves as cool to one another and others.

Fell! Sans is still lazy but also sarcastic.

I know Fell! Papyrus doesn't enjoy killing humans but does it for "sport" to help the guilt, he also does it due to being part of the Royal Guard to protect Sans from Asgore.

However I'm unsure how Sans feels about killing humans according to canon.

I'd assume he'd be indifferent but supports it as it's the law of the land and the job Papyrus is given.

Sans’ obsession was meant to be kept vague however I feel with a human it feels more natural to me?

Maybe you take the role of Frisk or simply aid them.

Either way I'm defaulting Darling to human.

Of course, naturally as the world goes, you end up having to defend yourself against Sans and Papyrus.

Primarily against Papyrus as Sans probably doesn't bother fighting.

Although… you can tell there's some strength there.

Due to what I've read, he radiates power due to his stress.

It's supposedly seen in his jacket at times.

So you have an idea that Sans could easily kill, but are thankful he just chooses not to.

Fell! Sans certainly has an obvious edge in appearance and personality. 

He's very sarcastic with you but in a way you can tell he means well when you befriend him and his brother.

In fact when he forms an attachment he may even show some anxiety about you meeting the other monsters.

You are aware of how easily you could just… die, right?

Even with a flower to guide you, he hopes you can defend yourself and not just talk things out.

Although he is thankful you managed to appeal to his brother enough to spare him.

He definitely tries to act calm in general, especially around you, although there's times he slips.

I imagine Fell! Sans fidgets due to… well… the sheer amount of stress he's under.

Really, who isn't in the Underground?

With Asgore in charge there's strict rules.

Rules that could easily end you as a human.

Sans tries to tell himself to not get attached to you.

He'd be in denial about his obsession.

It's all because he's scared to lose you.

Part of him wants to protect you, yet the other part suggests just letting you go.

The ideas he has tears him apart internally, which Papyrus can definitely tell.

Sans keeps fidgeting and his powers keep fluctuating when he thinks about how he can lose you.

Fanon tends to depict Sans as overly sadistic, while I agree he has aggressive tendencies like everyone in this AU, I don't think he's over the top.

I feel Fell! Sans is more like an anxious and stressed mess more than anything.

Which for him can make him volatile as his powers can be controlled, but are emotion based.

His pent up emotions no doubt drives his obsession.

While Papyrus protects Sans from Asgore, Sans feels like he has to protect you from not only Asgore… but everyone not him or his brother.

While you continue your journey, Sans isn't far behind.

He still has similar powers to his classic counterpart, which means teleportation.

Every area you enter, he's somewhere there.

I never mentioned this in the original draft but I do feel Sans would get possessive/jealous.

It's just not mentioned much in this concept since he's more consumed by anxiety than anything.

But in a way he does feel you two belong together, one way or another.

He would definitely murder, but he has to hold himself back due to his powers.

Which, yes, I assume would mean if he's jealous or enraged enough with you talking to others... his powers may flare.

Papyrus is against this but this human clearly means a lot to Sans.

Admittedly… Papyrus would miss you if you died too.

So he understands where Sans is coming from, it mirrors the care Papyrus has for Sans.

But Sans seems more… intense?

Sans could just feel something akin to close friendship or something more.

Honestly, if a monster nearly killed you, he'd probably snap and use his powers.

Which is why he prefers to just… stick around you everywhere.

Admittedly Sans likes it when you laugh.

He tries not to show it but you mean a lot to him.

The reason he tries to hide it as it shows vulnerability.

But you seem to enjoy his Knock Knock jokes and his company….

You like it because he's more “friendly” than the others.

Honestly, that gives him a bit of pride while also striking vulnerability in him.

Sans really keeps trying to tell himself his obsession is a vulnerability.

He shouldn't be this attached to you.

Yet now he really can't just let you go.

As a result I imagine he'd prevent you from meeting Asgore.

Sure, okay, you may have befriended most of the monsters here…

But not him…

Please not him…

He'll kill you and Sans will snap.

Scared of this he gets more fidgety.

You can probably tell even though he acts collected, he has an aura that scares you.

Sans doesn't know how to explain to you he cares about you.

He just doesn't want to lose you.

So Sans may try to manipulate you into staying with him more to avoid Asgore.

Isn't staying in Snowdin better?

Well… Papyrus may want to see you again!

Y'know… it's futile to go against Asgore, right?

Just… stay with him.

If he has to, he'll use some of his power to lock you away in his home/room.

Look, you don't get it.

Asgore nearly killed Sans before… he could and will do the same to you!

It's behind closed doors that Sans’ facade breaks.

He pulls you closer and mumbles about his fears.

He plans to keep you right here… if you try to leave, he'll know.

At this point he'll kill any monster who tries to hurt you or even goes near you.

Sans curses himself for getting so attached to a human.

However, he's given in now.

He'll keep you away from all the danger.

He'll keep you to himself.

Even if it requires others, including him, to get hurt due to his powers and rage.

[scullysflannel]

hiiii apologies if i'm sending you too many asks lol, don't feel pressured to reply right away or at all tbh, but there's this thing ive been turning over in my head about the x files that's like... so in many ways it has these conservative ideas kind of baked into the premise and format of the show. these fears of monsters and monstrous others that have to be investigated and neutralized by our heroes who are these beautiful professional looking white people. and then there's the looming fear of alien invasion that comes up in the myth episodes. so theres a lot that could and should and does feel reactionary and conservative about it. but theres also such a palpable love for the strange and unknown? the "i want to believe" poster represents this so beautifully. i think this love tends to be expressed visually rather than in words so it's kind of hard to concretely describe but i'm sure you know what i'm talking about. and then the show also relies on us the audience having an interest in the paranormal and unexplainable, not because we want to see it defeated, but for its own sake. so i guess i want to ask how you square those two ideas, that the x files has all these anxieties about weirdness but also loves and yearns for weirdness? as i said ive been kind of ruminating on this for a while and having trouble reconciling the two ideas so i'd love to hear your thoughts!

Ooh I kind of just want to give you a reading list. Have you read “In the Dark” by Brian Phillips?? It’s a Grantland essay written for the 20th anniversary in 2013. It’s my favorite piece of X-Files journalism (actually my favorite piece of entertainment journalism in general) — kind of an essential text to me. It gets into all of this. But for me I don’t feel like reconciling the tension is the goal, or that it’s even possible. The tension is the show.

Likely thing for me to say, but I think the structure of The X-Files as a procedural is a big part of how and why it moves between fear and love. Phillips describes Mulder and Scully as representatives of a doomed but still operational status quo, “figures of a weird reactionary beauty, struggling to understand and then prevent the profound transformation breaking out across their world.” I’d say that last part (prevention) is especially true of the mythology, with the monster-of-the-week episodes giving space to sometimes complicate that. 

The X-Files is traditional in its basic formula; it makes assumptions about who gets to be the hero and what kind of job they should have. There are some assumptions it doesn’t interrogate, like its default whiteness. But its critique of the government can be shockingly pointed, even if it holds itself back in later seasons by keeping Mulder and Scully in the Bureau well past the point where they should go rogue. (Not that I think the show actually could have done that.)

Does The X-Files love its boundaries or want to blow them up? Both. The appeal of a procedural is typically that it gives neat answers, so being a procedural that denies easy answers is the point, which is to say that both sides of the show are dependent on each other. The whole show is sort of an experiment in fitting some of the strangeness of Twin Peaks into a procedural. I think it’s meant to be a go-between, the same way Mulder and Scully are. 

Phillips also writes, “In this show about not knowing, the agents confronted two distinct sets of frightening unknowns. On one side was the shadow government represented by the Cigarette-Smoking Man. On the other was the evil that lurked beneath the surface of every American hamlet. Often, Mulder and Scully’s role was simply to act as interpreters between their own antagonists, rendering chaotic eruptions of small-town horror comprehensible to men in marble corridors in D.C.” I think The X-Files works like that too — interpreting between what’s regimented and what’s odd — and in that sense it has to yearn for the same things it’s afraid of. And really, I prefer the honesty of that to something more ideologically consistent. 

