#Also just to say: this is NOT me trying to enforce a certain reading of events or backseat game how Gamb and the cast should play things

[threewaysdivided]

The Shaper of Minds and its possible consequences for a certain character

I have finally joined the rest of the internet in losing my mind over a D&D Podcast - in my case, the wonderful Dan Jones & Dragons.  With Episode 26 due to stream on Dan’s Twitch this week, I really want to talk about some of the stuff that came up across the just-finished Gala sessions because the fallout from that has the potential to be incredibly fraught.

THE SHAPER OF MINDS

The relic the Flower Crowns were going after this mission – The Shaper of Minds – is a potentially fascinating narrative device that might as well have been lab-engineered to be my exact brand of personal nightmare fuel.   It’s a small, ornate brass key that can alter any part of the target’s mental faculties/thoughts/memories at will should the wielder touch it to any part of their victim’s skin.

Now, on one hand, there are a heap of interesting (and even benevolent) applications for a tool like that.  It could instantly grant access to skills, languages and knowledge that would otherwise take a person years of study to learn.  It could be used to sort through and resolve memories that had been faded by time, muddied by trauma or forcibly supressed by magical/medical means.  But on the other…

As described and used in campaign so far, the primary function of the Mindshaper is to alter memories (and the attendant personality) with the target having no awareness that their mind has been changed.  It’s basically gaslighting on steroids, except that where a gaslighting victim still retains their original recollection – and has to be manipulated by their abuser into doubting their own perceptions and instead accepting the alternate telling of events (a cognitive dissonance that can eventually lead the person to recognise the manipulation) – the Shaper of Minds entirely replaces the original recollection of events with the version the wielder wants their victim to perceive.  There is no internal conflict between accounts, no inconsistencies that could alert the victim that someone has broken into their head and rewritten their perceived reality.  The person they reshape you to be is the person you believe you always were.  And all it takes is a single touch.

That is a brand of existential horror that had me on edge all throughout Session 24 (basically from the moment it was implied the key was in play).   Reality may be objective, but each individual person’s internal reality is governed by their perception – their memories – of the events in their life, no matter how incomplete, biased or otherwise skewed that personal perspective may have been.  You have value just by being you because you are not replaceable, but the thing that makes you unique is, in large part, the sum total of those inimitably specific personal memories.  No-one else will perceive the world in exactly the same way you do, and even a few minor changes to just a few of those perceptions can flow on to massive differences in ideals, values, priorities and future choices.  In that regard, the use of the Mindshaper Key isn’t so much an alteration as an obliteration of the victim’s former self and replacement with someone new; even if that new stranger is largely indistinguishable from the original.  And, again, all it takes is a single touch.

[Sidenote:  This made Mister Wick an especially effective antagonist to wield the key, since his Galas functionally trap even targets who are aware of the threat within the rules of high-society behavioural expectations.  Otherwise-innocuous actions like a handshake or private conversation suddenly become incredibly dangerous, while being nigh-impossible for the Flower Crowns to extract themselves from without committing an atrocious faux pas and potentially tipping Wick off.  Perfectly designed stage for a psychological horror-thriller encounter.]

Which of course, brings us to a certain character who fell victim to the key in Episode 24…  [put under the cut for spoiler reasons]

MORENTHAL

This poor Drow, he can never catch a break…

Morenthal may not have been the most mechanically dangerous party member to fall victim to Mister Wick’s manipulations although, given that the key was revealed to let its wielder read existing memories during the alteration, and that all of the Flower Crowns were fully briefed on the locations and nature of the Eversteel artefacts, him getting a hand on any of them could have been very bad plot-wise but from a character point of view I think he’s the one who the key’s effects had the potential to be most personally devastating for.

The way things ended up playing out across Session 25 was precisely the nightmare scenario Gamb was fretting about out of game: Mister Wick forcibly implanted Morenthal’s mind with false memories of being his lifelong trusted confidant and supporter, then – before the Flower Crowns could reverse the key’s effect – Morenthal discovered that Mister Wick had been killed in combat with Coil and Preston, leading to the Party having to physically restrain him so they could use the key to undo the damage, thus confronting Morenthal with the realisation that not only was everything he thought he knew about Jonathan a lie, but in actuality Jonathan had committed possibly the most invasive violation he’d ever been subjected to in order to forcibly make Morenthal into one of his loyal tools.  That level of emotional and mental whiplash would be rough on any character, but for Morenthal it’s particularly brutal because…

Based on what’s been revealed in-game so far, the core of his character is that Morenthal is an abused child.  This most-clearly came up in his conversation with Gelnek in Session 14; he was a child who grew up with nothing, raised by the Bloodletter Mercenaries as a tool instead of a person, and taught to see faces only as targets – with him also mentioning to Hobson in that their “combat training” involved being relentlessly beaten down until he learned to fight back.  During his Session 21 visit with the Nightmother, he openly admits that “nowhere feels safe”.  From that it’s pretty clear to read that Morenthal has never felt unconditionally loved, safe or respected around other mortals.

(This also helps contextualise why he’s so devoted to the Nightmother.  From what little we have seen of his visits to her, Iris is a fond “adult” figure, who does not threaten, does not judge, asks nothing of him aside from his company, and cares equally for all the souls that pass through her domain.  For a child “growing up with nothing” but violence, that would have been everything.)

But then, enter Jonathan fucking Wick.  And now, just for a short while, Morenthal has all these “memories” of Jonathan being there to confide in, encourage him and support his escape from the Bloodletters.  Suddenly he believes someone was there for him and, while the memories might be fake, the feelings of unconditional safety they would have brought were very real.  Little wonder that he started acting like a Trilby-level naive goober around Mister Wick to the point of accidentally snitching on the rest of the group.  Only, then it turns out to be a lie and those memories are gone.

For me, I think one of the worst things Morenthal might end up dealing with in the aftermath of having his memory fixed isn’t the specific feeling of personal betrayal or the potential shame at having been caught: it’s the realisation that he was always alone.   That there was no mortal on the outside who cared or came for him when he needed them – just him and the distant fondness of a Divine.  That would be awful beyond words, and yet the Flower Crowns were forced to inadvertently inflict it upon him in order to restore his mind.  No wonder he wouldn’t look any of them in the eye before the session closed.

Worse still, the nature of the key makes it incredibly hard not only to trust others, but to trust your own mind.  The players and audience above-table know that Morenthal is back to experiencing and remembering reality as it happened, but the question could very well linger for him, bringing with it a hefty dose of paranoia.  Sure, Morenthal correctly remembers that Coil is a straightforward, loyal person who wouldn’t be tempted to tamper with his mind beyond undoing Jonathan’s manipulations… but he “remembered” that about Mister Wick too, and wouldn’t that be a beneficial thing for the Party to have him think?   To Morenthal, people were already Not Safe™, but now the one person he ever believed might be had actually violated him worse than anyone else in order to force and abuse that trust.  How is he supposed to trust anyone if he can’t trust the authenticity of his own recollections.  (I get the feeling that Morenthal probably isn't going to be capable of relaxing until the Shaper of Minds is confirmed to either be locked back safely in the Vaults of Eversteel or fully removed from the Mortal Plane by Six).

It makes it really tragic that all of this came directly on the back of Episode 23, where Gamb revealed during the above-table break chat that - even if Morenthal didn’t recognise why – he unconsciously trusted Trilby and Gelnek enough to jump off the airship without checking that his rope was secure, because deep-down he knew they would catch him.  To go from that high-point to the whiplash of him first thinking the Flower Crowns had killed the only person he was ever “safe” with, then them inadvertently subjecting him to the most painful realisation he could ever experience and potentially leaving him wondering whether he can even trust his feelings about them is absolutely gutting.

I think the thing that scares me most about how the aftermath could potentially play out is another trait that Gamb and Dan have established for Morenthal: he's a flight-risk.   He shies away from letting people get close and, if he feels unsafe enough, he runs.  It’s already been mentioned/implied that he’s considered fleeing the group at multiple different points across the sessions.  And with him likely not feeling safe even in inside his own mind right now, that risk is probably at an all-time high.  The poor lad is staring down the barrel of a potentially-impending multi-level emotional crisis, where a lifetime of instincts will probably be urging him to run hard and fast because People Are Not Safe™.

And the thing is, that instinct isn’t a good one for him either.  Morenthal might have gotten by on his own “just living to be” up until Filgrove, but that feels a lot more like surviving out of necessity than having an actual life.  It’s pretty obvious that he pushes people away as a defence mechanism:  if you don’t care about anyone then you can’t be hurt by them or have those people used against you.  But if you don’t let yourself care and feel things, you’re not really living.  The truly tragic part of his running being a potential foreseeable outcome is that the Flower Crowns are good for Morenthal.  (I doubt Morenthal realises it and can’t speak to Gamb’s above-table thought process but it’s interesting that one potential interpretation of Morenthal’s cynical, faux-apathetic, “stinky” behaviour is that of a former abused child quietly testing the boundaries of whether he’s allowed to exist in a way that’s inconvenient for others, to which the answer from the Party has largely been yes provided he isn’t actively encouraging Trilby to get himself killed, or killing people without explaining himself).  He survived alone before because that was all he knew, but I get the feeling he wouldn’t do so well if he tried to go it solo again after being with people (he’s already confessed that the idea of Feyli being gone makes him miss her).   That’s not a road to walk on his best day, let alone with his current headspace and tendency towards self-destructive choices. 

It reminds me a lot of this article:

“Still, it’s easier for us to keep blaming ourselves because it’s preferable to facing the unthinkable: the fact that our parents don’t love us. …  Most people would rather do anything than accept this as the truth. Not only is it painful; it’s humiliating.”

