#anyway these themes really resonated with me a lot

[queen-of-bel]

I’m curious on your take is on what the core themes of Devil Survivor are?

AHH A DESU ASK THANK YOU I LOVE YOU

this may be a bit of a cop out, but i think i'm just gonna quote the staff directly on this:

“Instead of simply surviving in a desperate situation, we offered the player choices through with they could interact with others, overcome various experiences, and decide for themselves what they should do about their situation. The keyword behind the main concept of ‘Devil Survivor’ is ‘Choices’. Personally, if I was put into that situation, I’d probably head to the nearest emergency shelter and try not to move. Despite having choices, my reality would be nothing like the game. [laughs]” - Shinjiro Takada

“The story of ‘Devil Survivor’ itself is like a personal message from me. Don’t ever let the situation dictate what you do. See things with your own eyes and make your own decisions. Don’t just sit back and complain about your circumstances, do something about them! The Internet may be convenient, but something as simple as a power outage can take it all away. Don’t take things for granted, because nothing in this world is certain. Always expect the unexpected. These are some of the thoughts I hope I will have gotten across to the player after they’ve finished 'Devil Survivor’.” - Yoh Haduki

I think they put it into words way better than I could have (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

[salty-croissants]

Crossing blades ( Bullfrog x g/n reader )

Big thanks to @angrylez for this other very cool concept ! 

I ended up making a whole story out of it since I liked the idea a lot :D

By the way , just wanted to mention that Imma need to close my writing requests for a bit , at least until I get all the other ones done : you can still send anything unrelated to requests in my asks , I’ll put a little something in my bio to let you know when I’m open to do more headcanons and stories for the boys again 👍

Anyway , hope this turned out okay !  Sorry if it’s a bit out of character ;I

Details : use of g/n reader ;

reader is very skilled with knives ;  

enemies to lovers ( kinda ) ; 

presence of slightly suggestive themes and occasional swearing

“Now , listen carefully because I won’t repeat myself : 

this is y/n , your target . 

They have been working as an elite assassin for Eden for a very , very long time , which would make them a very useful source of information for us .

Your task tonight ? Capture them and bring them back here … 

Alive . 

You can deal with their eventual security as you see fit .

Now go .” 

The Warden’s words resonated in Bullfrog’s mind as he ran through the tall corridors of your underground cove … 

Dolph and his teammates were currently busy taking care of the rest of the guards outside , which meant he was going to have to face you on his own . 

He could tell that it wouldn’t be an easy task , judging by your flawless record of murders over the years , so he was going to be as careful as possible handling this situation - 

“Quoi … ?”

He suddenly turned around , barely able to see a silhouette quickly passing by him to then suddenly disappear like it had never been there …

It seemed like he already found them .

Bullfrog took a deep breath , looking around him and readying himself for any surprises from Eden’s elite assassin .

< Bonne soirée , y/n . 

I am very sorry for the intrusion , but if you just allow me to expla - > 

He was barely fast enough to avoid the knife you threw in his direction , leaving a cut on his cheek : it looked like it wasn’t going to be that easy to convince you to follow him back to the Warden’s headquarters …

< Your intentions already seem pretty clear to me … sir . > 

Bullfrog sensed a movement behind him , and saw you appear from the shadows , calmly walking towards him .

He could see it in your eyes … you weren’t someone to underestimate . 

< I’ve heard your friends up there … want my advice ? You should all be more careful not to make this much noise when sneaking up on someone to kill them . >

Bullfrog let out a little chuckle in response , his eyes never leaving yours as he took a step forward . 

 < I assure you , we are not here to cause you any harm . > 

< Really ? That becomes pretty hard to believe when a bunch of armed strangers appear at your place out of nowhere . > 

< Well … c'est vrai , but if you just come with us it will be way easier . > 

His expression changed … he stared at you earnestly , carefully taking another step in your direction . 

< Eden is not what you think it is y/n … they have been using you and your abilities all while taking countless innocent lives .

If you were to become a liability , they would not hesitate to get rid of you . > 

You remained silent for a moment , barely even listening to the noises of the furious battle still continuing downstairs before shaking your hand , grabbing more of your knives …

< I … literally got no reason to trust you . 

I don’t know who you are or what your deal is , but I can tell you that I have a job to do , a job that Eden gave me when I had nothing left , a job that gives me purpose and a reason to live …

That’s what’s real to me . 

I can’t throw all of this away … I’ve worked too hard to get here . > 

Bullfrog sighed , readying his blades for the approaching fight … 

< Then … je suis désolé pour ça , y/n . > 

*hours of fighting later …*

< Sheesh - these guys were tough ! > 

< I swear , if another one of these fuckers shows up out of nowhere I’ll - > 

< Let’s just get this over with . >

< Yeah , hopefully Bullfrog managed to deal with that y/n … things have been really quiet down there . Maybe he needs help ? > 

< Only one way to find out . > 

Dolph lead the way , followed by Jade and Pey’j : they were all beat up and tired , but still ready to take action if it would’ve proved necessary . 

… but when they eventually found their teammate , it definitely seemed like his fight against you had been … 

very intense : 

Bullfrog was standing on top of you , the two of you panting , full of bruises and cuts on your clothes …

< *ahem* … are we … interrupting anything ? ~ > 

You both gasped , turning around to find the three staring at you , slowly realizing in what a compromising position you currently were in .

< This - this is NOT what it looks like !! > 

< Absolutely not !! > 

< We were just  - uh — > 

< You know , if you wanted to spend time alone with them you should’ve just said so ~ > 

Jade’s remarks only served to make the two of you even more flustered , and Bullfrog quickly stepped away from you , hiding his face in his hoodie … 

Not like you were doing much better .

< Enough . > 

Dolph walked forward , grabbing your arm and pulling you back up on your feet .

< You’ll be coming with us now .

Try anything and it won’t end well for you . > 

You sighed in response , aware that you were exhausted and also out of knives …

You were in no position to even think about trying anything .

When eventually you found yourself on the Ghosts car , traveling back to their base , you and Bullfrog would occasionally glance at each other to then immediately look away , still very flustered about what happened back in your cove …

You would’ve never said such a thing out loud , but it was very rare for someone to last long when fighting with you , so one way or another he had earned your respect .

Something even more difficult to admit was the fact that you … 

… didn’t quite find it entirely unpleasant when Bullfrog fell on top of you during your confrontation .

That was crazy , considering the fact that he was an enemy with intentions that you didn’t even fully figure out just yet , but you just couldn’t lie to yourself convincingly enough to cover up those … odd feelings . 

You stared outside the window at the neon lights of the city , watching the clouds in the sky slowly getting illuminated by the approaching sunrise : 

you had been in stickier situations before , so being held captive wasn’t exactly your main concern … 

Instead you thought about the things Bullfrog told you about Eden , deep down wondering if he was really just tricking you or if maybe , just maybe … there was some truth to his words .

Well , all you could do now was wait and see . 

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 255

okay i'll still finish this one too i prommy but i just had time for one today and i picked this one because it's just a liiiiittle more compelling to me for aradia to be the rose bride figure

disorganized rambling and mild utena spoilers under the cut

so there are these visual parallels that won't leave my brain, between the thousands of swords bearing down on anthy at the end of rgu/the thousands of aradiabots being wiped out by jack right before they enter the kids' universe, AND ALSO anthy in her coffin/aradia in the crypt at the core of derse's moon.

aradia does want to protect (or like, Avenge) the people she cares about. i mean that's kind of the whole impetus for her being killed initially. and she gets put in that crypt for it and then she dies a million times, across a million different doomed timelines. of course all her friends ALSO die in those timelines, but yknow. she could've just hung around until she quietly ceased to exist. INSTEAD though, she goes back in time and suffers a predestined violent death at jack's hands in order to make it all mean something, and to protect her friends in the alpha timeline from becoming doomed themselves.

and it all leaves her as the kind of person who is prepared to just watch with mild curiosity as reality literally disintegrates around her (which.... like anthy, is, to a certain extent, a façade. i mean i don't think aradia's curiosity about the end of reality is fake, but also she SAYS she's not going to participate in the Lord English fight and just let whatever happens happen, but then he kicks Tavros and she immediately jumps on his back and chokes him out so like. do we REALLY think she is 100% free of emotions about all of it?)

anyway aradia megido has suffered more than jesus.

there's also the whole. like. having this dude who really does not indicate that he sees her as a person At All try to trick/force her into a romantic relationship with him?? and her status on alternia at the absolute bottom of the hemospectrum. the little crisis we see her have about just being used as a tool by the whims of fate and the alpha timeline. anthycore af

and then there's jade! jade is incredibly incredibly brave and she wants to do right by her friends. she is EXTREMELY fucking powerful and she is not willing to take bullshit from anyone. she could absolutely open that fuckin coffin.

and she also has a lot of fairytale imagery that i think goes very much hand in hand with utena's whole prince deal. she has her whole sleeping beauty, princess trapped in a tower on a deserted island theme going, and she just... never really leans into it. other characters around her seem to expect her to lean into it sometimes! and utena is constantly bombarded by other characters telling her it would JUST be easier if she was a princess and let herself be saved by a prince. but ultimately jade and utena are just out here living their lives without all that because it doesn't actually resonate with them.

ALL THAT SAID i wanna reiterate this isn't like a full-on AU it's just like. some character comparisons that i think are Neat. I don't have like, a whole thing thought out beyond this drawing or anything lol

[indierpgnewsletter]

Recommendations: Books about RPGs

(This was first posted on the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

I’m always trying to level up my RPG knowledge and this has led me to look for books about RPGs. And there don’t seem to be that many! There are some academic books but while they have their strengths, easy reading isn’t one of them. Even as I wrestle with these academic texts (and I will emerge victorious), here are some books that are both interesting and fun to read:

Play Unsafe and Stealing Cthulhu by Graham Walmsley

Play Unsafe is a book of RPG advice. It’s a quick read (quicker than its 82 pages would suggest) and has some really gentle, grounded advice. For example:

If, while gaming, you can’t be clever or try hard, what can you do? The answer is: be obvious. Do the obvious thing: the thing that obviously happens next in the story; the thing that you think everyone expects to happen. Paradoxically, that obvious thing may, to everyone else , seem original and brilliant.

Stealing Cthulhu, by the same author, is about how to take inspiration from the stories of HP Lovecraft in a way that makes your own cosmic horror games feel fresh and unique.

Age of Ravens: Vol 1 and Vol 2 by Lowell Francis

These are two collections of various essays originally published on the Age of Ravens blog, formatted for easy reading. They’re essentially a greatest hits collection and do a good job of that. Volume I: Running has some of my favourite articles about running conspiracies, one shots, online games, and more. Volume II: Tools is mostly resources for play: story seeds and ideas to drop into your game whether sci-fi heists or apocalyptic hexcrawls. They aren’t connected by theme so you mostly can just dip in and out of them.

Unchained Mysteries by Jessie Burneko

Unchained Mysteries is a passionate call to ditch clue-based mystery design. Instead, the book proposes coming up with much more richly-layered scenarios where the players are drawn into a crime or crisis with no easy solution, where the players are caught up in a web of NPCs who are actively dealing with the situation, rather than passively waiting for someone to solve their problems. It ends up at around 100 pages so there’s real meat there if you want to engage with it.

The entire Knutepunkt line

Knutepunkt is one of the biggest larp events in the world - half conference, half festival, full of larps and talks and so on. Since 2001, they’ve been publishing books with essays (some more academic than others) about larp. They’re very well-respected. And as Evan Torner explained to me, if you’re not interested in larp, you can just mentally replace the word larp with TTRPG and still get lot out of these books. I’m nowhere close to finishing them but felt like I had to share them anyway. (Thanks to reader Mo, here’s the link to the books.)

