#honestly i think i deleted the one (1) original post i had in drafts that had **** in it

[izzyspussy]

Please show the **** posts as a new years gift to us

i will NOT you must solve the riddle first

[duplicityvn]

Welcome to Duplicity!

Below you’ll find links to tags and the new itch page (once part 1 releases; tags will be added as they’re posted). You’ll also find some general information about the game and what to expect from here on.

As per usual, this game is a horror romance. It will feature and optional NSFW toggle, and it is not safe for minors. Minors DNI with this blog or the game.

Game development, art, & writing: me, @indycinders

Draft editing and Ideas Chief: @winndycakes

Game Summary:

It’s been several years since you’ve been home, and a lot has changed. After failing to meet the strict deadlines of your former publishing house, your contract was terminated and you were left to fend for yourself. Once a prolific and popular author of romance and adventure stories, you’re now forced to move back home to live in your best friend’s apartment as their roommate. Struggling to figure out the next book in your series, you’re faced with many life-changing events, such as having to go back to work a customer service job you thought you’d left behind.

As you navigate this new chapter in your life, you’ll meet friends, old and new, and perhaps finally experience your own romantic tale… Just don’t trust everyone you meet.

(potential) Tag List:

#duplicityvn - general tag to encompass everything

#duplicitydevlogs - tag for dev-specific posts like progress and updates

#duplicity asks - tag for asks submitted to the blog

#duplicity griffin - Griffin specific tag

#duplicity tris - Tris specific tag

#duplicity taipan - Taipan specific tag

#duplicity dell - Dell specific tag

#duplicity nina - Nina specific tag

#duplicity savoy - Savoy specific tag

#duplicity riley - Riley specific tag

#duplicity melon - Melon specific tag

#duplicity mags - Mags specific tag

#duplicity all - general tag when everyone is involved in one post

#duplicity lore - tag for lore related to characters or settings

Here’s some potential questions I might get that I’m proactively answering now:

Why was the old blog deleted?

-I had a bad experience in the community and wanted to remove myself from it completely. I also had no idea where the game direction was going. Honestly, it started out with me wanting to make a yandere game with no understanding of what was going to happen really.

Why are you continuing with Duplicity?

-Duplicity originally stemmed from vague ideas about a horror romance I had started writing three years ago. Really, only some of the character names were similar. Once I started to feel like I wanted to come back and resume with development, I knew it needed a complete overhaul. So I went back to that old story and started piecing it together so it would work for a visual novel!

What changed and what can we expect?

-In the original demo, the game’s MC was around 20 years old. This has changed to player preference of anywhere between 25-30. Why? Because I’ve been wanting to see older characters in yandere visual novels, and just in VNs in general. I also don’t feel comfortable writing younger characters anymore. The characters’ ages will change depending on yours as well, which will be explained later. The only characters who have set ages are Mags and Melon.

-Speaking of characters, Sophie is no longer part of the story. I didn’t think about it at the time but I don’t want a minor to be included in this story when she’s not directly related to anyone, like a sister or a niece or something. In her place are several new characters: Nina, Savoy, and Melon.

-The game will be released in 3 parts instead of on a day-to-day basis. Part one will be mostly introductory but lengthy, part two will probably be the longest, and part three will mostly be focused on the endings of each route.

-The game will have more than just Griffin’s route. There are currently 9 endings I’m in the process of planning.

-As of the publishing of this post, everything previously known to the game is no longer canon, except for a few things.

What kind of asks can we send?

-Asks pertaining to the game and its characters and settings are all completely fine. In fact, it’ll probably help me develop the characters even better.

-NSFW asks are allowed! While there might not be NSFW in the base game (still juggling around the idea of a paid NSFW version), I am happy to write little fics if people are wanting them. I love writing, give me prompts!

-Hateful, derogatory, or other such topics that are sent to this blog will not be tolerated nor published. I wish to promote a safe space for everyone, and I won’t pay attention to any negativity.

-Silly and nonsensical asks are also allowed if they aren’t negative in context.

Alright this was long lmao but I hope it encompasses the general idea of what to expect from here on out! I’m not putting myself on a publishing schedule and I will update as frequently or as little as I do. I’m an anxious bean and can only do so much.

[traineecryptid]

NPSS Weibo Q&A (20240831) Part 4

This is a Q&A session held on Weibo. People will tag their questions with the hashtag #南派三叔藏海花在线答疑# (#NPSS Zang Hai Hua Online Q&A#) and NPSS will look through the tag to pick some to answer. The event started at 1500 hours on 2024 August 31st.

Folder with screenshots and big compilation google doc is here. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

1608

Q: Man crush, honestly, do you think that West Lake Vinegar Fish is delicious? Can you finish a plate of Vinegar Fish from Louwailou by yourself?

A: Actually, I really can’t. At most, I can eat two bites. But I’ve heard that they’ve improved their recipe lately and now it’s very delicious.

1609

Q: Shu, how long do you spend online from day to night? Your mental state is great. (T/N: “great” as in “wow what a mental state!”) A: I actually have too many things to write but well, I’m a liuliang celebrity, aren’t I?

1609

Q: The unbeatable, most handsome man crush in the universe, may I ask if Wu Xie would get caught by Xiaoge and Pangzi for sneakily buying game currency in LOL so he can buy skins? A: You can’t skimp on skins no matter how poor you are. Everyone understands this.

1611

Q: Sanshu, you have written about so many places in China, have you considered letting the Iron Triangle go tomb robbing overseas? A: I’ve written a movie script previously. The three of them were kidnapped and brought inside a pyramid. I was prepared to direct it myself but there was an Ebola outbreak right when the filming site in West Sahara finished construction.

1611

Q: I’ll post this again. Lei, can you invite the original singer to perform Three Days of Silence next year? People go to the bathroom three times (T/N: this is the proverb meaning to visit a place persistently until you get the result you want), why don't you go to the bathroom three hundred times. After all, there’s still more than 300 days till the next 817.

A: I visit once per day? Won’t it make me look like a loan shark?

1613

Q: When will this Q&A end?

A: It won’t end. I will answer at any time.

1613

Q: Shu, you’ve previously said that you’ll slowly delete the drafts on your public account. Can you not delete them? I really like to read the drafts over and over again.

A: There isn’t enough space. There’s too many [drafts]. Even if I don’t delete them, you can’t find them either.

1615

Q: If Zhang Qiling could only say one sentence to Wu Xie in this lifetime, what would he say?

A: I can only say one sentence to you in this lifetime, go get paper and pencil, I’m going to start saying this sentence and try my best to not stop and tell you everything that I can say, don’t interrupt me, let’s see how long I can make this sentence, now listen up, Wu Xie, my plan is goes like this bla bla bla bla bla—

1616

Q: Do you think that you can write better than you have previously? Or has that best feeling stage passed? A: I can go back [to that state], but I will go insane. Once I go insane, I will hurt everyone, including you all.

1618

Q: Shu, I think you wrote the best when you were in the psychiatry hospital. Can you trouble yourself and fulfill us and go there again? A: Here comes the crazy guy.

1620

Q: I’m praying for Shu to get Tianshou today and update nonstop.

A: Once the Tianshou ends, there’s a great probability that I will go to Liuheta (T/N: a culture park in Hangzhou, West Lake area) and run around naked.

1623

Q: What were the first impressions Zhang Qiling and Wu Xie had of each other?

A: Wu: Wah, it’s a show off. Zhang: Looks like there’s a layman on the team.

1624

Q: Man crush, if you were to choose a birthplace in DMBJ, would you choose the Golmud Sanatorium or the Bronze Gate?

A: Are these birth places? What is my mom thinking?

1629

Q: Which one do you like more; going to work or going to jail? Can you write while you’re in jail or write while you’re at work?

A: What’s the difference?

1631

Q: Shu, what do you think ZHH means to you?

A: I was suffering a lot when I wrote ZHH. It was before my mental breakdown. I went crazy after finishing it.

60 questions in! /laid flat on the ground. Only 60 questions in... and the list keeps getting longer. On one hand, I kinda regret spacing these out so much but on the other hand... I need something to fill my days between the ZHH updates. Maybe I'll do double updates tomorrow! Who Knows!

[mswhich]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by the marvelous, magical @elder-flower! Exactly the thing I needed to keep procrastinating on my WIP! edited to add I just noticed that Tumblr turned all of the numbers into the number 1. IDK, I'm not gonna fix it, just roll with it.

How many works do you have on AO3?

56.

What's your total AO3 word count?

675,992

What fandoms do you write for?

Lots and lots. Lately, 2001: a Space Odyssey. But also a lot of original works, plus Formula 1 RPF, Harry Potter, Teen Wolf, occasionally some Taskmaster RPF.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Unforced Error (Harry Potter), 3798 Forged in Flames (Harry Potter), 3722 (my first fanfic!) No Secrets (Teen Wolf), 2738 Bondmate (Original Work), 1326 The Frontier Spirit (Original Work), 1280

Do you respond to comments?

God, I try, but I'm so bad at it. I always feel so awkward about comment replies. I wish I could just click like on them and leave an emoji or something. I do try to get to as many as I can, though.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I dunno if you'd call it angst exactly, but I've written a fair amount of noncon where the "bad guys" win. Probably Experiment XB-20, which ends with someone finding out they've been getting repeatedly memory wiped and then nonconned, shortly before getting memory wiped again.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I write a lot of happy endings, tbh. Let's just say that the large majority of my fics end reasonably happily for most participants involved. (With a few notable exceptions.)

Do you get hate on fics?

You would think I would. I write a lot of unrepentant noncon, often with underage characters. I write RPF. I write incest. But apart from the occasional "wtf" comment, I've so far managed to avoid attracting significant hate. If I did get a hate comment, I would just delete it. I am too old for drama.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Fuck yes. All kinds! I have been writing smut since I first started writing fiction. Stephen King once said, in response to a question about why he wrote horror fiction, that if he and Louis L'Amour both visited a lake, Louis would write about cowboys herding cattle near the lake, whereas King would write about a creepy lake monster; that's just how their brains work. Well, I would write about people having weird, power dynamic-y, kinky sex near the lake. That's how MY brain works.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really, but wouldn't rule it out.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I have occasionally had people report to me that my fics were stolen and nameswapped. AO3 has been pretty good about taking them down quickly though.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Many times, yes. I hope the translations are good! I have no real way of knowing.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not, and have no real plans to do so.

What’s your all time favourite ship?

Ugh, I ship so much. SO MUCH. Honestly, probably Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski. It just works for me. Age gap, characters who are smart as fuck and morally gray, power dynamics, and werewolf powers. It has everything.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have most of a novel-length fic written in the Harry Potter fandom. It's post-War and Snape comes to stay at Grimmauld Place while they're rebuilding Hogwarts. Ginny Weasley is the only person there at first, and they kind of circle each other warily at first and then come to a cautious detente, which turns into a bit of a friendship. There's something weird going on with the portraits in the house, though, and when Snape notices it, there's an action sequence that ends with him getting them the fuck out of Dodge and going on the run. I actually love this story, it's entirely drafted and 80% written, and I just had to work out a couple plot issues at the end. And then the HP fandom kind of blew up and the creator turned out to be one of the literal worst people in the world, and I just don't know if I can ever bring myself to finish it. We'll see.

What are your writing strengths?

Uh. I....don't know? People seem to like my fics for the most part, but I'm not sure I could nail down exactly why.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I repeat myself too much. I say the same things repeatedly, over and over again, reiterating on a theme. But joking aside, I swear I spend half of my time in editing removing stuff like this.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm fine with it, if it fits the characters and it works. I prefer it if there are either a lot of English cognates so you can kind of work out what they're saying, or if the author translates it in the author's note.

First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. I found a shitload of Hermione/Snape fic, read as much of it as I could find, and then thought, you know, I think I could do at least as well as some of these? So I tried my hand at it and have never really quit writing fic since.

Favourite fic you’ve written?

I'm saying two. One is Crown of Neon Lights, because I love the characters and story so much. And the other is Bondmate, same reason. But really I love most of my fics. They are like my precious babies and I adore them all. tagging (pls feel free to ignore) @whimsicalmeerkat @jammerific

[thatll-do]

top five favorite video game characters?