So yeah, suffice to say I am incredibly concerned about how Morenthal’s arc is going to play out over the next session(s).  Here’s hoping that Gelnek and/or Coil have enough emotional savvy to keep an eye out, and enough patience to stick to him even if he lashes out in attempt to drive them off.  Even if it all works out okay, I get the feeling that this one’s going to be ugly.

Can’t wait to see how everyone chooses to play it ❤️‍🩹

[zombholic]

MILF ABBY WITH READER WHO HATES KIDS HC — abby anderson

description — milf!abby, reader who isnt that great with kids, age gap, reader is around mid twenties and abby is late thirties going on forty, smut, mdi !!,

authors note — literally all my creds and inspo goes to @elliespassagerprincess i literally love their milf abby series pls go read it !!

— You and your friends know that you do not have a single motherly instinct in your bones, you and kids do not mix well together.

— This one time you were just strolling while shopping and a toddler came up to say hi to you and you just stared at it wondering what to do.

— If there’s a child screaming at the top of their little lungs you literally give it a death glare.

— You also call children “it” and make everyone laugh every time you talk about a kid.

— But if it wasn’t for Abby’s six-year-old daughter Melanie who came up to you one day at a your local grocery store crying like snot bubbling at her nose and she looked sticky trying to hold your hand you wouldn’t have met your future milf wife.

“Oh, uh hi— why are you crying?” You let the little child grab your pointer finger as you tried to hard to fight your inner demons from the stickiness of her little hand.

“I— I can’t find my mommy.” She used her other hand to wipe the snot off her face, you could feel every nerve in your body cringe. You felt bad for the thing but jesus why are kids so fucking sticky.

You and the kid sat on one of the benches inside the store, you bought her some candy to make it stop crying and it worked. You did inform an employee that there was a lost kid, they spoke on the intercom after telling you that if the parent isn’t here in a certain amount of time they would call law enforcement.

“So, what’s your name?” You pinched your eyebrows together looking at the small being next to you devouring the ring pop like her life depended on it.

“Melanie but all my friends call me Melly.” She gave you a toothy smile well … she was missing majority of her teeth so half toothy smile?

“That’s … nice? You have friends?” She shook her head, her two little braids looked like she got into a street fight.

“Yeah, a lot like a lot of friends, what’s your na—“ She was cut off by a woman’s voice calling out for her.

“Melanie!” Both of your eyes shot up at the… holy fucking fuck she was breath taking.

— You found out that her name is Abby and she has a little escape artist for a child, she hugged you tightly with those giant arms thanking you for keeping her baby safe.

— Abby was truly taken back by how beautiful you are, she was quick to tell you she’ll repay you and managed to get your number while doing so.

— You guys ended up bonding really fast, even though you two were almost complete opposites she was so fascinated by you.

— She invited you over to dinner at her house and fuck was she loaded, not like you were in it for the money but damn must be nice.

— She genuinely found it so amusing how you would interact with Melanie, treating her like a little adult. You weren’t the type to use baby words towards kids you just spoke to them.

— Melanie really resembled Abby to the T, she had her mom’s blue eyes, freckles, the cutest nose but she had blonder hair, you just assumed it was from the dad.

— After months of basically hanging out with them you guys felt so inseparable, you still would give concerning expressions whenever Melanie would do something weird.

— Abby was falling in love you, whenever all three of you would watch a movie that Melanie always picked out and yes you did argue with a six year old about picking movies she would just have the urge to grab your face and kiss you.

— For halloween you bought Melanie an inflatable dinosaur costume with a pink tutu, you literally were crying from how silly she looked holding Abby’s hand.

— Abby was so reluctant to make the first move, scared that she was too old for you but little did she know how much it turned you on that she was older.

— You decided to ask Abby out on a date, you called her up while you were at home, heart beating out of your chest when she said yes.

— The date was at the arcade, cheesy but Abby always won you prizes every time you guys went with Melly. She beat at you literally every single game and being competitive you just glared at her.

— Melanie was at a sleepover at her friend’s home so you and Abby had the place to yourselves, after the date you guys were chilling in her kitchen Abby finally had the courage to kiss you.

“Can I please kiss you?” She looked at you with those pleading eyes, a slight whine to her words.

NSFW mdi NSFW mdi NSFW

— She pinned your back against the counter, her hand cupping the side of your face, the kiss felt so warm but soon became greedy.

— She carried you to her room, your legs wrapped around her waist, arms around her neck as you drove her fucking crazy kissing on her neck like that.

— Abby has a Daddy kink, she had her strap settled deep in your drooling cunt, legs on her shoulder, thrusting so fucking deliciously making you claw at her arms.

“Mmmgh— oh fuck Abby..” Your eyes were rolled to the back of your head, knuckles white from the grip you had on her arms.

“Daddy, call me fucking Abby again and I wont let you cum.” She slapped your face, grabbing it with her hands squeezing your cheeks together.

God this wasn’t the sweet, motherly Abby you knew but some sex god who would fuck you so stupid it left you an incoherent mess.

— She had crazy stamina, had you in every position, face down with your ass up, riding her cock, your back pressed against her front as she spread your legs open drilling your bruised and aching pussy.

— She was so mean, she mocked your moans, bit your skin, slapped your tearful face every time you stopped looking at her. You couldn’t get enough of this side of her.

— She over stimulated you so much you were sobbing, trembling every time she would touch you, your legs shook violently.

Abby had her arms wrapped securely around your thighs, spreading them open so wide. Her tongue lapping you up, sucking on your puffing clit, sliding her tongue inside your sore cunt.

“Daddy please! Too much, s’too much, too much” You squealed, crying out trying to push her head off of you.

— After long hours of her using you, she was so quick to turn her motherly instincts back on. Kissing your face so sweetly, her eyes filled with worry that she pushed you over the edge.

— You reassured her that it was the best fucking sex you’ve ever had. She started a bath for you, sitting right behind you as she massaged your aching body, running her fingers over the love bites she left scattered on your body.

— She held you so tightly as you both had fallen asleep on her amazing bed.

[thatdeadaquarius]

That language SAGAU but the Reader can only communicate writing on paper.

Either the Reader is mute and they (characters) don't know/understand sign language or they somehow lost their voices on their transmigration to Teyvat and can only write now. But the characters are left trying to decipher what the Reader wrote.

Examples:

Kaeya: "I may say, that was very unexpected your grace. One such as yourself should be more aware of who you are."

Reader: "wat, y u sayin dat?"

×

Gorou: "Oh, your grace! Careful now. I am most certain that you stepped on something unsightly right now. Let me clean your feet, your grace."

Reader: "r u srs rn? Fml"

Ooooo, this is nice, this is niiccceeee /ref

this would be the energy⬇️

Man I love this show, I gotta finish it (it’s Komi Can’t Communicate for those who want to see it) where she basically is too shy/introverted to speak (non-verbal neurospicy it seems like to me actually lol) and really wants to make friends and do normal things despite not speaking, her main way of communicating is writing (and her first guy friend who can just read her facial/body language really well lmao)!!

☆

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (they/them)

Planet: Headcanons-ish?

Stars: dashes/mention of most characters

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: Reader/”you” are mute/lost their voice, & Trigger Warnings: None Known.

☆

This kinda falls into that post I made abt texting lingo, abt us being nigh incomprehensible when using texting lang. (its basically a code lol)

but i think it’s always neat to see nonverbal rep so here we are (also i think imma go ahead and say it is both selectively mute but also enforced by video game laws!)

u know a good explanation would be for this is actually abt how we technically are only allowed to freely communicate when we’re in chats,

so I could see that still being the only way we can commnicate in Teyvat (look am i little excited abt taking “video game world” a little too literally in every genshin AU ever- maybe.)

tbh i could see so many allogenes having to either learn to make room for you in convos and u also having to get wayyy more expressive in body language/facial expressions

tbh i think itd be pretty easy to get ur meaning, like in a battle or smth fast-paced where u couldnt write, like how Tinker Bell can?

if u dont know what i mean just search “tinkerbell scenes peter pan” on youtube and u can see ppl just having a full conversation with no words with her, which i think would deffo happen with ppl like Kaeya, Lisa, Lumine, Venti, Heizou, Ayato, Yae Miko, Thoma, Beidou and Itto surprisingly i could see it (ppl in the distance just think theyre all talking to themselves sometimes when ur not as visible hehe)

OMG they get u nice gifts for writing all the time, like the newest compact pens from Fontaine, the finest small, medium, and large notebooks from Inazuma,

like a little compact pocketbook so u can easily fit it in pockets!

u know Im absolutely sure you could literally start the texting appreviation trend in Tevyat like this-

like just so it’s easier to communicate with you, a lot of people are willing to adapt/take on abbreviations like “ttyl, gtg, wth, lol, lmao” even stuff like “etc”

lol u start a whole trend in the writing letters business, hehe silly medieval Teyvat is silly and medieval

yknow I think the quieter vision users would definitely find you to be peaceful to be around and easy to understand just with writing (also deffo most likely to adore the soft moments together of just ur pen scribbling and the sounds of nature or a cafe or something around them),

tbh i also think these ppl would be motivated to talk to you alone, or get you away to just talk the two of you for all the reasons above, like Xiao, Aether, Kazuha, Ayaka, Chongyun, Zhongli, Diluc, Sayu, Ei, Sucrose, Eula, Ganyu, Ningguang, Tighnari, Alhaitham omg he might literally be able to take his headphones off around u bc youd be in such quiet spaces all the time, and bc u dont talk he doesn’t have to worry abt u getting loud either lmao

…and then ofc, there’s the bitches that try and guess what ur writing ahead of timeeee 😭

bein all like, “Uh… you.. would like.. to go to… a restaurant… to get some- OH OH I got this one this time! Some pita pockets! …Oh. A drink. Right. Sorry, again.”

definitely Itto, Cyno, Heizou, Xingqiu, Fischl, Amber, Collei, Dehya, Wanderer, Childe, Venti, Keqing (she just used to being fast ok), Kaveh lmao

☆

I hope my reply was a little fun!! THANK U FOR SENDING THIS I LOVE THIS SM!! Man it’s so hard to make you feel my appreciation for this idea thru the damn screen

like how do i send a virtual hug

ANYWAY, if you or anybody else had an idea for celebrating 1000 followers lmk bc i am STRUGGLING with this same issue for that,

like how to make u guys feel my love 😩 ❤️‍🔥

☆

Safe travels ignihideous,

💀♒

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonderss / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi

[lovelybrooke]

It is I! I’m gonna be talking about Velvette finally. Also I hadn’t read your post yet but you asked for some help with stolas Ozzie and fizz and fortunately for you I’m hyper fixated on helluva boss and Hazbin hotel so eventually once I’m confident I’ll try to give you my ideas.