The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide by James D’Amato

I have not finished this yet either but I can already tell the voice of the Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide should resonate with newer players who don’t have a lot of set ideas about RPGs already. The author is the founder of the One Shot podcast network and clearly has a philosophy of play. For example, the first chapter is titled “Understanding Audience” and basically uses the idea that everyone has preferences in what they consume (books, moves, etc) to segue into the idea that RPGs emerge out of everyone’s shared preferences. It’s an interesting approach and if you want to know more, there’s a nice review here.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

10 Jikook Fanfictions Part 1

I said I'd make a list before the end of the year and I kept my promise. Now, it's difficult to choose, especially when I have more than 300 bookmarks and unfortunately I also started doing that some year and a half ago. Safe to say, there's probably plenty of good fics I read that are now lost. Anyway, enough with the boring chit chat, here's 10 random jikook fics in no particular order and most likely, several other parts will follow, probably next year 😉

1. Dead in the Water

It's been a couple of years since I read this and honestly, I barely remember much, but what I do know it's that it had an impact on me. Usually fics that have death as a central theme end up resonating with me, but perhaps it's because I've always been attracted to more darker fiction. This one is gritty and there's a lot of pain and I must have cried a lot (those tend to stick in my head)

2. we're holding hands beneath the silver screen

I think this story is taking place in the 90s (you'll see that a lot of the fics I recommend are taking place in the past). I think I ended up reading everything ChimneyCricket wrote, but this one remained a favorite. Coming of age during a summer in Jeju in the 90s. Apart from the theme, it's the writing that made me stick with it.

I'm not the biggest fan of young adult stories. Or better yet, it's not something that I'd go to as a preference. When I do, it's more of an indulgence and thankfully, I found some writers (like this one) who can do a really good job with the genre.

3. Stockwell

Another writer that I've become a big fan of after reading one fic of theirs. And I think it might have been Stockwell that did it for me. I like that it's fanfiction with adult themes for an adult audience. And I also resonate with a lot of the cultural references and themes. I will also admit that this fic leaning into the enemies to lovers trope was a selling point because I'm a sucker for it. I can't help myself.

4. Burn for You

This is a complete self indulgence for me and I embrace it. Just like watching Bridgerton is a guilty pleasure for which I don't actually feel guilty (and the inspo for this fic). This story has everything and I must say the combination of lust, fear of revealing feelings, rumors, proper behavior and hidden romance is a lethal combination!

5. Light of a century

I might have recommended this story before, but it being inspired by Up on Poppy Hill is not just due to the plot, but the writing is able to evoke that studio Ghibli mood. This fic is to be read on a hot weekend afternoon.

6. Map of the Soul

This might be one of the most complex fanfictions I read due to the amount of research needed, but also in the depiction of political contexts and identity politics. Most of all, I like it because as much as relationships are a vital part of the story, there is an entire world surrounding the main characters. Events and other people that have also room to develop and not just remain props that advance the story.

7. Proceed with Caution

I don't know what snatchim did with this fic, but it's the only one I ever reread multiple times and I'll probably do it again in the future. I don't even reread books from my library, let alone fanfics. But Proceed with Caution did it for me. Perhaps it's because of the process of Jungkook inevitably falling for Jimin and even though it's a bad thing considering the context, it's so good. Maybe it's the image of Jimin with a bellybutton ring or maybe because the picture of hot Californian days in the 70s is so vivid, it feels like a nostalgic Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

8. Dishwater World They Said Was Lemonade

The description does not do this story justice because it's so much more than that. It's a canon compliant thriller with really complicated and complex characters and once again, a story meant for adults who understand that it's fiction. Unfortunately, judging by the comment section, a lot of people cannot distinguish betweem real people and characters. For those of you who might be fans of Korean thrillers, this story might be the one for you. It's also one of my favorite jikook fics as well.

9. souvlaki

Need I say more, considering the description? This is a self indulgence as well, but of a different kind. If I happily read tropey fics, I also like the ones that can sound like a uni course. Set during the 1997 FMI crisis in SK, any reader will get familiar with a socioeconomic and political perspective of that time through the eyes of the main characters. If you're only looking for romance, this one is not for you.

10. you wouldn't remember

I think littleflumes might be currently my favorite writer of canon compliant jikook. I think the author really captured their dynamic in its essence and the room left for fiction perfectly fills in the holes left in the last 2 years and up until the present. But what did it for me, not only with this story, but the others in the series as well, is that it's concentrated almost entirely on the two main characters, almost living in a bubble of their own in which their relationship can be explored.

[bonefall]

Looking for advice since you're great with stuff like this: I'm struggling with how to have a character fundamentally change. A character in my cat story loses his memory and ends up working with the main characters to stop his own plan he made to destroy the world (and after the plan is stopped, he regains his memories). I want his time in the Starless to change him, make him less obsessed with power, but I'm really starting to struggle with whether or not that makes sense and how to work that.

Hmm.. well, first bit of advice I always give is that characters are not people. They are writing tools. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be "realistic" or that connecting to the human traits in the audience isn't important.

It means that a character exists to tell a story.

By "tool" I mean "machine." Every trait is a piston, and ideally they work together to drive your story along. What are you saying with each trait? What is your beginning point for the story, and their end? What do you want to explore? What do you want the audience to take away?

So if you feel stuck on a character, find the larger message you want to impart with them. The job they're doing in your narrative.

What do you want to say about power?

What do you want to say about why Character X wanted to destroy the world? Why was he wrong? What feelings and information lead him to that conclusion?

What is his redemption arc doing for your themes?

Every writer answers those questions differently. For example, I feel strongly that power doesn't corrupt, it reveals. When you finally have the influence to make others do what you want, you make them do it. I don't see "power" as being like... a magic, abstract thing, it's influence over other people, and those people are ALSO individuals with their own reasons for following the leader.

Digressing; what I'm getting at is that, as a writer, I have a lot of thoughts on power itself. I got this way with a lot of reading and interest on the topic. You might find it insightful to experience more art, essays, and commentary on the subject, if you ever get stuck, and develop an opinion you feel strongly about.

Not just about power, as broad writing advice.

Anyway.

If I was writing the character, these are the things I'd be thinking about specifically and changes I'd be making on personal taste. I don't know your full story enough so, hopefully it's insightful;

First of all I'm always SUPER wary of the "correct but demonized radical" trope. Does my villain have a point?

Am i just giving them a Kick-a-Baby scene to make them wrong when they should be completely right otherwise

What are my themes and tone? This is VERY important. Steven Universe is about family and emotions with low stakes violence; the Diamonds are essentially abusive grandparents that Steven is coaching through intergenerational trauma. They fit the universe they're in. Jack Horner does not belong in SU.

So I'd look at Character X's purpose.

Knowing me, I'd actually take out full amnesia entirely. I have memory problems related to trauma so I'm a lot more familiar with major, important details blotting out RIGHT when I need them. Enough that I can put myself in the shoes of someone like BB!Fallenleaf who remembers a lot but the details are fuzzy.

So personally I think I could write this villan to be VERY funny lmao

"Hello. I am Gnagnathor the Destroyer."

"No you're not. He has three horns. You have two."

(DID I USED TO HAVE THREE HORNS?????)

I also just find it more resonant when a character still remembers what they did, why they did it, and is able to refute themselves with their own growth.

To me like... when a character remembers NOTHING to the point where they're not informed by their actions or history at all, how are they really still the same person?

in general though I find total amnesia uninteresting. I wish it was less popular.

What did Gnagnathor DO with his power? What did he WANT from it?

The simplest version of this I know is "Gnag was hurting and wanted everyone else to hurt too. Now that he has a happy place, he doesn't want that."

TO BE CLEAR THATS FINE. That's a REALLY common power fantasy and it's not automatically a bad story. It's popular for a reason.

Personally I feel strongly about the idea, though, that people with power don't change unless they lose it. There's no reason to.

People don't change until you break the environment that contributes to the behavior.

Especially with victims unfortunately-- the ugly truth is that a lot of problematic behaviors exist because they protected the victim from their abuser's actions. You need safety to really start to unpack that.

You can personally identify it and address it as much as you want, when your abuser starts to use That Tone you will still seize up. Just try to yank yourself back into your head when you're disassociating during a screaming session; your reward is raw distress.

That said, not all villains HAVE to have tragic motivators like that, or be ex-victims at all. Leveraging power to get what you want can be as ugly as just being taught the people you're hurting are subhuman.

Or making up justifications for why This Is a Good Thing Actually.

Some people will lash out violently when these justifications fall apart, because accepting it would mean they're Being Bad

Most people have an innate desire to Be Good. Like... the vast, vast majority of people. Some sense of morality is observable in all intelligent social animals; dolphins, chimps, elephants.

Tangentially, if you understand that people don't WANT to be bad and that the natural response to a scolding is defensiveness, you understand that convincing people of something is a LOT easier when you approach with kindness.

AND IN TURN: be wary of those who are flattering while trying to convince you of something. This is Manipulation 101.

So back to Gnagnathor

Do I want to talk about environment and how it changes him to be away from power? How traits that previously earned him wealth or influence are suddenly incredibly taboo, so he can't use them here?

On that-- HOW did he get his power in the first place? Re: I'm very wary of the "correct but demonized radical" trope.

Were his minions following him because they have serious issues and he exploited their desperation? .....are you centering the experience of the poor, sad abuser over his victims

Or are they ALL united over something important and legitimate? With the redemption of their villainous leader, how are you planning for that to frame all of their former followers?

(This is why redeeming minions is usually a lot more productive than doing it to the leader, imo. Redeeming Zuko means you can explore the familial legacy, the indoctrination of the Fire Nation's children, their justifications, the way systems make monsters out of people. Redeeming The Firelord would probably have caused Azula, one of his victims, to pick up his slack and now, suddenly, you have a VERY uncomfortable situation where Ozai is thrashing one of his abused children but Good This Time.)

(Not to mention that, again... why would he do this. He has power. He's doing what he wants and is used to this situation. It would be a numbskulled narrative choice.)

Aaaand that's about all I can say without essentially being a cowriter or editor. It's on you to figure out what you're trying to do and say here. I'm a good writer on this subject because I think about it a lot, which has lead to my strong opinions and point of view. Your art is a reflection of you.

[ramshacklerumble]

1, 2 and 9 for the ask game!

1. Do you have a song that represents your OC, if so why?

i have a playlist for gia and while i have quite a few songs that i feel deeply resonate with them— a lot of them i wanna save for full blown pieces— so i went with ‘your new home’ for this ask because it’s got that exact:

THE SITUATION IS BEGINNING TO REGISTER. I CANNOT GET OUT OF THIS AND I AM EXPECTED TO DEAL. IT ALL FEELS UNREAL TO ME, BUT I BIT MYSELF EARLIER AND IT HURT, SO THERE’S THAT.

vibe i really like for gia. a comedy is only a tragedy from the character’s perspective.

2. Who is your OC’s closest platonic friend?

this one sounds kinda like a given, since gia is a yuusona, but grim is quite the pivotal thumbtack holding up gia’s life.

somewhat adjacent to the question before, gia is having something of an existential crisis in twisted wonderland. they don’t know what to do and they don’t know what to make of it. but very quickly grim gives them a lifeline to they latch onto. grim’s dream to become a great mage becomes gia’s passion project and this essentially pushes gia through day by day. (BEFORE they start becoming power hungry but that’s another conversat—)

they lean into the whole ‘henchperson’ delusion grim has going on, often asking grim what he wants to do next despite this normally being the worst action to take or simply going along with whatever he feels like doing so long as it’s not actively sabotaging his chance at graduation.

he’s a pain in the neck and he seems to take gia very much for granted, but gia comes to care deeply for grim. they eventually approach crowley to postpone sending them home— not that gia had any faith this was anywhere on the headmage’s to-do list— in order to make sure grim is able to complete his studies. they don’t tell this to their friends for a good while as they don’t like the idea of having to explain why this is.

anyway, grim is also the starting reason as to why gia begins seriously delving into studying magic for themself. if grim is to become a mage, then it falls on gia to make sure they’re not dragging him behind.