I always think about “Home” as an episode that sums up a lot of The X-Files’ attitude toward progress (more on this here): It isn’t immune to the romance of the myth of Mayberry, even as it’s aware that it’s a grotesque lie built on violence, and that people are committing perverse acts to hold on to it. The show allows for progress to be scary but insists that it’s not as scary as what people will do when they fear it. Weirdness on The X-Files isn’t perfectly analogous for righteous deviance only. I believe the show sees what is weird coming from all sides, past (like the Peacocks) and future, so what’s weird isn’t inherently good or meant to signify inherent goodness; it only can be good. 

One of my favorite things about The X-Files is the way it respects the integrity of doubt. (I’ve written about this! But hold off on reading if you don’t want any spoilers.) I don’t think the show could be about the bravery of questioning your beliefs without letting those old beliefs be a little bit comforting to Mulder and Scully, even the ones that turn out to be lies. There’s a great New Yorker essay by James Wolcott written in 1994, near the end of the first season. He writes that in The X-Files, the Cold War-era obsession with UFOs and alien invasion gives way to the more inward-looking fear of alien abduction: “The X-Files is the product of yuppie morbidity, a creeping sense of personal mortality.” Later on, the mythology incorporates shapeshifters and alien colonization plans, but it never commits. That’s never the emotional core of the show in the way abduction is. The core of the show is personal annihilation: the fear of death and losing loved ones, and the fear of tearing yourself apart to get to the truth.

But some of the most affecting episodes are the ones that love and yearn for the weirdness in spite of it all. Like you said, it’s always in the atmosphere and the visuals (the poster, or Mulder looking up at the stars), but I think the show puts words to it pretty often, too, like “I guess I see hope in such a possibility” in “Quagmire” and especially all of “Humbug”: “Imagine going through your whole life looking like that.” There’s so much affection for peculiarity in that episode. Still, I love that ultimately it’s just a fact: “Nature abhors normality.” It doesn’t actually matter whether you like what’s “freakish” or not; it’s just nature. I think all of The X-Files kind of evens out into a neutral judgment like that, which is nice and even kind of radical in its own way. What is weird doesn’t have to be beautiful and desirable; it just has to be seen and accepted.

[ultraflavour]

7 Fantasy RPGs to fill the D&D-shaped Hole in your Life

So. It finally happened. Either Hasbro, or Wizards of the Coast, or someone else associated with Dungeons & Dragons finally did something so fucked-up that you've decided to swear it off entirely.

The problem is that for decades, there has been one obvious answer to the question of "What game with Dwarves, Longswords and Wizards in it should we play" and that was D&D, every time. Even their strongest rival in the past couple of decades was just an older version of D&D with a spit shine.

Now you find yourself adrift in a sea of possibility, with no signposts. There are names you've heard, but you have no idea which ones you'd actually be interested in, because you had always just assumed you'd be playing D&D until the heat death of the universe.

So let's take a look at a few games that want to fill that D&D-shaped hole in your gaming life, and examine what they're offering.

Disclaimer: I'm not covering the entire breadth and depth of the TTRPG industry here. I'm specifically going to be covering Fantasy RPGs that should appeal to D&D fans here. So if I didn't cover your favourite indie RPG, sorry. But there has to be a "First step" outside of the D&D bubble, and each of these games should fulfill that need.

The Other "Kitchen Sink" Game: Pathfinder

If you can't bring yourself to keep playing the corporate game, but you still want something that offers as close to that gameplay experience as you can possibly get, your best bet at the time of this writing is probably Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

I say this as someone who very much did not vibe with the original Pathfinder, or its "D&D in space" sister product Starfinder. But at this point, I'd absolutely tell a newcomer to jump into Pathfinder 2E before I recommended they buy any WotC product.

To their credit, the 2nd Edition of Pathfinder does much more to, uh, find its own path by diverging from 3.5 edition and implementing new systems that take it into uncharted territory. The "Two Actions Per Turn" paradigm is often cited by its proponents as being a meaningful improvement over the 5E way of doing things.

The "TTJRPG": Fabula Ultima

One of the biggest success stories of the early 20's was Fabula Ultima from NEED Games in Italy. It came seemingly out of nowhere to win the ENnie Gold Award for Best Game of 2023. Since then it's become notoriously difficult to find in print, though it's still freely available as a PDF.

Fabula Ultima is a "TTJRPG," modelled after Japanese fantasy video games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, Breath of Fire, etc. While it's firmly planted in the Fantasy genre, its gameplay will also very recognizable to fans of those types of games.

The major benefit of this conceit is that you can probably already picture how combat in FabUlt works in your mind: Two rows of characters take turns jumping and slashing at each other, or casting magical spells to harm, heal, or apply status conditions. There's no concept of "Spacing," but the game still manages to be mechanically intricate with lots of varied class abilities and status effects to apply.

D&D refugees looking for a game where you simply pick a class and fight some monsters, but aren't too particular about how they do that, will find a lot to love here. FabUlt leans much more heavily on storytelling mechanics than D&D does, so players who've been looking for something a bit more "Theater of the Mind" should be well taken care of here.

Final Fantasy Lancer: ICON

Like Fabula Ultima, ICON is a TTRPG that takes heavy inspiration from JRPGs, specifically tactical games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. It's from Massif Press, who also authored the surprise indie Mech combat hit Lancer.

And like Lancer, ICON is a game with two very distinct rulesets: Outside of combat, a "Fiction-first" narrative system inspired heavily by Blades in the Dark; In combat, a grid-based tactical skirmish game reminiscent of D&D 4th Edition. All backed by the gorgeous art of its author Tom Parkinson-Morgan, who also writes and illustrates the comic Kill Six Billion Demons.

ICON separates its "narrative" class system from its combat class system, giving each character two distinct character sheets that come into play at different times. Because those two systems don't have to cross over very much, each can be as intricate or as rules-light as it needs to be to promote the type of gameplay most appropriate for the situation.

The Old-School Gateway Drug: Shadowdark

If you ever took a few steps outside of the walled garden that is D&D in the past few years, you will likely have read or heard of the OSR, or "Old-School Revival/Renaissance." Proponents of the OSR are players who yearn for an older style of Dungeon Crawling Survival Horror game that hearkens back to the early days of D&D, before the players became akin to superheroes.

Shadowdark aims to be a game that bridges the gap to that style of gameplay, without being totally unfamiliar to players who only ever learned 5th Edition mechanics. It's "Old-School gaming, modernized."

Aside from simply being a modern take on a D20 fantasy game, it freshens up gameplay using a mechanic called the "Torch Timer." It turns light into a resource that dwindles in real time. This serves to elevate the tension of the game as every minute that passes is one less minute of light on your torch. And when the torches run out, well... You can probably guess what happens next.

5th Edition with the Serial Numbers Filed Off: Tales of the Valiant

Tell me if you've heard this one before: Wizards of the Coast introduces sweeping changes to its "Open" license model, leading existing 3rd-party content creators to create their own version of an older ruleset to protect the viability of their backlog. It happened in the past, but what are the chances that happens a second time? Ha!

Well... It did happen again. This time, playing the role of the "Paizo" in this scenario is Kobold Press, who loudly declared that they were "Raising the Black Flag" in response. In order to ensure that there would always be a "Core Fantasy" ruleset that would remain compatible with their content, they announced Tales of the Valiant, which would essentially duplicate the 5th Edition ruleset with a bit of a spit shine, in much the same way that Pathfinder did for 3.5 Edition.