Ok, so I originally had this whole thing with pics and gifs typed out, and I was on the last sentence before posting answer when tumblr glitched out and deleted all of it. So Imma redo it and hopefully do the original draft justice, but without gifs and pics just in case that was what screwed it up

Edit: it happened a third time >:(

1: As a devout Haru stan and apologist, it pains me a little to say that I have not had the full Haru experience, having not played any of the spinoffs or supplementary material outside of Persona 5 Royal, and we are not counting the Haru that exists only in my head, which is why despite my love for her, I cannot in good conscious call her one of my favorite video game characters, yet. With that in mind, I will have to with mild begrudges have to hand it to Futaba. What can I say? I have no choice but to stan an internationally wanted hacker who is capable of shutting down governments from her phone while being incapable of calling the pizza place down the road without going into a nervous breakdown. Plus, have you seen her? She smol. Diminutive. Gremlin shaped. Perfectly scampable. Plus, I feel she provides a very welcome change of pace with her palace in the story, being the only one where the antagonist is not some overtly hostile villain being quite refreshing for when she comes into the story, with her overall arc being very satisfying to watch play out, both in the grand narrative and in her smaller personal interactions. However, I must admit I'm not overtly fond of how navigators are used in Persona games, with them feeling generally detached from the general gameplay loop of them not being active party members, but as someone who doesn't typically go for JRPG's I am totally willing to recognize this may just be a me thing and that my sensibilities might not quite line up with how these things typically go

2: Surprise motherfucker! Nobody expects Wheatley! Which is a shame, because he's great, but it's understandable. On the one hand, you have GLaDOS, who was scientifically engineered to be fucking hilarious at every possible moment. And then in the other corner you have Chell, a fine self insert to insert your sense of self into, who shoots things when you tell her to. But people often overlook this little metal ball of idiocy, and what he brings to the table. First, he brings a very different kind of humor to the table that I think tends to go a bit underappreciated by the audience, and I'm not just talking about the slapstick and general incompetency, although that is also top notch. Honestly, just his inane ramblings are fucking comedy gold on their own that I could listen to for hours. He's also surprisingly arguably a more effective antagonist than GLaDOS. I went into Portal 2 almost completely blind, and while GLaDOS's insults were funny, they never really like stung or anything. There wasn't any real substance to it, it was just a one-sided hatred from my perspective. But Wheatley? When he did his heel-turn, I was in active shock. It took me several seconds to fully process what the fuck had just occurred. Unlike GLaDOS, there was a genuine bond formed, and breaking that opened so many doors despite slamming my fingers in them. And highlights what he does incredibly well. He brings a certain element of chaos and danger that GLaDOS could never have due to the fact that she has a functional sense of self preservation. With GLaDOS, you know what you're in for. She's gonna try to kill you, but she's gonna do it through elaborate traps and her patent pending Aperture Science Testing Chambers, but never directly, and she sticks to those rules. She is bound to them, and because of that you can plan around them and monkey your way out of it. But Wheatley? Wheatley in charge of Aperture is like a ticking time bomb without the watch. He doesn't even know what the rules are, otherwise he wouldn't mash two testing tracks together like a four-year-old smashing two lego master-builder sets together and almost accidentally killing you in the process.

3: Madeline, from Celeste. She is trans and I can project myself onto that

Not much else to say, really

4: Nope, you're not getting off that easy. The actual thing about Maddy is that, genderisms aside, I don't think I've ever felt quite as seen as I have with her. Celeste, by all accounts, is a very simple game. Both in terms of story and mechanics. The story is you climb a magical mountain in Canada, and the mechanics are run, jump, and climb. But it's how these two interplay to put you in the mindset of her, how anxiety hounds you, how it unnerves and undermines you, getting you stuck doing the same things making the same mistakes over and over again, is where Madeline really strikes a chord with me. And the game really doesn't shy away from how "tricks" and coping techniques can help but they're not a cure-all, they don't always work. Your fears and worries will break through, and you can try to ignore them, or leave them behind entirely, but you really can't. The only way to deal with them is to accept them for what they are, that they're just a part of you but you nonetheless and need to work with them. Her frankly snippy personality is also appreciated, because like, while it's not the nicest thing it's refreshing to see someone who's kinda just really tired of people act on that annoyance even if it's not strictly other people's fault for setting it off. And also her being trans just really brings it in for me

Actual number 4: This may be because I'm a horny shill, or maybe because I would prefer to liken myself as something of a philosopher, but I find myself drawn to 2B and her plights and think that the world of Nier:Automata provides some of the most profound and insightful moments modern gaming can offer. She's something of a stoic hardass, meant to be unfeeling of the world around her but still taking note of the absurdity of it all and sometimes going along with the unexpected asides from the farce she finds herself in. For all intents and purposes, she's just a cog in the machine, just a perfect mindless unthinking AI soldier in a proxy war with machine enemies that has spanned millennia. But as much as she plays the part, she can't help but display an overt world-weary awareness of her role that she's lived and relived time and time again. It may be only displayed subtly most of the time, but those tinges in her interactions quickly bleed out once you get a fuller picture of the story at hand.

5: Ok, as tempted as I was to put a FromSoft character here, even I have to admit that I find their interactable NPC's rather lacking. And while I like a fair amount of them, I would never call them my top of the list favorites. Instead, I'll go with my favorite companion who is trapped in one of my least favorite games, Curie from Fallout 4. I'll try to keep this spoiler free since I think you've been playing it and I don't wanna ruin anything for you, but simply put Curie is a sweetheart. You find her long abandoned in what was one of the most monstrous vaults designed, made purely to violate every medical ethics code in the book, but she spends her days toiling away trying to create medicines instead. After nearly 200 years alone, she's eager to explore the world, and she just has this bright-eyed curiosity about the wasteland that's rather infectious. Where most people see ruins and decay, she sees resilience and life persisting, and that kind of optimism in such a jaded setting hits like a hot shower after a filthy day outside. She's not terribly complicated, but she doesn't need to be

[dandelight]

1, 5, 9, 13, 29, 21, 26, 32, 33, 42, 49

sorry it's a lot hgskdk

omg no tysm, i am [gib] over all of these!!

What are your top 3 favorite sets you’ve made?

yennefer week day 2 yennefer & jaskier + nicknames hisirdoux casperan + verbal incantations

5. What is your favorite movie/TV show to gif?

Most of my stuff has been with either The Witcher or Wizards, but i think I actually really like giffing music videos/documentaries? The lighting is so much easier to work with than it is on many tv shows, and while Wizards was pretty easy to work with in a lot of ways, I think I like working with live action footage more because it makes coloring/blending feel a lot more seamless.

9. What/who inspired you to start making gifs?

At this point, I honestly don't even know?? I was making little gifs as soon as I had proper access to Photoshop on my own device, but I think it was just a natural evolution out of the graphics I would make on Instagram in middle/high school. The biggest inspiration was probably all the graphics/gifs coming out of the Kingdom Hearts fandom though.

13. Where or from whom did you learn how to gif?

Basically everything I've learned came from googling tutorials and finding links on tumblr. I think a few aspects of learning how the timeline worked came from making animations & cinemographs in my graphics class, but if I ever wanted to learn a specific technique or was having an issue with my exporting, I just kinda googled things and dug around until I found what I was looking for.

21. PSDs or original coloring for each gif?

oh I have to make the coloring from scratch every time skjskdhfkdsf; I don't think I even have a generic, catch-all base PSD I use. Only if I'm making a set with similarly lit scenes will I make a base PSD for other gifs, but rarely will I ever use it for a different set.

26. How many un posted sets are in your drafts right now?

None actually 😶 I actually only use my drafts to test out how gifs will look and move on the dashboard + how the gifs will look lined up together; I think the only time I finished a set and didn't immediately post it was when I had done work for a fandom event and was waiting to post on a specific date.

29. Have you ever posted a set, realized you made a mistake later but it was already too late?

omg I don't think so, but I did delete my initial post of a set that I uploaded during the whole tag debacle of early 2022 (the yennskier nicknames one actually, lol), but I had already linked it in a few places, so it had already started to be reblogged and now I just can't see any interactions on it in my feed 😔

32. What is your favorite tool/adjustment layer in Photoshop?

Selective color my beloved omg. Though lately I've been doing a bit more similar color adjustment stuff with the Hue/Saturation layer, and have been figuring out how Channel Mixer works, so those are getting up there. Also can never go wrong with a black + color gradient map sdfdsfds

33. Do you like to/can you make edits and graphics too or only gifs?

I used to do edits/graphics on Instagram, and I probably still could do it to some degree? But I've been gif-focused for awhile now, and I actually used to use free online editing websites like Ribbet and PicMonkey for my old edits because I couldn't get access to Photoshop, so I feel like I would need to recalibrate in a way sdsdfsdfds.

42. How is your gif folder organized? Is it organized at all?

It always starts organized whenever I venture into a new fandom. Then I make a ton of other things, and ton of test PSDs and test gifs and whatnot, and now everything is in at least 5 different folders. Tbh this is just a really good reminder for me to start clearing out things I no longer need and to fix up my folders a bit lmaooo

49. How much would you say you’ve improved since you first started giffing?

So much omg??? And like, I'm definitely extremely critical of my stuff, and honestly have so many crying fits over being unable to get the sharpening/speed/coloring of a gif working well in its final state. But I think about the first gif I ever made, just a simple cut from a show with no tweaking whatsoever, to the kind of things I'm able to make now and am just so 🥺❤ And I was proud of a lot of the things I made in the last year, but now that I've recently been able to get a handle on a lot of the issues I've been having, I feel like what I make accurately reflects my ability atm, and I'm genuinely having fun with giffing again 💗

[carlyraejcpsen]

alright, i’ve tried to keep quiet because i truly believe in karma and wanted this rp to close through the admin’s own actions and not give them any opportunities to blame it on me instead. it also felt like beating a dead horse, because i was sure they’d close the rp after losing a huge proportion of their active members and the majority of their diversity. however, after seeing multiple people sharing their experiences today, they are still posting promo posts and starting their event. so yeah, here’s my experience with @thevillagerp​​

NOTE: i no longer have screenshots from my conversations with the admins, as i blocked them when i left the rp for the sake of my own mental health, but i did save the text in my drafts, so the messages below are copy pasted. i have not edited them in any way. They also deleted my original anonymous messages off of their blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: racism, very vague allusions to homophobia and transphobia

so i was a member of this roleplay for around two months. during my time there, it was startlingly obvious that white fcs were preferred and prioritised, both from the fact that they got more plots and interactions in general and from the fact that admins never promoted diversity on the main. even now, they repeatedly say they “would still love to receive some more male and non-binary apps” while ignoring that they currently have a ratio of 8 fcs of colour to 24 white fcs. their diversity rules at the time were that 1/3 of a mun’s characters had to be played by an fcoc. so people could easily just play one or two white characters.

a while ago, i sent an anonymous message to the main asking if they had considered perhaps changing this rule to be 2/3 characters instead of 1/3, since there were so few muses of colour in the roleplay (as i said before, they’ve since deleted this from their blog so i cannot provide a screenshot). they responded that they had been thinking of upping the character limit to four instead of three, with a rule that 2/4 must be played by an fcoc. i gave them the benefit of the doubt and the time to enact this change, but nothing happened.

so a few weeks later, i sent them this message on anonymous:

I was wondering if you had thought any more about the diversity rules here? I know you said before that you were considering increasing the character limit, but I noticed that hasn’t happened and I wanted to know if that was a change we’re going to see or if you would consider changing the rules in another way? I’m really disheartened by the lack of diversity in the roleplay

at the time there were 18 characters of colour out of a total of over 60. they responded (again, i’m sorry i don’t have the actual wording since they’ve deleted the messages) that they had thought about it and decided against upping the character limit, but instead would be having a weekly “poc acceptance day,” where they would only be accepting apps with fcs of colour. they also said they were doing this “now that the waitlist was mostly cleared,” which meant that the rp was mostly at capacity anyway, so they needed to look more at how to encourage their existing members to promote diversity, since there weren’t spaces open for new people to bring them in.

i responded with another anon expressing my disappointment and pointing out that they had done more to prevent having too many celebrity characters than too few muses of colour, as at the time they had a ban on celebrity muses. i wouldn’t usually suggest a ban on certain fcs, but as it was something they had done for celebrity characters, then i supposed it was a reasonable option.

they didn’t even respond to this message and instead posted on the main asking me to come off anon to discuss it. so i did, and i sent them the following dm:

i didn’t want to come off anon because i honestly feel really ostracised in this group and didn’t want to make it worse, but i don’t want to drop this issue and you aren’t comfortable addressing it publicly so here we are i guess. like i said in my previous message, i really don’t see how a “poc acceptance day” is going to make anywhere near enough of a difference. people will just wait for the opportunity to play their white characters. there are only 18 characters of colour in a roleplay with over 60 characters. that’s less than a third, which is obviously concerning. what’s even more concerning for me is that these characters are more often than not overlooked. i am often ghosted when plotting, or people don’t even reach out at all when i like plotting calls or intro posts. and then i have to watch characters like leo almost exclusively interact with white women (i’m sure that’s not the only example, but it is the first that comes to mind as he is one of the more active characters).

so this issue goes so much deeper than there just not being adequate representation in the rp. i really tried to help, i suggested making it a rule that 2/3 characters need to be poc in my original ask and you mentioned upping the character limit in response. i was worried that my concerns were being brushed aside, but i waited a while to give you the benefit of the doubt and the space to discuss the issue. so you can understand why it was really upsetting today to learn that the one thing you suggested was dropped and instead replaced with something that is barely scratching the surface of the problem. and i don’t know if it was your intention, but by saying that you were waiting for the waitlist to clear, it comes across as not wanting to receive any backlash from people who would want to join with only white characters. and even if people did want to join with faceclaims of colour, they can’t because the waitlist is cleared. like i suggested, you could change the rules so that 2 out of 3 characters must be people of colour. or, as was your proposed idea, up the character limit to four. you could also put a temporary ban on white faceclaims until the ratio evens out. as i mentioned, it’s really distressing that this was something you were willing to do for celebrity characters, but not to aid diversity.

i also just want to make it clear that these have been the only anons i’ve sent, i know you’ve been getting other ones, but those weren’t from me!!

