#i typed up a whole rambly thing about these thoughts but it was so disorganized and pointless

[mamawasatesttube]

thinking kon & jon otgw au thoughts...

[riddlerosehearts]

Okay now EYE must ask you - how are you liking BG3??? How far are you?? Tell me about your Tav!!!! (Please and thank you <3)

hi!! 💖 i only started the game a few days ago and it was an impulse decision i made after having previously told a friend of mine that i definitely wanted to play it but that it'd probably take me a while to get around to it (and, because i thought i wouldn't play anytime soon i hadn't really been trying to avoid spoilers). but, i have the PC version and while it generally runs just fine, my computer is kind of slow and the game is so big that it took hours to download and install. so i kind of went ahead and started to come up with a whole character idea during that time LOL. sorry if my explanations of things get a bit too rambly/disorganized. i'm actually not very far in the game at all yet, i've been spending a ton of time doing stuff in the druids grove and i'm supposed to go find halsin but i haven't even gotten karlach in my party yet! i've recruited all the main companions except for her but i am excited to meet her. gonna put the rest of this under a cut for length.

my only background with DND is that i listened to the first campaign of the adventure zone and i've watched the legends of vox machina show. i also have a friend who's super into her own DND campaign and another friend who's told me a lot about dimension 20, specifically fantasy high--and i've considered trying it out for her but haven't gotten around to it yet! i think she actually told me the same thing about the episode lengths making it easier to get into than critical role, because i had tried critical role and it was just so long that i couldn't stick with it. but, yeah, i've also looked at the forgotten realms wiki a bit but i've never actually played DND. i have played skyrim and final fantasy 14 and some other similar RPGs with customizable blank-slate protagonists, and in those types of games i always have to make OCs to roleplay as--usually i'll think up a basic idea to start with and then flesh the character out as i get into the game. they're never really self-inserts but i do often project onto them a little.

so, in games like these my first character is usually an elf that specializes in elemental/destructive magic. idk why, that's just what i've always liked. in ff14 i started out as a black mage without knowing it was the hardest class to play LMAO. soooo i went into this planning to create a high elf sorcerer, but as i started writing out ideas and thinking about what to do, i ended up creating a half-high elf bard. they're transmasc/nonbinary and in my head they use he/they pronouns, but i picked the nb option in the character creator and that causes npcs to actually use they/them in dialogue which i think is so cool. i love that the character creator is so inclusive in regards to gender.

anyway, i named them elenion, which is something i took from the lord of the rings universe because i'm a huge nerd. in LOTR it's an elvish word that basically means "of the stars". here's a couple screenshots i took when i first started. let's just ignore the fact that this hairstyle clips into elf ears (and also that the face preset is from a mod i downloaded).

i didn't really give him a tragic backstory or even the most interesting story haha--i'm wanting to do something bigger and angstier with another character on a second playthrough when i'm more familiar with the lore and world of the game. and i'll probably also end up changing or expanding on some things about this character later, but for now i just kind of made a normal guy with normal problems. i had this idea that his father, a human who attracted the attention of a beautiful elf woman, was also a bard and was a very successful musician in his youth. so elenion has always shared his father's passion and dreamed of being like him, being able to effortlessly tell incredible tales and inspire crowds of people through song, but no matter how much he studies and practices he never feels good enough. if he seems confident it's usually just because he's gotten really good at faking it. he's also pretty reserved and often avoids having to talk about himself by asking a lot of questions. see, i kind of wanted to specifically find a way to not roleplay the usual sort of loud, flirty, goofy bard, lol. not that i dislike those kinds of characters or anything though!

however, bards are meant to be super charismatic, witty, and persuasive and of course the game strongly encourages that with the dialogue options and skill bonuses you get. so my way of explaining this is to have elenion be a bit like raine from the owl house, in that they may be shy, but they're very firm in their ideals and are no pushover when it comes to protecting themself or their allies. they're clever and have a snarky side to them, and they're genuinely friendly and caring in a way that gives them a sense of quiet charisma. which reminds me that one of the spells i gave them at the start was sleep, and it's made me imagine that when they were a kid they tried calming a crying baby by playing a lullaby on their lute and accidentally ended up casting their first spell.

oh, and, i also wasn't really sure at first where in the world i wanted elenion to come from but i decided on something pretty quickly after getting multiple of those dialogue options suggesting that the protagonist is baldurian! i pictured them growing up in a somewhat small town with their family but moving to baldur's gate as an adult, hoping that if they left the comfort of their home and started to journey out into the world a little they'd eventually find their spark and become the bard they wanted to be. unfortunately they've had little luck so far because even after all this time they can't see that maybe their whole fixation on trying to be just like their father and achieve the exact same kind of success that he had is holding them back. the fact that their father died the year after they moved away hasn't helped either. and now, in the middle of traveling to a historical site that they'd wanted to see in person and use as inspiration for a song, they've been abducted by mindflayers and are struggling with the massive upheaval that this has brought into their relatively mundane life.

so. yeah. my tav for this first playthrough may not be the most unique or exciting character but i like him! i like figuring out what kind of choices he'll make and thinking up new ideas for what he likes and how he sees the world. also, i find it funny how in your reply to my ask you said you thought you'd be into gale but then you fell for astarion--because i thought that i'd be all over the edgy, brooding, snarky vampire man, but it turns out gale is so charming and funny that i'm probably going to romance him first. i'm also pretty intrigued by shadowheart and wyll but i'm so early in the game that i can't even say who i think my overall favorite companion will be because they all seem so interesting!! even karlach despite the fact that i haven't actually met her yet, i've seen a bunch of cool gifsets of her and my brother told me he's been romancing her on his playthrough. i really need to go find her soon.

i'm sure you can tell from everything i wrote here that i am definitely enjoying the game LOL. i can already tell that there's just so many different things to do and see, that i will both need and want to do a lot of different playthroughs and that it's going to be something that sticks with me. nothing wrong with using guides and walkthroughs btw! i do it too because i'm worried about missing too many things and have the world's worst sense of direction even with a minimap. honestly i probably need to look up some guides for certain mechanics that i don't feel like i've really figured out yet. there's a sarcophagus trap in the ruins early in the game that got me SO stuck and got my whole party wiped and then i looked up a video and found out you could turn off the whole trap system by pushing a switch... i felt so stupid askjdfgf.

anyway, i think this got to be way too long of a reply so i will stop here! but if you ever wanna tell me more about your tav or anything definitely feel free to and i hope you're having an awesome day!

[attourney-at-lycan]

i want to talk about zane. (yes i just woke up and my first thought was block people)

tw men: physical and verbal abuse

in my rewrite i played a lot into his role as a priest as well his relationship with his family.

i believe garte taught zane to care a lot for his country and only his country. and hear me out it kinda works?

zane’s goal throughout the whole series is to gain power, he’s obsessed with power but why? no one’s born evil overnight and why would garte teach a kid to be cruel for no reason? and why zane of all his kids? why not garroth, what as different about garroth that he had to teach to zane?

anyway, questions aside, yeah- i believe zane genuinely loves his country and maybe grew up to believe that he should grow up to protect it. however he didn’t believe he was the one to be in power because that was garroth’s job. i think as envious as he was, he still thought garroth was sort of fitting to be a king, albeit a little too kind to others, he believed he himself could fill the role.

so god, imagine the anger and betrayal he felt when garroth ran away because he couldn’t marry someone. because he couldn’t commit to being lord (or king idk). because he didn’t care about o’khasis.

god that made no fucking sense oh my god.

aLSO- need for power could come from garte. i think garte is the type to believe that you have to beat someone down for them to grow stronger. i mean he didn’t do that with garroth and look how he turned out-

so i would not be shocked if garte would berate zane for being weak, or if he would start using physical abuse as a way to train “endurance”.

bro im so sorry im absolutely out order with my rants i keep losing track of shit-

ummm- recap, zane’s obsession with power grew because garte belittled him and raised to believe that o’khasis was the best place ever and that he should want to make it even better place. he wants to be powerful for both his father’s approval and for the better of the kingdom.

yes okay good recap, me.

back to zane being a priest thing. because garroth is gone, zane takes it upon himself to help o’khasis’ growth. he was already a priest by the time garroth ran away and didn’t feel like he’d fit as a king, so he decided to push for putting the church into government.

he was just your average human in physical talent, but he was extremely talented in getting people to listen to him, to believe what he says. and this is what i where i want to get with my biggest problem with zane in mcd.

zane’s a priest, he’s not supposed to be outwardly evil in public. im probably wrong but i don’t remember the people of o’khasis being scared or hating on zane- heck when he puts the city on lockdown, people listen to him.

so in my rewrite, zane has a fucking gilb tongue. he plays the extremely caring priest to his people (which i believe he cares for.. at first, and i’ll get to that in a bit) and when it comes to diplomatic shit, making deals with nobles, he knows how to manipulate them, butter them up with… just a couple words.

basically zane manipulates mansplains malewife /hj

what else did i want to talk about.

OH yeah- i also wanted to talk about garte. apparently he had a “near death experience” that ‘corrupted’ him because apparently this was why he treated vlyad like shit and fucked up zane.

and now im thinking, this was probably going to be a plot device to use later on because why would they specify this near death experience. my theory is that he’s a shadow knight. only thing that can pop into my head right now. either that or he didn’t have a near death experience because some abusers tend to flip flop attitudes a lot.

anyway, my brain isnt giving me any more on zane and im so sorry this was such a disorganized ramble- but idk as much as i kove mcd zane, i want to make him more than a grr evil power hungry priest who likes horsies because he deserves more! in my rewrite he’s someone who cares a lot about those he sworn to protect, very much like his brother, except his way to go about it.. grow a “bit” obsessive and it ends up causing mass murder and destruction because it doesn’t matter, they’re not the people he cares about and they’re in his way of getting the power he wants.

ok zane ramble over

[ranboo5]

can i still ask about the homestuck au? i have some classpect opinions but i would love to hear if there’s more than that!

YES you can I needed 2 make a proper Compilation Post anyway. Uhh here's a FULLY disorganized post of all the HSAU lore I can think of. There is a clear bias toward Ranboo here

- This is where I justify Rageboo - Anyway he and Technoblade are a Ragebound Derse dreamer Dancestor pair (Ranboo's a Maid, Techno's a Sylph) - There's at least four sessions at play -- the first is DTeam+Badlands maybe and was the creator of the universe w/ the initial L'Manberg session (roughly based around some of the S1 major actors) - And THAT session is scratched to generate the NLM session (roughly based around actors more significant in S2) - (how that division is drawn is... it is still complicated the only ones ik for SURE are that Wilbur Eret and Technoblade r in the former session and Tubbo and Ranboo are in the latter. Have not decided which one Tmmy is in. I wanted him to be in the same one as Tubbo bc he's a Time player to Tubbo's Space but it may not make sense? But it also might?) - The fourth session is another completed one: it's Philza's null session. Philza is a Doom player and he's beaten the session and now is hanging out in the cluster w/ everyone else - DreamXD is a First Guardian - The genetic sequence for DreamXD is written predominantly by Ranboo who does so much more consciously than usual - Especially laid groundwork via the Amnesiac (Ranboo as Techno's ancestor) who kind of went off the rails chasing cherubs which he thought he was somehow fatewise involved with bc he's a mutant red like Techno but he's also. Smth went Extra wrong so half his blood is the requisite candyred and half is the original lime - Ranboo who plays Sburb through related reasons ended up put in The Cherub Box for the first half of his life. It fucks him up - Then he gets to troll society which also fucks him up - So he has a propensity bc of those combined experiences for hiding parts of himself, compartmentalizing, caginess, trusting nobody except himself and not even himself for that matter, privately being Not A Fan of societal expectations in general, trying to look palatable anyway, and also sitting alone in his room. You could say he's. You could say he's Homestu - The Bloodgod (Techno as Ranboo's ancestor) fought Dream (fully realized cherub) and Won. He got the horrorterrors retroactively in the brains of every iteration of him for his troubles - this is what allows Techno who plays Sburb to get the survivors out of the scratched LM1 session into the NLM session after Wilbur scratches the initial session on Nov 16th though so  - Dream is a cherub btw that's kind of relevant to the above - Ranb and Techno r trolls (as mentioned above, they're lime/mutant candyred w/ Ranb having the blood weirdness and Techno bein just str8 red. Them) - Unsure abt jack anything else - To go back 2 Tubbo. So you know how the Space player is traditionally assisted by the Knight in breeding the genesis frog. - Tubbo's classpect is the Knight of Space that man is on his own - Whatever happens in Tubbo's session, Tubbo is basically left functionally to breed the frog on his own - While YOU were FUCKING AROUND going into RETIREMENT and DOING FETCH QUESTS, TUBBO was TRYING TO WIN THE FUCKING GAME - He ends up ghosting Doom. This is a thing you can do I chedked the fucking literature okay ghosting is not definitionally just your opposite aspect it's just acting your aspect in a way that outwardly (intentionally or not) evokes another Tubbo ghosts Doom - Dream and Tubbo both Prospit dreamers btw I only just realized this but yeah - Niki Life player also - Quackity Hope player - I don't remember what the meta was for this one but Wilbur Light - Oh and the literal only land I have worked out is Ranboo's which is LoRaO (Land of Rivers and Obsidian) - Anyway Techno has a whole Sylph of Rage arc he does it with his session he does it in NLM he may godtier in the equivalent of the Butcher Army? - If there is an Alternia/Beforus similarity w/ the sessions here Techno is definitely on the Alternia one. He's having a time - He also has to deal with (and be. I am an apologist but. There's a reason I classpected him the way I did) the concept of Sylph (derogatory) of Rage (derogatory) - Idk what his land is. I could make a potato joke but I feel that's low hanging fruit. Smth to do with the Arctic maybe... - He's definitely one of the first 2 be in contact with Philza also - I also Only have his and Ranboo's typing quirks worked out bc of course:

For Ranb: You are si imultaneously unsu ure and also ki inda wi ith a tende ency to double do own on thi ings, and you don't te end to use end pu unctuation a who ole lo ot, really, you ju ust ha ave a lo ot of qualifyi ing to do ju ust all the ti ime, and a te endency also to li ike, ra amble, ki inda. (simultaneously unsure and also kinda with a tendency to double down on things, and you don't tend to use end punctuation a whole lot, really, you just have a lot of qualifying to do, just, all the time, and a tendency also to like, ramble, kinda.) (when he starts Actually Punctuating His Sentences yk he means Business) For Techno: You tend to speak in a [PIG+++] kindaa drawlingg mannerr, withh thee occasionall Weirdd Emphasiss. forr thee effectt, yknoww. forr thee Brandd evenn

- peerpressure be like [have letter doubling quirks] - OH also. As ancestors Ranboo and Techno (or the Amnesiac and the Bloodgod as it were) both wrote Troll Art of War in their respective timelines

[phantomnostalgist]

What was it like being a phan in the day? Nowadays there's so much to do in the phandom, online roleplaying, fanfiction etc. So what did phans do before the internet was widely popular?

Ooh, good question (and sorry for taking so long to log in and answer, and if my answer is very rambling, as my brain still isn’t working right).

...And my internet went down in the middle of this reply, so it’s twice as rambling as the first version I typed up...

For me it was a mix between pre-internet, and early internet. My first year or two of being obsessed with Phantom, I literally didn’t know other phans existed, so my fandom activities were about tracking down any information or version of Phantom I could, which pre-internet wasn’t easy. The novel wasn’t even in most bookstores! I eventually found another phan via penpal adverts, then met someone else at the theatre. In many ways, starting a fan club was just my way of finding other fans to connect with. I know a lot of people got penfriends via phanzine ads too, so I think a certain amount of phandom happened in people connecting and enthusing together one on one in letters. It was truly an amazing feeling back then, even to discover other people who loved Phantom, who cared about Erik, who had all these feelings I’d initially thoughts I was utterly alone in.

There were fanzines back before mine, most notably Phantom Notes in the US from the late 80s to early 90s, and people were publishing fanfic by mail back in the day too. It was just harder to find until you discovered such things existed, and a whole new world opened up. I wasn’t so much into fanfic, but there were a number of phanfic anthologies in the early 90s, mostly from people in the US. So once you’d discovered a fanzine, you could get into the fanfic scene, but you had to pay for fic, as whomever was publishing it had to pay for the photocopying and distribution. 

The early zines had a lot of discussion amongst fans, like the early email list and message boards, on all aspects of the show and story, but there wasn’t room for things like roleplaying, or the wider kinds of fandom creativity the internet enables today. Most obviously because with a quarterly newsletter, you were waiting months between seeing your letter published, and reading people’s responses. On the other hand, it did make every little thing way more exciting, as it was so much more time and work to track down!  

I think what phans did also depended how near a production we were, as the stage door was another area we could meet and hang out with other fans (and queuing for returns, when tickets were sold out). There were some get-togethers in the early days, often around anniversaries or fundraising events for Broadway Cares, sometimes including theatre tours. The second ever Phantom fan I met was someone I spotted during the intermission who had a Phantom tattoo, so of course I went and started talking to her (and she turned out to be on her 98th show!). 

The early internet days were similar, in that I pretty much connected immediately with the first few Phantom fans I met online - which where through the rec.arts.theatre.musicals newsgroup. I can actually remember the names or screennames of numerous fans I met back then, in about 1995. Then Karin W started the Phantom email list, and various of us most “online” phans spent a lot of time on the #phantom IRC channel (where we didn’t talk about Phantom much, it was more a social gathering space for people who were all phans, and it was a lot of fun though also had its times of fracturing into extreme drama, because we were young and internet etc). People also began publishing a lot more fanfic back then of course, as there were plenty of free webhosts. I don’t think the roleplaying really got going until later on in the internet era, although I think there were attempts at it earlier... Actually I used to get some pretty weird emails from people RPing as “the Phantom”, which I rolled my eyes at at the time, but I look back on it and realize they just wanted someone to RP with, and there weren’t really any forums for it at the time. 