9. Who is their favorite staff member? Why?

the shadow isn't canon but it's canon in my heart

"favorite staff member" is a bit of a stretch. gia has had issues with most adults since before stepping foot in night raven college and when the school’s student body issues start to becoming a reoccurring theme in gia’s life, they become even more bitter and distrustful of them. they’ve come to see them as generally useless, if not outright nuisances.

sam is the exception to the rule.

the dynamic is delightfully transactional. he gets them whatever they need if they have the thaumarks for it and he’ll even turn a blind eye when he obviously knows what they’re buying is for projects no responsible school faculty member should be enabling. he doesn’t ask questions and he has what they’re looking for. frankly, that’s all they need sam to be.

thank you for the ask!! this is really fun to work on as a break from all the other stuff i’m working on, haha. more asks or wanna get some yourself? here!

[snek-panini]

Happy Halloween! Have a book:

This is Siren's Song by @kedreeva (Hi! I asked to bind your fic months ago, sorry it took so long XD). It's an incredible Good Omens siren AU, which needs no introduction from me but it gets one anyway. It's one of the most in-character fics I've ever read, tackles a lot of the most resonant themes of the original (love in the context of aromanticism and asexuality, human labels in the context of non-human perspective), and has incredible world-building. Later parts of the fic always make me cry but they're good tears. You'll see. When I first learned that fanbinding was a thing and started looking into how to do it, this was one of the first fics I thought of. It just took me a while to learn the skills I needed before I could do it.

More pics and process talk under the cut!

So the cover up there is black faux leather and momi paper that I bought...about two years ago? And just kept on hand till I was ready to do this project. This is the first time I've worked with it and it was fairly nice, though harder to get a nice crease into than lokta or chiyogami. It felt very fragile when I was handling it but I didn't have any issues with tearing or glue bleed-through like I thought I might. It did bleed some color when I got it damp with the glue, and it took way longer to dry than normal, but once that was done it's been fine. Which is nice because I have a lot left over, so it'll probably be making many future appearances in my binds.

Look! It's rounded! I got a backing setup recently and this is my first time using it. It was Very Hard and I am not very good at it yet. But I think it looks pretty good for a first attempt, and there was really no other way to mitigate the spine swell on this one. I used a thick paper so I've got a thick book. I also tried something new with the case, though it isn't visible. Usually I make the text block and the case separately and then attach them as the last step, but for this one I actually built the case around the text. Like, boards attached to mull/tapes (sandwiched between thinner boards, with grooves cut for them so there are no bulges), then covered with momi, then leather corners and spine, then paste down the endpaper. It's got an oxford hollow, too! The tapes and mull actually wrap around the outside of the boards instead of the inside like I've done before. Endpapers are my favorite feather chiyogami. Combined with the marbled momi they make for a very opulent look, and I had just barely enough to do this. Like, down to the millimeter. I had to trim the edges and then glue the endpapers after to be sure they were right. I'm glad they were, because I didn't have a backup plan. Handmade endbands, colors picked to match the cover. Also, last note, I got the corner bits right for the first time. Measured properly, with no weird pointy bits that come out at funny angles. Very proud.

Title page and bookmark/interior shot. Did you know that some basic fonts in MS Word look different when you use a huge font size? Because I didn't until I made this title page. That's Parchment for the title, and it only gets those swirly bits around the capital letters if you take it to 26pt or higher (I used 72 here). Now I wonder if any of the other fonts have easter eggs in them like that. The ribbon is very fancy, to go along with the rich endpaper/cover combo. I think it's pretty appropriate for a mythological golden age of piracy story, as are the text ornaments:

Chapter header image, chapter end image, and section break image. It was a very image-heavy typeset. I was originally planning to only have a header and a section break, but I couldn't decide whether I liked the ships or the book/shell/feather better, and they both suited the story so well that I just went with both. Again, opulent, but I think it fits. All the images came from rawpixel, all I did was resize them.

There was a small error in the trimming process. Comes of having to calculate so closely the exact amount you can trim off, that you have to trim off so your slightly-too-small endpapers fit. I think something got misaligned when I poked the sewing holes because only the first signature is like this. The rest of the book has a more appropriately-sized margin between the page number and the edge. I got very lucky here, and I know it, and I'm never cutting it this close (lol) again. Next time we just order another sheet of chiyogami.

And that's it! I have one author's copy and one new bind in progress right now (that's taking a while because I'm learning more new stuff for it), and then I have two Christmas gift books to do, so it might be a bit before I have another book to share.

[theediviners]

𝘗𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘢 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘥 - 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴

Collaborative reading between @daarlingdatura, @neptunianspell, @astrodoll2, & our newest member @m00nt4r0t !!

PILE ONE @daarlingdatura

So while I was shuffling I heard the number 8. So I do believe that a majority of the people in this pile likely have 8 spirit guides.

So first of all, your twin flame is actually one of your spirit guides. What I’ll do here is break down the 3 most prominent spirit guides and talk about who they are, what their energy is & why they chose you. GUIDE #1 Your Twin Flame their energy? We have: the comic, aletheia, the healer, and the temple. The moon rx, the 10 of cups, temperance rx, and the 6 of cups.

So as we see with the comic and the 6 of cups, they are a very jokey type of person. I get the idea they could purposefully prank you sometimes by making cards fly out of your deck- or maybe even blowing on the back of your neck. I’m really getting peter pan energy here lowkey. I feel that your twin flame gatekeeps a lot of information & energy for you. They lowkey do a lot of transmutation for you as well, they upkeep a lot in the physical and spiritual realms for you. Whenever you feel alone, just know that your other half is right there with you. I do see herer that this is also a very nurturing and healing energy, your twin flame is likely very sweet. They could bring sweets into your life. I keep seeing red roses and red indian paintbrushes (flower). I also believe that your twin flame brings a lot of hard truths to you. Unfortunately, they are very jokey.. and like to do it in ways that piss you off. I feel that they want you to learn to loosen up and laugh sometimes. You can get so caught up in your stress, anxiety, day to day mundane life that you forget to smile.

I don’t think I really need to elaborate on why your twin flame chose you, like… they are you.. So I will move on to the next guide now.

Guide #2

This guide doesn’t seem fully ready to reveal to you who they are yet. Although I did just hear the name “nathan” so idk if that will resonate with anyone.. But- anyways.

Let’s get into this guide’s energy,

The Storm, The Poet, The Heart, The Thread Creation, The Secret, Truth rx The Hierophant rx, The Lovers, The Chariot, Justice rx, Judgement

So, this is a very groundshaking and uncomfortable yet comforting and genuine energy. You are karmically connected in some way to this spirit guide, as the thread card literally has a red string in it. (The red string of fate.) Perhaps you were lovers in a past life? (im seeing a theme here lmao), anyways…. I feel that this guide brings uncomfortable and life altering truths and situations to the forefront in order for you to find completion. They may be rather harsh, and when you act out of line they may be a fan of “poetic justice” lol. I definitely see that they are hard on you and want to see you doing right by yourself and others. I Feel really as if they are a life line in many ways. In some of your lowest times they can bring in energy, resources, and other needed things in order to help you stay afloat. It seems like even if they don’t act like it they do genuinely have a soft spot for you. They could rally like the color blue, I keep seeing blue bonnet flowers. I also heard bluebells? I feel like they want you to make better decisions and be more clear with your intentions as well? They feel like you slack at times in friendships or important connections or overlook details that you deem minor but actually mean a lot in the long run. I also see that this is a very non-traditional type of spirit guide in terms of how they teach or guide you with the way the hierophant is in reverse here.

I asked why did they choose you?

I have here the lovers, the queen of cups, and the 10 of swords. It’s possible that in a past life you died before him, or perhaps he mistreated you? He wanted to make things right. They really care for you and want to help you heal a karmic cycle they created.

Guide #3

This honestly made me really emotional. Your third spirit guide is some kind of mother figure. This feels extremely sacred to me.

The Eternal Child, The Heart, The Orphan. The Moon, Ascension, Entanglement, The Path. The Queen of cups, the ace of wands rx, the 9 of swords rx, strength, the high priestess

This energy is beautiful and nurturing, this feels very ephemeral. It’s interesting because it really to me feels like this is a divine mother energy. It’s possible you have been neglected in many lifetimes as a child- including this one. You may not have had much and she has always done her best to provide for you ever since you were young. I’m not sure if you were neglected physically as a child- or like ever dealt with malnourishment or hunger- but I do see that she did what she could. I saw when I closed my eyes before I began shuffling a woman with flowing black hair. A blue dress, and very beautiful pale skin. It was interesting, because that’s how the high priestess looks in my tarot deck. She is an energy that might feel confusing at times, not purposefully- but because it is extremely lunar. This is someone you have known over and over. I would not be surprised if this was not a human. I honestly keep thinking of Hekate. I don’t want to jump to conclusions though. As I am not well acquainted enough with Hekate to speak on this. Anyways. She is here to bring you wholeness. She helps you work through your anger and anxiety, she may be a very comforting presence for you. Someone you can lean on & talk to about absolutely anything. Light a black or blue candle and maybe leave some cornflower as well around the candles. She seems to like hard candies as well? Peppermints, swedish fish, banana laffy taffy?

She chose you because you are her child, and she wishes to protect you.  -------

PILE TWO @m00nt4r0t

intuitive messages from your guides!

you have a specific flow to you that your guides do not want you to move against or change for any reason. if your flow changes, then you are being asked to flow with it instead of against it. you are also being asked to start of slow/gentle with something, and then pick up the pace naturally over time, sort of like a race but this doesn't have to be in terms of competition. something about your dreams is significant. you could be getting important messages from your dreams, although they may be very confusing and difficult to decipher. for some reason i am not under the impression that it's important for you to decipher them right after you wake up, but more-so over time. somethings may not make a whole lot of sense to you right now, but it will eventually. also, if you have not been meditating, you're being asked to incorporate meditation into your daily routine because it cleanses and purifies your energy and thoughts. my heart felt activated and then i heard a mini explosion from outside so i think there's going to be something that happens to you very soon that makes you very very happy, and you'll feel very loved; you'll also have a lot of love to give back as well.

who are your spirit guides?

[the hanged man + two of pentacles + six of wands] before i pulled any cards, i kept being called by the ocean but i wanted to make sure that was accurate so then i pulled the hanged man which is correlated to pisces energy. so your spirit guides could be from the ocean or it is literally the energy of the ocean that is guiding you. there is so much unknown information about the ocean and what it holds within it, which is making me think that there are aspects to your spirit guides that they wish to keep hidden. that, or their energy just goes so deep that it's inaccessible to very many people who are scared to go that deep. your guides may also be a bit playful but also very serious; i'm getting laborinth energy. they may make things purposefully confusing in order to test your imagination and expand your mind. your guides are spirits who are very adament about their time and energy and they're also very well known to the public, so a lot of people may know about this spirit/deity/god/goddess. the most obvious one that came to mind is aphrodite because we all know she was born from the sea and quite literally everyone knows of her. however, she's not the only guide i'm picking up on. there's someone else who is helping you financially, but they aren't the type to give you everything you ask for right away. they'll have you put in effort and revaluate why you feel you need this and make you question what you're truly working for and if it's even worth it. also, your guides seem to be the type to sort of toss you into new waters to test your adaptability. i can see them being like "oh, you've never wrote a song before? okay well here's a music offer that you can't deny and you're going to write a song by this date at this specific time and you're going to do it whether you think it's good or not." they may not be that harsh, but i do see that they want to test your abilities and have you expand your horizons. this is because they see all of your potential and they want you max it out! they're going to bring you success and even public recognition in some way or another.

the energy of your spirit guides!

[strength + three of wands reversed + eight of pentacles reversed] i think your spirit guides like to downplay their energy? they kind of give me trickster energy but not in a malicious way. like i said i do think they're playful with you lol. but i'm also getting that they like attention and they may require a bit more effort from you than other spirits would require. they don't want to be forgotten about. however they do have a disciplined energy to them and they don't want anything to be too in excess. they care very much about self-improvement and they do want to see you put in work for what you want and work into your relationship with them. your spirit guides have the energy of growth and expansion and this is what they're here to help you to do, as well. i feel like they may not give you things as easily as you may wish they would; they want you to meet them halfway or 3/4ths of the way, to be honest. they definitely do like to test your strength and see how hard you're willing to work and how far you're willing to go. you may get frustrated with them sometimes, but i think that they feel proud of you whenever you do?? they like whenever you stand up for yourself, as well as when you set boundaries and put your foot down; this is also what they're teaching you to do. they see a lot of potential in you and they want you to fulfill it, and you can't fulfill it if you're getting everything you want by the snap of your finger. you can't challenge yourself and expand when you're sitting in your comfort zone; this is the logic they go by. although your spirit guides can be a bit playful with you at times, they feel very stern and they do have high expectations of you. they have this idealized "perfect" version of you and they are pushing you to reach that. i do feel like there's a mixed energy and your other spirit guides (who are more playful) tell the other ones to chill out and cut you some slack. i can sense a bit of conflict among your guides, but i do feel like they balance each other out!

why your guides chose to guide you!

