#I feel like there are Two Types of creative stuff - which is like.. 1. Things I can get done in a day or so (sculptures. costumes. outfits.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I'm an A-Level student and so many of my classmates use ChatGPT for essays in Law and RS and stuff - like, they sound proud of themselves, as if they're cheating the system and being clever? Just makes me feel very bleak. What are we doing man

Well, the unfortunate news for them is that they are going to struggle if they make it to uni.

This is the big problem with AI - it cannot analyse a single thing. If I were to say to you "What are the features Tumblr users would most want and why?", you are a human being with a brain and experiences and decision-making skills, and you could probably sit and come up with an answer. You would base that answer on things you personally find lacking, or want to see; you would also base it in things you have seen others bemoaning on the site.

For example, I reckon I'd say something like:

The permanent ability to boop people with a cat paw, which is implemented as opt-in. Also customisable, so you can choose whether you want a random cat paw to appear on your screen each time it happens to you. Also a different animation for super boop/evil boop, and maybe more boop options than those two, and maybe also different paw colours.

Actual enforcement of hate speech rules. We all agree to them when we join, so it's perfectly legal to delete someone for spouting Nazi shit AND YET.

No more banning or censoring queer folks' accounts

More ability to adjust the interface for disabled bloggers, e.g. colour and contrast, font, layout, switching off moving GIFs or other animations by default, etc.

Tag editing, it's frustrating having to delete whole tags.

Tag memory! Where have my tags gone??? For a year now I have slightly better luck on desktop, but for the most part, which of my tags are remembered by autofill and which are never, ever offered to me has been wholly divorced from how often I've used them. And my tags are often lengthy and odd, so it's become much harder to use mobile.

No data scraping. This is the anti-cap site thank you. Also on that note, get rid of the For You section and any other algorithmic tracking, because it's just as likely to show you a Nazi blog as an anti-Nazi one as long as you have spent any time at all discussing Nazism.

Better blocking ability, on that note.

Better search function

I could go on, but you get the idea. That's analysis that I've done, based on discussions I have seen and taken part in, and my own experiences.

I just asked ChatGPT. Here's what it had to say:

"Tumblr users have diverse preferences, but there are several features that many users would likely appreciate: 1. Improved Content Discovery: Tumblr is known for its vast array of content, so improving content discovery mechanisms such as personalized recommendations, trending topics, and enhanced search functionality can help users find more of the content they enjoy. 2. Enhanced Customization Options: Tumblr users value the ability to customize their blogs extensively. Providing more themes, layout options, and customization tools can empower users to express themselves creatively and make their blogs unique. 3. Integration of Multimedia Formats: Tumblr is a platform where users share various types of multimedia content, including images, GIFs, videos, and audio. Enhancing support for different media formats, improving media upload and management features, and optimizing the viewing experience can enhance user engagement. 4. Improved Mobile Experience: Many Tumblr users access the platform via mobile devices. Therefore, optimizing the mobile app for better performance, usability, and feature parity with the desktop version can greatly enhance the user experience. 5. Community Engagement Features: Tumblr has a vibrant community, so features that facilitate interaction among users, such as improved messaging, reblogging, tagging, and commenting functionalities, can foster a sense of community and increase user engagement. 6. Content Moderation Tools: Given the diverse content on Tumblr, providing users with robust content moderation tools, including options for filtering, blocking, and reporting inappropriate content, can help ensure a safer and more enjoyable experience for all users. 7. Monetization Options for Creators: Many Tumblr users are content creators who would appreciate opportunities to monetize their content. Introducing features such as ad revenue sharing, subscription-based content, or integrated e-commerce capabilities can incentivize creators to produce high-quality content and invest more in their Tumblr presence. 8. Accessibility Features: Improving accessibility features such as alt text support for images, screen reader compatibility, and customizable text sizes and color schemes can make Tumblr more inclusive and accessible to users with disabilities. 9. Privacy and Security Enhancements: Enhancing privacy controls, data protection measures, and account security features can help users feel more confident and secure when using the platform, which is especially important given concerns about online privacy and security. 10. API and Third-Party Integration: Opening up Tumblr's API and allowing for easier integration with third-party services and apps can encourage innovation and development within the Tumblr ecosystem, providing users with more options and flexibility in how they use the platform. Overall, focusing on improving content discovery, customization options, community engagement, and user safety while also providing opportunities for creators to monetize their content can help Tumblr retain and attract users in a competitive social media landscape."

It's possible that feels alright, on first glance. But take a closer look.

Every point made is vague, and disconnected from any real life examples. In the very first point, it thinks we want better search functions (yes!) but also more algorithmic recommendations (no!). It wants us to have personalised recommendations AND better security, in fact, which are incompatible - but an LLM doesn't and can't know that. Monetisation of the platform is something that has historically faced appalling backlash from users, and this thing is suggesting ad revenue sharing and subscription services.

Because, its suggestions are generic suggestions. These are not Tumblr-specific. No mention of queerphobia, no mention of Nazis, and absolutely zero understanding of what the specific users on this site actually want.

... all of which is to say...

It's what is academically known as descriptive work. It lays out some facts, but there's no depth, no analysis, no interpretation of those facts at all. Why would we want third party integration? What apps are we calling for? Give examples. Would that aid ad-blocking? Search functions? In that case, wouldn't third-party integration be tackling the symptoms and not the cause? Shouldn't we work better ad-blocking and search functions into Tumblr at a base level?

And in school - even up to A Level - that's okay. You won't get top marks for that, because it's all too vague and too descriptive, but it's fine. School-level assignments tend to be more broad and less applied, too, which LLMs fare better with.

But in university, you start with descriptive facts, and then you are expected to analyse. If you cannot analyse, you run a very real risk of failing. Which means if you've spent your GCSEs and A Levels not bothering to learn those analytical skills and letting ChatGPT do the work for you, you are going to face an extremely uphill struggle when the expectations of study increase.

So, to round off, try not to get too discouraged. You know you aren't doing it, which means you are the one actually learning and developing and growing. Others will learn eventually, and probably more painfully. You do you!

[roo-bastmoon]

IMPORTANT INFO: issues around Jimin’s album

I have an ARMY friend (who shall remain safely anonymous) who works in film production for the music and entertainment industry here in the US. They offered me some valuable insights today into production limitations and possible issues related to Jimin’s solo album.

Below the cut is a transcript of their messages to me. I share this in the hopes it better informs our discussions around fair treatment of BTS members’ releases. It is by no means a definitive account of Jimin’s situation—simply an insider’s ideas on what likely happened around a few things.

I understand there are very big feelings about this topic, especially with the apparent differences around JK’s single, and I appreciate everyone’s viewpoints. However, if you choose to interact with this post, you will be respectful to others (including members) or you will be blocked. You are always welcome to DM me privately if you need to vent—we are all human and we all need a bit of grace, so you’ll always have that with me.

Sending you guys so much love, Roo

Anonymous Insider

Some “light reading” while you’re resting up and recovering, lol. This is all just based on what I’ve been watching and seen. Of course, I don’t have access to their production budget sheet and Korea works very differently than the US when it comes to production, but this what I’ve been seeing when it comes to their videos and particularly the promotions for FACE.

(I’m sending in sections, lol)

Alrighty - I’m still like deep in edit-land (still am two days later 😭) but I started typing this on the train between meetings, ha ha. (And am still on the train doing this, lol.) Also this rambles a bit I’m sorry! So the first thing I did was go back to the interview where Jimin talked about the music videos — it was a Japanese TV show and he’s talking with a host in Korean.

He’s talking about “wanting to do it all,” laughs and says, “I wanted all the music videos” and that “they” (the company assuming) said “무리다” which has its roots in the word 무리 which means a herd, a party, a group — basically “it’s too much,” “it’s unreasonable,” and “it’s impossible” are decent translations as it refers to something or an idea being “too much” — then the host and Jimin burst out laughing and the host goes “서리와 무리다” which I read as “sorry (in konglish) but we can’t” and they continue to laugh. So based on that —it sounds very understandable.

We can imagine Jimin sitting down with his team and planning out SMFP2 and LC videos, with the 30 dancers and all the party scene extras, and then Jimin saying he wants to do the music shows with 6 different sets in rented locations so they could have total control. And if Jimin in that process went “what if we made official music videos for all of them?” the team would understandably go “that’s just not reasonable!” 1) because it would give Jimin a budget no other member had gotten and 2) there aren’t that many production houses in Korea. It’s a very small scene — it may just logistically not been possible. There aren’t enough DPs and crew and editors. Sometimes, as a producer, you have to tell your creative talent “I’m sorry, but no.” — I say it every week!

So what about the music videos? Well, here’s what I know from meticulously watching all the behind the scenes for BTS videos over the years. They work with a small team. They likely own a good deal of the gear — they shoot mainly on RED cameras and heavy expensive Cooke lenses (which you can’t get this stuff easily in Korea. I lost a lens cap for a Canon CINÉ Lens in Seoul and it was like this whole big deal because getting gear there is an import challenge but anyways) they use MOVI and Ronin gimbal stabilizers and Jimmy Rigs a lot.

Recently they’ve been using technocranes but I wonder how many technocranes there are in Seoul. As I said, they likely own a lot of this gear which can help with costs. But we’ve also been told — and I’ve heard through my industry friends — that Hybe PAYS. And in Korea there’s no unions in the entertainment world, and often the rates are shit (hence Netflix investing so much there - blerg) their standard work week is also already 12 hours longer than the US. It’s a whole thing. and they spend so much money on sets. It’s incredible.

They rent these huge spaces outside Seoul and BUILD — I mean the build out for SMFP2 was astounding. They easily dropped 1million on that video. The rigging, the build-out, the custom set and the custom camera rigs to achieve the 360 shots - the drone shots. They’re astounding videos. No US label is spending that money on videos these day. Absolutely none of them are — my friend recently produced a video for John Legend. They were trying to pull the whole thing off for $100K which is ridiculous. It’s really almost impossible.  

But on the Big videos they spend a lot of money, but they also produce a lot of other stuff too (and these are often looked at as Performance Videos vs all-caps MUSIC VIDEOS) -— like RM’s video shoot at DIA Beacon… that was a much smaller, fairly single camera shoot — all shot on drones or a MOVI handheld rig. No set, they also didn’t like pay for the set because DIA: Beacon is an art museum — and similar a little bit to Letter for Jimin, which was much smaller set and easy in-house gear.