( for context, they were receiving anons from someone else claiming that they felt left out in the rp ).

i had hoped that coming off anon would show them that this was a very real issue which was affecting their members, as well as giving them a space to discuss it privately instead of on the main. they responded with:

Hi Em, thank you for coming forward. We really, really appreciate it and we understand it’s not an easy thing to do. We also appreciate you flying the flag for diversity so strongly. We can always strive to be better, we are on the same page with you here.

Let us just explain our decision making. Firstly, just to address the waitlist, that was certainly not at all our intention when we brought it up. It was a logistical decision with 5+ applicants having already waited a week for acceptance and aware of their position on a waitlist.

When we decided against upping the character limit (and therefore the 2/4 POC character rule), we thought a POC acceptance day could be a good alternative course of action. In our eyes, this was something that would probably bring more POC characters to the group than the 2/4 rule because we knew there weren’t going to be many muns taking up an additional fourth character. This was a rule we’ve seen other groups enjoy success from so we wanted to try it out here. Plus, we think a day that explicitly highlights diversity every week would bring the message to the forefront of everyone’s minds. As we said, we’re going to monitor this over the next couple of weeks to see if it brings any improvement because we’d really like to have it as an ongoing rule.

The non-POC ban is actually a measure we’ve spoken about too and we are considering putting one in place should this fail. Thank you for raising your concerns, know that we’ve taken them very seriously and we hope that you’ll trust our judgement in trying this rule out first to see where it leads.

first of all, i don’t think i even have to mention the wording of “flying the flag for diversity.” but the real crux of the issue here is that they supposedly wanted me to come off anon to discuss the issue, but instead just explained their idea further and didn’t take anything i said on board. they didn’t even say a single word about how i told them i felt ostracised and regularly got ignored. i knew from speaking to other muns in the rp who played muses of colour (and just from looking at the dash) that they felt the same way too, but of course was only speaking from my own experience.

i thought long and hard about how to respond to this, as i was so disheartened by their unwillingness to listen to their members and the fact that they didn’t care that i felt left out. it felt like they had asked me to come off anon just so they knew who was messaging them and therefore put a target on my back, so honestly the thought of being on the dash or talking to the admins made me incredibly anxious. before i had a chance, however, they responded again with:

Hi hun, we’ve continued discussing this issue over the last couple of days and we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to put in place a non-POC ban instead. Thank you again for holding a mirror up to the group. We do hope that this will recorrect the balance.

so i waited to see how things would play out. they posted about this new ban here and pinned the post to the top of the main:

[ IMAGE ID: a screenshot from thevillagehq of an admin update, which reads: in the interest of keeping the village a diverse space, we are currently only accepting applications for POCs. please note that any apps or reserves submitted to us for faceclaims that are not POCs will be deleted. we will lift this rule once we see fit.

thank you for your understanding and your efforts in making this group a brighter, more inclusive and diverse place for all. /END ID ]

this rule remained in place for around two weeks, during which time they made almost no effort to promote it. the above post was pinned to the main page, but that was the only mention of the ban anywhere on their page, they didn’t update the rules page or even put a note on the application page about it. during this two week period, the admins posted 10 promo posts, none of which suggested fcs or even mentioned the ban or diversity at all. the ban was then lifted suddenly when the pinned post was removed and the admins just went back to accepting apps with white fcs. the ratio had only evened out in those two weeks (from 18 out of 65 to 24/50) because of people going inactive or leaving, and there was nothing put into place to continue to promote diversity after the lift of the ban. in the three days after the ban was lifted, the admins posted over 10 promo posts, the same amount they had posted during the entirety of the ban. it was clear that they had no intention of actually making changes in their rp and had only done so because i refused to drop the issue.

again, i thought a lot about what i wanted to message them. i knew at this point that they didn’t want to make any real changes, but i still felt like i had to make it clear to them how disappointing their actions were. once again, i was messaged before i even had a chance, this time for bubbling.

as you can see in the above correspondence, i had told the admins point blank that i felt left out and ignored in the rp because of the characters i played (aubrey plaza, mj rodriguez and keiynan lonsdale fcs. all of my characters were queer and used either she/they or they/them pronouns). as a general rule, the only people who wanted to write with me and have interesting plots with me were people who played other muses of colour. the rp had a rule that you must reply to 3+ muns on every character, which i had been doing. i had only been back from my hiatus for a few days at this point and had responded to 6 different open starters the day prior. their message to me read:

Hi hun. There’s something we wanted to address to you directly. It’s been expressed to us by multiple members during these last few weeks that they have felt excluded by your character within the group, especially when it comes to the friend bubble that has formed between Mars, Bowie, Luvena, Asher and others. 

While we encourage the development of friendships and trust that this isn’t intentional, we have a zero tolerance for bubble roleplaying at The Village. We are aware that our three mun activity rules have been met by all parties involved, however, bubbling is usually a little more nuanced than that and it seems it has unfortunately begun to create a bit of a divide within the group. 

We have already issued individual warnings to a few people within the bubble, however with multiple members still expressing their concerns to us, we decided it would be better to address the group as a whole. We hope that by pointing this out to you, you will try and branch out to your fellow members a little more from now on - and try and be a little more inclusive when it comes to everyone else in the group. 

We take such matters very seriously as admins, and while we hope it won’t have to come to this, there will be consequential steps taken should we not see any changes in your interactions in the weeks to come.

as you can imagine, i was incredibly upset to receive this message after already telling them i didn’t get plots from many of their members and they had done nothing. even people who i had previously messaged continued to only write with the same few white characters. i don’t deny that we definitely had a friendship group between our characters, but there were multiple people in that roleplay, including the admins, who only cared about ship plots or plots with the same few muns. me and other people who received the same message had all previously told the admins that people aren’t plotting with us and gotten ignored, so receiving this message made it clear that they neither cared about us nor wanted us in their rp. and so i responded as below:

yeah i literally told you i felt left out because there are multiple people only writing with white characters and you never addressed it, so this message is honestly insulting. i have reached out to almost every new member, responded to multiple open starters and have tried to plot with as many people as possible. like i told you, i am often left on read or people don’t even message me at all. if people do message me, i am usually expected to put in all of the effort and if people aren’t interested in actually developing plots with me then i am obviously not going to force my characters on them. all of my characters are queer, non binary people of colour and the harsh truth of this roleplay is that people don’t care about them. i even wrote out a whole list of 20 detailed suggested connections in an attempt to get more plots and nothing came from that either. i’ve even gotten anonymous hate saying that offering to explain my characters’ pronouns was “patronising,” which i didn’t feel like i could approach you about because, when i told you about how i’m feeling excluded, you didn’t care.

so if i only have actual plots with the people who actually care about my characters, i make no apologies. i also don’t even have threads with half of the characters you named, asher being the only one, and have literally only just come off hiatus. so please explain how i am bubbling, because this really just feels targeted at this point.

you’ve made it endlessly clear that this rp isn’t a safe space for people who want to play diverse characters. the main was practically silent while you had a ban on white faceclaims, which you never actively promoted, and then you dropped that suddenly without putting anything else in place. you also deleted my initial anonymous messages asking about diversity as if you were trying to hide that there was ever an issue. you turned anonymous messages off, so that no one can safely criticise you. because i did that off anon and ever since it has felt like there is a massive target on my back. my characters have been “accidentally” on the activity checks multiple times despite me being on hiatus (people get a notification that they were tagged even if you remove their name from the list btw). plus when i asked for an extension on my hiatus, you said that you would allow it “just this once” which now makes me feel like i can’t come to you if i’m busy. right now, for example, i am in the middle of moving house, but i’m also stressed about trying to stay active because you have made yourselves completely unapproachable.

the ratio only evened out slightly because members left. then suddenly after the ban you’re posting multiple promo posts a day??? you couldn’t get more obvious. i came to you about diversity in good faith, hoping that it was something you were unaware of, but you have made it abundantly clear that you actively do not want to promote diversity in your roleplay, we are just here to be witnesses to your ship. there are multiple members who are actually bubbling who have been brought to your attention, but nothing has been done. leo continues to only write with the same three white and white passing characters. charlotte pretty much only appears to write with leo and post a vague “message me for plots” post that wasn’t even tagged. both of you only put effort into your ship threads with each other and the occasional text threads. even with something like group events: while i’ve been here, there’s been a pride event that neither of your characters were even in new york for (an event where i was the only one reaching out and posting multiple starters, by the way); there was no event last month, and this month all you’re talking about is this housewarming party.

i’m really disheartened that it’s come to this, but i can’t be here anymore. please post unfollows for all my characters. you’ve said multiple times that we should trust you as admins, but this message shows again that i simply can’t do that. from the disregard of trigger warnings, to the way you treated being held accountable for the lack of diversity, to how you respond to people asking for hiatuses, this isn’t a safe space. even if i stayed, the target you have placed on me is making it insufferable to just write my characters in peace.

the other muns who received the same bubbling message (copy pasted btw, we all got the same one word for word) all responded with their own concerns and criticisms in responses of a similar length to mine. none of us received a reply, our unfollows were just posted the next day without any further responses from the admins. a few of the other members who had written and plotted with us chose to leave as well, which the admins wrote off as us just dragging them with us as opposed to them being able to make their own decisions and being aware of the situation (which was incredibly obvious. no promotion of a white fc ban, suddenly being active on the main once they try to stealthily drop the ban, then the majority of their muses of colour leaving???)

i haven’t paid the rp much attention since i left, as i mentioned above i blocked the main and the majority of the members just for my own mental health. but from a quick scroll through today i can see that the only change in diversity rules is that now instead of your third character having to be a poc, it is now your second. however, you still only have to have 1 character out of 3 have a fc of colour. so very little has been done, but of course i’m not surprised in the slightist.

these admins don’t want diversity in their roleplay. if you play any character who isn’t a rich, white, cishet neurotypical, please avoid it at all costs. it’s not in any way a safe environment.

[j3tsabyss]

Hollywood Undead iceberg 2 full explanations

Ok I had this in the drafts for awhile and now here is iceberg number 2 explained. Once again feel free to correct me on anything and remember this is a long post

Level 1-Undead: probably their most well known song

Psalms EP: 2018 EP

Myspace: HU got their start on myspace

Dead in Ditches: one of the best known unreleased HU songs

Hats: they all wear hats a lot

Sarcasm: they all also use sarcasm. A lot. Extremely

Funny Claus: FunnyMan being Santa Claus in Christmas in Hollywood. Also there’s this video of Funny Claus

Label issues: HU has had a lot of issues with their labels from past to even present

Level 2-Johnny’s captain hats: basically Johnny’s signature during Swan Songs. He usually wore a white captain hat but there’s possibly more variants (such as the black captain’s hat)

Charlie and Funny’s matching Hawaiian shirts: both Charlie and Funny had matching Hawaiian shirts during 2015/DOTD

Bastard Threads: another clothing line ran by FunnyMan. You might’ve seen their hat with the word “bastard” on it. Once again the clothing line went defunct without explanation

Undead Origins: a comic book released in the Five era that has a rather... odd artstyle. It was on the HU merch store but it’s no longer there for some reason

Danny’s long hair: Danny had long hair at one point. As you can tell he hasn’t grown out his hair since

J-Dog’s foot fetish: a joke but J-Dog references being “turned on” by feet in this interview. He’s likely joking but…

Tony Lovato: Johnny’s friend from the band Mest. Whose band also has their songs featured VERY PROMINENTLY in Highway to Havasu

Johnny and Charlie kissing: there’s at least 2-3 photos of Johnny and Charlie kissing. Absolutely NONE of them have context except for one which was supposedly taken at Charlie’s birthday party. Imagine seeing those pics when you know nothing about HU

Mysterious background vocals: there’s a lot of videos of HU background vocals and there’s times where the background vocals are not one of the HU guys. Of course I can’t think of any specifics right now

Johnny’s shoddy wifi during the first virtual meet and greets: Johnny’s wifi got crappy due to the bomb in Nashville that was a few days before the virtual meet and greets. This resulted in Johnny not being present for some meet and greets because of his wifi. In my case I was lucky to have him in my virtual meet and greet tho his square was rather blurry at times. And then again he was CLEANING

Level 3-pre-AT FunnyMan skipping an interview to read comic books in the back room: self explanatory but I can’t remember the interview this was sorry. I’ll update this with a link to the interview if someone gives me it

Funny deleting all old Instagram posts in 2018: Funny deleted all of his past instagram in New Years 2018 for some reason. There’s still no explanation to why that happened

Funny’s old instagram profile pic: for a time Funny’s original Instagram profile pic was a pic of himself with a meme-like font that said “FUN D.M.C!” Or something like that. You can see that in old screenshots

Viral Tiger: Charlie’s gay white tiger plush that he wanted to go viral. Despite the fact Viral Tiger was last seen in a dump truck he still had a impact on the HU fanbase godspeed Viral Tiger

Freej3t shirt: some shirt of Swan Songs mask Johnny with a text saying that. I honestly don’t know why this shirt was made but both J3T and Funny have worn it. It could be connected to that time Johnny got arrested in 2009 but I’m not 100% sure

HU making typos all the time: credit to Dove for this one. EVERY HU guy has made a lot of typos. I think it’s the most common with Johnny because of his big fingers. Or finfers rather

Charlie’s mullet: Charlie had a mullet in 2014/2015 then he later cut it. Rip Charlie’s mullet

Johnny’s obsession with Spencer Charnas: joke entry where it references two random comments Johnny made on Spencer’s posts

Freak Nasty: Johnny was featured on this song back in 2016 and at least to me it’s somewhat hilarious

“Wrap a rope” lyric: lyric from Dead Bite that gets misinterpreted as “wrap a wrap” in its own lyric video

Hollywood Undead Swan Songs era documentary: Hollywood Undead - The Undead Story was a documentary about the HU guys during the Swan Songs era

HU4Life (tumblr): a fan tumblr that had literally every kind of photo of all HU guys. They were pretty popular but at one point they ended up being involved in discourse where they put their url over photos that clearly weren’t theirs. There’s even a post where someone messaged them about that and they pretty much said they didn’t give a shit about that. And then I don’t remember what happened next but they’re deactivated now so

Level 4-Daisy the chicken: for some reason Kurlzz had a pet chicken named Daisy. I remember seeing snaps of Daisy and there’s some pics of her with him but other than that I don’t think we’ve ever seen this chicken again

That random high pitched “kIcK iT” in House Party: I’m surprised nobody asked me about this one. Basically during the Another Way Out intermission there’s this random “kICK IT” that you can hear and it’s just, it’s just not Danny who says that (he later says “kick it” himself). So basically there’s just a really random “kick it” that came from like outta nowhere. I posted a video of that but uhhh it got copyright claimed on here so .-.