This is an incredibly rambling and disorganized answer (thanks Jack Daniels). I suppose phandom for me back then came into a few areas... First was just my passion for Phantom/Erik, and searching every resource I could find for any information. Then there was actually seeing the show, the stage door experience, getting to talk to the cast and squee over my faves, as well as sometimes meeting other fans. But just as important was having people to write to about it all - initially penfriends, then a couple of people I met, then people subscribing to and writing letters to the fanzine. And the joy of uncovering information - discovering things like the links between Christine Daae’s story and Christina Nillson’s for the first time, for example, which is now well known but was thrillingly exciting 25 years ago. 

Okay, to go back to the original question, what did phans do before the internet was widely popular? Searched for information and thought we were alone in our love for Erik; gradually discovered others who shared our love, and wrote embarrassing teenage confessions to our penfriends, full of our sex fantasies about Erik and certain Phantom actors, causing us to have to get our letters back from them when we later mutually fell out; found or founded fanzines, sharing our views with more phans, and finding fanfic zines; um I think this entry is long enough now so I’m posting it.

[datingdonovan]

Aaawwww I'm sorry that you're sick cece!! Hope you rest up and take care of yourself!!

Fun things: today I was hit HARD by ennoshita brainrot (yes I am an ennoshita lover to answer ur question from your answer in the ask game) and I just want to hang out with him and be domestic with him. Just lay in the same room with a movie we're both half-paying attention to, and sometimes he'll be like "omg watch this part" for a scene and then ramble about some fun fact about the production or the actor or something about lore of the movie, and I'll do the same ;___;

Other fun things: I'm playing animal crossing new horizons again. What chars do you think would have the most organized, decorated island with the best themes, and which would have the most wilderness and disorganized didnt even try island?

stop I just wrote an extremely long paragraph being super nostalgic about my film classes in the context of ennoshita and then accidentally deleted it somehow thanks tumblr but the jist was that he’s so unpretentious and it’s not him teaching you it’s just both of you nerding out together which I love🥰and it’s so great bc you’ll take separate classes but come back and watch the movies together and report to each other on every little thing you learned!! And you support each other thru the endless rewatches necessary to write your essays & discussion posts I literally wrote a whole thing ab how ennoshita has to write ab the searchers and you find it so corny the 2nd or 3rd time thru but you keep watching it w him to be supportive lol, and likewise you both are crying your eyes out rewatching the ending of in the mood for love for you to write your discussion post I’m very angry at tumblr for deleting that lol and omg if there’s a special guest for one of your classes you both campaign SO hard for the other to get to come to the lecture, and if they can’t you watch some of the guest’s movies & relay in such detail to each other everything they talked about with the production, the editing, whatever it may be. ok I honestly think I’ve probably reproduced the majority of what I typed the first time. ugh. film student lovers w ennoshita, be still my small heart.

Hahahahahah on the animal crossing topic, this is just a list of ppl popping into my mind. Oikawa has a freaking gorgeous island, same with yachi. Makki’s is sooooo disorganized and kyoutani’s is probably also a mess but he doesn’t care ab how it looks he’s just glad nobody knows he plays. I feel like hinata & Noya would also have kinda garbage islands bc they don’t have the patience for it even tho they want to try lol. Kageyama probably tries briefly before he also loses patience and his results are….. ehhhhh😂😂😂 asahi’s looks great tho. Suga’s too. OSAMU’s is great and Atsumu is extremely jealous bc his is a flop. Probably Suna’s is pretty good too & he also makes fun of Atsumu but watch out suna what if some… catastrophic mistake… happened…….. what if you experienced some dreadful….. sabotage???? Tendou’s island is fantastic. He puts so much care into fictional worlds and no one can convince me otherwise. Gets the game for ushijima who has no clue what he’s doing, but actually is trying for his friends sake, so his islands mediocre. Futakuchi’s is terrible and embarrassing and frustrating to him despite all his best efforts lol. Kenmas is obviously stellar. Daichi tries so hard but he just doesn’t have the designers touch like suga lol. Kuroo just pesters kenma for help but it mostly just annoys kenma lol so kuroo kinda still ends up w his looking a lil blah. Terushima’s is surprisingly really good—he spent all his time working on it instead of actually doing his hw. I should shut up now I don’t know why I started just rattling off everything I thought of oh my word lol

[oh-so-scenarios]

Hello Again...❦| 01

⤳ Tʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ʜɪs ᴍᴀɴʏ ʏᴇᴀʀs, Mʀ. Pᴀʀᴋ ʜᴀs ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴀᴄʀᴏss ᴍᴀɴʏ ғᴀᴄᴇs. Bᴜᴛ, ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴀs ᴏɴᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʜᴇ ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ʜᴇ'ᴅ ᴇᴠᴇʀ sᴇᴇ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ.

⤳ ᴅᴇᴍᴏɴ!Jɪᴍɪɴ x ғᴇᴍᴀʟᴇ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

⤳ᴀɴɢsᴛ, ғʟᴜғғ, ᴅᴇᴍᴏɴ!ᴀᴜ, (ᴀᴛ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴘᴏɪɴᴛ) sᴍᴜᴛ

A/N: Ok! I have decided that the POV’s will switch. Sometime’s it’ll be Y/n, other times It’ll be Jimin! Also, if you haven’t read chapter 00, please do so! 

***Please ignore any errors! 

(Word Count: 4.24K)

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JIMIN:

There’s a storm raging outside. The rain is knocking on the window of the library in my home. The wind is howling and lightning lit up the poorly lit corner I sat in.

Just as a storm went on outside, a storm went on inside. 

I watch my guests zip around the library. They’re pulling all the ancient books from the shelves, leaving a disorganized mess behind them. They are rambling things to themselves in a frantic manner. They were paying me no attention as I sat at the small table in the corner of the sitting area. My elbow was propped on the table and my cheek rested on my hand. 

I watch in silence, tuning in and out while I get lost in my thoughts. The tapping of the rain on the window was all that was keeping me grounded. I don’t know what to say, or what to feel. 

Those same eyes. That same smile. What in the world? Though her eyes were no longer that alluring honey color, they held the same feeling. Y/n stared at me like I was a stranger. Her uneasy smile and stiff posture revealed her uncertainty and the tense atmosphere was confusing. 

But my heart hammered in my chest all the same. I can’t be sure if it was the shock of seeing that face and hearing that voice again, or if it was anger boiling deep within me.

The woman who stabbed me in the back. The one who gained my trust, only with the intent to betray me, was living right under my nose this whole time. But when I came face to face with her, I could feel the rage I thought I was carrying this whole time. 

Y/n, the woman who I thought was the love of my life and that was going to rule with me, blinked at me, oblivious to her presence shook my core. 

“Your highness.” A gentle voice called out to me. I heard the voice but couldn’t respond for a few moments. I am stunned, and my head is buzzing but it also feels empty.

My eyes look to my left where Jisoo stood with a shy smirk. A hand rested on her hip and she grew in confidence while I eyed her. She’s beautiful, and though she was only a Stronghold, her crafts in dark works were powerful. 

Jisoo is a distant friend I’ve known for more than a century and she has always been someone I enjoy having around, but marriage?

My uncle has become desperate to marry me to someone if he wants me to be with a stronghold demon. 

Stronghold demons are lowly demons. They are weaker; often the contract demons, incubus demons, and demons that possess humans. 

Demons have roamed the earth since the very beginning, watching as humans evolve and struggle with the problems they faced. Some problems that some would look up at the big man and ask why, when it was really our doing. It is all about status and power. That is how it was set from the beginning yet everyone has a purpose. 

I am a Second Hand, also known as a Prince of a Fallen Angel. Before any type of demons existed, there were fallen angels. Fallen Angels are not demons. They are not the same as us. They are more powerful than we are and do not dwell on the earth. They do bigger things. Second hands were created from a fallen Angel. A specific fallen angel.

There is only a handful of us who have their own reign. I am the Second Hand of Chaos who came directly from the most well known fallen angel of them all. We simply call him big L. Everyone knows who he is. I am one of 5 who came directly from that specific fallen angel. Leaving us to be the only Second Hands. I was the first one and would argue that I am the most powerful. 

I avoid the others, only running across them a few times in the past centuries. We are not a team, our work has nothing to do with each other so there is no need to contact each other. The only one who reaches out to me is Hoseok, the Second Hand of Despair. We were almost friends for some years.

I don’t care for the others. 

Second Hands were only created from that particular fallen angel. The other demons created from other fallen angels who aren’t big L are Powers. Powers are demonic beings of their name. They are demons of powers. There are nature demons, witchcraft demons and more. Though they are below Second Hands in the hierarchy, their strength has range. 

Some can be just as weak as Strongholds, while others sit high with their power nearing Second Hands.

From Powers come to Dominions. Dominions are the first demons to not come directly from a fallen angel. Dominions are territorial demons who were Strongholds that moved up in power. They are often connected deeply to land. They tend to have a clan following that goes by region, hence them being territorial demons. 

The Busan Dominion can be overthrown by a strong demon. 

Strongholds are the lowest of the low demons. Strongholds are humans who were once alive and have signed away their souls or became a demon through other means. Dominions only appeared once Strongholds gathered together and others grew in power.  Once a demon dies, they do not reincarnate or even go to hell. They simply do not exist anymore. 

This is why seeing Y/n, who was once a Witchcraft Power, as a human is throwing the people around me into a frenzy. 

I glance at my uncle, my focus drawn to the specific dark purple book in his hands. The years of dust that accumulated on it were brushed off with a careless hand. My uncle opened the book, his brows furrowed and he looked up to meet my already waiting gaze. 

“Why is the Witchcraft Scroll looking like this Jimin?” I knew what he was talking about before he turned the open book to face me. I didn’t move from my spot, staring at the blank pages he displayed to me. 

My mother, though she’s not truly my mother, rushed forward gasping loudly. 

“Jimin can see it. He told me. Right?” She grabs the book from my uncle’s hands looking between the void pages and myself. 

Witchcraft Scroll, a book that holds the oldest and most robust spells that Witchcraft Powers have. One can’t forget they own such a book. Not when many Witchcraft Powers arrive at my door asking for it. Some strongholds and Dominions even poke me with a question about the book. 

It could be because I know nothing about the works of witchcraft that I did not truly understand the weight and power of that book.

“Jimin?” My mother’s calls fell deaf to my ears as my thoughts were tuning out every sense. 

“Jimin! Hello?” She says again.

●

●

“Jimin?” Y/n called out as if she didn’t already have my attention. She ran her fingers across the spines of the books on the shelf. Her dark hanbok is not something you see at this time. She stands out wherever she goes. She keeps to herself and though she doesn’t smile often, her eyes are always kind. 

I can’t say we’re friends, but the more I see her, the more I miss her when she is gone. She is...fascinating. A powerful witch who silently commands respect but is still so humble and gentle. 

My uncle’s words of finding a bride echo in my head as I watch her intently. 

“Jimin, do you have an empty spellbook? A thick one?” She only kept her eyes on me for as long as she spoke, looking back to the bookshelves. 

I sigh, a grin pulling at my lips. 

“You say you find me annoying,” I begin, my teasing tone causing her to look at me. She rolls her eyes and moves away from the bookshelves, walking towards where I stood. I leaned against the larger desk just some meters from Y/n.

My white dress shirt and khakis became my home clothing, as I didn’t have time to change once coming home from my endeavors

“You say you find me annoying,” I repeat, “yet you are always in my manor, trailing behind Hoseok with that same frown on your lips.” 

She takes slow dragging steps my way, her eyebrows raised, the corner of her lips turning up slightly. 

“If I am correct, when I don’t follow Hoseok here, you question him about my absence. I have no choice but to appear, it would be rude to leave you longing for me.” Her voice grows quieter as she looks up at me under her eyelashes. 

It feels like my entire being is burning up, as she stops in front of me. A wave of lavender tickles my nose and my gaze moves across her face. Her soft eyes, the beautiful features of her cheeks, and her lips. Oh, how her lips look tempting. 

Have her lips always looked so kissable? 7 years of bickering playful with Y/n and I am only now being blown away by her beauty. Of course, Y/n has always been beautiful. There are many beautiful women in this world. I have been surrounded and pursued by many women. 

Some demons, some humans. I laid my eyes upon many beauties so why do I suddenly feel blown away? 

“Are you using a charm on me?” I am breathless when I speak next, realizing we stood in a comfortable silence only gazing into each other eyes. 

“I would never. You know that.” She answers. I almost cringe at the traces of offense in her words. Did she think I was accusing her?

“Why? Do you feel weird?” Her words held concern now as she looked my body up and down. She looks back at me waiting for an answer but for once I felt...giddy. 

I clear my throat, shuffling to the side and walking around the desk. This put her on the other side of the desk, staring at me in confusion. 

“Are you okay?” She asks, ignoring my questions.

“I’m fine Y/n, I just have a lot of things to deal with. I have Dominions coming to me with complaints against each other. I must deal with it.” I bent down to open a few drawers, knowing that I had some blank spellbooks. 

I finally found one, a thick one like she wanted. It was a beautiful dark purple, the material almost leather. I grab it and set it on the desk with a thud. 

“Perfect!” She whispers and teaches forward, opening the book to stare at the blank pages. She closes the book again, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. I keen on her, watching with eagerness. Y/n doesn’t use her powers often, but when she does….it’s something you can’t look away from.

 A demon of her strength that isn’t power-hungry? Lovely. 

When she opens her eyes they are a crimson red. She looks down at the book, takes her left hand, licks her thumb and places it onto the book. The book catches into flames, but the fire doesn’t damage the book. 

She opens the book and stares at the flame and the flames turn black before disappearing, only leaving a thick grey smoke. When she looks back up, her eyes are gold again. I look back down at the book and there are now words written in the book.

I leaned over to take a peak, yet the words did not make sense. They were weird symbols and characters from a language I’ve never seen. 

“What is that supposed to be?” I ask.

She snickers, and it might be the best sound I have ever heard.

“It’s all the spells and charms I have made and gathered from my travels in the last 200 years.” She flips a page, skimming it a bit. 

“It also holds some secrets people would probably want to get their hands on.” She says a matter of fact. She closes the book and picks it up, holding it to her chest.

“Only those I trust can see the ink.” She adds and closes her eyes as if to catch her breath from a tiring activity. 

She opens her eyes and that same old frown is on her lips again, “And only those I love and I can read the text.” 

“Who in this wretched world do you love?” My words come out in a teasing manner.

“Other than myself? Mhh...let’s wait and see.” She raises an eyebrow at me, “See you around.”

She turns to leave but I can’t help but call out.

“Y/n!” 

She spins around quickly, “Yes?”

“1931,” I pause, “I am to find a bride by 1931.”

She nods, “Ah yes. There is much talk of it among the female Powers and Dominions. Even some Strongholds are interested. You have 20 years to find yourself a bride, it’s only 1911. You have much time”

I kept my eyes on her, running my fingers through my hair as she waited patiently for me to speak.

“What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t have any.” She answers quickly. I smirk, earning a small smile from her. 

Cute.

She turns around to leave only to turn back to me, “I do have one thought.” She quickly set the book back on the table. 

“Keep this safe for me.”

●

◌

“Jimin, the text is still there right? That witch’s secrets?” My uncle stood beside my mother who was also looking at me for an answer. I was still dazed, lost in the scene of my past. 

I look at my mother, my uncle, and Jisoo. I can’t be sure what my face looks like right now, but I know I’m slightly annoyed. 

Maybe they don’t understand? Are they small-minded? My uncle, who isn’t really my uncle, the Dominion for Seoul. I’ve known him for longer than I can remember. Centuries have passed and this man has guided me and helped me to make correct decisions.

My “mother” is a stronghold demon that worked for me at some point. She also became like family, being by my side for many years. If I was human, she’d probably be my mother. We look similar, hearing things about our resemblance from both humans and other demons. 

I can’t expect them to understand. I can’t expect them to truly understand the stress I am feeling at this moment. They know they are stressed because demons cannot reincarnate and Y/n was there...reincarnated as a human. 

But I am stressed not only because it seems a demon has reincarnated…but I am being reminded of what was done years ago. I am being taken back to 1931. I am angry, disgusted and ashamed. It is 2020 and the emotions are still as raw as they were 90 years ago.

“Your highness. You said you could see the text right?” Jisoo said, referring to what my mother said.

I sigh, standing from my seat with my hands in my pockets. 

“I can’t see the text anymore cause there is no text,” I answer slowly. 

“I’m sorry what?” My uncle hisses. He has always been curious about Y/n’s book. Uncle always wanted ways to rise in power, I could see it in his eyes. I’d never tell him what was in the book if there was still ink to read, but that’s something I decide for his own good.

But I told them all my books were open to them, so I can’t be surprised to see that Y/n’s book is what he searched for.

“There is no more text uncle,” I hiss the last word, “Do you know how dark magic and crafts operate? Why do you expect that the text would still be there?”

I narrow my eyes at him, resentment bubbling up within me. 

“You should have sat down, read the book and copied down what it said!” He snaps, and whirls around to stalk back to the bookshelves.

“You should have thought that through!” I call out, my voice echoing in the vast library. It almost sounded like I was singing. in a mocking manner, while I walked closer to the familiar desk that sat in the middle of the library.

“You should have thought that through while you were manipulating me, uncle,” I scoff humorlessly, “But I guess we both ran off our emotions those days.”

“Is this why you refused all those who came to you for the books’ knowledge?”

“Uncle, if the text was so important, maybe you shouldn’t have pushed me so hard to kill her!” My voice shook the room, leaving a tense silence.

“It was the appropriate action for the offense she committed Jimin! Don’t let that human girl make you regret your decisions! You acted correctly!”