Now Velvette is a mix between vox’s personal obsession and Val’s cosmetic interest towards the reader. She learns of the reader from Val and Vox, and gets mixed information from the two, Val speaking of the reader based on how defensive Angel has been to Val and Vox shareing the less interesting parts of the readers life (like their hobbies) I personally find Velvette will be the last to grow an interest, but even when she does I think it’ll be more moderate, at least compared to Vox who I personally headcanon infodumps about the reader.

Also if the reader meets Velvette I feel in a way Velvette would be the least scary, because she isn’t that tall looks relatively human and uses internet lingo (also my head canon, and this is not to say the reader uses slang or internet terminology its just the reader might be familiar with it)

Velvette at first only tolerates Vox’s tangents about the reader for Vox’s sake, I know for a fact that Val would get impatient or say something snarky that bothers Vox. And because of velvette’s tolerance to him he might bless her with saved footage of the reader that he treasures or thinks is intimate (for example the reader writing something important in a diary or drawing something that might be expressing how they really feel. Or a honest smile that they rarely hold).

I also can imagine once Val has finally taken an interest of the reader, and thinks about them more often, Velvette and Val have conversations about them, without Vox though, because their contrasting perspectives on the reader has caused some tension. Val shares this morbid conception of the reader, comparing them to a pet, and sharing some information he managed to gather from Angel Dust, albeit little information.

This obviously puts Velvette in this unique position where she’s hearing information about the reader from two separate sources, and at the same time her conception and image of the reader being blend of Val and Vox’s. Val’s image of the reader being something worth complimenting makes Velvette see the reader as this doll. And Vox’s more intimate and personal image of the reader pushes Velvette to think the reader might be a chill nice person to be around.

And how this mixed conception applies is more calm? Or natural? Compared to the other two, who have more extreme conceptions. For example once Velvette takes a small liking to the reader she starts noticing certain clothes and fashion choices that don’t look good on her might look really good on the reader. When a model of hers presents an outfit Velvette might think ‘this’ll look really cute on the reader’, Velvette might even find songs that remind her of the reader (I personally see her as a gal who listens to a lot of music and values music taste. But this is also just a headcanon)

Velvette doesn’t constantly think of the reader, it’s only when certain things remind her of the reader, which just tells me that she isn’t that obsessed. She probably likes the idea of enforcing her tastes onto the reader but otherwise also enjoys some of the differences between her and the reader. It makes her a little more open to subgenres in music and fashion (especially if the reader is into that)

Velvette is basically the type of girl who might push reader into doing things that they don’t want, but she also would balance it out by letting the reader do things they want. She wants the reader to adopt some of her tastes and mannerisms, but she’s also just as equally interested in the readers tastes and mannerisms. Sure she might not fully respect the readers boundaries but at least she isn’t going out of her way to dehumanize them like Val does.

She’s much more moderate because she rarely ever hears of or sees the reader, and I imagine some things might change once she meets or interacts with the reader. Like I imagine her being the type to get really jealous and maybe might make the reader a little insecure to ensure they stay with her. But at the moment she probably doesn’t think that way cause until she gets to spend time with the reader she’ll probably be more interested instead of obsessed.

yeah more stuff. I'm really excited to hear your stuff about Helluva Boss.

Yeah like I mentioned in my last post, Velvette is kinda in the middle when it comes to her obsession for reader. She doesn't necessarily want to know everything about them like Vox, but also doesn't see reader as an object like Val. I think like you mentioned, Velvette wants reader to become like her, sorta. She still wants reader to have a personality separate from her own, but that doesn't stop her from pressuring reader into doing things they don't want to do, especially if she believes it's something she has to do.

I think everything Velvette has learned about reader she's learned against her own will, either from Val or Vox. It's even worse when they're arguing about reader because they barely acknowledge she's there. However, this works to her advantage because she doesn't have to work real hard to learn about reader. She's also smart, and knows how to talk about you based on who she's speaking with. When she's around Val, she's more possessive, objectifying even. While when she's with Vox she's more open and aware of readers emotions. This makes it hard to know what she truly thinks of reader.

But once she does gain an interest in reader, she's a pure mixture of both of the men she lives with. She's jealous and mean in ways that are reminiscent of Val, but also very aware of readers emotions like Vox. I don't think she, or anyone else for that matter, is really aware of what she actually feels for reader, but she doesn't really get a choice to not be exposed to them, so she might as well buckle up for the ride.

[mono-dot-jpeg]

stop playing league - k. kenma

summary; a callout to me and my fellow league players. (not league enjoyers. players.)

genre/extra tags; one shot(?)/drabble, fluff, comedy, slight crack, kenma (kind of) slanders riot games and you, relationship unestablished and unmentioned, if you know the games cool (i hate valorant), self indulgent

[can be interpreted as romantic or platonic] [gender never mentioned] [i make many references to different games and use game terms, sorry]

word count; 489

a/n; no one except for league players can make fun of league in this post now, i make the rules and enforce them. (/hj) you ever think abt the difference between making fun of your favorite things and someone else doing it? yeah it's like that basically. i genuinely like the characters league has to offer, but people always think i like the game. (i play it but i usually end up hating most sessions)

"don't you dare hit that button."

your cursor hovers over the fated "find match" button. the button that has been torturing you for at least a few hours now. your dying urge to play "one more game" has you in a chokehold when you just want to win once.

"kenma..." you whine. the pudding head is playing a much more chill game compared to yours, which was slime rancher. it was a little bit nerve-wracking with how easily he almost slipped off ledges, deal with the occasional tarr slime, or the adorably angry slimes in certain paths. but nonetheless, it's a much healthier game to play than league. "it's not like i can even play slime rancher with you, it's not multi-player. just let me have this. i'm gonna win this time. surely. i'll switch to val after this, promise."

"you still won't be playing with me because i don't play valorant." you can imagine his cat-like glare staring at you through the screen. "and you rarely play tft and legends of runeterra."

"it gets me dizzy, alright?! and also you should know how painful it is to get those annoying people who hold my three stars from me!" you pause when he mentions the card game, "the card game isn't that bad. just not my favorite. what about overwatch?"

"isn't the new hog rework annoying?"

"that's... it's something. what about plate up?"

"you're gonna rage."

"stardew?"

"you're too lazy to update your mods."

"shut the fuck up, actually." you hissed at him as he huffs out a laugh. "i'm waiting for the next update. i think everyone is at this point."

"literally play anything but league for fucks sake, y/n."

"but cute neeko skin.." you pretend to cry, "i just want to play my sillies. maybe even win a game, dare i say." you angrily wave your mouse over your screen. kenma watches your screen share, unamused.

"you spent money on that skin."

"WRONG, I SPENT MONEY ON ONE OVERWATCH SKIN AND TWO BATTLEPASSES."

"still spent money."

"that's a lot of backtalk coming from you. you buy skins and dlc too. you're not clean either." despite kenma trying to prolong the inevitable, you click "find match" and sit back and wait as kenma groans in annoyance. "your signs can't stop me because i can't read." you read the burst of notifications in discord of kenma and your friends making fun of you for even playing league willingly. "fuck y'all. god forbid, i have a hobby." you huffed.

"it's league."

"just let me play my silly champions in peace, kenma! you don't see me judging you for picking sebastian every stardew save!"

"he's not even that bad!"

"you always steal him from me!"

"you don't deserve him!"

"fuck you!"

"fuck you!"

a blanket of silence falls over you both as you end your silly bickering.

"you wanna play a pokemon soul link run after your match?"

"fuck you, yeah i do."

[autistichalsin]

Okay, I’ve been a bit scared because I’ve been observing from the sidelines, but I do want you to know this isn’t a hateful or troll ask, I’m genuinely asking for clarification.

In my experience, “pro-shipping” has always meant ‘problematic shipping’, and all of the people I’ve talked to about this have said the same thing.

Am I the one who’s misconstrued? I really don’t get it.

Being called “pro-harassment” or “pro-censorship” is hurtful and confusing as all hell.

I don’t harass people for what they create. I don’t care to do that. I block and move on, and warn people if I know they could be upset by the content.

But I also don’t understand how certain things are justified.