Danny’s actual birth year: Danny’s birth year has been given as either 1982 or 1985. While google says 1982, 1985 is the birth year given on the site famousbirthdays(.)com and it’s also a common year that’s seen on Danny Rose Supply merch. I think his birth year likely is 1982 but who fricking knows

Funny and Danny can draw: Danny has posted some of his own drawings before and he apparently drew some of the art in Notes from the Underground booklet. There’s a IG story from awhile ago where Funny was drawing on a ipad and he actually did good and there is a drawing he did himself that he posted on instagram before. Also he done the art for Charlie’s song lil Tim McGraw (not out yet)

Charlie’s snapchat: Charlie had a snapchat and he’s even verified as a celebrity snap or something but he pretty much never ever used it

“Whoeuce?”: kinda a joke but there was a screenshot of someone asking the HU facebook about Deuce and the response was that

All HU guys except for maybe Danny have criminal records: most of the HU guys basically have committed a crime at least once. Johnny said before he’s considered a felon. In the case of Danny he never has committed a crime I don’t think but in my opinion he probably has once. Just once

Hollywood Land Magazine (HLM): the HLM in J-Dog’s username stands for that. But the thing is I have no idea what exactly is this magazine. They have a instagram but it’s been inactive for like years and they used to have a website but it’s also defunct. So basically Idk what’s with J-Dog keeping HLM in his username (just like how Johnny has co in his username despite 3tearsco being defunct now)

Dark Places was written about their record label: tbh this is a vague one because I actually got this from tvtropes. At least what tvtropes says is allegedly Dark Places was written about their record label but that kinda makes me wonder where did they get that. Tho tbh it would make a lot of sense if it really was about their record label considering Johnny’s and Charlie’s verses

3 Pill Morning’s Never Look Back originally featured Charlie Scene: there was a time a band called 3 Pill Morning originally was gonna feature Charlie on their song Never Look Back. Of course later the band announced that Charlie isn’t going to be on that song but he’s credited a songwriting credit. I think once again HU’s label probably prevented Charlie from this. Also I guess this would’ve been Charlie’s first feature if he was able to sing on it

Carly and Brittini: both exes of Johnny. Thing is there’s no confirmation about their surnames and there’s no pics of how they looked either. In fact Brittini is only known due to the fact he tattooed her name on his chest (well he covered it up eventually). Meanwhile in the case of Carly she ended up standing out because Johnny in this video already reacts to a fan that just happens to be named Carly and he mentions she broke up with him. So make some of that if you will

Level 5-Vanessa gave away her wedding dress after she got married: I can’t remember where I heard this from originally but basically after Vanessa got married she sold her wedding dress back. I don’t really recall if there was a reason why she did it but it’s actually bought by a fan now

Johnny was on TMZ: honestly I’m surprised literally no one asked me about this because I could go on about this. Anyway in March 2019 Johnny was once on TMZ about the myspace deleting tracks thing and gave his thoughts on it and all that. But the slightly peculiar thing about him being on TMZ was he got called “THE FRONTMAN” of Hollywood Undead. And then at least to me since then I felt like there was a sudden increase of news outlets referring to Johnny as “the frontman” which was something I never once seen before UNTIL TMZ said that. Also the only other time TMZ ever reported on Hollywood Undead was that jumping incident so yea there you go sorry that I rambled so much

Who runs the official Hollywood Undead accounts?-self explanatory. I’ve seen fans wonder about who runs the HU accounts. Most think either J-Dog or FunnyMan but it’s never been confirmed. It’s definitely not Johnny because he said himself before that it’s definitely not him running the official HU account

Johnny knows about Love Sick Radio: self explanatory. Johnny knows about one of the DOTD rejects and as a lost media person I was enthusiastic to know that Johnny remembered the DOTD rejects

[lucky-katebishop]

What I Read in August 2021

I... my first draft got deleted and that took forever to make so please like this for my sanity. I bookmarked 26 fics and read 1 book this month, so not as much as my previous two months but still! The majority is Harry Potter, but there's a spare Sherlock one and Friends one in there. A lot of these fics have other people raising Harry because that's just what I've been in the mood for lately.

Friends

For someone to ripple the waters by teatrolley

Plot: He’s fine, though, he tells himself. He’s dealing with it. He’s dating girls, and using the excuse that he’s bad at it when Joey asks him why he never brings anyone home anymore. He’s fine. That is, until Joey kisses him at New Year’s, and everything changes. Or: Chandler is in love with Joey and it's not the sort of thing you say out loud. Until, one day, it is

Characters: Chandler, Joey, Monica

Relationships: Chandler/Joey

Warnings: none

Tags: canon compliant, friends to lovers, POV Chandler, Chandler is gay, coming out

My Notes: I watched a lot of Friends over August and just!!! Chandler and Joey were the Troy and Abed of the 90s, I said what I said. This fic is so beautiful, the prose is amazing and it’s so heartfelt and it did make me tear up a little bit. I don’t typically read fics for sitcoms but I highly 100% recommend this one!

*complete*

Sherlock (stand-alone)

Feel the Tide by positivelymeteoric

Plot: Things John Watson doesn't expect to do when he transfers to a new school: A) Befriend his (possibly) mad roommate. B) Investigate a particularly nasty streak of murders with his (most likely) mad roommate. C) Fall slightly (or not so slightly) in love with his (definitely) mad roommate. D) All of the above.

Characters: Sherlock, John, Harry Watson, Mycroft, Lestrade, Moriarty

Relationships: Sherlock/John

Warnings: none

Tags: teen!lock, high school

*complete*

Harry Potter & Sherlock

My Experiment by lemoncurry

Plot: Sherlock steals a boy. Sorry- rescues. John helps, because what choice does he have? But not even Sherlock knows just how not-boring things will be...

Characters: Sherlock, John, Harry Potter, Mycroft

Relationships: none

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: pre-Hogwarts

*incomplete* [last updated 2013]

Logic, Meet Luna by Applepie

Plot: Luna Lovegood has moved into 221c Baker Street! So what happens when you mix a 'loony' pureblood witch in a muggle area with logic driven residents? Err... not much, really. Just a whole lot of confusion.

Characters: Luna, Sherlock, Mycroft, John, Lestrade, Sally Donovan

Relationships: none

Warnings: none

Tags: humor

*complete*

Recalibration by Noxilicious

Plot: Mycroft more or less finds himself constantly cleaning up his dear brother’s messes, but in the case of one Harold William Holmes-Evans, he might just prove to be the one ‘mistake’ he won’t be able to rectify.

Characters:

Relationships: Sherlock/Lily Potter; Mary/John; Sherlock & Harry

Warnings: none

Tags: parentlock, canon compliant, pre-prisoner of Azkaban, post series 3, family drama, angst, hurt/comfort, muggle Sherlock, Sherlock is a Good Parent, Sherlock has a Heart, protective Sherlock, genius Harry, bogus deductions, fluff

*incomplete* [last updated 2017]

In Search of Companionship by kris799

Plot: After the events of the Sign of Three, Sherlock falls into a bout of melancholy; Mycroft, the consummate manipulator, suggests "filling the gap" and events largely get out of hand from there. A Sherlock adopts Harry!fic, set between Episodes Two and Three of Season Three.

Characters: Sherlock, Harry, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, John, Mary

Relationships: Sherlock & Harry

Warnings: none

Tags: Parent!Sherlock, Child!Harry, adoption, John is out of the picture but not really, manipulative!Mycroft, magic, slow paced, perhaps glacial, Sherlock has many thoughts, and a mental!John to call him out on his crap, he’s not crazy, Harry cooks, and tries to take care of everyone, bored!Sherlock leads to bad [great] ideas, set in season 3

My Notes: don’t get your hopes up for Sherlock to find out about magic, it doesn’t happen and since the last time this was updated was almost seven years ago, I don’t think we’ll get to read it. However, it’s still very good and while it does give off some weird Sherlock stalkery vibes, this fic still kept me engaged and Sherlock and Harry’s relationship is great.

*incomplete* [last updated 2015]

Harry Potter of Baker Street by Dayja

Plot: Sherlock Holmes discovers family he never knew he had, and John Watson finds a child living in the cupboard.

Characters: Harry, Sherlock, John

Relationships: none

Warnings: none

Tags: family, friendship

My Notes: this one!!! Is so amazing!!! It’s so cute! I don’t really like to read kid fics all that much, but this one is worth the read!

*complete*

No Thank You by IHScribe

Plot: Harry Potter declines to attend Hogwarts, and Albus Dumbledore is forced to go and convince him otherwise. Too bad he didn’t expect the boy’s father(s).

Characters: Sherlock, John, Harry, Dumbledore, Mrs Hudson, Mycroft, Moriarty, McGonagall, Pomfrey, Hagrid, Snape

Relationships: Sherlock/John

Warnings: none

Tags: none

My Notes: this one is very funny and very sweet. Honestly fuck Hogwarts.

*complete*

Friend by esama

Plot: Sherlock finds the skull when he's five.

Characters: Sherlock, Harry, Mycroft, Mrs Holmes

Relationships: Sherlock & Harry

Warnings: character death

Tags: kid fic, alternate universe

My Notes: This one is so cool and original! I never thought about where Sherlock’s skull came from!

*complete*

Harry Potter & Supernatural

The Youngest Winchester by TheLastWincehsterStanding

Plot: Harry James Potter had thought, given the current circumstances, that going to America to track down his biological father was a fantastic idea. Unfortunately, like most of Harry's plans, there had been very little planning and far too much impulsiveness. Had he known what sort of monsters lurked in America, he would've stayed in England.

Characters: Harry, Bobby Singer, Dean Winchester, John Winchester, Sam Winchester

Relationships: Harry & Dean & Sam Winchester; Harry & John Winchester; Harry & Bobby Singer

Warnings: none

Tags: non-Potter Harry, the hunt for Yellow Eyes, season 1 of Supernatural, book 5, surprise! It’s a sixteen year old boy!

My Notes: I don’t really remember this one, I’ve read like four of these types of Harry being a Winchester story and I generally forget what happens in this one

*incomplete* [last updated 2018]

Harry Potter (stand-alone, specifically Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood)

That escalated quickly by SquaresAreNotCircles

Plot: Percy and Oliver get stuck in a Ministry lift (with seven other people present).

Characters: Percy, Oliver, Fred, George, Ginny, Bill, Ron, Charlie, Arthur, original male character

Relationships: Percy/Oliver

Warnings: none

Tags: humor, fluff

*complete*

Petty Theft by pinksnowboots

Plot: Percy pilfers Oliver's sweater. The twins are suspicious.

Characters: Percy, Oliver, Fred, George

Relationships: Percy/Oliver

Warnings: none

Tags: slice of life, drabble, sweaters, accidental coming out, established relationship, sharing clothes, quidditch, Oliver is protective

*complete*

Five Times Percy Thought Oliver was Beautiful and One Time Oliver Did Something About It by hufflebadgerinthetardis

Plot: The rule worshiping, strict, and by-the-books Gryffindor Prefect Percy Weasley has a secret. He’s got a huge crush on fellow Gryffindor and Quidditch Captain Oliver Wood. Percy was resigned to loving him from afar but he should have remembered that secrets don’t stay secrets for long at Hogwarts.

Characters: Percy, Oliver, Fred, George

Relationships: Percy/Oliver

Warnings: none

Tags: none

*complete*

Burn Across the Sky by MoonytheMarauder1 (beforethemoon)

Plot: When Oliver Wood stops talking about Quidditch to stare at Percy Weasley, Ron, Fred, and George know something is up.