(And it was also released on Bangtan TV channel vs Hybe Labels Channel, which is a good indicator of how they categorize these shoots.) But the big videos, they go for broke. I mean they spend so much money and again they may own a lot of the equipment but there’s still so much people-power and labor involved. Take the dancers’ rehearsals. You have to pay people for all that — you have to pay them for the weeks of rehearsal, you have to pay them to be in a video. It is so expensive — like, I would not be able to budget that video for under 1 million, that’s how much it costs.  

So then Jimin wanted to do music shows —- and so because he’s Jimin and it’s BTS, Hybe rented larger venues and locations for all of the shoots. None of them use the actual Broadcast spaces or were provided by the broadcast studios. The smaller companies do though — remember when BTS first started out they went to SBS to film on the day? — but they don’t do that anymore. They rent huge facilities so that they could be a mini concerts for ARMYs to visit with Jimin and see him.

They also have to do this kind of outside of the city and they built huge sets because they’re going to want to show off if they’re gonna be on TV but that is so expensive. (I don’t think you were an ARMY then, but when ON was released, at the time it was the “biggest broadcast performance ever” and they keep upping that ante for sure!) It’s possible the broadcast companies spend some money but what BTS is doing is so outside the usual budget and given the tension with the broadcasters and HYBE — they (Hybe) wants control of their products, and so I think they pay for that control.

I can’t imagine they got out of any of those days for under $500K; I mean, there were two different sets, all the crew; they’re paying for all of it. We add it up and they probably spent close to $3-5 million between Jimin’s music videos and his music show performances, and I would be understandably like: “That’s it!” Like, that’s the budget for an EP, you know.

I don’t think Jimin could have it all because that wasn’t the case for the other members. RM got to lead videos and J Hope had pyrotechnics, which definitely costs money and safety and insurance. You know he had visual effects his first video (a lotta visual effects) and again a lot of challenging technocrane work, but I haven’t really seen them build something on the scale of what they built for SMFP2 in a very long time (or ever?).

We heard from the Art Dept that Jimin did not want to shoot on blue screen, so they built the set for him. This cannot be the same label that is shafting him — that allows him to spend that amount of money just because the artist said “I want to shoot in a real space!” because I’m gonna be completely honest— he could’ve done that on a blue screen — I’m glad they built a real world because BTS almost always shoots on Blue/Green Screen. They build him a huge set like that. It’s absolutely incredible.

I was also reminded this morning that people are talking about radio for Like Crazy and not supporting the song — and I just keep thinking that they did exact rollout for Butter, Dynamite, and Permission to Dance. They released Like Crazy. It had both a Korean version and English version. (Obviously that wasn’t the case for the English BTS songs.) They released two additional remixes. Then they kept releasing, like, alternate cover versions — alternate covers of the main remix, alternate cover the other remix. They were trying to maximize the direct-to-consumer store and exact same way they had tried to maximize it with Dynamite and Butter and Permission to Dance.

The way you were buying Like Crazy was the same process I took on Dynamite. They did the exact same playbook. So the fact that they were unable to get the kind of radio play they wanted or maybe they weren’t prioritizing radio because they knew that they were gonna have a better chance at direct to consumer sales... Maybe they didn’t want to fight radio. Maybe Geffen was like “We don’t have the right ‘Ins’ yet!” — I’m not sure, but the fact that they got completely screwed over by Billboard doesn’t mean that they weren’t actually rolling it out in that way, because as soon as they started doing the whole alternate cover thing, I was like: “Well, they clearly want us to try to go for number one!” You know, “They clearly think that they are going to be able to get number one on the hot 100 and we’re gonna use these sales to do that!” And clearly that’s all changed now.

They keep changing the rules on us, so — with JK, they’re obviously trying to, you know, use whatever tools they have available to them at this point.

Finally, when it comes to restocking the digital single CD. There are still albums available in the store. So why would they manufacture and ship more (likely thrown away) plastic that’s just for one song, when those CD singles only serve to raise sales for the charts? All of the other member’s CD singles are out of stock except The Astronaut, which they treated more like a proper album a bit (kinda like the Butter CD releases). Because they still have both versions of his full albums in stock, so if I were Hybe, I’d be like “No,you need to buy the album, we still have albums, we’re not going to sell you a single song when you can buy the album!” That makes more sense to me. The albums cost more.

TL:DR, haha — so I feel like this narrative around Jimin’s release has been ramped up because, from my professional opinion, he’s had the most expensive release so far (by far) and if we want to compare him to, say, Beyoncé — well she owns her own production company (Parkwood Entertainment), so she can funnel her own money into a Visual Album, I don’t know if Jimin has considered that at this point in his career, but in the future, he might!

((Not including costs for Suga’s tour because that’s a whole other thing, and the tour probably made money I would expect to balance out the cost of the tour itself))

Anonymous Insider

This isn’t to say that the other things, the part where he didn’t get the cake celebration, or the posts, the issues with the linking and this general feeling that Jimin was short-changed in these things isn’t valid and understandable. I think Hybe relied too much on D2C sales and I don’t think they leveraged their might as much as could have for JM. They could have risked more for him.

{This is an end of Anonymous Insider’s messages to me. They noted that they are an intermediate non-native Korean speaker so please excuse any translation errors. They translated things themselves using Naver tools that aligned with the video subtitles.}

So, listen, I still don’t think Like Crazy was sent/promoted to radio (which was a mistake and still is a mistake) and I am furious at the shady articles and lack of celebration for Jimin…

But after reading the way the members approach their work in the Beyond the Story book and now hearing from someone who produces these works for a living, I have to wonder if the company was doing everything they knew how to do for Jimin, but the second it didn’t work out because of the western music industry culling streams and sales, they pulled back all their resources and pivoted for Yoongi and JK. (I also wonder if leadership shut up about it all due to liability issues, or not to cause bad blood with the music industry for future releases.)

Again, I’ll never forgive the lack of celebration and the split streams (not without a great explanation), but at least now I think there’s a good chance no one was actively trying to sabotage Jimin on purpose. They seemed to have wanted that #1 and then it all went to shit because Billboard and radio want to get paid. Maybe leadership decided not to put any more resources into Face but instead pivot for all the future music coming out (including PJM2.)

Perhaps I'm a cockeyed optimist. I’m just hoping like hell they never engage in payola. I want all our boys to win, but I want us to win fairly. And even if everyone cannot have the same investment every time on every project, I hope when they come back together in 2025 that everyone feels good about their solo works and each other. This is my prayer. Love, Roo

[angryschnauzer]

I realised two months have gone by since i last updated you all, i'm not even sure if anyone is interested anymore. I know i haven't been on much, perhaps sporadically coming on and mindlessly reblogging Henry stuff just for a little escape, but its intermittent at best. I had hoped to be back to writing by now, but life is still a huge pile of shit.

I'm run ragged trying to pay the bills. My wedding decorations business is halfway between slow and dead; the cost of living crisis means weddings aren't really happening, and if they are most of the items i do people are making themselves. My side gig in ebay flipping is quiet too but at least its trickling by. I don't mention this much as people get a lot of abuse over 'thrift store flippers' (Charity Shop resellers here in the UK), but right now its what's keeping my family fed. I buy clothing for £1 from the stinky dregs bin in a charity shop, wash it, mend it, resell it for £4. I'm not making millions or even thousands. I'm lucky if i'm bringing in £150 a week which barely covers our weekly food shop. Its draining that when i do eventually mention this to my friends they immediately start moaning at me that i'm the one 'ruining' charity shops and why its pushing the prices up. But when i calmly tell them its that or i don't eat they go quiet. I'm not the one pushing a 2nd hand coat for £25 which was only £20 brand new which most high street charity shops are doing. Do i like doing this? No. Do i have to? Yes. Because i sure as ain't cute enough for onlyfans.

But the majority of my time over the last couple of months has been spent caring for our son. He's 8 and has type 1 diabetes, and since school started back in September one little shit in his class has spent every waking moment bullying him. This little shit has been stabbing my son with pencils, poking him in the kidneys with whatever he has to hand, laughing and sneering at him at every opportunity even when he's just walking past. Having the adrenaline and cortisol in my son's bloodstream affects how his insulin works, and he builds up an insulin resistance because of all the other hormones in his bloodstream. I've had so many meetings with the school, and have had to get the board of governors involved because when your 8 year old kid says quietly to you "It would be better if i wasn't alive as then *Little Shit* wouldn't be able to bully me" your heart breaks into pieces.

He needs my support more than anything, so every single other thing has been put by the wayside. And its tough. He acts out at home, messes around with his dinner because he feels he needs to be able to control something, but that in turn messes up insulin dosing so i'm spending half the night dealing with highs and lows for his blood sugars. I get at most 5 hours sleep a night.

I have no more energy left. I'm not eating, because i just can't stomach it. I'm 43 and hitting menopause, but my doctor doesn't want to know because "You just need to loose some weight" (don't get be started on fat bias from the NHS).

So i'm filling my time with volunteering at school so i can be 'around' for my Little Dude. He knows that if he's having an awful day, he will find me in the office sorting through paperwork for our next fundraiser. Its not what i want to be doing, but its what i need to be doing.

One day i hope to get back to my writing. I miss being creative and i hate that i have so many stories part written/published. As the months tick by i actually end up seeing stories written by others that have the same characters/plotlines. This is no-ones fault that two stories exist on the same synopsis, it would just seem that they and I have taken the same inspiration from media at some point. But it makes me scared that if i now publish a story i started 2 years ago, i'll be accused of stealing an idea. I don't know what to do. So i just leave my WIP folder abandoned.

For everyone that has stayed with me thank you. For those that have moved onto pastures new, i wish you well and hold no malice.

I do love you all

Mama Schnauz

x

[d4rkpluto]

𝔡𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔳𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔳𝔢 𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔢𝔰 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔣𝔞𝔪𝔢

follow for more content!

and before we get into this post i really hope that the people here know the basic themes of signs, planets or houses because i'll actually pull my hair out if someone asks me what are the themes of leo or the moon.

right now im shadowbanned the police got me!

but if you want a paid intuitive reading here is the link but please message @venusiansirens because i cant message right now

♇ so what are derivative houses? it comes from horary astrology, and it is when you measure a chart from some point of the wheel which is not from the ascendant. using this topic as an example, [fame], what if you wanted to learn how your family would react to your fame?