“Oh spare me that bullshit uncle! When Y/n was killed, the text disappeared and went with her!” I yell, my voice dropping to a whisper for my next words, “She may have been a traitor, but Y/n wasn’t stupid.”

~!~

I stroll through the house hallways. I don’t know where I’m going but I keep walking. 

Is that really Y/n reincarnated? The face is the same, the first name is the same….everything is the same, except she is human. 

I walk down the main staircase to get to the lobby area of the house. I stop a few steps short of the end of the stairs, deciding to sit down. 

I sat there for a while or a long time, I’m not sure. But I’ve seen lightning crackle through the sky more than 30 times. The action appeared like a camera flash when looking at the frosted glass window that was in the front door.

I miss the hasty footsteps that approached. My senses have been delayed since seeing Y/n. I am...in a state of shock? 

“Mr. Park?” Someone calls softly. 

I respond with a hum before I even look up to see Y/n looking at me curiously. Even as a human, she held her head high with a sort of grace and confidence I can’t explain. She stood in front of me and unlike my other staff, she didn’t show any nerves or hesitate to look me in the eyes. 

I try to be kind to humans, but oftentimes they are still intimated no matter how gentle I am. The human race wouldn’t be able to handle the existence of demons. They’ve built up their nations believing they are in control of all things, but that’s wrong.

The wars? Us. The politicians? Under our control. We simply let them walk about believing that they are on top of the world. Their egos are far too fragile.

“Mr. Park, You have missed your dinner. We weren’t able to keep to your schedule due to your guests. The kitchen staff can still cook up some dinner for you? Do your guests wish to eat as well?”

I don’t register her words, my gaze sitting on her face for way too long. 

“Sir, glaring at me won’t give me an answer.” She says after some time, “Do you want to skip dinner all together?”

I groaned, finally dropping my gaze from her and running my fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes for a moment to collect my thoughts, but I could feel her eyes on me. 

She stopped there waiting patiently, and the fake smile that was plastered on her face earlier was no more. Her face was neutral, not giving away any sort of anger or irritation while waiting for my response.

“The kitchen staff are still prepared to cook?” I questioned, glancing away from her at the floor and back to her.

“Yes, they are. It’s only 8:30, so they have not made any move to leave the kitchen yet. Also, once again, thank you for allowing us to stay the night. The storm isn’t letting up, traveling in such conditions would be impossible.”

When I only stare back in response she continues to speak, “I assume your guests will also be staying the night? Should I prepare their rooms?”

Maybe it’s because she’s technically off the clock, but the considerate and friendly attitude Mrs. Yoon said the new coordinator had is nowhere to be found.

“You talk a lot.” The words left my lips before I could think, my eyes widened as we both stared at each other.

Y/n pressed her lips together tightly, fighting back a chuckle? She looks off to the side, placing both hands on her hips. The motion oddly brings my attention down to her body. My gaze flickers back to her face just as she’s looking back at me. 

“Sir, someone has to talk! I need to know what you want to be done for dinner.” She teases, and for some reason, I want to smile. This Y/n is not very different from the Y/n I knew previously.

“Don’t worry about preparing rooms for my guests. I will prepare food for myself later, please tell the kitchen staff they don’t have to stay in the kitchen waiting for me.” I answer. 

She nods, “Understood. We will make sure to keep from disturbing your wing of the ho--”

“Jimin.” I turn around to see Jisoo descending down the stairs. Even though she called my name, she was glaring at Y/n. I almost rolled my eyes in annoyance but settled for a soft sigh. 

“Everything okay?” Her tone and the sharp eyes on Y/n held a clear accusation towards Y/n. She was wondering if Y/n was bothering me. 

“Everything is fine.” I utter, as she takes a seat beside me on the stairs. I choose to ignore the comforting hand she places on my knee, but I notice the knowing look she gives Y/n. Ugh.

“What were you talking about?” I open my mouth to answer when I notice that she’s speaking to Y/n.

“I was asking Mr. Park about his plans for dinner. He’s answered so I’ll be taking my lea--”

“When are you off work?” Jisoo cuts her off, narrowing her eyes at Y/n.

“Seven. But due to the weather, Mr. Park has allowed the staff to stay the night.” She answers plainly. She was either oblivious to the hostile actions Jisoo was directing towards her, or she didn’t mind it altogether. 

“Jisoo, can you let her go, please? The questions are unnecessary.” I nearly whine, “You can go Y/n.”

Y/n leaves quietly, her steps relaxed and slow. 

“I commend your restraint.” Jisoo giggles.

I raise an eyebrow at her, “What do you mean?” 

“You must be fuming,” She explains further, “To see her again. After how things ended, it’s a cruel fate for her to end up working under you.”

I snicker, “It must be a sort of punishment.” 

“For who? Her?”

Me.

“I don’t know, but it’s a twisted fate for sure.”

“It’s okay to express your anger Jimin,” She says in a soft tone, “you’ve been laid back since what happened. You don’t have to hold back.”

I can only shrug, “I’m feeling a lot of things right now. Anger is one of them but, we know what happened last time I acted out of anger.” 

“Your Highness, I feel like that girl working here isn’t gonna be good for you. Yes, it’s okay to hold regret but it’s been 90 years. Your decision to execute Y/n was certainly done out of anger, but your highness, she was plotting to kill you!” Jisoo looks around the lobby of the house. 

She was shocked by how loud her voice had gotten and when she spoke again, it was a whisper.

“You didn’t have to wait to hear her explanation. You didn’t owe her that, she was caught red-handed. So don’t let that weird reincarnation of her guilt you more. I say you fire her.”

“There is no need for that. She’s been working here for over a month and today is the first time I laid eyes on her. I can carry on with my life by simply ignoring her.”

“Having her here is--”

“--My decision.” I deadpan, “You will not tell me how to run my house Jisoo.”

“Okay, fair enough. This whole fiasco is distracting from the real reason we’re here.” 

“Oh,” I yelp sarcastically, “yes I almost forgot that you, uncle and mom are trying to force me into a marriage. It’s not happening.”

“Is it me?” She pouts.

“Mhh,” I think for a moment, “Yeah.” 

I watch her expression drop to a frown.

“You’re my friend Jisoo, I do not have feelings for you, I will not marry you. Also, it would make more sense if I married a Powers or a Dominion, you are only a stronghold. Those are simply the facts of it.” I stand up, placing my hands back into my pockets. 

“I-I’ll contact Seokjin about that girl’s reincarnation.” She mirrors my actions, also standing up.

My face twists up at the mention of that name, “I don’t know how you can be friends with that angel.”

She chuckles slightly, “Just try to avoid Y/n okay? Let us worry about the rest.”

“Of course,” I reply, walking down the last few steps to head towards my office. 

I can try to, but I can’t promise I will.

❦....❦....❦

Alright! How are you guys feeling about chapter one? If anything is confusing please inbox me about it! What did you think of the chapter? Also, things about the past will be revealed over time, so if it feels like pieces of the puzzle are missing, it’s okay! 

If you want to be on the tag list for this story, let me know! :)

[retphienix]

It's been 6 years :)

On March 30th, 2015 I decided I wanted a gaming side blog. (so we're early, but shush, it's the month for me)

I didn't know what I'd use it for exactly, but I had ideas- something I always have even if most of them only get as far as daydreamin' or writing out before closing them :P

For proof on the lack of direction the blog initially had- the March 30th date is the anniversary of my first post, an in-depth and lengthy review of Dragon Warrior Monsters for the GBC.

If you know the blog then you know "Extremely long and in-depth reviews" aren't the norm around here. As a matter of fact, that first post is the ONLY one I've done!

The closest I've come to ever repeating that would be the (word of the day) Directionless video I put out on Hades to get a grip on the concept of making videos, but that wasn't nearly as much of a 'review' as that first post is.

Tangent, definitely planning on trying my hand at videos some more for the foreseeable future. Probably not gonna use the tagline Full Impressions that I tossed as a whim for the Hades video but yeah- I'm excited to try my hand at a few videos :) tangent over.

It didn't take me long to come up with what I'd like to do for the blog though :)

A few months later I liveblogged a challenge run of FFT where I used only Ramza- a solo run. - Which maybe only happened because I tried a nuzlocke run a year prior on my main account-

(Nuzlocke | FFT challenge run)

Thanks to that haphazard liveblog experiment I started to realize a couple things which became the primary motivators behind this blog.

1) I LOVE sharing experiences. No brainer, I'm sure, but being able to share my experiences, and compare them with others' experiences, and just that mutual sharing is uplifting and feels good to do.

2) Liveblogging is an EXCEPTIONAL motivator to buckle down and play all those games I said I'd play (cue everyone laughing because I'm still way behind and have an immeasurable backlog).

But I mean that, on both respects. I have plenty of motivators toward the blog today, but if I were to be concise it's pretty much "It's easier to beat games if I liveblog them- otherwise I get distracted and play other games" and "I love sharing experiences and thoughts with people about my favorite thing- games."

Since 2015 I've tackled around 70 games as full playthroughs, and an untold ton as one offs or just to ramble about for a bit.

I've had a lot of highlights over the years, and I don't talk much about it as an overall experience so I thought for the anniversary I'd try to do just that. Not everything- I can't say I have photographic memory that would bring all of it up without prompting after all :P But whatever comes to mind as I browse some of my old stuff- as well as some thoughts on what I'd like to see in the future.

It's gonna be a bit self-centric I assume as I type this preamble to it, so let me say outright that this blog wouldn't be half of what it is without all the people who've given it the time of day over the years.

From recommending games they love or appreciate, to comparing thoughts, to offering kind words for analysis I've done over the years, to pointing out when I'm dumb and misread a situation :P- to, yes, even the people who decided "Fuck this guy's ramble" and deleted my captions before reblogging my gifs way back during Hamtaro (Of COURSE I remember that! It's amusing lol).

This is better because of others, because of the interactions and the people I've gotten the chance to chat with or befriend. It's just a liveblog more or less, my own little bit of fun I toss out for myself if for anyone- so seeing others enjoy this or that from the work I put into sharing my experiences or thoughts is always a joy in itself :)

Anyway, onto selfishly rambling about some tidbits of the past :)

Also sorry but no, opted to not shove a ton of photos in, it does have a handful of links to old posts though :P

This'll be disorganized as heck as I'll add to it over time before I feel it's worth posting (or the tumblr post editor becomes a hassle and more or less forces me to).

First~

FFT Solo Ramza Challenge: Considering it was roughly the first thing this blog has done, it's also something that's stuck in my head a lot more clearly than most of the other stuff I've done to be honest lol.

In truth, this is partially because FFT is my favorite game, bar none. But it's also because the whole experience was pretty new to me. Prior to it I had really only done one self-imposed-challenge that wasn't requested by the game in some manner and that was a nuzlocke run of Blue version.

So adding a challenge to my favorite game was a fantastic experience!

Notes I just wanted to say today about that run: If anyone enjoys FFT I honestly recommend giving it a shot for the unique story it lends itself to. I do recommend skipping the rules until after the second battle but that's up to YOU to decide.

My first post on the subject is me complaining about spending 4 hours grinding out the second fight and, despite hyperbole being my natural state, that was NOT hyperbole.

It DID take 60~ restarts to beat. It DID take 4 hours. The reason is that that 2nd battle is RNG as HECK, you HAVE to have Delita do some meaningful actions, you HAVE to have the enemies miss and make poor plays, you damn near HAVE to crit a few instances to save yourself from taking too much damage.

It's a numbers game to the extreme, so I wouldn't fault anyone for 'cheating' and skipping the 2nd fight for the ruleset lol.

The memory that stands out the most for that run is actually isolated in a post in which Ramza (Purrick in this run) talks like a total badass as just ONE DUDE running into a room full of enemies. I just think on that as a great encapsulated view of what it was like. The run started off face grindingly difficult, but because FFT is a game that offers so much freedom to the player it was extremely easy to 'break' the game into making Purrick overpowered as hell.

That's something I love about some tactical RPGs, I love having the ability to play smart so that I can play stupid later on, and breaking the game into making him one shot god is certainly a good payoff for playing smart early on :P

RetQuick: I miss RetQuick, it was primarily a short experiment I did in 2015 where I'd play a game for a short span of time (REALLY short, like 10-20 minutes) and record that for the purpose of making gifs and saying a short piece on what I thought.

It's one of those formats where the purpose was pretty shallow- but had a reason. I wanted to try making some gifs with some tools that existed online, so I made an excuse to do just that.

I also wanted to play a TON of games, usually through emulation on my sister's PSP, and this let me do that.

These two minor goals came together and so I spent a while making RetQuicks which were honestly more fun to make than they had any right to be. I mean the gifs were tedious but the playing? The thought sharing? The end product ocassionally having more appeal than just a photoset? It was fun.

I'm thinking whenever I have trouble picking a game for the blog I'll revisit the format... sorta.

I already reused it for a short stint to show clips I had no plan on expanding into a playthrough, but that died as well as it was too similar to Tidbits posts (another tag I no longer really use).

My thought is to rebrand retquick as something of a tryout for what game comes next. Play a handful of my backlog games for an hour or so each and say some thoughts before saying which one I'll continue as the main game for that period of time.

Old Tag Stuff: One of those things that only sticks to me since I made the decisions but it's always funny for me to look back on my old posts because I was apprehensive as hell toward making my posts visible. The reason my early playthroughs on the My-Tags page are variants of Ret instead of just "The name of the game so people can find this post" is because I felt like a liveblog would just spam the tag to hell-

Something I don't remotely feel bad for doing anymore.

So I avoided getting any sort of spotlight for quite a while on the blog for little reason.

Why Retphienix?: This is just a dumb thought I wanted to share and I'm sure I've said before.

It stands for retro!

Yeah!

Ain't that dumb and also not a real shorthand? lol

I think I have some sort of deer in headlights anxiety towards naming things, I mean do you think I think Full Impressions is a good summation for a video? I don't. But perhaps that's overshadowed by the other inexperiences and anxiety driven decisions that had- doesn't matter.

Retphienix is Retphienix because I sat there in 2015 and thought "Well... what do I name an alt account?"

My main is Redphienix, which yes, is ALSO a terrible name AND is misspelled. But it's that because of sentimental reasons. As a kid I misspelled Redphoenix when making my gamertag (I knew how to spell Phoenix back then as well, I was too excited about xbox live and misspelled it) and it's become something of a sentimental misspelling.

So I wanted to make a mix on that for my game blog, but I had no idea what. In the end I thought "RetroPhienix? I don't know. Retphienix is closer to Redphienix. I'll do that" and so it was done.

And just like how Redphienix is both bad and misspelled but exists because of sentimental reasons- Retphienix has acquired the same 'flavor' in my eye lol.

Aspirations for the blog: I have no immediate ramp up plans or road map or whatever, and in truth I'll be happy if the blog stays just as it is forever- up until tumblr ends- I cry over lost posts- and I reopen it on another platform.

But I do have blurry half-considered daydreams that I'd like to see happen for the blog through some hard work or shifts on my part.

One is something I'm already doing kinda, hence my embarrassing means of bringing it up a lot lately. Videos- I want those. I wanna make some looks back on series people don't talk about that I enjoy, I want to make videos sharing my thoughts on games I beat for the blog (like what full impressions kinda was, but I don't think they'll have a unified name from here on out). Maybe retrospectives, but mostly when I think of making a video tied to retphienix or me in general it's me looking at a game that said something to me, and saying it louder with my own interpretations on it.

You know the kind, videos where they talk about a video game but not the whole thing- just a singular message they really heard loud and clear from it intentionally or not. I dig those and I know I end a lot of games having plenty to say that could be directed into such a format.

We'll see.

And I'm along for the ride on that one as well- currently I'm keeping my eyes on whatever is directly next, which happens to be "I plan on playing Omori, if it clicks as something to talk about I would like to take a shot at that in a video too!"

The other is that I'd like to build a small community. Wouldn't know the first thing on doing that in a modern sense, but just a little online friend group to chat with and play games together. Something that could open up multiplayer and coop experiences being better shared on the blog and would just in general expand my gaming to what it used to be back on the 360 when I had a large group to play with.

Since the 360 era ended I've pretty much closed off- stopped playing competitive games due to lack of interest- and slowed down to playing all games either solo, with randoms (and no mic usually), or with my cousin. It's a rare instance when I play with some good people like @gamesception or another friend of mine, John.

When I diverted from playing competitive games nonstop toward other genres I didn't intend to also cut out all my online gaming buds, it just kinda happened, and I never really put any effort into rectifying that.

So more or less I'd like to one day sit down and work on a discord server, and then buck up and put the leg work in to make some gamin' buds again, but that's such a vague concept anymore.

Sounds all sad and what not but it's more ambivalent, I made decisions that

changed how gaming worked for me after the 360 and this is just where it landed for better and worse- I'd just like to see if I can make it a little better :P

General things I think when I think retphienix: Honestly? I think of how much fun I've had over the years and how thankful I am to have had an outlet that encouraged me to explore more of the medium.

I REALLY love games. I went to college for games, I've written LEAGUES about games, I've played countless games, my childhood was games, my adult life is games- games games games yada yada yada.

So when I think of retphienix I think of how without it I probably wouldn't have explored a lot of the corners of gaming that I have.

I genuinely, and I mean this, might not have sat down and beaten FF7 for myself and would have considered the amount I played as a kid to be enough.

I might not have played Chrono Trigger yet, and I KNOW I wouldn't have played Chrono Cross, and I'm happy as hell to have played both of those. CT was a mind blowing moment for me that showed me just how good an RPG can be, and CC gave me miles to think of in terms of innovating an RPG and how beholden to the narrative a sequel should be (I don't feel CC should have been chrono at all lol).

I DEFINITELY wouldn't have given New Vegas another chance. And I know I'm a sourpuss on NV, I've been that way since I maxed my achievements on the 360 for it, but replaying it really did reveal to me how exceedingly negative I was being.

