#I answered it on mobile while at work and saved it in my drafts and then promptly forgot about it until now whoops

[dawns-beauty]

How did you get started modding npcs? I’d love to work on making the elderly people in Skyrim feel less identical but the creation kit is intimidating. Is there an easy way to dip into the modding scene or do you just have to crack things open and make mistakes? It’s hard to find guides that don’t focus on cbbe 😔

Sorry for the lateness of this, Tumblr won't let me edit drafts for asks on mobile, so I couldn't jot down my thoughts as I had them which is my usual method of answering stuff like this.

Oh man, my start was probably learning to edit the NPC from Tame the Beast 2 lol. She stood out like a sore thumb in my game. I found a tutorial that ended up becoming my method through the RS Children page.

It primarily focuses around using RaceMenu, which has a function that allows you to export the head you make directly from Character Creation. This allows you to use the extra facial sliders (like the ones from and overlays (like Freckle Mania 2, my beloved). So basically, it allows for potentially far more unique NPCs than editing via CK.

I am going to warn you, it definitely is not simpler than editing NPCs in the Creation Kit alone. Sorry.

Links are to the SE version of the mods, as that's what I'm most familiar with. They likely have LE counterparts. Sorry, I am not the greatest at writing tutorials.

Things you will need:

RaceMenu (and SKSE; be sure to get the correct versions of both for your game)

NifSkope - you will use this to open and edit the mesh. Here's GamerPoet's setup video

Things I recommend:

Creation Kit Platform Extended for Skyrim - makes using the Creation Kit way less like pulling teeth

Unofficial Creation Kit Patch - if you're using AE

an alternate start mod - I like Dimes Quickstart for its simplicity, but any would work

Another Race Menu Rotation Mod - handy for seeing how the back of hairs look

Stand still in RaceMenu (OAR) - stops the character from wiggling out of frame

For your quest to edit elders specifically, you will probably need a playable Elder Race mod (I have not tested any, but just searching for them yields plenty of options.) You will have to know exactly what races the NPCs you're editing are, though

Fun Stuff for diverse options:

Extra slider mods (I like Expressive FaceGen Morphs)

Skin Overlay Mods (for extra detailed faces)

If you want to get REAL funky with it, you can also use OutfitStudio to have a lot better time sculpting/getting super wild with assets, but that's too advanced for this tutorial (and my method is very 'goof around until it just works.'

I don't really want to cover using mod-added headparts (like eyes, hairs, etc.) There are basically two options there: add them as new headparts for your mod or make your mod dependent on the mod the headparts are from. The second way is probably simpler for beginners, but I definitely suggest installing Creation Kit Platform Extended, as it will allow you to load the other mods as masters without the Suffering™.

The Workflow

1. Design your character like you would a player character. For this example, I am redesigning Arcadia.

A recommendation: unless you really feel like you need to change it, it is typically better to make the Weight slider match the NPC's actual weight. You can see this value using either SSE Edit or the Creation Kit. It is no big deal if you don't, but if you change the weight and load the mod into an already existing save you will get a gap between the NPC's neck and body (unless you use Save Unbaker.) Be careful, though, there is a RaceMenu bug where if you load up RM again after exiting, it changes the weight by .01. So annoying.

For Skin Tone choice, if you do a custom skin tone (by pressing 'E' while hovering over the slider) I would recommend leaving the transparency slider (the 'A' value) at 100% (though I usually make the exception for Khajiit and Argonians.) This info will go into the Interpolation Value box in the CK, and the RM values can't be directly input, so you have to calculate the value with a (RM Number/255 = X/100, solve for X which is your Interpolation Value)

1a. If you are planning on adding faceparts from mods to your own plugin, I recommend saving and doing that now. Then come back to your save and change your headparts to the versions from your plugin. If you want to just have the other mods as masters, you can skip this.

2. Once you're satisfied with your design, I recommend saving your game and saving your head as a preset (click to enlarge):

3. Now, you will need to write down some stuff.

Skin Tone (RGB value):

Hover over Skin Tone slider. Press 'E'.

write down the R G B values (and A if you change it, see above note)

Even if you use a default skin tone, this is the best way to make sure you get the correct value for the CK.

Weight (number)

Scars (name) (if applicable)

Hair (name)

Facial Hair (name) (if applicable)

Eye Color (name)

Brow Type (name)

Writing down Hair Color is optional: with this method, the hair will inherit color from the head you export, not the CK value. Plus, RM's values are not really useful, because the default hair colors are named. It's the same with the Face Complexion (wrinkles, etc), with this method it is exported with the head mesh.

4. Export the Sculpt:

It should end up in your SKSE folder (SKSE\Plugins\CharGen), wherever that is for you

5. Now you can close down the game and open the Creation Kit.

Use the folder icon to load your masters.

Pick Skyrim, Update, any official DLC (if applicable), and any other mods you want to be masters for your mod (for eyes, hairs, etc.) If you've made your plugin already for headparts, just load it up.

6. In the Object Window, expand the Actors -> Actor -> Actor tabs and now you have a lot of tabs with Race names. Find the race your NPC belongs to then open the appropriate gender tab. Alternatively, you can just search the character's name in the searchbox.

7. Find your NPC's name and double click. This opens their Actor window, which is where you will use all the data you wrote down.

If you want a preview of their face, tick the box at the bottom of the window.

For weight adjustments: go to the Traits Tab. For all other values you need to worry about for this tutorial, go to the Character Gen Parts.

So, to parse this: you can ignore the Face Tint Layers box and pretty much everything on the left side of the screen.

Face Tinting Color

Type in your values for R G and B (you can ignore the Preset dropdown completely.) The Interpolation value corresponsed to the 'A' value, so unless you are working on Khajiit or Argonians, it will probably always be 1.

Base Head Parts

To change stuff in this section, click the line you want to change then go down to the dropbox below it and change it to what you want Face - unless you're using something like High Poly Heads, you can ignore this Everything else in this box: change to what you wrote down for each

Additional Head Parts

This is mainly used for scars and functions a little differently To add a scar, you need to go to the Object window again You can expand the Character tab and click 'HeadPart' then search the name of the scar you want. Click and drag the line with your scar into the Additional Head Parts box and it should show up there.

8. Once you've got the above like you want it, hit 'Ok', save your plugin. Now, to make the next step a little easier, you can click the NPC name in the Object Window again and hit f4.

This will export the meshes/textures file folders to wherever you have CK set up to export files (if you use MO2, it goes directly to the Overwrite folder by default.) Your plugin will be in the same place, (probably. Mine is bugged.)

Go ahead and exit the CK now

9. Go your your files exported from the last step. Open a second window from the files you exported from SKSE.

Open both meshes in two separate NifSkope windows.

You absolutely must make sure your headparts match the head you exported from RaceMenu exactly, or you will get the dreaded dark face bug.

If your SKSE head has a weird broken neck mesh, that's not a problem and can be ignored.

Now, you will need to find the Head textures in the head you exported from the CK. If your NifSkope is set up like mine, it should look like this:

Copy this line and paste it into the SKSE head in the same slot.

Save the SKSE NifSkope and close.

10. Rename the SKSE files (both .dds and .nif) to the number your exported heads are. You can then copy and paste your your SKSE files to their respective folders:

the .nif file goes in meshes/actors/character/FaceGenData/FaceGeom/[name of plugin]

the .dds file goes into textures/actors/character/FaceGenData/FaceTint/[name of plugin]

And now you're ready to pack up your mod for testing! At this point I also recommend taking a second and converting your plugin to an ESPFE via SSE Edit. It's pretty simple and there are probably tutorials out there.

Scully, you're not gonna believe this.

[quokkabite]

tysm for the tag @hyuuukais (i loved reading your answers!!)

🧭 who is your favorite kpop group?

…. stray kids 😔 i seriously wanted to still be able to say sf9 because they’re like my ult group but like lake said… the skz brain rot is strong. (listen even as im writing this im like no sf9 is still my favorite skz is just a current hyperfixation… that’s lasted a year,,, so take that as you will)

🐺 which member sparked your interest?

bang chan. i saw clips of his flirting on channies room. (for example “that would make me your…” and “yeah my nose is big…” clips) so i wanted to know if he was being for real and just a really cute goofy guy or if he was being fake. (answer: he’s a really cute goofy guy) + im gonna say kinda felix too because after i watched one stray kids short i kept getting recommended them and of course felix’s god menu line was involved so it also made me curious to see if it was real or not 🤣

🖤 who was your first bias?

bang christopher chan. i found out he was a cute goofy guy and that’s all i needed to know.

🐿️ who is your current bias?

take a look at my blog and tell me who my bias is. 😭

hint:

it’s han. jisung.

🎶 what makes them your current bias?

(literally wrote a whole paragraph that tumblr mobile deleted) he’s amazing in all ways, ever. he’s a genius and funny and he’s just really impressive to me. i love the way his mind works and his visuals definitely don’t hurt matters.

edit: i was able to screenshot while the new draft was saving!! so this:

i fell for his music first. i think he's a genius with his lyrics and the way he thinks and expresses himself. i love his personality (im drawn to loud introverts). and his thought process bro. the way he makes word associations/connections with the things he sees... he is just really impressive to me. and i think he’s a hard worker. he knows his limits but he still does everything he can to make a situation work for him. like even in his last live how he was talking about switching his routine up because he had been getting overloaded with dopamine and he was starting to feel numb to it. the stuff that he said just made so much sense and i really relate to that. and i respect that he realized the problem and actually takes steps to correct it and care for himself. it's cheesy but it's really inspiring to me when i deal with anxiety and stuff. anyways. i think he is really cool 👍🏼

🐽 who is your bias wrecker?

changbin. i want to say all of them because i love everyone in this group so freaking much… but,,, i cannot get away from changbin (he’s holding me hostage, help im scared)

❤️‍🔥 which member(s) are you currently obsessing over that aren’t your bias/bias wrecker?

again, all of them. but mostly seungmin and lee know rn

🤟🏼 when did you first discover the group?

october 7th, 2022. i watched the case 143 music video 14 minutes after it had been released out of pure curiosity and pretty colors in the thumbnail. i didnt know anything about them or the fact that it was kpop when i clicked on the video. i had just gotten into kpop a few months ago and still solely listened to sf9 at that point.