Characters: Percy, Oliver, Ron, Harry, Hermione, Fred, George, Angelina, Alicia, Katie

Relationships: Percy/Oliver

Warnings: none

Tags: secret relationship, bad matchmaking, humor, protective siblings, quidditch, gay Percy, gay Oliver, injury, the hospital wing, exasperated Hermione, Harry is oblivious

My Notes: this isn’t the full plot, but it was very long and I only have so much time. Read this, it’s very cute

*complete*

I dare you to dare me by SquaresAreNotCircles

Plot: Fred didn’t even blink. “Harry said he didn’t want to join.” “So did I,” Oliver murmured. George didn’t allow him to stall any longer. He put his feet up between Fred and Angelina on the sofa and tilted his chair on its hind two legs. “Oliver, mate, truth or dare?”

Characters: Percy, Oliver, Fred, George, Angelina, Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell

Relationships: Percy/Oliver

Warnings: none

Tags: truth or dare, Gryffindor Quidditch Team, the consumption of innocent earthworms, fluff

*complete*

It’s the truth by SquaresAreNotCircles

Plot: Fred and George refuse to believe Percy has a girlfriend. Oliver seems to know more. It's all very mysterious, until it isn't.

Characters: Percy, Oliver, Fred, George, Ginny, Harry, Hermione, Ron

Relationships: Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood

Warnings: none

Tags: fluff

My Notes: Percy and Oliver really are just teenage Sherlock and John, aren’t they? Just saner and have less crimes involved.

*complete*

Harry Potter (stand-alone)

Harry Potter and His Increasingly Worrying Letters Home by hopeless_hope

Plot: Dear Mum & Dad, Sorry my letters have been brief lately. I hope you’re all well! Just wanted to let you know that my friends and I stumbled upon a three-headed dog on the forbidden corridor that the stairs rather determinedly took us to. Is that normal? Love, Harry… or In which Lily and James survive Voldemort's attack, Sirius is never sent to Azkaban, and long-distance parenting is hard. Especially when your reckless Gryffindor child keeps sending concerning letters home and rushing into trouble before anyone has the chance to respond.

Characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Lily, James, Sirius, Remus, Draco, Snape, Dumbledore

Relationships: James/Lily; Sirius/Remus; Harry & Lily; Harry & James; Harry & Sirius; Harry & Hermione & Ron

Warnings: none

Tags: everyone lives/nobody dies, Lily and James live, angst and humor, the Golden Trio, most things are the same except now harry has adults who care about him, the marauders are a lil happy family, not peter tho bc fuck that guy, fix-it, friendship, harry grows up with a loving family but he’s still a reckless little shit

My Notes: this is another fic I’m very excited about. Reading new fics is something I don’t do often, I usually sort my fics by kudos and go backwards from there which usually means I miss out on amazing stuff like this! I do have to wait, which is a pain, but I’m still very excited about this fic, I see a lot of potential in it.

*incomplete* [last updated 1 August]

turn and face the strange by viennawaitss

Plot: ‘He sees himself as a creature of evolution, or perhaps a phantom of peculiarities - a great, winding python, yearning for the snap of his jaw, a snowy lamb, unchristened and stumbling across land on trembling legs.’ Reality, growth and the steps toward change. Or, how Harry’s brief expulsion isn’t the worst thing to happen to him.

Characters: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Blaise, Pansy, Sirius, Theo Nott, Draco

Relationships: none

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

Tags: resorting, trauma, nightmares, the Golden Trio, book 5, Slytherin Harry, friendship, mental health issues, growing up, coming of age, and already fighting the government

My Notes: I am so freaking excited for this fic! It has everything I want! Resorted Slytherin Harry, dealing with abuse and trauma, amazing Slytherin friendships, I mean come on!

*incomplete* [last updated 19 August]

Know this: in some way, you’re already dead by ulittuq

Plot: Harry has been fighting against being an obscurial his entire life and Sirius’ death is what pushes him over the edge.

Characters: Harry, Dumbledore, Tom Riddle

Relationships: none

Warnings: implied/referenced child abuse, canonical character death, some noncanonical character death, suicidal thoughts

Tags: obscurial Harry, ambiguous/open ending

My Notes: part of a series but both fics are very short. It's only about 2k words.

*complete*

The Chosen One and The Halfblood Prince by waitingondaisies

Plot: Severus Snape was discovered as a spy mere days before the start of the school year. Thankfully, Albus had been working on a vague contingency plan for this possibility. It had been inspired by the question, “What would it take for Severus Snape to see that he was wrong about Harry Potter?” The answer? Force Severus to go undercover as Alfonse “Eli” Hopkirk, a sixth year Gryffindor.

Characters: Harry, Ginny, Snape, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Neville, Luna

Relationships: Harry & Ginny; Harry & Snape; Hermione/Ron

Warnings: child abuse

Tags: angst, undercover, Harry needs a hug, slow burn friendship, Ginny is a good friend, not canon compliant - HBP, no Snape as defensive teacher, no Slughorn

My Notes: this one is so fun! Snape tries to act as a sixteen year old and it goes as well as you’d think. It’s really funny but also really heartfelt, it’s part of a series of two and the second one is more Severitus than the first.

*complete*

By His Side by silver_fish

Plot: After what is surely a more-than-preventable potions accident, Harry Potter winds up stuck in the hospital wing, unable to wake up. Severus just wishes he knew why Poppy won’t stop bothering him about it.

Characters: Harry, Snape, Pomfrey, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore

Relationships: Harry & Snape

Warnings: references to addiction

Tags: severitus I guess? Just some good bonding, set during HBP, harry is sad and so am i, emotional hurt/comfort

*complete*

Unmasked Lilly’s - Year One by TheWillofTheQuill

Plot: Severus Snape was adamant, no - determined to hate Harry Potter. After all, he was the spawn of James Potter, his childhood bully. But when Harry turns up for his first year, malnourished and fearful, it is up to Snape to solve the mystery of why the small boy has bruises that he will not show and scars that will not heal. Sworn to protect Lilly's son, Severus Snape is about to face his hardest challenge yet; gaining the trust of a boy who has sworn to never trust again.

Characters: Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, Draco, Hermione

Relationships: future Drarry

Warnings: child abuse

Tags: Severitus, hurt/comfort, angst, abused Harry, Snape adopts Harry, Slytherin Harry, good Slytherins

*incomplete* [last updated July 2021]

A Pair of Shoes that Fit by Darkorangecat (Calacious)

Plot: Harry is lost in the Forbidden Forest when he goes looking for Neville’s Remembrall after Draco steals it from the boy once again. As Harry wanders the forest, wondering if he’ll ever make it back to Hogwarts, the entire staff is sent out to look for him, including a much peeved Severus Snape.

Characters: Harry, Snape

Relationships: none

Warnings: child abuse and neglect

Tags: Snape eventually adopts Harry, first year, hurt/comfort, angst

My Notes: this one is so cute and so sad, Harry’s only eleven in this fic and Snape is trying his best

*complete*

The Guiltless by branwyn

Plot: When Harry appears at the Welcoming Feast wearing a glamor only Snape notices, Snape decides to find out what the glamor is hiding.

Characters: Harry, Snape, Luna, Dumbledore

Relationships: Harry & Snape & Luna

Warnings: domestic violence, child abuse

Tags: Severitus, Snape mentors Harry, hurt/comfort

*complete*

Within Doors by Lomonaaeren

Plot: It takes three detentions for Severus Snape to realize why Harry Potter cleans cauldrons so well—and even more for him to decide what to do about it.

Characters: Harry, Snape

Relationships: Harry & Snape

Warnings: canonical child abuse

Tags: angst, detention, present tense

*complete*

Summer of Bonding by MagicaDraconia16

Plot: It was the summer of love . . . er, no, not really. Left waiting for the Dursleys, Harry is found by the last person he'd expect to see.

Characters: Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, Flitwick, Hermione, Ron, Molly, Fred, George, original house-elf characters, original male character, Stan Shunpike, Dobby

Relationships: Harry & Severus

Warnings: canon-typical violence, child abandonment, minor violence

Tags: humor, angst, nightmares of canon-typical violence, spiders, awkwardness, someone else (not Snape or Harry) dies too

My Notes: this one is so sweet and really captures how awkward Harry and Snape are

*complete*

Harry Potter & Everything

Raising Harry Collection by Steerpike13713

Fandoms: Harry Potter, Daredevil, Sherlock, Labyrinth, Batman, Gravity Falls, MCU, Once Upon a Time, Doctor Strange (comics), Buffy, Merlin

Plot: A collection of unrelated fics that have to do with people other than The Dursleys raising Harry Potter

Characters: too many to name, really

Relationships: Matt Murdock/Foggy & Belle/Rumplestiltskin

Warnings: none

Tags: genderqueer Loki, genderqueer Lily Evans, Loki is Lily Evans Potter

My Notes: since the fics are unrelated you can flip flop around the chapters to find the ones you really want to read. I think my favorite ones are the Batman and Daredevil ones :) (also the author wrote a really good Lucifer & Chaos Adventures of Sabrina series)

*complete*

[smilingformoney]

Hi, I’ve been wondering (affectionate) about your writing process. Are there "deleted scenes" to Soul of Ice? Like parts that you wrote but then threw out for whatever reasons? How do you plan your chapters? Please use this ask to tell us everything about your writing process that you want to share. Thank you, your fic ist just so AMAZING - I neeeed to know what goes on in your head when you write.

love, the anon who called you a cool teacher and manifested the snitches <3

omg @sevsnapes @madameish it’s our #1 fan 🥺 (who I’m still betting is ish in disguise lol)

ok so I am so flattered that you’ve asked me this??? I assume anyone who reads my stuff just goes “cool that was fun” then forgets about it so the fact you wanted to ask about my process is super flattering 🥺🥺🥺

Background first of all: I am a massive daydreamer. I do it all the time. When I go to sleep, when I’m in the bath/shower, when I’m bored at work. Basically whenever I have brainpower to spare, I’ve got some sort of scenario playing in my head. 99% of the time it’s unstructured bullshit, hence why this story was just a concept in my head for 10 years cus I daydreamed a lot about Abbie but never really formulated a chronological story. I did try to write it a long time ago but stopped after two chapters 😆 She’s also not always been a hp character, she’s more been a concept and sometimes I’ve put her in other stories in my head, like lotr or asoiaf. But I always came back to her as a hp character as I really felt she worked best with Snape.

Then I’m not really sure what kicked it off but about a year ago maybe Persephone started to take shape in my head. I think not having the background of Snape’s relationship with the mother was what was really stopping any story forming. I always knew she would have been raised by her mother but otherwise I didn’t really have anything. Then once I had the idea that the mother was a spy who slept with him for Spy Reasons, it was like a dam broke and the story just flooded my mind and has not stopped flooding

So in terms of planning. When I started I didn’t really have much of a plan. I was originally gonna do it as a series of one shots (when I was posting the first couple chapters on tumblr they’re referred to as one shots) but it very much became a chronological story quite quickly. You can kinda see remnants of the earlier chapters being written as one shots in the way that they covered longer periods of time.

Currently I have an endgame in mind but that could change. I have an overall idea of where the story will go and where it will end up, and certain specific events are planned along the way but the gaps will fill in along the way (I hope lol)

I do have a frustrating inability to write in a chronological order. A lot of chapters are actually already partially written when I get to them bc I was super inspired at some point, then I get to them and either tweak, remove or rewrite them depending on how the story has flowed since I drafted it.

When I started writing, I wrote on my phone in my notes app because I was with my family for Christmas and so couldn’t get on my pc. Since then I’ve written in Google docs on my pc, and occasionally go into it on my phone to read over or tweak stuff. Some of the most recent chapter was written on my phone cus I just got back from visiting my family for Easter, but I still proofread it on the pc before I published it.

I usually write in an evening or at weekends. I do have a freelance writing job I also do at these times so it’s very frustrating when I have a job due but I’m also super inspired 😫 honestly sometimes I just end up jumping between the two or writing down what should happen in the scene so I’ve got the ideas down to go back to when I have time to actually write it

umm what else? when I daydream scenes, it’s usually from one character’s perspective and they end up being the character I write as. I also get super into it and really feel the emotions as I’m imagining or writing them. which makes it annoying when I’m writing something intense (eg the break up scene) and my bf comes in the room asking what I want for dinner. he’s all “do you want chicken or steak” and I’m all “I want Snape to learn how to handle his goddamn emotions!”

this is also awkward when I’m writing the sexy bits bc I’m all horny over a fictional man at my keyboard when an actual man is sitting in the other room who may be willing to have sex with me 😆 plus sometimes I have to change my underwear cus I get so turned on 👀

I think that’s pretty much it but feel free to ask anything more specific and again thank you for asking me about this I am very flattered ☺️

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

Fic Writer Questions! (you can find me here on AO3 if you're interested!)

tagged by dear @theburialofstrawberries mwah!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

112 yowza!