My memories had become "It's brown and a boring location >:(" and "The factions all suck and it doesn't do anything with the idea of bad factions >:(" and became "It's... a little brown guys, not a big fan of the area" and "They didn't do enough with exploring the gray factions" while adding "Wait. This is pretty damn fun. And 90% of the additions are stellar. And I forgot about Dead Money, my favorite dlc in any game ever with a story that tears at my heart every time I think of it, NV good actually?"

Faxanadu would have remained a cool game I saw on SSFF and not a game I played to the end and fell in love with the aesthetic feel it has!

Also that's a game I cheated like crazy on lol, I would do it again! Save state scumming games meant to be rudely difficult is only fair :P

I probably would have never sat down to play through Windwaker which was such a positive and uplifting experience that I now get the most relaxed and warm feeling in my heart when I see those blue waves.

There's so many experiences I would have left on the table in favor of like... putting more hours into a live service title or something.

Maybe, and no offense to my cousin or anyone else playing it, but maybe I'd be no-lifing World of Warcraft nonstop just stagnating my interest toward the skinner box mechanics of an MMO?

Some offense, actually but lightheartedly lol.

But beyond the entire games I've played for the blog, when I think retphienix I picture all the time making gifs, all those games I played on the PSP for short stints, buying a retron 5 to add to what I could explore and being stoked when they shipped a freebie box of old controllers to go with it, getting angry at the retron for being a Piece Of Shit lol, crying at the end of damn near every game with an emotional story because I'm a big emotional mess of a person who finds investing and crying at a story way too easy thanks to empathy pulls, oh!-

Getting excited whenever I found that I had a "*controversial*" opinion that no one would care about lol. Like the one that comes to mind is that I thoroughly believe that Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freeza!! for the NES is WAY better than the fandom recognized and appreciated sequel/remake Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyan!

How many people do you hear talking about either game, let alone saying the NES game that is roughly half of the SNES remake is the better one :P But I stand by that! The SNES one is a remake of DBZ1 and 2 for the NES but it loses all the charm and some of the fun of the NES ones by being a lackluster SNES game!

lol

I admitted wholeheartedly that this post would be a lit-

little directionless (gotta love the new tumblr poster making me break sentences like that), but to sum things up.

It's been 6 years. It's been an untold amount of work to be honest- liveblogging a game, at least for me, hasn't been the easiest thing. It's a lot of thinking out my thoughts (heh), it's a lot of learning tools to make the capturing process possible, it's a lot of experimenting, it's a lot of writing and editing, and, well, sometimes it's just tough.

I mean I went to school for coding, not video editing, not writing, not image processing, not this or that- but this hobby has introduced a lot of things even if only at a VERY base level (I admit fully to using online alternatives to make gifs for instance).

I learned a lot about, well, a lot of things in order to use this blog to learn more about games- and all that work has become part of why I've loved all 6 years of this blog.

6 years of gaming, work, and you all- and it's been worth the investment :) Here's to many more and all of you whether you stumble upon this post or not- literally anyone who's interacted in these 6 years, thank you, and anyone who hasn't I offer you well wishes as well.

<3

[daminettes]

thanksgiving with the wayne’s

A big thanks goes to @fsketchart for helping me revise this! Gosh you are such a lifesaver! Ilysm <3

Hey guys! I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving! Please rest, you all deserve it! And if you plan on going Black Friday shopping, please be safe! And buy me 346784783 fluffy jackets, ok ty ily all!

lil heads up to clear things up: Damian and Marinette have known each other for about two years in this au, They met when Marinette went down to Gotham for a field trip. And ya you guys can guess the rest they basically fell head over heels for each other but they are both dumb lil babies.

ANOTHER HEADS UP LOL : basically this is going to be the most random thing you’ll ever read! enjoy!!

The autumn leaves crunched at her feet, The breeze blowing quickly causing goosebumps to form against her soft smooth skin.

“Ahh Autumn,” Marinette thought to herself. Marinette loved the thought of fall. She loved the feel of everything, Everything was so beautiful. Different colors of red, orange, and yellow danced around the ground. She especially loved the fashion. She literally would die for a knitted sweater right now.

At this point Marinette was gathering the last bits of ingredients that were on her shopping list. You see, Damian invited Marinette to spend the holidays with him and his family. And of course Marinette couldn’t say no to him. And as an add on, Marinette offered to help cook Thanksgiving dinner with Alfred! Marinette was ecstatic and couldn't wait to see the family.  Marinette snapped out of her train of thought when she realized she was zoning out.  Flushed and embarrassed, she whipped out her wallet to pay the cashier.  The cashier just chuckled and smiled.

“Would that be all Miss?”

“Yes, Thank you!”

“No problem, miss, Have a lovely Thanksgiving!” He said while handing her bags full over spices.

“You too!” Marinette walked out of the store with her thoughts filled with a special loving someone.

“Come on Demon Spawn! Help us decorate the house!” Jason yelped. At this moment, Tim, Dick, and Jason were decorating this house with many different types of decorations you can name! Fake leaves, pumpkins, and cornucopias! They knew Marinette loved fall and they wanted to do something special for her.  Tim was making a list of where he wanted everything to be placed while Dick was setting up the lights.

“Absolutely not.”

“Aw come on! Your girlfriend would love it!” Jason yelled from across the room, as he set the dinner table.  They all knew Damian had a soft spot for Marinette, they just wanted to see the two together!

“Marinette is not my girlfriend, she’s just a friend that I invited over to stay with us.” Damian snarled.

“Yeah right!" Dick said exasperated.  "We've seen the look you give her, baby bird! Come on whenever you look at her you look so happy!”

“He has a point Damian,” Tim added on.

“Oh shut up, and hand me a pumpkin.” Damian snarled while trying to hide his blush.

Different wonderful aromas filled the air. Cinnamon, pumpkin and vanilla scents danced together, leaving a pleasant sweet smell that filled the air.  The kitchen counters were a disorganized mess of different ingredients.

“Hey Alfred, Can you pass me the spice to your left? The stuffing is a bit on the bland side.” Marinette whisper yelled over to Alfred.

“Yes of course Ms.Marinette.” Alfred said while walking over to Marinette and handing over the spices.

“Thank you-”

“WOAH IT SMELLS AMAZING IN HERE!” Dick yelled while running to the table counter.  He looked around and inhaled the sweet scents before signing.  Noticing where the pleasant aroma came from, he gave puppy dog eyes.

“Ohh can I try some? Please Marinette!!!” He begged.

“It's not done yet Dick, maybe later.” Marinette said.

“Aw come on! It's probably already amazing!” He said while trying to steal the bowl away from her.

“No Dick! I want it to be perfect!” Marinette yelled.

Within seconds of fighting over the bowl of stuffing, Dick had finally been able to snatch it right out of Marinette's hands. But everything went into slow-motion as the aluminum bowl slipped out of Dicks grasp and landed straight onto Marinette’s head.

“Oh my god! I am so sorry!” Dick yelped.

“Oh two can play at that game!” Marinette yelled while throwing a hand full of stuffing towards Dick.

“Oh you're so on!” Dick roared while grinning ear to ear.

“You two are insufferable.” Alfred said while leaving the room.

Dick and Marinette spent the next few minutes at war.  The flour was all over their hands and hair as the spice were spilling onto the floor.  The battle became so fierce some of the desserts were beginning to spill onto the floor and get crushed by pots and pans that were falling and flying everywhere.

“What’s going o-” Damian was interrupted by a huge amount of pudding landing right onto his hair.

Some unrecognizable sounds came out of Dicks and Marinette's mouth.

Marinette quickly ran up to Damian, and tried to quickly clean up the leftover pudding that was in his hair. “Oh my gosh! I am so sorry Dami! Dick tried to taste some of my stuffing that wasn’t done yet, and ended up spilling it all over me and that's how this all started! Now everything is ruined! I am really sorry! I can’t believe that happened! Oh my goodness I’m so sorry I ruined everything-”

A soft finger landed on top of Marinette's lips.

“Shh you’re rambling Angel. Don’t worry about it, Dick can be like that sometimes.”

“Hey!” Dick screamed.

“Shut it Dick, Like I was saying its ok, let's get you cleaned up ok?” Damian whispered.

“Ya ok.” Marinette said while looking down  Way to go, Marinette! I can't believe I ruined Thanksgiving dinner! Everyone is going to annoyed...I can't believe I let it escalate that quickly! Marinette thought to herself.

Damian placed two hands under Marinette's chin and lifted it up, causing her to warp back into present time.

“I'm not mad at you Angel, I would never be.” He said while taking her hand into his and rubbing circles around her palm with his thumb.

“Ew you two go get a room!” Dick teased.

“Once again Dick, Shut it. Make sure you clean up this mess ok? And try to salvage some of the food.”

“Ugh why do I have to do it!” Dick whined

“You are the one who started this no? So be the one to finish it.” Damian snarled.

“Ugh fine, But Marinette you owe me one of your MDC originals!”

Marinette giggled, “Ok Dick whatever you say!”

“Come on Mari, Let's get you cleaned up.” Damian said while leading them to her guest room she was staying in.

“Damian you really don’t have to help me, I can do this by myself.” Marinette said while turning around in her seat. They were both seated by her vanity. After that random food fight, Marinette had to shower three times just to take out all the leftover food debris stuck in her hair! Damian insisted on helping her get fixed up. He made sure she was alright by washing her dirty laundry, and by helping her comb her hair.

“It's quite alright Angel, and besides I want to help.”

“T-thanks Dami! But I’m quite capable of combing my hair.” Marinette chuckled.

“Oh I know, It's just fun.” Damian said while combing through the last piece of her tangled hair and placing a feather light kiss on top of it.

“Since you’re all cleaned up, Why don’t we go help Dick clear up downstairs, and try to salvage some of the food?” Damian said while patting her shoulders. Of course he doesn’t want this lovely moment to end, but his brothers would probably start to get suspicious. And he wasn’t in the mood to deal with that right now.

So they weren’t able to salvage any of the food.

During the epic food fight, Dick managed to jump over the counter, bringing the whole turkey down with him.

So what other option did they have?

They ordered take-out. Duh.

They were all scattered around the living room. Bruce and Alfred were sitting at a nearby table talking about the past events, and Tim, Dick, and Jason were sitting right beside the fireplace enjoying their Chinese food, while having an argument about something ridiculous. But Damian didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was the petite body curled up right beside him.  There sat Marinette dozing off right in his arms.

Best Thanksgiving Ever. He thought to himself, right before drifting off to sleep.

HI GUYS !!! I hope y'all enjoyed this, I know this is a random au fic thingy BUT ITS OK. ily all!!

tag list : @destinyhunter77 @mycupisbroken @fsketchart @thewheezingbubbledragon @luciferge @zalladane @michellemagic @asianfrustration13 @st0rmy-w1th1n @thecaptainthunder @bluerosette23 @officiallyathiana @loysydark @kris-pines04 @persephonebutkore @firesong323 @maya-custodios-dionach @corabeth11 @kceedraws

[be-the-spark-flyboy]

heyy congratulations💕✨!! can i actually have a (male) ship for all the fandoms (if not, just do oscar characters (you have immaculate taste in movies, by the way)). im an entp and my star sign is capricorn. im very all over the place with my thoughts and i like talking a lot. like i already know this request is gonna be super long just ‘cause i ramble (im glad tumblr doesnt have a character limit anymore). in fact, i’ll send this short part in first and then the rest so you can like hide it under the cut or something. im so sorry 😂

so, my ramblings are probably why im considered an extrovert even though i feel like i might be an introvert sometimes. in my free time, i really like trying new things. i have a lot of hobbies that i pick up and drop at random but ive always been really into music (i think im a pretty decent singer. not good enough to make a career but enough to surprise people during karaoke).

ok, i feel like i kind of have to say this because the biggest stereotype of entps is that we’re argumentative... but im not that. i try to be very openminded and i hear people’s arguments before deciding on a stance (a lot of times, my opinion changes every time i talk about the topic. unless the topic, itself, is dumb. then i’ll be comedically stubborn (cereal’s a fucking soup, ok?)) and i’m also weirdly sensitive to other people’s emotions and i try not to say stuff that i know will offend them. i do thoroughly enjoy correcting people though. and debates are still very fun for me... a lot of times i come off as enfp/infp because im very excited/bubbly (when im horny (all the time)) and im very caring with my friends/family but i did my research and im definitely entp. im hella disorganized and i hate commitment (once i like you, though, prepare for me to sacrifice my life for you).

im good with other people’s emotions but the part i struggle with is managing/expressing my own. ive been told by multiple people that im very cold, which always surprises me because i try to act really “out there” with friends. i never dont expect them to see through it. most of the times, though, im not sure what people think of me. i kind of have a lot of different personalities that just ~materialize~ when im talking to a different person (woo defense mechanisms). one thing people dont realize is that im sarcastic but only with people i like. oh... yeah, when i have a crush on someone, i like to tease them. but im also stupid so sometimes i end up offending them instead of being lighthearted like with my friends (sometimes, but rarely, i will go too far with my friends too. even when i try not to). its my way of trying to reach out to them and show them im cool but it painfully backfires every. single. time.

uhhh, last thing, im a switch but definitely more on the “bratty-sub” side than the dom side. sometimes i go full on sub (degrading, praise, worship, bondage, etc) and i come back from it and im super confused because did that just happen?? this is just for your consideration, but usually, i really like hate to love type situations because the whole like “arguing as flirting” thing is just 👏🏻🥵 but im also really into best friends to lovers because in real life, i usually wouldnt like someone romantically unless i could potentially see them as my best friend, platonically.

ok, so. i just stalked your ENTIRE page and i ship you with llewyn because youre really sweet (you deserve each and every follower, by the way. id die for you) and i feel like he needs that in his life. i also think maybe nathan(?) could work because he could learn a lot from you, emotionally. if not, i was thinking abel too. IDK. for starwars, poe because you seem just sane enough to stop him from like killing himself on accident because hes so dumb? also i could totally see you two as “arguing for a good amount of time before getting together” BUT i could also see “we were good friends before getting together” which- 😫😫 having to pick a scenario from my two favorite tropes for you and poe is a good sign for me. same reasoning for anakin. i think mando could also really appreciate your presence on his ship because youre kind and could take care of the child. for marvel, you lowkey could be really good with peter parker or scott lang (one of the soft, silly boys).

sorry for making this so long 😂

Thank you!! And don’t apologise it was an entertaining read🤣

---

MCU:

I ship you with...

Bucky Barnes 😎

It takes a while for Bucky to feel comfortable around you. He sees you with Sam often when you’re having one of your movie marathons or you’re just hanging out. He really wants to talk to you but he’s shy?? You find him attractive but then he is also intimidating.

Then Sam interferes and his solution is to set up a blind date for the two of you. It’s a little awkward in the beginning but you find his shyness endearing as hell. As time goes by, his true self shines through, you realise he is such a romantic and he always finds a way to sweep you off your feet. Horny all the time? He’s literally a super soldier so the stamina...

Star Wars:

I ship you with...

Finn🥰

Imagine, you always lean on each other to vent about things and gossip about other people. Rey is busy as hell and Poe is a dumbass (the the topic of the vent most of the time). Plus he’s General now so a distraction from all the work is very welcome and hence a lot of meet me outside i got a bottle of whisky texts from him. Eventually that turns to just hanging out because he wants to spend time with you.

He probably knows everything about you because he loves to listen to you ramble about anything and everything. Hence he’s one of the few people who you feel comfortable enough to be yourself. And then that turn to making out under the stars on a picnic mat and the rest is history.

Oscar Issac Characters:

I ship you with...

Nathan Bateman😈

It’s almost like you have a seventh sense to detect Nathan’s true emotions despite how much he tries to cover them up. He hates it. So he’s mean to you hence creating a vicious feedback loop of hatred. Queue 100k enimies to lovers slow burn But eventually things work out and Nathan learns to open up a tiny bit to you.

Bratty sub you say? Nathan loves a partner who bites back. Speaking of, on the rare occasion that the two of you show face in public, no one can stand to be around you two since you are always bickering. But trying to one up each other is just your love language.

[faecurious]

pages | graham&quintin

Summary: Quintin falls asleep at a library while studying and working, and figures out that his notes are once again infested with Bookwryms. Upset, tired, and pouting, Graham endures the lure of such a sight, and the two share deep insight into science, taboo, and moral issues in q’s area of study while separating the pages. @grahamstoker

Quintin had fallen asleep at a random book store, his nose plopped in a book and one arm stretched out. He needed just a little more information on a chemical compound to react with salt involving dissolving things, and he had worn himself out. Quintin was in trouble often for getting himself to the point of sheer exhaustion, but he couldn’t help it. When an idea got in his head he grinded until some answer presented. Losing track of time, meals, and water. He knew it wasn’t the best, but he was lucky to be a warden. Snoring lightly, the book clerk was staying open late anyway, so they cleaned up and let the young looking college kid snooze for a few moments. 

College kids weren’t the only people out and about; Graham also had a brief conversation with the clerk regarding books as he entered some odd minutes before the store closed and the clerk agreed to stay open just a little longer for him to pick up what he was looking for… except that he wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He wandered through the store - fortunately, it wasn’t that big - and he found himself in the central area where a few tables and chairs were gathered for students, bored geriatrics, etc. His strong gaze fell upon the sleeping figure of a boy, probably no more than… he wanted to say early 20s and he walked over to the kid, placing a hand on his shoulder to stir him. “Hey kid,” He said clearly but not aggressively. “You’d be comfier in bed, I think.” He wasn’t sure why he cared but the store WAS closing and he WAS getting his condensation on the book’s pages and that thought weirded him out.