I am personally not bothered by much, but I have watched friends and acquaintances go through visceral traumatic reactions because people have decided to air out their coping by sharing it with the public. (I.E, people who write romantic incestual fics, etc)

I don’t give a shit what people write. I really don’t. But it feels harmful to use the excuse of coping when you, in turn, could be hurting dozens of others.

Like I said, I genuinely am not trying to be hateful here. I’m confused, and still distraught that all of this is happening. I don’t think anyone deserves to be harassed. I just also don’t get the logic here.

Pro-shipping never once meant problematic shipping. It meant opposite of "anti" because antis would come and invade the tags and asks, calling them all kinds of names if they found their ships distasteful.

Sorry that being indirectly accused of supporting harassment hurt your feelings. Imagine how I felt, being DIRECTLY accused of supporting rape in real life because of my taste in fiction. You are throwing in your lot with people who can't distinguish fantasy and reality.

I don't like incest fics either, anon. They are triggering for me. So you know what I do? I don't read fics tagged as incest. For that reason, I have never been triggered by an incest fic. I suppose I would be if I read an incest fic that wasn't tagged as much, but you will never find a single pro-shipper who defends posting such content without a tag. You are responsible for your own experience online; it is your job to curate the content.

If it was just seeing that the fic exists that triggered the response, then I'm sorry to say they're still in the wrong. As a survivor, learning that triggers exist and how to navigate those triggers is on you. We are responsible for how we deal with our trauma. Your friends didn't deserve their traumas, and they deserve kindness and support, but requesting that people never be allowed to write distasteful fiction so that they don't have to be upset by the idea that someone somewhere shipped incest is not reasonable. Their feelings are valid; it's totally reasonable to be triggered, to strictly curate your online experience. It's reasonable to block everyone who ships the upsetting incest ships, to put an "incest shippers DNI" on your page, all of it. It's not reasonable to call them supporters of IRL incest or to accuse them of causing your trauma. It isn't hard at all on AO3 or Tumblr; they even give you the option to blacklist/filter out certain tags so you can avoid it without blocking users. There's easily half a dozen safeguards that already exist that are a lot less radical, a lot less likely to be weaponized against queer users, and a lot easier to enforce than trying to remove them.

Me writing fics, such as a character using kink to cope, can only harm a user who doesn't curate their feed (and who reads fics they know will trigger them, which I can only assume would then be a purposeful form of self-harm). Denying other survivors their coping mechanism, though, IS a direct form of harm. Stigmatizing recovery by saying that survivors are in any way akin to abusers for creating fiction is a direct form of harm.

It sounds to me like you've absorbed some very harmful and very narrow ideas of what recovery should and should not look like, and what is and isn't a good/valid survivor. You might want to reflect on why you're turning your attention to policing what survivors do to cope so much.

[yuyuconfessions]

"I've noticed that younger fans seem to have trouble connecting the dots that a lot of adults on this website were kids younger or close to the age of Yusuke when this series was originally airing back in the 90s in Japan and the 2000s in the west.

Although these fictional characters' stories ended for them at 18 it doesn't mean that Yusuke and the gang stop being important, interesting, or compelling to us. It also doesn't mean that we have to stop loving these fictional characters and their stories after we turn 19.

If you as a minor 14-17 or someone aged 18 - 25 thay feels comfortable shipping these characters, viewing art of them, and reading fic about them ESPECIALLY NSFW art/fic; but your skin crawls that people older than you are creating that content, then you need to sit down with yourself and ask yourself if fandoms that are literally older than your existence are places that you are ready to be socializing in.

Fandoms that are older than your existence will have fans that are MUCH older than you and they are making content and having interactive conversations.

Yu Yu Hakusho is not an Adult Only fandom but it is a fandom that is Mostly Adults.

I fell in love with this show when I was a pre teen. I'm in my mid 30s. The show's target audience is teenagers. But here is the thing: it's target audience was teenagers back in the 90s and 2000s and that's still most of its audience today because Togashi told a fun and resonant story that tends to stick with its audience.

If you can't handle shipping content or adult conversations (conversations about mature topics and themes not necessarily 18+/NSFW but these are definitely present also) about Yu Yu Hakusho then you should try to avoid adult spaces when searching for discussion or content and stick to spaces specifically for minors.

A space specifically for minors would have a ban against all 18+/NSFW content that is strictly enforced. It would not have an 18+/NSFW section at all.

Tumblr and most of the discord servers for YYH that I've seen are adult spaces. Because there is an expectation that while minors are allowed on the websites they must be over a certain age with parental permission because adult conversations happen here where minors could see them.

All of this to say: Unplug from the adult spaces if you feel uncomfortable with adult themes and content or 18+/NSFW content.

Talk to friends irl about Yu Yu Hakusho or find a minor focused space online to talk about it. Come back to the adult spaces in a few years.

This applies to the 18 - 25 crowd also. If you can't handle seeing someone ship these characters or if someone ships them in a way that you don't agree with and it's so upsetting to you that it's causing you a great deal of anger or distress then you need to consider if you really want to be in the Greater Online Yu Yu Hakusho Fandom at this particular point in your life. Or if maybe you want to filter tags on tumblr and drop sites that you can't filter to make your fandom experience more smooth.

If Yu Yu Hakusho has lasted 30 years then it'll last another 3 or 5 years while you get adjusted and engage with Yu Yu Hakusho in minor focused or safely filtered fandom spaces. Trust me. Yu Yu Hakusho will be somewhere on the greater internet when you're older and you've gotten better at self regulating your intake of content online and your response to seeing content online that you don't like.

Yusuke, Kazuma, Kurama, Hiei, Keiko, Botan, Shizuru, Yukina, Genkai and the rest will be here when you get back. That's the great thing about resonant media. It sticks around because people connect to it.

You can love them as long as you want to. They'll always be there. They're not going anywhere."

This mod would just like to add

No one shipping Yusuke x Keiko is sexualizing or exploiting minors; yes, even if the person shipping is 35 years old. These are cartoons, fictional, 2d drawings. If you want to play cute with "but they're 14!" No. Yusuke was created in 1992. He is 31.

If any of the above makes you, a minor, uncomfortable, then get out of adult spaces. Back in myyy day (que groans), any show I liked and looked at online had adult content, like Inuyasha or Naruto, even Teen Titans. I'd be 12 and see suddenly complete porn of Raven, and as a teen, I'd just exit out of it. Now, kids see things online, things they shouldn't see because the internet is NOT safe for kids without parental oversight, and their response is to... yell at the people making the content... for other adults.

If you wouldn't walk into Spencers and yell at the employees there for the vibrators, don't yell at adults drawing porn of Yukina and Hiei fucking. Exit out, or ask your mommy and daddy to put restrictions on what sites you can access. The internet is NOT your babysitter.

[cloudinterlude]

what misconception? 👀

I assume this is about the Civil War post I made and oh boy, so many. So, so many. Let me preface this by saying I actually like Civil War enough as a movie. Not as a Captain America movie, but it's engaging and I enjoyed it for the most part. I mostly dislike the dogshit opinions about it. To prevent this from turning into a dissertation, I'll just list the ones that come to mind first/irritate me the most:

"Steve was completely against regulation and oversight" WRONG. He was against the vagueness of it all. He explicitly says that he wants to know whose going to be holding his leash if he has to have one. In fact, he was about to sign the Accords before Tony told him about them preemptively enforcing it and detaining Wanda. Steve was willing to consider the Accords, Steve was trying to discuss the Accords, Steve was on the path to being open to the Accords before the moral failings of it were already shining through. Steve, rightfully so, is distrustful at this point of anonymous authority. Following the news that Hydra had their nasty paws in SHIELD and other high positions in government, Steve decides that he wants to know more about the people who have authority over him. Seems reasonable enough.

"Steve was only against the Accords for Bucky" WRONG. 1) Before he was certain that Bucky was being framed, he says that he has the best chance of bringing him in to minimize damage. Then, when he was certain Bucky was innocent, it became a matter of not letting his bestie be falsely imprisoned and/or killed on the spot. 2) Lemme just add that yes, Bucky is extremely important to Steve, but Steve would have still been against the Accords if Bucky wasn't a factor. I need people to understand this. It wasn't just a "oh no I need to save my best friend". 3) If you read what was in the Accords, you'd understand why Steve would generally be against them. They're abhorrent.

"Steve didn't read the Accords/Steve didn't even attempt to communicate or compromise." I haaaaattttteeee this one with a burning passion. Did we watch the same movie? He's quite literally the only one on screen we see even look at that long ass document. Probably also the only one would could even manage to read the thing since it was sprung up on them 3 days before the meeting (which is a whole 'nother issue for later. For now, I'll just say I support the Ross conspiracy theory). He also tried to tell Tony & Co. before the airport fight that Zemo was the one behind all this conflict, that Bucky is innocent and about the 5 other ultra-dangerous super-soldiers who, as far as he knew, were about to be unleashed onto the world which would be disastrous. Unfortunately, Team IM was wracked with tension and didn't listen and attacked.

"Steve and Bucky jumped Tony (+ variants of this statement)." This is one that confused me so much. Such a bullshit take. I am begging people to rewatch CW and watch the fight. Tony, whose emotions is dialed to a thousand (and not only because of the Bucky thing mind you, but I can talk about that a lot more later because I like talking about Tony's emotional/mental state during Civil War) attacked first, then tries to kill Bucky, Steve tries to get Tony to stop killing Bucky, Tony is trying not to kill Steve, Bucky is trying to get Tony not to kill Steve or him. It's a mess. Mind you, Steve isn't even trying to excessively harm Tony in this scene. It's confirmed that during the entire fight, he was trying to disable the suit. Not trying to beat Tony to a pulp - DISABLE. THE. SUIT. Which he manage to do in the midst of that shitshow.