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

750,421 kinda tempted to go delete one word so it can be 750420 which is a far more Pleasing number

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

12ish but some of them overlap: BBCS/Sherlock Holmes/ACD (these are all different bc my bbcs fics are not the same as my own modern fem Sherlock Holmes adaptation are not the same as my ACD Holmes fic; Good Omens; Harry Potter/The Werewolf Draco Malfoy Cinematic Universe; Captive Prince; The Hobbit; Fleabag (it was a crossover with BBCS but Fleabag is the perspective character so it still counts as a separate fandom imo); Doctor Who; The Office; Parks and Rec; Broad City (one a piece for those last 5 but I AM going to write a Parks and Rec polycule fic for @gaykagome)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

They're all Good Omens fics from the 2019 Summer of Good Omens! Susceptible to Summer, Fragments Shored Against My Ruin, Something So Magic, Enter Serpent, and Anything We Like

All of those have over 2k except the last one, but average engagement for me is like 400 kudos or so

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try! It depends on what's going on with me. Sometimes I just don't have the energy, and I figure people would rather I spend my brain power on writing new fics than on writing replies to comments. Wish I had a fave button tho so I could let people know I read and reread comments, because I do!

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh I wrote this ficlet series called A Chemical Defect about John and Sherlock's relationship in s3 of BBCS, and it's WILDLY unpopular. People don't read my fic to cry sad tears I guess! John and Sherlock are having an affair in the story, and it ends with the implication that their relationship is unsustainable and that Mary knows about it anyway. I intended to come back to it after s4 and write a more optimistic ending but LOL! Didn't have the heart.

7) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I know this answer is kinda up my own ass, but like. I think stories that feel true to life sort of feel like they end on a beginning if you know what I mean? You don't really consider a chapter of your life closed until you look back on it from the next? SO that said, I think I'd have to say that it's my big BBCS serial The Only One in the World. I spent 2 years writing it, and it ends with John retiring from medicine to solve crimes and write books full time.

Could also be my WDMCU (werewolf Draco Malfoy cinematic universe) series Moonrise, which starts with Draco isolated in his abusive mother's house, trying to cope with lycanthropy essentially alone and ends with him in love and surrounded by found family in a cozy cottage in Hogsmeade, having gotten some lycanthrope rights legislation passed after working at it for years and talking to Harry about whether they want to have kids. Oh man I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about it

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written one crossover. It's BBCS/Fleabag, because me and @loudest-subtext-in-tv were laughing about how John seems like one of the horrible guys Fleabag sleeps with basically out of self loathing, so I wrote this fic to make Nattie laugh, and you should read it bc it's so good and so underrated.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really, but people don't seem to know that authors can read bookmark tags unless you private the bookmark, and someone once put in the bookmark tag on one of my fics 'writing was meh but it was okay.' Okay so why bookmark it then??

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Fuck yes! I'm not sure what 'what kind?' means? People fucking? Sloppy, silly, and awkward, with lots of laughing. I also really like writing afterglow scenes which are even sillier and gigglier and often involve one character cooking for another. Food as love language is a very distinct pattern of mine tbh

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, but occasionally I'll write a post on here where I make some elaborate head canon, and I'll see people in the tags talking about how they want to write fic of it, and it makes me breathe fire out of my nose like a dragon like PLEASE DON'T. The WDMCU came out of a ficlet post I made on here like a year before I actually wrote the 60k series so like!!! Please don't do that!

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! To Russian and I believe Chinese. Not my entire oeuvre but a handful of BBCS and Good Omens fics

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I wrote a fic inspired by an RP I did with my gf right around when we met (actually now that I think about it, it's two fics), and I waaaaaaanna do a WDMCU collab with my beloved Sally @clytemenestras at some point if he has time bc he inspired me to even write werewolf draco with his original lesbian werewolf story

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

favorites are hard for me? I always think I'm currently doing my best writing lol so I'll say drarry

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don't post fics unless theyre finished, so I don't have any WIP up on AO3, but I did intend to continue with my fem Sherlock Holmes series, Your Many Tendencies. I just haven't been in a Holmes mood for a long time. Maybe I'll come back to it idk. This particular series is honestly very unpopular? People will just straight up say they don't read femslash, and it hurts a lot. This series feels really personal too, bc it's about a Black autistic nonbinary lesbian, so it does hurt my feelings that no one seems to care, yknow? I mean the people who read it are extremely kind and thoughtful in their engagement with it, but it has vastly less engagement than my m/m fic, and that's painful. It gets literally 1/10 the attention my fics usually get.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Almost all of my writing is romance, but I tend to write concurrently about recovery and found family, and I think I'm very good at doing that in a way that connects with my audience. I once had someone ask if they could use my words in their wedding vows, and I've had people tell me they started doing things with their spouse that my characters do with their partners in order to express love. I think about that all the time. My Impact. It makes me feel like I have a real duty to my audience yknow?

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

This question is hard for me like I've been writing so long and so much that I'm literally always happy with my final draft! It's always exactly to my taste, yknow? I suppose I could say that my fics tend not to be terribly plotty but so WHAT? That's beside the fuckn point for me. Plot who? I don't know Her. Also honestly like. Stories feel more True to me when they aren't ruthlessly devoted to plot bc like life isn't like that yknow?

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If you're not fluent in that language, get a beta who is!!!!! That said, I have written scraps of very simple dialogue in French using mostly Google Translate (sometimes I check w Sally bc he speaks French but I am usually too impatient), and I am perfectly well aware that I take my life in my hands each time!!! Also don't do that bullshit thing where it's in italics? That shit is weird and exoticizing. Just write it in quotation marks like normal dialogue.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

BBCS babey back in 2012. Ended a 5 year dry spell for me after I got my writing degree.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Hmmmm I think it's probably gonna be the fic I'm working on now that I haven't posted yet, but I know it's called Names for a House, and here's a tiny bit of it

Thanks again Shreya for asking me to do this bc I really love talking about myself. I tag @the-moon-loves-the-sea, @clytemenestras, @tomiano, @gaykagome and @totallysilvergirl

No pressure <3

[atsuwiee]

— the interview question tag game!

tagged by @skyaura-koo 🙇🏻‍♀️🦋

1. why did you choose your url?

i was still very much into the anime haikyuu!! and shipped sakuatsu so much– so atsuwiee is basically atsumu + the word 'wiee' idk it seemed cute so i put it in,, so this blog was supposed to be a sakuatsu oneshots lol not until i got into enhypen

2. any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them?

nope i don't have one, i used to want to make one but idk how to so😐

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

i think i had the account on the begining of november (?) not quite sure lol, but yeah it was somewhere near christmas. so in total i have been here for abt 5-6-ish months hehe.

4. do you have a queue tag?

idk what this is lol 😭

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

as i mentioned before in the first question, this blog was supposed to be for sakuatsu. i actually had drafts of my oneshots already but since i have a new phone (my current one) i can't really transfer those notes ://

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

i'm a park jongseong simp🙇🏻‍♀️

7. why did you choose your header?

i needed it to match the color scheme of my pfp so it would look nice lmaoo

8. what's your post with the most notes?

ouh i kinda don't remember– but i think it's the slow dancing with enhypen! one. i honestly like that one the most lol bcs it was some brainrot content i finally got to write.

9. how many mutuals do you have?

i'm not really close with them😭 i suck at communication so i probably have 2-3+ i think

10. how many followers do you have?

OOF I ONLY HAVE 70 SMTH AHAHAHA i'm just a newbie so👁👁

11. how many people do you follow?

i follow like 30 blogs- most of them are haikyuu related tho more than enhypen bcs then again originally this was for sakuatsu lmao

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

eh not really- i don't do it a lot

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

it depends, honestly. i use tumblr alot more when i'm pretty damn bored but when i have things to do or some wips i stay on my notes app or sometimes on wattpad bcs i still have works there that are unfinished lol

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

nope not really– if someone were to fight me on here tho, i wouldn't respond and i'd just delete it lmao 😭

15. how do you feel about 'you need to share this posts'?

i think if it's needed and it's info is very ig crucial ?? then i would share it– like if it's really really important, but if the post is like crappy af and it's info isn't really relevant then i wouldn't share it (or if it contains content that isnt good).

16. do you like tag games?

yuUuuUh, but i don't know how to respond(?) to them at times lol

17. do you like ask games?

yesss,, i find them very interesting (i do it alot on insta)

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

@arteqmiss 🙇🏻‍♀️

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

@miedei bcs she's very swaggy (platonically tho) ❤️

tagging: @miedei @googoojeu @moonshappiness + anyone who wants to do it!

[starkeaton]

the adventure zone: graduation character list

Well, i accidentally deleted the original graduation character list post, so here i am making another one. Oops. And as always, if anyone has important details i should add then feel free to suggest them!

Here are all the characters introduced in episodes 1-25. Named characters only!

Also i can’t hide spoilers! So, um..... I can’t put spoilers on this one. If you need the version with spoilers try this version of the post that i made on the adventure zone subreddit but youre not missing out on much.

# -EPISODE 1- (19 characters)

Hieronymous Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Hero/Villain school. at least 400 years old. wears shining blue armor with gold accents. also an elf. according to Tomas, he led the charge at the "battle of blood valley", brought the Kingdoms of Rickart and Dawnbreak to a peace treaty, and founded the school. a little boastful, a little prideful, [SPOILERS OMITTED], and overall a pretty good dude.

Higglemas Wiggenstaff (he/him): Head of the Sidekick/Henchperson annex, cranky old elf. has a dog named hero who shows no signs of anything strange at all, ever. 

Gary (he/him): friendly room gargoyle. pseudo-hivemind.

Groundsy (he/him): the groundskeeper. a pretty nice fellow. don't go in his shed.

Hernandez (he/him): beautiful centaur professor of animal handling.

Jimson (he/him): human battlegrounds trainer for sidekicks/henchpeople, world famous featherweight champion, wields a staff. married to crushman.

Crushman (he/him): silver dragonborn with a sickle, and self-described beefy boy! heavyweight blood champion married to jimson. never lost a match for 8 years. full name Frostus Crushman.

Rolandus Fontaine (he/him): former prince, son of deposed king, kind of an asshole, maybe. wears a cape (important detail)

Zana (she/her): "terrifying" tiefling villain sorcerer, friend of rolandus. barkept the test tavern in ep2

Rhodes (she/her): hero ranger, friend of rolandus.

Buckminster Eden (he/him): hero guy. son of "The Iron Lord". their dad is stronger than rolandus's dad. his wiki page says rogue so i think hes a rogue? i never caught that and ive listened more times than i wish i did

Leon (he/him): softspoken buff, bald "fighter" (although i dont remember any clarification on how exactly he fights), sidekick of buckminster, around 28. anyone else keep forgetting he's bald? i keep forgetting it. >!gets sorta-drafted into becoming a falcon for higglemas and so far hasn't done much else.!<

Rainer Michelle (she/her): cheerful villainous necromancer with a floating chair. also, her name is pronounced "rainier" despite not being confirmed as such? travis ships her with fitzroy.

Tomas (he/him): human man with "kind eyes" and a good (psychic???) memory. guidance counselor.

Stewart LeBoeuf (he/him): brawny human man. serves food. there is no joke here, i promise

Mulligan (he/him): teaches potions. mentioned but doesn't appear yet. and we're like 25 episodes in. maybe we'll see him someday

Germaine, Victoria, Rattles (he/him,she/her,???/???): Skeleton crew. They live in the training room i guess, and as a result can never die, because "no one dies in the training room!" (note: someone now HAS to die in the training room). also their races are never explicitly stated but i guess they're probably human? in episode 3 travis brings up something about how many bones are in "the human body" and at this point i think i'm looking too deep into this so i'll just forget about it and you probably should too.

# -EPISODE 2- (9 characters)

Riveau (he/him): halfling, blame-taking teacher.

Mimi (they/them): gnome sidekick who builds cool robot prosthetics

Bartholemus (he/him): owl aarakocra accountant teacher, known for being the best accountant in the land and having a face some might describe as "smoochable". very pro capitalist :’( hope he gets better

Ramos (she/her): goliath teacher of shieldwork. *

Dip (she/her): sidekick, half-orc twin of pip

Pip (she/her): hero, half-orc twin of dip

Festo (they/them): fairy with "beautiful gossamer wings", independent study teacher of magic, loves to party

Snippers (he/him?): Let me tell you my story about Snippers the magic crab. When Travis gave the list of animals that Griffin could choose as Fitzroy's familiar's current form, he listed crab near the start, and this gave me excitement. Now i knew that crab was pretty unlikely but god i hoped that he would choose it. When the list went on- Bat, Cat, Crab, Frog, Hawk, Lizard, Owl, Poisonous Snake, Fish, Rat, Raven, Seahorse, Spider or Weasel- I nearly lost hope. I was hoping so hard that Griffin would choose the crab, but i was ready to accept a non-crab familiar. It was just buried in that list. It wasn't the most useful animal and it was an obscure pick. And as Travis informed him that it didn't have to keep the form for the whole campaign, Griffin said those five words i wanted to hear so, so badly. "Well then it's a crab." Folks, I do not often react physically when something happens in media. But in that moment, i remember very clearly, i fist-pumped and yelled, "YES!!!!!!"

so anyway, Fitzroy has a crab.

