#(pretty straightforward answer there.)

[tswwwit]

do bill and dipper ever talk about their problems or have serious conversations? We don’t see much of them in the fics— talking about the past, trauma, or insecurities, etc

Getting to that point took them quite a while, but yeah!

Dipper will occasionally talk over or bitch about his life with Bill. Opening up about his feelings. His thoughts. Get a little vulnerable, even, around his husband. It takes a bit before he can do it and get Bill to take it seriously, but that's not a fuckup Bill makes twice.

Mind you, he's still Bill about the listening. Which means about 80% of his 'advice' to Dipper is 'you should totally kill that guy', and 15% is basic commiseration couched in teasing terms. The last 5% is such shockingly insightful advice that Dipper has to do a doubletake to make sure he's still talking to the same guy. One of the perks of knowing the human mind as well as Bil does.

Bill sharing his problems, though? Whoof.

There's a guy who could spend all day whining because the last party wasn't fun enough. Bitch about other people! His day! But getting Bill to admit he has deeper feelings is a billion times worse than pulling teeth. With a crowbar.

If Dipper wants insight into Bill's deeper psyche, he's got to augur the subtle signs of it. Puzzle it out, in fact. He's gotten pretty good at guessing what's going on behind that front - but holy hell does his husband not make it easy.

[carlyraejepsans]

oh my god it's sans/toriel/papyrus isn't it? i've been pulling ships out of my ass on ao3 for like 5 minutes. i was gonna ask if it was toriel/napstablook earlier cuz it only has 2 fics too

RING-A-DING-DING, we have our winner! though mind the order, bros at the side, toriel in-between. it's a v shape, not a closed triangle.

anyway. did not expect "i think toriel deserves TWO funny sweet skeleton boyfriends" to be such an unimaginable concept for so many people. the more you learn

[lynxgriffin]

On the topic of monster digestive systems, do Catty and Jockington share the same stomach?

Yup!

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Imagine the Tails Polycule in the death of the sonic the hedgehog game.

Oooh interesting

So, I'm going to interpret as if they (prime!polycule I assume) were inserted into the game to join the main cast, and I'll start with placement first

(Game spoilers ahead)

Shadow, Knuckles, and Sonic all start out being the only person in their respective cars (not including the conductor in this). Since we have 3 foxes to place, I think it's best to just spread them out among these 3 cars (the Saloon, the lounge car, and the conductor's car)

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My decided placements are as follows:

Sails – the Saloon car with Knuckles

Nine - the lounge car with Shadow

Mangey - the conductor's car with Sonic and the Conductor

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And with that, the following are their roles and brief backstories (to fit with the theme of the murder mystery party):

Sails – Bartender

He's a bartender at the Saloon the town sheriff (Knuckles) frequents. He doesn't particularly have the passion for bartending, but it’s due to his (now passed) elderly boss's getting him this job that saved him from a worse life, so he can't complain too much. His real passion lies in his contraption making, which only his coworkers and the Sheriff knows about. While he tries to be decent at his job and maintan a friendly exterior for the customers, you can occasionally spot him leaning over the bar counter with a bored look on his face. He also enjoys a good riddle.

Nine – Programmer

The programer is married to his job (developing new robots that exist to help vulnerable people). After he happened to win an all expenses paid vacation in the lottery, his boss forced him out of the office to take the vacation in question, and he reluctantly complied. He has a hard time sitting still and relaxing, which results in him often working on something when not on the clock. Because of this, he took his Bits with him on vacation to tinker with. He doesn't like it when his work is interrupted and can be a bit prickly, but he can't suppress his excitement or interest in machines or programs he's never seen. Coincidentally, the only person on the train he recognizes is the locksmith (Shadow), who he shares a bit of a bitter (or bittersweet?) past with.

Mangey – Co-captain

He met the captain (Sonic) in college and the two have been attached at the hip since. While easily mistaken as Captain and assistant (since the co-captain often runs errands for or assists the captain), in truth the co-captain functions both as backup and a support partner. Should the captain have complications, it's up to the co-captain to step into his role, and if the captain needs to make a hard decision or needs assistance with something difficult, the co-captain is who he asks first. They are partners who rely on each other, and good friends.

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Now, for the game itself, each of the main characters had a set of movements, other people they talked to, and things they did, so these three would be no different.

At this point I actually started plotting out the movements of each of our 3 additional characters and how they shift the story and add to it. However, once I'd done enough work I'd realized I'd come out of this ask with a full blown au rather than just passing thoughts. As such, so as not to spoil a bunch of major moments in an au I may seriously end up writing for and showing off, I've decided instead to finish off this ask with some notes and tidbits about the au.