"*insert any anti-CW Wanda take*" Please, someone please tell me why people think Wanda has any blame for what happened Lagos? Wanda quite literally didn't CAUSE that. I need to understand this point of view before I get an aneurysm. She didn't make the bomb, bring the bomb, set the bomb off. It was Rumlow who had that bomb that would have ended up killing way more people on the ground than where Wanda managed to put it. She absolutely was as much of a hero as she could be in that instance, trying to redirect the bomb away from civilians. Unfortunately, it still ended it casualties, but a lot less than it would have been if Wanda hadn't intervened.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. Fanon CACW quite literally has some of the worst fan comprehension I've seen in the MCU. I imagine that a lot of it is not understanding characters, the movie not elaborating on important plot points in an effort to make it 50/50 (which they failed at lol), and the fandom being a lot more conservative than I thought. I can expand further on anything if you want!

[sadistic-softie]

I hate being confrontational or preachy and I've never done it before, and frankly, it scares the shit out of me because I don't want people to think I'm mad at them, but I just need to get this off my chest.

I don't have NPD, but I'm so fucking tired of seeing bullshit CPTSD healing 'resources' that use 'narcissist' as a way to say 'abuser' or assume that all abusers are narcissistic and/or vice versa. Like...I wanna heal my trauma without seeing NPD people being thrown under the bus and stigmatized for something they have no part in. Like...wtf? Is that too much to ask for?? My CPTSD is not because of someones or anyones NPD. It never was and never will be. Apparently this is a hot take, but PTSD in general is not from anyones NPD. PTSD is from TRAUMA and or ABUSE. Apparently this is such a common misconception that even my father believes it. He said, "it's because she's a narcassist" after I talked to him about my mothers abusive behaviors to me. So, yeah...that's an awkward fucking conversation I might have to have eventually?? Narcissist is not another word for abuser. I'm saying this as a victim of abuse. Narcissist is not another word for abuser. Yes, it is possible that an abuser can just so happen to have NPD, but they could also have literally any other disorder and that would't be the cause of abusive behavior. NPD doesn't 'make' someone into an abuser. People with NPD are not all abusers. Not all abusers have NPD. These things are not synonymous. You can not blame abusive behavior on NPD. In my particular situation, my family has fallen into a cycle of abuse type situation, in which each mother was abusive to her daughters, causing the cycle to become seen as 'normal' in the family, thus perpetuating the cycle. An abusers actions are purposefully negative. Even if the intent is not explicitly to abuse or the abuser is not fully aware that they are being abusive. Each individual behavior is done with a certain intent. Manipulation tactics are meant to gain power over a person, constant invasion of privacy is done to control a person, constant belittlement and agression towards a particular person enforces an unhealthy dynamic, unwarrented and or cruel punishments, threats, pushings of boundaries are meant to train a victims actions and mindset, and I don't think I need to explain why physical violence is harmful. The list goes on. None of these abusive behaviors are symptoms of NPD nor fit the description of someone with NPD. These behaviors are abusive, end of sentence. It has nothing to do with NPD. The following are screenshots from a simple Google search (literally bare minimum research) defining Narcassistic Personality Disorder:

I'm sorry is this post overwhelms anyone. I don't want this to feel like a scolding and I really hope I don't sound like I'm trying to take a moral highground because I don't wanna make anyone feel like they're a bad person or anything like that. I know my wording and tone in this post is quite agressive compared to how I usually am, and I apoligize for that. I also wanna make it clear that this is not directed at anyone or any group of people in particular. Also, take this with a grain of salt too, as I'm not a professional in any field whatsoever and these are just my personal thoughts and frustrations. I hope you have a wonderful day if you're reading this and if you aren't. Thank you.

[starqueensthings]

If It’s Not You, It’s Not Anyone.

Ficlets inspired by song lyrics: part two.

Pairing: ARC Echo x GN!Reader

POV/WC: 2nd, but from Echo's perspective, 2082 words

Rating/Warnings: Teen. Overall fluffy but with significant mentions of anxiety. Seggsy time is implied a few times also.

A/N: while this isn’t my favourite song in the world, I’ve never been able to listen to it without this kind of imagery floating through my mind. I love the lyrics, especially when I fit them into an ARC Echo sized box. Not proof or beta read (and I’m notorious for making up my own words when I can’t think of the one I want… fair warning.) ENJOY. 

“Forever’s not enough time to love you the way that I want, because every morning I find you, I fear the day that I don’t. You say that I won’t lose you but you can’t predict the future ‘cause certain things are out of our control. If you ever move on without me, I need to make sure you know: you are the only one I’ll ever love… if it’s not you it’s not anyone.”

[Anyone - Justin Bieber]

He wasn’t a betting man anymore, the days he’d found himself brazen enough to wager his belongings were long since outgrown, and now merely a memory of the past brought up too frequently atop relentless jeers from his brother, Fives. The purgatorial hours after curfew but preceding sleep, saw Domino Squad sprawled across a table, discarded face cards tossed aside as the boys bickered with each other over who lay claim to the prize pot anchoring their fun. Echo was only too miserable to watch his prized possessions float from his clutches, lost to the treachery of one bad poker hand after another, the certainty of his impending win often betrayed by Hevy’s nearly inscrutable bluffing skills. “Just lucky, I guess,” the broad shouldered soldier would coo across the table with a wink, smirking as his fingers draped themselves eagerly around the mountain of contraband that he’d won.

Time and experience had seen a shift in priorities. Life… war… had quickly reinforced the notion that the distribution of Lady Luck’s attention was entirely unpredictable, and trying to elucidate her choices could send a man spiraling into an anguished insanity. It was far simpler to just swallow the bitter pill of unreasoning: sometimes you simply had her favour, and sometimes you did not (and Hevy, somehow, seemed to always have it).

Departing the protective bubble of Kamino’s isolation had proved less of a challenge than Echo anticipated thanks to the unexpected comfortability of their first posting. Surveilling the Rishi system from the stillness of a desolate moon was barely a challenge for the squad’s capable hands, especially after years of conditioning had endowed their expectations with images of carnage and violence, but despite the perceived insignificance of their objective, their overseeing officers were no less regimented or dogmatic than those whom had raised them. Tactics and strategy continued to be encouraged at every possible opportunity; obedience enforced, and discipline expected. “Segregation from the front lines is no excuse for complacency,” their sergeant would iterate repeatedly. “Any brother would be lucky to have landed this posting. Take it seriously.”

Between inappropriately fluffy songs, Clone Nation Radio recounted the events of battles fought across the galaxy, perfectly mirroring the sergeants continued pleas. Seemingly the only squad member willing to heed the advice, the quiet hours on the distant moon saw Echo pouring over schematics, the memorization of regulation manuals presenting him with the perfect shield against the potential chill of Lady Luck’s cold shoulder. His brothers’ snide remarks about indulging in this new ‘strange’ habit, simply rolled off his armoured shoulders. “We’ll see who gets the last laugh when these ‘dumb manuals’ help me out-survive all of you,” he would always chirr back with a roll of his eyes.

Yet his incessant need to retain information had unknowingly only sharpened a double-edged sword. In his earnest to ensure a complete competency, his shield of preparedness had rendered him protected on one hand, but preoccupied on the other, with the unknown shift in his awareness exposing a notion shared by many troopers: that the monster of mortality is all-too happy to lay-in-wait long enough for him to be forgotten about, pushed to the back burner a overly confident soldier's mind.  

The Rishi posting was quiet… until it wasn’t. Kamino seemed a fortress impenetrable to external threat… until it wasn’t. Both events had struck Echo with a hard blow of realization that tactics can only ensure a portion of one's safety, schematics will not prevent an invasion, one must learn to expect only that which is unexpected, and there are variables far outside any one man’s control. Lady Luck will ultimately always get to play her game…

And sadly, he’d seen too many brothers had crumple at his side, their torches snuffed in a fraction of a blink, many of them with packs and pouches full of treats that they’d won in a game the previous night. Why is it that Luck had caressed them then, only to fatally betray them hours later? 

No, his betting days were behind him… and then there was you.   

Now? He’d have bet everything he ever owned that your hair was the softest the universe had ever seen. Even after hours of fervent frolicking between the sheets, your bodies entwining with the desperate desire to reacquaint after so many rotations apart, and each strand having been tugged, bunched, knotted and tossed in the name of a passionate routine so mesmerizing that time itself seemed to pause, it still felt like silk draped between his fingers. 

He’d have wagered every credit in the galaxy that history had never seen a hand fit more perfectly into another like yours fit into his. It was as if the Maker had initially sculpted your bodies as one, only to have it fall from Mortis and fracture, the pieces seamlessly fitting together to reestablish his physical rendering of love. 

And he’d have bet that, in all the systems he’d traversed, none of them orbited a sun even remotely as radiant as the twinkle in your eye. A luminescence shining from deep inside of you unrivaled by any charted celestial body; a lighthouse that he was all-too willing to let endlessly guide him into your embrace… back home. 

Definity now seemed attainable. He had never been surer of anything or anyone in his entire life, and such a certainty had been achieved without the memorization of manuals, and without the aid of instructions, tactics, or strategy. Embedded with the impenetrable protection of your belief in him, his shield now seemed the perfect match for redirecting every potential blow of Lady Luck’s unpredictable tantrums; his irrefutable love for you unwavering despite the external chaos. 