♇ and we know the number/house for siblings in astrology is the number "4", so from the main fame house [the tenth house] you count four houses.

♇ so, 7⟶8⟶9⟶10. so the sign/or planets in your ninth house would tell you how your future spouse's siblings are like. [before i thought it would be the tenth house, but when you count in horary astrology, number one would also be from where you start!].

♇ another example, the gossip you'll get when you become famous, the number 3 rules over friends in astrology so you will need to count eleven houses to see.

10⟶11⟶12. so the sign/or planets in your third house would tell you how what kind of gossip you'll receive. now there's an understanding let's get into the post!

ONE HOUSE FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE WHY YOU'RE FAMOUS; THE TENTH HOUSE. [1 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER POPULARITY, ALONG WITH OTHER HOUSES].

♇ 10.

⟶ if you have venus in the tenth house you could be famous because of your beauty, creativity and social skills. people might consider you to be a fair and likeable person thus a reason why people might gravitate to you so quickly.

⟶ if you have sagittarius in the tenth house you could be famous because of the controversy you bring, i've noticed those who have sagittarius in the midheaven attract attention very easily. you could also be famous because of your philosophical views, people might view you as a guru, and you might be famous due to screen-writing etc.

TWO HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE HOW YOU EARN YOUR MONEY; THE ELEVENTH HOUSE. [2 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER MONEY].

♇ 10⟶11.

⟶ if you have juno in the eleventh house you could earn money through lovers and bonds, as the eleventh house is known as a social and connection house, when you're famous you could be considered as someone who can easily make business connections with business partners or people who want to buy your stuff. you could earn money by selling make-up or fashion clothes.

⟶ if you have libra in the eleventh house you could earn a lot of money through court-cases, if you were a petty person and wanted to sue people you'll easily get the money, aside from that, you could earn money from people around you, and you could sell products due to wannabes who want to be like you.

THREE HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE THE TYPE OF GOSSIP ABOUT YOU/WHO WILL GOSSIP; THE TWELFTH HOUSE. [3 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER GOSSIP/COMMUNICATION].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12.

⟶ if you have the sun in the twelfth house you would definitely have a lot of people speak about you, people would gossip about everything you're doing, people will gossip about your personality and how different you do things, you might feel like you're in the centre of attention especially in moments when you dont want it. you might find men or those with authority/forceful power speak about you all the time.

⟶ if you have aries in the twelfth house, you would definitely be popular, the way you do things will be spoken about, people might gossip about how you're someone who "does too much," or people might make fun of you for wanting to be famous, your temper/emotions could be a spoken topic.

FOUR HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE HOW YOUR FAMILY WOULD REACT TO YOUR FAME; THE FIRST HOUSE. [4 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER FAMILY].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1.

⟶ if you have the moon in the first house could imply that your family could be very emotional and receptive about your fame, they could be very encouraging to what you want to do. they could be the type of people who speak about your fame to other people and boast about it, but be aware of the bitter family members who will evil-eye your fame.

⟶ if you have scorpio in the first house this could insinuate that your family could be very intense with the way they feel about your success, this is a beacon of people being two-faced or wanting to exploit your career, they would want to earn money through your success.

FIVE HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE THE DRAMA AND LOVE LIVE WITHIN YOUR FAME; THE SECOND HOUSE. [5 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER ROMANCE AND DRAMA].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2.

⟶ if you have mars in the second house that's a huge display of you being in a lot of drama, you might be a lot of drama revolving men or your anger. and you could be known to be in a lot of relationship and might be considered as someone who is very sexual, and you might get into a lot of love triangles or even more.

⟶ if you have taurus in the second house that's an indicator that you might get into drama because of your stubbornness, or over money. people might want to steal your possessions/money and it might hit the media, you could attract ignorant people or you might be ignorant to some specific things that gets you into trouble.

SIX HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE THE DAILY ENEMIES FROM FAME AND YOUR SKILLS THAT'LL GET YOU KNOWN; THE THIRD HOUSE. [6 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER DAILY ENEMIES AND SKILLS].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3.

⟶ if you have mercury in the third house you are likely going to have so many people speaking about you, you could have some relatives that start to dislike you, you could have so much enemies on the internet and might have some enemies try to get into a relationship with you, aside from enemies, you having mercury in the third house insinuates that people would see you as a jack of all trades and as someone who is very charming to other people, you could influence people easily.

⟶ if you have leo in the third house, many people would want to compete against you, much people would want to copy you and thus grow bitter because they are not like you. you could have much authority/male figures dislike you; you could be skilled in performing and engaging with the crowd.

SEVEN HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE YOUR LOVE LIFE WHILE YOU'RE FAMOUS; THE FOURTH HOUSE. [7 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER LOVE].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3⟶4.

⟶ if you have saturn in the fourth house this implies that your relationships during fame will be very karmic, or you'll likely get into short-termed or long-termed relationships depending on what aspects your saturn has in your chart. having saturn here also indicates that you might want to restrict yourself from romance due to you not being sure of people you'll get into relationships with.

⟶ if you have pisces in the fourth house you could rush into relationships, you might get into relationships with people who might project onto you or they could just expect too much from you. your relationships might be famous and a lot of people might admire it or might want to have a relationship mirroring yours.

EIGHT HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE ABOUT SECRETS AND WHO YOU GET YOUR MONEY FROM; THE FIFTH HOUSE. [8 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER SECRETS AND MONEY].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3⟶4⟶5.

⟶ if you have neptune in the fifth house there'd be all types of rumours/secrets about you, you might find people hiding information from you or you'll attempt to leave a secretive life from everyone around you. having this placement is a beacon of having drug use and like being secretive of it but some people might find out about it. you could earn money through music, art or even drugs.

⟶ if you have capricorn in the fifth house you'll be very protective over yourself and you'll likely have a close group of people, [also a small group of people] that'll be very restrictive about letting your information out, you might go through bankruptcy and would likely want to keep it a secret. if you ever sold merch it'll be successful, you would likely be a celebrity/famous person who would want to open a business.

NINE HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE HOW PEOPLE WOULD ADMIRE YOU WHEN YOU'RE FAMOUS; THE SIXTH HOUSE. [9 IN ASTROLOGY RULES OVER ADMIRATION].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3⟶4⟶5⟶6.

⟶ if you have uranus in the ninth house you could be someone who is massively liked, if you were to get famous it might happen randomly, people on the internet will likely like you a lot, and people might like you because of how rebellious and different you are and copy the way you behave.

⟶ if you have gemini in the ninth house you would be considered a trendy and influential you might get a lot of people copy what you wear and how you do something. your fans will always keep you trended on social media apps, and they'd be the type to bite people's neck if they come against you.

TEN HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE HOW PEOPLE WOULD VIEW YOU WHEN YOU'RE FAMOUS; THE SEVENTH HOUSE. [10 RULES OVER JUDGEMENT AND VIEWS].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3⟶4⟶5⟶6⟶7.

⟶ if you have pluto in the tenth house you would be perceived as someone who is powerful, mesmerising and interesting. you could be considered as someone who likes to use their power over people, you might abuse it or you might use your power for the good. you would be perceived as a controversial person and people might love to speak about you.

⟶ if you have aquarius in the tenth house you could be seen as someone who is authentic and original. people might think of you to be someone who knows how to ride with the wave and people might think of you to be someone who understands internet humour. you could also have a weird energy or people never know what you're going to do next thus keeping people on their toes.

ELEVEN HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE THE TYPE OF FRIENDS YOU'LL ATTRACT WITHIN YOUR FAME; THE EIGHTH HOUSE. [11 RULES OVER FRIENDS].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3⟶4⟶5⟶6⟶7⟶8.

⟶ if you have sun in the eighth house you would likely attract friends who will bring much potential to your life or to your fame. you would most likely attract friends who are very positive and optimistic, they could be deemed as people who are popular and generous, they might be the type of friends to give you stuff that you need.

⟶ if you have cancer in the eighth house you would likely attract friends who are very nurturing and giving. you could attract friends who are protective and very specific about the people they have in their circle, they could also be someone who is popular and you might admire them because of the amount of emotional transformations they've been through.

TWELVE HOUSES FROM THE TENTH HOUSE WOULD BE THE TYPE OF HIDDEN ENEMIES YOU WOULD ATTRACT DURING YOUR FAME; THE NINTH HOUSE. [12 RULES OVER HIDDEN-ENEMIES].

♇ 10⟶11⟶12⟶1⟶2⟶3⟶4⟶5⟶6⟶7⟶8⟶9.

⟶ if you have lilith in your ninth house, your hidden enemies could be really vile and they could be the type of people who like to spread gossip about you and might even make up lies against your name. they could be people who think you're treated to fair so they want to bring a "balance", just very bitter people.

⟶ if you have virgo in the ninth house, your hidden enemies might like to pick you apart and want to publicise your flaws to other people, could be the type of people to zoom into your pictures to find something off about you or your background. could be the type of people who are jealous of your triumphs and will see you as their competition.

masterlist

paid intuitive readings

pluto

♇

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Brainrot Housekeeping: Updated Schedule!

Hi friends! I've got a whole message under the cut, but here's the important part regarding this blog's new content schedule:

Saturdays: mini-hcs Sundays: answering asks (& maybe some rambles?) Mondays: full-hc Tuesdays: answering asks (& maybe some shitposts?) Wednesdays: Vesuvia Weekly Thursdays & Fridays: rest

You might see some polls showing up in the next week or so about new content types - if you're interested, feel free to vote! ^.^ More under the cut:

While I haven't hit rock bottom, I've been getting some symptoms of burnout recently and I'd like to avoid completely running myself into the ground XD

This blog has really pushed me to see what kind of creativity I have, especially just how much work I'm able to produce and sustain. I thought I'd get tired and burn out at two months tops, and it's been over and year and I have no immediate plans to stop! However, taking a look at my own system right now, I do think I need to slow down.

To be honest, fanwork isn't something I've been doing a long time - this tumblr blog is the only fandom creative stuff I've ever done! Before that, most of the things I created were originals - music, art, and of course, writing (though I haven't touched my sketchbook/paints in forever and I haven't done any sightreading in years - whoops).

It gets hard to keep your muscles moving when you only move them in one direction. As much as I love writing headcanons for the M6 in response to people's prompts, there is so much else my mind can do that it misses having the space for. Which brings me to the reason for this schedule adjustment - I miss having that creative freedom.