🕷️ have you been to one of their concerts?

yes. i cannot believe this, but yes. i met my best friend in atlanta for the maniac encore tour march 2023. at the time i was biasing hyunjin so i have a million and four photos of him and felix (my friends bias). it’s probably one of my favorite memories

✈️ what are some of your favorite songs by them?

okay this isn’t fair. can i answer “their entire discography?”

no?

fine.

some favorites are: alien, waiting for us, the tortoise and the hare, lonely st, volcano.

tagging: @yangxteez @puppysmileseungmin @straystaysworld

one of my videos from the atl concert (loud,, also that’s not me screaming jsyk lmaooo)

[trolleytracksmoved]

Hey so, did you have any theories about the Chairman's identity before TTO went offline?

I had two, mutually exclusive, theories:

He's Pete (from the Mickey Mouse Cartoons).

He's a supercomputer.

(Sorry about the flood of Asks, it's been a while since I've been able to talk about Toontown to someone who's actually a fan of Toontown.)

i don't mind! ^^ it makes me really happy seeing others interested in the game as well. i don't know if it's just a problem on my end, but the toontag is usually pretty quiet, so any toontown related asks are welcomed.

as for your question... i can't exactly say i have theories on his *identity* because we were technically already shown who he was early on in the game's lifespan. in the early days of tto, there was a short animated video that played while waiting for the game to install that shows us backstory on how cogs were created. i can't link the video bc i'm on mobile but the gist of what happens is that scrooge visits gyro's lab one night and finds one if his inventions which is a giant robot (the chairman), messes around with the wiring which causes it to go haywire, and, after witnessing the robot create cogs gets captured. if you search up "Toontown Online - 2003 Installer Video" on youtube, you can watch it for yourself.

at some point, disney got rid of the installer video. i can't tell you when they did or a definitive reason why, bc googling yields no results and i would've been way too young to remember anyways, but it's a piece of toontown's lore that's pretty unknown.

i believe the reasons why they MIGHT'VE taken down the video is... a) the chairman had a redesign. kind of flimsy reasoning but.. before i knew about the installer video's existence, i thought the big head you see when you walk into the sellbot factory was a statue of the chairman bc the head mesh wasn't found anywhere. taking down the video to avoid confusion in the sudden design change would make sense but it'd also be incredibly early since sellbot hq was released the same year tto was created (7 months apart!). i know that early draft sellbot hq was different than the one we know now, (re: it was harder, there was going to be an arm factory, a leg factory, etc. you would lose a suit part if you lost a vp battle iirc) but i have no idea if that og design was actually in-game for a period of time before it went through a redesign later. regardless, it's something!

b) they decided to save the chairman reveal for the second game in the works. did you know there were plans for a 2nd toontown game? well now you do! only issue with this theory is the plans for a 2nd game weren't until '10. bossbot hq was released in '08 and is the only other time the chairman was mentioned. unless it was foreshadowing, why wait an extra 2 years? why not get rid of the line? additionally, 7 years to get rid of the video seems too long esp considering it's not as well known but that's just me. ahg, i wish google or the wiki said when the installer video was taken down. it makes things easier 😞

c) due to budget constraints, they decided to completely drop the ball in developing toontown's story. pretty self-explanatory. at some point, the business model toontown was running on became ineffective and they weren't raking as much money as before. i believe it was during '09 where things started going downhill bc there was a worsening hacker issue and club penguin was getting more memberships while toontown was getting less. an unfortunate coincidence if true, bc bossbot hq was only released for a year that time.

so yeah! these are my thoughts. i'm sorry if you were expecting a different, shorter answer. when you mentioned the chairman it reminded me of that video and it spiraled into this chaotic mess of a timeline. i hope it was a good read nonetheless? characterization-wise i do view chairman as a supercomputer or AI of sorts that got corrupted due to crossed wires and became progressively worse as time went on but i feel that's less of a theory and more of a headcanon, hence why i put this in the end.

[council--board]

I've made something like this before so I'll redo it

---------

when it comes to creating stimboards, it's a pretty easy process to do

I usually research stims on tumblr, where I search it up like this

sometimes I'll write gif instead of stim if I can't find anything which unfortunately can lead you to seeing fanfics and unrelated things so it's difficult

when I need to find specific colours, I write another hashtag of said colour which helps narrow down but sometimes it doesn't work

sometimes searching up stims can lead you to finding stimboards unrelated to the search or really questionable stimboards/stimblogs which I've found a bunch of times

---------

if on pc, I would recommend opening two tabs. one for the stimboard you're working on while the other is for all the research you'll do to get the gifs

I will also recommend saving your board as a draft so you don't lose credits or even the entire board if you're on the mobile app since the app can easily send you to other posts

for getting the gifs onto the board on pc, drag the image over or you can copy paste the gif link. sometimes the gifs don't work where it either didn't register properly [link is visible, just keep adding it over until it becomes a gif] while other times it becomes something else which you can't fix

dragging around the gifs is simple, you can either choose to drag it via the top left button or by grabbing the image directly then moving it to the correct spot

---------

personally I avoid using non-official art without permission if it isn't my own art. if you do want to use fanart, I would recommend asking the user first and also properly crediting. I usually will credit the post that I found it on instead of the user so that people can see the official post

for image sizes, I put them at 500 x 500 or smaller if I need to resize them. cropping is easier since I just choose the main focus. I use ezgif which can help you recolour gifs, crop, resize and more

---------

if anyone has any questions, you're free to ask me but I can't promise I'll have a correct answer to help you in making stimboards

[thiscrimsonsoul]

How much time do you spend thinking about a reply before you sit down to type?

Are you proficient in any language outside of your native tongue? do you write characters that speak multiple languages?

Do you proofread / edit as you write or do you just wing it and save editing for last?

When roleplaying, do you pace yourself when answering replies or do you like to write for them as soon as you can?

Do you reply to threads you have the most inspiration for first or do you work on them in the order in which you received them?

What is your average length / word count regarding roleplay replies? does the length of your partner’s replies matter or is important to you?

What is your limit for how many active threads you can handle at one time?

Are you more comfortable writing in private or public spaces? Why or why not?

Do you have a routine that helps you prepare to work on your writing? 

Between mobile or desktop version, which do you prefer regarding writing drabbles or roleplay replies?

When it comes to replies do you trim your posts? Does it bother you when others don’t trim their own replies? Is trimming not a problem at all?

Have you ever had a roleplay partner who helped you to improve something about your own writing quality?

If a reply isn’t coming easily do you draft it for later, delete and start over, chat with your writing partner for help, or something else?

Are there any writing elements that you sometimes find difficult? Monologues, character engagement, setting, progression, dialogue, other?

What subjects / genres do you find yourself becoming the most passionate about when you’re writing?

Does fatigue affect your ability to write or do you always have energy for the grind?

Are there any genres that you will not write or avoid writing?

Are there any writing habits others may have that you find frustrating or exhausting?

Are you comfortable asking your writing partner to correct something in their reply if they got a detail incorrect?

When working on replies or drabbles, do you prefer a desktop keyboard, a laptop, typing on mobile, or other accessibility methods?

{out of paprikash} OMG you sent almost the entire meme! O_O Alrighty then, here we go! XD Below the cut for length...

How much time do you spend thinking about a reply before you sit down to type?

It realy depends on what muse I'm writing, what the thread is about, and what's going on at the time in the thread. If it's something very simple like fluff and it's a muse that comes to be very easily, then I won't need much time to think at all, especially if the replies I'm writing are on the shorter side. But if I'm writing a very complex muse (e.g. Vision, Vincent, sometimes Tony), it's a long and detailed thread, and I'm writing about political intrigue or intricate technology or anything super complex, then yeah I'll sit on it for a while to kindof mull over what I want to write. It's the difference between replying as soon as I get it (whenever that blog is scheduled again), and maybe letting it sit for a week or two while I ponder things.

Are you proficient in any language outside of your native tongue? do you write characters that speak multiple languages?

I have a basic proficiency in German and Japanese. I studied German in high school and college and Japanese in just college. But unfortunately I don't write any muses who speak those languages, haha. As far as languages I have written in... I created my own fictional language for an original race I made when writing one of my novels, but I never used it on this site, just in original writing and for D&D purposes. I sometimes will try to incorporate some Arabic for Ardeth or Spanish for Carlos, but I don't overdo it because I know nothing about those languages and I don't trust G.oogle T.ranslate, so I don't want to make mistakes and risk offending anyone. Funnily enough, the muse I've written in a different language for the most is Leeloo using her fictional Divinian language, haha. I have a Divinian lexicon that I downloaded which is the same that they actually used for the movie as developed by the director, and I've read the director's notes on how the grammar functions in the language. It's... interesting to navigate, but once you kindof figure out how the grammar and everything works, you can kindof function in it well enough to make it seem at least halfway legit. And since it's fictional, I won't offend anyone if I make a mistake haha.

Do you proofread / edit as you write or do you just wing it and save editing for last?

Yes? Haha. I edit as I go, rereading sentences and paragraphs when I finish them, and then once I finish the entire reply, I'll read through it again. That's just how I roll because that's how I used to edit when I wrote my books, so I just got into that kind of frequent editing habit. It's a wonder, then, with all this editing, that I have so many freaking typos in my replies. XD

When roleplaying, do you pace yourself when answering replies or do you like to write for them as soon as you can?

It really depends on the muse and how much free time I have. Generally speaking I try to get to things that are time sensitive first, like asks I was just sent, things to do with holidays or certain events, or things that maybe just won't be relevant or doable if I wait a long time to reply to them. After that, I try to bounce around and do a little bit for as many people as I can so that everyone gets a turn. This... doesn't always work on some blogs (like Wanda's, unfortunately) where I have so may writing partners that I can't get to everybody every week. Other than that, I'll just reply to whatever the muse wants to do at the time. Very rarely I will reply a bunch of times to the same thread in a night, and that's only when the muse is so strong for that thread that I need to gush-write and indulge myself, heh.

Do you reply to threads you have the most inspiration for first or do you work on them in the order in which you received them?

Oh... I actually kindof also answered this one in the question just before this. XD

What is your average length / word count regarding roleplay replies? does the length of your partner’s replies matter or is important to you?

It varies with partner and thread, honestly. I prefer writing very long and detailed threads, but not everyone does. And lately time has not always allowed for me to write the lengths I would prefer. Sometimes if I see that I'm writing a lot and my partner consistently writes very little in return, I'll scale back so that I don't overwhelm them. But generally speaking... my length will tend to mirror that of my partners' replies, only because I try to address everything that they say in their reply unless it's not needed or it's reached a natural conclusion. So my muse will react to all gestures, words, and actions of yours... if they ask questions, my muse will always answer or at least react... or if anything happens I will try to have my muse react but then also add to it to advance the story. So the more you write, the more my muse has to react to, and the more I'll write back. =)

What is your limit for how many active threads you can handle at one time?