But always a double edged sword, the 'distraction' of your love ensured that the undoubtability of your union walked hand-in-hand with unpredictability… with fear and anxiety. The monster of mortality, while frequently concealed behind dense clouds of bliss and enamoring twinkles of light, was never again truly absent from Echo’s awareness, and the harrowing chirp of a deployment transmission ringing from his wristcom acted as a stark reminder that the monster was always waiting patiently for an opportunity to rob the universe of such beauty.     

“What’s on your mind, love?” you would ask in those moments, when the surging heat of your frenzied entanglement subsided and the stillness of the night exposed his resurging anxiety. But your query needn’t ever be spoken; the cause of the deepening crease between his brows and the frown tugging at his lips was a mystery to no one, and part of him wondered if you only uttered the question aloud knowing that the sound of your voice would soothe him in a way that nothing else could.

“You are, Cyare,” he would always answer, too aware that the unnatural smile hitched to his lips would provoke nothing but a skeptical cock of your eyebrow, yet too willing to deny his fear its chance in the light.   

This routine transpired only a handful of times before you’d successfully pulled the truth from him, his desire to remain a pillar of strength simply no match for the knowing twinkle in your eye, its majesty quickly summoning the anxiety from the depths of his gut and out past his lips.

The truth finally spoken: that he was scared to lose each other, to lose you, intensely fearful that every sorrowful departure preceding a deployment would be the last. His tactical mind was painfully aware that the probabilities of him safely returning home varied largely from one mission to the next, the chances laced with a risk that was incalculable… unpreparable despite his every effort.  

But even fatality seemed a welcome alternative to his greatest fear of all: that he would return home from a long deployment to find the twinkle banished from your eyes, that he would find a person no longer blind to the fact that a life built on the shoulders of a soldier was one laden with an unavoidable and potent neglect, and that you’d become a person no longer willing to suffer the solitude that accompanied his absence.  

“I’m not going anywhere, Echo,” you would always reassure him. “It’s you and me, my love. Until the end of the universe.”

The mantra never lost its purity despite how often you chorused it to him with your fingers intertwined tightly between his, or your forehead pressed to his in a motion of complete connection, but tonight felt… different. Despite your recited promise and the intimate swaddle of your body around his, Echo could not shake the feeling of dread simmering in his gut. 

“What is it?” you probed in barely more than a whisper, your hands stalling their thoughtless swirls atop his skin, fingers instead nestling themselves between the swells of his heaving chest. 

“Nothing, Mesh’la.” He couldn’t quite quantify the intensity of his anxieties tonight, for even unspoken they seemed baseless and irrational. How could he express that the gnawing of his upcoming deployment felt more formidable this time, when he knew his words would serve no purpose other than plaguing you with worry? He had no desire to let his malignant fears rob you of the listful peace that he so badly longed for in these moments. 

You hummed quietly, toes shifting to gently glide along the top of his foot, the sensation grounding him enough to tighten his grasp around your shoulders. “I’m not going to call you a liar,” you snorted as you nuzzled into his side, “but it kinda smells like your pants might be on fire.” 

He should have expected such a response; you’d always been quick to wit, quick to humour, quick to ensure that, even in the enshadowed bedroom where the only light came from the patchwork quilt of a million other windows scattered from here to the horizon, he felt utterly seen. 

A small sigh stalled his explanation, his plagued mind still attempting to grapple for some semblance of justification. “I don’t know,” he posed, pausing to press his lips to your forehead, the familiar fragrance of your hair wafting into his nose easing only a fraction of his worry. “Something feels… weird. I can’t shake the feeling that something is going to go amiss during this next one.” 

“Sounds like a bad case of the ‘send-off scaries’,” you chuckled, shifting your head on his shoulder to watch your fingers resume their mindless doodles across his skin.

“No, Mesh’la,” he protested, the ghost of misunderstood frustration dancing across his tense features as he retracted his arm from around you and pushed himself into a seated position. “It’s more than that, but… I can’t explain it.” 

You shifted your posture to mirror his, scooping his hands into yours and squeezing his palms tightly to prevent him from shielding his face. “Perhaps it’s because this one is a little riskier than some of the others?” you proposed, trying to catch the eyes that he’d deliberately averted from you. “You were saying the Citadel is pretty heavily fortified, right? Maybe it’s the fact that the archive maps are dated and incomplete that has you a little more anxious than usual.” 

“Yeah… maybe,” he sighed solemnly, only barely resisting the urge to shake his head and argue.  

“You and Fives are an unshakable team,” you persisted. “Especially with Rex and the General beside you. You all have an innate call to protect each other. Just have faith… trust your instincts. They’ve never led you astray, my love. In fact–” a gentle guiding finger under his chin pulled his anguished gaze back to you, “–they led you right to me.” 

There it was, dancing in your eyes as if fueled by starlight, the twinkle that reminded him time-and-time-again that nothing could rob him of his home… of his home in you.

“You’re right, Cyare,” he conceded, leaning in to graze his smiling lips against yours. “I love you. It’s you and me to the end of the universe.” 

No, he wasn’t anymore… but if he was a betting man, that lingering moment of quiet assurances with breath dancing atop each other's cheeks and lips moving to convey an unspoken message, he’d have wagered that the very stars aligned the night he met you. He’d have bet there wasn’t a force anywhere in this galaxy stronger than his connection to you… and you can bet that if only an ounce of his courage remains intact when he returns home from that wretched fortress, the first place you’ll find him is in your doorway, perched on one knee with a ring in his hand and a plea in his eyes. You can bet that, if Lady Luck’s cold shoulder ever robbed you of each other, his love for you, and only you, would be a promise more steadfast and unwavering than time itself.

taglist: @anxiouspineapple99 @sinfulsalutations

[citrusella-flugpucker]

An idea about ways to change the way the geoglyphs quest works which will Totally Please Everyone™

...What do you mean, you can't please everyone?

So, I said in December that I wanted to make a post about a game mechanic change in Tears of the Kingdom that could make everyone happy with regards to the delivery of the geoglyphs' story points.

I, for instance, liked finding them in whatever order and did not find it negatively affected my experience of the story, but some other people found they didn't like that the "correct" (read: chronological) order wasn't enforced.

I had an idea that could fix that, and it centers on a lot of conditionals, and to start off, I'm going to describe it using one already extant story progress condition a lot of people probably have never encountered. (But plenty of people probably have.)

You get this text box if you manage to arrive at the pedestal while having not started the regional phenomena main quest. (Even if you got the paraglider. It's linked to starting Regional Phenomena.)

(I spent two hours trying and failing to glitch into the room with a clip from above before finally giving up and trying precarious ascend instead because I didn't wanna steal a shot of this off a YouTuber. Everyone clap

Also, I was going to include other images but brain doesn't want to alt text right now so)

So, anyway, the idea I had is that you see this sort of text box (not that EXACT box, it's only an example), but only in certain scenarios. Imagine, if you will:

Prior to arriving at geoglyph #1, everyone--if they try to interact with another geoglyph--sees a message like, "You don't yet know how to interact with this." or something.

Then you get to #1 where Impa is waiting for you as she does in the actual game (this is where all the other images would have gone if I included them here XP). She gives you the spiel, you go up in the balloon, and some of her text is changed from the actual game in a way that suggests that when you examine again and actually have it work, you realize it involves recall, yada yada (the actual interaction with the tear doesn't change from canon, I just wanted the text to change so there's a story reason you "know" what to do now). Impa shows up after you view it, as she canonically does.

Here's where things are really changed up: While she still brings up going to the Forgotten Temple, she very much telegraphs to the player that if they go there, they will get answers as to the order, so that people will be even clearer than the actual game that they can find the map and order there (though maybe not being that direct about it when presenting this dialog to the player as it would be to say "there will be a map and pictures there"). Then, like in the real game, she suggests Link make his way there as well... BUT then a dialogue option comes up.

Will you meet me at the Forgotten Temple as soon as possible?

[Sure!] [I can manage on my own. 🅱]

And then, just in case you were spamming B, pressing that will trigger a confirmation.

Are you sure? I suspect there is important information about the geoglyphs there.

[Okay, I'll come.] [Maybe later. 🅱]

No matter which one you select, the quest is added regardless just like normal (albeit perhaps with slightly different flavor text depending on whether you agreed to the meeting or not).

If you hit B and reject all attempts to go "immediately" then the game works as it does currently: The quest is granted, all geoglyphs instantly respond to you in whatever order you approach them in, Impa goes to the Forgotten Temple, etc.

If you ever hit A on the top option, the quest is granted and you're not immediately transported there or anything, but until you arrive at the Forgotten Temple, a flag is set and all geoglyphs respond by producing a Not Yet box saying something like "You remember that you promised to meet Impa in the Forgotten Temple."

So you head to the Forgotten Temple. Regardless of whether you agreed to come or came later, just like in canon, Impa's there, you find the map and order on the wall. Some of the in-game interactions happen, but instead of Impa suggesting you take a picture (or perhaps, instead of her only suggesting you take a picture), she says something that allows you to have the order be enforced. Maybe it's writing from a book she read about the geoglyphs or something, since it's established in canon she read about the Dragon's Tears somewhere. Maybe it's connected to you taking a picture with a quest ❗ on it with the Purah Pad (though this would require you to have completed a different quest first to get the camera. oof.). But somehow, this order is imparted to you so that Link himself knows it in game.

If you reject the enforced order, you're still free to take a picture like in canon, but the flag preventing you from investigating geoglyphs is cleared and you can access them in any order just like if you'd rejected going to the temple immediately when Impa asked at tear 1.