I still greatly enjoy writing headcanons for you guys and participating in the fandom, and I don't plan to stop anytime soon. However, I want to take some time back to get back into frolicking in the stuff my own brain comes up with, and making space for that to grow into something real.

The questions I need to figure out now are 1) how much time is it going to take me to get my full capacity back? and 2) should I keep this as a purely Arcana blog, or expand it for all my creative work?

If you've read this far, you have my sincerest gratitude. I'll see you guys tomorrow :)

Cheers!

brainrot

[kaija-rayne-author]

Is Solas neurodivergent?

Of course, unless Weekes confirms one way or another, we'll never actually know. But I'd like to point out a few things.

Firstly. I'm autistic/ADHD, so are my kids and I've been an advocate for invisible disabilities, especially those two, for almost a decade now.

I offer an option on my Patreon for parents (or even just people) who need or want advice.

I have a little bit of a clue here. (More like a massive clue by nuke, but I digress 🤣.)

Why I code Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition as neurodivergent.

1. Mentally ill fits under the neurodivergent (ND) umbrella. There's no way on Thedas that Solas isn't mentally ill.

(Yes, it really does fit. I'm not going to entertain arguments on the topic. It originally meant 'autistic' it no longer means that and hasn't for a long while. Neurodivergent brains = brains that work in any way other than 'the average'.) The antonym is Neurotypical. I tend to abbreviate them. Neurodivergent = ND, Neurotypical = NT.

At the very least, he likely has survivor syndrome. I'd wager on Depression and CPTSD too. (I have these conditions and am comfortable with saying he has a lot of the traits.) The guy was the leader of an enslaved elves rebellion and a war against the Evanuris. In his own words, he got his hands bloody.

No matter who you are, violence, whether you're the perpetrator or the victim, causes trauma to the psyche. And it went on for actual ages. An Age, in The Dragon Age franchise, is considered to be 100 years, so for hundreds of years, if not thousands, this dude has been fighting. Humans can get CPTSD just from a bad childhood. There's no way he hasn't developed it too.

Survivor syndrome is the response of a person when they believe they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt. (Can we classify Solas clearly with this? Yes, yes we can.)

He wakes up in a world so horrific to him that he can't even conceive of the people as people.

That's a type of disassociation, which is a symptom of many mental illnesses. Depression is the most obvious. He fucked up, he knows it, he's now trapped in a hellscape. (Heeee, we're all trapped in a dystopian hellscape right now and Depression is on the rise, the correlation is there.)

Disassociation is feeling disconnected from yourself and/or the world around you. For example, you may feel detached from your body or feel as though the world around you is unreal.

There could be a few other things there. He'd be a classic case for Disassociative Identity Disorder, for instance, but given the shit rep on the topic, I'm not going there.

2. ADHD

ADHD is still not very well understood by the average person. Sometimes people think it means we can't hold still. But a lot of the time, the H-Hyperactivity portion is only evident in our brains. For me, for instance, I have to constantly be feeding my brain written stuff or I get very antsy and uncomfortable. (ADD no longer exists, we're all ADHD now.) It's why i developed the habit of reading encyclopedias for fun. (Yes, I really do this.)

Solas is constantly reading, or studying, or thinking.

He shows a pretty typical type of temper for an ADHDer several times. Our tempers can be hot, flaring up suddenly for seemingly unexpected reasons. He absolutely does that. Now, there's always a reason for it, but few people on the outside of us will be aware of whatever the issue is.

ADHDers can also experience incredibly fast (compared to neurotypicals) shifts in emotion. Solas does this. Especially in the after the well of sorrows/pre-breakup scene and the break up scene itself. He see-saws emotionally a lot.

He's incredibly creative. He paints (and probably draws at least a little to paint the way he does). So many neurodivergent people are incredibly creative.

Snark. Many ADHDers tend to be snarky or sarcastic because of, well, everything that usually happens to us in life. The snark and salt simply spill out of Solas. Especially on the 'make him hate you' route through the game. Or any time he's around Vivienne.

Finally, ADHDers very frequently have a deep seated drive to change the world and make it better. Stares at Solas. Yup!

3. Autistic

So, firstly, let me say that most people don't understand what autism is or what autistics look and act like.

As an autistic/ADHD person, my experience of life is completely different from a neurotypicals simply because my brain is wired differently.

Reminder that you can't see autism or ADHD. You can sometimes see common comorbids, but without a brain scan, you cannot see autism or ADHD.

I connected and empathize so heavily with Solas because he's a well written, complex character, and because I love anti-heros.

But also because he's exhibits the exact same type of autistic/ADHD traits that I have. (Both autism and ADHD come in different flavours.) Seeing that rep in a triple AAA game was an incredibly powerful experience.

Even though, given Bioware's absolutely shit rep re: disability, it had to be accidental. I credit Weekes with that rep. I read on Twitter they were recently dxd with one or the other (ADHD or Autism, I honestly can't remember which. And up to 80% of ADHDers are also autistic.)

Solas practices esoteric arts. It's a common thing for many autists & ADHDers to learn and practice arts that just aren't as common anymore. Mine? I spin with a spinning wheel, drop spindle, or Andean hand spinner. I make maps. There's several other strange hobbies and skills I've picked up along the way too.

He shows hyperfocus several times in the game. (Hyperfocus is a trait of both ADHD and Autism.)

He stims with his hands a lot. Especially in the kiss scene. I don't recall seeing any of the other characters do this. I'm not talking about the 'dry hand wash' movements most of the characters do. Solas does a thing I do, taps the tips of his fingers against each other. Whoever did his modelling (is that the right term for making a game character?) understood neurodivergency or are ND themselves. Whether they know it or not.

You could even call his painting a type of stimming.

Stimming is where someone will use repetitive motions or sounds to self-soothe. It's really bad to prevent an autistic/ADHDer from using their stims.

I used to have to have a book on my person at all times. I'm late diagnosed, so I didn't know I was using the books as both a stim and a comfort item.

Solas has something autists call 'flat face effect'. Basically, his face is a bit masklike. He doesn't show emotions strongly on his face or in his body language (unless you make him angry 😅 which is also pretty typical for many of us). I've seen rather a lot of discourse about how emotionless Solas appears. I can read him easily, the emotive cues are there, just subtle, like they would be in an autistic & or ADHD person.

He's a decent actor. Now, most autists will agree that we're not innately good at lying or acting. But we're also really good at acting, at least, many of us are by the time we're adults. It comes from having to mask (autistic masking) almost every second of every day just to survive. Masking kills us. So it's not good that we are forced to do it. But it does make many of us incredible actors.

Anthony Hopkins is argueably one of the best actors of the past several decades. He's openly autistic. And he's spoken of how he got to be a good actor. Dan Ackroyd and Darryl Hannah are a couple of others who are out about it. I code a lot of other creatives as being one or the other, but it’s considered rude to assign a diagnosis like that to a living person. That's for them to do.

Solas managed to stay hidden as a 'unwashed apostate hobo' for however long the Inquisition took to fix things. I've seen estimates of 18 months to 2 years. That's a looooong time to be acting like something you're definitely not.

We see in Trespasser that he's not like that at all. But he still sold it so well his reveal at the end of the game shocked many people.

He's a nerd. An absolute nerd about the fade. Nerdery isn't solely the domain of autistics and ADHDers, but it’s a really common trait.

He's stand-offish.

Many autists and ADHDers are rather stand-offish with people for a variety of reasons.

1) We've been hurt so many times because of people refusing to do half the work of communicating with us. (Trust me, autistics and ADHDers are trying ALL THE TIME to communicate with neurotypicals. Y'all could pick up your part of things, y'know?)

2) We've been rejected so often for a genetic condition(s) we can't change. But accommodations for us, which are usually pretty simple and often help neurotypical people too, are considered 'too much'. There's something called RSD that most, if not all, autistic and ADHD folks experience. Rejection Sensitivity Disorder is a bitch kitty and there's no dealing with it well. It hurts.

3) We're often stand-offish while we try to figure out whatever social rules exist in that space/time. We often warm up when we know (or think we know) the rules. Or once we get to know people.

4) Solas is often alone, he's rarely pictured as being with anyone else other than Cole and the Inquisitor. NDs often end up either pushed to the edge of the crowd, or we choose to stay distant as a preventative measure so we aren't rejected.

Food sensitivities: Solas utterly loathes tea. There's a whole cutscene about it. (Fun fact, Solas doesn't like tea because Weekes doesn't.) But that extreme reaction to a relatively innocuous drink is a classic example of a food sensitivity. Most autistics and ADHDers have food or texture sensitivities or both. I can't abide raw tomatoes, and I'll get the urge to cry if I touch corduroy fabric.

Sensitivities can really be anything, but if you know someone who has them, please understand we're not trying to be difficult or to ask for extra attention or to make trouble. The modern world is frankly hell for most autistics and many ADHDers. Brain scans of us when we’re exposed to our sensitivities show that they actually are causing us physical pain. Pain centres in the brain light up like a Yule tree.

Solas is quiet, until he's not. Then he'll talk your ear off. This is pretty common for many of us too.

Solas and the fade. Special interest, anyone?

Special interests: Most autistics and ADHDers have Special interests. It's something that can utterly enthrall us. We tend to want to learn everything we possibly can about the subject we're fascinated with. And we love to share that information. In something called 'infodumping' we're trying to connect with other people. It's one of the ways many of us say we care about someone. By sharing our favourite things. We're also deeply penalized for something we can't change, there, too.

We deeply enjoy the thing and want to share our enjoyment with people we like/love. This can utterly backfire on us, but it doesn't change the urge to share. Often until our audience is giving us the 'dead fish face'. It's where the person's eyes are a little glazed over and they look a bit concussed. Anyone who has ever taught a class of students or is a parent or child caretaker, or is autistic/ADHD knows the look I'm talking about.

I'll stop blabbing for now, but those are most of the reasons I heavily code Solas as autistic/ADHD/mentally ill. Or, in another word. Neurodivergent.

Thanks for reading! If you have the wherewithal I'm a disabled mom of two disabled kids and a tip would help more than you can probably understand. Another way to help is to become a patron. My work of words is my only income and we live well under the poverty line. Like a lot of other neurodivergent people do.

KoFi:

Patreon:

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[rainy-painter]

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Extended Character Sheet (Gen 9)

Pokémon Fans of Tumblr: After a joke gone awry I have spent more than five hours working on extending the PMD roster to be up to current date with Pokémon (gen 9). And to not feel like my time has totally been wasted on a nerdy thing, I present to you my results.