Tales of the Valiant will be the game for the D&D player who just wanted a rules refresh of 5th Edition, but also doesn't want to keep throwing money at the corporate hegemony. It should end up being "The 5E you can feel good about supporting," and that matters right now.

Matt Colville's Big Bet: The MCDM RPG

Kobold Press was not the only publisher of third-party D&D content to have a strong reaction to the OGL fiasco. Unlike Tales of the Valiant however, Matt Colville's response was to announce a fully new Fantasy RPG system, with no expectation of backwards compatibility with any edition of D&D.

MCDM's sights are firmly set on the "Post-Kitchen-Sink" future, and to that end their game is explicitly not trying to be the one game for every possible playstyle. It's Tactical, meaning you'll need a grid to play it on, and it's Heroic, meaning characters should feel powerful, and not like they're constantly one critical hit or failed trap-sensing check away from being decapitated.

This approach might seem like a massive risk considering how insanely powerful 5th Edition became at its peak. But a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign backed by over 30,000 people shows that there is at least an appetite for something new, and that there is a like-minded community of players ready and waiting to join you.

The Critical Role Game: Daggerheart

If the Kobold Press announcement was a shot across the bow, and the MCDM crowdfunder was a bomb dropped, then Daggerheart is a full-blown asteroid, streaking straight towards Wizards of the Coast HQ.

Daggerheart is an original Fantasy RPG from Darrington Press, the publishing arm of the Critical Role media company. That by itself should mean something considering how important CR is to the D&D brand, but there's more to talk about here. Though it superficially resembles D&D in a lot of ways, it has some extremely important differences. Namely, its use of "Powered by the Apocalypse" mechanics such as "Fail Forward" dice rolling and "No Initiative" combat.

While "PbtA" has become somewhat of a loaded term in the D&D community, Critical Role has an opportunity to overcome that stigma with the sheer force of their platform. I've made this case already in the past, but if they were to use their power to do for themselves what they did for 5th Edition, it would be the most significant threat to the Hasbro Hegemony to emerge since Pathfinder. Let alone taking just a slice, Daggerheart has the long-term potential to take the whole damn pie.

And more!

The games I've listed here are all theoretically capable of replacing the Corpo game as your "go-to" long-term game. Not all of them are fully playable as of this writing, but they all represent one possible future for the "Sword and Sorcery" RPG genre.

There are of course a whole plethora of other games out there beyond the limited scope of "Medieval Fantasy" that are just as valid and just as viable, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous.

If you're looking for something explicitly tactical like a miniature skirmish game, but still in the RPG genre, and you're willing to expand your choice of genre beyond Euro-centric Medieval Fantasy even further beyond ICON, you might be interested in Gubat Banwa or the aforementioned Lancer.

If you want a game that promotes a slightly more streamlined, less mechanically-intricate approach to combat while still giving you tons of monsters to kick the shit out of, you might want to check out the "Illuminated by LUMEN" family of games inspired by the games LIGHT and NOVA from Gila RPGs. It might even inspire you to write your own RPG!

If you're more interested in the Old-School Renaissance, you might want to check out Forbidden Lands, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Old-School Essentials, or MÖRK BORG.

If you like the idea of "Old-School Roleplaying" but are also willing to step outside of the fantasy genre into Sci-fi territory, you might be interested in Stars Without Number, its Cyberpunk sister product Cities Without Number, or Mothership.

Finally, if you just want a game that focuses on telling the best story rather than mindlessly killing monsters and acquiring loot, you might want to check out Blades in the Dark, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Girl by Moonlight, Coyote and Crow, and many more Fiction-First games in the Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark genres.

But most importantly: Just play more games! Don't just buy them, play them! The point of this whole exercise is to replace the monopoly with a plurality, for the sake of the health of the tabletop gaming industry.

Because the next time Hasbro lays off a bunch of WotC employees, there should be a much stronger, more diverse industry for them to land in feet-first. We should all want for the people who build the games we love to feel safe in their career choice. Not just for the sake of the ones who are already there, but for future prospective designers and artists who want to make their mark.

It should be viable to be a tabletop game designer outside of just making more D&D stuff forever, because as we've seen, it's not safe to assume that we can all just keep doing the same thing we've been doing and not get bit on the ass by it.

If we want that future, we have to take it into our own hands and build it ourselves. But if there's one group of people that knows about building something very big from very little, it's TTRPG players.

[canmom]

re gaza fundraisers situation

i don't think most of these escape-from-gaza fundraisers going around are likely to be scams. there probably are some scammers who jumped on the situation opportunistically, but there's less convoluted ways to make a buck. similarly, i think the people who are going to the effort of trying to verify them fit the profile of people who stepped up to do a difficult and quite thankless task and got in over their heads. why are there so many fundraisers? well if i was stuck in a refugee camp during a genocide and i word got around that there was a website with generous strangers who might pay for me to leave, i would probably give it a shot. so would you, I suspect. "elaborate conspiracy by porn bot operators to scam tumblr users, setting up a spurious system of 'vetting' to justify their scam" doesn't seem particularly parsimonious as a conclusion to jump to (the porn bot operators are in general just using tumblr as a free hosting service for seo shit), but if you fixate on the idea that's what's going on, and feel like you're the smart one for not falling foot it, there's very little evidence that can't be framed as part of the conspiracy. so a few people i sorta know over in the rat sphere threw out this accusation and now it's a whole furore.

even beyond that, though, there's plenty about the situation that is, through no fault of these gazan refugees, plain fucked. just like with e.g. trans fundraisers, with a loosely finite amount that people are likely willing to spare, you get a game of who can write the best appeal to emotion. for example, if you can point to a middle class occupation you used to have to supplant the stereotype of a poor refugee, that's effective rhetoric and maybe your fundraiser will go further. this is ugly and it shouldn't work like that, but that's the shape of it.

thus, the refugees end up looking at a wall of potentially hostile strangers and trying everything strat they can think to persuade them to part with money, while the tumblr user side is being constantly presented stories of strangers in pain; some of them end up trying to purchase satisfaction of moral principle, relief from feelings of complicity, etc etc. there are some personal connections between the two, but for most, that's the extent of the interaction. unfortunately, where they're continually confronted with a lot of people in very similar situations of misery, people (without some personal stake or connection keeping them invested) are likely to start mentally grouping everyone into one abstract figure of 'palestinian refugee', tuning out, finding excuses to dismiss them, etc etc. so on the refugee side, it ends up a very finite-sum game. and scammers just make that worse by mixing in an extra element of 'FUD'.

and worse, even if everything works out, mostly this money is going straight into the pockets of Egyptian border guards who set the (essentially) bribe price for putting someone on the exit list. similar to when the cops lock someone up and you have to raise bail, they can set that price to whatever they think they can get away with. there is absolutely no reason why it should cost $10,000 a head to cross from one side of a wall to another, except that the circumstances of this genocide produce an opportunity to fleece refugees - and anyone who decides to help them.

but if my friends were in Gaza you can bet I'd ask anyone who'd listen to pay those guards off for me. and if they refused, it would fucking hurt - that's my friend, they could die. a life saved is a life saved.

in general we are much more likely to move for a friend we have a personal connection to, or even a stranger who we perceive as relatable, than a total stranger, no matter how dire that stranger's situation. on some level this really feels wrong like, to each according to their need, right? somehow though applying the cold calculus of lives saved per dollar feels utterly cracked. if you're not filthy rich, there isn't really a good course to follow, because it's just a bad situation.

this isn't advice. there are always more people in need than you are capable of helping - the situation in Sudan is very dire as well for example, I've made online friends with a young gay guy at another refugee camp over there, and there's not much I can do to get him and his friends out except hope that he has some luck with certain Canadian charities. but every city on earth has people ending up destitute, right outside your door. helping someone is always a gamble. ultimately the call of which person you choose to help is quite arbitrary. so re gaza, I'm personally sending a decent chunk of monthly money to unrwa and I donated to a few fundraisers, but ultimately I'm already giving nearly all of my disposable income away to specific friends who are currently depending on me, so... is that the 'right' allocation of resources? i don't know and just have to accept the decisions i made.

charity is not a relationship that brings out the best in people, in general - it is inherently unequal, and there is a sense of shame, anxiety and suspicion that surrounds the whole thing on both sides, and that tends to find escape somehow. nobody likes to feel like a mark, nobody likes to feel like a pity case, and even in situations of legitimate suffering, nobody likes the hard sell. but as long as the genocide continues (and it shows no sign of stopping), this will continue, people will need the help. i have no solution.

