#i just didnt pick a new one i was like i should not communicate with strangers outside of message boards and aim chat rooms im unfit 😭🥲

[ratwars]

Suddenly hit with embarrassing memory +3 emotional damage

[lovebvni]

" ITS BRUTAL OUT HERE " - pick a pile

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[ 🖊 ] created ⋮ 14.8.22

[  ] published ⋮  14.8.22

˚₊·͟͟͟͟͟͟͞͞͞͞͞͞➳❥ ꒰ ⌨ ✰ Arsyn   ⋆  ⁱˢ ᵗʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ··· ꒱ | ೃ࿔₊•

┊       ⋆     welcome to my blog !

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hey loves, so because i 1, got new tarot decks, and 2 want to call you guys out, im doing this. also - heads up before i even start - spirit said there's gonna be a pile where there are little/no callouts bc they're actually doing great. just some advice/motivation to keep them going

Hello! Welcome to a pick a pile. This is a general reading, everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Hundreds of people may read this, everything I say in your pile(s) may NOT resonate. Today we don't have questions. we're just going callouts. so prepare yourself, i know some of yall are soft.

along with these questions i will give things that may draw you to your pile. the alice in wonderland tarot has different cards but pretty much the same meaning. dont be shocked if instead of the hanged man i say suspention or something like that. i will be using tarot and oracle cards.

now please take everything with a grain of salt!

breathe in, now out, now pick a pile or two.

pile 1 ; pile 2 ; pile 3

hi pile 1!

confirmation for your pile: lowkey funny, life 'falling apart', consequences for your actions, business man/woman, equality, cycles, bakugou, passion, 'im always right, i know what im saying'

oracle: you are good enough - full moon in virgo

tarot: the hierophant, temptation, 7 of flowers, 5 of spears reversed, 9 of flowers

alright bros, the first thing i have to say is 1, you're not always the cause. bad things happen to good people and i know it sucks but it helps you grow. if only good things happened then you'd probably be boring as hell. i hear some of you guys can be because you cant keep a conversation going. the thing is, you may be a victim MOST OF THE TIME but that doesnt mean ALL THE TIME!! you can be wrong in an argument, you can be right in an argument. but it changes. you're a very driven, smart, confident person in most areas but that doesnt mean because you're the right person to be a firefighter but not a baker. 7 of flowers is saying dont back down from the things you KNOW you are right in, but when someone makes a valid point. take it, it can help you. being passionate is a good thing, but dont be ignorant.

temptation is something thats drawing you in, that one day will be negative. maybe its joining the football team but you'll get a serious injury. do not let anyone or anything tempt you that has high risks for pain in the long run. im not saying dont join that football team, but dont put yourself into situations that wont benifit you in the long run. there's a good and bad to everything. do not fall into or back into negative energies/things that didnt help you before. they sure as hell wont help you now

ngl i have no idea what this pile means during the second part

pile 2

alright so confirmation: tired, faking happiness, evolution, "PUT THOSE GRIPPERS AWAY", hawks, manifestation, abuse, Christmas, MHA, movies, memories, nsfw content, love desire, caring heart, makeup, procrastination, seven deadly sins

oracle: a time for healing - balsamic moon, expect powerful chance - new moon eclipse

tarot: 10 of spears, 7 of flowers, 3 of hedgehogs

so this is the pile whos done mostly nothing wrong. when i say mostly, i mean bc everyones made at least one mistake in their life. ofc theres still a callout. STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP! STOP BELITTLING YOUR PAIN, YOUR TRAUMA, THE THINGS THAT HURT YOU MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY EVERY SINGLE DAY!! let go of the past, its gone. its ending. get over it. that friend isnt coming back, they weren't right for you. let go of the past, accept it, and move forward. thats just some advice.

pile 3

hey pile 3

confirmation: false/negative manifestations, intrusive thoughts, self destructive behavior, gay, peaches (that one song omg), yung gravy, emotions, love, communication or lack of communication, birthdays, parties, celebrations

oracle: believe in the impossible - blue moon

tarot: 2 of cups, 4 of flowers, knight of teacups reversed

okay i got flowers in every pile, anyways this piles energy is of a pair.. two people or two piles? maybe you picked another pile. but its a harmonious pair. you guys may be for a long time, maybe shifting together, maybe you work on a lot of projects together? i heard you guys dont talk much but when you do its fun. you guys are a great pair. hold on to each other. i feel like once this pile overcomes toxic/negative behaviors they will shift. it depends on how fast you get rid of them/start manifesting positively.

change the way you see things, the emotions and reactions you have to things that happen. if you wake up in your cr and not your dr say something like "bro what?? why am i in my cr? thats odd, hasnt been like this before." see everything that happens in a different light. if you think that you saw something that was a sign btw, it was. take it and use it how you think its fit. use your talents, you know you can! practice the fun things you want to do one day. practive makes perfect!! get off your ass and do something. vent through an art form. you dont have to use words. you're doing nothing right now. you NEED to do something, but take a break from stressing yourself. its not helping anything

[leelesbo]

so this may be a bit of an odd request lol. im not personally into tickeling, but my partner is. i find it really attractive how into it he is, and am super willing to participate for him, but as hes into the lee and ler sides of it, sometimes when im taking the ler role, i sort of run out of ideas on what to say and do LOL. it doesnt come naturally to me like you all who actually Do have the fetish. i basically just picked your blog randomly cause we're the same age and you seem to have experience with it and i dont think he follows you already, but i was hoping you could offer some advice or ideas on good things to say and do that may not be obvious? i'd ask him but he gets so flustered over it that its basically impossible HDFJKGKDFHGL

this is the cutest sweetest ask omfg i would LOVE to help out. i love yapping about tickling you came to the right person (this turned out to be really long so it’s all under the cut LMFAO)

so for teasing, a lot of the times it really depends on Who you’re teasing!! for instance, im not personally a huge fan of the whole “coochie coochie coo” “tickle tickle tickle” thing bc its just Way too babyish and infantile for me, but ive found a lot of people in this community really like it and it flusters them a lot!!! if youre unsure, typical teases like that couldn’t hurt to try!

ok i said “tickle tickle tickle” didnt work on me but Actually in the right context that absolutely could work bc the simple act of Hearing The Word is insanely flustering. fr, if you just keep repeating how ticklish he is, asking if something tickles, maybe even figure out a way to force Him to say the word it should work. there’s smth about knismos where our brain overloads hearing that word and it’s even so hard to say, it’s extremely flustering being forced to say it!!

also, focusing on spots and Talking about how that particular spot is affecting them is killer. if you’re tickling his ribs and it’s making him giggle more than belly-laugh, point that out!!! “oh you really like the ribs, don’t you? you’re giggling so much you can’t even talk! try! go on, tell me how much it tickles!” for me and a lot of other knismos, tickling is a lot about feeling Analyzed. experiment with specific spots and see how differently it affects him. verbally take notes on the differences!

also, emphasize how much he’s enjoying it even if/when he’s Begging for you to stop or move spots. knismos love to pretend we hate it, it adds to the fun of the whole thing. but don’t ONLY emphasize that he’s enjoying it, also throw in how horrible it must be!! how he’s too ticklish to take it, how it must be so bad if he’s screaming for mercy.