Definitely not as many as I have right now, haha. I'm one of these people that tends to just accumulate threads and keep making new ones, and the old ones just kindof get phased out. I work best with partners that can deal with replies after weeks or months on some threads, or ones who, if they wanted to continue something old, have no problem just skipping time and making a new thread. I just end to kindof work in the present because I don't have a lot of free time and I'm on meds that makes my memory a little wonky, so sometimes I genuinely forget about older threads. I realize this isn't the best way to run rp blogs, and it has kindof gotten out of hand, but I've found several very understanding rp partners who are perfectly okay with just rolling with my chaotic disarray, haha, and somehow we still manage to have fun, which is the overall point of this hobby anyway, right? XD

Are you more comfortable writing in private or public spaces? Why or why not?

Private spaces. Because when I write, I like... leave this world, hahaha. Seriously, like... I get so inside the world, the story, my character's head, etc. that I will say their dialog out loud to make sure it sounds like something they'd say, or I'll smile or chuckle as I'm writing if something funny is going on, or I'll cry if I get really into the emotion of what I'm writing. So....... to do that in public spaces would be really embarrassing. Also I would not be very aware of my surroundings, like to watch my purse or my own safety or whatever else is going on, because I get that absorbed when I write. So yeah, private writing is better for me.

Do you have a routine that helps you prepare to work on your writing? 

Not one that I stick to, no. Usually I just decide okay, time to write, and I sit down, open the site, and start working. Sometimes if I need muse, or if I have a ton of muse and want to really soak in it, I'll put on one of my muse's movies or a movie with their FC in it, or I'll listen to music from their movies/shows. The music has to stop once I start writing though, because I tend to focus on music if it's on and I won't be able to concentrate on writing otherwise. But the movies I can leave on in the background while I write. Writing with background noise is better for me than silence.

Between mobile or desktop version, which do you prefer regarding writing drabbles or roleplay replies?

I prefer desktop, because I have a lot of problems with my eyesight, and staring at tiny little letters on a phone for hours tends to give me headaches. Also, mobile is so buggy and weird, not that the desktop version isn't, but I find it easier, quicker, and less obnoxious to deal with the setup and issues of the desktop version than the mobile version, personally.

When it comes to replies do you trim your posts? Does it bother you when others don’t trim their own replies? Is trimming not a problem at all?

I do... because I have several rp partners for whom not trimming posts is a major pet peeve and they really hate it, so for their sake, I do. Also I mean... with some of the replies I write, they really do become unwieldy at long lengths, so yeah I try to remember to trim if possible. Personally, I don't really care, long posts don't bother me at all, but as a courtesy to others who really dislike long posts or long chains of replies, I trim. =)

Have you ever had a roleplay partner who helped you to improve something about your own writing quality?

To be honest, I've been writing for about 25 years, so I've got my own style pretty well set. However, I will say that I have amazing writing partners that are always pushing me to keep up my level of vocabulary, description, sentence variation, balances between expos and dialog, things like that. Their writing is very good, therefore it pushes me to stay on their same level so that we both have a high quality writing experience, and for that I'm thankful because I don't write original writing anymore. I had some losses in my life all within the span of about eight months back in 2016-2017, and it really negatively affected me mentally and creatively. before that I would write 600-1000+ page epic fantasy novels and couldn't imagine a day going by without writing for one of my WIPs. But after that rough patch in my life, I just... weirdly lost the ability to do that. Even not only just writing novels, but short stories, fanfiction, everything just kindof stopped. I'm very sad about it, but it is what it is. RP is the only writing I do now, and... I've always identified as a writer. It's been a huge part of my life and I can't imagine not doing it at all. So for the past 6 years when I haven't been able to write original works anymore, I've been very thankful for and grateful to many of my rp writing partners for really pushing me to remain a writer and to keep up that level of creativity and productivity. So... thank you. I love you all. <3

If a reply isn’t coming easily do you draft it for later, delete and start over, chat with your writing partner for help, or something else?

If it's not coming to me easily, I might write a part of it or draft some notes about what I might want to do with it, and try again another day. If I'm really suck or I have a question, I will chat with my writing partner. But usually I can figure it out on my own, I just might need some sleep or to ponder things over music for a while.

Are there any writing elements that you sometimes find difficult? Monologues, character engagement, setting, progression, dialogue, other?

Yes, action scenes and fighting/battle scenes. I just..... I'm more of a visual person than a words person. I know. You're like buuuut you're a writer, haha. What I mean is... I tend to think visually and be inspired visually, so when I write, I'm picturing what's going on in my head. How the muses are standing, sitting, moving, gesturing, acting, etc. And sometimes I struggle with action or fight scenes because it comes out choppy or like I'm listing things instead of the writing just flowing. And then he did this, and then he moved here, and then he struck here, heh. It just... I haven't mastered the art of making combat and action sound anything other than a list of movements, and that sucks. Also.... s.mut. I just. Omg I'm so terrible at it. It comes out sounding like a bad adult film, like... hahaha, seriously, I'm just not good at making it sound classy, romantic, and creative instead of silly, crass, or again, just a play-by-play of movements instead of telling a story.

What subjects / genres do you find yourself becoming the most passionate about when you’re writing?

I really get into psychological things. My muse growing as a person, dealing with trauma, overcoming their own mental drawbacks, triggers, and traumas, etc. I find psychology fascinating, and so I tend to gravitate towards muses that have a lot of mental health issues, obstacles, or special circumstances, because I love to take them through constructive, healing, coping, therapeutic, or personal growth journeys. It's one of the most interesting things for me to write. I also really enjoy sandbox writing, which I don't get to do a lot of on this site because of how rp typically works. It's usually one on one with muses, or maybe a guest muse here and there, maybe two and two, but I really love writing a sandbox. What I mean is... you put your muse into my world with all my characters and I write everything and make a world for your character to get immersed in. Whether it's my own fictional world or a canon world from a movie or show, I love write multiple muses in that world to give you and your muse a "sandbox" feeling, kindof like when you play an RPG and your character can go anywhere and do anything and wherever they go there will be things for them to do and people for them to talk to. So it feels very open and expansive for the other person. I've done sandbox rps with my own fictional worlds with some of the muses on my multimuse blog, with the world of FFXII on Basch/Ashelia's blog, and with the world of Silent Hill, putting a muse of mine in there and you put yours in there and I write the town of SH around them. I ran a SH sandbox rp with Luther once and it was pretty cool. I'm a SH superfan and I get very into the creatures and the mythos of everything, so that's really fun for me. But a lot of this hasn't been recent, and unfortunately it didn't get very far.

Does fatigue affect your ability to write or do you always have energy for the grind?

Fatigue, my mood, anxiety, eyesight issues, etc. all affect my ability to write. And work and family drama drains me a lot too and can totally sap me of creativity. Years ago I used to have energy to write all the time, but not as much anymore.

Are there any genres that you will not write or avoid writing?

Not really? Other than anything that glorifies things I don't care for or that gets really inappropriate or uncomfortable in some way. I've shut down some anons on my other blogs who have asked questions about my muses that were really just not appropriate at all, and I refused to answer those questions. Other than that, as far as whole genres and things, I'm pretty much up for anything.

Are there any writing habits others may have that you find frustrating or exhausting?

I tend to gravitate away from people who overly punctuate and format their writing. You know, where every word is spaced out, bold, italics, bigger, smaller, colored, etc. and I just... can't make sense of it. It really distracts away from the writing and the story, and I prefer to avoid that. Having said that, if my partner really wants to do that and I like their writing and the stories we're creating, I'll deal with it.

Are you comfortable asking your writing partner to correct something in their reply if they got a detail incorrect?

Honestly, I usually just roll with it, heh. I'll change what I was going to do or retcon what I said to match so I don't embarrass them or because it's really not a big deal at all. If it is something that would really matter or that changes the story or affects my muse greatly, then yes, I will ask them to just confirm which way they wanted it or what it was supposed to be so that I know going forward.

When working on replies or drabbles, do you prefer a desktop keyboard, a laptop, typing on mobile, or other accessibility methods?

I don't have a desktop computer right now, I only have a laptop, and then my phone. Between those two, I vastly prefer my laptop keyboard. I'm old school, haha, so I grew up typing on a full-size keyboard. The laptops I get are fairly large because I need a lot of power and a bigger screen for work analyses and gaming, so the keyboard is full size. That's just what I'm used to and I'm a really fast typer, so that works for me. I get fat finger syndrome on my phone honestly, haha, and I spent more time fixing typos than actually writing if I try to use my phone for replies.

[bloodofthefates]

x. mun meme from @gloriousxdarkness​

3. How often do you reach for a synonym dictionary when writing? how about mentally?      Literally every single time I write even a sentence. While writing replies in separate documents because I’ve been burned far too many times on losing posts trying to write direct replies on tumblr, I almost always have some kind of thesaurus tab open because my brain gets so picky about alliterative word choices or better descriptive words for things and suddenly I can’t remember a single word I’ve ever learned.

5. Do you listen to music while your write?

     Abso-fuckin-lutely. There honestly isn’t much I do in life that doesn’t come with a soundtrack; I literally listen to music all the time. Writing is no different and it’s almost always thread mood related or specific character playlists. Sometimes I even combine ambient like YouTube world sounds while also playing music but sometimes it can be too overstimulating. Classical or melodical music is required some days so I don’t focus on lyrics instead of words I’m writing but like most of these answers; it all just depends on who I’m writing for or for what. 11. When you are writing a reply, how much ahead in the thread do you plan?

     Usually? Not very far. In a very Doctor Strange kind of way, I envision a lot of possible scenarios or overall outcomes of how different actions could lead to the thread going in various directions but I never make full decisions for my characters ahead of time. It’s pretty organic character choices and emotions in the moment of a reply where I feel like I’m just the conduit with no real control and whichever character I’m writing for is in the driver’s seat at the time. 

14. What do you do after you see a person has replied? Do you read it immediately, or do you wait for it to show up on the dash? Do you like it, draft it immediately, etc.?

     I am a literal kid in a candy store; I get so excited to read replies and things that people write for me whether I’m tagged in headcanons, meme replies, drabbles or whatever about our character relationships and dynamics. I’m an instant gratification bitch and read it immediately whether I’m at home on my computer or out in public on my phone. I’m reading it as soon as it is posted. If I’m on mobile, I’ll usually like the post to remember to come back to it. If I’m on my computer I usually send it to drafts right away to try and keep track of everything. I should learn to use thread trackers because I feel like I lose and forget everything all the time though it’s a really bad system lol. 19. How many drafts is a paralyzing amount?