If you agree to enforced order, the flag preventing investigating the glyphs at all is unset, and a different flag that says you chose to enforce the order is set instead. Then, if you approach a geoglyph that's not next in chronological order, the game presents a box saying something to the effect of "This doesn't look like the next geoglyph..." Maybe it's not a strict enforcement, and so when you get this box, you also get dialogue options of "Look anyway." or "Leave it alone for now." Just in case you agreed to the enforcement and then went "wait, I don't like this".

Also considered the idea that unlocking the sensor on the Purah Pad would grant you, in addition to shrines and compendium entries, the ability to track geoglyphs (maybe with changes in which geoglyphs it alerts to, dependent on if you're in enforced order or not--i.e. unenforced alerts to all, enforced only alerts to next). But that also felt like it might be too handholdy? IDK.

Anyway, this is my attempt at a best-of-both-worlds between people who want to be guided through parts of the story in a specific order and people who really don't care/don't think the variable order is a detriment and maybe just want to hit things efficiently while they're crossing the map doing other things.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[orc-apologist]

if i have to read one more ounce of slur discourse i'm gonna fucking lose it.

they're WORDS not weapons, first of all. y'all ascribe WAY too much power to words. they're not the source of our oppression, banning them from language except for a minority won't solve our oppression.

not to mention that policing language has VERY EVIDENTLY not accomplished anything over the past couple decades. in fact, i would argue that language policing has been turned against us and used as a tool to oppress us. by that i mean that it is actively used to stir up ridiculous culture wars about "can't say anything anymore" in bourgeois media like Fox News

there is a reason queer people especially have historically always taken a different route, reclamation. that is to say GENERAL reclamation, instead of that weird mix of reclamation and language policing that is common nowadays.

that reason is that reclamation is much more effective at stripping a word of its power, especially of its power over you. banning it, shunning the use of it and all who do instead INCREASES the word's power because it tabooifies it. that taboo will make its impact more intense.

limited reclamation forces us to draw lines between us. it divides lesbians and gays (which is an especially dumb ones considering lesbians also get called faggots), cis queers and trans queers etc. it even very easily pits these groups of people against each other, just because someone has a different outlook on what word is appropriate to say.

what matters in the use of words is the linguistic field of pragmatics: how it used and to what effect. the semantic meaning of a word is often secondary to its pragmatic use. yes, at its core the word faggot is a word demeaning towards gay men and generally gnc people. however, amongst those it is used differently and therefore receives different meanings, such as a general term of affection.

for example, i let my cishet friends call me faggot (well the German equivalent Schwuchtel). they don't usually use that word but in certain fitting situations they do, often for humorous effect when i do or say something particularly faggy. of course, i let them know that while I'm fine with it, other gay people may not be so i don't want them going around using it. but what I'm trying to say is that them using that word for me, to describe me, to address me, is not degrading and oppressing me. quite the opposite, it makes me feel a lot more comfortable being outwardly gay around them. that is because they do not use it as a slur, even if that is the meaning of the word.

banning a word often has the opposite effect through a series of bourgeois-led culture wars. they are powerless against us taking their word and using it for ourselves. there is no culture war to be started based on that. banning the word gives it power, reclaiming the word takes that power away.

in the end, though, neither will solve oppression of any kind. new words can be created, that is a part of language. language itself, the words within it, are not the source of oppression (like our dear Judith Butler would say LOL), they are at most a means to enforce it by giving it shape. so long as oppression remains we can ban and reclaim all we like, new slurs will pop up regardless. oppression itself must be broken, which is only possible ending class society, by ending the rule of the few over the many through divide-and-conquer methods. the source of all oppression is the need of the ruling class to divide the ruled classes along lines such as religion, gender, sexuality, and race to pit them against each other. THAT is what must be fought and I'm frankly tired of wasting time on who can say what word.

[transmutationisms]

hey caden im Obsessed with your idea about rome using logan's pills like religious relics. this might just be word salad so forgive me but that transmission of holiness is SO interesting to me like. touching something which touched something which touched something holy includes so many steps of circulation and transmission that it begins to imitate the kinds of disease they're supposed to cure. like sanctity is something you catch. and with romans body being such a fraught site of decay/with his need for physical things to be Wrong, it's like consuming the relic of dad is the holy disease fucked up enough to heal him. alternatively, consuming the pills as a weird transubstantiation is sooooo medieval mystic of him. a total agnes blannbekin refusing to eat anything but jesus' foreskin type deal. anyway

p.s. more on relics. often thought tom has a streak of chaucer's pardoner about him in the billion layers of performance, admitting to selling counterfeit relics yet still asking people to kiss them for a fake salvation...idk. what im saying is all roads lead to romtom

HI TED! ok first of all, all roads lead to romtom. like so true of you to say that.

but yeah i love the religious relic angle because i definitely see it as that type of transubstantiation mysticism thing. and it's such a good catholic phenomenon because it's like, the body is corrupt and filthy, and the soul is freed from it in death, yet there's still this fixation on bodily relics. which goes back to roman's whole Deal being that his body has always been this site of violence from logan (who in turn spent his life denying his own body) and so now, in logan's death, roman can only fixate on his body (sweater, advil, going onto the plane). also with the pills there's also this obvious echo of taking communion, where roman treats the pills as being this part of logan that he can consume.

i do also think the pills could be read as playing into this idea of disease transmission that you're talking about. like, the advil in some sense can stand as this representation of all of logan's health problems and his more general tendency to view his body as a threat and a potential site of weakness. so again, roman fixating on them in particular is like, he's grasping for these elements of logan that logan never allowed himself to think about. and of course, if logan were alive he would be horrified and disgusted at roman, like, thinking about his body and his sickness, which adds a layer here. like in general i don't think roman is particularly emotionally repressed, but in this fixation with the body and the pills there's like, a general reaction to the repression that logan always enforced in his lifetime. like, you know, the monsters are out of the closet now and they're doubly fascinating for having been forbidden before.

re: tom... yes i love this comparison actually, the way that the pardoner opens his tale by saying that greed is the root of all sin, and not denying his own avarice, but then still presents his moral tale. like i've always thought that tom has a certain level of clarity about waystar, insofar as he's pretty much always known he got in for the sake of money and power, yet he also has all these layers of moral justification for himself lol. and i think the offering of false relics that he claims could offer real salvation could be tied to the phone call in episode 3, where the siblings all pretty much know he's just trying to offer them comfort, yet in some way all of them do also kind of believe in the metaphorical relics he's offering. anyway. thinking thoughts.

[ashweather]

Daily RPG Readings

Eureka, Investigative Urban Fantasy, Part 3

If you want to read along with me, you can get the demo copy for free on A.N.I.M.'s official site or head over to their Patreon to get a copy of the latest playtest draft for $5. I'm reading the most recent playtest draft and there are significant differences from the demo copy, just as a heads up.

For day three, I'm reading pages 39-60, up to the "Composure" heading. This section outlines some philosophy of play that the game adopts, and strongly encourages its players to adopt. Eureka as a game is very opinionated about these topics. My understanding is that, to some, this is a controversial section, so lets go over the basics. Once again, I have a lot to say about it.

First, we go over the role of the GM, or Narrator. Essentially, the game wants the Narrator to set up a situation for investigators to interact with, then take a relatively hands off approach. Eureka expects the Narrator to act as an arbiter and referee rather than as a story-teller or the main driver of the narrative. There is also an expectation that Narrators not fudge rolls (yeah this one is going to start a flame war, chief) or bend the logic of the scenario to benefit or hinder investigators, stating the Narrator's role should be closer to simulating how the story logically would go based on the world that was presented at the outset of an adventure.

Personally, I generally agree with this philosophy - its how I try to run most of my games - but I can see where some people might chafe against this. Eureka wants to break certain bad habits that could carried over from other games and play cultures coughD&Dcough. On the other hand, its easy to read this as saying there's "one true way" to play or run Eureka (or any game, if you want to be uncharitable), or that a group who prefers to have lower stakes or a bit of plot armor is "doing it wrong." I could talk about that more in depth, I don't really agree with that interpretation, but ya know what? I'll let someone else open that can of worms.

Oh yeah also there's a note that disruptive or malicious behavior is something to be handled outside the game, on an interpersonal level, and I couldn't agree more.

The role of investigators is to portray everyday people with a strong reason to get involved in the mystery or adventure at hand. It's specifically noted that investigators should usually not be cops, for a few reasons. Having investigators be cops puts them into a position where they would logically have some degree of official support and a whole department to handle evidence, legal consequences, and so on. It also eliminates law enforcement as a source of complications and obstacles for investigators, which can be a potent source of drama. Finally, and most damningly, the players would have to portray cops (shudder).

Next, it is established that investigators should be the primary drivers of the investigation and therefore the story. I think that's great, because having PCs be the ones who have to drive the story forward serves two purposes. First, it gives a sense of agency and accomplishment to anything that does advance the narrative. Secondly, it takes pressure off the Narrator, who is already going to be putting in a ton of work.

It's also noted that investigators can have secrets or secret plans, and establishes that these things should be kept secret and shared with the Narrator privately. This is the first explicit note we've had that Eureka isn't necessarily a cooperative game - more on that later.

Okay, here's a big one. The next section is all about separation between players and investigators. First, we just have a note reminding readers that players and investigators are separate, and then some elaboration on that point. While I would hope that point would be obvious to anyone familiar with TTRPGs, I've been in this hobby long enough to know it can unfortunately be an issue.

Eureka enforces third-person verbiage from the Narrator and players.