(i literally keep thinking of new things to add this is going to be so long sorry)

AND AND AND!!! POINT OUT HOW FLUSTERED HE IS!! how red his face has gotten, how he keeps repeating the same thing over and over bc his brain is fuzzy and he can’t Speak Properly, maybe he can’t figure out what to do with his hands, or he keeps trying to hide his face! LET HIM KNOW U CAN SEE EVERY LITTLE REACTION!!! it’s about the attention to detail babyyyy

tickle teasing can also go beyond the actual Act of tickling. tease him when you aren’t even tickling him!! wiggle your fingers his way, throw the word in casual conversation (“what you said earlier really tickled me”), poke him when ur out in public!! little things :3

when you Are tickling him, make him tell you what spots tickle more. make him help you! maybe choose two spots at a time, tickle one spot and then the other, and make him tell you which was worse (this ofc will take Many trials and retests juuuust to be sure he was right the first time 😌). use different methods and make him choose which is worse! hands or teeth? feathers or raspberries? the list can go on and on and you’ll both be sure to have a lot of fun testing out the varieties of the game lol

okay so i could literally keep going FOREVER but ill stop here for now bc ive already written a fucking essay!!! if you want more i’d be elated to go again, my brain is constantly on Tickle Mode so im always happy to yap about it!!

anyway, hope this helped!! hope you guys have fun, im happy to be of service :3

[ganondoodle]

you know, not like i had enough zelda ideas and rewrites already

but i thought of another (just roughly .. for now) for totk ... and its one where theres no time travel and no direct views into the past either, and no sonau shown, been wanting to think up one like this before but i recently got the basic idea for it (it ignores all of totk aside from some ideas like .. underground stuff)

the basic idea being that the sonau, whoever they were, had an understanding of the cycle hyrule keeps falling into, based on their use of the three animals representing the three virtues, perhaps them being so aware in fact that they were working on dismantling it, finding out why and get at it at its roots, perhaps being one of the only tribes left that knew some things of the past- with the twilight princess referecnes in that boar statue and the seven stones around it with one toppled over (like the sage that was killed)- or even just being aware of it, but not doing anythign against it bc they thought it should be and remain like it (though i like the first idea more)

them not being a high tech people either, perhaps more naturalistic or magic adjacent thing- to contrast the shiekah, who, as their place under the hyrulean monarchy, firmly believedd in hyrules divine right to conquer it all, and the sonau with their knowledge of the past and the cycle of reincarnation beign a threat to the royal families absoulute power position- thus leading to the sonaus destruction and why all their (botw) ruins are highjacked by shiekah shrines!

since the sonau kept most of their knowledge to themselves (hey hey, heres and idea, they didnt communicate vie normal languegs but vie sign language or some magic- making them even more different and mysterious to the others living in the world) no one really got to know what they knew nor their culture or plans; the shiekah findign out what they know or just that they might be a threat to hyrule being sent to get rid of them, in the process finding out more about the past (like the king of the gerudo being the one who has resisted hyrule before and his potential to go monster mode) beginning the plan to imprison the current king of the gerudo (picking up some of the ideas i have had before, the whole betrayel plot) before he can become a danger to hyrule

ganondorf finds out about it (perhaps being in a shaky alliance out of necessity- like the shiekah intentionally minign below the desert without the gerudo knowing that it robs the land of life- thus makign them dependend on trade with hyrule) and plans to counteract it (a big somehow for now, like assassinate the king of hyrule? or try and force him to abandon their plan or sth), and the plan works out for the most part, but theres one gerudo thats been on the side of the hyrulean family the whole time leading to ganondorf ending up sealed and trapped by the queen of hyrule (sealing powers and all, perhaps, again picking up former ideas, after starting a war for ganondorf killing the king) and after realizing ganondorfs undying spirit will never rest try and purify the malice hed sent out to break free, leading to them discovering a much more efficient way to power their newly developing tech, rather than luminous stones which are hard to mine and process, using ganondorfs spirit/malice instead (yes i WILL include battery theory again) which allows them to make all the ancient shiekah tech in the scale we see in botw (and hear of in the past calamity)

its sort of more like the first ideas i had for a totk rewrite, zelda being your companion from the start and link loosing his arm and gettign a shiekah tech replacement- with the added bonus of including the sonau without robbing them of their mystery while still developing them further

most of their recording having been destroyed, either intentionally or by the tides of time, but due to the cataclysm changing the landscape there being new caves uncovered with cave painting like remains of the sonau, entrances to the underground revealing that they came in fact from there and the population on the surface was a small fraction of the last ones of them, with the underground being filled with even more (botw) sonau ruins, but also shiekah labs in other parts

yes it paints the shiekah in a bad light .. which honeslty why not, they are hyrules pawns more or less, and given what the monks do just to give a future hero their last bit of spirit they must have very strong believe in it all- but then the next king turning on them and persecuting them just like they did to the sonau .. being yet another cycle

you slowly discovering everything real time, no memories and no direct views into the past, just real discoveris

ganondorf would once again be the villain, but it would give alot more background to him, in this case making him much more a victim of said cycle, it repeating by wanting to avoid it etc etc, and you wouldnt be able to reason with him after a little over ten thousand years of solitary imprisonment AND your spirit/energy being continueosly exploited to power tech built to fight off any of his attempts to break free (calamity ganon) leading to the desperation of literally tryign to rebuild himself out of malice, which is how you get weird spider ganon and the malice build lumps, eyes, mouths and even rib like structures- the monsters and bosses being a creation of him yes, it being an attempt, or antoehr really, to take revenge on all those that plotted against him, that helped in putting him in this agonzing condition between life and death AND then even exploiting his spirit too-- making the end fight more of a mercy kill with a tragic note, but still hopeful to a better future and not to let the cycle begin anew once a new gerudo king is born- so its not utterly throwing it all in dissarray but giving you the sense of ... theres a future, hope for soemthign better even if it wasnt fixable now

it falls more in line with the 'traditional' zelda formular, but makes it a bit more .. involved? nuanced?

(havent yet thought of ideas for the sky except .. it being there still like i had previously thought, idk if i will develop this further but i like this ones alot bc .... i dont like the totk sonau at all and find it extremely boring to just say yep they are here and actually everywhere and here they are literally in your face as people with voices- i liked them alot more as unkowns)

[pseudowho]

hiya 🙂 i love your nanamin fics and i followed you for them way back when you wrote the pregnant reader one (and I still think about it). thought id ask you cos you seem to answer questions like this pretty wisely 🥲

i started writing fics for a pretty niche character in a fandom (not jjk) a while back and a friend/moot started then too. this character doesnt have lots of readers and thats fine im just here for the writing.

but since then ive noticed my friend has stopped reblogging my fics even tho they did before and even tho they obvs read and reblog everyone elses fics for this character (there really arent many of us).

they also seem upset about notes/likes a lot of the time. but I know they read my fics because I see lots of the same word choices and styles show up in their fics the next time they post.

its upsetting me lot tbh. i still read, like/comment/rb fics i like and its starting to feel like they do it because they think i have more readers than they do and mb theyre jealous.

anyway i dunno if you think i should raise it with them or just leave it?? they dont talk to me much anymore either after I didnt rb one of their fics i didnt really love.

First of all, well done for starting to write, and writing for an 'unpopular' character too, it looks like it's hard having a niche audience in the Tumblr-sphere. I'm always really grateful when someone writes for a niche character I love, every fic is like finding a diamond!

Second of all: I'm really really sorry this is happening to you. It has happened and still happens to me, too.

Thirdly: While I'll give my thoughts on it straight after this, one truth is that the other person maybe simply doesn't like your writing, and there's nothing mean-spirited about it at all.

Saying this, in your case, there seem to be too many little factors that actually makes me think... 👇

I have Thoughts™️💬 about Toxic Tumblr Reblog Culture...

There is a little phenomenon I've noticed with a lot of fic writers, where they seem to stop reblogging the fics of others who they view as competition. Even if they often read and reblogged another writer's fics before they themselves started writing.

They seem to think that if they reblog the work of you, their "competitor", then your work will get more attention than theirs. It gets even worse the more 'popular' you get, sadly.

I understand, because it's hard to see someone reblog most other peoples' fics about a character, and then pointedly ignore yours. You're not mad for feeling targeted. It can feel this way.

Equally, there can be a cherry-picking of moots' work, and a high school clique attitude to reblogging. Do two or three people band together and constantly reblog each others' work, making a huge fuss whatever it is, but leave you out even though you've historically been part of the circle before? Again, it's not as uncommon as you think.