[three of pentacles reversed + death + king of swords] your guides chose to guide you because there's this "loner" energy to you. even if you're working with a lot of people, you sort of go off on your own and do your own thing. you prefer to work by yourself and your guides know this and like this about you because you're less likely to become distracted and influenced by others. you're also someone who has gone through many different changes and transitions, which proves that you're fit for the growth and expansion that your guides expect from you. since the king of swords is sitting by death, i do think that you speak clearly with them and those who are on the spirit realm. you're able to understand signs and synchronicties which is obviously extremely useful to them. they don't have to send you a million different versions of the same message in order for you to get it, you're quick at understanding their language. also, since you usually prefer to be/work alone, you don't have others in your ear telling you that you're "crazy" for believing in the divine or trying to convince you to do something else aka straying you away from your purpose. your guides chose you because you tend to view everyone as equal, even if they are extremely rich, very beautiful, very talented, etc. you don't like to put people on high pedestals in life. this doesn't mean you don't recognize that some people just simply do certain things better than others, but you don't treat people differently according to these types of things which your guides really like about you. your guides chose you because you're prepared for battle, although you do not instigate it, and you come hard with the facts and truth rather than trying to hurt people's feelings. you do not need a whole friend group behind you in order to feel powerful and stand your ground. overall, your spirit guides chose to guide you because you are a very easy channel and you're able to decipher messages clearly, you're very powerful and able to get things done on your own, and you're very fair when it comes to how you treat people.

--------- PILE THREE @astrodoll2

I specifically got that you have 4 spirit guides💐

Spirit guide #1

This is someone who you had a very close friendship with that later on formed into a relationship in a past life, this is someone who you experienced a lot of love and fulfillment with, you guys always had a good time together and many fun memories, this is someone who cares about you deeply, this is a soulmate, they choose you to guide you to the right directions, you can call on them whenever you need strength to keep pushing forward and whenever you need clarity on a confusing situation they will bring you the answers. Whenever you go through heartbreak especially romantically you can call on them to bring you love or make you feel loved in that moment, the message I got from them is “I’ve never met anyone like you” I see that they were very in love with you when you were together. They want to remind you that the people you meet are not coincidences and they are bringing you closer to your life purpose. Also know that you’re never alone because they’re always with you. Their energy is very warm and inviting.

Spirit guide #2

So sadly enough I actually have 2 of your parents here as guides whether it may be you lost someone in this life or these are past life parents you once had so this one is your mother

She choose to be your guide to help you heal, she’s coming up as the warrior, she is someone who is very strong, considering I have both your parents here and I can see the difference in their energies I feel like your mother was the one who was a little more stern or strict than the father, but it was because she was very protective over you, she always the best for you, she’s here to help you form boundaries, forgive others who hurt you so you can have peace of mind but know when it’s time to walk away. She will remove others from your life when they no longer serve you and I promise you she is very picky with who she allows in your life, she wants you to learn your own lessons of course but she still has this very protective motherly energy over you who worries a lot. With the message of “we just can’t be together right now” I feel like she misses you alot, you can call on her when you need help with spirituality, your psychic powers, when you’re giving birth or creating new things/ artistic abilities, also to help heal your inner child. I don’t know if the name Marina is significant to you but I heard that.

Spirit guide #3

Your father from a past life or current if you lost them in this one, it’s interesting because even if they’re not here physically they still have that fatherly provider energy, if you ever need help with finances call on them and they will help bring the right opportunities to you, they may attract alot of fortune to you if you ask for it, they love watching over you which is why they chose you they’re just as protective as your mom but have more of a playful energy they may have been those type of adults that refused to grow up or lose their childish side, and because of that they like bringing light hearted events into your life, and making you laugh. They miss you greatly and this is someone that for some reason you guys may have not had closure maybe in a past life it didn’t end on the best terms and they deeply regret that, maybe they weren’t as present enough or feel like they didn’t give you enough which is probably why they also chose to be your guide, to give to you the things they couldn’t on earth. They want to remind you to get out of your head and this imprisonment you may put yourself in at times, you’re free to do whatever you want don’t let anxiety hold you back, but on the other hand if there are doors closed on your face know that it’s for a reason or simply not the right time.

Spirit guide #4

(I say she here but remember to switch the pronouns to whatever suits you)

This is your higher self, they seem very mature ofc because they’re experienced but they seem to purposely hand you challenges to see if you’ve learned your lesson or not, like if you’ve been put in many similar situations with people or circumstances and you know what the outcome will be are you going to choose a different path or are you going to have to make yourself repeat the same lesson?, they are that inner voice that guides you, if you want to connect with your higher self more mediation and being in a quiet place Is recommend. They get frustrated with you when you don’t make long term plans, miss opportunities because you think the results will be too slow, they also want you to make better financial judgments and decisions. Your higher self is funny she is someone very direct so if you ever need an answer to something she won’t sugar coat and will make sure the answer is right in your face so you have no excuses but to take it for face value. Her message is “you’ll hear from me soon” so watch out for any downloads you may receive soon or any synchronicities/signs know that they’re from her trying to tell you something. She loves when you introspect because that’s when you’ll hear from her most since this is a very mental energy. All the answers are within.

------------ PILE FOUR @neptunianspell

who are your spirit guides?

your spirit guides consist mostly of ancestors and one deity whose name or role i cannot identify at the moment but i hear that they appear often in your dreams. you come from a long line of hard working, strong people that had to sacrifice so much in order to make a living. it might not resonate for immediate family but rather generations that had walked the earth long before you were born. they seem a bit possessive over you? in the way that they are so attached i could feel them right from the moment i started pulling cards. i know that guides (based on my knowledge) have left their ego behind but yours are making me feel some type of rage. they could be angry at those who have caused harm to you and whenever something similar happens, they take immediate action. i wonder if the deity i was speaking could be one that harbours a lot of force like ares or athena, because now I am starting to feel very driven. i don't get much information if i am being honest, as if your guides would prefer more privacy (and something is telling me they want you to keep certain details to yourself as well). it's a weird thing for me to say but they are honestly cool??? like the type of guides anyone would want to have because they are so inspirational and badass yet humble? they have a very grounded energy which isn't overwhelming yet it creates an impression. this reading is all over the place and disorganized and so is my way of expressing the channeled message but i always take it as a sign that there is something that needs to be discovered by the person who is receiving the reading. now, when i think about that specific deity my mind goes to a hawk and i am sensing that they are the one you should go to for advice and direction in life. they follow you every step of the way, trying to pull you towards the right side and sending a specific angel number you frequently see. they might even visit your dreams as a hidden figure who is half present, half distant and you can't make out who they are. as for your ancestors, most of them could be women and their role is to help you grow specifically? one of them is tougher than the rest in particular and any time you make a wrong choice, that is either morally incorrect or immature, they give you somewhat of a spiritual slap. it comes as the air being knocked out of you or tripping over nothing. another one comes to you when the night approaches and watches you in your sleep, most of the messages received then being sent by them!

what are their messages?

lovely, you are doing a great job with your healing! i know thongs haven't been going exactly the way you've expected or you believe your progress is slower than you would have wanted but that couldn't be further from the truth. all that tough energy from before has now turned into an ocean of love and warmth, your guides wishing you could feel how proud they are of you! you need to take more breaks, especially after you work or you put your energy into something draining and allow yourself to enjoy just the present. they also want you to continue shadow work and introspection and make it a main focus in the few months to come. i got the ten of cups and in my deck, the image represents a parental figure embracing her children in a happy, content way. this shows me that you should pay attention to your own inner child's needs and wants. play with it more! try to think about the positive moments from your past and really embody that innocent energy, no matter what your age is. i am just feeling as if you should not pay that much attention to the future but more the present moment and past moments that have a special place in your heart. there is always calm before the storm and by this, your guides are telling you there are great things to come, it's just that you need to be still for now. there is a male in your life represented by the emperor that has to go is what they show me. whether it's a friend, coworker or a lover, someone with a masculine energy has been causing you to feel tired, as if they suck you dry of energy. it doesn't have to be a male, it can be a woman too whose personality is very similar to this card's.

[cryptids-and-muses]

Post canon homestuck crew play Dungeons and Dragons

Karkat and terezi

Co dms

Unstoppable when actually working together

Terezi will get sidetracked messing with karkat

Karkat trying to write a deep and well fleshed out campaign that’s thematically resonant vs terezi’s desire for chaos and traps and trying to “trick” her players FIGHT

Terezi believes in karma and will make the world bend to this

Karkat is trying to set up romance arcs and argues about how it adds to the theming

Dave draws them fanart of their characters. Terezi loves it while karkat argues about accuracy before admitting yes he also appreciates it

Calliope also does fanart and karkat praises her skill and accuracy unlike some people

John

Arcane trickster rogue

Forest gnome

Just a goofy little guy!

Mostly just playing to have fun, starts off with a fun but simple character who develops over time

Ends up SUPER invested and taking this so so seriously

Karkat worked a dramatic reveal into the, in his words, “bare ass bones two paragraphs that a fucking wiggler could have written backstory” and John did not see it coming and loved it

Goes head to head with terezi a lot on her various traps she designs for them. She is getting more and more absurd with it. Karkat had to talk to her about breaking the world building with things she’s introducing. He is the only rogue. Send help.

Rose

Drow warlock

Tries to justify picking drow as anything other than she just thought it was cool

Nearly went old ones for patron but settled on archfey for story reasons

Has a 10 page lore document detailing her tragic past and her toxic relationship with her patron

It became 15 pages after going back and forth with karkat for a bit and adding even more

Only her and one other person are taking the romance arcs seriously and they become karkat’s favorite players

Tries playing morally ambiguous but terezi can be annoying about that and claims it’s just “the consequences of her actions”

Her and karkat both get very very into the scenes between her and her patron, the drama! The acting! Dave is uncomfortable and karkat brushes it off, it’s not like him role playing as his sister’s abusive girlfriend is weird. It’s in fact very important to the plot Dave

Has written fanfic of the campaign

Jade

Dragonborn barbarian

Path of the beast

Don’t ask me I just know

Her GLEE when she says “I’m gonna rage :D”

ANIMAL COMPANION! She nearly went ranger just for that but knew she wouldn’t have as much fun. Found a way to get one anyway.

It was harder naming her animal companion than her character

Having fun and likes the problem solving side of things, but likes breaking things with her massive strength just as much

Terezi likes to throw stuff at her, both traps and encounters, and finds it funny if she can just wreck her way through

“See John that’s how you deal with a pressure plate trap”

Takes the rp side of things very seriously

Once argued with Karkat over if her favorite npc would do that and cursed him out

Has read roses fanfic of the campaign

Dave

Plays a teifling with grey skin and orange horns

“What are you talking about karkat this is just my dude, don’t you like him?”

Hellus Jeffus

He’s a valor bard, eventually multiclasses paladin

Starts out just trying to mess with people but like John starts getting into it, though he tries to down play it

Have hellus more of himself than he realized and it’s making him face things about himself

Eventually hellus self sacrifices to save the party in this deeply intense moment. There were tears, Dave was wrecked, they went on a whole quest to revive him. It was touching and karkat is smug

Dave might have worked through some things

Jane

Halfling cleric

Her and John are small buddies!!!