Quintin stirred away groggily, and blinked a few times trying to figure out where he was. “What?” He looked around the room and stretched his limbs forward almost like a cat. “Darn, I should go. Thanks--” Finally he looked up and felt embarrassed it wasn’t the clerk who stirred him from his slumber but likely another customer. “Oh, sorry-- heh, I get a bit caught up with reading sometimes,” Quintin started closing all the scientific books featuring various charts, graphs, and a few long essarys he was excited to dive into the theory of. “It’s late--” he started shoving everything into his backpack quite messily. “Did you find anything worthwhile?” he asked with a kind edge, curious even. “I love this store, always little gems here. Sometimes old things.”  “It happens, man,” Graham replied, removing his hand from the latter’s shoulder as he looked the younger man over, then the amount of materials he had splayed all over the table. Plentiful amount of information…. Just shoved into a backpack. What a waste. How disorganized. He kept from curling his lip and put his hands in his pockets after checking his familiar gold watch - it could be later but at least the sun wasn’t out anymore. “Uh, nnnno. No, not really.” He shrugged. “I only got here a few minutes before they technically closed though, so I didn’t spend a whole lotta time searching. I’m guessing you did, though,” He quirked an eyebrow at the book the younger man had fallen asleep on. The kid seemed like the studious type. Probably really smart at the expense of doing… normal human things.

“Really? Are you one of those types that likes to make the employee’s be nice to you when they want to close the store?” He grinned, teasing and far from being overly serious. Quintin grabbed the rest of his stuff, the books weighed in his hands comfortably. “Yes-- yes, I actually managed to find everything I needed. Luckily I can read a book once and remember most of it. It’s very helpful when writing a dissertation. It’s a bit of a chaotic mess, but it’s all very understandable.” Q paused, “Quintin by the way,” he offered, a sleepiness still in his eyes, and his body seemed almost squishy and round in the cheeks from just waking up. “Are you headed out now?” He waved to the clerk, having already paid for everything and started making his way out. “Oh, you know it,” Graham replied dryly with a half-smile of his own. “At least you found what you were looking for,” He noted more of the books. “An eidetic memory is a useful thing, indeed.” He nodded; that explained some of the kid’s general… -ness. And the ‘chaotic mess’ part. He gave the boy named ‘Quintin’ one more look over, pausing perhaps a little longer than he should’ve at the red cheek the boy was sleeping on and feeling his nostrils flare for just a fraction of a moment before he recovered and he nodded again in lieu of doing anything else, something different. “Graham,” He returned the name. “And… yeah. Since the store’s closing and all.” He paused in his dialogue for a moment, following behind the boy. “What are you writing a dissertation on?” He asked, finding himself curious.

“Hmmm, it’s pretty out there. But I’m working on something people sorta frowned on,” Q did not seem put off even with his mumbling. He pressed the books closer to his chest, walking with the other. “Do you have any opinions on building body parts in test tubes? Or utilizing tissue in ways to heal other people? Or developing a way for the body to accept foreign cells as their own through--” Quintin paused, wishing for once he could just say- by using monster parts when he explained his research. “Careful study.” He lamely finished, but masked it pretty well with a yawn hidden behind the books which only made his eyes more watery. “The frowned upon part is that I’m researching a way for a body to be brought back to what the scientific community labels as life. Whether it’s anything more than a few reawakened cells at the end of it-- well. We’ll see.” As they walked and as Quintin fell into a pseudo-ramble - well, maybe not so much as… morally-curious questions-- WELL, not even that. Graham didn’t think what he was asking was morally-curious until he suddenly stopped at his last question-- aaaaand he’s talking reanimation. Hmm… he realized this conversation would’ve bothered him a lot more before he himself turned into a reanimated corpse. He looked sideways at the younger man and offered a genuine, if clever, smile. “That’s on them. People oftentimes try to put ethics ahead of scientific progress.” He offered is own perspective. “If that’s a passion you have then it’s important to pursue that goal. I’m sure this town’s seen weirder shit than a reanimated something-or-other.” He decided to be vague on that front. “How long’ve you been in town?” He asked.

“They do,” Quintin agreed, “I’ve received a lot of backlash at UCLA over it. They were very conflicted, but I’m a progeny, one of the youngest to graduate. They wanted me to stay under their school so they could benefit from my work and so I didn’t go elsewhere.” Bitterness made his nose wrinkle as he walked up to his big pick up truck that made him appear like a little baby in comparison and leaned against it. “That’s why I’m here though. White Crest lets me think clearly. Reanimation is a fascinating area of study, people are just scared of what it means. All those people in cryo right now could honestly be reawakened in the future. They let them pay for a cold bed, but won’t let scientists work on the questions they are scared of.” He fished for his keys in his bag, realizing he was stupid and put them in there. “About three years, I travel a lot back to LA. Where are they--” he plopped on the ground, and started pulling everything back out of his bag. Setting the items carefully on the asphalt with much more care and organization, but a few of the papers floated away on him. “Crap! Can you grab those?” Very proud of his work and accomplishments. And humble, to boot. Talks a lot. Ahhh Graham remembered when he was like that. Graham found his hands in his pockets as the younger man talked, pausing next to the large truck and wondered what sort of compensating the kid was doing. Probably a lack of friends, if he had to guess. He looked from the truck to Quintin as the latter seemed to have been looking for something to the point of sitting on the ground to search the contents of his bag. When some of his papers started to float away, Graham simply watched them leave until Quintin asked him to retrieve them, to which he smacked his lips and rose his eyebrows. “Sure thing,” Graham said before adding “This might not’ve been a problem if you packed ‘em up right the first time, buddy.” He was lightly poking, of course, but he did feel like he was right. The papers were easy enough for him to get, putting them altogether neatly but as he examined them like the nosy guy he was, he felt his brow furrow. “Uhhh…” He said aloud as he walked back over to the younger man. “I got your papers but I don’t know why they’re such a big deal to you… don’t important papers usually have, I dunno, writing on them?”

“You are very right,” Quintin sighed, he had been embarrassed at the state he was in and hadn’t put thought into it. Finally, his fingers looped around the keys and pulled them out in victory. “Thank you--what?” Q’s voice faltered, and he scrambled up to meet Graham halfway, pulling the page into his hands. “No, no no no,” he frantically started flipping through all his stuff, noticing bits and pieces also faded. “Stupid bookstore--” Q knew what he needed to do, but he also didn’t want to ruin all his doctorate notes. This would put him behind having to rewrite everything from memory, not that it would be difficult to recall, just time consuming. This was what he got for bringing his stuff out of the lab. “Ouch!” he dropped the paper, and gritted his teeth. “Dammit! Stupid worms! Stupid!” He actually stomped his foot then plopped on the ground with his shoulders slumped and tried not to full on cry. His voice had a warble to it. “Sorry-- just,” he didn’t know how to explain this to anyone without sounding crazy, but he didn’t care right now. “I can’t leave yet, I have to sort my infested notes with the ones that aren’t.” Suddenly Graham had much less of an idea of what was going on than before as he watched the car crash in slow motion called ‘Quintin’ go from frustration to pain to looking like he was about to burst into tears like a child told they couldn’t get on the ferris wheel. Spectrum? That’d explain the ‘genius’ bit and the ‘unintentional know-it-all’ part. He put a hand back in his pocket and actively avoided looking at Quintin now, as if that would spare him some embarrassment. “Uh…” He paused for a second, not entirely knowing what to do but feeling like something mocking would be funny for him but not really appropriate. “So… there’s worms on your papers?” He decided to ask. “What, were they in your bag?”

“Worms that eat notes, words, knowledge. I thought I had them contained back at the lab, but-- guess I didn’t,” the dejected tone was full of self loathing to this particular failure. Quintin started separating each piece of paper in a stack that was at least eight inches high. Hoping everything wasn’t ruined. “They must have gotten really excited in that book store, and spread--” it wasn’t lost on Quintin that the other man was content with playing with his absurdity. People thought he was a mad scientist anyway, not that he liked when people thought that. Not when he worked so hard for their sake. He sighed. “You don’t have to wait around for me, this is awkward enough and will probably take me some time. They-- these worms are easy to detect, but very difficult to get rid of. Clearly. Since I am still suffering from their presence.” He glanced up, the softest of pouts on his lips. “I appreciated your company though.” You know what they say about playing stupid games; Quintin didn’t seem like the most organized of individuals so it really didn’t surprise Graham that a bunch of knowledge-eating worms escaped containment.. Graham looked back down at the lanky kid, catching his pout like this somehow caught him off-guard. He glanced off to the side and gave a soft sigh before dropping fluidly to a crouch next to the boy and motioned with his hand. “Here, gimme some,” He said, wondering what he was doing with his life at this point. Damn his soft spot for children up to the age of… Hmm. “It’ll be quicker with two people. Do you want to save any words and just get rid of the ones that are completely blank?” He asked for a general direction as he held an arm that rested on one of his knees out to take some papers.

Quintin yawned again, pressing a hand to his mouth, clear he probably could lay down right here and pass out if he could. “Wait, huh?” He glanced across from him, surprise written easily on his tired features that the person wasn’t thinking he was crazy and also willing to help him. His instincts hummed a little, wondering if they had an ulterior motive or if he lucked out and actually ran into someone nice. “I’ll remember most of them if I make a note of the page number,” he explained, writing down the numbers in the corner in a small notepad. “Ill burn them, or find another way. Yes we can just pile those there. You don’t seem put off with this. Which isn’t that surprisingly I suppose, everyone on campus is always going on about stuff weird and supernatural. But you seem, particularly calm about my ramblings. Is it often you run into people exclaiming note infestations and reanimation?” He sleepily teased. Jeez, the more Quintin yawned, the more Graham could feel how hungry he was; the sleeping were such available targets for a quick snack BUT… damn his soft spot for children AND his foresight to know better than to just go around biting strangers. Part of him wished he had no idea what he did, pulling an ‘oh sorry I didn’t know’ schtick but he DID know better and ugh. What a pain. Speaking of vampires though-- “I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of word-eating worms before,” He responded first as he shuffled the papers into the piles the boy wanted. “But I’ve never been one to turn away the pursuit of science and medicine,” He added with a half-shrug. “Granted, not all of them like to talk as much as you do but I think I have enough of a bead on the type of kid you are and talking’s just… something you do.” He rolled his eyes under their eyelids. “Plus, it’s not like reanimation’s a thing I’m unfamiliar with.” He added under his breath. 

“They are quite annoying, I have tried various ways to get rid of them, but if I miss even one little worm, they re-infest everything again,” Quintin hated these things, maybe if he got his hands on a pixie they could munch away at them and then when he knows for sure they are gone, he’d have something else to play with. “You like science then, ouch! Stop it,” Quintin squished the few centimetre long worm with his thumb after it bit his finger, and knew he'd forget something because of these little bites. “Hey, I don’t talk a lot, I’m just not usually bothered or spoken to at all, so it’s been nice talking to you,” Q admitted, “I’m really not a kid, I know I dress like one...” Quintin grumbled. If he wasn’t so sleepy he’d have gotten up and left, people always picked fun at him, and never quite got used to it. “Oh yeah? Why’s that? People always shy away from talking about it. Super taboo for whatever reason.” “You dress like one, you talk like one, you pout like one...” Graham replied casually, hearing Quintin responding verbally to the bites now and then and part of him wanted to get bitten, too if only out of curiosity if he would feel it - fortunately, he was aware of his non-breathing so if these things drew blood, though he was curious about whatever mark they left on the kid, he had to actively work not to notice. He kept his bright eyes on the papers, quirking an eyebrow. Oh so he was bothering Quintin by waking him up? He was fairly sure that that wasn’t what he meant but he remembered not actually starting any conversation-- wait wait wait, he kinda did when he asked about the dissertation. That being said, if he recalled how many words he said compared to Quintin, the scales would be tilted considerably in the latter’s favour. Mmf, get out of his thoughts. “Life’s too short to be afraid of conversation, at the very least,” He dodged the question and kept filing through the papers. “So if it’s something you like talking about, you should be able to bounce ideas or whatever’s floating through your head at someone.”

“You would be really surprised how often I’m told to leave someone alone,” he shrugged. “I even got excited online the other night with someone who liked the band Warhorse, and I never find anyone who does, and they kept signing offline mid conversation for hours at a time. So, yeah-- it’s a little weird you want to chat with me.” Q guessed he was being a little bit like a baby right now, but he was tired from staying up for three days dissecting an arm, off a faerie he had captured, at the shoulder socket and attempted to fuse it to something else for hours upon hours. “Do you believe that a soul is required for a body to be labeled alive?” he asked, still moving pages over, finding a lot of them not infested which he was grateful for. “I’ve heard of creatures not requiring one, though life isn’t exactly the right word.” His eyes twinkled a little, “one of these days I’ll be able to wake someone up stored in cryo. I really wonder if their soul is hibernating in there, or if something else will show up.” The vampire elected to keep his comments about how he didn’t find the aspect of Quintin being told to leave someone alone surprising at all to himself and set aside a stack of papers. “I guess I’ll take your word for it,” Graham opted to respond to the first comment and shifted to furrowing his brow in mild contemplation as Q seemed to jump right back into his subject of interest again. “I used to,” He replied casually though he could feel walls starting to erect in his head and he found himself frustrated at their sudden structure. “I think maybe ‘soul’ isn’t the right word,” He shuffled more papers, finally seeing one of the worms and crushing it between his fingers before it had a chance to bite into him. “I don’t believe plants have souls, but they’re alive and have bodies.I’m ASSUMING that you’re referring to the difference between treating a body as an empty husk that’s inhabitable by ‘life’ and assuming that one human body belongs to one ‘soul’, which is bound to that body indefinitely and if that’s the case, if the soul moves on once it perceives its assigned body as ‘dead’.” He thought it was too late to be thinking this existentially. “And in that case, you need to talk to a philosopher. No hard science will be able to answer that for you.”

Quintin laughed. “True. True.” This was why science and biology was exciting. It tethered to so many other areas of study so easily. Stirred the mind to ponder and could contain no answers to the questions one wanted sometimes. “Belief fills the gaps of science. It’s very fun to see what opinions people have over things that are taboo or uncomfortable that contain no scientific backup. Life is special. Consciousness is too. But you know—“ some that are here and alive really don’t belong. He grinned in victory at the last page lifting it up to double check its words were still there and set it in the right pile. “Yay, I promised myself I’d take a break this month and not— doing that. Do you want to hang out again? You like to sing? We could do karaoke or eat bad food somewhere.” Quintin tried to ask without sounding desperate. Long-ass paper. That’s what Graham concluded by the time the duo seemed to reach the bottom of the seemingly-endless stack and he gave an artificial exhale as a sort of pat on the back for all his contribution. He placed his elbows on his knees, leaning back against his feet in his crouch and content to listen to Quintin go off on another tangent if that’s what he wanted but to his actual surprise, the latter made offers to go do stuff. Kill time? It was his turn to laugh, genuine and surprisingly warm. “You’re a weeeeird kid.” He remarked once he tapered his laughter. “Do YOU like to sing?” Karaoke bars usually weren’t someone’s first choice of ‘hanging out’ and even then, he was sure he thought Quintin would’ve been too quiet for that kind of activity. Maybe he DID hold surprises, after all. He extended an arm, fist balled and he lightly nudged Quintin’s shoulder with it. “...Yeah, alright. Karaoke. You pick the time and the place.” He smiled.

“Heyyyy, come on. We talked. You helped me. I can’t help but hope for a better background to keep chatting,” Quintin carefully this time, put the notes back in his bag and held the infested ones to his chest. “And I can sing— I love music.” He felt another tired pout almost plump his lips. Why was he so bad at being casual with people? He’s always awkward. Even the other hunters shy away from him. He tossed his bag on his shoulder, and rose up to unlock his big pick up truck. “Okay—“ he threw the bag in and set the papers down before writing his phone and online profile for him. “Here, you don’t have to.” He shrugged. “But it was kinda nice you could keep up with my gibberish. Maybe see you around.” He pulled himself into the truck. Graham straightened up when Quinton did and he kept his blue eyes on the gawky young man, chuckling and crossing his arms; the mental filter wasn’t too strong on this one. He must’ve been lonely. “Alright, Quintin,” He replied with a scoff. “I’ll see you next time. You better be able to deliver on that karaoke,” He finished the conversation with a call as Q climbed into the big truck that seemed to swallow him. The vampire gave one last look at the student before letting his head fall with another scoff at himself this time; why did he only seem to make friends with weird teenagers? He shook his head and texted his new roommate that he’d be home later than usual - something about Quintin, his face and how he carried himself reminded Graham that he was starving.

[sunshineandfangs]

Klarosummer - Waterfall || Taw'um Alruwh

@klarosummerbingo​

Warnings: some violence and mentions of Damon’s abuse of Caroline. Nothing graphic.

Caroline fluffed her curls, getting them to sit just right as she stared into the water’s reflection. Some would consider it impractical to trek all the way out to the Falls to fix her hair, but...

The young blonde bit her lip. But there was something about what she saw when she looked into the water. She saw herself, of course - and maybe it was just some odd light refraction illusion - but she always thought what she saw appeared a little more confident. As if the version of her in the water was just a bit stronger and wiser.

Whatever, so it was a little silly, but it wasn’t like she was hurting anybody. It was just the town legends getting to her, that you could see your true self in the Falls.

The chime of her cellphone pulled her out of her thoughts. 7:25 its clock announced cheerfully, and she knew she should get going. Caroline gave her hair one last pat and winked at her reflection. 

“Wish me luck with the other brother, kay?”

She whirled around, heading back toward school, a slight bounce in her step.

Caroline Salvatore had a nice ring to it, didn’t it?

---

Her chest screamed in agony, and she couldn’t process if it felt like it was burning or freezing. If it was being crushed or split open.

Her breaths were ragged and wet, the taste of copper on her tongue. Was she dying?

I don’t want to die!

She whimpered, the words only sounding in her head, her lips twitching uselessly.