[mytheoristavenue]

I have seen your masterlist and (ignoring the soon top come) it needs more Leo fluff fics (read the rest multiple times already; some good freaking work)

If you don't feel like it that ist perfectly fine. I really just wanna throw something in here:

2k12 Leo ist pretty traditional so how would he be with the complete opposite as a s/o . Like "If your gotta, throw that katana" kinda vibe.

Anyhow, love your writing! Keep up the great work.

Have a lovely dayyy ok thx byyye<3

Sure, sorry for taking so long!

TMNT 2012 Leonardo x Reader - Unconventional

Summary: Leo grows to care for you, despite your lack of respect for tradition.

Warnings: Angst

If nothing else, you irritated Leo. He had spent hours arguing with Splinter, trying to appeal his decision to train you to be a kunoichi, fruitlessly, obviously. Those around the terrapin couldn't understand his distain for you. You were intelligent, out going, and determined, all traits that were well received in any other situation. In all honesty, Leo didn't understand it either.

----

"How's that lock coming, Donnie?" the leader asked his brother, a bit nervous.

"It'd be coming a lot faster if you'd quit asking about it." the tallest turtle snapped back, his tongue peaking out in concentration.

"Well, I'd love to just let you be," Leo responded rolling his eyes, only being halted by the need to defend himself from the android attacking him. "But currently I'm the only thing standing between you and the Kraang."

"So helpful." Donnie scoffed as he continued to struggle with picking the lock. He glanced over his shoulder to scan the room, finding you in the far corner, with your own set of problems. "(Y/N)! Come help me!" he shouted, instantly grabbing your attention.

"What's up?" you asked, skidding to your knees, behind the shield of Leo's shell.

"Can't get this lock open." he said, frustrated. "I need you to hold these two plates open so I can get into that control panel."

"You want me to stand here and hold this open for you? Don, I've gotta go help fight!" you argued.

As you both bickered about the importance of your time, Leo's eyes narrowed as the enemy forces suddenly drew back. From the other side of the room, a bay slowly began to open, giving an entrance to the room for a behemoth of a bot, which stomped into the room. "Um, guys? Maybe stop arguing and pick the damn lock?"

"Shit," you muttered, glancing back to see the new threat. "Donnie, I've got an idea-" You rushed to pick the last two arrows out of your quiver before plunging them into the panel, effectively securing the the plates open.

"That'll work." Donnie snickered, before getting back to it.

Now that one problem was solved, you had another entirely. Scanning the battle field, you found Mikey lying on the floor toward the center of the room, seemingly incapacitated, and Raph standing over him attempting to hold the menace off. Leo had since began to charge into combat with the droid, carving off bits of scrap metal wherever possible. And there you stood, lacking a weapon, but filled with passion to help your friends.

With little thought, you swiped Donnie's staff and back up before taking a running start and using it to vault yourself into the air. As predicted, you landed close to the monster, hanging from it's right arm. Leo's eyes widened as he watched you scale the thing as if you were climbing a tree. "What the hell are you doing?!" he shouted up at you, imagining all the ways you were going to fall off and hurt yourself. You ignored him, simply sitting at the back of the giant's neck, and doing anything you could to pull out as many parts and wires as you could.

While you did, the leader's attention shifted to the crevice that was opening with a fit of steam in it's chest, revealing a cyan glowing sphere. Donnie, now finished with the lock, turned to inform the team on his victory with guaranteeing their way out when he noticed the light, eyes wide. "Leo! That's the power cell, if you shut that off, the whole thing'll go down!" he shouted at his frozen brother, while patting himself with anything that he could throw, but turning up empty. Your ears perked hearing this. You had an idea.

"Throw one of your swords, Leo!" you called from the droid's head, dodging it's attempts to reach you. "Maybe if you throw it like a dart, you can hit the cell!"

Leo could feel his eye twitch with your interference. That's not how these tools were used and you should know that, but before he could protest, his younger brother piped up in agreeance. "Wait, that's actually not a bad idea. If you can throw it at precisely and 183 degree angle, it should be a direct hit, more than powerful enough to destroy the cell."

With reluctance, and a bit of distain for you and your ideals, Leo did as suggested, and just as predicted, the hit turned the tides of the battle in his favor.

-----

Back at the lair, after the fight had ended, and everyone's wounds were tended to, you, along with most everyone else were sitting in the living room relaxing and filling Mikey, Splinter, and April in on what had taken place. You were coated in honey glow listening to Raph regale the story, showering you, Leo, and Donnie with compliments- a rare occasion. "Oh, yeah you shoulda seen it, Mike. (Y/N) was sittin' on the back on that thing's neck just diggin' in, it was crazy!"

You modestly brushed it off as he began going into the details of Leo's finishing blow and you stood up to get a drink from the kitchen. You decided to treat yourself to some of Mikey's orange soda, pouring the off-brand liquid into a chipped glass, likely one of many that Splinter had salvaged from the trash.

"You shouldn't be drinking that, you're still in training, remember?" you jumped at Leo's stern voice, nearly dropping your drink before sighing.

"I think after the day we've had, I can cheat on my diet a little, right? Besides, you're all still in training and splinter lets you drink soda." you dismissed with a nervous laugh, hoping he'd drop the tough guy act. Sadly, he didn't.

"That's the problem with you."

"Excuse me?" you prodded, cocking an offended brow.

"You have no respect for us or our heritage or how we do things." he said flatly, crossing his arms and leering down at you, something he always did instill that he was superior.

"Heritage? Leo you're a fucking turtle. Being a ninja is separate from that. Anyone can be a ninja with the right amount of training, that's why Splinter chose to train me and April."

"You're not a ninja." he spat coldly turning to walk away. "You don't care about any of the principals that ninjutsu holds."

You felt tears prick your eyes. Why is he always so mean to you? It's so unfair, you do whatever you can think of to impress him, but he's always so disgusted with you. Sniffling you catch his arm to pull him back. "What is this really about?"

He freezes for a moment before relaxing his shoulders. "You don't do things the way they should be done, and yet you still get all the positive results. You use our tools like toys and still end up winning. It's disgraceful."

"Yeah well, my ideas kinda saved our asses today, so I guess your opinion doesn't really matter, now does it?" with that, you pushed passed him, making sure to shoulder check him on the way out of the kitchen, before sitting back down with your friends.

You pretended not to notice as he stared at you from the island, hunched over the countertop. He thought about how he treated you, usually much worse than he intended. It was hard to ignore how he was feeling, and he figured that maybe, blanketing it with hate might help. But if that's the case...why was the ache so much worse now?

Taglist:

@thelaundrybitch

[reedsofintimacy]

Hi everyone! Welcome to my bio! (It's a long one)

You can call me Reeds or Reed. Some basic facts:

💚 I am 25

💚 I am 6'4 = 193cm

💚 I am American

💚 I am ethnically Scandinavian

💚 I speak basic Français and 汉语

💚 I am a virgin 😇 I've actually never had my first kiss

💚 I wear glasses and am definitely a nerd

💚 I am straight

My tags:

#Ask Reeds - my ask responses

#ReedsPosts - my misc short posts

#ReedsWrites - my longer form writing

#ReedsIRL - photos/audio/media of me

I have a snap with the same username and am finally verified on PH! But i haven't posted anything yet.