(Keep in mind this is not official at all and just my personal pickings.)

I will put thoughts and other boring stuff under the cut, should you be interested to read about all the thoughts and decisions I made.

We good? Okay, you asked for it! So;

As mentioned before this all started with a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon joke with pointing out a few innocent behaviors and going: "You seem to be the-"

And then it hit me- The nature-to-pokemon roster of PMD hasn't really been updated since Explorers of Sky, which only went up to generation four.

And from there it went down hill:

"Wait! The list doesn't even include all available natures!"

"Okay, so there are 25 natures in all, but the number of starter pokemon alone are 29 so... I guess I'll make up some natures?"

"I need enough natures to also include some classic Pokémon protagonist options such as Pikachu... And oh no, just HOW many options were there from Gen 1?"

"-And there are barely any extra options from the other generations?"

"WHAT THE [Redacted] HAPPENED TO THE ROSTER IN GATES OF INFINITY?!"

For this project I had to lay down a few rules:

The list had to include all starter Pokémon.

Include at least two additional Pokémon from each generation.

Try to balance out Pokemon Types as much as possible, as well as making them decent starter pokemon.

No gender exclusive Pokémon.

Trans males are male and trans females are female.

Added Non-binary option for the quiz.

Extra added things to note:

The list is mostly based off the one from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky.

Missing Natures from the original list are grayed out for convenience.

New natures, added out of necessity, has its own list.

I also have a list of honorable mentions and cut Pokémon.

Note: Pokemon greyed out on the list above is to indicate generation changes.

My thoughts on the cut pokemon:

Obviously there are way too many Pokémon from gen 1 for them all to make it to the list. Pokémon such as Cubone and Phanpy could have made the list more diverse, adding the ground type to the options. Togepi and Sneasel were chosen over Phanpy for their less common Typings. However after cutting Cubone and adding Ralts to the roster it could be argued Phanpy should have been added back instead of Togepi.

What am I? The Officer Jenny? If you feel Phanpy or, hack, any other pokemon fit the roster more than my pickings, feel free to edit or make your own roster! :) /Genuine /Positive

I really like Vulpix, however there were already a lot of fire types. The reason why Charcadet is on the list is because I felt like I didn't have enough options from Gen 9 that I felt would fit as a main character, be strong enough or not too strong for the theorized adventure.

Most Nominee were chosen for being decent base form Pokémon and being dexterous enough for a human turned Pokémon to not feel completely claustrophobic in their body: I figured a bipedal or quadrupedal Pokémon would feel more natural than pokemon like Bronzor or Ekans.

(Looks at Snom) I said most nominees. Snom was chosen for their special typing and cute appearance. However stats and weakness wise I found it hard to defend it.

For my final thoughts on this list:

I doubt by far I'm the first to make an extended list for the PMD franchise, but I haven't seen many lists on this website and I did the work anyway, so why not post it?

You are more than welcome to comment on it or make your own! ^^ I welcome creativity and I would be more than excited to see the thoughts other people would put into a list like this!

A lot of thought has been put into the list, especially nature to Pokémon wise. If it wasn't on the official PMDE list, the Pokémon placements have a 80% chance to have a sort of reference from the anime or in game ability, or just how I could see them. (As well as other obscure trivia. Like how Chikorita is on the Lonely category for being perhaps the least picked starter Pokémon.)

And hey- If you feel like your Pokémon self isn't on the list, then that's completely fine! ^^ The list is more of a guideline than actual rules- Hack it's meant only for fun! And I'm glad you know what Pokémon you'd be!

I didn't include Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Keep Going! Blazing Adventure Squad, Let's Go! Stormy Adventure Squad and Go For It! Light Adventure Squad in my research because it wasn't released outside of Japan (To my knowledge.) It also featured a very specific art style, so I considered them kind of their own spinoff franchise at that point.

No, I'm not going to make a quiz to fit the extended list. c': Anyone wanting to make a quiz based off this list is more than welcome though!

I am currently making lists for specific pronouns such as Necrom (With Ghost/Dark/Poison type or death themed Pokémon) and Fae (Fairy/Normal/Psychic type or fairy themed Pokémon). Unlike the Gender themes these will contain pokémon outside of the normal roster. So in a way I kind of walked back on the "no gender exclusive" rule, but hey it's all in good fun!

I'd love it if you guys have any other pronouns you'd like me to work on! ^^

I also worked on an "it" pronoun with genderless Pokémon, however even when the list included Steel/Rock/Ground types and object Pokémon I had a hard time making it work. I'm open to any suggestions on how to expand the list and still keep it in theme. c':

And lastly: No, I never did get back to my friend about what nature xey'd be. c':

[bropunzeling]

11, 22, 37!

11 Three tropes that are fine but overrated

oh gosh hmm. some of these are gonna come across as hypocritical lmao and also insert a healthy dose of "for me specifically" but: (1) i think soulbond/soulmark tropes can be done well, but mid executions of the trope focus a lot on ~finding~ the person rather than interrogating what it means to have bonds or marks or things of that nature, and leave a lot of interesting nuances about choice and free will and conflict between romantic relationships and other things you might want (career, friendship, autonomy, etc) on the table. i wish more takes on the trope let it be messy! (2) hurt/comfort done well is really fun but when people are just like. aggressively making their little guy sad and pathetic and a poor little meow meow whose never done anything wrong it gets grating. i love a sad guy but i prefer when they're sad because of shit they did to themselves instead of external factors. (3) curtain fic/established relationship stuff can be fun sometimes but like. there still needs to be a smidgen of conflict or growth or change or a shift for me to be interested. there has to be a point imo! even when i write my silly self-indulgent post-fic time stamps its important to me that there's a point to it beyond just "im love them" (though im DO love them)

22 What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?

i think the thing is, there can always be a new dimension to how these two idiots fall in love!!! every story is an opportunity to get at some new nugget of like, how people are, or what it is to be vulnerable and open and willing to risk heartache. with two different people you have so many opportunities to look at different shades and facets of their character. especially with rpf where real life events can shape characterization in real time. The Trade opened up a whole new dimension of matthew that creates new angles to investigate matthew&leon and what it means to fall in love with someone thousands of miles away and who you see even less (or, someday, for my break up/make up agenda)! jamie getting dealt to philly opens up new ways to poke at the jamie/trevor relationship by adding distance and tragedy and the potential of falling for other people! even picking a new trope or time period is just so fun for being like, now how would they be under THESE circumstances? also like, i LOVE flip-flopping who gets to be down bad immediately and who is oblivious because it's not only a fun creative challenge but also just opens up new worlds. idk! there's so many possibilities and so many facets to explore and to me that's delightful.

37 Do you research before writing or while you write? Is it fun or boring for you?

id say i do some up front, just to nail down the broad beats of the story and to minimize how much reworking i have to do later on (or for period type fics, to make sure that i dont introduce plot points that simply cant have happened in that time frame!), and some i do as i go -- for example, for a while there i just HAD the battles of alberta in 21-22 down pat because i was using them so often to shape story beats, but the games in between i had to look up as i went. i also am constantly pulling from new articles or features that offer new bits of characterization i want to use. tbh with the current wip i DO feel very wobbly because i don't have my normal anchors of the schedule/have to make things up, which is simultaneously freeing and hard because it's so much easier for me to write about sports games that really happened than the fake ones im constructing for the narratives 😂. but yeah id say mostly i research as i go!

[maiji]

Fortune Lenormand oracle/art deck - new edition + limited time free readings!

I'm excited to announce my Fortune Lenormand oracle/art deck is available again in a new edition (the biggest change: it now has a custom box!) yay!!

To celebrate, I thought it'd be fun to offer some free readings, the kind I used to do back when I was tabling at events! I personally find the 36-card Lenormand system accessible and enjoyable for both personal and creative prompt-type purposes. These readings will use the 2-card spread, which is easy to do!

How this works

To submit a request for a free reading, send it through my ask box between now (Fri Oct 27) and Sun October 29, 2023 midnight EST.

Optional: Along with your request, include your question and two numbers of your choice from 1-36.

I'll do as many readings as I can before the end of October. 

One question per person please!

I am not taking anonymous requests and these readings will be posted publicly. So don't share anything you're not comfortable with strangers on the Internet seeing!

I reserve the right to turn down a reading for any reason (the most likely reasons are if a question is rude/tasteless/inappropriate etc. or if I get too busy and can't do all the requests I get).

Asking your question

Your question must be an open-ended one, and not a question that can be answered with "yes" or "no".

Ironically, even though this deck is called "Fortune", I use them as tools for self-reflection and creative stuff, not fortune telling. It is an opportunity to open a dialogue with your self/subconscious!

For example, instead of "Should I [go to this event, do this thing, ___" or "Am I/Is someone/something else going to ___, try something like "What should I consider if I were to ___?" "Why do I want ___?" "What am I afraid of/hopeful for with regards to ___?" "How might I approach ___?" and so on.

You can learn more about this philosophy, and also get ideas for phrasing your question, on my site - check out the section that starts with "Framing your question" and up to/including "Reading Examples".

Also, you can have fun! Ask a question for your OC or a character you're writing! Ask questions for creative prompts! "I'm stuck in a fanfic I'm writing about X, Y and Z doing [whatever they're doing] and need an idea!" "I'm designing a new character, what could I incorporate into their personality or backstory?" "I want to draw a picture of my OTP and would like a prompt for inspiration!" and so on.

Decide what your question is before you make your request and don't forget what it is!

Seems obvious, but I'm reiterating this because you don't have to tell me your question when you make your request.

If you do tell me your question, it may help me give you more specific suggestions for how you can interpret the cards. If you're asking a creative prompt question, having details means I can suggest more relevant ideas for you to use as jumping off points.

If you don't tell me your question, please write it down somewhere or do something so that you don't forget it by the time I get around to your reading.

Obviously this is an honour system thing, but it doesn't really matter because if you sneak-change your answer, the only person it really affects (and potentially confuses) is yourself, haha.

If you wish to reveal what your question was afterwards, feel free to do so on the reading post!