Started out life but wasn’t having a lot of fun with it so with terezi’s permission switched to war or tempest with later s few levels in fighter

Her John and Jade are the biggest front liners, John’s character ends up really close with both of them as it’s easier for the rogue to bond with the person giving them sneak attack

Jade and jane’s character have an in game arm wrestling match

Took a bit to get into the rp side of things but eventually got the hang of it

Roxy

Tabaxi, easily, it’s so obvious

After much deliberation settles on glamour bard (though wizard and rogue were tempting for the joke, she wanted to branch out)

So many horny bard jokes but very little actual follow through, karkat gets frustrated by this as she’s all this talk but isn’t pursuing any of the romance options he’s giving her

She has SECRETS! She is HIDING THINGS!! Her cheery persona is a FASADE!!!

Cue complaining to karkat about how hard it is to wait to tell the others about her secrets and him threatening violence if she tells anyone before the in game reveal

She tells jake

Lots of egging on Dave and helping him with his fucking around

The BOND between her and Dave!!! They are the duo to end all duos. Team rocket type shit. There is nothing stronger than the bond between the bards of the party. My theory is it has to do with trading bardic inspiration.

Dirk

Half elf Druid circle of spores

Wildfire seemed fun to him but wasn’t as good

Wasn’t originally planning on being a Druid but after going over all the classes he liked all the customization and decisions that go into Druid like prepared spells and such

Didn’t really think about his backstory much, just improved something. He keeps improving new additions and it’s getting more and more elaborate and complicated. He has multiple hidden and long lost siblings by this point. Still doesn’t write any of this down. If he messes a detail up he justified it with more improv.

Yes his character has spiked up red hair and sunglasses. Don’t question how the Druid got sunglasses karkat.

Really likes the tactics side of things, he’s even pitched a few things to terezi she updated and later worked in

Sometimes works on plans and strategies out of game or making a million back up characters that play off the others in interesting mechanical ways

Is considering becoming a dm some time

Jake

Needed some help making his character, he just didn’t know where to start

Eventually after much discussion settles on a teifling bladesong wizard

Wanting to get away from his usual adventurer style Roxy helped with the backstory and they came up with this evil scientist raised in a cult who’s good hearted but was never taught right and wrong

He gets very into playing him and his moral struggle but can lean a little too good for his backstory, karkat points this out and Jake swears to get better at it

Dave pitched a lot of names for them and it was eventually settled on “Bernard Gunn” even though he has a sword. Jake just likes how it sounds

“Why is he blue jake?” “…..uhhh” “why is he blue?”

Calliope

SHE LOVES THIS SO MUCH

Teifling Druid with a focus on healing

Circle of shepards

Not a troll color pallet like Dave though, honestly it might get a bit trickster

Beautiful backstory that she coordinated with one of the others to make joint. The most obvious choice is Roxy but I think it was actually jade, Jane or John.

She gets so into it you guys, like so into it

Gives at least one dramatic speech completely on the fly

The other character who takes karkat’s romance arcs seriously and his other favorite player

Has also argued with terezi about world building and consistency. This may put her above rose in karkat’s eyes

Was also allowed to read rose’s fanfiction and offered full on reviews

Also considering going into doing but for the opposite reasons to Dirk

Vriska

Fairy artillerist artificer with a dip in war magic wizard

Min maxxed to hell and back

(Technically there was a better race, but fairy has its own advantages and she couldn’t resist)

An elaborate backstory too with some secrets of her own, I’m thinking full on lost princess

Yes she is That Player, you know the one

Has nearly been kicked multiple times and now won’t leave on principle

Not the best at sticking with the party and not just doing whatever she wants, but suprisingly Dirk has been able to talk her into it with his talk of tactics and playing smart

Second most effective is John who just looks at her like “vriska you’re not making this very fun :(“

Kanaya

Fire genasi ranger

Really tried to get into it but this just isn’t her thing so eventually decided to leave the group

Karkat came up with a fun story reason for her to leave and eventually brought her character back as an Npc

Did help rose make a cosplay of her character, after which John, Calliope, and Roxy wanted to make ones too

Vriska eventually tried to “manipulate” into helping her make one for her character

[silverwhittlingknife]

I noticed something in a lot of your Dick and Tim fics. It's probably so obvious, but you always write that Tim is watching Dick. In your newest one, Tim's watching Dick, in The Return Tim's watching Dick, and you even write that Tim is always watching him. Is Tim trying to read Dick? Trying to understand? Or does he understand him by watching? What is he trying to figure out by watching Dick? What does that say about Tim? I really hope this is intentional lmao because I would be embarrassed. Maybe this is just something so obvious that I'm just getting now.

YES IT’S ON PURPOSE <333 Anon. Anon. I'm so sorry this answer took forever, but listen, this was a really delightful ask <333 I think about this a lot.  I really love origin stories—I like stories that resonate through a character’s history. 

And for me, a whole lot of what interests me about Dick and Tim is that theme of watching and being watched. Seeing and being seen.

"Watch me on the trapeze, Tim. I'm going to do my act...'specially for you." | "Timmy, don't look." | "I turned away... I couldn't watch. Then I heard you crying and I turned back... I'm sorry, Dick. I didn't want to hurt you by telling you all this." Dick's watching me. Gauging my reactions. (Tim watching Dick watching Tim!) | "I'm taking off the blindfold." "No!" | "I can't see him. You can't see him. But I know Robin. And Robin's always there when you need him." | I love that kid. Too much to let him see me like this. (But Tim spots him anyway.)

Spotlights and lighthouses and cameras and photographs. Blindness and vision and masks and detective work and trust.

I'm going to try to be coherent about this but it's gonna be incoherent sdfsf BUT I'M GOING TO TRY so. Below the cut, a really long grab-bag of my rambling on vision and watchers and watching.

Tim + watching / Dick + being watched / different dynamics

Tim's origin story

Being watched goes with vulnerability/exposure

Incomplete list of moments with Dick and Tim and vision

Tim + watching

The first time we see Tim's face in LPoD: a close-up on his eyes looking for Dick, a close-up on his eyes at the moment that he sees Dick, a pullback to his face at the moment of recognition, a pullback to his face + his camera (you could maybe even argue that Tim comes into existence at the moment that he sees Dick, like, conceptually. the act of seeing is his defining characteristic. it is the thing that makes his character happen. he is the kid who's watching.)

Tim's a very vision-centric character: he's first introduced as a camera, then as a pair of binoculars, then as a pair of eyes. His whole backstory is about watching: watching Dick's parents die, watching Dick on TV, watching Batman and Robin. I've grabbed a few panels above with Tim watching Dick but there are so many more. His major deductions are all vision-based: he sees Dick-the-acrobat and later recognizes Dick-as-Robin; he sees Bruce-in-the-past and recognizes him as Bruce-of-our-time; the climactic moment in Red Robin is about going into a dark cave with a torch so he can see what's there.

And he's a detective. He pries into secrets. He analyzes people. He's a worrywart and a fusser who always wants to understand what's going on with other people. In a lot of those panels where Tim's watching Dick, his inner monologue is busy deducing Dick's emotions and trying to psychoanalyze him. Tim's caring and watchful and intuitive... but all those qualities also make him very very intrusive.

Dick + being watched

Dick performing acrobatics for Bruce, Donna, and Tim in Detective Comics 38 (his first appearance), New Teen Titans 16, Batman 441, and Nightwing 88 (where he reflects he's glad to be back in the hot glare of the spotlight)

Dick's a detective too, of course - Tim deliberately mirrors Dick, both in-universe and out-of-universe. But also Dick's a performer who loves being watched and also wants to control how he's seen. He gets a kick out of showing off, making puns, kicking ass, taking names, and he gets a kick out of having an appreciative audience. And he's got a kind of yearning for recognition - it hurts, when Bruce won't look at him, and in fights with Bruce, Babs, Roy, he'll often bring up the past, trying to get them to acknowledge a shared history.

At the same time, he's a very private person who withdraws and hides and pushes people away when he's upset. Right before Tim shows up, Dick's just ghosted the Titans because he's having emotional turmoil and doesn't want to have it in front of them, and they're trying to respect his wishes... but that solitude doesn't last long, because then Tim tracks him down. Tim will do this again when Dick's having an emotional crisis and trying to avoid everybody in Nightwing 110.

Possible dynamics

Tim watches Dick in Robin 11, while silently analyzing Dick's anxieties about Two-Face

"The watcher and the person being watched" is a dynamic that really interests me, partly because it can be so complicated?

You can see in Dick and Tim their very first roles: enthusiastic performer and the enthusiastic audience member. Dick likes to perform and show off and entertain; Tim likes to watch; those are roles they both easily slide into and they have a lot of fun together! But also you can look at the harsher side: the crime victim and the voyeur, the amateur photographer and the guy who hates being photographed. Dick's intensely private about his vulnerabilities; Tim's intrusive and watchful and constantly trying to figure out how other people tick. Sometimes Tim's the caring friend who watches Dick closely, reads him well, understands him; sometimes he's the nosy mini-detective who pries into Dick's secrets. And that's just two different ways of describing the same thing!

One of the things that kinda fascinates me about Dick and Tim's relationship is that in a lot of ways it's built on a bunch of low-key boundary violations. A lot of their early relationship is driven by Tim's desire to know more about Dick vs. Dick's reluctance to get close to anyone from Gotham; Tim's often out-of-line, but without his pushiness, it's hard to see how they would've developed a relationship at all. Later on, their friendlier relationship is marked by Dick teasing and low-key bullying Tim; it's pretty obvious that Tim isn't actually bothered by this, but it does involve Dick ignoring whatever Tim's claiming he doesn't like ("Quit it!" "Shh").

And one of the aspects of those boundary-violations is that Tim has a habit of witnessing things that Dick would prefer that nobody see. Tim's a witness to Dick's first and most miserable tragedy; he sees the aftermath of some of Dick's fights with Bruce; he's there when Donna dies. And he's sharp and observant and analytical, and I like to imagine this as being something Dick's not entirely comfortable with.

When Dick first meets Tim, it's before he's learned to wear a mask. And Tim spends a lot of time trying to see through Dick's masks, and he's pretty good at it, and a lot of that prying comes from love and care, because one of the ways that Tim shows love and respect and admiration is by trying to absorb absolutely everything about you, like a little sponge. But there's also something unsparing and even threatening about the search for the truth of someone else. It can be comforting or threatening, to know someone's watching you.

And I love how all that complexity is wrapped up in Tim's origin story? Both the giddy childish "Watch me on the trapeze" and then the awful grim reality of what Tim actually sees as a result and then the difficult connection when Dick and Alfred finally get Tim to explain how he knows their secret identities.

Tim's origin story

Tim (recounting his origin story in LPoD): My parents held me back as the thing moved to you. I cried out to warn you. (Two panels where we see just Tim's eyes, as he watches a crying Dick. He sees Batman approach and start trying to comfort Dick.)

I think fiction sometimes presents "being understood / seen / known" as an uncomplicatedly good thing, and there's nothing wrong with that! But I like complications, and I like the way Tim's origin story frames that moment of witnessing as difficult and fraught. Tim doesn't want to tell Dick how he knows their secret identities because he thinks it'll hurt Dick to know it: I don't want to hurt you, Dick, and I'm really afraid I might. And he's not wrong. It is painful; it does hurt; it's not something Dick's happy to know.

Dick's a very private person, and there's a painful intimacy to Tim's origin story - it's not Tim's fault he was there, but at the same time, it's not like Dick chose to have the most traumatic moment of his life on stage in front of an audience of strangers, you know? It's kind of a violation. In NTT/NT/Nightwing, Dick's pretty violently hostile to photographers, and he's intensely private about trauma in general, and I like to imagine this as partly a reaction to that foundational trauma of losing the most important people in his life and also doing it publicly.

And Tim's part of that audience. And he sees the worst part, the part that Dick can't talk about. He sees the bodies and the blood. He has nightmares about it for years. He hears Dick crying and sees him holding onto his parents' bodies. Not at all the kind of first impression Dick would want to make. Not at all the kind of person he wants to be seen as. And that understanding can be painful, because it's so close to the bone, and when Tim's just a stranger, it's upsetting, because Tim knows things that Dick would never have chosen for him to know. Their few conversations about it are awkward partly because Tim's thirteen and awkward... but at the same time, it's not Tim's fault so much as the situation! There's no way for Tim to talk about what he saw that wouldn't be uncomfortable for Dick.