This bio will be a bit long, so for more info on everything about me click below! 🥳

💚 POSITIONS AND ROLES 💚

I'm a top, meaning I enjoy the act of pleasuring my partner more than having my partner be focused on stimulating me. If we had to pick a position, I'd want it to be the one that feels best to her, because seeing her loving it is what thrills me, less about min-maxing my own sensations

I lean a bit subby, meaning I'd prefer my woman to be in charge and take the lead, but I can be flexible and switch. Society has (sadly 🎻) not created many women who feel naturally comfortable bossing men around in the bedroom or elsewhere and really enjoy it. That's fine, I mostly just want to pamper my partner. Whether that's through worship and service as a sub myself, or spoiling a pillow princess submissive as more of a dom. It feels less natural to me, but when I see how happy and needy it makes her I'm very happy to give it my best 🩷 but I can't do super mean aggressive slap-slap-slap "what did you say to me!?" *punish *punish it just isnt in me.

So combining those two (top and sub), I like the sort of woman who while we're hanging out would decide she wants her pussy eaten, and so would spread her legs, and begin tugging a bit at me coaxing "babyy~ i think you need a little snack~ 😈🫦" and then watch a huge bulge form in my pants as my face makes contact with her thighs and I greedily service her until she can't take it anymore and pulls me up to kiss her instead.

Or while we're in a fitting room shopping for clothes would lift up her skirt, revelaing she isnt wearing any panties, and lean in giving me a big hickey and whisper "you're going to breed me in this fitting room 💋" and giggle as she leaned over into the position that always felt the best for her, eyeing my blushing red embarassed face, hesitating. "Or else I'll moan 👅💕" she'd threaten and tease, but silence herself with a bite of her lip when she felt me slide in and fill her, her personal fucktoy thrusting just the way she taught him until she gets everything she wanted, and then praises me with a "thank you, good boy 🥰😘" enjoying the helpless puddle I've now been turned into. Then slide her pants back on and walk out of the room with her pet's sperm still leaking down her thigh, off to go keep browsing while waiting for me to collect myself.

💚 FETISHES AND KINKDOM 💚

I'm fine with just plain vanilla sex ofc all cuddly and lovey with little growls of "you're mine 🫦"

🩵 BDSM ❓️

I'm not into bdsm like sadomasochism and pain play. Wax, knives, whips, black leather. I just don't get the appeal, I'm soft and sweet. Some light bondage to mix things up, collaring, etc is all fine but not too much beyond that.

🩵 Pegging ❌️

I am *not* into pegging 🙀 (gasp) I know. Heresy. But I don't want anything in my butt, see the above about topping. Although being pinned down and her riding her clit against my bottom to masturbate herself...😏💦

🩵 Humiliation & Praise

I like the idea of humiliation but anytime I've actually heard it its been super cringe. The fantasy of the "popular girls" inviting me to a sleepover just to watch how easy i get hard then pin me down and toy with me knowing whatever they show me would be the most I've ever seen, etc is really sexy to me 🫠 but the moment a real human voice is roleplaying it idk I find it hard to suspend disbelief and not be overly aware of myself and feel silly. Maybe its the anxiety disorder. Praise is always nice 🥰

🩵 Service

I consider myself a service top sub and love to worship and please someone, whatever it is that makes them turned on. That can be giving lots and lots of head and getting my face ridden 😍 or using my hands for her, or giving a foot massage, or chest kneading, or holding her book as she reads, or brushing her hair, or carrying her things, or worshipping her butt with kisses, smooching her tummy, clitwarming her in my mouth while she reads, etc. I love to be useful to someone and that extends to in the bedroom. Bonus if it comes with praise for doing a good job.

🩵 Breeding 💦

Creampies are so sexy, i dunno why you'd want to finish anywhere else. There's something so posessive about insemination and the idea of fertility and a cervix and womb thats just very 🥵. I also think the body changes associated with pregnancy are very sexy. Getting a cute tummy bump and swollen leaky breasts the prove I'm claimed to you now is yummy. But i dont think i want kids, definitely not right now, and theres nothing sexy about labor pains or abortions lol so for now this is more of a mental fantasy kink. But if they invented a birth control pill that still simulated the tummy and tits a bit and needed a particular potency and cycle timing to activate i would be alllll over it 😍😍 also maternity clothes are so cute.

🩵 Dry humping & grinding

I'm a very big virgin, so sometimes overly forward stuff just overloads my senses like blowing out a photograph with sunlight and i dont get much out of it. With dry humping the motions, the desperation, the longing for whats behind her panties but not quite getting it, the involvement of her clit which will feel really nice for her, how she rocks her hips controlling exactly what tempo will make her go absolutely crazy its just so needy and cute and sexy. Id love someone able to get off just by desperately rubbing agsinst my throbby bulge.

🩵 Posession, Lipstick stains, & Hickeys

Possession is very sexy and what better way than cute lipstick marks stamping me as owned. Or a collar, or her name written in sharpie on my underwear, or bites just under the shirt line. I want it all I want to be so so hers.

🩵 Lactation 🙈

Idk if the actual milk would be warm and gross irl but the idea that you can suckle someones pretty tits so hard it makes them leak, and that milk pressure builds up and gets achy needing to be relieved by a subs mouth is very 💦💦💦 plus needed to go through breeding to activate it usually is kinda naughty in a "I did this to you" type of way.

🩵 Me as a Dom

As far as being more of a dom goes, I think I actually prefer the ddlg side of things, which I think is currently out of style and unpopular. But I like the dynamic lending itself to pampering and spoiling someone and being more focused on sweetness relative to just being some sort of master figure. Also like littlespace gear is still so cute like pacis and onesies will be adorable forever its such a mix of cutesy girly and a bit humiliating for someone to wear that I really think it works 🩷When I identified more as a dom I kinda always wanted an abdl sub to baby and still think its cute and degrading and hot & am embarassed to admit that, I never e-dated anyone who actually did it. 💖 but if I'm the sub, while I have a mommy kink I'm not into regression or any of that stuff myself

🩵 Omo/pee (her, not me) sounds spicy and is hot to watch, idk if it'd gross me out irl. I used to be really into videos of girls wetting their pants or panties and something about it is still strangely hot. Have a tiny maybe fantasy of a girl making out with me straddling my lap and then just letting her bladder go as we kiss and grind soaking us both. 🙈

🩵 Collaring and petplay is cute, I'd totally wear one for her.

🩵 Getting referred to as "my little white boy" by a nonwhite person with a thing for white guys (🙈🙈 SHUTUP!!)

🩵 Minor humiliation like being teased by her panties or sat on/used as a stool etc

🩵 Not really an irl thing but in hentai when the girl is overstuffed and you can see the bulge pushing up her tummy 🥵

🩵 Corruption, of either of us and especially me.

🩵 Dirty Talk

One of my absolute favorite things to do is get to talk to someone as they touch themselves 🩷 turning them on with my fantasies and then begging them to please please please cum, spamming my words as they release so they can just read and not have to type just feel like im there with them 🥰

💚 MY "TYPE" IN WOMEN 💚

My taste in women irl is that I always have the biggest crush on the kindest girl 🙈 like the one who's proactive and honestly makes me feel bad for not being a better person when I'm around her. Someone who listens, has a big heart, Christmas is her favorite holiday just because of the cheer and her sweet childhood memories and she thinks its cute to hold hands. Who focuses on the positives whenever possible and wouldn't compromise her ideals to fit in socially. Not into gossip or putting people down, is nice to strangers, waitresses, etc. I think you get the point. Something about those sort of people imprints deep into my heart 💟

I am into successful, intelligent, driven women. Like "I was the president of ___ club, I'm a ___ position in this company, I have a degree in ___, I speak ___ and ___ languages, I play the ___" it all makes me just 🥵🥵🥵. I'd love someone who has some sort of public skill/hobby like playing in an orchestra 😍 or doing community theater or playing in a sports team, anything where I can show up and get to be a cheerleader like 🥹😻 that's my baby up there!!! And get to clap and cheer and compliment how she did I just think would be super cute and fun. Then take her out to dinner afterward for doing such a good job ⭐️

I don't find typical domme-aesthetic things like -- *Smoking *Vapes *Weed *Lots of tattoos *Short hair *Goth vibes *fishnets *dyed hair *promiscuous *into knives and blood -- to be very attractive personally. Just not my type.