     Lately? Apparently owing anyone anything at all is enough to send my anxiety into a tailspin because I just really struggle with creative energies when so burnt out from work and real life. I find I tend to not even want to log in even around 6-10 drafts because I can find it hard to feel like I even do a good job with a single reply in a matter of hours and it’s probably something I owed from months or years ago. I truly always feel like an awful writing partner because I’m really hard on myself for not being able to just CRANK out replies like my brain once did and that is usually pretty defeatist in itself for me.  20. If you are writing a wrong reply that’s not working out, do you save what you have to be continued at another date, or do you scrap it and rewrite?

     It depends on how mad I get with myself? I will sometimes write up incoherent lines or parts of lines I like and leave them to come back to; I generally write in a pretty stream of consciousness way and I’m not sure what that says about me. But there are more than enough times I scrap everything because I re-read it and I’m like what are you even trying to say right now you pretentious bitch? Or it just feels so bland and robotic like a first grader wrote it. I’ll delete the whole page.  24. What’s your thought process when you format? any unspoken rules you follow?

     I can’t format worth a fig. I sometimes get really overwhelmed by the graphics side of tumblr rp because so many people are so talented and proficient with fancy formatting things and I really don’t care about my own and feel really outdated and obsolete for only writing in simple text. Paragraph/grammar rules form and trying to use smaller fonts and being really plain is what allows me to just write to be able to write but there’s definitely no rules. I’ve really been trying to let myself be okay with going icon-less and JUST writing but I never know what other peoples’ judgments or perceptions are because I don’t do anything icon or graphics related. I’m pretty rudimentary? Like even carrd? Seems super cool, always get too frustrated to learn to do it myself and here we are!

[enbysorcerer]

@arigalefantasynovels apparently I can't save asks to draft on mobile (or it got eaten somewhere between inbox and draft? I don't really know; I haven't actually answered an ask in quite some time) and your ask sadly got deleted, so I'm answering like this instead.

Writer Asks

Purple: Which of your characters would become your sworn enemy?

Of the OCs I post about on this blog, Neivara. She is a very outdoorsy person, and I most definitely am NOT an outdoorsy person. We would be friends, yes (or, rather, she and her wife, Ielenia would try to mother me), but she would also try to make me do outdoorsy things, and I would hate it because I hate the outdoors. (Originally I thought Minori, but disregarding the assassin hellbent on revenge thing (which he wouldn't probably admit to until it was necessary anyway), he's too chill to really dislike. Realistically what happens is we chill on opposite sides of the room while I envy their natural elven blessed androgyny.) Of the characters in my works on @winter-writes-things (which is still in development because I'm not entirely sure how to get started on writeblr)... I don't actually know. Armani and I would probably clash (similar to the reasons I would clash with Neivara: very physically active rich person (Armani) vs very poor person with mobility issues), but I don't know that I would actually dislike any of them.

Gold: Do your stories usually contain lessons or morals?

No? If they do, I'm not aware of it. Maybe the overall lesson/moral is that there's more to the world than meets the eye? Because a lot of my works have at least one person learning magic exists (whether that discovery occurs before the work starts or during the work tends to vary but it's usually there in some way). There's also a lot of acceptance happening (either self-acceptance or accepting the idea of magic existing). In the two works on my writeblr, one involves Nadine slowly coming out of denial and accepting she's a lesbian and in the other, Lazin learns/accepts why they always kinda felt like something was missing/off about their life. But if you want to learn more about those, follow that blog. Okay, maybe they do have something going on.

Clear: Do your characters control where the story goes or do you maintain control?

Me? In control? 🤣🤣🤣 No. I may have a general idea of what I want them to do, but ultimately they do whatever the fuck they want and I hope for the best.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Thank you so much for answering my previous ask! It was very helpful and yeah, I do have another question. Is it a good idea to edit the text, like, in Google Docs or Word (that's what I default to when writing sth) and then post the formatted text here or is just not worth the effort and it's better to post it raw and just edit it all here? When I tried pasting a ready thing here it just kind of.. I dunno, the spacing between the blocks of text was bigger than I wanted it to be and I had to manually correct all of them.

Is this an old vs beta thing or has it always been like that and you should just edit your text here instead of external doc programs? Oh, and I'm talking about desktop here, because I just find it easier to work on my computer that mobile (at lest, at the moment).

-🌹

I'm not sure what happened with your spacing, because I don't have that problem with copy-pasting from other sources. The main problem I have is with the old format (which apparently Tumblr decided to call the "Legacy Editor" recently). Weirdly enough, when copy-pasting my fic from Google Docs, I'd lose all my font effects like italics and bolding. I don't have that problem with copy-pasting from Word on the old format, though.

I just tried out the new (no longer called beta, I guess) format. It looks like text from Google Docs has weird spacing issues, but retains italics and stuff, while text from Word is completely fine. So, keep that in mind. Whether it's worth the extra effort of correcting the issues is up to you. I used to write directly into the Tumblr textpost when writing my fics, and would save WIPs in my drafts hjdakflhd The problem with just using the Tumblr textpost is that if something glitches, you can lose everything you've written. Personally, what I do is write the fic, fully formatted and everything, in Google Docs, with a backup on Word. Then when it comes time to post to Tumblr, I copy from the Word backup. But again, what you do is up to you!

[marvelingjules]

i read the 'I don't ever not want tpo be asked about my oc' thing and am tipsy so who's youre best boy or girl

How do we wanna define best, becomes the question here?

Honestly I usually default to talking about Harlem, lol (and Kaden will always insist I should be talking about him lmao), but you know what I wanna walk about my boy Damek.

Damek is - well I’ve sometimes changed it a bit but let’s say some flavor of shapeshifter (I’ve recently contemplated plucking him from one OC world and just tweaking and plopping him in with the Hounds). He’s got a younger brother he would do anything for - and has in many ways, without him ever knowing.

There’s a very tragic backstory with death and murder and sometimes political fuckery involved, but it ends with Damek and Daemyn without parents or family they rely on or trust, and basically fending for themselves for several years. And Damek did everything he could to make sure his brother was as safe and healthy and taken care of as he could be. More than Daemyn realizes. It made Damek grow up fast, and learn how hard and cruel the world can be, and it kinda fucked him up some (a lot).

Damek’s pretty - aloof, in some ways. He doesn’t trust easily and he’s more inclined to watch and learn about people than talk to them or dive into a situation he’s not familiar with. (Daemyn jokes sometimes that he’s the nice one and Damek is the scary one.) What few people Damek does let in, he becomes very protective of and loyal to. And even they sometimes struggle to know things about him bc he’s closed off a lot of the time.

But he’s brilliant at tracking people and smarter than many expect of him. He’s unbearably kind when he can be, and always to kids or people that are hurt and scared.

He wants to have a life where he can stop worrying and relax and just - settle, but he doesn’t think he’ll every actually get that. He’s tired but doesn’t know how to stop and rest. He misses his mom and dad and feels like he can’t bring up the good memories of them, because it might seem like he just wants to ignore the bad ending. He’s stubborn as hell and hates to admit when he’s wrong.

He wouldn’t realize it, but he wants someone he doesn’t have to be strong for, that maybe can be strong for him when he needs it. He doesn’t realize it, but he often gives too much of himself, because he doesn’t think he’s worth as much as other people. He thinks his parents would be disappointed in him if they knew him now. He thinks what he feels doesn’t matter so long as his people are okay.

He’s full of damage and pain and constantly ignored heartbreak, and he’s soft and kind and wants to be loved despite everything.

He’s the OC I think of when I’m having bad days and need some comfort; or when I’m having a bad day and need to expel it with writing some angsty snippets and drabbles and whatnot. He first was imagined up waaaay back in senior year of high school, or maybe more the summer right after it ended, and back then two other fellow writing friends from HS and I would have “character chats” and make our various OCs interact and talk. (Kaden was an enemies to frenemies to best friends with Tristan; very opposite personalities but they were pretty ride or die after years of this.) Damek first appeared in a chat with Niko I believe it was and they immediately hated each other. Niko thought he was too serious and therefore delightful to tease and mock, and Damek thought Niko was full of lies and careless and thus dangerous. They never did end up getting along; best E and I got was them being tensely polite lolol.

And you know what, how about a best girl too? You gotta meet Cinder. She’s one of my Hounds, and competent and smart and sharp. She grew up being told she just needed to be pretty and quiet and perfect, and she took that and went “no” and broke all the rules that had shaped her life to leave and help others instead.

She helps other Hounds who need it, people who need it, and she’s gathered people around her that are like minded about that - many of them people and Hounds she has helped too.

She looks fragile and soft but she’s got a spine of steel and spark of fire in her that shows through when needed. She uses her looks and peoples’ expectations against them, to her advantage, because why the fuck not, if they’re gonna be so stupid as to do that? She’ll lull them into a very mistaken sense of security and then viciously put them in their place when they’re right where she wants them.

Cinder doesn’t hold onto the past; she sees no point to when it’s the present and future that matter. She’s very action oriented, very driven and focused, and sometimes it makes her harsh, though she doesn’t really mean to be.

(It’s okay; Po’s her right-hand guy, her favorite, her best friend and partner and lodestone person. He’s observant and protective and in some ways calmer than her - which is funny in that he’s more impulsive than her too. He helps soften her sharp edges though, as she has helped soothe his hurts and fears.)

I can say that while she doesn’t live in the past, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she didn’t have the work she does. It would leave her lost, adrift, and that would shake her terribly. She always wants to help others but never asks for help (good thing she has Po and Stella). She is self aware enough to know that if somehow it came down to the safety of Po or a stranger, she’d want to pick Po, and he might not forgive her if she did. She used to be afraid that she would unintentionally hurt Po and he might be better off away from her, but he just wanted to stay by her side however she’d let him. She’s not good about taking breaks, and when a situation gets stressful she can be harsh and snap at people who don’t deserve it, but she apologizes later, when things are better, or when she has a moment to reflect and realize she reacted poorly.

She’s fire and strength and a bit of meanness and an underlying anger that is so familiar she doesn’t even recognize it as anger per se.

She’s one of my newer characters - came up when I was pondering two other characters, in the backstory of one of them, and almost stole the show there. Parts of her backstory are still in flux, but the core of her character never shifts, and I love it about her. She is very staunchly who she is, and she is almost ruthless in making things happen. I adore her.

[wildjuniperjones]

Juniper’s Massive World-Building Resource List

(Shamelessly cribbed from a dozen different sources)

1. The Checklists

These are the kinds of things that present you with a list of questions about your world, that you then answer as creatively as you want to. I find myself continually having to go back and add to them, because goodness sometimes I just want to write and not think about stuff that isn’t directly relevant to the plot...until it is. And then suddenly I have to think about the ramifications of that.