... And yet, and yet. Tim's also one of the last people to see the Graysons alive. He sees Dick and his parents together; he even takes a picture with them. He remembers the whole thing so vividly he'll recognize Dick's somersault years later. He sees the grief. And so I think of that connection as kind of a metaphor for witnessing. Tim sees these things and they become real; Dick can't hide from them; in the act of being seen he's caught, he's in a spotlight, all the grief made real. You can't hide, that way. And Tim's got this unforgiving memory; he won't ever forget; he won't ever stop knowing.

But then, too: Dick's seen, he's known. Even at the very beginning, when Tim doesn't know enough to understand what he knows, he knows the important things.

So that shared memory is a barrier and a bond between them. It can be a source of discomfort or a source of comfort. And that's how I think about Tim watching Dick in general - it's complicated, and sometimes Dick's glad of it, and sometimes he resents it, and also it just is, it's a fact of Tim, that Tim watches. It's notable when he's not watching, when he's turned away.

Being watched goes with vulnerability/exposure

So I'm going to talk about the fraught feeling of being watched more in a little bit, but first: I think it's fascinating that Dick likes screwing around with games where Tim can't see!

Here's Nightwing 25 - Dick's come up with the idea of trainsurfing while blindfolded:

Tim: Are you sure this is such a good idea? Dick: Shh! Listen. Tune into the changing sounds and - Tim: I'm not so - Dick: JUMP!

Here's Robin 49 - clambering through a tunnel into No Man's Land:

Dick: Hard not to think about the river. All the water above us. And bugs. This tunnels' probably full of 'em. And rats. Big ones. Big blind rats with teeth as long as -

Here's Gotham Knights 9 - ambushing Tim in a sorta game of hide-and-seek:

Dick: Gotcha! Tim: Augh!

I feel like mmm I don't want to emphasize power dynamics too much because it's easy to overplay it BUT when I think about headcanons it's interesting to me to think about how maybe when Tim can't see, Dick's more in charge / in control, and so he feels more comfortable and less vulnerable, and that's often when he's most relaxed and playing around the most?

Whereas the moments when Tim's looking at him are often a bit more fraught, as here in Lonely Place of Dying:

Tim: I'm sorry, Dick. I really am. I didn't want to hurt you by telling you all this. Dick... Dick: It's all right, Tim. No matter how old you are, there are some things you never forget. Or get over. (Silent panel: Tim's watching Dick as Dick turns away and stares into the window.)

Or here in Nightwing 6, when Tim wakes him up from a nightmare:

Dick (internally, imagining a kid falling): He shouts to me. He always shouts to me. I never hear what he says. Tim: Nightwing! Wake up!

Or here in Gotham Knights 26, when Bruce is accused of murder:

(Silent panel where Tim's watching Dick.) Tim: I'm sorry. This must be hard for you. Dick: Me? Why? Tim: Well, I mean, it'd be one thing if we really knew he was innocent, but as it is - Dick: Wait, what? Stop right there. What are you saying, Tim?

Here's Tim spotting him before he can get away in Nightwing 110:

Dick (watching Tim from a distance, internally): Still, Timmy played it through nice and clean. Disarmed the perps, protected and avoided the cops. Kept any civilians from getting shot. God, I love that kid. Too much to let him see me like this. Tim: Hey! (appearing on the roof above him, fake-cheerful) You weren't gonna leave without saying hi, were you? Dick (looking away, very quietly): Hey, Timmy. Tim: Look at you, man! Back on both feet! Think you're done stopping bullets with your body for a while? Dick: Hope springs eternal. (Silent panel with Tim watching Dick, who's turned away.) Tim: You okay, Dick? Dick: I'm fine. Tim: Well, where're you staying these days? Dick: With some people.

Of course, sometimes Tim's watchfulness is frustrating but also a comfort, as in Detective Comics 874:

Tim (watching Dick, who's looking away): Are you listening to me, Batman? I'm saying the gas the Dealer used on you was powerful stuff. Dick: I'm fine, Red Robin. Besides...you're here now. Tim: You're not fine. And with or without me, you shouldn't be out on patrol ye - Dick: Sshhh. Here they come.

(Later in the comic, Dick mentally concedes that Tim's right that he hasn't really recovered from the gas, and Tim saves him from drowning when he's hallucinating. So Dick feels kind of exposed by the scrutiny, but also... he invited Tim along, so there's trust there, too - Tim's perceptiveness can be a good thing, too, when things are serious.)

Incomplete summary of moments with Dick and Tim and vision

I think I already mentioned a lot of these but here is my LIST

almost the first thing that Dick says to Tim is "watch me on the trapeze, Tim" and then Tim does and he basically never stops watching;

Tim watches Dick's parents die and watches Dick sobbing on-stage and watches him on TV and recognizes him by seeing a particular trick because he's dreamed about Dick doing the trick in his recurring nightmares about that night;

in New Titans 65 which is their very first team-up comic after Tim's origin, Dick's training pre-Robin Tim and gives him a test about watching for details and later Tim's takeaway is "I saw how [the Titans] listened to you";

there's a moment in Showcase '93 12 which is just Tim watching Dick and analyzing what's going on with him and there's another moment in Prodigal which is the same thing;

in Nightwing 6 Tim sneaks into Dick's apartment and hides in the dark and Dick spots him and tackles him; one of their most important bonding comics is Nightwing 25, where Dick insists on blindfolding him to get him to rely less on vision; when they sneak into No Man's Land they're in the dark and Tim can't see again and Dick's teasing him;

there are multiple moments when Tim can't see Dick for a bit and panics about his safety, in Nightwing 25, in No Man's Land, in Transference, in Bruce Wayne: Murderer;

Tim's there watching when Dick's wedding to Kory falls apart and he's there watching when Bruce and Dick fight and he's there watching when Donna dies and he's watching when Dick and Bruce swing together on the night before Infinite Crisis, and when Dick goes down and almost dies in Infinite Crisis we cut to Tim watching and seeing it happen and screaming;

there are multiple moments which are just silent panels of them staring at each other trying to figure out what's going on with each other or having a stand-off - in Bruce Wayne: Murderer, in Resurrection, in Red Robin;

in the aftermath of Donna's death there's a panel where Dick's watching Tim from a distance and not approaching;

in the aftermath of Blockbuster Dick spends half the comic just staring at Tim from a distance and hiding himself because "I love that kid - too much to let him see me like this," but Tim sees him anyway and chases him down and then they lie to each other and *ranting* LISTEN TO ME the whole comic is about Dick trying to AVOID being SEEN both literally but also METAPHORICALLY AND --!!!

(the only thing i'm even as halfway obsessive about for them is the heights thing because also there are a bunch of moments involving falling or Tim being anxious about heights and worried that he'll fall or Dick will fall)

In conclusion

Consider the progression in all these moments where Tim's watching an upset Dick and worrying about him!! From reaching out instinctively-but-pointlessly when he's too far away in the LPoD flashback, to almost reaching out in LPoD but hesitating, to putting a hand on Dick's back to walk him back to the Cave in Gotham Knights 10, to physically dragging him clear of the water in Batman: Black Mirror!

In conclusion I don't have a conclusion but basically YES, "watching Dick" is a core Tim characteristic as far as I'm concerned, and Tim watches Dick a lot and that can mean all kinds of things from admiration to nosy intrusiveness to worry to care to gratitude to trying-to-figure-out-what's-going-on-with-him, and sometimes Dick's resentful and sometimes he's relieved and sometimes he's playful and sometimes it's a mix of all those feelings.

And at first it's always Tim watching Dick, but later you've got Dick watching Tim too, and there's that moment where Dick's secretly watching him fight but Tim spots him in Nightwing 110 and there's a silent panel where Dick's watching him in Resurrection and at the very end of Robin there's a scene where Dick's secretly watching him fight but Tim spots him and in the very last issue of Red Robin Dick's watching the end of the confrontation with Boomerang and in Prodigal Dick's the one who notices his face is bruised and aaaaaaah

Anyway I think they're neat <3

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

Watched the recent episodes of Dungeon Meshi, 15 and 16 I believe. Man I love this story. First of all, episode 15, where you can really see how much each and every one of these characters care for one another! But then in 16, things get a bit... messy... first of all, everyone is here, which is quite nice! But then you see how the larger world works and how other people act, function, and think...

I really am actually feeling distressed at the position Laios finds himself in. It's like, he really does care a lot, but his care isn't quite reciprocated... Kabru notes that him not "exterminating" orcs is him failing his duties as an adventurer, Kabru puts on a front of delight when he hears about Laios and his monster eating habits... and just... god Laios resonates with me so much as a character and I just can't keep it in. In it's current state, Kabru represents something that I fear. The idea that every mistake I've made, every miscommunication, every dealing coming back to haunt me... and how he takes delight when he hears about the use of Black Magic, blushing with joy and thinking to himself "Oh wow! This is way worse then I thought!"... I'm sorry everyone... but someone like this awakens a visceral sense of distaste in me... I'm sure my thoughts will change as the narrative progresses... but the way Kabru, being a devout adventurer as he is, sort of in a way seems to represent that career, and what larger society represents... the sort of joy of a peasant, hearing that the town eccentric is being sent to the gallows... the idea that Laios and his party deserves to be locked up forever, with not even the corpses to return... after everything I've lived through... it sort of mirrors what I fear the most. The idea that every single mistake that I've made will come down on my throat like a Guillotine, and have my head rolling across the ground, to someone's feet, and they pick it up, look at my head, and say "serves him right".

Anyways, that got awfully personal, but it makes sense. It's an intensely personal narrative with intensely personal themes and characters. Time and time again Laios just resonates with me in such a special way. I myself, being autistic, just so viscerally feel and understand Laios. Being so passionate like that, having such intense difficulty interacting, but still wishing to do so out of love, the idea of wanting to share one's passions, only to be treated as a sort of freak... like, I'm sure if I were to share my interests in certain media and the philosophies they follow, and get into actual, sincere, media literacy, the average person would probably disparage me... it concerns me so... I would imagine Laios feels a certain way like that, with his passion for what it is to live, to consume, to be nourished by the flesh of monsters that he so cares about, and understands...

EDIT: Man I really have to bring my awful awful anxieties and insecurities into me posting my thoughts about Dungeon Meshi, huh?

[bluedalahorse]

Okay, I’ll bite. Posts like this one on the confessions blog kind of make me wonder/worry about how I come across on tumblr. I’m one of those people who’s 200% down for the secondary characters in YR, particularly the controversial ones. I’m also someone who’d been lurking for a while prior to season 2 airing, but joined tumblr a little bit after season 2 to finally start discussing with people.

Given the way the post I linked above resonates with some of the themes I made a post about few days ago, it seems like the anon and I might both be struggling with some of the patterns of conversation in fandom. That said, we’re coming from very different places. And given the way I engage with this fandom, I sometimes wonder if I’m the antagonist in someone’s fandom story.

I do recognize that some of my posts come from a place where I could come across as pretentious, lecturing, or overbearing in some way. When I first de-lurked this fandom, I talked about a lot of the show in terms of craft and literary theory and such, in part because I’m in grad school for just that and in part because I hang out with a friends group IRL who uses that existing vocabulary to discuss things we love. I was also using the academic voice with a dose of sarcasm thrown in as a sort of armor, because I knew my favorite characters in the show (Sara and August) were so widely beloathed by so many people. I was worried that if my first post was “wow they sure are cute even if they’re messy; where do I find the fanfic?” I wouldn’t make friends, or possibly would even get chased off of tumblr. I figured it was much safer to come in and say things like “I find it really interesting to see how their relationship is a narrative foil to Wilmon’s, and them being together really raises the stakes of the drama” and keep my Big Feelings to myself. (Especially since some posters can be pretty nasty about my faves, and make assumptions about what I’m an “apologist” for when I talk about them.) I still lean into academic speak to some extent—like I said, it’s part of who I am even outside of YR, so it’s hard to shake. But rest assured there is fannish passion behind it, and also know I don’t think academic speak should be a requirement for participating in fandom.