I'm more into miss innocent church girl, honors student valedictorian who secretly has had a high sex drive awakened and guess who walked right into her trap 👀💦 she secretly corrupted herself and now she's going to corrupt me 🙈❤️‍🔥

I totally get the sex appeal around the bully type domme who is all tough, even if she shows you her sweet side, and that sounds super hot on paper but idk irl I just don't seem to be into people who are actually that way. Its very "sexy" but it isn't compatible on a deeper layer

I don't really care about age. Obviously they *must* be legal but college student who is younger than me vs someone my age vs milf who is a bit older it's all a wash. All have their distinct appeal. All get a 👍.

Height is also inconsequential. I mean I'm (6'4 193cm) or thereabouts so I'm nearly always going to be a fair bit taller than my partner regardless of her height. I think the size difference is cute, something about having a 4' in your height is just idk a bit hot? Lol but i have no real preference I like the whole spectrum and never really think about height, and hypothetically if I *could* find a woman who's my height or taller, that'd be sexy too 🥰 Different flavors but all delicious.

I am a genuine fan of both more curvy and more skinny body types, but less so each extreme. A slim figure and grabbable waist i can fit my hand around and a lil *pow* booty is scrumptious, but if she's so skinny its like borderline unhealthy and it feels like id break her if I grab her wrong and I can see all her bones 😬. Of course I'm very happy to support a partner struggling with an ed or who has had one in the past, but I want my darling more than anything to be healthy. Likewise curvy people can be extremely yummy 😋😍, I love a curvy tummy in a bikini it oozes fertility. but if its to the extent it prevents her from going on cute lil hikes with me and creates health problems then I'd want to help her workout and cook her some homemade healthier food so she can feel better and be more energized and well. But purely aesthetically ❤️ curvyness is a yes. So are stock standard body types ❤️

Breasts and everything to do with the body is actually kinda gravy because for me its the *face* that I'm attracted to and the body is just the fun present that comes along for the ride. Nothing about someones chest size or whatever would make me unattracted to them if i liked their face. Buttt obviously a full chest is nice, but i hesistate to say big because it really depends on weight and body. Fullness relative to body type so that it 🥳 pops is most sexy. So a skinnier girl will be a smaller size, but being skinny and still having a fairly prominent bosom makes it 🥳 pop. Likewise being curvy will grow the size, but some people already big will now develop 💥turbo milkers💥 that 🥳 pop. So its less about surface area or bra size and more about protrusion from the chest, and ofc big is nice ❤️ that being said an itty bitty chest while independently less sexy becomes part of a persons vibe and fits into the whole which as a connected body can be very attractive 💋 Plus then you get to wear pretty bralettes. I'm not really hyper aware of tit sizes but I did want to explain what I think most guys mean when they say they like "big tits" but also we dont pay that close attention a boob is a boob and theyre all fun so just 🩷 love your body mkay?

Bootys i notice less person to person, theres just like 3% of the population that has 💥💥 in their pants and *also* dresses to accentuate it and show it off and look we all think those people are 🤤🤤 like making a protruded lil mound out of their tight jeans or rocking some yoga pants or leggings. Hottie hot hot but 97% of us have unremarkable normal butts.

One thing I *am* really into, the closest thing I have to a "type" is long hair ✨️✨️. Like i have never seen a girl with hair past her butt I didn't want to marry. Mid-back 😀 waist length 😃 past butt 🤪 the longer the better. Idk what it is it just seduces and intoxicates me its so pretty. I know its such a pita for women to maintain which is why its very rare, and my partner can have her hair however she wants it i wouldnt want her to suffer for me, but super long hair is just goddess tier its like the one physical attribute i have a clear robust preference on. Short hair indeed can be cute but long hair will always win in my heart. Straight, a bit wavy, curly honestly it doesnt matter that much its all gorgeous. Long hair my beloved 💕 may i have my lady sit on my lap and allow me to brush it for her some day. I want to help wash it and learn 1,000 ways to style it for her, although hanging free is the best 😍

People have different physical sensitivities, and I think I prefer having a pretty sensitive partner. I've had before during sexting where I'd spend 3 hours naughty talking someone and sexting while they touch and still just barely cum by the end, and other partners where we'd be going 20 mins and she'd go 🥺 I'm really close and I'd beg her to let it go and then she'd release and then probably be too sensitive to even go again for a whole day. That was soooo cute and sweet to me. Since I love pleasing someone so much getting that validation more quickly was really nice and also fit my schedule better, and it would be so creamy and throbby and pulsy when she was done it made my eyes roll back to just watch it. And she'd have to be so careful about how much she touched or it would ache even if she was soaked and horny still. It was really endearing ❤️ everyone is different and needs different amounts of time but I'd prefer someone where I can pour everything into a really great 30 or 40 mins as opposed to being up all night trying to get them off. Being especially creamy is also a plus 🤭

I'm totally fine with someone who is a little too tight and has to be really gentle with themselves, its cute and I don't mind at all if most days all she can tolerate is a gentle tonguing and some kissing. Same with if she's too sensitive and has to stop early before I finish, so long as she gets off and is satisfied I'm a happy camper 😇💖 But nothing wrong with stamina either

So concludes the sexual information!

💚 About Me Personally 💚

🩵 I am musical 🎶

I play the guitar 🎸 and previously played the drums 🥁 and piano 🎹 and even have a clarinet

🩵 I'm a big reader 📖

I have a particular interest in Classical Eastern Literature and have read things like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Valmiki Ramayana, Journey to the West etc. I'm a big fan of classics in general, my favorite book of all time is the Count of Monte Cristo

I also have been getting into classical SciFi, been reading a lot of PKD and some Dan Simmons and Kurt Vonnegut and it's been really enjoyable so far.

🩵 I'm a programmer

I can do fullstack web development from html to nginx and work mostly within the dotnet ecosystem.

🩵 I'm a nerd en général

I love learning things. My first love is the sciences, I went to college for chemistry. I would love to have time to improve my terrible math skills and pick up Korean as a another language, and want to level up my world history especially with regards to Africa and Southeast Asia both of which I am fairly unacquainted with.

You can talk to me about productivity systems, desk setups, fountain pens, video games, and other weird nerd things.

🩵 I want to travel

I've never left the US and one day would love to get to see more of the world.

🩵 I do some amateur writing

I enjoy making my lil erotica mini stories here, and also sometimes in my freetime plan out silly novels and short stories never to be published but just for fun.

💚 I think I'll end things here for now, there's definitely more to me but that should be an effective enough primer. If you made it this far and havent dm'd me...wtf is wrong with you?? We're basically already friends now? 😘

[drpeppertummy]

Put val in a tight suit and stuff him <3

Pickin On Him,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[light stuffing, little bit of tummy care]

"I feel like a goofball," said Val, looking with amused distaste at his reflection.

"Well, I think you look very handsome." Connie reached around him to adjust his bow tie, then kissed him on the cheek. He smiled.

"Good enough for me." He fidgeted with the buttons of his suit jacket. "Do you think it's too small?"

"Seems impossible," she teased, and he rolled his eyes at her. "No, I think it looks fine. Maybe a tiny bit snug, but I doubt anybody would notice."