Readings completed so far!

delphina2k: Creative prompt-type reading regarding Sydney from the webcomic Sombulus

lucylyall: Personal reading on changing habits/automatic ways of thinking

and-his-hands-were-24-crows: mystery reading!

blue-moonlight-sirens: Personal reading on what is coming in general

rootandbranchcomic: Personal reading on surviving a huge change

rawwrr04-blog: mystery reading!

crabbng: Creative prompt-type reading regarding Hana from the webcomic Kings of Sorts

supreme-sauteer: Personal reading on what's stopping me from putting myself out there

ancient-trees: Personal reading on sparking creative energy

[spinningbuster98]

Metroid Fusion Part 3: Sci-Fi magic!

One of my favorite aspects of Fusion is how creative it can get with its linearity

Oh sure about half the time you’re getting railroaded by arbitrary level design shenanigans like crumbling blocks (Fusion’s favorite trick) or Security Doors. But other times it’ll be something rather unique that tends to tie into the story

It may be the SA-X destroying some doors, some creatures in Sector 2 starting to gestate which will result in them later evolving into stronger forms when you go back there later in the game, the X trying to blow up the station etc

It’s fun, it’s varied, it’s creative and helps make the game feel more memorable by putting a ton of set pieces. Moreover it makes the gameworld feel alive, like some sort of ever-changing being that’s actively out to get you and you never know what it’s gonna do next

No other game in the series does this. Super only has some brief scripted moments here and there, mostly at the beginning and end, but otherwise very little “happens” on Zebes. Dread and Prime 3, despite taking many cues from Fusion’s linear design, don’t really try to be creative with said linrearity. Dread’s EMMIs probably wouldn’t have worked as intended if the game had too many scripted scenarios but there’s nothing in Prime 3′s story that necessitates its linearity as it mostly hinges on cutscenes, mostly nothing about the game’s world(s) changing.

On the one hand I love how Fusion brings back the Etecoons and Dachoras from Super as a nice continuity nod! However:

1) I don’t buy Adam’s explanation about the X ignoring them because they “had nothing of interest to the X”. The Dachoras can speedboost what are you talking about?

2) The stuff that Samus says about them, alongside her little musing at the start about this being the second time she’s owed her life to the baby has always been unintentionally hilarious to me

She says that the Etecoons and Dachoras were the ones who taught her the wall jump and speedboost, which was true back then....

....except just two years later Zero Mission would come out and have her use those very same abilities way before she met those creatures

Then Samus Returns came along and had the baby rescue her from Ridley, thus making it 3 times total that the baby saved her

I like to imagine that she suffered a little bit of brain damage from that initial X attack, she does say it had infected her central nervous system...

I once saw someone claim that Dread wasted the X because it had the X-infested Chozo soldiers had glowing white eyes which very plainly marked them as X in disguise which would go against the idea of the X being able to perfectly mimick other beings and in general none of the X there tried to successfully mimick someone to pull off tricks or anything.

First off: none of the X we see in the game are trying to trick Samus, they’re out for her blood just like in Fusion so there’d be no need for their disguises to be 100% accurate, much like how the SA-X has emotionless white eyes

Second: it’s true that Dread never utilizes the X’s ability to copy others to have a real John Carpenter’s the Thing type of situation (except for ZDR’s backstory)...but the same goes for Fusion, in fact it’s worse here!

Samus’ mission is to look for any survivors on the station, instead of using its scientist disguise to set the station to blow it would’ve been far stealthier and more in line with the X’s abilities for that specific X to trick Samus into thinking it’s a survivor thus lowering her guard and springing a trap on her....but it never happens!

Honestly as much as the X may have been based on the Thing I think the main reason for their mimicking abilities is simply to justify the SA-X’s existence and and reuse past enemies

Anyway let’s talk about flimsy sci-fi!

Now I know that this is a series about a woman with alien bird DNA i her, wearing a high tech suit of armor and with the ability to somehow turn into a ball, so realism isn’t exactly its top priority, and that’s fine!

Sci-fi, in a way, is just magic that tries to be somewhat credible, if it were 100% real it wouldn’t be sci fi it would be just straight science

However sci-fi must still adhere to some internal rules in order to not stretch its own believability while at the same time not try to explain itself too much because, in the end, there is no real explanation for stuff like faster than light travel or high tech pseudo bio armors

I have no issue with stuff like the Morph Ball because the series is smart enough to not even try to explain it, thus leaving it completely up to the viewer’s interpretation to imagine how this fancy piece of high tech gadgetry even works.

However there are a few occasions in Fusion where the game...kinda tries to explain some of its sci-fi elements and it...kinda ends up raising more questions than answers

So a Core-X downloads the data for the Varia Suit and gains its abilities. Adam points ou how this shouldn’t be possible since the X are purely organic creatures. Ok good, so what’s the explanation?

“They can process data organically”

....what does that even mean? Data is digital, how can you “process it organically”? Given that the X have absorbed the knowledge of human scientists I can believe that they’ve gained the ability to understand and decipher data but just because you know how to read a bunch of 1s and 0s that doesn’t mean you can suddenly develop an ability just by understanding the data. I can understand Samus’ armor: it downloads the data and so develops suit modifications following said data. And the game doesn’t bother to explain any further!

Then there’s the Ice Missiles. Samus can’t use the Ice Beam because her Metroid DNA has rendered vulnerable to cold. Ok it makes sense. So what’s so different about the Ice Missiles? They’re still a cold based weapon.

Maybe the idea is that the cold is contained inside the missiles’ caps thus not coming into contact with Samus’ own body? I would buy that explanation if not for the fact that the Missiles have to be at least partially generated by the armor. Yeah sure they’re a finite resource that can run out but you download the modification that allows them to have a freezing effect, meaning that the suit has to generate the cold in the first place right? It couldn’t have been that initial download and that’s that otherwise it would only apply to those exact missiles that Samus had while performing the download.

God, Bird Magic is fucking obnoxious!

[consistentsquash]

5 meta recs!

Some meta recs because we have lots of interesting/relevant meta.

1. Fiction Works 1/2: Different Strokes for Different Folks and Fiction Works 2/2: Storytelling, not Teaching or Preaching by @danpuff-ao3

The two posts are totally worth reading/framing on the wall/preserving in The Library of Congress. It's essentially Fandom 101. Also Life 101. But it's something a lot of folks forget. Danni goes incredibly incisive in the two posts. She looks at the basic problems and zooms out to look at what's the real point of creating a story? What are the limits? What does it mean to feel something is problematic? It's a super uncomfortable read because it's talking about things with more clarity/detail than just the normal vague words we are used to seeing on proship posts. Love, love, love these two essays. <3

Right off the bat, I feel the need to clarify that I understand there are portrayals in fiction that can be troublesome, and sensitivity readers are a boon. However, even here there seems to be too firm a hold on what “should be.” This does not take into account that everyone is different.

People accept this in a vague sort of way. “Dave likes football, and Carrie likes soccer.” This goes beyond people having different favorite colors, or different skin tones. We are all born with different bodies, different genes. We are all born into different circumstances, and are raised differently. We are all molded into different people, and have different preferences, and choose different life paths.

What people also fail to take into account is: the world is a big, crazy place. All sorts of things are possible. How probable they are is another question, but “probable” matters less than “possible.”

 

2. Don't Quit Your Day Job, AI by @squibstress

AI!!!! So I have been following a lot of AI news about how it's going to replace actors, designers and other creative jobs. Also a lot of fandom posts about fanfic/fanart created by AI getting posted on AO3 and also about authors/artists locking their works because AI is using them to improve. Squibstress did an investigation for what I really, really cared about.

So, okay. We know AI is already writing copy and fiction, but the real question, the important question, is: Can it write fanfic?

To find out, your intrepid reporter made an account on ChatGPT and gave the bot two simple fanfiction prompts.

Love, love, love.

[. . .] I use way too many smirks and rolled eyes in my Minerva/Severus fic.

That's how Minerva/Severus works! I need smirks and rolled eyes in my Snagonagall!! Definitely going to stick to Squibstress and Jane Austen for my reading diet for now. Sorry, AI <3

  3. Laughing, Crying, Killing Myself by eldritcher

Fandom has like two big problems now. Ok that's really simplifying things. But AI and antis. Eldritcher has a lot of super clear insights about fandom and why some type of cults/mobs happen here. We definitely know this but it's the type of message which is good to repeat a lot. Cult stuff is scary.

So many who came to fandom and similar creative spheres in the last decade have only known belonging in cliques that are one turn away from becoming mobs. They haven't had the chance to explore discomfort in creation that goes against the norms of their clique, because it endangers belonging and often endangers more than merely belonging because of how dependent they are on the validation of the group what with little support available elsewhere outside. It is tempting to think these mobs are only prevalent in circles that are against shipping or slash or kink or anything seen as transgressive by some consensus, but that's harmfully reductive. Ostracisation via pitch-forks are as present in the bastions of those who ship the most transgressive ships as they are in the bastions of those who don't. The mob is a weapon and all factions have learned by now how to weaponise it to vanish those they don't like.  

4. Heroes, Villains, and Blorbos by @danpuff-ao3

I kind of gave up on reading convincing Marauder group characterizations in Snape centric fics and convincing Snape characterizations in Marauder centric fics esp with the more recent fanon takes. But omg. I love those characters/potential. Danni's essay really, really goes into the reason why some characterizations don't work for me because she is spot on about identifying what makes those characters tick. Including their flaws. Flawed characters are sexy because they are human. Our fandom really really doesn't get that point about these characters a lot of times.

None of them were perfect. All of them had potential.

So much of their promise died in the war. They were all so damn young, and so deeply impacted. They all made grave mistakes. They all achieved great feats.

But what draws me to them all above all else is the horrible humanity of them. All of their virtues, and especially all of their flaws.

5. What is good writing anyway? by @danpuff-ao3

At this point I'm rambling, but the point is: how can any of us really judge what good writing is? Even if we can, how do we recommend what is "good" in a way that is fair, or in a way that will be well-received? But most of all, I sort of want people to think beyond the popular view of what is "good" because what is "good" doesn't matter so much as how much you enjoy it, and how it touches you and your life.

Really not sorry for triplereccing danni's essays. I read them in a binge this week and that got me inspired to do a meta post. So! Everybody needs to read them because they are really getting at the heart of a lot of fandom things we can identify with. This essay especially was so personal for me because of why I got into reccing. The fics I normally saw recced didn't work for me. Totally not a fault of the fics/recs. But I wanted to rec fics I loved. I feel those fics are definitely worth reccing because they made a big difference to me beyond just good writing by some definition. But also this is a really good read for authors who feel they are not good enough/comparing to other authors/feeling imposter syndrome. The readers that love your fics are really in love with those fics. For those readers your fics are the best fics in the world. Like Danni says because what is "good" doesn't matter so much as how much you enjoy it, and how it touches you and your life.