I’m also wondering… what role should making the case for the characters and plotlines one loves play in establishing one’s fandom presence? Like, in general? Ultimately my motive when I make my posts, analysis or otherwise, is to invite people to play in my weird little sandbox with me. (If they want to, of course!) I recognize that some of my fandom opinions/hills I will die on are what they are, so I imagine some folks don’t want to change their opinions any more than I do. But I also recognize that in more than two decades of being in fandom, there are times when someone else’s passion for a character or a take on some aspect of a show or book really led me to see something new and interesting, or hook on to particular rarepairs or whatever else. That’s the beauty of fandom as a community—we all get more excited about things together and share our love of things. Since some of my favorite aspects of YR are much much more rarely represented in fanworks, I’m usually talking about how I adore them in hopes that I’ll continue to find the people who like the things I like, and in hopes that maybe I’ll spark something in someone’s brain and they’ll write a cool fic or draw cool art or something. Talking to people here has made me more interested in pairings like Walty and Stedrika, which I didn’t think about as much before on my first watchthroughs of the show. So anyway… I do know there’s some folks out there who are never gonna be interested in what I’m interested in. I also know there are folks, myself included, who’ve learned things from what other people are passionate about. I also know there are some opinions that seem a lot more unpopular than they are until someone voices them.

I recognize that the two factors above—a tendency toward academic speak, and another tendency to make the case for the less popular things I love about the show in hopes that people will join me, combined with maybe me not having the best day or not choosing my words well—all that together and I could I see how I could come across as pretentious or holier-than-thou or looking down on people. (And admittedly there are times where my posts come from a place of frustration about the way certain characters are talked about. I think we’ve all been there at one time or another.) It really isn’t my intention to come across in a negative way, but I can see how it would happen. It’s also possible I’m doing something that completely doesn’t register with me at all, but it’s super hurtful to others. I may not know the full extent to how I’ve bothered someone, because ultimately I am just in my own head.

If I’ve hurt you or made you feel crappy in your time being a fan on tumblr, I am truly sorry. I’m open to talking about it if you want to talk about it, but also, zero pressure if you just kind of want to hang out in your own space and do your own thing.

To sum up… it seems like on one hand there’s a portion of fandom that seems to want to embrace the YR world in its entirety, and another portion of fandom that would like to lean into a focus on Wilmon. And there’s probably people all across a spectrum there, because nothing is a strict binary. All are valid approaches! I don’t think we all need to be best friends, but I do think we need to figure out how to coexist and assume positive intent in each other’s approaches to the work. Does anyone have ideas about that? Are there hashtags we could be using a little more carefully? I don’t have answers yet, but it is something I’m thinking about.

[butchhamlet]

hi :) i don't know if it's really my place to say since i'm not sure if i actually have ocd or not; but as someone who's struggled with a lot of horrible taboo intrusive thoughts, guilt, rumination spirals and possibly trich this summer your ocd hamlet post really resonated with me.

i've been rereading hamlet and hamlet being an ocd sufferer just reframes so much of his acting and his “antic disposition”. to me it feels like he’s putting on masks upon masks upon masks not just because he NEEDS the control (if it’s all an act it means i don’t actually want to hurt anyone right? if i’m pretending to be insane i’m not actually insane?) but also because he’s afraid of being known. like my deepest fear is probably anyone knowing the extent of my intrusive thoughts and the things i feel guilty about and obsess over. so if he says all this nonsense nobody will know what’s happening in his mind—which i guess was probably the original intention anyway, the idea that claudius wouldn’t suspect him of treason if he acted insane, but i think it still fits.

there’s also his first soliloquy, “o, that this too [solid/sullied/sallied] flesh would melt, / thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!” i like the reading of “sullied” because it really highlights that feeling of being contaminated. hamlet feels tainted by the immorality in the danish court, but if we’re going by the ocd reading, he also feels tainted by the horrible intrusive thoughts and obsessions he has (tying in with what you’d said about him having sexual intrusive thoughts rather than um. an o*dipus complex.) the disgust towards the flesh can also be related to physical compulsions like body repetitive behaviours (e.g. skin picking).

this one is a bit “trust me bro” but the “i have of late, but wherefore i know not, lost all my mirth…” line is just. exactly what my experience was. i’ve always had intrusive thoughts, but one afternoon everything just Went Downhill and suddenly i couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple weeks. i’d be normal for a while before it all started happening again. again, i know in the play he DOES know why he “lost all his mirth”—he saw his father’s ghost—but well.

the famous scene where he yells at ophelia too feels so striking. “get thee to a nunnery. why wouldst thou / be a breeder of sinners?” feels like such a PERSONAL fear of raising a child or being responsible for another life. obviously this isn’t unique to ocd but i imagine for people who have taboo themes (harm ocd, scrupulosity ocd, especially pocd) it’s especially prominent. i feel like the word “sinners” is really important because someone with moral/scrupulosity/religion-related ocd would be very preoccupied about the idea of sinning, and that guilt is something you would never wish on anyone, least of all a child. (HE wouldn't know this, but ocd has genetic factors so even though i don't know if i have it, the possibility of passing this guilt and anxiety on puts me off ever having kids even more).

that ties in to the next lines too: he says, “i am myself indifferent honest, but yet / i could accuse me of such things that it were better my / mother had not borne me. …. what should fellows such as i do / crawling between heaven and earth?” hamlet admits himself he’s “indifferent honest”—rationally he’s probably not the Worst Person In The World Ever—but in the next lines he does seem to consider himself the Worst Person In The World Ever. that kind of all or nothing thinking (small mistakes puts you in the same category as the worst, most morally repugnant criminals) is apparently really common in real event ocd. (https://ocdspecialists.com/real-event-ocd/) hamlet goes on to list everything wrong with him (“i am very proud, revengeful, ambitious…”) which itself feels so much like an intrusive thought. that self-condemnation just feels like he's trying to cover up his anxieties about not being a good person but telling everyone he's not a good person so nobody gets the wrong idea. (he's not an inherently bad person, but he can't possibly convince himself of this because what if he believes that and he starts doing bad things? what if not beating himself up makes him lose control and become even worse? better keep suffering to keep himself in check.)

sorry for clogging up your inbox!! i really wanted to put this out there somewhere but i didn’t want to put it out on my blog since i’ve never really talked about potentially having ocd (? i don’t seem to ALWAYS have it maybe i was just going through a rough patch mid 2023). again i don’t have a diagnosis or anything i’m just going by my own experience and hopefully i’d read enough about it for this to not be way off—though please correct me if i am!! hope you’re having a really nice day, thanks for reading this if you made it all the way through :)

!!! i'm so glad the post resonated with you! honestly, i've gotten some of the sweetest messages about that post from people who saw themselves reflected it in it, which is astonishing to me because i wrote it basically for myself. so it makes me very happy that it means something to you :]

not just because he NEEDS the control (if it’s all an act it means i don’t actually want to hurt anyone right? if i’m pretending to be insane i’m not actually insane?) but also because he’s afraid of being known. like my deepest fear is probably anyone knowing the extent of my intrusive thoughts and the things i feel guilty about and obsess over

YEAH. YEAH. YEAH! i sometimes catch myself having the paranoid thought that people around me can read my mind--i don't actually believe this, but i have a simmering fear of my Worst Thoughts sort of seeping out of me, so reframing hamlet in this light is. ohhhhh man. and sullied really is such a good word for it! the stains! the contamination! miasma theory was right <- JOKE

(also, "if i'm pretending to be insane, i'm not actually insane, right?" is the kind of thought that ocd will chase in CIRCLES, my god.)

i’ve always had intrusive thoughts, but one afternoon everything just Went Downhill and suddenly i couldn’t stop thinking about it for a couple weeks. i’d be normal for a while before it all started happening again

BTW ANON THIS IS PRECISELY WHAT HAPPENED TO ME AT AGE 14. SHAKING YOUR HAND. DOING A FANCY CODED HANDSHAKE WITH YOU. it really can get so much drastically better or worse at once and it's often (in my experience) hard to tell why, but even when it's not hard to tell why--i think the reasons for Losing His Mirth can be multiple. like, my OCD always gets way worse when i'm stressed about unrelated things. i can see a hamlet whose father's death pushes him over the edge into his worst-ever symptom flare, which exacerbates the grief, which exacerbates the obsessions, which...

i feel like the word “sinners” is really important because someone with moral/scrupulosity/religion-related ocd would be very preoccupied about the idea of sinning, and that guilt is something you would never wish on anyone, least of all a child. (HE wouldn't know this, but ocd has genetic factors so even though i don't know if i have it, the possibility of passing this guilt and anxiety on puts me off ever having kids even more).

YEAH. GOD. OH, MAN. anon your fucking MIND. (i personally read hamlet as having religious components to his OCD; this is at least in part me projecting lol but i think there's evidence throughout the play that he is a deeply religiously conflicted person, & this line is part of that.)

(he's not an inherently bad person, but he can't possibly convince himself of this because what if he believes that and he starts doing bad things? what if not beating himself up makes him lose control and become even worse? better keep suffering to keep himself in check.)

ocd will literally be like "okay so i'm not allowed to believe i'm a good person because if i let myself off the hook for one second i will become complacent and self-justifying and then become a bad person. could this possibly be maladaptive and self-harmful thinking? no, it's the everyone else who is wrong."

AND ABSOLUTELY DON'T FEEL SORRY FOR ANYTHING! i fucking LOVE talking about ocd hamlet this ask was SUCH a delight to receive. me clicking on this and seeing how long it was

also tbh anon it sounds like you are definitely having symptoms that could be grouped under OCD, and ultimately diagnostic labels are just the words we apply to groups of symptoms. which is to say, i can't armchair-diagnose you, but looking into coping skills/tips for OCD might help whether you "have" it or not!

thank YOU my comrade for the brilliant thoughts and analysis :3

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

feel weird about this post, maybe because i think three films (one of which i liked a lot, one of which i thought was a surprisingly fun toy commercial with script problems, one of which i cannot make myself watch because it’s little fucking women) is kind of not a lot to hang this kind of “always” characterization on especially given that one of them is a toy commercial and the other one is about an eighteen year old and actually has nothing whatsoever to say about marriage, maybe because i cannot take seriously someone being like “this filmmaker conspicuously avoids queer desire and female sexuality entirely” based on a sample set of movies that are (1) about a high school student who brw fucks (2) an adaptation of a 19th century children’s novel which is, i promise you, so much more directly about protestantism than you remember, and (3) a toy commercial. like “over and over and over and over again” feels…. it just feels really strong. and it feels, idk, really weird to me to say that 2-3 movies about being a single woman necessarily have some kind of intentional absence rather than simply making a deliberate choice, like we are, like, just drowning culturally in positive depictions of women whose lives are about something else, lmao. like i don’t, um…. i just don’t think i am ever going to find it particularly feminist to criticize a particular depiction or even a particular body of work for omitting sex 🤷🏻‍♀️ i am saying all of this btw as a person who like, the number one genre of film i am instantly down to watch is “movies by lesbian filmmakers” and that was true when i identified as straight. but also i guess i am saying this as a person who more or less thinks of portrait as a lady on fire as having a happy ending because i see it as a story about a woman artist, which i actually think is the real consistency among gerwig’s three (3) movies even if i think barbie does not actually execute that theme with any success (and even if to be clear i don’t think she is anywhere near sciamma). anyway. maybe i also just think the snide “often, they don’t have sex at all” as “feminist” (lol) “critique” (lol) is, like, extremely 2012.

there was also a reblog OP did of some tags where someone was like “i read it as an aroace narrative” and they were like “that’s great but she wasn’t doing that on purpose!” and OP added this tag:

which like. i mean i did not feel reflected by barbie because i am not 14. but like as a bisexual woman who has been in a relationship for basically my entire adult life, there is a way in which i actually do tend to feel reflected by stories about women who walk away entirely from the domain of romance and sex. who - horrors! - “don’t fuck at all.” i find that narrative, when done well, compelling and personally salient. if gerwig made a movie that wasn’t little women or barbie about it, i would probably find some real value in it! and i find…. off-putting… the idea that one is supposed to prefer reflections in the form of “identity” rather than uh [checks notes] a human person behaving in ways that are resonant to me. that one in fact should desire movies that “purposefully” make narratives to “reflect me.” i think that assumption reveals some weird assumptions about how art gets made and a weird depressing narrow view of how to relate to art.

in conclusion i believe in equality and i think that if christopher nolan can make 11 movies in a row with zero sexual content at all before finally having his streak broken only by the immovable historical object of j robert oppenheimer’s sexual magnetism (i’m not being weird he literally said this) i think greta gerwig who with her toy commercial follow up slated to be a pair of narnia movies i think is pretty clearly angling to be girl christopher nolan should be allowed to keep making movies i think are Fine about ambitious unhorny women for years to come. or whatever the fuck she’s gonna make narnia about, i certainly will not be watching.