Val had been dreading the formal work party ever since he heard about it. It wasn't that he didn't like parties; Val was a very social creature, and he was always glad to get together with his colleagues. It was the formal aspect that had him worried. While he tended to keep himself looking put together, he was more of a business casual guy, and he hated getting all dressed up. Nobody ever had any fun in a suit, he'd always said. Still, he supposed it wouldn't be too bad. He'd catch up with a few people and have a few snacks, and then he could slip out.

It wasn't long into the evening before Val realized that the suit was, in fact, too small.

Val was a skinny man, and the waist of the pants had just barely fit around his narrow middle when he'd put them on. Now, a few snacks and a couple drinks later, he was beginning to feel constricted. The snug pants pushed his tummy up and out, and he wondered how long it would be before they popped open. He could feel his jacket tightening around his belly as well. If he were at home, he'd have gladly unbuttoned it, but the idea of showing off his bloated tummy to all his coworkers wasn't exactly appealing.

"Hey Val, you alright? You look a little off," said a friend, giving Val a pat on the back. He smiled up at her.

"I'm okay. Tired," he said, and he was only half lying.

"Why don't you come eat something? That'll wake you up a little," she suggested, and before he could think of a way out, she swept him off for another bite.

Val couldn't get out of the party soon enough. He said his goodbyes to the people he cared to say them to, feigning a migraine, and slipped away before anybody could catch him. He unbuttoned his jacket the moment he stepped out the door. He regretted that quickly--it was chilly out--but he found himself unable to get the buttons fastened again over his belly. He'd lost track of what he'd eaten over the course of the hour or so he'd been there, but he felt absolutely stuffed, and his tummy pushed out hard against his too-tight pants. Truthfully, he hadn't eaten an unusual amount; the stupid suit was just so tight that he felt like he'd eaten a horse.

Connie covered her mouth at the sight of her weary little husband coming through the door, trying not to laugh. He gave her an exhausted look, then flopped onto his back on the couch, undoing his pants with a heavy sigh. Removing that pressure was a tremendous relief; he was astonished the fly hadn't popped open on its own by now. Connie sat down beside his head, still looking amused, and placed a hand on his tummy.

"So I guess the suit was too small after all, huh?" She smiled regretfully and rubbed his sore belly.

"All part of your wicked plot to get me home sooner, I'm sure," he teased, and she laughed.

"Yeah, right! Hey, that's good, I'll write that down for next time," she said. He grinned up at her. She leaned over him to untuck his shirt, and as she did, he craned his neck awkwardly to kiss any bit of skin he could reach, with little success.

"You better quit it," she giggled, tugging his shirt up to examine his belly. There was a harsh red mark slashed across it where the pants had been pressing tightly into his skin. "Oh, gosh, Val!"

"Told you it was too small."

"I'll say," she said, wincing. She rubbed the mark gently, then an idea dawned on her. "Want me to kiss it better?"

"Connie, I don't know what I'd do without you," he said. Smiling, she leaned down to plant a kiss on his cheek, then leaned over his tummy once more.

[creweemmaeec11]

an idea i red somewhere else and think you could write it better :)

villain/hero throwing a punch of jokes to try to cover the fact they are super scared and hero/villain seeing right through it and calming them down

so anyways, here's a hug because why not

. (⁠づ⁠￣⁠ ⁠³⁠￣⁠)⁠づ

Ohhh this is right up my alley! Also, hugs! *hugs*

Criminal Comedies

"You don't have to be afraid," the hero said softly, taking a step forward.

Villain immediately flinched back, eyeing the hero's fangs warily, which they could just barely see as the hero spoke. "I'm not afraid!" They snapped, a little too vehemently, "You just aren't used to people not immediately swooning over you,"

The hero gave a soft, pitying smile, "you're shaking,"

Oh shit, they were.

"I'm trapped in a cage with a vampire," the villain hissed, clenching their fists, "and we're both being held captive by supervillain, so if you're waiting for me to care about my shaking, I hope you brought some food,"

"Yeah but-"

"And as much as I'm sure the tabloids would LOVE to hear about me and you stuck in a cage together, and I'm thrilled at least one part of you is sharp, I'd rather not become either hero food or fertilizer for supervillain's garden!"

"Villain you're not-"

"And while I'd usually be able to pick the lock, supervillain got my lock pick earlier, and I'm not a picky eater and-"

"VILLAIN!"

The criminal in question flinched violently, curling in on themselves, but they didn't reply, instead going silent.

"Villain it's going to be okay, my team is on the way,"

"How much do you wanna bet that even if your team does somehow manage to get through supervillain, they'll only save you and leave me here? What's the saying, two rats, one casket?" The villain asked, trying to sound joking and failing miserably.

"Neither me nor my team would ever leave you in supervillain's hands,"

"Gee, thanks," villain bit back through clenched teach, "What a bargain, get rescued from a supervillain, and all it costs is about a litre of your blood. Shame you can't just have a steak instead,"

Hero sighed, rolling their eyes, "I'm the only vampire on the team, and I told you before I'm not about to eat you! Plus, that isn't even how that works,"

The villain in the corner glared, unconvinced.

Suddenly somewhere in the distance, there was a bellowing metallic bang that echoed through the complex.

The villain flinched violently, gasping as they collided with the icy cold wall behind them.

The hero was next to them in an instant, worry written all over their face.

The criminal tried to scramble backwards, but they were already in the corner. Distantly they realized it was getting harder to breathe. But they were much more focused on the fangs that were hidden behind lips less than a foot away from them. They stared unblinking, heart hammering in their chest.

The hero's eyes softened, "Villain, please listen to me; you don't need to be afraid of me-"

"I have a lot of reasons to be afraid of you actually," the criminal replied, failing miserably to keep their voice steady, "opposite team and all that, want me arrested or dead-"

"That's not the part your afraid of right now,"

"Well, I apologize that the idea of becoming a bloody mary with a body isn't appealing to me; I-"

There was another guttural clang of metal in the distance, and the villain shrunk in on themselves, even more, burying their head in their knees.

The hero took the opportunity, wrapping an arm behind the villain's back to pull them in close.

At first, the villain struggled with all their might, but their strength quickly died down as the hero's embrace remained unrelenting.

"Please- please-"

"Shhh," the hero soothed, "it's okay, you're okay," they felt bad, unsure how to reassure the shaking form in their arms that they weren't going to hurt them. The villain was usually so stoic and in control, but they had come to realize with time that their dry and witty humour was nothing but a shield for their true emotions. For all their jokes- wait.

The hero blinked. What about...

"You know, even if I were about to eat you, this would be a terrible place to do it,"

The villain in their arms flinched slightly, but they were listening.

"I mean, I may be a vampire, but I do have some standards. This place looks like something you'd find in the basement of a seven eleven. Like I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to bring a magnet in here this place is so repulsive,"

The criminal next to them snorted quietly. They'd stopped shaking and tilted their head up, peering over their arm to meet the hero's gaze with a nervous and guarded wariness, but also a slight curiosity.

"I mean, whatever style they were aiming for down here, they clearly missed unless it was 'Gucci in the front, crypt in the basement,"

The villain laughed quietly, "You should feel right at home then," They shot back, a small smirk on their face.

"Excuse me!" the hero replied, over dramatically indignant, "I'm pretty sure the only things that could feel at home down here are roaches and mould,"

The villain chuckled again, resting their chin atop their knees. There was a few moments of silence before they spoke again, "Thank you..."

"My team will be here soon," Hero assured.

"How can you be so sure? Nobody even knows where the supervillain's lair is,"

The hero sighed, "I shouldn't show you this, but..." They shifted, reaching into their mouth to pull out what looked like three molars stuck together, but there was a blinking LED light on one, and small wires on the bottoms of the other two. The villain blinked, furrowing their eyes in confusion.