A real "if we become moots, that means I reblog all your stuff, and you reblog all my stuff" as an unspoken rule. While that might work nicely for some people, it can also foster an air of pressure or entitlement, or of reblogging things even if you didn't really like them, because they're your friend. While fostering growth and circulation in the art community should be celebrated, I'd hate to think someone reblogged my work out of obligation, as opposed to passion.

I've had followers who loved my stuff, always commented and reblogged etc, but when they started writing for the same characters themselves, just stopped. I've also noticed a lot of the things you mention (them using similar word choices, stylistic choices etc to mine, in their new fics).

So, you know they're there reading in the background, and it doesn't make sense that they liked your writing one day, then just stopped liking it overnight, right?

I don't often muse aloud about "controversial" subjects on Tumblr, but this one really gets me. It turns writing, an already isolating art, into an even more isolating "competition".

It's sad, really.

Saying that, I still read, comment, reblog all the work of theirs that I read and love! It feels petty and ridiculous, but try to be the person that you want to see in the community. They'd probably notice they still get just as many readers as before, and actually, will be forced to address that their writing may be less popular for another reason.

I have wonderful friends here who read and reblog any of my stuff they like, just as I do theirs. I made a post a little while back, r.e. always reblogging stuff just because you're moots, and I'm glad to say I don't have this strange entitled relationship with these friends. It's low pressure and really fun.

Reblog in the best spirit; reblog stuff you love, that you think is great, etc etc. Don't fall into bad intentions! It's meant to be fun. It's not high-stakes. What are people competing about? I feel really bad for you, OP, and I know what it feels like.

Jealousy in the Tumblr fic writer community is strong!

Hang in there baby. You're doing great.

-- Haitch xxx

[batsplat]

hi batsplat! i would like to say that you are an absolute pillar of the motogp community on here, like you are truly so so appreciated. both for your knowledge and also for the way you write about things (i think you could write 3000 words on a grocery store trip valentino took in 2003 and still make it super interesting reading)

i was reading your post about your favourite rivalries that didnt include one of the aliens, who would you personally include as part of that list? (versus who is really good but not quite alien status) id also really like to know if (and who) youd count as aliens from the pre-motogp era, and if theres been a difference over time about how often we are seeing aliens or if theyre easier/harder to spot as technical developments have sped up

hope you have a great day!

that's so sweet... thank you that's such an incredible compliment dsdkhfkhfd

about the aliens, the way I use the term is entirely as a historical descriptor, not as a qualitative assessment of any riders. it's a useful shorthand for a specific riders in a specific era, but to me it has limited relevance outside of that era. so to be clear we're talking valentino, casey, dani, jorge and marc - and according to common wisdom this usage originated from colin edwards' 2009 comment:

“But as I’ve said before, I’ve got to be pleased to be finishing next best behind those four guys, or should I say aliens. “They are riding out of this world and to be right behind them means I’m doing the best job I can and that’s about as good as I can hope for at the moment.”

(jorge discusses valentino as an alien in 2007, see here. which might be complete coincidence, but has always made me kind of curious whether the word was floating around in the paddock in some capacity before edwards 'coined' the term)

the thing is, right, it made sense to treat those four (and later -casey +marc) as distinct from the field, because they were winning almost everything. one reason for this was that they were very good, very skilled riders. another was that from 2007-15, only four to six bikes were capable of regularly challenging for wins at any one time. it was a massive field disparity that quite frankly was partly enforced through machinery. that's why it makes sense to include marc in that term: it's not just the fact that he was very good, it's the fact that he was riding a repsol honda that was the best or second best bike by a long way for his first three years in the premier class. in 2016, motogp returned to michelins and introduced new technical regulations - and for all intents and purposes, the alien era ended. it ended when eight different riders won in eight races that season. yes, marc, valentino and jorge were still the top three in the championship... but it's the difference of whether you go into a weekend convinced you know the winner will come from a list of four riders, or if you very much do not know that. between 2008 to 2015, apart from the aliens, a grand total of two riders claimed wins - dovi on a repsol honda in 2009 and ben spies on a factory yamaha in 2011. both of those were wet races (which of course are generally more open than dry ones). so just to reiterate: a greater number of riders won in 2016 alone (9) than in 2008-15 combined (7). (in 2007, a further two different riders won races - capirossi on the championship-winning factory ducati and vermeulen on the suzuki.) yes, obviously the aliens were very good riders, nobody is going to argue with you over that... but those numbers? they're only possible in a specific version of motogp - one that only existed for a few years

honestly, I don't even really use the term 'alien' to describe valentino pre-2006 or marc post-2016. it's just not that useful to me... aliens to me is a 'pack hunter' thing, where even if some of them are injured or are having a bad day or whatever, at least one of them will basically always be there to pick up the pieces. marc and valentino might have dominated the sport as a whole - but not all of their championship seasons were completely dominant, and there's only so much any one athlete can dominate in the sport... you're not going into every single weekend thinking 'oh yeah they're definitely going to win' (yes, yes, there were two times per year where you did very much do that with marc). which is different when you compare it to the aliens as a pack, where you could be confident that ONE of them would end the weekend on the top step of the podium

which is why I just don't apply the alien term to anyone pre-valentino - it's not because I think they were less good or less talented or less anything, it's because for me it's a term that's more about an era than it is about individual riders. you have to treat each era on its own, and I'm not really a big fan of inter-era comparisons. it's just kind of impossible to say whether a rider in the 1970s is more talented than one in the 2020s, whether ago's numbers are more or less impressive than marc's and so on... the sport has just changed in so many ways over the years. of course, in sports you do generally have this upward momentum where each generation is 'better' than the last. sports has gotten more professionalised, there's been massive advances in terms of pedagogy and sports medicine and exercise science and all of those things - all of which already affects how athletes train from childhood onwards. the young aren't more 'talented' in the sense that they were born with an innate superior ability to compete at the sport, but they are more 'talented' in that their ultimate ceiling will be higher as a result of all these gradual changes over time. these things can change quite quickly even (and if other sports is anything to go by, I wouldn't be surprised if the nineties/early noughties brought some big changes in that regard) - so already between, for instance, valentino and marc there'd probably been a real shift in how young talent is being nurtured

(the most blunt illustration of this is that young valentino's lifestyle was completely different from that of young riders today, in terms of how much time he spent training in the gym, sleeping habits, nutrition etc etc. athletes now can't get away with that much deviation any more, and indeed valentino had to massively change his approach in the 2010s to remain competitive - but of course it's different if you haven't been doing this stuff since you were a kid. I think we can safely assume valentino's 2003 supermarket trips looked rather different from marc's 2017 ones)

being good in pro sports may in some ways be harder now than it was in, say, the eighties, and the level of competition you're facing might be higher now - but of course, it would also by extension be unfair to judge those athletes by the standards of today. also, different eras are going to lend themselves to different profiles of rider depending on competitive trends, type of machinery and so on - even very basic stuff like how tall you are might have helped you in a certain era and hindered you in another... so what does that mean for talent? if we're discussing 'talent' at all, how can we possibly treat it as anything other than relative to the era we're discussing? to me, it just makes these comparisons between different generations pretty pointless... or well, I like talking about some of this stuff in a more holistic 'isn't this interesting' kind of way, not a 'this is why xyz is better than xyz' approach... this kind of thing is also why I finds goat debate such a uniquely boring way to spend your time, incidentally

this is a very long way of saying, I don't have a metric by which I judge athletes pre-2000 as 'alien' or 'not alien'! I think you have similarly dominant athletes, though again it is so tough to decide how much of that is down to talent and how much of it is down to bike advantage. if you take doohan's title winning seasons for instance:

yeah, look, sure, you can call him an alien as far as I'm concerned - if I'm watching these races live I will be expecting doohan to win in any given weekend. I'm still kind of missing the pack hunter feel in some of these seasons, so I won't know for certain the winner is going to come from a very short list. like take 1998:

not really one group vs the field, is it? and yeah, even if I consider doohan an 'alien' in some of those seasons, I'm still not going to call him that - because the term was essentially coined in 2009 for a specific group of guys that one other guy was later added onto. the competitive landscape and demands of doohan's era were so different that it feels off to try and go back and label him or any other past riders aliens... they were phenomenally talented, yes, they were great champions, yes, they can be called as good as the aliens, sure - but why wrench the term out of its historical context? is it still an analytically useful concept if you do so, except as a way to generically refer to a rider as 'very talented'?