CRV’s Worldbuilding Checklists (originally from btot.de) - obviously more fantasy-focused Patricia Wrede’s Worldbuilding Lists - a good balance between fantasy and other genres

2. The Masterlist

This link has nearly everything you can think of. It’s not the be-all-end-all, because nothing is, but it’s damn good.

r/Worldbuilding’s Resources List

3. The Visuals

Yes, there’s the ever-present AI-generated images, things such as Artbreeder or Wombo Dream, but sometimes you need something more concrete. Like maps. Or people.

Also, pay artists to make beautiful things whenever you can. AI art is designed to remove the actual humanity from the creative process, and while it’s fine for face claims or inspiration, I would never ever use it as, say, my book cover.

Alsoalso, learn a little something about graphic design. Please. Color theory. Rule of thirds. I beg of you.

Things I have used for maps:

Inkarnate - Browser-based, but almost entirely fantasy-focused

Wonderdraft - Large-scale mapping for countries/continents/worlds

Dungeondraft - Smaller scale mapping that shines when doing smaller areas, especially interiors (both ‘drafts are from the same creator, and are desktop only) There is not, as of yet, a Towndraft, although the community is ravenous for it!

I highly recommend the art packs from Cartography Assets, although if you’re going to use them in a commercially released work, do be a good human and pay the artists for their work! If you want to do sci-fi or modern maps, this is where to get your assets!

Things I have used for people:

HeroForge - A 3D tabletop miniature creator with a vibrant modder community. The free version lets you create as many figures as you want, but their Pro deal lets you organize them into folders, which I absolutely love. It also lets you save specific colors/materials to use across multiple figures, which saves a lot of time when creating folks with a shared uniform. You can even import people/outfits/poses from other figures! I’m told that facial feature modification, clothing patterns, and kitbashing are coming this year! (I’m a little addicted, as you might’ve noticed.) Best on desktop, but you can get a quick “sketch” done on mobile.

Picrew - A truly massive collection of portrait creators. The Discord associated with it is really helpful, in that you can frequently get links to creators that meet your specific requirements, like ‘must have elf ears and POC skin tones’ or ‘must have heterochromia and vitiligo’. This site got me through the roughest parts of 2020. Great for mobile.

Meiker.io - Similar in scope to Picrew, Meiker has a few treasures, including a lot from the now mostly defunct DollDivine, which relied entirely on Flash. There are a few that I return to again and again, but not many. Best on desktop and very easy to create your own creators.

Neka.cc - A Chinese-based site with a lot of similarities to Picrew, although a lot less diversity, both in skin tones and bodies. Great for mobile.

Storior gets an honorable mention because it has a ton of potential, with a lot more options in some respects, but precious few in others. Best on desktop. Can you tell I really love these things?!

4. The Organizers

It helps to have somewhere to store all this information, right? Preferably in an easily accessed database? Perhaps with links or prompts?

These are the ones I’ve used:

World Anvil - Browser-based, incredibly detailed and complex, even for the free version. I found it to be too complicated to figure out, but maybe it’ll be your cuppa!

Campfire - Browser-based, mostly focused on writers, and has a suite of options that you can opt into or out of. This also wasn’t as useful to me, since there’s nowhere to put an outline!

Kanka.io - Browser-based, and just this perfect sweet spot between bare bones and overloaded. There are specific modules you can enable or disable, like in-universe calendars, dice rollers, character journals, etc. It’s my preferred option for organizing my world-building, outside of things like Google Docs.

I also understand a lot of writers like using Scrivener for their work, but as I have Linux, I don’t have any experience with it.

5. The Rest

So, a lot of world-building comes down to how well you know our world. I love world-building because it means I get to use all my education and interests together to create something that feels realistic to my readers and players. This is a time when ADHD is absolutely useful! Chase those squirrels! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up reading an article on, say, rivers, only to end up with an idea for how leylines function in my world!

So here are my top 5 recommendations for figuring out how our world works:

Sociology! - If you want to know how different cultures interact, why certain customs come about, or just how a population reaches a decision, learn about sociology. It’s probably my favorite subject, and most useful to very culture-focused world-builders.

Geology! - If you want to know how your world fits together, what it’s made of, where things like mineral or gem deposits might be or how they might form... in addition to how rivers, lakes, and “strange” geographical features form, geology’s a great place to start.

History! - Okay, maybe this one is cheating, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read about something in history and thought “what if it went this way instead?” BAM, there’s a premise for you. (I have an entire novel idea built around that, told mostly through a writer interviewing a famous figure in this alt-history for their biography. After seeing the popularity of Dracula Daily, I almost want to release it like that...)

Ecology! - Oh man, if you want to figure out the botany and zoology of your world, ecology is a great place to start. It builds very nicely off of geology, and covers such a broad range of topics and how each of these pieces interact with one another - like how hydrology affects meteorology affects climate affects plant distribution affects animal distribution... which of course then affects culture!

I’m going to be sacrilegious in the eyes of some of my fellow world-builders here and NOT put linguistics - not because it’s not useful, just because it’s not a field I know much about. Instead, I’d suggest looking at world myths and religions. Yeah, it’s technically part of sociology, but if you’re developing a world from scratch, the creation stories that the sentient species tell themselves can inform a lot of their culture.

For instance, the world that Starcrossed, Amongst the Goblins & the Fishes, and The Silver Hand are all set in is an alternate Earth where magic never left the land. The creation myths in this world are much more centered around humanoids living in harmony with nature, rather than dominating it. In fact, some of the human societies have a specific taboo against desecrating the earth that is taken to such an extreme that other species, like elves and dwarves, occupy that niche instead, acting as stewards of the forest and mountain because they don’t have that same taboo. Part of these myths explain the existence of ley lines, and why they wither and die out (because of excessive logging, destructive farming/mining, or large-scale slaughter of creatures). Will this ever come up in Starcrossed? I highly doubt it. But it figures into the other two VERY prominently.

Phew! That was quite a tangent. Anyway - did I get any of your favorites? Do you have something you’d like to add? Should I make this all a separate page so it’s easy to access and update it regularly? Tell me things! Ask me things! I am an open book and love talking about world-building! Tell me where you’re stuck and maybe we can figure out a way forward together! (Also hmu on Discord, I am so mediocre at Tumblr.)

[my-insanity-is-an-artform]

Ajshfjksjfjsgi!! The Wild x Reader x Twilight fic!! That was so cute! Wild being more impulsive than Twi was also a nice touch 💙

You have given me ideas about poly reader with Wild and someone else >:)

Wild and Hyrule wandering around as they are wont to do. They get to talking and realize they both like the reader. They then head off on a mission right then to find that specific type of fruit you mentioned you liked. When the pair are finally found hours later, they get chewed out by the reader for worrying them.

-Howl’s Moving Castle Anon. Which is a very long sign off so I think I’m just gonna have rename myself.

-🐝 Anon

My Dear Bee Anon, my inbox nearly ate your ask! Thank god for Mobile Tumblr being able to save drafts. It hasn't eaten anyone else's (yet) but I've noted them all down so no need to worry! I had hoped to get through most of them over the weekend, but life had other plans. There's 22 so far so if I haven't answered yet, it's on it's way!

Of all the things Wild had done in his very long life (or short life if you didn't count the century-long nap), this was possibly one of the more silly things he had done.

At least, he wasn't alone in his latest stunt.

Hyrule was with him this time.

And honestly, being stuck up a tree for a few hours didn't even make the list of dangerous stunts he had pulled.

It had all started when you had mentioned craving a particular fruit he knew grew in the area. He thought he'd be able to leave to scout while the others were resting and see if he could find it.

Wild hadn't really counted on Hyrule offering to tag along, but he hadn't mind. The extra eyes would help.

"So what exactly were you looking for?" Hyrule asked as they traipsed through the forest.

He hummed to himself, glancing around. "You know that fruit that came up this morning? I figured I could see if I could find one. Ya know. As a surprise." His ears burned at the confession and he avoided Hyrule's eyes. He just knew that his feelings were written all over his face.

Hyrule didn't speak for a few moments.

But when he did, Wild tripped over his own feet at the words.

"...You like them, don't you?"

Once Wild had gotten back to his feet, he looked over at Hyrule with wide eyes only to find his friend refusing to make eye contact.

"You'd be good for them. I've seen the way they look at you. You... You should tell them." Hyrule spoke with an almost tremble to his voice and continued to walk.

Wild stopped and watched his back for a few moments, thinking back over all the moments he'd seen them and Hyrule interacting. "They look at you as well. Like you hung the moon."

Hyrule froze and turned back to Wild who was fearlessly looking straight at him.

"You like them too."

Silence rang out over them as they stared at each other.

Both of them wanted the other to be happy even at the expense of their own happiness and neither was willing to back down.

Eventually, Hyrule is the one to look away. "I know what I saw. They want to be around you all the time. They constantly offer to help with the cooking. They like you."

Wild huffed and threw an arm over his shoulder. "Hyrule, I may have forgotten most social cues, but I know that them leaning into your space and constantly offering to explore and looking all doe-eyed in your direction means something. Besides, who said they couldn't like both of us?"

The two heroes stiffened as Wild's words sunk in.

Who was to say you didn't like them both?

Hyrule swallowed his nerves. "So what if we both tried? We could see if we're right?" His eyes started to brighten with confidence as he mulled the idea over. "If we worked together, then if they did like both of us, they wouldn't have to choose."

HIs friend jostled his shoulders with a side-smile. "I don't mind if it's you. And why should they have to choose? They're perfect." Wild finished with an absolutely smitten sigh.

Hyrule's own face went dreamy as he thought of the object of their shared affections.

"We should start with the fruit to test the waters." Wild decided and Hyrule gave a large grin as they both set off into the forest.

They would talk it over further when they knew that their feelings were returned.

But for now, it would only take a few minutes to find the fruit they were after.

They also found a very cranky bear and were chased up a tree.

By the time they returned to the campsite sans fruit and bear, they were both immediately pounced on by a very welcome presence before either Twilight, Time or Legend could scold them.

The idea that they liked both Wild and Hyrule was nearly confirmed in the midst of the scolding they got and the tight hug.

What did confirm it was the whispered tremble they said into their shoulders.

"Oh, it's a good job you're both cute. Just what am I going to do with you both?"

Hyrule and Wild shared a secretive smile over their head.

Just what would you do with them?

[mcmansionhell]

Coronagrifting: A Design Phenomenon

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled content to bring you a critical essay on the design world. I promise you that this will also be funny. 