The roar of the falls was in her ears and still the formation of the rocks funneled his voice to her.

How could she have ever thought she wanted that-that monster.

He was laughing at her. As if her death was amusing. Crowing about how she took care of his cleanup for him. Why it wouldn’t even be an animal attack. Just another sad teen suicide.

Her tears were burning against her face that was rapidly going numb and cold.

I don’t want to die...

---

Caroline had lived a very long time. Centuries upon centuries. Long past anyone she had come to care for, human or supernatural. They all left her in the end, either taken from her while she was elsewhere, by foolish enemies that would pay for their crime thrice over, or by their own will, wishing to take their final rest.

She didn’t begrudge them that, though it made her existence rather lonely. Loves had come and gone. Friends and partners and companions. So, selfishly she took the most comfort in herself. Catching glimpses of the other lives she could have led.

Never though, had one cried out so strongly that she could hear them. 

The voice was young, so young, and dying. Dying while having barely lived at all.

Caroline frowned, unthinkingly reaching out to the dying girl, and to her surprise, she fell through the water.

---

“Hello, Caroline.”

She blinked rapidly, unsure how she had gone from dying to...whatever this was. There was nothing but blackness and one other figure. And she forgave herself for her no doubt idiotic expression considering said other figure was herself!

The other her smiled, looking a bit amused. And Caroline bristled at the apparent condescension. She opened her mouth, about to snap something rude, but they read her irritation and their expression became a bit apologetic before smoothing into solemnity.

They spoke hurriedly before she could.

“I wish I could better explain things to you, Caroline, but you don’t have much time. Your body is still dying and once it does you’ll lose this opportunity to choose.”

“Choose? Choose, what?” Caroline’s brow furrowed, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “Is this like Harry Potter?”

They looked momentarily confused before recognition sparked. “I suppose that is somewhat accurate, yes. Unfortunately you cannot return. You are human with no magic of your own, I am sorry to say that you’ll just pass out again and die. Truly, this time.”

Caroline frowned, the hope she hadn’t even realized was blossoming crushed in her chest. She crossed her arms, glaring at them. “Then, what? You’ll go?” She meant it sarcastically, but at the slight shift in the other her’s face, she shrieked. “What, is this body snatchers?!”

“No, our bodies will swap places. Mine is not human and will survive the process, while yours will be destroyed.” She spoke quicker, cutting off Caroline’s indignant questions about what the point would be then. “Your soul however is strong enough. It will be able to pass through.”

She was still confused and frustrated. “But you just said that your body will be going to where I am.”

“There are infinite versions of you Caroline and infinite worlds for them to inhabit, as is the case for everyone. Your soul will find its best match.”

Appalled, Caroline retorted, “I’m not going to steal someone’s life!”

The other her stepped closer, expression soft and a bit proud. “It won’t be theft. Two souls can’t occupy one body, wherever you end up, that version of you will have already passed on. Now, I understand this must be a lot for you to process and it’s a momentous decision, but you’re almost out of time.”

As if her words were a signal, the blackness surrounding them seemed to crack and shudder.

Panicking, Caroline began to ramble, words tripping over themselves. “Okay, okay, so like second chances. You go to me. I go to like some coma patient version of me or something. And no one gets hurt? They’re already dead. I’m basically almost dead. And-and you’re whatever you are?”

“Yes,” they nodded.

Caroline ran shaking hands through her hair and took a deep breath.

I don’t want to die.

---

The ancient woman kept her eyes closed through the journey, though she felt her arrival. Water and rock and blood suddenly assaulted her senses where there had been unnerving nothingness before.

With the last connection she had with that odd nexus of worlds she sensed that the other her had also arrived safely. She even got the impression that good things awaited her.

Good luck.

Even as part of her was wishing the other version of her well, the rest of her was processing the events that had occurred in this world. Perhaps, it was a bit duplicitous of her to not have warned the young girl that she would get a semblance of her memories, but she didn’t want to be clueless. And there had been no time to offer the necessary reassurances. 

Standing up, Caroline squeezed the water out of her hair, absently noting she would also need a change of clothes. Above her, the cackles of some obnoxious young vampire cut off.

He flashed down, severely invading her personal space as he stared wide-eyed at her.

“That’s impossible!” He spat. “You were dead.”

Caroline’s lip quirked. “For centuries now,” she drawled.

He spluttered. “But I compelled you! You were just some useless, weak little girl!”

Her amusement quickly faded, events the girl herself hadn’t known had happened flashing through her mind.

Expression dark, her arm shot up to crush his throat.

She had no tolerance for rapists.

He dangled in her grip, weakly clawing at her arm as he choked. She contemplated tormenting him, the type of suffering she could bring down on his head.

But then she thought of the girl he had assaulted and chased to her death. The happiness that girl now had an opportunity to have. Recalled ancient memories of her own beast of a husband. The being she had become after her friend defied nature to help her. And she decided she and the girl both deserved better than to dwell on this cretin.

“Feel fortunate,” she told him. “You’re not worth my time to torture.”

With no fanfare she plunged her other hand into his chest and ripped out his heart. She didn’t bother to watch the light fade from his eyes, simply chucked both his corpse and heart into the woods like the trash he was. 

Let the animals have a feast.

---

Caroline twirled her pen, wondering for the millionth time how the other Salvatore could tolerate going to school. She had to be here because the whole town knew who Caroline Forbes was. Mass compulsion wasn’t worth it when she was choosing to stay.

After all, there was an unusually high occurrence of supernatural drama here and she wanted a front row seat. At least that part was interesting. Plus, she considered it a bit of a homage to the other version of herself that she carried out some of the gril’s dreams. And winning Miss Mystic Falls was actually somewhat amusing.

Not to mention the worried murmurs she had overheard from the rest of her “friends”. Originals? Doppelgangers? Curses? This supernatural world sure had some fascinating things.

And with some fantastic acting (if she did say so herself) she passed herself off as an accidental turning in the aftermath of what Damon had done. (Oh my god! He-What did he do to me? What’s happening to me?! Please, don’t kill me!) 

It certainly won sympathy points from Elena and her disdain for Damon got Stefan to be, at least publicly, quiet about his concern for his vanished brother. It also helped that no body was found.

Caroline smirked, amused by her own thoughts. Those animals sure ate well that night. 

Still, despite supposedly being a new supernatural now, the others mostly kept her on the outer edges of their drama. Perhaps as some misguided attempt at protection. But while it made information gathering a little harder, overall it made her life more convenient. The less time she had to spend acting like a teen aged girl the better, really.

Her eyes shot up as Alaric walked into the room, pen now still and firmly gripped in her hand. Her instincts were blaring that something was off.

She watched with curious eyes as the man asked what they were learning, flipping through one of his notebooks. Odd. Alaric leaned toward the disorganized side, but he rarely forgot his lesson plans.

One of the girls in the front row, Dana she believed, reminded him that they’ve been covering the 60′s as the silence stretched.

“Right. The 60′s,” he repeated, still not sounding particularly prepared.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched him spend a long moment staring at Elena, an abnormal interest in his eyes. It didn’t seem to be lecherous, and Alaric hadn’t sent that type of warning bell ringing, but if she was wrong...

Her grip tightened, near cracking the plastic shell of her pen.

“The, uh,” he coughed as he turned to write on the board. “The sixties.”

Her eyebrow rose as she watched the man literally write ‘The 60′s’ on the board. That was useless.

“-wish there was something good I could say about the sixties, but...” He turned around, continuing to fail at teaching. “Actually, they kind of sucked. Except for the Beatles, of course. They made it bearable. Uh, what else was there? The Cuban missile thing, the uh...we walked on the moon. There was Watergate.”

Elena apparently took pity on the man.

“Watergate was the seventies, Ric. I-I mean, Mr. Saltzman.” She hurriedly corrected as several people stared.

“Right. It all kind of mushes together up here, the sixties, seventies. Thank you, Elena.“

And though Caroline continued to observe the man, he didn’t do anything else suspicious save lecture with little coherence. Continuing to mention random things that occurred in the sixties. Seeming to just list them as they came to mind.

At the end of class, she waved the others on when they glanced questioningly at her, mouthing that she had a question as she gestured toward Alaric.

Leaning back against one of the front desks, she watched as the man shuffled some more papers around. Managing to read some of the print, she was pretty sure he was just trying to get rid of her.

Too bad. 

Clearing her throat, she called, “Mr. Saltzman?”

He looked up, a quickly smothered flash of irritation on his face.

“Yes, what is it?”

She cocked her head, wondering how she was going to play this. She was around 98% positive now that this was an impostor. Possession, illusion, shapeshifting, something to that effect. And if it were any of those things, even if he had an informant, he couldn’t know much about her. Being on the outskirts was once more to her benefit.

Well, I was just complaining about boredom...

She rushed forward, slamming the man against the chalkboard, her forearm pinned across his throat. There was shock and barely hidden rage in his expression.

Her eyes dilated, noting with rising interest that she couldn’t compel him.

“What are your intentions with Elena? Are you some kind of pervert?”

---

Whatever Klaus had been expecting from the blonde baby vampire it hadn’t been this.

Although her audacity was rather infuriating she hardly knew who he was, and her reasoning was arguably admirable. He did value loyalty after all.

So, deciding to go along with it, he reminded her he was on vervain. Then, made up some nonsense answer about being particularly concerned about Elena, name dropping himself as a reason.

Her eyes were still narrowed and suspicious, but she backed off after a moment, letting him fall from her grasp. His landing was awkward with a little stumble in order to maintain his ruse.

She smiled at him, a surprising and delightful amount of malice in her expression. “Of course, Alaric. Rest assured though, if I discover you lied to me and you have nefarious reasons for watching Elena...Well, let’s simply say I will delight in feeding you your internal organs. For decades, if I have to.”

With a little parting wave, as if she hadn’t just delivered a gruesome (by human standards anyway) threat, she turned and strutted from the room.

Klaus leaned back against the chalkboard, staring after her, a little intrigued despite his better judgement.

Perhaps, he should start looking into backup vampires? He might actually regret killing that one.

---

Making her way down the hallway, Caroline processed what she had sensed when she tried to compel definitely-not-Alaric.

Vampire and wolf.

A hybrid.

Her eyes flashed gold as a smirk curled on her lips.

Fascinating.

---

Author’s Note: Title is “Twin Spirits” aka “Soulmate” in Arabic the closet I could get to Egyptian which has one of the oldest stories involving the concept. Ancient Greece does as well, but I’m trying not to repeat the languages used in the titles. (Viaggio and Cuore Malato don’t count since they were technically the same story). 

Considering how this one turned out, I’m quite pleased that “Twin Spirits” really fits though: both soulmates and parallel selves. Also, if you’re curious, I imagine the formerly dying Caroline went to some All Human AU where she’ll get her happily ever after with that version of Klaus ;) I’m a sap, what can I say?

[icewindandboringhorror]

hmmm’st....Another group of replies since I’m trying to keep up with my inbox better this year !! (I know #3 is missing, I accidentally mislabeled them and skipped straight to 4 and don’t feel like re-editing the photos lol ) 

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1. “What would you recommend doing with a 1x1 ft square of tapestry-eqsue fabric ?” (question typed out in a shortened way/some words left out)

Hmm, I’m not really sure!  I always have problems with tiny squares of fabrics since I often like.. am in love with the colors or texture or pattern or etc, but at the same time it’s too small to actually serve as a really substantial part of the outfit lol, so I usually just use them in small ways for accents? Squares are really good for making collars out of, since you can just cut a hole in the middle and put your head through it and it’s done lol, but you can also tuck them into shirt collars or belts so they hang out a little and just serve as a pop of color or something. If you don’t mind cutting it, you could also turn it into little strips or change the shape, make it into a small pocket/bag, wrap pieces around the arm or tie it around boots as decor, tie the cut up buts together to make it into a longer piece of fabric then use that as a belt or sash or headband, etc. Idk, I have trouble with small fabric bits as well, but maybe some of these ideas help!!

(other answers under read more so it doesn’t get long)

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(note: sorry to everyone who's questions I had to shorten when re-typing them here, I hope I abbreviated them okay and didn't leave out anything you saw as very important! The full message is still shown in the images above and I just wanted to save myself a little time on the typing aaa!) 

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2. “Sorry this is random,  but you seem like a very nice and thoughtful person. Hope you have a happy new year”

Thank you!! I always try to include one or two of these nice ones in here just to continue to show appreciation for people who send me kind things! Even if I don’t respond to all of them (since I feel really awkward just like.. publicly responding to a ton of compliments lol), still know that I really appreciate it! I hope you also have a great year, anon! 

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3. accidental mislabeling error means free space for cat image

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4. “will you do more videos? vlogs, tutorials, explaining your art, games, podcast, anything? sorry if it's weird to say, but I just really enjoy listening to you speak!” (question typed in a shortened way/not fully quoted) 

Possibly? I just can’t think of many things to make that would work well for me?

vlogs:  I don’t like to do vlogs anymore because of my mental illness and becoming more anxious about showing my face or daily life in public. Though I do enjoy aspects of the “lifestyle blogging” sort of content, like I think it would be cool to be able to make easy videos where all I do is sit down and talk about my hair or something for 20 minutes lol, or etc., but I guess as I get less comfortable with showing myself, I tend to stray away from stuff like that?

(this is also why I’ve been shifting more towards like... costumes, art, world-building, making games, etc. as opposed to outfits/personal style/personal life type content, since I feel much more comfortable being framed as more of a ‘detached and faceless creator that shows some personality but is still mostly obscured’ than ‘open personality that posts selfies and talks about their life extensively’ or etc. Obviously I still post personal stuff like questions and thoughts/opinions and cat images and etc., but less so.. like I don’t even remember the last time I posted an actual selfie where my face wasn’t obscured by costume makeup or something lol..) 

I would absolutely still do stuff like “room tour” or “what’s in my bag” videos, or like a single video showing my usual daily routine or something,,  if those were ever requested of me/interest was shown in them..  I’m okay with small one time “lifestyle” genre sort of content. But anything too invasive or long term (daily/frequent vlogging, or like “story time” videos) I think I would get uncomfortable with lol. 

tutorials: I’m not really sure what I would do tutorials on? If you want me to make a tutorial about something, feel free to let me know something in specific! My main problem is that I don’t feel like there’s anything unique that I do that there aren’t  already 100 other tutorials for, so I’m never sure what I should make those about. I get occasional asks with people saying “do a makeup tutorial” or “do a sculpting tutorial” or something, but they don’t ever say WHAT SPECIFIC makeup or what SPECIFIC thing they’d like to see me explain, so then I’m still left alone with vagueness and unsure what to do lol! 

art explanation: Same kind of goes for the “explaining your art” thing like, what art? Explaining what specifically about it? You mean worldbuilding? Or sculptures? etc.??  I’m actually always happy to make videos for anything people want to see (since I enjoy the process of making them, usually), but I just am never sure exactly what to do. But if I had specific prompts I would be glad to explain something though! Videos are fun, I just never know what to make them about lol

games: I would absolutely love to do let’s plays/game videos or something (I assume this is what you meant by just saying ”games”??)  since I enjoy games, and my whole thing about not being able to relax (I feel guilty about playing games (or any other leisure activity) unless it’s working towards something, I have to have a way to justify the activity being productive, which is why I rarely ever play games despite liking them a lot lol..but if I made videos or etc. it would feel slightly more worth the time/effort).. But seeing as I’m fairly lower income I really don’t have much money to buy games, and I don’t have a very good computer situation lol. I would need to have money to fix my current computer, and a few other things, etc. etc. 

 Idk, it’s something I think about occasionally and that would be extremely convenient  for me and my current situation (in terms of having something simultaneously low effort/relaxing/ suitable to my needs/mental illness/physical issues, but also that feels productive at the same time), but it’s also a very weird genre of stuff (idk if I’d feel comfortable being anywhere near the broader “games” community ghggb), and I would need a little money first lol.. 

podcast: I would never start my own podcast because I have no idea what I would even have a podcast about, and I also don’t have any friends who do that sort of thing (podcasts usually have multiple people, right??). I would do one with someone else or something like if a close friend asked me I guess, but idk... I couldn’t ever see that being something I start by myself?? Especially since I don’t know anything about them or what equipment or programs are required to edit together the audio, I’ve only listened to a few of them every once in a while, etc. am not really tech savvy in the field of like. how podcasts work ggh. So that’s probably the most unlikely one out of everything you listed, sorry!! 

As for other stuff, I’ve thought of answering questions in audio form instead (so rather than writing them out here, I’d just make a video (though not with visuals, since I don’t like filming myself talking..maybe I could put footage of cats over the audio though lol) of me going through my inbox and answering things, since I feel like typing takes me so much longer than speaking, and sometimes it’d be more convenient). 

I’ve also thought about just like.. talking about world-building stuff, like.. rather than writing out a post, I can just ramble about things or something,, but I’m afraid I’d get too disorganized, so it’d probably only be good for answering questions about specific things (which I don’t really get questions about worldbuilding stuff that I could have enough to sit down and answer in a video lol.. I think I’ve gotten two so far?? which I already answered in text posts).

So idk, maybe those could also be ways to hear more of me talking? If I used audio more often to answer things or discuss things (like answering asks that way) rather than typing.. which would save me time anyway lol.. But I just feel unsure about it since it seems.. weird.. like.. some people might just want a quick answer to their ask and not have to skip to a certain time stamp of a video and hear me talk about it for 5 minutes lol.. 

But anyway, yeah, feel free to offer specific suggestions or support towards anything mentioned if it’s really something you want to see! I really appreciate that you even watched the silly little vocabulary video and especially that you actually enjoy my rambling lol (I sometimes feel annoying when I speak), and I hope I can make something sometime!! I just have trouble deciding on what content I should be making or etc., but maybe I’ll try to find a few more things I can do where I’m actually talking! 