[katyspersonal]

Ogay now your turn, who was your blorbo(s) before???

Damn... This is a harder question than it seems, because it is... hard to remember? My brain got SO rotted with Soulsborne world that I legit am forgetting how things used to be before that? It doesn't help that my feelings about the character and how much I talk about them / do for them do not always match! As a result, I have three types of blorbos:

1) The 'real' blorbo: The one that evokes the most feelings and I actively fantasize about being with, one that sparks yearning and attraction and consumes the most of my thoughts, but I won't do enough with

2) The 'productive' blorbo: The one which I practically breathe life in and create entire story and world for when canon didn't provide much and/or this character is unpopular. They often become crucial part of my online identity, or JUST my identity o_o'

3) The 'fanmade' blorbo: It is either an AU version of the character, an interpretation so unfitting and far from canon vibe that it almost works as an OC, or JUST an OC. I actually love/hate this one, because this is the asshole that will always make me stray from working on canon!! They will make me focus so much on them that depending on the nature of the character, I will forget the canon vibe in my love for this version or will forsaken general source material to join an AU/RP where this character is. Let me focus on canon-palatable creativity and stop wasting my time, dipshits!!

So, to give you the idea, in Bloodborne, type one would be, of course, Micolash, Edgar and Maria (but mostly Micolash)! Type two would be Rom and Izzy. And since recently my Laurence is between 1 and 2 because he is really S E X Y but also I have to create everything for him xD. Type three would be... uh...

My previous "fandom" was UTDR, but that stay was a little short-lasting, since Deltarune is work in progress and Undertale did not have the same grip on me. In there, my type one blorbo were Rouxls Kaard and Mettaton! You can tell I love the flamboyant sexy man with fake depth, fair level of depravity but not evilness, and intelligence of a brick dshhfdsdds My art never felt good enough to capture Mettaton's confident energy, however, I'd like to show this fanart of Rouxls:

Type two blorbo were Mad MewMew, Catti, and Diamond King! The latter two were sort of underdeveloped in canon at the time, and for MewMew I actually had a bunch of things, and even RPed as her for some time! Developing Diamond King was quite fun, though he was dangerously close to type 3 because of AU stuff where HE was the bad guy and not Spade King (and Catti was the 'monster' of the prophesy). Besides, we did give him a wife who is not getting used in canon but exists in the cards deck that WAS used for the 'cards'.

(EDIT: I made these sprites and I forgot that I made them and not Val o_o" Because it's been a few years ago + I am scatter-brained. Oh jeez)

And type three happened when I delved into helping to work on an AU for Deltarune, a project a passionate person started in hunger for completion of Deltarune, following after Chapter 1 and ignoring everything. Basically, attempt to finish the game that had AMAZING story and characters! I lended many designs, ideas and characters for it, improving it very significantly. I no longer work on that project and gave all rights to my designs and creative solutions to the developer, but it was FUN. And like I said, distracted me from the canon-palatable creativity. And helped me to finally come to terms with the fact that I am way better at nurturing, supporting, editing and improving someone else's projects than creating my own. It was a long time coming realisation considering how half of my drawings for any fandom used to be fanart of other people's ideas and OCs or fanart for our RP plots. Not something that can happen in this fandom because... you know. But yeah, I've always been the guy that would draw a pile of everyone's OCs/interpretations in the community, or help someone with no coherent design idea to GET that design down!

...ak-hem, where was I? Right, blorbos. So, the 'fanmade' blorbos were, of course, our version of Diamond Queen and... this BITCH:

This is Ace of Hearts! And Insight joke is actually something I just made up, since I made this guy before I knew anything about Bloodborne! It aged like fucking milk, hahahahaha!! To give you the idea of what I had to do to design the Aces, here are the cards by Kanotynes that Toby was using:

These are the face cards ( x )! If you saw Deltarune's chapter one, you can see how and which designs were used, and which changed.

And this is the only image of all cards I can reliably find ( x ). You can see that number cards were de-personalised and are just various things. So what I did was combining the face card look and find a way to "fuck it up", since Aces learned A LOT of 'Chaos' and not only part of it like Jevil (and now Spamton)! Here are the rest of them:

You can tell, even in healthy forms, they'd still be a bit... 'strange' compared with face cards. Ace of Clubs in healthy form would have only one head and one horn, and his 99 Insight Chaos version has 11 heads each with one peace of their body or face... And Ace of Diamonds would be a snake with 'umbrella' skin, which is nothing like other Diamond suits!

I was the one to insist that we have Aces in the project, conceptualised them, designed them, wrote them lore etc. And Ace of Hearts was my favourite, and also the scariest one. (of course I like the most creepy one -_-) It was also the first situation where I got obsessed with my OWN non-canon stuff... although, technically, they are no longer mine, since I passed the designs and right to write and use to the owner completely. Maybe it is to the better, as I moved closer towards enjoying my own content more!

(Idle sprites I've made back then!)

___________

Thank you for listening and giving me nostalgia, lol xD

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Toady FAQ!

Hey y’all! I get a lot of the same questions (both on Tiktok and here in the bog), so I thought I’d answer a bunch of em at once! As always, if you have questions not listed here, I’m happy to chat :)

Are you going to upload/continue the 90s series? (Alternatively: Upload the 90s series. You should upload it to Tumblr. Continue the 90s series.)

With all the love in the world, no. At least not for the moment—ask me again in 6 months!

Writing that series ended up being super stressful, and I’m not super eager to get back in there at the moment. I’m worried I’d continue to carry that stress and that I’d grow to resent the story, which is not at all what I want! I also don’t want to be 8 chapters into a new piece of writing and still have people asking about the 90s series, which I hope is understandable.

By all means, save the posts from Tiktok so you can revisit them. Just please don’t post them anywhere :)

Do you have Spotify? Can you make a playlist of all the songs you used in your Tiktoks?

I’ve thought about this question a lot, and basically: you tell me.

I have a Spotify account, but haven’t shared it for privacy reasons. However, if enough people wanted it, I could be persuaded to change my username and share my playlists :)

I do think it’s fun to have music to go along with a story, and it’s actually the one thing I miss about Tiktok. So the other option would be to maybe post chapters as audio posts with the text underneath, if I can figure out how to do that?

Basically: you tell me what you think, and I’ll do it!

Will your next story feature XYZ?

It depends on your request (and, honestly, the tone in which you ask it). I’m more than happy to consider requests and suggestions, but I have two stipulations:

1. There are certain perspectives and lived experiences from which I simply cannot write accurately; if you’re asking me to write about the experiences of a marginalized group, consider that I might not be the person to portray them. On top of being in a privileged position myself, I’m also just not an experienced enough writer to properly research and depict experiences so inherently different from my own. I can definitely try my best to recommend other writers, but know that, in all things, my knowledge is limited to my own exposure and experience.

2. I cannot possibly make everyone happy. If I took every request I received, I’d end up with a disaster of a story that I wouldn’t even feel like I’d written. I need to retain some creative freedom in order for this to feel worth doing, so while I welcome suggestions please don’t be offended if I don’t take every one I see!

Any advice for people who want to major in English? What are you doing with your degree?

Yes!

Find your niche. Mine was American lit, specifically the weird stuff. The weirder the better—American Gothic, true crime journalism, 19th-century Spiritualism—you name it, I’ve written about it. If you can find a subgenre of literature that you LOVE, nothing you read or write will feel like work.

Don’t edit, rewrite! Print your draft and go over it in red pen, then re-type it with your corrections. I swear by this!

Don’t limit yourself, ever! Take classes on fantasy, sci-fi, children’s lit, climate crisis fiction, religious texts, whatever you can find. You will be better for it!

Everyone is wrong. There’s a TON you can do with an English degree. I worked in finance straight out of college—I knew nothing about business, but my degree taught me to communicate effectively and synthesize information from different sources. You have valuable skills, you just need to learn to market them! Now I’m working in my field and it’s great, but it was never the only option.

DO A STORY ABOUT X IN Y TIME PERIOD SET IN THIS SPECIFIC TOWN!

Beloved, stop yelling at me.

Can I use this as a writing prompt/write my own story/create fanart using these characters?

YES! Knock yourself out, I only ask that you tag me in the final product so I can see your lovely work and hype you up :)

Do you have book/movie/show recs that are similar to your work?

That depends! Send me a specific request (ie: MMCs with similar vibes to Jasper Stevens) and I’ll try my best to recommend you something. If I can’t think of anything, we’ll crowdsource!

[mauesartetc]

Redesigning High Guardian Spice (Part 1)

Yeah yeah, I’m severely late to this party and I know this shit’s been done to death by now. But lately I’ve enjoyed listening to Guardian HQ’s video essays in the background while I’m working, and it’s pretty fascinating just how much this single show got wrong, from both writing and visual standpoints. I haven’t even seen the thing in full, but it seems the numerous critique videos on Youtube have made most of the key plot points and character details available to us. Besides, what I’ll be talking about today doesn’t have nearly as much to do with the writing as it does with the art direction, and you don’t need to know the story to realize the visuals aren’t much to write home about.

Is it out of line to say everything in High Guardian Spice looks kinda bland and generic? There’s a logic behind the character designs’ basic construction, but the art style in which they’re drawn doesn’t know if it’s going for an anime-type look or a more westernized, cartoony vibe. It awkwardly treads water between the two camps, unsure of where to swim in order to find its own unique identity.

This made me think back to Teen Titans and Avatar: The Last Airbender, two other Western-produced animated shows with heavy anime influences. What made these shows stand out when High Guardian Spice doesn’t?

Teen Titans revamped familiar comic book characters with a slick, angular flair, adding highlights to their hair and outfits to give them some extra pizazz. Avatar, meanwhile, rejected the anime tropes of shiny, candy-colored hair, oversized eyes, and outlandish clothing, opting for a more naturalistic look based on real cultures and locations. The anime fingerprints are apparent in both cases, but each show embraced stylistic experimentation and moved away from stereotypical design elements associated with the art form.

So how exactly does High Guardian Spice experiment with its visuals? Well, uhhh... I really can’t say. We know the main characters went through multiple iterations, but some fairly prominent creature and prop designs come off more like first drafts.