"Tracking device with multiple different communication lines; GPS satellite, bluetooth, wifi, radio and sonar. Let's just say they know exactly where we are,"

"Wow," villain replied, impressed.

"Which is why I was captured in the first place," Hero admitted, "I had no intention of bringing you down with me,"

The villain took a deep, steadying breath, "The reason I'm so scared is because I've been here before," They admitted, before pulling up their sleeve to reveal a horrific set of scars. The hero gasped.

Suddenly there was an explosion just down the hall. The hero smiled, climbing to their feet, "Well then, want to get your revenge?" they offered, extending their hand.

"Seriously?" The villain asked in shock.

"I'm not above being momentarily distracted, if you get what I mean. Besides, we could use someone to pick the locks in the main building. Deal?"

The villain took the hero's hand, "deal,"

[off-color-darkrai]

NOTE: This is MY arbitrary opinion. You don't have to agree with it. You can, but you don't have to.

So, I grew up going to Disney World and Disneyland, it was a fundamental part of my childhood.

If someone asked me if I was going to take my own kids there if I had any... I'd likely say No.

You heard me, no.

Disney has been scrambling for a while now, story wise, imagination wise, (if I have to see another shitty live action remake of an originally good movie remade to be terrible to appeal to modern audiences I'm going to hurl). It's like they're embarrassed to be related to pre 2015 Disney.

Disney is acting like a stereotypical emo teen freaking out about back when they weren't annoying and lame, and trying to seem cool now by trying to destroy everything that people used to like about them. They've added and upgraded rides and lands before, test-track has been upgraded at least twice, Animal Kingdom had the expedition Everest ride added and Avatar land, etc. but all of these updates were either simply updates, or were pretty spaced out.

What Disney is doing with it's parks right now is wildly different.

They're clearing out multiple classic rides at multiple parks on the same time table, for what? They've already removed almost all of the original rides from Hollywood Studios, and they're threatening to take out the rest, not to mention they forgot the park's theme in their push to add a bunch of rides from newer franchises that keep breaking down.

Does anyone remember that Hollywood Studios was supposed to show off how movies were made? It had a backlot tour, a stunt show, the rides were themed around sound stages, they had art of animation where you sometimes got to see some of the newer movies in the works. They had an amazing playground based on 'honey I shrunk the kid's. Couldn't we have tied galaxies edge in using the sound stage entrance scheme? Who thought it was a good idea to cut the Indiana Jones stunt show's run? Personally I'd love to watch a Marvel stunt show.

Epcot was supposed to celebrate humanity, future world divided into natural innovation and technological innovation, while the rest of Epcot celebrated world culture and diversity. Epcot is doing better than a lot of the other lands/kingdoms, but I have no clue why Guardians of the Galaxy is right next to Mission Space and not in Hollywood Studios or something. Again, Marvel Stunt show people, come on.

Animal Kingdom is about to lose Dinoland USA right as they finally got to live up to the promise of having existing animals, extinct animals, and imaginary animals (which they're supposed to have had since the beginning, if you'll notice the dragon on the signage and the dragon head on one of the ticket kiosks). I'm all for the Pacific islands, south America area, I just don't like them removing the dinosaurs for it.

And last, but not least... Magic Kingdom... Oh boy Magic Kingdom... Why is Tom Sawyer Island becoming Car's themed? Why did you take the country songs out of country bear jamboree? Why are you going to retheme big thunder mountain? Why isn't Tiana's bayou a sit down river ride and restaurant while splash mountain is about Brother Bear? Why did you ruin the flow of Haunted Mansion's in ride story by putting the hat box ghost in the foyer before the sayance instead of at the top of the stairs by constance? Why must you shit on my childhood? Why are you like this?!

I'm not going to shell out the massive amount of money I would have to shell out to go to Disney to ride a bunch of rides I have no nostalgia for, full of brand new perpetually broken animatronics, for new age Disney movies, half of which suck because the writing is trash that my imaginary kids could write better than. You're shocked you're losing money? Gee, I wonder why.

If they chill out and calm the fat down and stop over charging and trying to get rid of anything that happened or was created before 2015, maybe I'll reconsider. For now they're just pitiful, (and way too expensive).

[lazywitchling]

Review: The House Witch by Arin Murphy-Hiscock

3.5/10 - This could have been a zine. As it stands, I was not the target audience for this book.

Maybe I'm just being mean since I read this one directly after Queering Your Craft, but my goodness I don't think I was the target audience for this one. I am cis-adjacent girl-not-woman, single, living at home with my highly conservative christian parents, and keep my craft in the closet. This book is for a cis-woman who is probably married, runs a household, has a couple of children, and is the spiritual-head-of-household who teaches the kids to say their prayers to the abstract Divine every night before they turn on their essential oil humidifier for bedtime.

It sure would be lovely to live in the world that Arin does, where I could consult with the other family members about their particular Spiritual Beliefs (TM) and integrate those into an Altar in the kitchen where we all make our offerings and say our prayers to the household spirits, but that is not the world I live in. If I tried to start that conversation at home, I'd very quickly wind up with a very aggressive visit from the local pastor who spoke at a rally for 45. Thanks, Arin, but I'm... gonna skip the build-an-altar-in-your-kitchen-and-invite-your-family-to-participate step.

So here's the thing. (And I'm starting to notice that this is a pattern with a lot of the witch books I read...) I would probably have loved this book if it were more of a personal memoir than a How To Witch 101 guide. And I get the feeling that this was more of a problem with publishing than with the author. I mean I could practically feel Arin bursting at the book-seams to tell me about how she practices her witchcraft spirituality in her home, but instead she's stuck trying to write about Hearthcraft (TM) as if it's a universal thing, since that's what's easiest to sell. The whole book feels like it's formatted and marketed to be a Witchcraft 101 book, but it doesn't do it well at all. In fact, in the beginning of the book, Arin practically scolds the reader by saying 'this is a spiritual path, not a magic one, and if you want a magic one, go get a book about magic.' Like... Arin, honey, your book is called The House Witch. I thought I was reading a book about witchcraft.

Furthermore, it feels like this book is filled up with a whole lot of pillow fluff to fill in the gaps. Did we need a whole chapter of cauldron mythology that we never ended up tying into anything else in the book? Did we need that? It seems like there's a lot of stuff in this book that was just put in for a page count; something to make the book seem like it has the wide-appeal of a Witchcraft 101 book. But it just came across as... idk, not genuine.

I just keep coming back to how much I would have loved to hear about Arin's own personal practice that she's so clearly passionate about!

Hey, but also... this book was an organizational mess. Why was the cookie recipe in the chapter with the cauldron lore instead of in the recipe chapter? Why were the instructions on making a clay figure of a household spirit in the chapter with the imaginary altar instead of in with the chapter on household spirits, or the chapter on crafts? Why was there a section on ethics sandwiched in between a section about talking to a tree spirit and a section about talking to a blender spirit, instead of in with the cooking chapter when we actually referenced ethics?

-sigh-

Look, while there wasn't really anything in this book that made me go "Oh wow that's a great idea, I need to use that!" there were a few sections that made me say "Hey, that particular thing is not of use to me, but the idea behind it absolutely is, and I should look into that." Which, once again, comes back to how much I wish this book was a personal memoir. Finding the little nuggets of information that told me what Arin does and how and why were so much more useful than the vague-and-generic step-by-step instructions of... whatever the instructions were for.

BTW, I read through this whole book, and I still am not sure of the definition of "spiritual" nor of "hearth" that we were using. I never did figure out if "hearth" meant "fireplace" or "center of the home" or "kitchen" or what.

Ultimately I came out of the book more confused than I was going in. It's not the worst witch book I've read -- [waves to Skye Alexander] -- and I did get at least some things out of it that I can ponder on my own. But man... idk what that book was for. I'm tired. I'm going to bed.