I've put that point on its own because it is going to be a massive shift for some people, and likely very controversial. It's a massive shift for ME, in fact. I've been playing characters in first person and GMing in second person for nearly fifteen years. I understand the logic. Third-person verbiage makes it easier to linguistically separate players from their characters, and makes for interesting play that strongly diverges from what the player would themselves do if placed in the game world. I could say more, but once again I'm going to let others talk this one out.

Whew, we're past the biggest stuff. On page 49, we have a discussion of bad faith play and a directive for the Narrator to disallow submitted investigators that are going to become a huge problem in some way. As an extension of the points raised in the previous sections, the players and narrator are encouraged to work together to create a successful game, operating under the assumption of good faith. Malicious behavior isn't something to work out at the table.

Under the heading "Expect to Fail Rolls" we have a discussion that rolling means taking a risk, and risk should always be present in the mechanics where it's present in the narrative. What that means in practice is that careful play and acting within the narrative to mitigate risk means that, well, the investigators are taking less risks. There's also a crunchy breakdown of the probability curves involved in a 2d6 roll versus a 1d20 roll, to encourage players that the Failure result isn't the huge looming threat that it might seem like.

On page 53, we have a section about "bad ends" and not forcing an adventure or mystery to have a happy, clean ending. In Eureka, stories are legitimately risky, which makes achieving a happy ending against the odds feel legitimately triumphant. Furthermore, the game notes that a tragic or bleak ending is, in fact, a good thing and a "win" for the player group if not the characters. The goal of the players should be to create an interesting narrative - and Eureka encourages those narratives to have teeth.

Next, we have a section on PC vs PC interactions, and a further breakdown of the fact that Eureka isn't necessarily cooperative (though it still often is). There is a high potential in Eureka for investigators to have conflicting motives and conflicting goals, and this fact can very easily lead to those characters butting heads or actively attempting to stop or kill one another. I do think this is an exciting element of the game, though I also think keeping PC vs. PC conflict exciting and revealing things at appropriate times requires some amount of skill from both Narrator and players.

Lastly, we have a section on Truth. Truth is essentially a roleplay mechanic - it establishes some fact or characterization that 'is true' about the investigator, and actions in accordance with that truth grants a +1 benefit to up to three rolls once per scene. The mechanical bonus from acting within a character's truth is something that should only apply when relevant. It also gives a way to chart a character arc, as Truth can change in the midst of an adventure, so long as there is a strong justification. Roleplay mechanics (at least ones that grant tangible and immediate benefits) like Truth are somewhat uncommon, but I like to see them, and I think they are a welcome addition to most games.

[a-slut-for-smut]

I just read your mei mei meta. 100% spot on. And I honestly I think the Shonen genre for all its violence... does a disservice automatically to women. It collapses characters into black and white cararitures sometimes..... so everyone sees a person who isn't 100% altruistic as bad. We go looking for the badness and that's even more enforced with women. Also I too am horny for mei mei. I wish jjk was more sexy. I wanna see characters be outwardly horny for each other. Up the stakes!

YAAAAAS preach it sister!!! Everything you said absolutely passes the vibe check- so much so i gotta break it down and expand on it 😁 (and heres to link to said mei mei meta jic)

And I honestly I think the Shonen genre for all its violence... does a disservice automatically to women. It collapses characters into black and white cararitures sometimes..... so everyone sees a person who isn't 100% altruistic as bad.

You wont find any argument here, in fact i would go as far to say most media nowadays suffer from this exact issue. But the real crux of the problem seems to lie in the lack of reader discernment. I dont know if its a subconscious or willful failure to understand "nuance", but its apparently lost to an audience that is obsessed with labeling/compartmentalizing everyone and everything to the point where they're essentially reducing characters (even actual people) to a single trope and judging them entirely on that when there are so many parts to a whole...feels bad man.

We go looking for the badness and that's even more enforced with women.

this is one of my biggest gripes- like i said on my meta, there are DEF some puritanical vibes behind the Mei Mei hate- its starting to feel insidiously sexist with the way the fandom is deadset on villainizing her because she doesnt "conform" within the norms of whats "good", and to a larger extent "good woman".

She isnt that maternal, nurturing, self sacrificial woman that reeks of patriarchal ideals therefore she must be bad.

She prioritizes money and considers a persons worth based on what benefit they bring to her as if this is the most unnatural way to be (thats the sad truth!) therefore she is greedy and selfish.

She has a "weird" relationship with her brother because their level of closeness makes them uncomfortable and therefore predatory.

And whats so funny to me is Mei Mei is- for all intents and purposes, a MERCENARY. She's not a teacher, shes not an instructor- she is a contract sorcerer for hire so money being a priority for her would be painfully obvious?? Shes not responsible for the students nor aligns herself with the politics of the jujutsu world- shes looks out for herself/get paid and this makes her evil?? Also cant help think that theres a certain type of person who feels threatened by a overly confident and shameless woman as a personal attack on themselves/their ideals and feels compelled to tear them down by any means possible, but maybe thats just me.

Idk, maybe it cant be helped when they see Nanami (whom are essentially foils of each other) willing forgo money and put his life on the line for the students but this still doesnt make her "evil" and so reductionist btw 🙄.

And to highlight the hyprocrisy of it all- if she was a man, the fandom would be slobbering all over her and if you need proof see: Toji, Geto/Kenjaku, Sukuna, even Gojo to an extent but the list goes on and on. Somehow these men get the pass and the fandom go to great lengths to humanize/emphasize with them, but the women? LOL

Also I too am horny for mei mei. I wish jjk was more sexy. I wanna see characters be outwardly horny for each other. Up the stakes!

oh honey, i am WITH you 100%!!! im not even trying to be petty, but the more the fandom hates on her the more i love her lol she is so HNGHHH, together we can make jjk sexy and outwardly horny for each other 🙌

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Honestly I totally agree with everything you said about the overblot boys. Personally Riddle is my favourite from them, but that's because you can see how hard he tries to change at times. Like actually makes a notable effort. The others, while I do love them, don't. And on that note I hated Riddle when reading/playing the first book. Man did his tyranny piss me off.

But yeah. I totally agree with your assessment. No boy is 100% innocent, and they all have their flaws.

[Referencing this post!]

Riddle is definitely trying! We see him openly dial down on his enforcement of the rules (at the end of episode 1, during the unbirthday party; he also apologizes by making the tart for the celebration). Then, in episode 2 and throughout the rest of the main story, we see Riddle repress his rage and try to hold back from immediately lashing out when something irritates him. He’s really growing, bit by bit, and even I (someone who doesn’t particularly care for most of the dorm leaders) can admire Riddle for that.

Vil also makes a commendable effort to atone for what he’s done. He was one of the few boys who realized he was Overblotting and became self aware of how awful (“ugly”) his actions were, then apologizes multiple times to the VDC team afterwards for inconveniencing them (both at the end of episode 5 and at the start of episode 6).

I think Idia could also count…? He does come over to play video games (socializing, ew), which is something Idia would never normally do. He also comes to terms with his grief and allows Ortho to finally “be free”. This can be interpreted as Idia’s “apology”, both to Ortho, and for his past sins—and an apology to even himself for letting the past weigh him down and prevent him from moving forward.

Yeah, I’m just 🥲 personally bothered by the OBs receiving such different treatment from the fandom. It’s okay to play favorites, but it really feels like the general consensus is that some boys “deserve” more sympathy than others… and that rubs me the wrong way, because that’s not holding the boys responsible and it dumbs down their trauma into something easily resolved by shoving blame onto a third party. It defeats the point of TWST having the nuanced characters that it does 💦

I’ve heard the point being made that “the story holds some boys more accountable than others, so the fans feel less guilty for forgiving certain boys over the others”, and while I can see where people are coming from with this, I don’t really agree with it?? Sure, the case can be made that Riddle was held accountable by Heartslabyul and he then actively tries to be better, but I don’t think this can be said of Azul. He gets off with a slap on the wrist for all the cross-dormitory damage he did. (I guess here you can say the fandom forgives Azul because the story itself lets him off the hook so easily?? But I don’t think we should just blindly go along with whatever the story primes us to do.) Leona was held accountable in that he was still forced to play the other dorms; however, this doesn’t really prominently play into people’s forgiveness of him, as the chapter is so poorly written that Leona wasn’t truly “redeemed” in the eyes of the fandom. Jamil’s issue isn’t small scale enough to be comfortably dealt with. How are you supposed to hold a society and tradition responsible for his feelings? The same goes for Idia, who has to deal with the concept of death itself. There’s Vil, who arguably took the most personal accountability for his Overblot, yet people generally seem to hold disdain for Vil and believe that his motivations were shallow. Vil gets little sympathy despite being the most mature about the situation and accepting full responsibility for it.

Interestingly, this lack of sympathy for Vil seems to be something that’s more predominant in the international fandom; he is pretty beloved in the J-fandom 🤔 which I think speaks to the different demographics of TWST. JP is mostly adult fans, whereas international/EN seems to lean more to the juvenile side (teenagers, young adults). It kind of makes sense if we generalize the groups: younger fans relate to Riddle and Azul, as they can identify with the “I was controlled by an authority figure instead of being allowed to do what I want”/“I was bullied” aspects of their backstories. I would also argue that Leona’s backstory (“I’m never good enough for others”) also plays into this appeal to younger fans, who make seek comfort in media to cope with their own realities. Meanwhile, older fans have enough life experience to be able to relate to and appreciate the more esoteric conflicts of Jamil, Vil, and Idia—topics like societal expectations and norms, public opinion, dealing with death, etc. Of course, this isn’t an absolute, but just a general trend in the groups that I’ve noticed.