which is also why I personally don't describe anyone since then as an alien. this doesn't mean I don't think fabio or now pedro aren't as good as those guys were, I just don't think they've been given the opportunity to have that kind of hold over the sport. fabio won five out of eighteen races in 2021 - and he did so on a yamaha that basically only he was able to consistently get a high level of performance out of. which is deeply impressive - but unlike say casey in 2007, he didn't have those other riders to dominate all the other races. eight riders won a race that season! it's just a fundamentally different competitive landscape. personally, I'd be perfectly content if we don't get another alien era. of course 2007-15 isn't all bad, but for good reason most fans' most fondly remembered eras are either 2001-06 or 2017-19... yes, at times one rider was too dominant, but it still felt like more riders had a shot at victory - and most importantly the quality of the racing was generally very high. this kind of domination by a few mega talents on the best machinery can get drab pretty quickly (though of course a lot of the blame for decreased race quality needs to be assigned to the 800cc era 2007-11, not to any of the aliens themselves)

I'd be quite happy to retire the term alien going forwards... except as a useful shorthand for a specific group of guys who have mostly retired. it shouldn't be used as a way to bash the young stars, as if they just can't measure up to the legends of the past. which would be dumb! again, plenty of ways in which motogp is harder now than it ever has been, though the most important thing is that it's just... different. not better, not worse, just different. sure, maybe we'll get another equivalent to the alien era, even though I personally think it's quite unlikely. if it happens, yeah, let's discuss cranking the term out again (and, yes, if you look at the current season and ignore sprints... if this current trend continues then we can have the debate at the end of the season. pecco and jorge despite all their apparent inconsistencies are currently building a pretty solid case for themselves) (now I've said that they're both gonna crash out of assen huh)

that being said! I don't exactly neatly follow this principle myself, because sometimes I do use something like the term 'alien-like talent' to refer to fabio or pedro... obviously, you can argue this is basically the same as calling them aliens in everything but semantics. so what's the criteria there? when do I use this term? I think to me it's just... instant, 'in your face' talent. they arrive to the premier class and they shine basically immediately. valentino got a relatively sedate start to the premier class by alien standards - which is fitting, because he's not really about that blistering raw pace. still, he wasn't far from being a rookie champion, got ten podiums, two wins... not too bad. casey was on a satellite team, but he got pole in his second ever race and came painfully close to winning his third. dani got a podium on debut and fought for the championship for almost the entire season. jorge got pole in his first three races and won his third. marc won the second time out and of course secured the title in his rookie season. compare that to fabio - pole in his fourth ever race on satellite machinery, fighting for wins in his first season. pedro got a podium in his second ever race and is handily outperforming everyone else on that bike

so it's about how quickly these guys pick this stuff up, how quickly they make that step from one level to another - though again, it's important to stress you can't just neatly compare these achievements! valentino's first two seasons were on 500cc bikes, which were notorious for being kind of evil. some of these riders started on satellite bikes (we're not counting valentino here), and there's also plenty of talk about how the bikes have become more complicated to ride now, making pedro's rapid adjustment even more impressive. but in every case, there is just this ability to 'be fast immediately', whatever the circumstances... and it's worth pointing out that even though pecco had a mediocre rookie season, he was incredibly quick in 2019 pre-season testing. jorge martin secured his first pole position and podium at his second race in motogp

speaking of, those two were already a touch older when they joined the premier class. there does generally seem to be something to the idea that in motorcycle racing, if you are not already very fast at a certain age, you will have a quite definitive ceiling... and from valentino onwards, the age by which you need to already have reached that standard of 'very good' seems to have gone down. when we're talking about talent and throwing around the term alien, this feels like another important change to mention - doohan was not winning his titles as a 22 year old! neither was rainey! or schwantz! or lawson! or... actually spencer was very young, yeah. but I think you get the point. I cannot tell you definitively why this changed, but it clearly has changed. in the 21st century, only two riders have won titles when they were older than 26: valentino (29-30) and jorge (28). valentino and marc were both 27 when their dominance over the sport ended (even if valentino secured titles after that point and marc will very probably do so as well). casey was 27 when he retired. (fun fact: pecco bagnaia is currently 27 years old.) so overall it's pretty rare in grand prix motorcycle racing to operate at the top of the premier class for more than a certain number of years - but the precise age window in which you are likely to be at your best does seem to have shifted pretty radically this century. which should demonstrate how hard these things are to compare... like I said, talent is often assessed by how quickly you are good at something - but if we called mick doohan a late bloomer, it would be wildly ahistorical

and yeah, look, this idea of 'you have to be good young or you will have a certain ceiling' is hardly unique to motogp, lots of sports are like that... another measure of this precocity that's perhaps more useful than just 'age' is looking how long it took them to win a title from when they joined the premier class (if they did so at all, of course). it's generally very fast! marc year one, valentino, casey and joan year two, jorge and fabio year three... and, well, pecco and hayden year four. of course, there's exceptions to this 'be fast immediately' rule - athletes who ended up being very good and title contenders who had slightly different paths getting there. the sete's and dovi's of this world - and to a lesser extent hayden too, who unlike those two was only even really a title contender in a single season... but generally speaking, those riders seem more heavily reliant on circumstances playing out just right to have a shot at a title

or perhaps! perhaps it's going to change! especially if you look at repeat champions, pecco does become a bit of an outlier in how he got there this century, doesn't he? compare the numbers he was posting in his rookie season vs valentino, casey, jorge and marc. and in some ways, you can extend this even further and say he's a massive historical outlier in terms of any premier class champions. there was an article about this in late 2022:

and some more about how historically unusual he is:

isn't that great? you don't become premier class champion with that kind of a rookie season, but pecco did! hey, aleix was a serious title threat in that season, which is a far more remarkable story still! and the thing is, right, if you're studying the current era and are labelling some riders aliens but leaving out pecco... then no offence but what's the point? look, who knows, maybe marc and pedro and david alonso are going to dominate the next twenty titles and pecco will have been a weird blip. but isn't there something fun about believing that a bunch of different riders could eventually develop into title threats? wouldn't it be kind of cool if you don't have to just write someone off age 22 any more? I don't know, I think it's a neat development! I hope it sticks around! there'll be plenty of alien-level talents in the future, but personally I wouldn't mind at all if there were no more aliens

[a-cat-in-toffee]

me: yeah im gonna go to sleep

also me: *proceeds to send my friend 650+ words of pepsisprite analysis*

thinking about john being a literal embodiment of the narrative and davesprite being an embodiment of the game. the game and the narrative are intrinsic to each other's existence, but without each other they would be useless. what's the point of the game if no ones watching, and whats the point of watching if no ones playing? john and davesprite’s relationship sort of mirrors that, davesprite wouldn't exist as a sprite if john had never died, but john WOULD have died if davesprite didnt save him. they're necessary to each other's creation and to each other's continued existence and relevance. 

they're the world's shittiest soulmates because their relationship is so riddled with the game and narrative but davesprite and john are tied together in a way which ends up with davesprite always ending up right next to john again. johndirk and pepsisprite are very related what with davesprite mirroring dirk in a bunch of ways, but the difference between the two ships is mainly when they would happen imo. (canon) johndirk can only work postcanon, mostly because they simply don't actually get to meet each other until then, whereas pepsisprite HAS to happen during the game, the 3 year trip to be precise. 