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Misc Notes:

Nine's Bits are based upon these little guys from Archie Sonic from Silver's future (post sgw):

I couldn't think up a better name and "the bits" is still classic to me, so I made up a random lore reason why they'd be called that in this au. Answer? Professor Von Schlemmer exists in Silver's future in this au, and either Silver accidentally brought some bits back with him once or ended up showing Tails or Nine some of his work. So Nine ended up taking the basic idea from the professor's bits to create his own. Since this is a bit more of a careful situation and Nine isn’t in the business of passing others' ideas off as his own, until he comes up with another name and makes them sufficiently different, his bits are a semi-secret not so secret personal project. Idk it's kind of like how in Prime he used the Chaos Council's power core schematics to create the shatterdrive, if that makes any sense. He claims the title of inventing shatterdrive technology, but he does not hide where he drew inspiration or based his designs from

Nine (and his programmer role) have two bits. One is modeled after Chaos Sonic, and the other is modeled after Alpha Grim Sonic.

The purpose of Nine's bits are essentially to act either as extensions of Chaos Sonic and Alpha Grim Sonic or to be additional bodies the robots can upload themselves into. The former is largely useful for stuff like recon, and the latter is used in the event Nine needs to make his robots more portable for some reason (for example, in this case, he wanted to keep his robots with him during Amy's party, but didn't want them taking up space on the train)

Unless one has the proper tools, only Nine is able to access the memory of his bits (in regards to actually scrolling through their memory logs AND in accessing footage they record). Tails did not bring tools necessary for this on the train with him (especially since he takes his role as detective very seriously). This is important in case, say, the Detective and Barry end up getting ahold of one of the Bits and they happen to maybe have crucial evidence.

Fun fact! The Poet does manage to "finish the job" about the same way as he does in the original game. He is lucky that The Programmer is not in the lounge car during his arrival before and escape after the attempted murder. However, this doesn't mean The Programmer left the room completely empty and unsupervised...

Another fun fact! Rather than getting an interrogation like The Sheriff does in the Saloon Car, the Bartender withholds a special clue he found (that could possibly lead to the murderer). Tails and Barry just have to complete a task for him that involves the Super Monkey Ball arcade machine

The same way Sonic and Mangey's character cards and Sails and Knuckles' specifiy that they have a type of relationship to each other, so, too, do Shadow and Nine's cards.

Excluding Barry, The Co-Captain is the only character to suspect foul play when the Captain is "murdered" during the game. However, this is largely due to the fact that (with how the character movements are structured) the Captain and the Conductor suddenly disappear, leaving the Conductor's car in disarray. It's also a while before the Co-Captain reaches anyone who is aware that Sonic's character was murdered.

Final tidbit...! There are kisses involved. Even if they're ooc for the roles they're playing, with the prime polycule involved I had to work em in! 😂

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And with that, I'd love to thank you for the ask, anon! Although it may not have been your intention, I bamboozled myself into getting majorly invested in this little prime polycule au 🥰

[queenheritageposts]

chat i have a question because it’s been bugging me for years

[lilredghost]

Nine (or however many) people you'd like to get to know better:

I was tagged a couple times for this one, hi everybody! @underacalicosky (twice? you didn't actually seem to have any tags on that second post but tumblr notified me of a mention anyway) @ragnarlothcat @thegingerwrites

Last song: More Like You by Orla Gartland

Favorite color: Ah, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that it's red? A nice deep red (But calicosky's answer reminded me of a song I really love called Dark Blue that I haven't listened to in a while so that's gonna be my soundtrack for the rest of this post)

Currently watching: I've been keeping up with the new 9-1-1 episodes as they come out

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: In order, spicy, then sweet, then savory. They're all good though

Relationship status: Single, because I haven't found someone who'll dom me the way I deserve 😔 (Okay, that's not actually the reason. But it's a big mood, I think)

Current obsession: Still just star wars. I know I've been spending a lot of time doing other stuff, but like... Not voluntarily

Last thing you googled searched for: Interview etiquette. I have yet to get called back for one, but surely it'll happen sooner or later (Right??)

