#i worry about making it 'too easy' but also want stuff to be accessible. it's just for fun? the OC lore game! ARG but it's just my oc.

[starflungwaddledee]

Oooo starstruck dee has little stars at the bottom of her feet! Are they just aesthetic or would they make imprints into the ground? (like pawprints)

exactly like that! though she's not the only one...

edit: might need to add some additional dialogue to this to make it more clear, but a clarification in the interim; he knows about his own footprints. he's just surprised to see something similar already there when he knows he's only just landed. he lifts his own shoe to confirm that they're not identical (and also to reveal this to the viewer). seems his stoicism beat off the clarity in this one, sorry 😭

[urrockstar-xe]

sneaking out - t.c x fem!reader

posted jan 21st, 2024 10:50 am

@dingus85 asked : May I request a Tara Carpenter x fem!reader based on Cruel Summer- Taylor Swift where they have been sneaking out to the beach every night (scenario 5). This time they’re just being stupid, and reader accidentally confesses that she likes her. Somewhere in the fic Tara uses one liner 18.

im so sorry for the wait love, I hope u enjoy.

masterlist

not proofread

wordcount: 0.9k

It was Chad’s idea to have one big group vacation for the summer, a simple nearly 50-hour road trip from New York to California. A few weeks on the beach to help everyone recover from the first semester of college and some time for Sam and Tara to learn how to be away from each other again.

Every small-town kid needs a Beach Vacation, right? Well actually, your plans for the summer were to find a good job but just when you wanted to argue, Mindy pointed out that you could share a room with Tara, and Tara responded by clapping her hands together, smiling at you and

“We’ll have so much fun!” 

How could you say no to that?

Everyone had taken turns driving, except for Mindy, her job was to make sure everyone had enough snacks and to ensure you’d make it to the Airbnb in one piece.

You were lucky enough to find one on the beach, giving easy access to the water and the sand that Mindy soon found to be an incredible nuisance, Anika was enjoying the chance to dress up in different beach weather outfits and there was also the perfect spot to play volleyball which Chad forced everyone to do.

And then there were you and Tara, you had the same favorite part of this vacation and it was the late-night bonfires.

You had only one with all of you involved but the following night you both snuck out together to start up another one, and this quickly became routine for the both of you.

You couldn’t help but enjoy this silly game you were playing in your head even if Tara didn’t realize you were playing at all. Sharing a bed, waking up early enough to make breakfast, making the bed, and taking turns to shower after beach days just to sneak off and come back smelling like firewood. 

It was perfect for you, and maybe it was for Tara too, but obviously, you weren’t going to ask. 

Tonight was one of your last nights in California and none of you were ready to leave, except Mindy, who wanted to go home the first week. But of course, you were most worried about going home, everything would go back to normal and you could no longer live in your little bubble with Tara and her soft smiles and giggly laughs,

and your little sneak-out “dates” that were just for you and Tara.

But that just meant you had to make the most of it, which leads you outside sitting on an old beach towel next to the pretty girl, watching the pit of flames dance before your eyes. 

“I’m not ready to go home yet, I like sneakin’ out with you.” Tara’s voice caught your attention, turning to look at her as she spoke. She was thinking the same as you. “We could always sneak out together back in New York” You spoke in the same quiet tone, as if you weren’t allowed to speak louder than the sound of the sea.

Tara pouted, “It’s not the same, though.” Oh. You nodded in agreement looking back at the fire. 

“I wanna go swimming,” She said suddenly, standing up and taking off her sweater, well your sweater, you had let her wear. “Tara, you’ll freeze” You smiled, knowing she wouldn’t listen anyway as she was already walking towards the water, tossing her sweatpants to you as you laughed. 

You watched amused as she eventually made it to the water, she hesitated, “C’mon, my girl Tara Carpenter doesn’t back down from stupid stuff!” You called out in a teasing tone, hearing her laugh as she threw her head back before running straight into the water, “Holy shit!” she yelled, squealing as she resurfaced.

You laughed as Tara ran back up to you, soaking wet and gratefully thanking you as you put the towel around your shoulders. “That was so stupid” she laughed, shivering slightly as you rubbed her arms, laughing with her as you attempted to warm her up. 

“That is why I like you so much” You had barely noticed the words come out as Tara’s smile softened, staring at you with a tilted head and puppy dog eyes. “What?” Tara’s voice was quieter now, still having a slightly shaky tone as she was still freezing. 

“What?” you repeated the question, you could backtrack, sure but Tara wasn’t stupid, she wouldn’t believe that no matter how well you sold it she saw it in your eyes, 

you’re so screwed, you almost laughed.