all they had were those 3 years together, really, before everything went to shit. obviously they had known each other before then, but that was john and dave. the "real" dave, before the specifications had to be made. it's kinda sad how because of the timeframe that pepsisprite would be able to work out in, they could never actually have a relationship. like they were both dealing with their own issues (most of which never were resolved, not fully) but it mightve fixed them tbh.

thats really why I'm a big fan of back to the beginning post game aus that include the splinters because their stories are never really completely resolved, most of them are sort of just brushed away or swept into something new (e.g. davepeta)

also going back to what I said earlier on how johndirk mirrors pepsisprite in a way, it does! but there's a lot of nuance to the situations? davesprite is more like bro than dave is, thus making him more like dirk, but he's still a dave yknow. pepsisprite is actually a closer parallel to jakehal, especially by the end of the boat trip with the vaguely antagonistic relationship the two of them have.

actually i think they should be kismesis sometimes as a treat. john has so much emotion and anger built up and having somewhere to vent out that frustration would probably be really good for him. at the same time, though, they're also moirails because john and dave are quite literally the closest humans can get to moirallegiance. john and davesprite transcend quadrants in the actual definition of it, embodying the quads all at once instead of vacillating.

davekat (a ship most people consider to embody all quads) sort of does something similar, however a lot of the time their characterization is of vacillation between redrom and blackrom vs where pepsisprite is happening simultaneously. 

davesprite *is* proud of john and he does really love his friends, however because of the trauma he went through growing up (which was later reinforced by all the shit that went down in the game) he can only express so "ironically" or backhandedly, and john is so repressed to hell and back that *he's* not even sure what emotions he's feeling half the time

I think the fact that the two of them can so effortlessly communicate despite all that, though, really shows you their relationship. john can see the genuine in davesprite's "ironic" statements, and davesprite can pick out john's feelings through all the happy freedom bullshit. they communicate so well despite everything because they're best friends and because they've known each other so long. davesprite is important to john just like john is important to davesprite, and they always end up right back next to each other.

[unikron-kitten-kat]

are your request open??? if so what about a short little scenario of a trans ftm s/o coming out to slenderman and then lots of reasurring and loving!!

Ahxudbejeh wait no bcs one of my paired ocs for Slenderman is trans ftm-

Slenderman didnt even know until the first time Zackary let Slender see him neked-

When you came out to him, there was a long silence.

He had cocked his head, like a confused dog.

"You're.... What??"

"I.. I'm trans.."

His head tilts the other way.

"What is a... Trans??"

It clicks in your head finally. Though, you suppose it makes sense, being as old as he is coupled with the fact he is a recluse, it would have been highly likely the Slenderman doesn't know about the LGBTQ+ community.

You hesitate for a second, trying to find the right words.

"A trans person is someone who was born one gender, but that gender felt so wrong for them to be, so they try and become the other gender."

"So... You are a.. Woman.. Who needs to be a Man?"

"I suppose you could say it like that. I didn't realize you wouldn't understand what Trans meant," you pause then continue", because a good majority of the others here are either gay or bi I thought you knew about the Trans aspect of it.."

He tilts is head again.

"I do not understand what you are talking about."

"Oh.. Well, being gay is when a man likes other men, and lesbian is just the girl version for that. Bi is when someone likes both genders."

He hums. Then asks, "Why did you seem afraid to tell me?"

You inhale deeply. "Because, in the society I was born into isn't always so accepting. I was pretty much ostracized from my family when I came out to them.. And the same happened to one of my friends who came out as gay to his family.."

He buzzed before speaking again, "Well I don't see how the way you feel should affect our relationship, bärchen.."

Tears nearly welled in your eyes as he picked you up.

He chuckled as he picked you up, "Come here my little Darling."

"If you are so easily enthralled with a being the rest of your people find demonic and monsterous, I don't see why I can't return the favor?"

The lump in your throat makes it hard to speak, so all you could do really was smother your face into Slenderman's chest, hugging him tightly.

"Are you satisfied with your wardrobe, liebchen? Or should we go shopping, or speak with Trender?"

You muffled an "Iunno" sound while shrugging your shoulders. You really just wanted to snuggle.

So that's what you two did, until lunch time. Slenderman opted to go out. There was a new resturant rising up in Hell, and he wanted to try it out.

Getting yourself dressed in an outfit of nicer appearance, you froze finding Slenderman at your door, face completely red, and tentacles stiff.

"Y.. You good, Slendy?"

He seemed to snap out of it, clearing his throat and stumbling heavily over his words.

"Y-yes, I am fi-fine, h..handsome. I'll.. Uh.. Its... Re.. Really warm. I'm really w-warm."

He pulled his collar from his skin and hastily left.

You looked down to your outfit. Suit. It was form fitting, but not to the point of choking your body. (Oh. So Slenderman is the simp now?)

You blushed when it suddenly clicked he was flustered over you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mayyyybbee B^

Mayyybeee..

MAYBE I'll make a part two with a lunch scene B>

Maybe...

[scalproie]

for the character ask game: kuai, hanzo, bi-han, and smoke with 12, 15-20, and 22 :)

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Kuai: I like to think that in the 2nd timeline, post-alliance, kuai wouldve unknowingly taken some inspiration from hanzo's leadership of the shirai ryu to lead his own clan, reforming a lot of stifling rules to establish more of a community within the lin kuei members.

Hanzo: And similarly, especially after the trauma of having lost his entire clan, hanzo wouldve also unknowingly picked up a few things from kuai to lead the new shirai ryu, but rather than making changes to his clan's rules, he's doing most of the work on HIMSELF to lead it more "efficiently" and avoid past tragedies from happening again. Which, if mk11 didnt happened, would have resulted in both clans being similar enough that they have no issue partnering and temporarily switching members for missions, and, should it ever come to that, could even be merged as a single clan (as they once were after all), all thanks to the efforts of their grandmasters.

Bi-han: In the 1st and 2nd timeline, I wanna think bi-han initially did wanted to take the masters' attention and implied abuse away from kuai by being a cocky (but talented) little shit, but over the years the act became who he is as a person as he rose through the ranks to become the lin kuei's best assassin.

Smoke: 2nd timeline smoke literally Came Back Wrong, its impossible to tell where tomas the human boy sacrificed by a cult ends and where enenra the smoke demon begins, is he a human posessed by a demon? or a demon with a human's memory? He is neither completely from earthrealm nor the netherrealm, he belongs nowhere, hence why he has found a home in, and is extra protective of, the few friends he has made.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

Subscorp for kuai and hanzo, Bireena for bi-han, and I guess Subsmoke wins by default for tomas (obv not the mk12 one). Im a basic bitch what can I say.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

Everything else, im not a multishipper

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

Again I guess I'll go with subsmoke

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

Kuai and hanzo in the 2nd timeline over the course of three games... pretty good👍 (<- rewrote my brain chemistry). Bi-han and hanzo's rivalry is great. Smoke is underutilized but I do love that he and kuai will be friends in every timeline

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

EVERY relationship they all have could be better bc sadly we get our storytelling from a fucking fighting game, but I want kuai to have a better (not necessarily more positive) dynamic with frost, I want hanzo and harumi's relationship to be done justice, I want bi-han to have his childhood as well as kuai's explored and their history toward each other as brothers deepened (1st and 2nd timeline ESPECIALLY bc man. fuck mk12) and I want smoke to form one meaningful relationship that isnt tied to kuai.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Kuai: kitana

Hanzo: harumi/kenshi/jax/sonya (legends). For the loner of mk, he sure has a lot of bestie potential

Bi-han: sareena (the brotherhood of shadows really)/sektor & cyrax/fujin (I stand that he and fujin would have the funniest dynamic, especially as noob saibot. I want them to have a 80s buddy cop-like adventure together)

Smoke: jade/reptile/johnny

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

WHEN ITS WRITTEN BY MY FRIENDS honestly my wants are simple: I just like when theyre written as adult men raised in a very isolated at best, oppressive at worst (for the lin kueis in particular) environment with lots of unadressed trauma, I also dont like when theyre written as TOO openly romantic, these four men are aaall about repression of feelings (hanzo a little less so) so it'd all be about the subtle, little things. and pining for ages.