This morning, the design website Dezeen tweeted a link to one of its articles, depicting a plexiglass coronavirus shield that could be suspended above dining areas, with the caption “Reader comment: ‘Dezeen, please stop promoting this stupidity.’”

This, of course, filled many design people, including myself, with a kind of malicious glee. The tweet seemed to show that the website’s editorial (or at least social media) staff retained within themselves a scintilla of self-awareness regarding the spread a new kind of virus in its own right: cheap mockups of COVID-related design “solutions” filling the endlessly scrollable feeds of PR-beholden design websites such as Dezeen, ArchDaily, and designboom. I call this phenomenon: Coronagrifting. 

I’ll go into detail about what I mean by this, but first, I would like to presenet some (highly condensed) history. 

From Paper Architecture to PR-chitecture

Back in the headier days of architecture in the 1960s and 70s, a number of architectural avant gardes (such as Superstudio and Archizoom in Italy and Archigram in the UK) ceased producing, well, buildings, in favor of what critics came to regard as “paper architecture.” This “paper architecture” included everything from sprawling diagrams of megastructures, including cities that “walked” or “never stopped” - to playfully erotic collages involving Chicago’s Marina City. Occasionally, these theoretical and aesthetic explorations were accompanied by real-world productions of “anti-design” furniture that may or may not have involved foam fingers. 

Archigram’s Walking City (1964). Source.

Paper architecture, of course, still exists, but its original radical, critical, playful, (and, yes, even erotic) elements were shed when the last of the ultra-modernists were swallowed up by the emerging aesthetic hegemony of Postmodernism (which was much less invested in theoretical and aesthetic futurism) in the early 1980s. What remained were merely images, the production and consumption of which has only increased as the design world shifted away from print and towards the rapidly produced, easily digestible content of the internet and social media. 

Architect Bjarke Ingels’s “Oceanix” - a mockup of an ecomodernist, luxury city designed in response to rising sea levels from climate change. The city will never be built, and its critical interrogation amounts only to “city with solar panels that floats bc climate change is Serious”  - but it did get Ingels and his firm, BIG, a TED talk and circulation on all of the hottest blogs and websites. Meanwhile, Ingels has been in business talks with the right-wing climate change denialist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. (Image via designboom) 

Design websites are increasingly dominated by text and mockups from the desks of a firm’s public relations departments, facilitating a transition from the paper-architecture-imaginary to what I have begun calling “PR-chitecture.” In short, PR-chitecture is architecture and design content that has been dreamed up from scratch to look good on instagram feeds or, more simply, for clicks.  It is only within this substance-less, critically lapsed media landscape that Coronagrifting can prosper.

Coronagrifting: An Evolution

As of this writing, the two greatest offenders of Coronagrifting are Dezeen, which has devoted an entire section of its website to the virus (itself offering twelve pages of content since February alone) and designboom, whose coronavirus tag contains no fewer than 159 articles. 

Certainly, a small handful of these stories demonstrate useful solutions to COVID-related problems (such as this one from designboom about a student who created a mask prototype that would allow D/deaf and hard of hearing people to read lips) most of the prototypes and the articles about them are, for a lack of a better word, insipid. 

But where, you may ask, did it all start?

One of the easiest (and, therefore, one of the earliest) Coronagrifts involves “new innovative, health-centric designs tackling problems at the intersection of wearables and personal mobility,” which is PR-chitecture speak for “body shields and masks.” 

Wearables and Post-ables

The first example came from Chinese architect Sun Dayong, back at the end of February 2020, when the virus was still isolated in China. Dayong submitted to Dezeen a prototype of a full mask and body-shield that “would protect a wearer during a coronavirus outbreak by using UV light to sterilise itself.” The project was titled “Be a Bat Man.” No, I am not making this up. 

Screenshot of Dayong’s “Be a Batman” as seen on the Dezeen website. 

Soon after, every artist, architect, designer, and sharp-eyed PR rep at firms and companies only tangentially related to design realized that, with the small investment of a Photoshop mockup and some B-minus marketing text, they too could end up on the front page of these websites boasting a large social media following and an air of legitimacy in the field. 

By April, companies like Apple and Nike were promising the use of existing facilities for producing or supplying an arms race’s worth of slick-tech face coverings. Starchitecture’s perennial PR-churners like Foster + Partners and Bjarke Ingels were repping “3D-printed face shields”, while other, lesser firms promised wearable vaporware like “grapheme filters,” branded “skincare LED masks for encouraging self-development” and “solar powered bubble shields.” 

While the mask Coronagrift continues to this day, the Coronagrifting phenomenon had, by early March, moved to other domains of design. 

Consider the barrage of asinine PR fluff that is the “Public Service Announcement” and by Public Service Announcement, I mean “A Designer Has Done Something Cute to Capitalize on Information Meant to Save Lives.” 

Some of the earliest offenders include cutesy posters featuring flags in the shape of houses, ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home;” a designer building a pyramid out of pillows ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home”; and Banksy making “lockdown artwork” that involved covering his bathroom in images of rats ostensibly encouraging people to “stay home.” 

Lol. Screenshot from Dezeen. 

You may be asking, “What’s the harm in all this, really, if it projects a good message?” And the answer is that people are plenty well encouraged to stay home due to the rampant spread of a deadly virus at the urging of the world’s health authorities, and that these tone-deaf art world creeps are using such a crisis for shameless self promotion and the generation of clicks and income, while providing little to no material benefit to those at risk and on the frontlines.

Of course, like the mask coronagrift, the Public Service Announcement coronagrift continues to this very day. 

The final iteration of Post-able and Wearable Coronagrifting genres are what I call “Passive Aggressive Social Distancing Initiatives” or PASDIs. Many of the first PASDIs were themselves PSAs and art grifts, my favorite of which being the designboom post titled “social distancing applied to iconic album covers like the beatle’s abbey road.” As you can see, we’re dealing with extremely deep stuff here. 

However, an even earlier and, in many ways more prescient and lucrative grift involves “social distancing wearables.” This can easily be summarized by the first example of this phenomenon, published March 19th, 2020 on designboom: 

Never wasting a single moment to capitalize on collective despair, all manner of brands have seized on the social distancing wearable trend, which, again, can best be seen in the last example of the phenomenon, published May 22nd, 2020 on designboom:

We truly, truly live in Hell. 

Which brings us, of course, to living. 

“Architectural Interventions” for a “Post-COVID World”

As soon as it became clear around late March and early April that the coronavirus (and its implications) would be sticking around longer than a few months, the architectural solutions to the problem came pouring in. These, like the virus itself, started at the scale of the individual and have since grown to the scale of the city. (Whether or not they will soon encompass the entire world remains to be seen.) 

The architectural Coronagrift began with accessories (like the designboom article about 3D-printed door-openers that enable one to open a door with one’s elbow, and the Dezeen article about a different 3D-printed door-opener that enables one to open a door with one’s elbow) which, in turn, evolved into “work from home” furniture (”Stykka designs cardboard #StayTheF***Home Desk for people working from home during self-isolation”) which, in turn, evolved into pop-up vaporware architecture for first responders (”opposite office proposes to turn berlin's brandenburg airport into COVID-19 'superhospital'”), which, in turn evolved into proposals for entire buildings (”studio prototype designs prefabricated 'vital house' to combat COVID-19″); which, finally, in turn evolved into “urban solutions” aimed at changing the city itself (a great article summarizing and criticizing said urban solutions was recently written by Curbed’s Alissa Walker).

There is something truly chilling about an architecture firm, in order to profit from attention seized by a global pandemic, logging on to their computers, opening photoshop, and drafting up some lazy, ineffectual, unsanitary mockup featuring figures in hazmat suits carrying a dying patient (macabrely set in an unfinished airport construction site) as a real, tangible solution to the problem of overcrowded hospitals; submitting it to their PR desk for copy, and sending it out to blogs and websites for clicks, knowing full well that the sole purpose of doing so consists of the hope that maybe someone with lots of money looking to commission health-related interiors will remember that one time there was a glossy airport hospital rendering on designboom and hire them. 

Enough, already. 

Frankly, after an endless barrage of cyberpunk mask designs, social distancing burger king crowns, foot-triggered crosswalk beg buttons that completely ignore accessibility concerns such as those of wheelchair users, cutesy “stay home uwu” projects from well-to-do art celebrities (who are certainly not suffering too greatly from the economic ramifications of this pandemic), I, like the reader featured in the Dezeen Tweet at the beginning of this post, have simply had enough of this bullshit. 

What’s most astounding to me about all of this (but especially about #brand crap like the burger king crowns) is that it is taken completely seriously by design establishments that, despite being under the purview of PR firms, should frankly know better. I’m sure that Bjarke Ingels and Burger King aren’t nearly as affected by the pandemic as those who have lost money, jobs, stability, homes, and even their lives at the hands of COVID-19 and the criminally inept national and international response to it. On the other hand, I’m sure that architects and designers are hard up for cash at a time when nobody is building and buying anything, and, as a result, many see resulting to PR-chitecture as one of the only solutions to financial problems. 

However, I’m also extremely sure that there are interventions that can be made at the social, political, and organizational level, such as campaigning for paid sick leave, organizing against layoffs and for decent severance or an expansion of public assistance, or generally fighting the rapidly accelerating encroachment of work into all aspects of everyday life – that would bring much more good and, dare I say, progress into the world than a cardboard desk captioned with the hashtag #StaytheF***Home. 

Hence, I’ve spent most of my Saturday penning this article on my blog, McMansion Hell. I’ve chosen to run this here because I myself have lost work as a freelance writer, and the gutting of publications down to a handful of editors means that, were I to publish this story on another platform, it would have resulted in at least a few more weeks worth of inflatable, wearable, plexiglass-laden Coronagrifting, something my sanity simply can no longer withstand. 

So please, Dezeen, designboom, others – I love that you keep daily tabs on what architects and designers are up to, a resource myself and other critics and design writers find invaluable – however, I am begging, begging you to start having some discretion with regards to the proposals submitted to you as “news” or “solutions” by brands and firms, and the cynical, ulterior motives behind them. If you’re looking for a guide on how to screen such content, please scroll up to the beginning of this page. 

----

If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my Patreon, as I didn’t get paid to write it.  

[starsmuserainbow]

Okay, so, since I'm asking this everyone that I'm starting new threads with these days, I figured instead of typing the whole stuff everytime anew, I could also simply make a post that I then can link whenever I wanna ask these things.

Please don't reblog this post, I'm not writing this with the intention of having it be a widespread PSA or the likes (I dread the notification-amount I would get if it became one), it's just a post where I place the questions and answers I'd like to offer those I wanna talk to this stuff about. I mean, honestly, if we're mutuals I might/would likely be okay with you reblogging it, if you wanna keep it on your blog or something. But please, at the very least if we aren't mutuals, don't reblog it. Link others to it, if you must, but please don't reblog. I really don't want the mess of notifications.