(also thanks for hoping I feel okay! I am a little bit better, but still sick lol)

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5. “Hope you feel better (emoji heart that I can't type on a computer)”

Thank you!! It’s been really stink to be sick the entire first month of the year lol, but hopefully I’ll be better like.. by mid February at least!!! With how goal focused I am, it’s been like... utterly evil to not be able to start the year off well and get all of my to-do list stuff done.. I’m finally at a point where I’m finishing a few things again (like this post, and a few of the worldbuilding things from a week ago or etc), but I still can’t stop myself being.... deeply annoyed, by my loss of time and how much I feel like I should have gotten done already aaaAAA.

Especially I REALLY WANT TO DO another costume soon!!!! I have some laid out in my closet that I hope to do, but I keep waiting until I’m feeling better, since I’m afraid of having some random sickness related health problem in the middle of getting dressed and then having to like.. show up to the doctor while I have elf ears on and half a horn on my head or something ghghggh... 

But anyway, I can’t do anything to change it now, so the best I can manage is just to kind of.. ignore my losses and move forward and try to be as productive as possible from now on! I really hope I can still get some of my main goals (like the game, costumes, music, worldbulding stuff) finished in reasonable time, even if I basically lost the entire month of January into a void lol. Sometimes you just lose an entire month of time... life is just Like That and you have to move on and make the most out of it I guess! 

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6. Would you ever like consider selling your outfits???? I have an extended non violent larping thing coming up and i really love your outfits!

I might actually! I mentioned it before I think like, months ago, but i have a LOT of clothes I really want to get rid of, it’s just that it’s SO daunting. I’ve sold clothes before and it took hours and hours of effort, and you have to constantly keep up with it and track sales, and on top of that I really underestimated shipping prices (especially making the mistake of shipping internationally on one of them I think), and I ended up making no profit and actually losing $70 just from paying people’s shipping that I didn’t charge them for (which for me and my financial situation is.. A LOT.. like.. I do NOT have that kind of spare money ghghh).

This time I want to be careful about it and also I’ll have to charge a lot more (which of course, I feel guilty about since I have Bigg Money Anxiety and wish everything was free for everyone all the time gghb), and also it’s hard for me to find the time and energy to take literally hundreds of photos of hundreds of items and then list them somewhere and etc. etc. etc. 

BUT to cut down on that workload I’ve thought about actually just grouping them into outfits or like, groups of clothing that all match each other or etc. and selling them all together (so that I don’t have to photograph and list every individual item), and additionally that way I can maybe just do one batch at a time like.. maybe sell two of them a week or something, instead of all at once. 

Maybe just buying a certain size of box/envelope thing and stuffing whatever I can into it and selling them all for a set price like $40 a piece or something. Which to me sounds extremely expensive I guess since I’m someone who would never have $40 to just spend on clothing lol, but I really kind of can’t go much lower than that if I want to allot for shipping and not make the same mistakes again as last time (and definitely not allow people to buy internationally unless they pay me like.. $50 extra or something, which would be ridiculous lol). 

But anyway, especially since I have a few things I could really use money for (paying my guardians back for recent medical copays, and for my cat’s vet visit a few months ago, and also I have to fix the battery on my computer or buy a new one, etc.), I’ve thought about trying to do that soon!  Maybe sometime in the next month I can start listing some themed clothing groups/outfits/etc. and sell them at a slower better pace for me (like one group a week or so). I’ll definitely post about it if I do!

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7. (this one will have to be shortened a lot since it's so long, but I'll try to just type the main parts I'm replying to)  “Are you making/would you consider making a story with your fantasy worlds? Like a book or a zine or youtube videos where you roleplay as the characters and make them talk to the viewer or each other? If you don't want to create plot, you could just do characters seeking to educate humans bout their cultures or something.  I used to scroll past your posts since I'm more visual when it comes to fantasy, before realizing how interesting they are and I feel like your ideas need more playing out and exposure. ALSO, how do you feel about collaborating with other people on creating art? Or just being art pals and sharing ideas/plans/etc.? I just read your FAQ about collaborations so I understand the terms and my offer to be art friends still stands!” 

-- About whether I’ll make more things with my world:  

Thanks so much for the very nice message!! Worldbuilding stuff is one of the most fun creative activities for me to do, so I always appreciate it when people discuss it with me and etc. (not that I don’t also appreciate compliments on sculptures and costumes and etc., those are great too! But I guess because world stuff is something I’m so much more personally invested in yet also never get to talk about lol, anytime anyone sends me anything related to characters or worlds or etc my brain is instantly like !!!!!!!!!!!!! O v O !!!!!!!!!!!  ghgh). 

I am actually making a game like I may have mentioned a few times, which though it’s more character focused and doesn’t really have a plot/broader story (it’s basically like a dating sim except without romance/dating, but it has similar mechanics in the sense that the main goal is to get to know characters in the world and do tasks for them and etc.), it will include a good bit of things that have do with my world, seeing as it like... takes place there. 

And since each of the characters have their own backgrounds and etc., they’ll of course speak about various world-related topics. Like for example, one of the shop-owners you can work for is an elf from outside of the elven alliance, and another shop the player can work at is owned by a set of twins who were formerly part of a royal family within the alliance, so those characters (when getting to know them and doing quests for them and etc) will of course have different perspectives on the world and talk about some of the stuff that’s been brought up in my worldbuilding posts, just obviously in a more personal/casual way, since it’s dialogue rather than me writing exposition infodump posts. 

Like for example, the fact that alliance elves and non-alliance elves often have very different takes on the main elven religion, meaning if it comes up in conversation, both shopkeepers would give different dialogue relating to it, etc. Which since every character has their own unique situation and heritage and etc. (the game is set on a popular market street in a large global city, so here it actually makes sense for a bunch of different species to all be in the same place and etc.), I think could maybe expose players to a lot of the central worldbuilding concepts, depending on which shopkeeper they go with. 

Obviously characters aren’t going to just be doing unnatural exposition dumps about the extensive background of the world or something lol, but even just naturally and playing through a character with neutral favor (meaning not unlocking any special positive/negative dialogue options/etc), you’d still be able to get at least a few tidbits about the world. (especially since some character’s conflicts stem from cultural/worldbuilding factors, so it’s not unnatural for them to bring it up if that’s like.. something that seriously impacts their life lol.). It probably wont expose people to Advanced Lore like the time gaps or obscure types of magic or etc (well.. depending on which shopkeepers you talk to hbhbb), but it could help with some of what you’re talking about.. In the sense of it being a more accessible visual medium that, while not the MAIN focus of the game, does end up covering some of the world background information through natural dialogue. 

(always feel free to send an ask or something if you have any questions about the game, I never talk about it but every time I start to my brain unlocks and I have to stop myself from like.. saying literally every single thing about it ghgbhj)

Other than that though, I’m not currently working on anything that actually involves my world. I totally get what you mean though, and I’ve often tried thinking of ways to make it more accessible and etc (shorter posts, more clear topics, more visual elements, etc.), but it can be hard for me to work within those constraints when it already takes so much time for me to put those things together. It’s like I have so much planned out in my head, I kind of just want to get it out there however I can, since if I spend too much time deliberating about it or etc. it will become an endless task lol..

Ghhbh I actually have an extensive background in acting out characters, I’ve pretty much walked around talking to myself in different voices and etc. for my whole life and am used to like acting multiple characters at once and improvisational storytelling things (this is still what I spend a lot of my time doing lol.. I just.. walk around my house having conversations out loud pretending to be random people.. Especially when doing chores, like washing dishes or etc. is more fun if you pretend you’re a group of travelers working in a weird little elven restaurant bickering with each other the whole time hgh), but idk if that would be something I would do for videos. I feel weird about being on camera personally, even if I were in costume. But it is a really good suggestion since that is something which would be much much easier to produce than like, doing a full animation or writing a book or something lol. 

I have thought of reading my worldbuilding posts aloud/ doing audio versions of them, so that people could just listen to them instead of reading them (there would be no visuals like.. just black screen or something with audio of me reading it), but the way I write is like.. hard to read back? I love to read out loud (one of my favorite activities to entertain myself is to actually find random text I’ve never seen before and see how well I can sightread it. Especially random medical articles with a lot of words I don’t know in them lol, it’s fun to just try to go through a new text fast in a convincing narrator voice or something, scrambling to mess up as little as possible), but I find that I have to modify my writing in order to read it that way (I’ve attempted to make a worldbuilding audio thing before, this is how I know this lol), so it’s almost like I’m writing a whole second version of the post, which makes it take longer?

I could modify my writing style (less having things in parentheses and etc., side sentences that occur in the middle of main sentences and break reading flow, etc.. Like this one lol), and have thought about writing in a way that would be easier for me to read back, but it’s just a whole thing I’d have to plan. I’ve definitely considered it though, and could pursue that idea further if people were interested or something! 

I’ve also thought of writing dialogue out between characters as a method of worldbuilding (not a story, but more like a script) since I think that’s a good natural way to convey things or give snapshots of moments in history or etc... but like.. That would just be more text so it wouldn’t really solve the problem lol. I could do audio reading them I guess, but since I’m more used to improv stuff, idk how I would do trying to read actual already written lines, even if I was the one who wrote them, it would definitely be something I’ve never done before lol!  

I also just think doing smaller things could help, and anything interactive. Like shorter posts, especially with more visuals in them, typically get seen more, and then stuff like me making a game or other condensed things.. I’ve thought of making like.. a character selection screen, not an actual game but kind of like a dress up game where you get to choose your background from the different species in my world and then dress them up a little or etc. but that would be a LOT more work than it seems probably lol.

A lot of social media is just a combination of luck/the right connections, quantity, and consistency especially. I’m sure if I could do a short post a day or a drawing of a character every other day or something and reblog them a lot, then more people would see the other things I do as well and etc., but it’s just... very difficult for me to operate that way since it’s so inherently antithetical to my personality and how I work lol (I tend to be more of a.. .. ‘stay isolated working on things and barely post anything for 3 months then post 10 things at once out of nowhere before going inactive again’ type of person ghbh.. which is like.. horrible from a Social Media Strategy standpoint). 

(Oh also, I still have no idea what a zine is even though I've seen them around and looked at a few and even looked up the definition of one to try to understand them hhghgg.. I’m still not exactly sure like.. what qualifies as one or how I would make a world-related one lol.. so this is why I didn’t really go into much detail on that specific suggestion of yours since.. I’m Uneducated Fool )  

But anyway, Idk if I could do acting videos, but I could do audio reading of posts or other things, and I am at least in the middle of working on a game which heavily involves elements of the world, so maybe that counts for what you’re talking about! 

Though personally it really doesn’t matter much to me if many people see my world stuff or etc., since really all the fun is just that I sincerely enjoy coming up with ideas and creating worlds and etc., even if I’m not doing anything major with it ( making a book series or comics or etc. I don’t feel like worldbuilding has to be working toward another project, and like that it can just be done for it’s own sake as a hobby), I still truly appreciate the sentiment and that you enjoy the world enough to give suggestions and etc. for stuff like that!! I’m going to keep at it however I can just because I love doing it so much, no matter if anyone really pays attention, but it is always unexpected and very meaningful when people like you engage with the content, so thank you for that! I’ll continue trying to make things and be productive and maybe use a few new ideas here and there just so it’s easier for people like you who tend to be more visual with things. I want to avoid leaving people out, and try to make a variety of things that can cater to more visual people as well or etc.! 

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-- About possibly being art friends or working together: 

Well you said you read the collaboration FAQ, so I’m under the impression that I no longer need to answer that part of your question lol, thus I’ll just continue on with an answer assuming you know all of that information! 

I’m always up for it I guess! I’m not sure about collaborating since I know nothing about you, and also don’t know where you live (remember I mention that it’d be much easier to collaborate with people I live closer to so we don’t have to like.. skype or some other weird digital method of communication in order to talk about ideas. Just since that sort of thing can get so lengthy, especially if it’s an actual project being taken seriously, I’d rather speak to someone in person and be able to work on it alongside each other better). If I got to know you for a few months and thought I could trust you/know we have a similar vision/don’t clash creatively or personality wise,  AND we also lived close enough to meet at least occasionally, then yeah! project collaborations could work. If otherwise, then unfortunately it might not work in that regard. : U

(OH also if we’re a similar age?? I forget that people on the internet can be way younger than me.. I have nothing against younger people (very against the weird overly-simplified generational stereotyping ggh), but I would just feel kind of weird being an adult (early 20s) working with a minor who’s like 13 years old or something. I would be happy to talk about things from time to time and help with ideas or something, but actual like.. long term collaborative projects like writing a book together or creating and selling a game or something may be strange just due to us being at such totally different stages in our lives and etc. So, to collaborate on projects or even just communicate frequently about them or etc. I would also prefer we’re a similar age range (you’re somewhere from like 19 - 28 yrs old or close to that) ghhbh) 

As for just talking about art though, that could work fine probably! Since it would just be casual discussion and less serious than full on project collabs or etc., you wouldn’t need to live near me or etc. Though of course I would still need to know about you first (especially politics and stuff like.. I don’t want to get 50 long conversations in with someone only to find out they hate trans people or are a huge racist or etc. I always like to establish that ahead of time or at least have some idea of a person’s leanings.), and understand your personality a little.

 I am pretty socially anxious and due to health problems and stuff can sometimes be bad at replying ( I know some people expect instant responses, whereas I usually reply in a day or two ( depending on how long the message is)), but I also don’t currently have any friends to talk about world-building stuff with really or who care much about that sort of thing, so I’m always open to having conversations about stuff like that! 

Especially if it’s a low-pressure causal sort of thing in the sense of like “hey let’s just see if we get along well conversationally and if we don’t then no hard feelings”, etc. One of the main reasons I’m often afraid to talk to strangers is that if we end up NOT getting along and I decide that I want to stop talking or etc., I’m afraid they’ll get mad at me or lash out at me or something. I prefer it when the expectation is set ahead of time like “we can both walk away at any time and should feel free to openly communicate how we feel about this conversation at any time. if we wouldn’t make good art friends or have trouble communicating then that’s fine and we just respectfully stop talking”.  Which sounds like.. very common sense but.. I've talked to a few people in the past who struggled with communication and would be passive aggressively mean to you about it or something like that instead of just being open about them not feeling like talking anymore or etc., which is always a confusing situation to be in and I’d like to avoid it! 

Anyway though! I can’t promise anything since I don’t know you and am cautious about new people (I don’t want to be like “OH sure we’ll be best friends!!” before I even know you and set up false expectations), but I’m definitely at least open to talking,  especially about world-building stuff, if we’re compatible and respectful to each other and etc. And am also open to collaborations, under the right circumstances like what I’ve mentioned. Thank you  again for the very nice set of asks!!!! I hope you have a great day, anon~ 

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And that’s all for the reply post. Thanks to everyone who sent in asks about stuff!!

[perhaps-mr-collins-has-a-cousin]

👪 Random Question Time! 👪 What are your parents like?

Oh goodness, well prepare yourself for a rather long answer this time. It’s long, but it still doesn’t feel complete, you know? How do you describe a whole, entire person? This answer is also somewhat rambly and disorganized because I didn’t feel like going through and editing it heavily enough for it to make sense and flow nicely, but…here it is anyway! 

To start with, my parents are both shy in a lot of situations, which explains where I got it from, but it doesn’t explain how the heck they ended up together, which has always confused me, even though they’ve told me the story several times. They’re just such different people in terms of temperament and interests, but somehow it worked! 

So my dad is super dependable. If we’re talking Myers-Briggs (which he thinks is utter baloney), I’ve always thought of him as an ISTJ? Super practical, but sometimes a weird sort of practicality that I, in my weird INFJ-ness would call oversimplification? He thinks I focus too much on feelings or things that are subjective, rather than on The Facts, and then I counter that just because feelings are subjective and immeasurable doesn’t mean they aren’t real or important, and round and round we go. I’m making it sound like we argue a lot, and really we argue pretty rarely, but we do like to Discuss. He’s actually pretty chill about letting me say what I want around him and letting me have my opinion even if he disagrees. It’s nice. And by the way, I don’t want to make it sound like he doesn’t care about people’s feelings either, because he really does. My mom has had some problems over the years, both physical and emotional, and I really think he’s been the most patient, compassionate, thorough caretaker anyone could ask for.

He’s got a weird sense of humor, but what dad doesn’t? His favorite joke is one that he made up himself, and it goes like this: 

How do you call a flower? 

With your tulips! 

(He told it at church once; it got a mixed reception.)

He’s pretty into physical fitness-y stuff, like before he retired he taught weight training and other physical education courses at our local community college. He still loves to ride his bike, I think that’s his favorite thing in the world to do. Reptiles and amphibians are another of his passions; we used to have at different times lizards and snakes and chameleons (the snakes were my favorite). Animals love him.

I get along best with my dad, but I’m probably most like my mom, at least on the surface. Our shyness manifests itself in a similar way: we’re both very soft-spoken, timid, usually only speak when spoken to, tend to like to avoid socializing altogether, etc. One of her favorite things to do is read, usually Christian fiction authors. She doesn’t really believe in herself, but I think she’s strong just to have dealt with all the difficulty she’s had in her life. She has such a soft heart and loves small children and animals, cats in particular. I’ve noticed she’s really good at reading people’s emotions. If I’m upset but try to hide it, she usually knows anyway. Is that an ISFJ thing? I don’t know, but I just feel like she’s an ISFJ. I can think of a couple times she saw me crying and started crying too because she felt my pain so strongly.

She doesn’t do as many creative things now, but I know she has that creative spark. She’s written a few short stories (there was one based on Cinderella that I loved) and done some cool cross-stitches (she taught me how to cross-stitch too). My dad is like that too, only with him it was poetry. Way back in his college days he was rejected by a girl and to vent his feelings he typed a short poem out on a napkin about how she’d looked at him with cow eyes and how was he to know she wasn’t interested if she gave him the freakin’ cow eyes, and he kept it in a box of mementoes and it’s probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read and I still make fun of him for it.