[summonhouse]

did u know !!!!! i am . INTERESTED in your characters and u should Tell me all about them

WAA WAA WAAA (HITS YOU WITH BRICKS )

Heres two collections of characters .

housecats who ive detailed plenty recently. the perfect person/pp, xerox, catch 22, and amaryllis/no signal. they are (sans amaryllis) fiction aware interdimensional creatures. the perfect person is the hand of god (me as a writer) torturing and assisting fictional creatures, xerox serves to clean up forgotten and abandoned stories lest they become overrun by nightmares and void, catch 22 is the nightmares and void, and amaryllis is pps normal child.

pp's a righteous bitch, extremely erratic and constantly experiencing back and forth. to have personality while also being explicitly and only a tool for someone who enjoys hurt/comfort is existentially hellish; it cannot allow for any personal connection because it will inevitably be torn apart for some writer sanctioned angst. its also only able to do what writers are capable of and so could easily be written stripped of its powers and lives knowing it has to serve or be trashed (which it had been for a year until recently and is still recovering). xerox is nice and sweet, despite regularly killing people and fighting monsters and the other housecats being very mean to him. he wishes everyone had the clarity to enjoy their time on screen and submit gracefully when the curtains close as an inevitability. catch 22 is just miserable and wants to see everything end (as it cannot) so seeks to permanently ruin any story it could. it personally despises pp for reasons i actually cannot remember. something about stealing its partner before it turned into a creepy void centaur? amaryllis is pretty normal, half mortal and ignorant to the larger problems around it really. in canon verse its been kidnapped by catch 22 in the hopes of hurting pp or inspiring it to try and rescue it but pp actually doesnt really care so amaryllis has been left abandoned to rot away in the void. i like to think about what i call "normalverse" aus where that didnt happen and it grows up relatively normal. i think it has a very .. heady personality

heres characters for fibs story which im in the process of rewriting. i originally made it in 2019 and dropped it for 2-3 years and am only now picking it back up so theres a lot of reworking i need to do and explanation is mostly going to be recollection. its about a dog named fib (first guy), he used to be prince lye of the laurel kingdom before labyrinth (second guy), a malicious magical entity, teamed up with another canine to usurp his parents and tossed fib in a magical prison for a decade or so, where fib slowly goes mad. the usurper has since died and so fib has been released, but the magic of his binding has leaked into him and he is now cursed so that he cannot tell the truth, instead automatically saying lies which then warp reality into whatever he had stated. still he is the only one who can take title of king and now struggles to maintain control of his kingdom. he now goes on an adventure to try and track down labyrinth to reverse his curse, learning lessons along the way about self reflection, different nonverbal ways of communication, boundaries and expectations in relationships he has with others, and generally coping with immense trauma. cricket (third guy) hunts fib down during his journey; when fib was a normal boy, so was cricket, and they were young best friends before lye was imprisoned. with no clarity on the situation as someone new takes over the throne, cricket assumes that lye had simply ran away, abandoning the kingdom for worse as the new king subjected the kingdom to needless war, drafting the young cricket who dies on the battle field and resurrects through his rage, digging himself out of his mass grave and now seeking to kill fib. lie (fourth guy) is like totally nothing i just wanted to put him up there LOL hes some sort of spooky doll magical creature who seeks to manipulate fib by feigning kinship, for profit i guess

i love. to think and talk

[gothtranshumanist]

Contemplating: What is Necromancy

There has been an excessive amount of speculation on proper methods here as to what can be done with necromancy and not much about what rules and realistic expectations one can have with the practice in a fantasy setting. Most of this will be personal takes and never feel that your take is less valid so long as your logic holds up with the rest of the world youve made for it to exist in.

To begin with, necromancy originates from an old practice of communicating with the dead to know the future as, back when such things were taken as real, people believed that the dead were untethered from the rules of both time and space, and could learn of the future by peering through the veil. With this in mind, spells for communicating with the dead should always be present on some level if you feel like a traditionalist in these things, from the smallest bit of flavor to the most plot critical elements it will add something extra by being grounded in a bit of reality.

Ideas can include therapy for the grieving who didnt get to say goodbye, crime scene detectives interviewing victims carefully, legal concerns over inheritance being resolved directly in lieu of a will and even historical documentation and verification of hypotheisis if a powerful enough necromancer can find an old enough spirit to connect with.

Now for the hard parts; necromancy in the common modern sense is using magic to influence the dead or dead things to do what you want them to. This can be drying and rotting out a dead thing into spellcasting ingredients or animating a skeleton to serve you in combat or chores. The mechanisms behind this are dependant on your world system and its physics but my preference is that all living things have a soul-like resevoir where the vital essence lies and when death occurs it is emptied. Then, a novice mage can fill that space with magic and puppet the dead object with said magic to twist it to their whim.

My personal take means that necromancy is easy, so much so that its like a gun: pick it up, load it and point, then the action happens. Dangerous, worse when respect is dropped from the equation, and made worse the more complex it gets. This isnt to say that necromancy is only a weapon, but that because its so easily used as one that it shouldnt be practiced without extreme regulation, and the ease of which it can be done means that such regulation is hard to maintain. If anyone can take their recently killed family and rampage through town in a bid for revenge against the killers while hurting people in the crossfire, it is not just traumatic but also generally horrific for all involved.

A hard question: does necromancy affect rot and decay? Personally, I say yes because it opens the space for more interesting uses of the magic. My take involves with how bacteria are living things, and a novice would be able to inject magic in the bacteria to force dead and even living bacteria to work faster, but because they are pushed in this way they also are pushed though absorbing the dead bacteria and reproducing new bacteria, inevitably bursting and causing a corpse explosion. A master, though, could work and shift the bacteria in such a way where you could make living people ill, cure living people of some illness, pick and choose which bacteria affect a dead thing and outright kill the bacteria and other microflora all at once.

Now for the positives: necromancy can affect any dead thing, from preserving plants and meat by accelerating the aging process in a clean environment, to forcing fermentation in certain foods and substances that can even make alcohols to sterilize and clean with. Necromancy could make a medical environment sterile faster than some other magics when broken down into potential capabilities. A fun fact is that the bacteria and temperature of a decaying human body kills off most dangerous viruses and bacteria to people so accelerating the breakdown of a body would be clean disposal of a body for sanitaion purposes, and the same works with some animals.

Redeeming the necromancer past a boogeyman who assaults the countryside is just a matter of open-mindedness. Detectives, historians, morticians, doctors, therapists, even personal lawyers could be necromancera in your setting if you just take what can be done and apply it.