Jackle (he/him): kenku teacher of sneakery. creepy dude. apparently knows something about argo? also his name is not spelled "jackal" for some reason. Also in later episodes theyve started calling him "The Jackle" for some reason??? *

# -EPISODE 3- (1 character)

Dakota (they/them): tavern instructor, clad in black/red leather. no race stated? probably human. *

# -EPISODE 4- (6 characters)

Gerry & Tom (she/her, he/him): shopkeepers at barns and nobles who seem to have very bad names. also constantly competing for customers? these guys got dropped faster than the heathcliff quests, which is honestly just sad.

Barb (she/her): the bartender. runs Springs Eternal in Last Hope. has a sweet seeing-eye hawk familiar. 

Jaryd Reginald (he/him): owner of Reginald Ore. Wants the workers to be held responsible for the damage caused by the xorn. (fun fact: originally i wrote down "Jerrod" because i wanted it to sound like a fantasy name, then realized it was probably "Jared" because theyre named after listeners, but i was pleased to find it confirmed that it's actually "Jaryd")

Candice (she/her): A Miner. thought those werent allowed in bars but, i guess not. Wants the mine owner to be held responsible for the xorn's damage.

Jade Johnson Esq. (she/her): lawyer.

# -EPISODE 5- (1 character)

Xorn: a big hungry gem eating guy from the plane of earth Low-Down Deep with 3 arms and 3 legs. why did travis just say "multi-armed" instead of specifying it was 3? who knows! Anyway it leaves

# -EPISODE 6- (3 characters)

Osric (he/him): the man, the myth, the bursar. finally shows up after being mentioned in episodes 2 and 4. he's an elf. 

breeze through the willows (she/her): Pegasus attacked by demons, lost her parents. introduced in ep1 but gets a name here so fuck it. also in ep>!16!< we find out shes a "white arabian pegasus" and i dont think thats a spoiler bc we shouldve really known it from the beginning

Sabor (he/him): Librarian/research teacher. also a TORTLE. Really good at recalling stuff, i guess. kinda reminds me of Tomas's memory thing but i'm sure that's just a coincidence... *

# -EPISODE 7- (1 character)

Mosh (he/him): The goliath blacksmith who welcomes argo into the unbroken chain. Also, and this is specific to the tumblr version of this post, all the characters with an * at the end of their descriptions are also members of the unbroken chain. if someone knows how to do spoilers on tumblr please tell me

# -EPISODE 8-

:)

# -EPISODE 9- (2 characters)

Eeiïäá#æ&éñn (pronounced like "Ian") (he/him?): an imp but without a shitty voice. also happens to not be violent. what a coincidence?

Terence (he/him): a chain devil with a real demonic name. minor boss of the imps. very convincing and very threatening. has the frightening ability to make you zone out during his fight

# -EPISODE 10- (2 characters)

Althea Song (she/her): elf with autumn-orange hair. representative from heroic oversight guild. i'd like to personally thank travis for spelling her name out.

Crabtree (she/her): Artificing teacher. Long gray hair with a long grey beard. no mentioned race, one might guess dwarf but that would be an assumption i suppose. also unbroken chain member, presumably the dwarf argo didn't recognize in episode 7.

# -EPISODE 11- (3 characters)

Marie (she/her): Grey-haired elf woman. She's the school's physician, i guess. Member of the unbroken chain.

Dendra Maplecourt (she/her): Fitzroy's mom. Has hot mint gum, i guess. She was mentioned earlier but i wasn't convinced she was a real person until this episode

Cool Gary (he/him): AYY ITS ME GARYR

# -EPISODE 12-

no new characters again!

# -EPISODE 13- (7 characters hhhyyyuu)

Kale (???/???): Head of the Placement Department, in charge of real world assignments. First mentioned in Ep4 but i missed that the last few times bc it is so brief. Gives exposition about missions i guess????? is that the only reason this chara cter exists

satyr thief (unnamed) (he/him): tries to rob thundermen, dies instantly

Ogre (he/him): teamed up with the satyr. his name is ogre.

Moon (he/him): A Sidekick. small pale sullen guy. no mentioned race. Why is there another FUCKING sidekick WE HAD ENOUGH hhhyuuuuuu

Deanna (she/her): A bigoted centaur with an obnoxious voice. Malwin the Strong's second in command.

Malwin the Strong (she/her): Leader of the centaurs of the scarlet woods. Wants to appease the spirit of the scarlet woods so that thecentaurs of the scarlet woods will be protected in the scarlet woods. Had a relationship with Arturas in the past but their clashes are currently known to get pretty heated.

Arturas (he/him): Leader of the Centaurs of the Valley, i guess. Had a relationship with Malwin. Centaur. Did i mention centaur? i cant think of anything else about this character

# -EPISODE 14- (2 characters)

Calhain (he/him): Human wizard, Malwin's magical advisor. Kind of an amateur wizard in a job high above his skill level. Graduated Wigginstaff's as a hero.

Spirit of the Scarlet Woods: A spirit who requires sacrifice in order to keep Malwin's herd safe and prosperous. Not keen on dubiously canonical combos, i guess. i wouldnt be either. also apparently the sacrifice depends on personal value, not how much value it has to the spirit.

# -EPISODE 15- (2 characters)

Sylvia Nite (she/her): Fitzroy's magic theory teacher at knight night school, who he turned into a catfish by accident. oops!

Chaos (they/them, maybe more): Presumably a deity, gave Fitz his powers and wants him to give in to his chaotic desires. (physical desc: 9 foot tall, iridescent 'mother of pearl' skin, pure white eyes, fine burgundy cloak with gold/onyx lining. their physical form beyond that seems to change every time they show up.)

# -EPISODE 16-

none -w-

# -EPISODE 17-

some demins happened. the big dudes are called "Pit Fiends" and the armored demon ladies are called "Erinyes", by the way. that was incredibly hard for me to figure out the first time, especially without headphones, i thought travis was saying "pig feet" and i just could not discern what the other things were

# -EPISODE 18- (6 characters)

snow on the mountain: shire horse pegasus

storm at sea: peruvian paso pegasus, vehement defender of The Guardian. doesn't have a goofy voice.. but he could have....

thaw of the spring: a winged horse

night of no clouds: a winged hhorse

The Guardian: "An ancient and powerful being that guards the unknown forest." Has protected the flock from demons for many many years. apparently is the voice that was talking to our firbolg in episode 1?

Grey, the Demon Prince (he/him): wants to cause a war, originally wanted to kill hiero and higgs, forces the heroes to build an army to fight his. As "Fauxronimous", he has skin the *color and pattern of* (but not necessarily made of) slate splashed with liquid, pointed ears, sharp teeth, shining eyes, horns of unspecified shape. 12 fucking feet tall. wonder if the slate-looking skin is related to garys. plot twist detected? Also i recently looked at the episode descriptions and found out his name is spelled "Gray", but really does it truly matter?

# -EPISODE 19- (2 characters)

Shabree Keene (she/her): Argo's mom, killed on the Mariah, possibly by the Commodore. Long auburn hair, green eyes. Mentioned earlier but described here, so fuck it.

**Thomas** (he/him): Argo's first mate on the Mariah, as the Kraken, in his chaos-dream. may or may not actually exist.

# -EPISODE 20- (1 character)

The Commodore (he/him): Reknowned hero of the seas, military regalia, great naval hero, presumably responsible for the death of Shabree Keene. No mentioned race. Seriously, they never mention this guy's race. The only thing described about him is how he's dressed and his evil smile. Does that mean he's human? Elf? Dwarf??? Who knows! maybe it just doesnt matter. 

# -EPISODE 21-

none

# -EPISODE 22-

not any of them. not any.

# -EPISODE 23- (1 character)

Ozymondelius (sp???) (it/its): A warforged teacher who just so happens to like war or something? i guess its in the name. only mentioned in this episode, doesnt show up yet.

# -EPISODE 24-

they have a fight in the training room but nobody dies :\\ maybe next time. also no new characters. pog

# -EPISODE 25- (4 characters)

Gherkin (he/him): Tall lankier skeleton, has a scimitar and a merkin, which is a pubic wig... and he wears a jerkin? which i guess is a kind of coat? also i think hes mute 

Tibia (she/her?) : Shorter skeleton with gold teeth, and long canines. i think both of the skeletons are mute actually.

The Lich King aka Gordy (he/him): Rainer's dad. Commands armies of the undead. lives in The Crypt. described as a hooded, skull-faced man with intricate black lines on his face, but changes to a shaved-head man with dark skin and vetiligo. Abandoned as a babby, raised by traveling parents, had necromancy powers, took Rainier in. Not actually very scary at all i don't know why he did the creepy laugh. Kind of a warm fatherly figure actually. hm. also people are speculating Gordy might be short for Gordita and his parents are maybe supposed to be lup and barry but THAT S JUST A THEORY.

our firbolg's father (he/him): A firbolg who lived by the code and was there when our firbolg was banished. Came to respect our firbolg's interest in a new way of life, in his final moments.

TOTAL: 72 NPCS! (well, including 2 extra PCs, i guess.)

Average: 2.88 NPCs per episode.

i was gonna not include the bone-PCs and have it be 69 but our firbolg's dad was just too important to not respect with a spot on the list.

anyway as always make sure to smack me with a blunt object if i forgot any characters!!!!!

[goldrockyroad]

my entire draft got deleted right after i finished writing + tagging it so i’m doing it all over again - public performances round 2 thoughts (pt 2)

very angry but evidently isn’t stopping me from making this post anyway. (pt 1)

fix me (original song): fu sichao 【付思超】，li luoer 【李洛尔】， rong yao 【荣耀】, yu yang 【于洋】，lu dinghao 【陆定昊】

love how they let fu sichao and li luoer write a song aka what they’re most comfortable with for a public performance  lu dinghao’s high note left me shook  only for yu yang’s final part to leave me all alone to recover in a ditch the both of them nailed their parts  i really like rong yao’s part of the rap especially and of course his voice was stellar  the song managed to bring together all their strong suits while pushing their limits at the same time it was great 

i don’t care: bo yuan 【伯远】，gan wangxing 【甘望星】，shao mingming 【邵明明】，wu yuheng 【吴宇恒】，jing long 【井胧】

ok yall know.  i’m sure yall kNOW i’m a bo yuan stan he’s pratically my ult on this entire show but let’s talk about jing long for a moment because resident vocal king slayed and knew he was slaying while at it i loved how he played with the dynamics of his voice to add some spice to it instead of just going at it with full power all the way through if that makes sense  gan wangxing has this beautiful baritone voice that i’ve ben dying to hear since he sang unbreakable love! because of that i literally realised that baritones are my biggest weakness  i loved how he captured the slightly aggressive nonchalance of the song through his expressions while performing (might be thanks to his face naturally but he did it nonetheless) wu yuheng brought out a side to him that i never thought existed without this i never would have guessed he would even come near to killing a concept like this  also somehow made an ugly ass bowl cut look good  i (finally) realised that what attracted attracts me to bo yuan as a performer is how he goes on stage and you can just tell that he enjoys himself every. single. time. without fail it’s insane 

therefore i am: hiroto 【井汲大翔】，lelush 【利路修】，xie xingyang 【谢兴阳】，zhang teng 【张腾】zhang jiayuan 【张嘉元】

now this was an unexpected one for me  this stage probably was my favourite in terms of choreographic design - the white vs black? the white gradually being removed that ends with basically all black? the choreography itself for the story? top tier  i love xie xingyang as an actor and now i want to see him take on a psycho-ish role because of his facials here they were just that good  similar for hiroto like you have this adorable japanese boy who all the chinese trainees are in love with and then you have him on this stage being absolutely unhinged and going feral beyond belief we love to see it  zhang teng’s bit where they’re sitting on the floor? revolutionary didn’t get the zhang jiayuan hype but he really could catch my attention here - that final expression did it all for me really 

joker (original choreography): xu shaolan 【徐绍岚】，ren yinpeng 【任胤蓬】，wu hai 【吴海】，santa 【赞多】，rikimaru 【力丸】

santa and rikimaru doing well is a given  but the one who really did it for me here was wu hai  it was so nice to see him in his element more as a professional dancer than an idol  although i did get the feeling that he was holding back almost like he could have gone off even harder than he did  the three of them did an amazing job at creating a piece that brought out their respective strengths  that being said though it would be so nice to see both santa and rikimaru perform something that isn’t dance-focused / a dance genre that isn’t right up their alley the way all their previous performances on the show were  when the mentors were making comments i just had a thought that was like ‘i wanna see santa do something cutesy (撒娇 was the term i had lol)’ which basically sums up that whole sentiment 

crab dance: gui shangqi 【贵尚奇】，ichika 【上原一翔】，wang xiaochen 【王孝晨】，amu 【羽生田拳武】，he yifan 【何屹繁】

comedic performances (imo) are usually hit or miss but this one did enough for me  amu hard carried this with his facials i lost it everytime the camera was on him omg  it’s almost like mate was literally made to perform this song  cross-eyed he yifan is something i never thought i would see but i loved it  the choreo was hella funny as well and that really helped their intros before voting were so funny??? maybe that’s just me having no sense of humour but i died there 

you better not think about me: nine 【高卿尘】，mika 【米卡】，patrick 【尹浩宇】，zhang xingte 【张星特】，yu gengyin 【余更寅】

i have to say that thing yu gengyin sat on up to the middle of the first chorus was very cool  all five of them are both strong and popular and after this stage i can clearly tell that ‘disappoint’ is nowhere close to existing in their vocabularies yu gengyin’s voice is to die for throughout but that last line where he was tearing up crushed my heart into a million pieces  didn’t think much of nine before this but he really shone singing this song he deserved that mvp spot  as soothing as mika’s voice is it would be so cool to hear him have a ‘powerful’ vocal moment if you know what i mean  honestly all their voices are beautiful on their own but an absolute masterpiece together  they also brought out the emotions of a song that i personally really love so well props to them  also unbreakable love 2.0 was an added bonus HAHAHA 

[mypoisonedvine]

Ok then, just to be clear, I genuinely enjoyed the story, and I don't mean to discourage you from writing longer fics, I know firsthand how frustrating it can be. Alright, so I noticed that in one of your posts after finishing 'Seeing Red', you said that you weren't originally planning for it to go so far, but you became curious about their characters' pasts as you continued writing it. (1/2)

Which is why, as you continued writing the story, more and more of their pasts started to show up. The reader's commitment issues were present more or less through the story, but I personally felt that Bucky's PTSD was kind of 'dropped' into the story. It really wasn't until the last chapter that I was able to connect his actions in ch. 8 to his past. You did give some insight into his military past, particularly after ch. 4 (sorry this took more words than I originally thought) (2/??)