Tag a few friends: Given how alarmingly late to this I am, I think everyone's already done it? I'll tag @unspuncreature @renlyslittlerose and @amadwinter just in case (sorry if you DID do it and I just missed the post, lol)

[kirby-the-gorb]

[gu6chan]

the brief mention that 1.3 leonard could still be feeling some deep lingering grief over his brothers' deaths still never fails to fascinate me tbh like, does he think of the standards he must have lost since their passing and feel guilt? or does he see them in every child he abuses??? does he keep his grief to himself or does he find it a useful anecdote to what must be a countless number of families dealing with loss??? does the green dragon know? does he confide in it????? since leonard seems to be aware of what arioch lost to the union, just how aware is/was she in what HE lost???????? did they have a role in each other's loss? is THAT where their beef came from??????? im going to merge into a wall

[not-poignant]

Hi Piayou mentioned in the FT discord that Hillview only supports 'ethical studios' when it comes to porn. In the context of the UtB universe what does that actually mean/entail/look like?

I love your worldbuilding and all the thought you put into it!

Hi anon!

The ethical porn studios in the Underline universe look a lot like ethical porn studios in real life! (Link doesn't go to an ethical porn studio, it goes to an article talking about what makes them ethical).

This one I thankfully didn't have to worldbuild very hard for, because they already exist. :D

[monmuses]

I hope this doesn't come off as clingy or annoying or offensive, but out of curiosity, how do you manage to get so active? It seems you always have tons of threads with hundreds of partners, and even though you rely on queuing your threads, and have your queue set to 10 a day, it still takes a week to cycle through to your other partners. (This is not a bad thing, I'm commenting on the amount of threads you have queued.) I've been running a few different rp blogs over the years and am constantly struggling to find people to write with, so even if I reblog memes, post starter calls, inbox calls, or post open starters, I have almost no engagement. I don't want to send in meme after meme after meme because after a certain point, I fear I'm annoying the other person.

Again, I hope this doesn't come off as annoying or offensive, I just want to be able to write, and you seemed like the person to ask. I love your work 💜💚

unprompted asks - always accepting!

hello hello!! i love these questions, they're never annoying or offensive for me when you just wanna know more. it's totally okay! i don't mind them.

but with being active, it's really just knowing time management and knowing when i can write and if i have enough writing juices to do so. activity is weird for me because i have days where i'll answer EVERYTHING and days where i can barely write one or two words, and it happens. some people are higher activity while others are more in the middle or very low activity. my other partners also run on a queue and a lot of them treat their blogs as a fun hobby, and there's no harm in waiting for stuff.

finding partners is not hard, it's really just "oh you like this? i like this too, let's write!" most people here are SUPER chill and do this for fun. i would look for any promo posts of blogs that are posted by your mutuals or you - those are huge in finding people, same with those roleplay masterlists for various fandoms. some look like these examples here: overwatch, the witcher, cobra kai, scream, ouran highschool hostclub. these are some of the easiest ways to find people because it networks you to other partners of similar interests!

for me, when it came to writing, it really takes a lot of getting out of your comfort zone with talking to people and interacting. as easy as it is to reblog or post inbox calls & starter calls, a lot of it is also reliant on you reaching out for stuff. that requires interacting with their inbox calls & starter calls, sending asks, etc. start small, too, don't try pushing yourself to interact with EVERYBODY, sometimes you can work on just writing with one or two partners, which isn't bad! it takes time to work up that courage and be confident in your writing, because that will help you be more comfortable and getting more interactions that way.

and i promise you are not being annoying to your partners if you're trying to get yourself out there. sending asks is the EASIEST way to start threads and interactions, so NEVER be afraid to send stuff. unless the other partner has said that they prefer plotting & starters over asks or have their askbox closed. you're not causing any harm when you send stuff, because most of the time, people love getting asks.

but yeah, tl;dr work on coming out of your comfort zone and opening up to approaching people, because sometimes you have to. everybody here has some form of anxiety and it takes one person to take that step forward to get stuff going. always know that this is a hobby, so don't treat it like it's a full-time job, it's just something fun! but it takes work to know what you can write, who you write with, etc. you're gonna deal with problems and issues with finding partners, but don't let it push you away!

i do appreciate your kind words though, you seem like a really sweet person! i hope you find decent partners soon for your blog and i hope this stuff helps! ♡

[supermarine-silvally]

mask + yara

OC asks - not-so-nice edition

tysm for the ask!!

mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?

Not sure if this counts as a "mask" but Yara did wear an eyepatch over her left eye for a few years. It wasn't so much about hiding her relation to Mihawk (which was a small factor since she really didn't want to be connected to him) as much as it was that she just couldn't stand looking at herself with that visual reminder of the man who abandoned her shortly after birth and essentially set her on the path of a life of misery and loneliness. (And she would occasionally get teased about her heterochromia by other kids who thought it made her look funny, so she didn't want to deal with that anymore, either). Yara's parentage is an open secret on the Moby Dick-- most know the truth (including that her real name is Dracule Yara) but don't dare bring it up with her because of how angry she gets over it.