[crvstybowlofcereal]

this is a really specific vent(?) post. im processing things by putting them in words. its not serious, feel free to ignore me lol

i just want to say that a couple years ago when i was in the beginning stages of researching autism (and would soon realize i am most likely autistic) i was in a relationship. and communication in a relationship is So Very important to me. I would constantly ask how he was (obviously it was more specific to whatever situation was going on) and he would always say he was fine. If I had even the Slightest hint that he wasn't actually Fine (like 19 times out of 20) i would continue asking if he was sure and if he wanted to talk, and he continued to say he was fine. half the time i assumed he meant it and i read the situation wrong, the other half of the time i assumed he didn't want to talk about it.

he ended up breaking up with me because i

"didn't pick up on some things"

"what kind of things?" i asked

"idk, just, things."

and he had been talking to my friend (U) about our relationship, and telling her that i wasn't picking up on things. she got mad at me and we had a "fight" for a short time, she thought i was being a bad partner, and her sister (M) (who is toxic and possessive) felt like i wasn't spending enough time with her, so she complained about it to their mom, who got mad at U for it for some reason? so U also brought all that up, telling me M felt left out. (i wasn't leaving M out of anything, i was sitting with my partner at lunch half of the time, she was welcome to join, but didnt, looking back i think M has RSD and maybe i should have been more direct when moving to a new location to explicitly invite her) (U was also not in school at the time due to covid, so its not like i was spending more time with her over M, which is something M would get so upset about if she perceived it to be that way [she was incredibly possessive of me as a friend and the extent of it made me feel like an object tbh])

U never brought up the issues my partner talked about, because that's how we are, we don't make it known someone was venting to us, to respect their privacy, but it fueled her emotions during our "argument" so i really only heard her being mad at me for not including M, (which i later learned is because M's emotions were made to be her problem when they shouldn't have, this has been a running problem so it wasnt that surprising to learn) so i started spending more time with M, but it was school, and i had work, so schedules only allowed so much time, and any time I was with M (lunch and one class) was when i was also with my partner, but i had other classes with him so i assumed it was fine, but he started drifting away (also around a time i attempted to communicate something important about our relationship, which ended up making him uncomfortable, but he didn't say anything about it until we had a conversation after breaking up)

i was stuck in a place where i felt like no one around me communicated how they felt and still expected me to understand them and do what they wanted me to do

U and i recently reflected on this and realized my ex was a shitty communicator (he and his next partner also broke up because he didn't say how he felt and expected them [also most likely autistic] to... just kinda know ig?) and that she should have gotten my side of the story (she had no idea i was frequently checking on him and trying to get him to talk to me)

and that she wasnt actually upset at me about M, she was upset that people were making it her problem, and she was especially upset during this reflection to learn that M was not being left out at all, she was just doing That Thing again where she wanted me to be Her friend and Only Her friend.

U AND I ARE NOT MAD AT EACH OTHER FOR ANY OF THIS, I WAS NEVER MAD AT U AND U WAS ONLY MAD ABOUT HER PERCEPTION OF THE SITUATION, AND ONLY FOR A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME, EVERYTHING IS FINE

so basically i went like a year and a half thinking that people were rightfully mad at me and i was too self absorbed to pay attention to other peoples' emotions and i started learning how to read people again (clearly my body language research from middle school wasn't cutting it anymore) only for me to realize i just need people to be a little more direct that allistic people typically are, and those specific people were just being dogshit at communicating, (even for allistic people, relative to my needs)

anyways highschool post-covid was Really Fucking Weird and socially stressful for me

TL;DR reflecting on my communication needs not only not being met, but being far undershot for even a "normal" persons needs and how i was convinced I was the problem because of circumstances

[smolcuriouskitten]

🚩 🚩 🚩 { just curious }

Oh shit you are trying to put me on a soap box, aight hear me out. 1. AESTHETICS DONT MEAN SHIT IF YOU CANNOT WRITE. It makes me so SICK to see how the roleplay community is about how pretty you make your blog look but you cant even use your and you're correctly my g. Not shitting on anyone for using grammar incorrectly, it happens to the best of us but if I cannot comprehend a word you say in your response, decorating should be the last thing you worry about. Reading a book takes just as much time as decorating the blog, maybe pick up one.

2. NOT HAVING MOBILE FRIENDLY LINKS ANYWHERE IS CHILDISH. Me personally, I came to tumblr during a time where I had to do a mini scavenger hunt to find rules, information, etc on a blog bc pinned comments and linking in bios didnt exist. That was 3ish years ago and it sucked navigating as a mobile user back then because we werent as recognized as desktop. Its a new era and not alot of people have access to computers, dont be an ass and inconvenience others bc you cant be bothered to pin and link something. AND AN ADDITIONAL POINT. You cannot get upset with those who ask to see your rules or other pages on your blog bc you dont have it easily accessible. This is ESPECIALLY important if you are mutuals only, send the stuff and dont be an ass about it.

3. ON THE TOPIC OF MUTUALS ONLY, IF YOU ONLY ROLEPLAY WITHIN THE FANDOM OR WITH 5 PEOPLE, YOU CANNOT COMPLAIN ABOUT OTHERS BEING VERSTILE. Now dont get me wrong, new fandoms use mutual only systems as a form of protection, Im not talking about them. Im saying for example, marvel muses who only roleplay within the marvel fandom (like only roleplaying with avenger muses and no one else) and dont venture out! Thats boring and shows you cant switch up your style or go outside of your comfort zone for writing. I get it, some fandoms are more niche than others, require more knowledge than others, once again not talking about them. I mean popular fandom canon muses who do not interact with ocs, other side characters, and keep a small circle of roleplay buddies then complain about the lack of interactions or lack of new people coming to the blog. Most people can tell right away that their blog wont mesh well with yours since you only roleplay with the same 5 people! Babe, it turns us off.

4. and a bonus bc why not. IF YOU ARE MUTUALS ONLY HAVE THAT SOMEWHERE EASILY ACCESSIBLE/EASY TO SEE. I know to read rules as its basic etiquette when it comes to rping but most people do not have it big and bolded that they are mutuals only. Im one of those people who need to see it as soon as I go onto a blog. Respectfully if you have it as a rule, dont wait until I click on your caard, put it on the 20th rule, or put it in a really obscure spot. Put it in your bio! Even if you are selective seriously!

[hafula]

Thoughts on paul? Both as a reader and. From a system perspective

forgive me for how long this is in advance. i didnt realize when i started it so its going under readmore.

okay. god. paul made me EMOTIONAL like idk it was so everything with them sprinkling hints to whatever the fuck they got going on and all theyre doing to keep in contact when they cant be present in the same time, and when palamedes finally possessed naberius and kicked out ianthe and they had a Moment and they kept having Moments and it made so much sense for them to merge their souls completely. a new type of lyctorship. like it wasnt two bodies independent and it wasnt the adept absorbing their cav, it was just completely melding to become one person and i like how they highlighted that they Were camilla and palamedes, now theyre literally camilla-and-palamedes while not being specifically either of them but the sum of both in a new person you can still recognize. pure and utter 2 way street sort of devotion shit. this is what lyctorship should have been to me. it really should have been combining two separate souls into one, instead of a power imbalance or being split apart in such a way. idet john and alectos lyctorhood would be achievable for Literally Anyone Else though just bc of how it was described... i digress. i really do think it all goes back to devotion and the deep and unspoken bond between a necro and their cav... it all goes back.. it all goes back

anyway that also ties in with the system aspect for me though bc im an alter whose gone under fusion with another part before and its like.. yes we used to be two different parts but we were at a point where integration was safe and now instead of being either part were both in very complicated and nuanced ways. new person while also not at all. and bouncing back to before the merge it is quite a stereotypical thing for parts to interact through recordings and letters, but like... its a stereotype for a reason. i find notes from my alters usually in our discord server. when the dissociations too bad its like the only way we can communicate unless we go through connor or take to journalling. but it never felt impressed upon as weird or anything to really truly note upon in the sensationalized way other did allegories in medias tend to do, and theyre Literally sharing the same body since palamedes is a spooky ghost. also i said it before but the smooth transitions between pal and cam were my favorite part of it all because you really couldnt tell until pal stepped out of line with what other Extremely Fucking Observant Weirdos expected of cam. the one time they visibly switched was when the jig was up anyway which like! it works then! it didnt feel cheap! i loved paul!! every second!! i never found myself worrying where itd go because it didnt go anywhere—tmuir stayed in her lane even if she was unaware of it, displayed an incredibly complicated character relationship well, and didnt make any jabs that could have been ableist. i dont think it could have ended up any other way to me, paul is like one of my fav ntn characters i think.

tl;dr pauls my best friend and tmuir still stays winning in my book. no real objections from me from my first readthru, though if i pick it up again ill update to see if that changes.