But it wasn't exactly prominent through the rest of the chapters, and I basically forgot about it until ch. 8. I think this is mostly due to the fact that the fic took twists and turns you weren't expecting. I remember in my first story one of my characters made such a strange revelation about her past, that I had to delete the whole draft because it just crumpled down my plan. (3/4)

What I'm trying to say is that since the initial foundation of your story was not built for such an in depth analysis of an extremely complicated relationship, the ending was a little weaker than the rest of the story. I don't mean to say that I didn't like where you took it, it's just that I felt that there should have been more indications of their future problems in the earlier chapters of the story. (4/5)

Anyhoo...loved the story and love your writing, whether a oneshot or longer fic. Please don't take this as discouragement to stop writing, I think it's mostly due to the fact that where you took the story fell out of your initial plan of where to take it. Can't wait to see what you have in store for your other works! (5/5)

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Final thing, since I believe in constructive criticism. Maybe try working in some solo scenes with each character, particularly at the beginning, so we can see more into each of their mindsets before getting into their relationship. Maybe an intrusive thought or two as well. Of course, the whole thing was still amazing, this is just a small point. Tons of kisses and hugs.

anon, I completely agree with you!  and thank you for wording it so gently.  ultimately I feel you are 100% right, this series wasn’t planned out from start to finish like most of mine are (I don’t remember for sure where/when I originally intended to end it tbh, I started it a long time ago) and it’s honestly coincidence that it ended up so long.  I would do a lot differently if I understood from the beginning where it would end up: more of Bucky’s PTSD, more of the reader’s commitment issues (although it is implied in the early chapters), and best of all more of Sam who was my favorite character by the end tbh lmao

I appreciate the feedback although tbh it doesn’t present me with anything I didn’t already know, that said it does inspire me to keep working on my series that were actually MEANT to be series... such as love theoretically (which is really coming together I think) and the many many series WIPs I have lol

[onestowatch]

Your Grandparents Manifest a Cinematic, Soulful Debut Album With ‘Thru My Window’  [Q&A]

Photo: Jordan Perez

Inspired by everything from ‘90s boom bap artists like Digable Planets and the Pharcyde to modern funk legends like Outkast and D'Angelo, Your Grandparents have quickly proven themselves to be their generations' torchbearers for the psychedelic soul movement. 

Using a variety of recording techniques to get the desired effect for their genre-blending debut album Thru My Window, the group credits their uniquely cohesive sound to their years-long friendship, which began in their early teens. With their lush grooves, breezy, clear vocals, a sonic aesthetic built on unwavering authenticity, and of course, a deep love for their roots and deep musical traditions passed down from their grandparents, Your Grandparents embodies what it means to be an artist to watch.

Ones To Watch had a chance to talk with the trio, comprised of DaCosta (vocals), Jean Carter (vocals), and Cole, aka ghettoblasterman (producer), to discuss their inspirations and the long days and nights that went into creating their debut album.

When you last spoke to Ones To Watch, it was for the release of your single "So Damn Fly," and now, a year later, here we are talking about the release of your debut album, Thru My Window. How are you all feeling, and what have you learned about yourselves in this last year through the album-making process?

DaCosta: From a personal outlook, I've learned that making music is heavily dependent on my mood, or just how I'm feeling and what's going on in my personal life. When things are a little too stagnant, it's a little harder to write. On the other hand, when things are flowing, and life is being lived, it's easy fuel. It's good fuel. It doesn't burn too quickly.

GBM: I've learned that no idea is too wild. It's usually less wild than I think it is.

Jean: Yeah, it's better to start at the extreme and take away. I realized I feel like a lot of artists feel like they have to put themselves through turmoil or allow certain situations to write meaningful things. Like it's not necessarily good music, but it's something that means a lot to them. I think I realized that that's not the case and inspiration comes in many different forms. It could be a person or something completely random and inanimate that makes you feel something.

What were some of those inspirations?

Jean: Definitely films.

GBM: A lot of films!

Jean: Yeah, we're all pretty big film people. We do all our own videos pretty much, and it just comes from this love of film that we've had that got nurtured in high school. We were blessed enough to have a really dope film program that Sony funded and stuff, and so we got like an impromptu film education before we graduated. So by the time we graduated, we knew how to get our own projects done without reaching out to someone else and then taxing us because they want to hire their friends and all that stuff. So because of that, we had complete creative control. I've also been watching a lot of Korean movies lately. Not during the album—wait, actually, during the album, there were a lot of old kung fu movies and blaxploitation movies from, like, the ‘70s. Also, my friend got me this Curtis Mayfield record, and "So Damn Fly" is definitely heavily influenced by that whole record.

GBM: I feel like the ‘70s in general, the ‘60s and ‘70s, definitely had a big inspiration on the aesthetic and the kind of sound we were going after. Especially with "So Damn Fly" and "Tomorrow" and those kinds of songs.

Do you feel like this album has a linear story the same way a film does, or do you feel like it's more of an anthology of the band's personal experiences?

GBM: It's kind of a mix of both.

Jean: Yeah, it started off as an anthology, and then we pieced together the story, which was largely done by Cole by sitting there and being like, “Hmmm.”

DaCosta: Yeah, it was a lot of Cole dissecting the words and putting them on the tracks.

Jean: When we're writing the words and trying to be free-flowing and expressive and stuff, we're not fully conscious of a bigger picture situation. Instead, Cole is sitting there producing everything and putting in the music and being just more of a listener than anyone else could. So he has the context, and he could find a story that we didn't know we were doing together with our three minds and in our three different lives.

GBM: It's like a puzzle almost, because I'll be sitting there at like 2 a.m. in my bed, listening to the songs, and I'm like, "Ok, Kyle said, that in the hook, so this song has to go before that," and so on and so forth. It's like a storyboard kinda.

Right, to keep the record's "plot" cohesive and self-referential.

GBM: Another big consideration was playlists. I love making playlists, and I know Kyle loves making playlists, too, so it needed to flow. It just has to flow. We didn't want songs that juxtapose each other or have opposite vibes be back to back.

DaCosta: Yeah, I think we even switched around the playlist a couple of times before we had it set in stone.

GBM: There were like fourteen songs originally, and then we got talked down to ten.

Jean: Fourteen tracks woulda went crazy!

I'm sure fans would love a deluxe version of the album at some point! So what were some of the rough draft ideas before you set these ten tracks in stone?

Jean: There were more modern-sounding tracks. The more time we spent on a project, and this being our debut, we wanted to be true to the name. We wanted to be true to the artistry that had gotten us to this point.

DaCosta: There were a couple of heavier hip-hop tracks there too.

Jean: We had been doing that, and a lot of people haven't even heard those because they're like heavy hip-hop stuff from when we were in high school and like early college.

Were there any tracks on the record that challenged you?

Jean: "Intoxicated" challenged me. I had a whole different verse. The conception of that song—I was just venting about whatever I was going through at the time, and one of my homies was like, "It's not sexy enough!" So I was just like, "What? No! I've done sexy stuff on all the other songs. Just let me vent!" So I tried another verse, and we ended up going with that one instead.

DaCosta: I mean, it worked out great though...

Jean: I mean, yeah, it sits nicely on the song, and now I have a verse for something else one day when it's time for it.

GBM: Yeah, that song went from being all of ours and everyone on our team's favorite song to our least favorite song. I will say that recording the instruments for the album was fun, but there were definitely some long hours. We had a drummer and bassist come through, and they played for like twelve hours straight doing all the songs. So the songs that have live drums on them were all done in that one day, and they even did songs we recorded that didn't make it on the final record. I think we started at 1 p.m. and we ended at 1 a.m. It was crazy.

What song are you most excited for people to hear when the album drops?

Jean: I think people are gonna like "Comfortable" a lot. Honestly, I haven't listened to the record in a while because it's existed in our world for a minute. We had just posted the visuals for that song today, and I was feelin it.

DaCosta: I think people are gonna really like "Digest." For me, it gives me that "it" factor.

GBM: I think "Red Room." It's my personal favorite and one of the more fun ones to me. It's just a good time!

You mentioned earlier that you try to maintain creative control when making your music videos and coming up with concepts for visualizers. What is your creative process like?

DaCosta: We definitely sit down, and we go through everything from storyboard to shotlist and just take and grab inspiration from all over the place. For "So Damn Fly," there was that That 70's Show shot where they're all sitting around the table, and it's spinning. So there are all types of really cool influences, and we just try to use those and make everything unique to us.

GBM: I think we kind of go through a three-step verification. The idea has to go through all three of us before it becomes something else or moves on to actually being tested out or put into picture. So that kind of attributes to the very solid identity we aim for.

It sounds like that impromptu film education you mentioned earlier has really set you up for success in creating your videos.

Jean: Yeah. My high school film teacher, Miss Butler, I took that class for two years, and then when I couldn't take it anymore, I became a TA. So then I took the after-school class, and I just spent hella hours pretty much ruining the way I enjoyed cinema and teaching myself like—she would have us look and watch these classic movies and be like, this is what they did wrong.

Can you give me an example of a classic film you would watch and critique?

Jean: The first one that comes to mind is Rear Window. I watched it a few times, just because I had taken the class a couple of times. She talked about how the set that they made and the world that they created, they had full control over. Just seeing older films and how simple things were a lot more complicated then. Like you can't just delete a take and wipe your card. Everything had to be so planned out and so intentional. You gotta do shit on purpose. It's just a lot of thinking and planning, and sometimes, I feel like it's more challenging to have more people involved in a film production sometimes because of the growing degrees of communication. With the small groups that we usually keep, everyone's on the same page as us. All of us took this same class, so we all have a similar workflow.

DaCosta: Yeah, our organization when it comes to films, we're all pretty much on the same page. You know, with what was going to happen, who's doing what, who's in charge of what, etc.

Jean: And pre-production is the biggest thing and finding the right team because we can't shoot it and be in it. Although Cole can somehow!

GBM: I'm in one scene, and I'm like, "I'm just gonna kill this scene right now, and then I'm gonna jump back." That's why I'm only in the last scene.

Because he's doing everything else!

Jean: Yeah! Then as soon as the scene cuts, it's like, I go back to directing people, and Kyle goes back to making sure we got the next shot set up.

GBM: There were only seven people on set.

DaCosta: And four out of seven were crew members

GBM: Yeah, the DP was the only person that wasn't actually a casted character. Everybody else is like multitasking.

You'll be making your first-ever festival appearance at Day N Vegas in November. How are y'all feeling about it? 

GBM: It feels incredible!

DaCosta: I'm so so excited!

Jean: If I get excited, I get nervous. So I just aim to be focused, or I don't think about it at all.

After the release of Thru My Window, what are some long-term or short-term goals y'all are manifesting?

Jean: I think for the next album, I want it to get Best Rap Album. We went R&B on this one, but nobody knows the way that we—like yes, we rap on it, but nobody knows our actual rap potential. So I feel like that's something that needs to be lived out on the next project. It's been a minute since we were rapping, bro. There are cool people out here doing the rap thing right now, but not many people have impressed me.

GBM: I kind of want this album to open up the door to doing a lot of travel. When we got back from Paris in 2019, what we experienced during that summer gave us fuel to start this project. So I feel like if we just keep that kind of like tradition going, we just travel somewhere and just make stuff, I think it'll never get steered wrong.

DaCosta: I think I want the album to just open up doors in general. I know it's kind of a broad thing, but like, we're so diverse, and between the three of us, we can do literally anything I think in the world if we put our minds to it, and we kind of plan on doing everything that we want to do. So, I kind of want this album to open the door just so that we can you can start striding towards whatever, whether it's directing movies and videos and fucking scoring—

Jean: Or directing other people's videos!

DaCosta: Yeah, all types of shit.

Thru My Window is available everywhere you can stream it.