The rest below the cut, but as for the question I'd be asking before sending you this:

Do you know of the new way of cutting posts, and/or about Xkit Rewritten?

First off - this is not a very detailed tutorial or the likes. I'm not giving a illustrated step-by-step or anything like that; if you want one of those I can recommend this one (I've linked it to a few people before).

Okay, so, I'm trying to start at the beginning.

What is Xkit Rewritten?

You know Xkit? What you confirm with 'yes' right now probably refers to what's called 'New Xkit'. That already, as the name tells, was a remake of an earlier version of Xkit - or so I assume at least. Now, Xkit Rewritten basically is the new 'New Xkit' - I think it's only maintained by one person of the original Xkit, but again, that's just from how I understand it.

In other words, it's the extension/addon you need if you want Xkit's features to keep working (at least those that get adapted over). If you don't know of Xkit Rewritten yet, you'll have found at least some - if not by now all - of Xkit's extensions not working anymore. Like the mutual checker, "shorten posts", and probably a lot more but I quite honestly never used that many of them so I wouldn't even know if a good bunch doesn't work anymore. Xkit Rewritten has at the very least some of those extensions - the mutual checker for example - as well, and since it's the newer Xkit, those actually work.

I'm sure you can find it easily on your own, but in case not, here's a link which will forward you to your needed place of downloading, depending on your browser.

Does it work on mobile?

I'm rather certain it does NOT work for the app. I have no idea if you can install extensions in the mobile browsers (I doubt it though), so I can't tell you about that. If you can install extensions, perhaps you could also install Xkit Rewritten. I don't know, sorry.

Why would I need it? The old way of cutting posts, the way we all know, still works!

Well. Yes, it does, but only when you do the opt-out of the beta editor. (I think by now you can use the beta editor on old-way-cut posts after you cut them and saved them as draft? Although I'm not sure if that was just a glitch of sorts or if that's actually the case - but like, same thing, you still need to use the legacy editor to actually use the old cutting)

As much as some might have disliked the beta editor when it first came out, or perhaps you still do - the fact is that eventually, it will be the only editor. I assume that that will still take a while, since there still seems to be a good bunch of things that they wanna fix or still need to make the beta editor be able to do, but, one day it's gonna come. Personally, I'd advise to get used to the new things as they come (or like, shortly after they are brought to us), because it'll probably be nicer when you already know what to do once the switch fully happens, instead of panicking then and starting to learn your way through a new method.

Also, but recent experiences of my own allowed me to use the beta editor on old-way-cut posts too, the new editor does have a few nice little things that you don't have right away available in the buttons on the legacy editor. Colored text, for example, and those fancy text types. You don't need to go into coding for those anymore with the beta editor.

And another reason - I'm not sure, but I think that glitch is still there where, if an icon is at the end of the reply, the next person's first part of the reply will also be indented (or, I think, look like it on the dash at least? Something like that). Since the trimming (aka the new cutting) works a little different than the editable reblogs (aka the old cutting), that won't be happening anymore. In fact, you won't be able to edit your partner's reply at all anymore. Which also means that, if you were doing that so far, you can't edit in the name of the partner-muse in the url, or do similar changes to that part.

One last thing: As far as I understand it, you are able to trim the post later too, as in after writing your reply, even after posting. Just click the little symbol, and it's trimmed down to only the previous reply.

What do I need to use it?

Basically, nothing else than you always needed. Your computer, your browser, the Xkit-Addon (just, now the new one - I recommend keeping both for now though).

Take care to make the start of a new thread in the beta editor though, the new trimming can't work with legacy posts. If you want to make older posts of yours edittrimmable through the new method, you will also need the mobile app to make a change (non-visible is enough even, like adding a space somewhere after a sentence or so) to the very source-post (aka the very first part of the whole thread) - or you just make a new post and continue from there.

How do I use the trimming?

Okay, so, first off, you need to make sure that above point is checked. Either it's a post you made or edited on mobile, or it's a post you make new (I think you need to do that with the beta editor for it to work), just, it has to be of the right type.

Once you have that, and I assume you have Xkit Rewritten installed and "Trim Reblogs" activated within that, it really isn't that much of a task.

You reblog a thing like you always would. Press the reblog-icon on the post (or on the blog or whereever), save it as draft, or whatever your action of choice is. (You can also write on it right there, if that's what you do, though I can't guarantee you that that works, but given the trimming still works when you have already posted your thing, it should still work if you type your reply right away and only then draft/queue/post it.) Now, you go to where your post is now. In my case, that's usually in the drafts. There, in the post-footer (where you also find the symbols for deleting or editing the post) you will see a little scissor-symbol. Click on that, and voila - you're done. Your post is trimmed, and you can now edit on it or leave it there or whatever exactly your next step is.

So should I just remove 'new Xkit' already?

I wouldn't do that yet. A lot of people are still using the old cutting of posts. It has problems, and causes things, but people are used to it and if you switch entirely to the new method, you won't be able to cut the posts that people with the old cutting cutted.

I personally very much prefer the trimming, but I still use both Xkits - and whatever trimming/cutting that I need for a thread - in order to keep my things cut with some people adapting and some keeping the old cutting.

Does it cost me anything to use it?

Outside of the fee for your internet, and, like, the electricity of your computer and so on? No. (Although if you have the money to spare, I'm sure the one that put in all this effort of coding Xkit for us, making it a whole new version of it and so on, would appreciate some financial "thank you", or however to call it. You would need to look that up yourself though.)

[thebrochtuarachs]

Something in the Rain - “Finding Solid Ground”

A/N:  Hi all! This chapter has been in the drafts for quite sometime now but I only had the time to pick up the writing. Thank you so much for your patience with my slow updates but rest assured, I absolutely love this story and daydream about the chapters ahead. As always, your comment and suggestions help a lot moving this story forward. Hope you all are keeping safe and healthy! Till the next one!

AO3  / C1: A Day In June : C2: Definitely, Maybe : C3: So We Meet Again : C4: Friday Lunch

XXXXX

She was 45 minutes late.

Claire was running as fast as she could, catching some curious eyes on her as she raced towards Mrs. Kim’s Korean Street Food Hub to hopefully, still catch Jamie for their lunch.

She got off from her morning surgery quite late due to some complications but she still went as courtesy and because, in all honesty, she still wanted to see him. Their last encounter kind of left them in an awkward place and she was hoping that this meeting could help clarify some things. She has been waiting for this all week but alas, life (and medicine) had other plans.

Claire entered the store and knew instantly that he wasn’t there. The place was empty after the lunch rush and she sighed in disappointment.

“Claire!” Mrs. Kim suddenly called out. “This is for you, left by your friend”, she said while handing her a piece of paper.

“Thank you” Claire replied, opening it on spot.

Hi Claire,

Sorry, I left before you arrived but I have to get back to the office. Don’t worry about the wait, I really don’t mind but I just have a packed schedule today.

Forgive me if this is too forward but here’s my number. No pressure! Just figured we can text or call whenever is a better time to catch up. Just hit me up when you feel like it and I’ll be on the other line.

I do hope to hear from you soon. If not, I’ll be here next Friday, same time :)

Jamie

Claire did not waste any more time and punched in Jamie’s mobile number to call. After three rings, he answered.

“Hello?”

“Jamie? It’s me, Claire.”

“Claire, hi! I see you got my note.”

“I did. I am so sorry. My surgery ran a little bit long and…”

“Don’t worry, I figured that must be it.” he said cheerfully, cutting her off before she went into a long explanation. “I mean, you save lives and all, couldn’t be angry about that.”

Claire sighed relief on the other line and couldn’t believe just how understanding he is. So understanding that she’s starting to wonder if he’s even real. She hasn't really met anyone that chivalrous and it captures her.

“Oh, wow. Thank you - and thank you for the note and your number. My guilt would’ve eaten me alive if I couldn’t apologize to you.”

“You don’t think it was too forward?”

“No, not at all. To be honest, I was going to ask it last week before we got, erm, interrupted.”

“Well, that’s good to know. And in any case, I would’ve given it.” Jamie said.

She could hear his smile from the other line and she couldn’t help but smile too.

“Anyhow,” Claire followed. “I am so sorry I missed you today. To make up for it, would you happen to be doing anything tomorrow?”

“Hmm, let me check." Jamie checked his board calendar. "Nope, my weekend is free. Anything you had in mind?”

“Well, if you’re up for it, I’d like to invite you to the center tomorrow, see what we’re doing with the kids. Fair warning though, they get a little rowdy sometimes.”

“I’m game! Text me the details and what time to meet you.”

“Really? Great! Sure, I’ll text you the details in a bit”

“Will wait for it. Claire, sorry to cut this short but I have to run to a meeting. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Oh no, please. Go ahead. I’ll see you tomorrow, Alright, bye!”

-

It was a Saturday, two weeks since their encounter by the crossing, and now she’s waiting for him to arrive and bring him to one of the most special places for her.

Claire hadn’t absolutely thought through what inviting Jamie to the center would mean. Reflecting on yesterday, a part of Claire thought she may have panicked and this invite might’ve been a mistake. On another end was a part of her that was excited to see him and if she was really being honest, spend time with him, and show her the work they have been doing.

She had told her their meeting story and the extended invite to her friends and staff but left out the part about their lunches. She messaged the team on WhatsApp about their upcoming guest and her inbox has blown with messages asking her for more details about the man himself. She messaged that they’ll be able to find out for themselves tomorrow when they meet him and turned off her phone.

“Claire?” Deep in thought she hadn’t seen or hear Jamie arrive. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. Spaced out there for a bit” she embarrassingly admitted.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Jamie asked as Claire pointed the way in.

“Erm, nothing much. Just thinking about giving you fair warning about everyone upstairs. They’re quite curious about you, Jamie Fraser.” she said jokingly the half truth.

Jamie got a bit nervous suddenly and Claire felt it. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll save you if they get too rowdy. Be ready to answer questions though." She said, smiling, hoping to ease his thoughts.

“Is any topic off limits? Should I not mention anything to them?”

“I leave it to you. But if you ask me, just be yourself and charm everyone away”

Jamie chuckled and Claire turned to him. “What?”

“You think I’m charming?”

Claire laughed and smacked him in the arm. “Oh, bug off!”

“I’ll take that as a yes”

“Anyway!” Claire interrupted. “Today’s event is just art and crafts and a story session. The rest, the kids can do and play how ever they like. I usually just play with any kid who asks me to and time just flies and suddenly, the afternoon is done.”