She only took off the eyepatch for good after a conversation with Ace, who assured her she had nothing to be ashamed of, and that she shouldn't kneecap her own abilities in order to spite someone who isn't even present in her life. Her observation haki, which was already among the best on the entire crew, improved tenfold instantly once she was no longer partially blinding herself with a piece of cloth over her left eye. And it certainly didn't hinder her wanting to remove her "mask" when Ace also told her that she had the prettiest eyes he had ever seen (a sentiment he continued to share with her nearly every day for the rest of their lives together, usually accompanied by a sweet and loving kiss that made Yara never want to hide any part of herself again).

[utopians]

Hey James! Feel free to not answer if you don't wanna, but I'm a non-American very confused by the concept of "majors" and "minors" in American university.

Over here, a university degree only offers classes directly related to the degree subject - there's no such thing as a major, because what you'd "major in" is just the subject your degree is on. EG you said Psychology and History; over here, if you were taking a Psychology degree, the only way you could also do History would be either by waiting for the Psychology one to be over and then returning to university to take a separate History degree, or by paying for non-university or online university courses during the Psychology degree. But these wouldn't count at all towards the Psychology degree if you did that - all your university course classes would purely be psychology-related.

I think it's why our degrees are shorter? An undergrad degree course is 2-3 years here, depending, coz they're only on the 1 subject.

How do majors and minors work? Do you need a minor in order to pass your major? What's up with that?

happy to answer! just to preface, there is a lot of variation within american schools, and a lot of places have specialized programs that are a lot closer to your experience -- I'm just going to be talking abt the more common model that's present most schools, including the one I attend. this got long as hell so it's all under the cut :-)

essentially, in american universities, you can take classes in any subject you want and a 'major' is just the topic you've chosen to specialize in. in order to graduate with a major in a specific topic, you need to take the specific courses the university considers essential to understanding it, and you need to take enough courses in that topic to fulfill the university's credit requirement (the amount of 'credits' a course is worth is based on its difficulty); for example, I'm a psych major, and these are my university's requirements for a major in psychology. some people also do a 'double major' where you graduate with a degree in two topics by fulfilling the major requirements for both.

the way that the american system generally diverges from others (and the reason that it generally takes 4 years for a degree here when it takes 3 in most places) is that there's a minimum credit requirement for graduating that's unrelated to your major -- for example, my university requires 120 total credits to graduate with a degree at all, even though earning the psychology degree itself only requires about ~40 credits worth of psych classes. the remaining 80 credits worth of classes are filled by classes you take Just For Fun as well as gen-ed requirements, which are subjects that all students are required to take regardless of major: foundational math, english, history, arts, and physical + biological sciences. these are required even for students who have no intention of pursuing these fields because they're thought to provide a more 'well-rounded' education. most students finish their gen-ed classes within the first two years of college.

a minor is essentially just a recognition of experience in a particular subject that also gets tacked on to your degree; it doesn't mean as much as a major to employers or grad schools, and it's generally a topic you have a personal passion for or think would help in your chosen field but don't want to devote your whole academic career to. not everyone does a minor, but it's definitely common. you pursue a minor the same way you do a major, but the requirements are a lot less intense -- for example, to get a psych minor at my university, you just need to take 15 credits worth of psych classes (which is just 4-5 classes).

when you fulfill the credit requirement to graduate university, you get a degree in whatever you majored in with the minor also listed. a lot of people don't like the system because it's less focused than a 3-year program, and I definitely get that (I think that gen-ed requirements can be pretty superfluous), but I think that the opportunity to branch out and take classes in any subject is a massive plus -- I've had the opportunity to take some extremely cool classes and learn a lot that I never would've been able to if I was restricted to just psychology :-)

[erstwhilesparrow]

oooh what's your "what an honour what an injustice" tag about? 👀

reyniiiii :D hello, i hope you are doing well!

short answer: i'm just using it as my catch-all fantasy tag? although it started out as [dragons and knights and castles] so i've probably missed some things in the depths of my blog.

longer answer: the full quote that tag is pulled from is:

The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honour. What an injustice.

It's from the first season of Not Another D&D Podcast, is directed at a child soldier, and is not at all indicative of the usual type of things the players + DM say. it's a good quote! makes me sad! :]

[mainfaggot]

bio midterm OVERRRRR it went okay honestly. so yeah

[multishipper-baby]

Thinking about soulmate AUs for my OCs because I'm in a romantic mood rn

[rin-the-shadow]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the winner of the Joker Sexyman Competition will ultimately be the one that the voters think would be funniest to have win.

Why?

Because it's a Joker poll.