“What did you say? You like me?” Tara’s grip on the towel tightened a little, that soft look on her face capturing you the way it always did. You opened your mouth to speak but closed it, not knowing how to explain yourself in a way that made sense but Tara spoke up instead.

“Come here and kiss me, dummy” She smiled, and you didn’t want to waste any time as your hands moved to her face and pulled her in, cold, soft lips hitting yours as if they were meant to be on yours. Tara abandoned the towel to hold your wrists. 

“You are so catching a cold,” You said through heavy breaths earning a sweet laugh in response.

“Yeah, but you’ll take care of me.” you smiled at that because obviously you would.

“Yeah, I will.” You said, Tara smiled back.

“I think I will sneak out with you back in New York.”

[baeddel]

long post abt accessability in games, DMC3, DS1, and control schemes

games like God of War or Devil May Cry can be inaccessible because they have inputs which require button mashing, which is difficult for someone with arhritis or other problems that affect their hands and wrists. but these inputs are generally not required to beat the game; you have a lot of options, so you can just avoid using any move that's too difficult. the main issue is that these games become more demanding the further into the game you want to go; keeping a combo going in DMC requires a very high apm and use of the entire controller, so a person with a motor disability will hit a wall eventually.

this is a design problem which i think is difficult to analyze. DMC starts from a very unique design—it has a huge number of moves, almost all of which are accessible out of neutral rather than hidden at the end of an attack string—which it has to pay for by using a large number of unique inputs (forward + attack, back + attack, forward then back + attack, hold shoot to charge, hold devil trigger to charge [charges can be buffered]). it introduces a lot of complexity, but it's actually less complexity right away than other action games; instead of having to memorize a long list of complicated strings (cf. Bayonetta's Punch, Punch, Kick, Kick, pause, Kick, which is different from Punch, Punch, Punch, Kick, Kick, pause, Punch [click]—have fun with those!), you can learn attack, shoot, devil trigger, then forward attack, hold shoot... etc., one at a time, and mix them into your play and find out when they're good. its combo system is not just complex but also discoverable; players can try out how its different pieces fit together without opening the movelist.

but once a player already knows all the moves, the game starts to ask more and more out of them. not only do you want to use all of the inputs one after the other very fast (try jump cancelling Beowulf's Killer Bee into another Killer Bee for the first time—pretty tough, right? and all you're pressing there is X and △! the inputs get harder!), but since your charge moves can be buffered, you also want to hold O and L1 to charge your shot and devil trigger for when you might need them, and you might also want to lock-on by holding R1. when watching a really good player playing with an input viewer it's not uncommon to see every single button on the controller light up at the same time. doing that stuff is really fucking hard.

so far we don't have any problems; it's a picture perfect picture of a system that's 'easy to use, hard to master,' right? but because the thing thats hard to do in this case is input a lot of buttons at once on a physical controller, we've just frozen out any players with hand/wrist problems or motor issues from high level play, at least without adapting the game somehow. this is a problem that's difficult to predict, difficult to foresee, and difficult to design around; i don't see how you could fix it without making DMC a completely different game than what it is.

so if you started from the premise of designing a game that was accesisble to people with hand/wrist and motor issues (including suckers like me who played a bunch of high apm games like DMC and Runescape and fucked up their wrist), you'd have to come up with something pretty different at a very fundamental level.

this is why Dark Souls is, in a lot of ways, a VERY ACCESSABLE action game. what do i mean? its control scheme is extremely simple. once you press every button on the controller you've learned everything you're going to learn about it (apart from one very non-obvious hard-coded universal cancel, but don't worry about it). all you have to do is dodge or block the other's guys attack and then hit him with yours.

there's a lot of ways that DeS/DS1 approached the action genre differnetly to other games, but right now i'm only going to highlight one: the kind of 'questions' DS is asking its player. if you think about DMC, what is DMC trying to get the player to do? while you can beat the game with one or two simple combos, the system is obviously made in a way that encourages freedom and flexibility, and the game has systems to reward long, varied combos (the 'style' rating). and that's all it wants you to do (apart from in a couple of levels where they want you to do platforming—ugh!). to accomplish this, they lock you in a room with some enemies and only let you out when you beat them all.