“Got it. I honestly hope I can help more than distract or whatever”

“Pssh, you’ll be fine, Jamie. You’ll be fine”

--

The moment the elevator doors opened, a line of people greeted Jamie and Claire at the entrance.

“Hello, everyone” Claire greeted but to her surprise, no one spoke or moved. Everyone was just looking at Jamie. “This is Jamie. Jamie Fraser, our guest for today”

She ushered them closer to the stunned group and began to introduce them one by one.

Mary, the receptionist and admin assistant.

Mrs. Graham, the secretariat and head of operations.

Joe, also a surgeon from Claire’s hospital.

Frank, the history professor he’d met a week earlier.

Geilis, a botanist and herbalist.

“It’s nice to meet you all. Thank you for having me this afternoon.” Jamie said and it was only then that the ice was broken.

“Hi, Jamie was it? Can I call you Jamie?” Mrs. Graham prodded.

“Yes, Mam”

“Alright, this way. Let me show you around”

As Mrs. Graham swept Jamie away for a short tour, the rest of the group crowded Claire with questions.

“Okay, he is even more handsome than in the pictures!” Geilis excitedly said.

“Pictures?” Claire asked.

“Ugh, I sometimes forget you’re a doctor who needs to catch up to the times” Geilis pinched her nose jokingly. “Jamie was named one of Scotland’s most eligible bachelors in a tatler magazine last year. There’s pretty striking photos of him in a tux and in casual clothes.”

“I remember that issue. Gail had one lying in the house and I happen to peruse it one time. You’re right, the pictures don’t do him justice.” Joe chimed in.

“I had no idea. I mean, I just literally bumped into the guy on the street!” Claire said, a curiosity pooling in her mind. She had to look for that magazine later.

“Such a meet-cute story. Ugh, Claire! It’s like something out of the books or movies” Geilis added.

“Psh, he seems too manly for me. I mean, who is that fit and that put together.” Frank mused.

“I think he’s quite charming” Joe added.

“If you ask me, Claire, I don’t know what’s going on between you two but keep it going” Geilis added.

“Aish, nothing is going on. I just extended a polite invite to make up for - “ Claire stopped as Jamie and Mrs. Graham arrived back, thankful for the Interruption.

“Make up for what?” Geilis asked, not missing that info.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Mhm” Geilis hummed raising an eyebrow to Claire. She’ll pull it out of her later.

---

It was a long but fun afternoon for everyone.

Afterwards, one by one, the space cleared out, the kids were picked up, saying goodbye to the staff with some even approaching and waving at Jamie as they left, leaving him with a heartwarming feeling.

“Well, another successful weekend, folks!” Frank called out and the team gave themselves applause.

“Great job to Joe and Mary for taking on the storytelling and painting sessions this afternoon and I would also like to thank our guest, Jamie, for being patient and helpful with the kids” Mrs. Graham added, earning another group applause.

“Thank ye, I hope I helped at all today but otherwise, I enjoyed today and thank ye for inviting me.” Jamie shared.

“Come join us anytime” Joe patted him on the back. “Alright, everyone, have a goodnight. See you all next week, I’ll bring Gail and Lenny along.” With that he made a way for the elevator and it was everyone’s cue to leave.

Claire approached Jamie just as he was going to her. “Well, how are you and how was it?” she asked. If she expected to spend time with Jamie, well, it didn’t happen. First, he was whisked away by Mrs. Graham. Afterwards, it was Joe asking help to build his set. Next up was Mary who got him assisting on getting and serving the food, and the rest of the time, it was kids calling out on Jamie here and there and he was more than happy to oblige.

“Fun and a little bit tiring” he replied and Claire gave a small laugh. “But in all honesty, thank ye for inviting me to come here. Made me miss my niece and nephew”

“I’m glad you had fun and I’m glad you got to see what we’re doing here.”

Jamie might be overthinking things but he knew that Claire sharing this part of her to him seems like a big thing and he intends to cherish that.

“Anyway, I’d like to offer to drive ye home...or to the nearest bus stop” he added, panicking he put her in a tight spot.

Claire paused, eyed him jokingly, intentionally making him more flush and nervous.

“I’d take that offer but” she began and Jamie swallowed the lump on his throat, “I actually live nearby so we don’t need to drive”

“Okay,” Jamie sighed in relief which Claire found very cute. “Lead the way, then”

[kai-keda]

So I was going back and forth with someone who has a very keen eye for detail and we were talking about what those details could mean in Monkie Kid.

We ended up asking some questions about the fake-mayor character because they saw something that looked like a silhouette of him during one of the glitches in the calabash.

And this was my response (sorry if the formatting for this post is screwy, Tumblr sometimes messes that up when I post something from a draft on mobile but I’m having hyper energy right now so I’m finishing this post while laying in bad at 4 am) What if he was someone LBD had possessed in the past? A regular human? And she had him in control for a very - very - long time. Some way or whichever he was freed from her, she was buried and locked away, the day was saved and everyone went home happy - hooray. But perhaps her using him as a host for so long left a permanent effect on him. Perhaps that effect made it so he could not return to being human and instead he is now immortal among other things. That's why he seems to have similar abilities to her, acts as a devoted servant who is nothing more than a puppet in all honesty, and has that glitching effect. The glitching thing is representative that there's still a part of his original self fighting back. DBK first found the tomb before the Calabash episode, right? Cause, if so, maybe that's why that glitch is there. Maybe he was trapped in the Calabash as well and when he felt his master calling to him to be freed, he saw an opportunity to get out so long as MK - the kid with the Monkey King's powers - could break his prison from the inside. Okay fuck I think I just made a whole ass OC backstory for the fake mayor what the hell WhY dOeS mY bRaIn Do ThIs WhEn I dOn't WaNt It To?!

A big part of where this theory/backstory came from is the fact that LBD was still in the tomb when fake-mayor-guy showed up in Skeleton Key. And he gave the key to MK hoping he would use it to free LBD.

So yeah that’s a thing I’ve been stewing on for a bit now. I think I might make a series of short comics for him because deadass I’m in love with what I’ve come up with. (Which not everything is on this post since I’m not set-in-stone on a lot of details).

There’s also the ideas I came up with both for a happy end and for a more bittersweet end.

Happy end for him being he’s freed from the curse at the same time as the girl once The Gang™️ saves the day and defeat LBD. He ends up becoming a sort of God-father type figure for the girl because, while she turns out to have a supportive family that she returns to, he’s the only one who can truly relate to her.

Bittersweet end still being that he’s freed at the end of this adventure, but he is only conscious for a few moments, enough time to realize he’s been freed, and then he passes.

The song “Pluto” by “Sleeping at Last” has been a massive inspiration for me trying to figure out what I’m doing with him. Also “I’ll Keep You Safe” is what inspired that happy end where he helps the girl work through things.

Still don’t have a name ‘cause I want his name to be traditionally Chinese since he’s from way way back in the day and I am not Chinese. Nor do I have any reference point for Chinese names besides possibly looking up a list of names on Google.

So if anyone’s got some suggestions I’m all ears. Until then I’ll have to continue calling him “my version of fake-mayor-guy’s story”.

I’ll probably be sad when the show answers who/what he is and it’s not what I’ve come up with - cause obviously it won’t be any of this - but for the time being, I don’t really care.

This is the first time I’ve ever had an older adult character as a fandom OC (I usually stick to characters that fit the age-range and maturity level of the canon cast) so I’ve been having a ton of fun with him.

He’s a sweet guy with a lot of trauma in that Happy End which will be what content of him I’ll be making in the future.

Seriously though, any help on a name would be GREATLY appreciated labdlsndoe

[vagasbonds]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

— 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒

(𝐏𝐄𝐍)𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: caboose 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒: he/him or they/them!! 𝐙𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐂: capricorn  𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 / 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍: single and just vibing !

— 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒

𝐢. i;m an illustration major :D

𝐢𝐢. i often do drafts on my mobile and save them to be edited properly when i can get to a computer! it sort of lets me gets my first initial response out so i can keep the reaction to the muse/thread genuine. then when i do get to desktop i try my best to check for errors and things i should rewrite etc.

𝐢𝐢𝐢. i’ve got aphantasia! that mental phenomenon where you can’t picture/imagine things at all or at a lower scale than a lot of other people. a majority of my life i didn’t even realize people could imagine things when they read books or listened to music. it’s always complicated to explain to people as an artist bc the question is always like... how do you come up with concepts or draw at all? and the best way i can put it is that it’s like reading instructions on how to cook something. you don’t know the outcome but you understand what you would like it to look like!

— 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

my first rp experience started over text with my cousin, then went to devian.tart with people i met in chatrooms, then fan.fic.net, then f.acebook, and then to tumblr! all together that sorta puts it together to about 12 years of writing? but on tumblr, my first rp blog was in 2014, which was a su.pernatural oc that i still write a version of today!

— 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

recently i realized a lot of muses i write are enfp’s or... well, put clearly, a lot are children / young adults that face a lot of responsibility either emotionally or situationally. and most often, they’re leaning towards true good or morally grey at most. i’ve never been good at writing villain characters. i think i just have problems truly writing characters that are entirely antagonists.

— 𝐒𝐔𝐁-𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄𝐒

𝐅𝐋𝐔𝐅𝐅: i do love fluff! my favorite fluff in the world is platonic fluff just having fun, bonding, doing silly things!

𝐒𝐌𝐔𝐓: honestly i’ve tried to write it a couple times. and while i’d be willing to try it again, i’ve found it’s not like. something that i actively desire to do most of the time. it’s not as enticing narratively to me, though i do admire people who can write it dynamically! it can definitely be written into any plots i have, but i would probably prefer fade to black unless we’re quite close.

𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐓: i do really enjoy angst. it often develops very in depth exploration of my characters’ emotional capacities and my ability to write them. and when i write it with friends and mutuals, i find it's definitely one of the most fun to do!!

— 𝐏𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐒 𝐯𝐬. 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒

i think it’s a weird mix of both. i do love to plot a lot, but i also enjoy coming up with things based on something spontaneous. i think memes are always a great gateway to a cool plot or just something fun to talk about. most often, i do like to plot a great framework and then sort of come up with the inside along the way, whether that be from response to response in a thread or additional memes that are sent in along the way! truly, i love both. (unless specified) i always try to answer my asks / memes with enough broadness to leave room for a response and enough specificity to still work into anything my partner might want! 

— 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐃: @honorhunt​ ( thanky!! )

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆: @drgnbld , @dereiserne , @mandogold​ , & whoever else wants to!