Anyway, sorry, back to my mom, who is actually quite funny too. She’s funny because you don’t expect her to be funny, I guess, and then she’ll just say something that makes you laugh, and I feel like I’m doing a really bad job describing it, but there you have it. Also she can make the most awesome chili.

Well, that gives you somewhat of a very rough idea of my parents’ personalities! They’re truly lovely people, and my closest friends :)

[bookenders]

11/11/11 Tag Game: Rounds 14 and 15! (I think. I’m bad at math.)

Back at it again, folks! Thank you @ofvisitorsthefairest and @fictionshewrote for the tags!

I think I’m gonna stop counting them after these. I can’t keep the numbers straight.

Rules: Answer the 11 questions from whoever tagged you, then made up 11 of your own questions and tag 11 people.

Bilbo Taggins: @starlitesymphony​, @hannahs-creations​, @toboldlywrite​, @quilloftheclouds​, @myreidola​, @minusfractions​, @inexorableblob​,  @ink-flavored​, @misfitgirlwrites​, @writinginslowmotion​, @aurumni-writes​

If you like these questions, by all means, answer them! And tag me so I can see!

My Questions:

Make a Mary Sue in your story’s world! What powers do they have, if any? How are they better than everyone else? What is their tortured past that is a blessing but also a curse? What kind of unusual eyes do they have? Which member of nobility/royalty/god/vampire/demon is their parent?

Which would your OCs choose: Legolas or Aragorn? Which would you choose?

What’s your favorite trick to pull on readers?

If you were to teach a creative writing class, what books would be on your syllabus?

What’s your opinion on semicolons?

What’s your favorite movie, based on its story?

What’s the dumbest thing your character(s) have ever done? What’s the dumbest thing they could do?

What one item could you introduce to your story to completely derail the plot? Where would it go from there?

What’s your favorite MacGuffin?

How do you name your characters and locations? 

How have your hobbies and passions influenced your writing/how you write?

My answers under the cut!

@ofvisitorsthefairest‘s Questions:

1. Does music inspire you to write?

Not unless I’m doing songfics as a warm-up or something. I usually use it as a tone/mood guard rail as I’m writing. That’s why I make story/character playlists! They keep me on track, especially if I’m revisiting a scene I haven’t thought about in a while.

2. Which WIP did you learn the most from writing?

My Romanian story, for sure. I had the help of my thesis director/mentor with that one, thank God. I learned how to establish a scene quickly, how to do flashbacks like other people do them, how to incorporate languages without messing up the pace or losing the reader, and how to write historical things. 

I learned a whole lot about what not to do from my Story That Shall Not Be Named Because It Bad, too. 

3. Is there something your OC should be afraid of that they aren’t?

I think Gemma should be more afraid of being found out than she is. I mean, she’s technically a witch (an unregistered magic practitioner, because of her potion-making which is classified as pseudo-magic) who has no social security number, lives in secret, and does illegal internet things. She could get into some serious trouble. There are even more nasty consequences that I can’t reveal because spoilers, but let’s just say she has no idea they could happen and they ain’t pretty.

4. Is there something they don’t need to fear, yet do? Irrational phobias?

Yep! It’s one of the cores of her character. She’s afraid of being left alone, abandoned, kept out of her found family. Being used for her skills and ignored as a person. I don’t think they’re irrational, but she has never listened when people tell her not to be afraid of those things.

5. Do you prefer reading physical books or e-books?

Physical books, by far. E-books for my college student wallet, though. They saved me when I didn’t have time to order books, too. I have a crazy good “where in the physical book did this event happen” memory. Like, I can name an event and flip to the page very quickly based on how far into the book it was. Very handy for citations. And I love the feel/smell of a book in my hands and all the contorting I do when I read one (seriously, I almost always end up upside down or completely sideways in a chair).

6. What’s some details of your world building that you like?

All the little things! Academic internet piracy network to help witches, how magic interacts with daily life, tweaking folklore to fit story lore, 

7. Have you ever created a magic system? What was it like?

Oh, boy! Yes, I have made several. My favorite might be the one from my TV show where the only magic is healing/life manipulation magic. The way it works is that when healers do their thing, they physically take on their patient’s injuries. If you have a broken arm, now the healer has a broken arm. Works with diseases, too. Here’s the snippet from the Show Deck about it:

In the darkest corners and dingiest alleys, magic pulses through the veins of the downtrodden. Seen as evil and taboo, magic operates by the law of an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Sacrifice fuels these dark arts, and those who manipulate them are covered in scars and never-healed wounds. Healers operate in the shadows and lead short lives, field medics are scarce, and the king has two sorcerers by his side at all times, bound by a blood contract to give their lives in his name.

Here’s a link to some posts about my magic system in my current WIP, Heart to Heart! I made magic types based on different sciences and artistic disciplines! 

We’ve got astronomy/astrology, carving/linguistics/physical art/symbology, politics/making powerful friends/handshakes/marketing/political science, geology/archaeology/product design. Also some secret types that involve psychology, sound design/sound engineering, and water treatment/environmental science/architecture.

There are also pseudo-magical professions that blend with tech and science, like potion making!

Here’s a decent explanation of how magic works in the world of H2H.

Here’s a joke I made about my magic system.

Here’s the Magical Aptitude quiz I made that tells you more about the magic types in H2H.

/end ramble

8. What was your first favorite book?

I’m 90% sure it was the American Revolution Magic Tree House book. Or one of those books. They were the best.

9. What time of day are you most motivated to write?

7pm-4am. Yep, I hate it. I’m trying to push it closer to 2pm-9pm but it’s tough.

10. If you could step into the shoes of one of your characters for a day, which one would you pick?

If we’re talkin’ H2H characters, I honestly would not have a preference. Everyone in that story is pretty dang chill. If I had to choose, I’d go with Jill or Treena. They’re both artists and artisans who have cool houses and great friends.

11. What are some little quirks you like to give characters? Ex: a lot of mine have freckles Just Because.

There are Many. A lot of my characters have curly hair because I have curly hair. Many of them are left handed (especially my sword-wielding ones). A bunch of them have scars. A lot of them know curse words in other languages. 

@fictionshewrote‘s Questions:

1. What do you want to see more of in the book world? (more rep, more of a specific genre, etc)

I have a rant about this, but to sum up: fewer straight white men dominating publishing, more open acceptance for new voices and ideas, less focus on easy-sell formulaic stories, less prejudice against certain genres... the list goes on. Also, in the publishing world, fewer submission fees and more journals that pay.

2. What time of day are you most productive writing-wise?

Answered above! Evenings and nights. It’s starting to shift to late afternon to late evening though, which is a nice change.

3. Do you have a designated space where you write?

Nope! I usually use my laptop wherever I can sit down or stand without my back screaming at me. I hate writing on my phone, though. Too small, too many typos.

4. What kind of platforms/programs/tools do you use to write? (Word, notebooks, Google Docs, Scrivener, etc)

Scrivener! It’s so helpful for my disorganized ass. I only use Word for academic papers now. When I’m having trouble getting ideas out of my brain, I write by hand in a hard back spiral notebook. I can’t stand writing in journals without spirals. 

5. Hardcover or paperback?

I like both. When I read, I sit weird and hardcovers prevent the pages from bending, but paperbacks are good for traveling with. And they’re cheaper. But hardcovers are so pretty... 

6. What’s your favorite story trope? Are you using it in your wip(s)?

There are a lot of tropes and I can never pick just one. I like friends to lovers, almost everything in LoTR and all those high fantasy things, complicated political/family dynamics, etc. I don’t typically like to write the same things I like to read, though. I have trouble naming them sometimes, but I know I use a bunch of them. 

7. If you had to send your favorite OC on a blind date with a character from someone else’s book, who would that character be and why?

Oh boy. I’m watching the Lord of the Rings extended editions right now, but I’ll try not to be biased.

If I were trying to be funny, I’d set Fred up with Aziraphale from Good Omens. I feel like they could have some good weird conversations.

Gemma and Nicholas Flamel from The Alchemist would be fun, too. Or Oz and Boromir. 

8. Do you write scenes in order or out of order?

I like writing them in order, but sometimes that doesn’t work out like I want it to. Now it really depends on the story. I wrote the first part of AOPC out of order and it messed with my head a little, so I’m trying not to do it for my longer projects. My short stories are always written one and done, in chronological order, usually. Especially the ones under 2k words. WYSiOaD was written in order, then switched around to fix the flow and plot.

9. If your favorite OC was a superhero, what would their superpower be? (assuming, of course, they aren’t a superhero to begin with!)

I do have superhero/villain characters! Here’s some others, though:

Gemma - Empathy / Transferable Rapid Healing and/or Regeneration

Oz - Truesight / Invulnerability

Mel - Animal Friendship or Shapeshifting / Conditional Foresight

Fred - Domino’s luck power but backwards and framed like happy accidents that always seem to work in his favor. So... Mr. Magoo.

Teva - Earth sculpting or something like earthbending

10. Describe your ideal writing session.

I sit and I write a whole short story in one hit. Then I wait and edit another day. 

I am a simple bean.

11. What do you think would turn your protagonist into a villain?

Seeing what was lost and having it torn away forever before she gets to claim it again.

[tumblunni]

Misc thoughts of rambling development for my new yokai watch ocs family of hugs and sadness (blythe the Dimmy and amber the Gorgeous Ambassador)

* Amber was totally still Gorgeous Ambassador at heart even back when he was human. I feel like he probably dressed very plain and was very self concious for a long time, as well as also being poor as dirt so it wasnt really easy to be super fashion time. Perhaps the only way he was really able to be remotely flambouyant or pretty was just having a long ponytail that he was very proud of. It would have been easier to maintain a shorter hairstyle when you're struggling to even find somethibg to eat each day let alone a bath, but it just helped him hold on to a tiny bit of confidence. Even when he reincarnated as Gorgeous Ambassador he was still unconfident for a long time and it took all these centuries to fully embrace The Power Of Gorgeous. He was probably really shocked when he got his medal registered and heard his new yokai name, like uhh excuse me "must beautiful man who spreads beauty through the world with his smile" are you sure there hasnt been a mixup??? And nowadays he's become so happy with himself that he maybe dresses a little bit gaudy sometimes, but if you saw how he used to feel then you'd absolutely be cheering for him!

* he was probably worried that Blythe wouldn't recognise him when he finally managed to reunite with them, but i think the lil shadow ghost instantly knew it was their brother and ran straight into the biggest hug ever. "Im worried they'll think im all cringe and gaudy" NO UR LIL SIB IS IN AWE OF YOUR FASHION POWER AND HAPPY FOR YOUR CONFIDENCE

* I also think Amber would absolutely be proud of how much confidence Blythe has gained through travelling with the protagonist and co. Like "aaa the last time i saw you you were so tiny and shy!" "Yes, now i'm tall and shy!" "NUUUU STOP PUTTING YOURSELF DOWN"

* basically they are absolutely Shyness Fam, and Amber just approaches his anxieties differently with over-the-top fake boasting about his greatness instead of being honest about how bad he feels. So thats why itd be so heartwarming to see him genuinely making progress and genuinely seeing good parts of himself. ALL THANKS TO THE INTERNATIONAL GORGEOUSNESS ASSOCIATION OF THE AFTERLIFE, YES *cheesy makeover ads fly by in the background*

* Dimmy's fave food is rice balls not just cos ninja monster = rice balls, but cos for Blythe specifically it brings back happy memories of backstory ninja Amber in ye olden days packing lunches of love for his tiny friend. He was always broke in between finding bountys to hunt, so he was never able to cook anything too fancy, but those simple meals became associated with childhood in Blythe's heart. All the times this big strong human swordsman would have a moment of gentleness and offer his last bit of food to a useless little yokai like them. ("No!! You're a valued part of the team!! And growing children need this more than i do!! Besides, i'm so tough i don't need to eat." *stands up for a minute and blacks out*)

* Since this backstory took place before thee yokai watch was invented, you cant technically say Amber was Blythe's previous watchholder but like.. He totally was? Same formula of being a human you partner with and then go around fighting/befriending other yokai. I like to think that maybe before yokai medals became the latest trend and they set up the whole official regulated medal registration process, yokai would still give their human friends some sort of token of their friendship but it was just less organised. Like imbuing their soul energy into all sorts of shit like This Leaf I Found or One Shoe. Which could be used in the same way to summon them but obv was less conveinient, haha! I'm thinking maybe Blythe's bond object was just a neat rock, cos they were so young and didnt really own anything else to gift to this human. Like all they had was the coal from the hearth in the house they used to haunt, but thatd be too crumbly so they dug through to find the sturdiest and prettiest rock and Amber was like straigjt up crying from how touched this whole thing made him. I WILL TREASURE THIS PEBBLE MY TINY MONSTER CHILD...

* oh but just to rub salt in the wound i think he couldnt find it again when he woke up floating over his own burned corpse in the wreckage of his final fateful battle. There uhh..wasnt much of himself left, let alone anything he was holding. Itd kinda have to be that way cos if it worked like a yokai medal itd mean Amber could have instantly reunited with his friend and cut out all of these years of sad backstory, alas

* ok but imagine the cute and sweet emotionalness of then being able to swap medals when they see each other again, and have an actual magical guarantee of never losing their family ever again.

* I feel like Amber only initially agreed to join the Gorgeous Association because he wanted to get a job in the yokai world and save up to buy a decent house and decent level of income so that there would be a hapoy home waiting for his child whenever he finally found them. He didnt really believe that he had the potential to be a fashion icon, he just went along with it as an employment opportunity in his weird new ghost life. But OH NO, accidental self confidence!! (We are all very proud of him)

* oh and the Gorgeous Association doesnt work 100% identical to the anime version, i just like the anime's general concept. I feel like Gorgeous Ambassador is indeed a yokai species and not just a title, its less 'you were chosen by random lottery' and more 'you were chosen by destiny'...? Shy people who have potential to be fashion icons just tend to end up becoming the shy-people-with-potential-to-become-fashion-icons yokai, aka this. And the Gorgeous Association takes responsibility for finding all new Gorgeouses and training them to use their new powers instead of just staying in their shyness. Its more of a self help club? Oh and also the membership is full of other types of fashion yokai too, its not just Gorgeous Ambassadors. Just its only Gorgeous Ambassadors that get visited by the president as soon as they die and given a special invitation to join. So basically interpreting Gorgeous Ambassador as more 'this yokai is named that cos its powers are about encouraging people to be more confident aka introducing them to the world of fashion'. And less the idea that all Gorgeous Ambassadors used to be a different type of yokai and you can only become one by being picked by the club lottery. And also that its just a costume with no actual powers?? That was funny in the anime but i prefer if they actually could inspirit people and make them more confident and stuff.

* I FEEL LIKE IM EXPLAINING THIS BADLY, SORRY! Ok so uhh like yknow some clubs are all exclusive entry "you are not this thing til you join"? Like you cant be a country club member til you join the country club, and the sense of comeraderie there is just all being rich enough to pay for membership rather than having anything in common. But then there's stuff like lgbt groups or mental health support groups where youre all already the same thing and thats WHY you join the club. Anime version had Gorgeous Association be a country club and Gorgeous Ambassador be just a membership name rather than a real yokai form. Which, again, was really funny but i feel like it only works in a more gag focused series like the anime. Here i'm interpreting it that you can just be born in the species Gorgeous Ambassador, same as any other yokai like jibanyan or whatever, and it actually does have its own special powers and stuff. And its just that the Gorgeous Association sends out invites to any newborn yokai that have fashion related powers. So not all Gorgeous Ambassadors actually join the Gorgeous Association. Oh and Kageusuo is the actual yokai species name for those unaffiliated ones. The anime seemed to say that kageusuo was an unrelated new yokai that isnt in the games, that was just invented to have a form that Gorgeous Ambassador had before he became Gorgeous Ambassador. But i have Other Ideas

* i'll make it a new bullet point cos im getting all disorganized now aaaa

* ok so Kageusuo (or my fanmade eng dub name Shamshade) is Gorgeous Ambassador. Same thing. Same species. Kageusuo is a yokai personifying the idea of a fashionable beautiful person who never reached their potential in life due to social anxiety/bullying. Like an 'ugly duckling' story. Their default form is this shadowy looking depressed dude because their power is that they drain shadows from people, vampire style. This makes you 'less overshadowed", so you become more confident and people notice your unique style! But kageusuo cant use its powers on itself, so a lot of them stay in this shy form forever and just continue repeating the same overshadowed life they have as a human. The fabulous form that Gorgeous Ambassador has in the games is just simply the same yokai dressing differently- a kageusuo that managed to conquer its anxieties from its past life and take steps to embrace its true self! But theyre not actually any different in terms of powers, theyre still shadow vampires and their power to make people fabulous is just them eating your shadow. It was something they could already do before they became fabulous themself, now theyre just confident enough to match their powers, yknow? And also unrelatedly there's a club called Gorgeous Association that this particular kageusuo joined, which personally helped him in his journey of self confidence so he goes by the nickname Gorgeous Ambassador to advertise it. (Which is even more nicknamed into Amber cos he thinks it sounds cute)

* WHY ARE MY HEADCANONS SO OVERCOMPLICATED AAAaa

* anyway just imagine a vampire movie but its a supermodel lurching out of the shadows groaning "I VANT TO SUCK YOUR ANXIETY" and then when he bites you you become more confident. This is a Good Concept so i will somehow find a way to use it, dammit!! *b movie music* "OH NO THE MONSTER GOT TERRY" *terry suddenly wearing applebottom jeans*

* also imagine all of that but also the dude is a weird samurai being all "wow the wonders of the future" about thos applebottom jeans

* why do all my headcanons start as angst and end up as nonsense like this