[positivelybeastly]

Does the x-office hate beast?

Cynically: yes.

Less cynically: it's complicated?

Like, here's the thing, right - Beast fans are . . . kinda rare. Sure, there's tons of people who saw the 90s cartoon and really liked him, there are tons of people who saw X-Men 3 and liked him there, there's a whole (almost separate) community of people who are still writing X-Men: First Class fanfic about that version of Hank.

But I'm talking about, will go out and write fanfiction about the character; will draw fanart of him; will actively go out of their way to talk about him on social media. I feel like that's been on the decline for the last . . . fuck, 30 years, probably? Ever since he went from this

to this.

Like, the difference is jarring and immediate, right?

And that lack of a dedicated fanbase made him an easy character to contort to fit stories that certain writers wanted to tell. The X-office doesn't have a ton of people gagging to write Beast, he doesn't headline his own series, he doesn't have a rabid Twitter populace who will fight and scream and shout like Emma Frost or Cyclops.

What do most people think when they see Beast? Like, normal people who don't read comics, who just consume maybe a Marvel movie twice a year, or saw a cartoon when they were a kid.

"Oh, he's cool. SO ANYWAY, MORE OF THAT WOLVERINE."

Beast is not a character with a strong base.

So he's just.

Disposable.

Who cares, throw Beast to Bendis or Ben Percy, I don't care, is what it feels like.

As for WHY he doesn't have that dedicated fanbase, well, I have theories.

A lot of Hank stories are just, sad. They're just so fucking sad and tragic and dark and about finding light where you can.

I often find them very cathartic, like, Hank leads such a troubled and harsh life, and he savours the pleasures where he can get them, and I really love that aspect of his character, that unyielding spirit, but that does not make for a popular character.

His feline era, from 2000 to 2012, is honestly my favourite for him because he is so nuanced and his themes of learning to love your body and control yourself, and his thoughtful, measured, deeply moralistic stories resonate with me and provide me with comfort, the idea that people can be tempted to do bad in the service of good but turn away is beautiful to me.

But that's not really an easily sell? People don't usually want to be sad when they read comic books. They want to be thrilled or horrified or made to laugh. Sad is . . . harder to sell.

Honestly, I also think there's a degree of assuming that he's a snobby asshole because he talks fancy. Like, I legit think that plays into it, and you sometimes see writers fall for the same preconception, they assume that Hank is a snob, and he really isn't, he's a lower-middle class kid from Illinois who grew up on a farm and whose dad was involved in a horrific radiation accident because of poor safety conditions, this is not a person who would be snobby.

It's so funny to me because the guy is from a fictional place in Illinois? It's never specified, which means, if anything, he probably sounds like he's from Chicago! Now, there's probably a degree to which he does speak more formally and has changed his voice, because Hank is extremely protective and conscious of the image he projects, always has been, but snobby? Pfft, nooooo. So yeah, absolutely, you see people assuming that he's a snob because he's smart. Snobby only plays well if you're Emma Frost.

I also have to say, I think there's a degree to which there's an anti-intellectual bias going on. If you look at pretty much all of the major genius characters, they are pretty much ALL unpopular because they are nerds and they are not usually portrayed as being great fighters or tacticians, which is an easy way for a character to become popular - that's why Cyclops is so popular, because he's right all the time and he's a badass, and that's an easy pop. Science solutions are inherently less visceral, harder to write and thus rarer, and do not stick in people's minds.

Moreover, what do you think of when you think of genius superhero? The reputation is of privilege and the image is of boring white guys, they assume it's just - boring. It's only interesting if it's cloaked in sarcastic wit, like House or Sherlock (during The Dark Times), or used in a martial sense, which is why Black Panther is the exception to the 'all the nerds are boring.' Bruce Banner also escapes this trap because he's had his own solo comics for 60 years and he's had a million people write absolutely amazing stories for him.

I also think that his almost complete absence from the Claremont era stories hurts his fandom reputation, because if you're an X-Men fan, you read Claremont, and Hank is not in those stories almost at all. He pops up during the Mesmero arc, during Dark Phoenix, here and there, but he spends 1974 to 1991 in the Avengers, the Defenders, X-Factor, he is so very rarely being written by who most people would consider the definitive X-Men scribe. There's also an element of the stupid X-Men vs. Avengers tribalism working against him thanks to that.

I think Claremont writes a pretty decent Hank when he does turn up, but there's a reason he picked Jean and Scott, and it's interesting that he chose to feature Hank more often than Warren and Bobby, and even then, Warren more than Bobby. I don't know if Hank was really heavily in demand so he just couldn't get him, or if he didn't know what stories to tell with him, but I actually kinda think it was the former, just because Hank always makes an appearance in his post-'91 work, especially his alternate timelines, and he was clearly interested in writing for him in X-Treme X-Men given he set up the Betsy romantic angle early, but then Morrison snatched him up.

Hank also got pushed into the role of the naysayer during the Fraction and Bendis era, which is an instant rock around the neck for your popularity. A lot of the arguments that Hank makes about why he doesn't like what Scott does and how he runs the X-Men and Utopia are not necessarily wrong?

Like, X-Force is just plain morally bad. It is.

You can make the argument that it's necessary, but these two things can exist at the exact same time, which appears to be a concept that people do not grasp! And especially, like . . . the X-Men are not an army. They are a voluntary paramilitary group that is, ostensibly, dedicated to mutant rescue, outreach, and general superheroics.

You are not obliged to stay.

Hank was suffering from legitimate PTSD flashbacks, he was wracked with guilt over the Skrull bioweapon (which, notably, sticks to Hank but does NOT stick to Scott), he was very obviously depressed, recovering from torture - and when he reached out to Bobby to try and explain how he was feeling, draw some comfort, Bobby basically just told him to deal with it!

But this made him SO FUCKING UNPOPULAR. You can go to comics sites that have comments under this issue, under the issue where Hank is having PTSD flashbacks, and they'll be like, THIS IS WHERE IT ALL BEGAN, and I'm like???????? The fuck are you saying to me?????? WHY ARE YOU BOOING HIM HE'S RIGHT.

There's also a degree to which I think that, whether the writers have realised it or not, they do not usually put in the work to establish that the X-Men are doing their due diligence to make sure that Hank is okay. They rely a LOT on off-screen things happening to fill in the blanks. A short list of things that we have never seen!

The reaction from the O5 when Hank first turned furry.

The reaction from the Mansion X-Men when Hank turned into a cat.

Anyone going to visit Hank in the infirmary when he was recovering from his fur and claws falling out due to torture.

Anyone expressing concern over the fact that during the whole time travel debacle, Hank was dying and did not tell anyone.

You don't see these moments, and these are fucking important! These make you sympathetic to the character! These are the moments where people look at Beast in pain, suffering because of what's happened to him, going through his emotional arcs, showing strength as he perseveres, THAT is what builds a fanbase and keeps a fanbase engaged with a character - but they just stop happening for Hank. You don't see them. He loses his characterisation moments, they just happen off-panel.

But what do you see? You see a lot of people walk into Hank's lab, they receive words of wisdom and comfort, or a scientific solution for their problems, and then they walk out.

Like, Hank from Avengers vs. X-Men onwards reads as just - psychologically unstable. He does things on impulse, he reacts without talking to people, he does not have strong relationships with anyone, he appears to have broken up with his long time girlfriend (for no specified reason, we still don't know why 9 YEARS LATER), he often appears adrift and lost and unhappy.

And we are TOLD during his intervention that people have talked to him about what's going on, and they were ignored, but, like, I'm sorry, FUCK OFF, SHOW YOUR GODDAMN WORK.

If you want your emotional moments to have any bite, then you need to ESTABLISH things!!! When Ororo says, oh, you're just ignoring everyone, I'm like, FUCKIN' SHOW ME WHEN YOU TALKED TO HIM. Because do you know what I DID see?

I saw Hank being the most comforting and lovely and soft individual in Storm's solo series, being there for her after Logan's death, BASICALLY BECOMING HER SECRETARY BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO FUCK OFF AND BE A THIEF, and then BOOM, suddenly, she's like, you're a fucking loose cannon.

This was, like, a few months apart. Editors? Hello? Does Ororo fucking hate Hank or not? Because Bendis seems to be of the opinion that she does, but Greg Pak does not appear to have gotten the memo! HELLO? EDITORS? There's a big fucking GAP here where a story arc is meant to go???

There's so much of Hank's 2012-onward story that we just AREN'T shown. Like, he and Scott just - patch up their differences over the revolutionary thing OFF-PANEL during Hickman's Avengers. You don't even see the conversation. He agrees to try and work on the M-Pox cure, MOVES TO ATTILAN TO HELP THEM, all because Storm (WHOM, LAST WE SAW, WAS THREATENING TO PUT HIM IN PRISON FOR CRIMES AGAINST NATURE) convinced him to . . . and WE DO NOT SEE THIS CONVERSATION.

Every time someone pulls out the 'oh, this has been an expertly played baton pass of writers depicting Hank's moral downfall,' I just want to fucking pick up shit and fling it in their face, because they could not be more wrong.

Do you know who's read more Beast comics than these fuckers?

Me. It's me.

Believe me, if there was an actual DEPICTION of ANY of these MASSIVE emotional moments in Hank's life, I would LOVE to talk about them and agree. But they do not exist. It's a character being used as a narrative prop to justify writing decisions that otherwise wouldn't make sense (Inhumans vs. X-Men, All-New X-Men), and no-one cares because he was never that popular to begin with.

And it just - frustrates me, because, like, did you know that Hank formed a political advocacy group for mutant rights?

Did you know he was present during sessions of Congress, giving his support to pro-mutant legislation and becoming long time friends with multiple politicians?

But because it's in New Defenders, because it's in Secret Avengers, and no-one READ those issues, they don't care! It doesn't matter to them! Hank has, by and large, within the narrative, done SO MUCH for mutant rights, he has ACTIVELY worked for them within the system SO HARD, but because it isn't done with an optic blast or a big punchy fist in an X-Men book, it doesn't count.

And like, I just . . . the last few appearances before he starts being focused on in X-Force, before the heel turn, he is NOT acting like an asshole!

Laura literally calls him the nerd she can trust and he takes pictures of her and Gabby being cute during a party!

He's helping Banshee recover from his Apocalypse corruption and teaching at Harvard, trying to actively retire from superhero work because he's exhausted!

He's telling Captain Marvel, hey, you're wrong about your precognition bullshit in Civil War II, and he's helping Spider-Man with science problems, and he SAVES THE INHUMAN CIVILISATION SINGLEHANDEDLY!

So many writers are trying to steer him back onto course. Not just Avengers books, either, X-Men books! There's, like, TWO, THREE writers who want to push evil, asshole Beast, and everyone else is just like, uhhh, nooo? But because the X-office do not care, they keep getting their chance. They don't care about protecting Beast's reputation, or his stories, or his legacy. He's just a character to be thrown wherever he'll fit.

So you get the narrative that he was always evil. He was decaying all along.

No, it's bullshit. It's literally the Scarlet Witch story again, where it just HAPPENS in fits and starts to kick off events and stories, regardless of whether or not it makes sense for past characterisation or continuity.

So, yeah. It's a combination of the X-office not really caring about protecting the image of the character, and certain writers just doing shoddy, shitty jobs of writing emotional checks that their asses weren't willing to cash.