They really couldn’t have given us anything more creative than generic fantasy dragons, generic fantasy staffs, generic fantasy orbs, a purple blob with a face, and a hastily put-together platypus bunny? (I mean he’s cute and all, but still.)

“Uninspired” is the perfect word to describe these choices. There’s extremely little effort put in to make this fantasy story look and feel different from every other fantasy story the audience has experienced before. So what can we do to make the world and characters stand out?

Let’s discuss color for a sec. This show has the same problem as some Vivziepop designs in that there are too many hues representing a single color. Looking at this screenshot and the swatches in the lower right corner, it’s clear the palette’s kind of all over the place. 

After sampling each of these colors with the eyedropper tool, I noticed that literally every single one had a different H (hue) value on the RGB spectrum. That’s over nineteen different hues in this image alone! It’s especially noticeable in all the disparate yellows, reds, and oranges. We can create a much more focused palette than that.

At first I considered using Francisco Goya’s witch paintings (since, y’know, magic and stuff) as reference for color palettes, but then I had a massive “duh” moment. The show’s called High Guardian Spice, so why not use colors taken from spices?

This reduces the master palette from dozens of hues to six, from which we can adjust values and saturation based on each character’s needs.

Here’s something else that bugs me:

Why are Snapdragon’s pupils drawn differently from the other main characters’? Snap’s family members appear to have the same eye style, but is there a story-based explanation for that? I thought the characters might belong to a non-human species, but no, that’s not the case. So what the fuck? Did the creator just think “Oh yeah, this pupil style looks good on this character, so I’ll use it for them and absolutely no one else because reasons”. Screw it, let’s apply these pupils to all the characters for more consistency between them, as well as a more pronounced departure from the standard shiny anime eyes we’ve seen a million times before.

In terms of overall art direction, I pondered which kinds of art could serve as inspiration for a story about witchcraft. How ‘bout these woodcuts from when European paranoia around witches was at its peak?

Look at all the interesting textures in these prints. This kind of hatching could easily set High Guardian Spice’s characters and environments apart from the crowd. And is that some potential Neppy Cat inspiration I spy? I believe so.

Anyway, this post has almost hit the image limit, so join me for Part 2, where I put these ideas into practice.

[alexandersimpleton]

In case you haven't read Epithet Erased (go read it it's amazing) the show exists in a world where 1 in 5 people are inscribed, which means they have a single word entwined with their soul that let's them do magic. For example, Molly Blyndeff, the protagonist of the museum arc of the first season and the book, has the epithet dumb, which let's her dumb things down and reduce them, like muting the noise within a small bubble, or reducing damage when you take a hit. Everyone else is a mundie

Now, I am also a massive fan of the series Cursed Princess Club on Webtoon. So, I've thought of Epithets for some of them.

(before the list, I'd like to make some things clear. In Epithet Erased, each Epithet has three scores: stamina, proficiency, and creativity. Stamina is how much they can use their epithet or take a hit, proficiency is how experienced they are with their epithet, creativity is how creative they are in using their epithet. As such I will be grading each and giving reasons for why each is graded as they are. As well as that, there are three classes of ranking. Star is level one, ring is level two, nova is level three. Most of these guys will just be stars, but still)

So, onto the epithets

Frederick: Imagine

Let's the user bring anything they imagine into reality.

Stamina: three stars (Freddy can use this one to his heart's content without so much as a sweat, but he'd probably be knocked out by a pillow hitting him in the face, so it evens out)

Proficiency: one ring, four stars (Freddy uses his epithet to escape reality like, several times per day, and has been for years. He's also taken to using it to impress Gwen on occasion. Only when they're alone because Frederick finds some of them embarrassing)

Creativity: five stars (Frederick is the type of person to imagine a solution to most things. Don't have enough hands? Cute spider people with 8 hands can carry your things! The room is to quiet? A boyband of anthropomorphic mice (that has since gotten a new member: the main singer's cute rat girlfriend))

Other stuff: Frederick does have a habit of accidently using his epithet when he gets strong emotions. When he gets flustered around Gwen he grows little cat ears (which he always gets incredibly embarrassed about, which makes the cat ears harder to un-summon), and whenever he has panic attacks sunflowers start growing on the walls floor and ceiling in whatever room he's in. (Just thought of this as I was writing, note to self: write an au where Frederick is just cursed with cat ears and other cat attributes. His personality and character really went from wet cat to dry cat)

Blaine: charm

Allows the user to convince any person animal or thing to do anything.

Stamina: four stars (he uses it often, but still gets tired of using it by the end of the day)

Proficiency: five stars (he uses it often, but doesn't rely on it like Frederick does)

Creativity: two stars (Blaine only gets that because he sometimes uses it for magic tricks. He just uses his epithet only in the least creative way possible)

Other stuff: He used his epithet to tame a bear once, I guess. If these guys were actually Epithet Erased characters, than I feel like Blaine being the least creative epithet user on the planet would be a running gag.

Maria: Melody

Allows the user to create music with a variety of effects. Most effective while singing, but can be applied to any other form of music

Stamina: two stars (how much energy it takes to use her epithet depends on the effects of the music, but doing anything important takes a good bit of energy)

Proficiency: three stars (she doesn't really practice her epithet. She just casts the same spell over and over again.)

Creativity: one ring, five stars (she doesn't really do it, but she can use her music to pretty much do literally anything. It is very abusable.)

Other stuff: If she leveled up her proficiency to rings, than she could gain a bonus on her epithet by teaming up with people, either with both using their epithets, or working together to create music. The songs she sings on balconies are magic songs. They make music notes appear in the air that disappear when she stops singing. That's it.

Gwen: terror

Allows the user to create a sense of terror in anyone or anything, but inanimate objects aren't as effective

Stamina: one star (any substantial use of it for more than a couple of seconds knocks her out cold)

Proficiency: one star (she doesn't use her epithet. Like at all)

Creativity: one star (again, she doesn't use it. But even if she did, it wouldn't really be lenient to creativity until:)

Other stuff: if she upgraded to rings, she could bring people's fears to life, like an even better Nightmare Fuel. But she won't get to rings any time soon. She still thinks she's a mundie. She has used her epithet on accident on many, MANY occasions. She is very oblivious to emotions. Because of her underleveling, people that trust her enough are almost completely immune to her epithet.

Nell: foresight

Allows the user to occasionally and sporadically predict negative events, with great pain from the user.

Stamina: one star (she basically dies whenever her epithet goes off)

Proficiency: two stars (it's hard to practice it, but how often it goes off got her out of one star)

Creativity: five stars (as much as the pain sucks, her epithet is actually quite useful)

Other stuff: This epithet pretty much works exactly how Nell's curse does in cannon, with the only exception being that Nell can set off a prediction if she tries hard enough. If she upgraded to rings than she could start seeing positive events too. If she upgraded to nova than she could pick any point in the future to see at will. It'd still hurt though, and her accidental prophesies would still happen.

[autisticempathydaemon]

I'd love to get a match if you're still doing them!!

I'm currently listening to American Teenagers by Ethel Cain. There's something about the lyrics that remind me of my angsty teen years. I'm really stuck on the lyrics "crying in the bleachers and I said it was fun", super relatable lol. I'm also stuck in Hummingbird by The Haunting. My favorite lyrics are "I wish you'd walk in and I miss you pillow talk"

My ennagram type is INFP

I love video essays, the longer the better, but I especially like the ones about videogames I'll never play. I just finished one about no more heroes that was fun.

My go to way to fall asleep is my fan on full blast, covered in a large blanket, and kicking my foot back and forth until I fall asleep, which is pretty fast since the motion soothes me for whatever reason.

I love the Guy confession audio. I love Guy's energy and how he goes from light hearted to fairly serious. He seems so chill and funny and his confession was so sweet.

I'm not a big fan of David. He's cool, but I like guys who are more gentle and emotionally open I guess?

I'd love to be best friends with Gavin because he's so supportive and fun. I think he'd be tons of fun to hangout with. Or Huxley, he's so sweet.

I've researched criminal minds more times than I can count. I love crime shows and such, but I'm not a fan of the personal character drama. I just want to see people solve crime. I know the endings to them all but still like them.

When I'm tired I love to ramble about human behavior. I'm really shy and bad at social interactions so it's usually me hyper analyzing an interaction and pointing out all the ways society's social standards are weird, at least to me lol.

Other stuff- I'm a fairly artistic person, I love paint and drawing, I also enjoy cooking. I'm shy and soft spoken in public but loud when I'm around people I like. I also love sleeping and naps. I'm a bit of a pushover and need people to like me but do like helping people. I also love listening to music, picking just 1 song to write about was hard so I picked two because I like so many, sorry!

Thanks!!

Okay, so hear me out. He gets a little bit of a bad rap because of the whole Sadism’s Hold thing, but you and Ivan, specifically FlyBoi!Ivan, would be so cute together, give him a CHANCE-

I get the irony of pairing you with someone who could have once been on Criminal Minds, I swear, but I feel like Ivan is a wonderfully gentle soul when not being otherwise manipulated. His normal voicemails are proof of that, that he’s thoughtful and communicative and not afraid of being vulnerable and putting his heart out there, you know? This would wonderfully complement the sensitivity that INFPs are known for.

Overall, I think you’d have a lovely, sweet, domestic sort of life together. Ivan also strikes me as a people pleaser which is great because when you pair people pleasers together, you get a couple who consistently looks out for one another’s needs. He travels for work and never forgets to call home or ask what new creative project you’re working on, never lets you forget he’s thinking about and missing you.

Song:

You could be dancing on tabletops/ Wearing high-heels/ Drinking until the world/ Spins like a wheel/ But tonight your apartment/ Had so much appeal/ Who needs stars?/ We've got a roof/ But there's nothing/ Like doing nothing/ With you

I don’t have a firm grasp of what genre Ivan would like, but I do like the slower, swaying vibes of this song for you. It’s sweet, relaxing, the soundtrack to when he finally comes home from a work trip and is grateful to see you napping on the couch in the dimming, sunsetting light of your living room.

Runner-Ups:

Morgan is a runner-up because he has a lot of similar vibes to Flyboi!Ivan, though I don’t know him well enough to match him confidently and he doesn’t strike me as forthcoming with his love and emotions. Cam was a closer candidate if I had not really liked the domestic vibes of you with a human or unempowered person.

note: if you don’t like Ivan and I took too big of a risk I am SO SORRY but he’s a darling and I love him he’s so lovable

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