[nihiltism]

since ive been too College to have enough art for any sort of summary im just gonna put a general year end rundown of what i feel i did best on this year!!

i think every year since i figured out that i dont need to use pens to line has just gotten better art wise for me. FUCK lining. pencils are my best friends forever and ever and can do your job better than you ever could. anyway apologies for some of these drawings being crunchier than others, i only recently got a scanner and Cannot be assed to scan my old art for this post rn.

also the first art here is a hatoful boyfriend spoiler. i mean i guess the last one is too but its vaguer i think. anyway. none of these are actually analyses of what i learned with each art im just braining

april 5th-

you guys know this one i REALLY like it. why in the goddamn were my best pieces this year hatoful boyfriend. anyway i uh. hey did you know that i didnt do the notgeki with graphite because i like mixed media. i did it because i have not owned a grey pencil for my some-teen years of drawing ever. i only JUST got a grey pencil like. a couple months ago. i mean im good with graphite i would have done it like that anyway but. yeah. anyway this was abt the height of my beginning hatoful fix and Also indirectly what got me to meet like a bunch of my mutuals here!! i did. not know there was a hatoful community. and because That i actually started using tumblr so!! hey thanks hitori. i need to do more birdform art.

april 15th -

this motherfucker! ill be. completely honest i dont have a lot of feedback for a lot of my graphite art bc ive Been doing this. ok actually yknow what i will say. there is a limit for how dark something can be with graphite and i Very much remember going over the inside of the cloak So Much. this was my pet project during my weekly 3 hour long lecture so god bless it. also i do still like how i did the eye. can i draw eye guys exclusively please.

july 3rd -

not really Art im proud of but!! holy shit i dont design often and i dont hate this!! this is at least in part thanks to my gf. my gf knows how to clothes better than i do so i did ask them for help. also i really need to scan this one. or maybe draw her a new ref. anyway (holds up celine) look at her. look at the silly.

september 6th -

this one was a trade for my friend raicatty and. also something i probably should have scanned. but its fine. anyway this one did teach me something and its To Line Your Damn Pieces Darker. lining with the color that youre going to be coloring in is kind of Asking For Disaster if it overlaps with others and u can. see that. this is a bit imparseable. but its also pretty. and thats all that really matters. a fun fact for when i ever do commissions is that being allowed to use this purpley pink pencil i have will make me really happy. its so pretty.

OERSHRIMP INTERLUDE

OERSHRIMP INTERLUDE

november 13 -

forgive me for including a sketch in this but YOU DONT UNDERSTAND IVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DRAW HUMANS. like. NEVER. much less in an actual decent pose. (god bless adorkastock) im So very delighted by this oboromaru and hes!! like!! one of my least favorite characters!! (not to say i dislike him hes just lower). i dont know what happened here!! if this wasnt at the very back of my Sketchbook I Just Put Away Because It Was Falling Apart id say id finish this one later. rip. he and that dark daroach sketch i had there can just vibe i guess.

aaand the big one. december 8th -

things i learned from this one! 1. the scanner did not pick up the red lines very well! 2. scanners are good! 3: NEVER do a full page project again! buuut i do want to say i am like. insanely proud of this one. its the first art ive done i can really say has any sort of Composition and im so delighted that it turned out just as cool as it looked in my head. also this took forever and i could have easily messed it up Multiple times in the process. so god bless.

[salmonellaandcheese]

Tag Game To Better Know You!

Tagged by the lovely and talented @lady--lisa (So sorry for taking so long! I didn't forget! I just couldn't figure out a way to copy all the questions easily on mobile)

If you saw the first version of this no u didnt

What book are you currently reading?

I'm halfway through Anne of Avolea by L.M Montgomery and a few chapters into the Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. I really should read more, I used to devour books back when I was a kid, but the library I volunteer at is based on community requests so its almost entirely formulaic ghostwritten thrillers (curse you James Pattison). If anyone has book recommendations let me know!

What’s your favourite movie you saw in theatres this year?

I think the only movie I saw was the new Top Gun, which I only watched because my mum loves the original and we went for her birthday. I wouldn't say its fantastic, but I did end up infodumping to my friends about propaganda and pop culture.

What do you usually wear?

Usually loose jeans or other sturdy pants and some variety of print t-shirt with my red flannel. Anxiety kind of made it into my uni uniform, I never thought I'd miss my high school uniform that much. When I'm at home I'm usually wearing shorts and an old singlet that I got in grade 8 or something. Winter means I get to wear big jumpers! I have this horrifically ugly one on it that says New Zealand with a red kiwi on it, I adore it. If I'm reaching out of my miniscule comfort zone I'll wear a funky button up or a more form fitting shirt, I've always dressed quite modestly (although not entirely by choice) and this year I cut my hair off and started to explore my masculinity and being openly and visibly queer. I pretty much only wear natural fibres and very practial/sensory friendly clothing, so most of my clothes are made to last and will be repaired until I deign them unwearable.

Fun fact, I used to actually dress in a style I'd say is somewhere between classic lolita and cottagecore, lots of pinafores and frilly shirts and ribbons. Next year I'd like to step out of my comfort zone and dress in any way that sparks joy, maybe experiment with makeup, different styles or more revealing clothing (ooh a shoulder, scandalous).

How tall are you?

I'm actually not quite sure, between 165cm and 170cm I think (5'5" to 5'7")

What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event?

Gemini

Do you go by your name or a nick-name?

I introduce myself with my name but with hopes that I'll get a nickname, I've always wanted one.

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child?

I'm still in uni but by a technicality yes? I wanted to be a scientist but came to dislike science in high school, but now I'm doing archeology (and history) through an arts degree but I could do it through a science degree. I did really enjoy digging in the dirt as a child, so I think little me would be happy about that, even if i was more into paleontology.

Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one?

No. I do have a bit of a crush on my best friend, who I turned down a year ago because I'm the stupidest person alive and can't tell the difference between friendship feelings and romantic feelings.

What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at?

I'm good with precision and detail orientated things. I love knitting and I've picked up archery and bread making recently. Its actually why I got into archaeology, I wanted to work in restoration and conservation.

I'm bad at remembering to do stuff. It's the ADHD man. Assessments? whoops. Consistent meals? Forgot. Cleaning? sorry not happening

Dogs or cats?

Dogs, I've never had a cat and don't really know how they work.

If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favourite picture/favourite line/favourite etc. from something you created this year?

I knitted my best friend some lovely socks, they're my first pair of socks and my second time doing fair isle.

What’s something you would like to create content for?

Look I know this means fandom but I have to start planning for what I'm putting in the show next year, it's only 6 months away. I'd love to do some more sewing, maybe make a gunne sax style dress (provided my anxiety will let me wear it out of the house) and I want to find something technically challenging for knitting, maybe lacework? Send me knitting/crafting inspo. I was thinking of maybe picking up counted thread embroidery too (yes I hate myself).

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with?

Star Wars. I've got brain worms about it. I've been microwaving it for months. Its been on my mind constantly, yet I have no thoughts. I'm forcing all of my friends to watch it. I'm rewatching all of it. I know nothing but also everything. I'm being excessively autistic about a background character wearing a cable knit jumper.

Good thing is that it makes conversation with men under 25 incredibly easy. I've made industry connections over a conversation about Lego Star Wars.

What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year?

Uhhhhhh. My uni's archaeology society? The history society raised my standards high, they do a lot of fun events, whereas the archaeology one is useful but a lot more industry training and connections focused instead of having regular pizza and power-point nights like the history one.

What’s a hidden talent of yours?

Hmm. I'm not too sure. I can flip an egg without using anything other than the pan, does that count? Like just wiggle, wiggle, throw it up in the air and catch it.

Are you religious?    

Catholic but in a cool and funky queer way

What’s something you wish to have at this moment?

A concrete plan of what the hell I'm doing and how to do it. A solution to my joint pain?

Tagging: (only if you want to) @elprupneerg @rights-for-redshirts @doveyluvey @notaghost3 @swagtalia @radioactivehydronerd @hetaari @arthoe-iceland @ratfish-blues and anyone else who sees this is welcome to join in!