in Demon's Souls the main thing they want you to do is navigate complicated dungeons that are full of traps; some levels have mazes in them, and lots of traps kill you instantly. it's similar to Kings Field, which its a spiritual successor to, but it's also similar to other early 3d RPGs: Deathtrap Dungeon, Die by the Sword, Dungeon Lords... (in one interview Miyazaki said part of his job was to play a bunch of 'open world RPGs' for research, and i imagine that included some of these old, weird games; the first dungeon in Dungeon Lords has a rafter-walking section with projectile-shooting enemies, chain-pulley mechanical elevators and highly damage-resistant slimes). they also want you to kill enemies. but the game never forces you to kill these enemies; you're never locked in a room until you kill all the enemies, and enemies never have items that are necessary to progress in the level. enemies are just one obstacle among others. consequently, enemy encounters are designed in a certain way that makes avoiding them difficult and approaching them complex. an enemy that throws firebombs will stand at the top of a long, narrow staircase, forcing you to dodge them on the way up; two enemies will stand behind a doorway and, if you run in blindly, will both attack you from behind. things like that. it was hard to avoid enemy encounters in Demon's Souls because the levels involved suffocatingly narrow corridors and the enemies followed you forever. but it was possible and sometimes desirable. in DS1 running by enemies is often preferable and, with foreknowledge of the level, always possible. it's also a lot easier as enemies don't follow you very far anymore (this change was patched into the game after release).

running and jumping both consume stamina, as do dodging, blocking, and attacking. getting hit costs hitpoints, and falling off a ledge costs all your hitpoints. both aspects of the game (navigation and combat) use all of the same resources, and engaging in combat is generally one of a few options the player has to navigate an area. it is, a lot of the time, by far the easiest option, but most players will find a few areas that they hate enough to always run through. one of the messages players can leave to each other is 'try dashing through.' the game rewards you for killing enemies by giving you souls and loot drops, but it also punishes you for making mistakes by leaving you down on resources—less health, fewer estus, and fewer spellcasts—so the best thing to do at any given time is difficult to analyze.

the questions DS is asking its players, therefore, is to familiarize themselves with the level, come up with a plan, conserve their own resources and make it out with the loot. at lower levels of play the game is mostly about succeeding at lots of combats and navigating lots of traps over a long distance without making too many small mistakes. then, at high levels of play, the gameplay is mostly about movement, exploiting the game's verticality and taking advantage of holes in the enemy placement. but the change from low to high levels of play mostly takes place in the mind of the player, not their hands; they understand the levels better, they are better able to respond to things which were previously unpredictable to them, and they have more confidence in their ability to do what is needed of them.

so our game not only starts off very accessible to players with hand/wrist or motor problems, but it finishes there too. although, i've gone a little too far: the player's hands will change a bit as they improve at the game. like Monster Hunter, the best way to play Dark Souls is to have a claw grip in both hands; the thumbs should operate the analogue sticks, the index finger should operate the d-pad (for toggle escales, the universal cancel i mentioned, as well as changing spells) and the face buttons (for rolling, using items, interacting with doors and items), and the remaining digits manipulating the shoulders/triggers (for attacks, blocks and parries). while running, you want to hold L1 (block) so you can roll (circle) out of a run without jumping. this might be hard for you depending on your condition, but i don't think it's that much worse than holding a controller the regular way.

anyway, the point is this: you might want to think about making your game accessible not just to the general player with disabilities, but to the 'hardcore' player with disabilities. do you want disabled people to not only beat your game, but be really good at it? how would you design systems to accomodate that? i've talked about hand/wrist and motor issues here because it's what i was thinking about (and some games, like Runescape, aren't really accessible to me anymore thanks to my wrists, at least in the way i used to play them), but there are other disabilities you could probably design around. imagine a player who has CFS or ADHD in a way that keeps them from practicing consistently; could you make a game that is rewarding for such a player to try and get really good at nonetheless? Runescape (conceived of competitively, ie. racing to the leaderboard &c) was good for players with certain kinds of disabilities and neurotypes since it required a huge amount of time and dedication, it really rewarded being unemployed, LOL. but what if there was a game that somehow rewarded inconsistency? who knows...

anyway, i'm saying how i tend to think about it as a rebuttal to the way i see most people talk about accessibility in games, which is merely playing games. thus Dark Souls can be criticized for being difficult for a new player to complete, for example. but this always struck me as a bewildering way to talk about games. plenty of disabled people don't just want to complete games, they want to be good at them. and disabled people can and do become good at games and compete and win at them. so the question for me is not so much 'how do i make a game someone with this disability could play?' but 'how do i make a game someone with this disability would want to master?'—a game which doesn't create headaches for them, which works with rather than against them, and which they actually enjoy at all levels of play.

[solarpunkani]

Solar Powered Community Fridges - Concept Art

So one of my grad school classes is a 8 week long group project to essentially come up with an artistic solution to a problem. Of course, my pitch was solarpunk in nature, and my group actually really liked it! Basically, the concept is to design a series of solar panel-powered community fridges, to help address food insecurity and build community in different areas without having to rely on a specific host building to provide power. What better time to show my concept art than Solarpunk Aesthetic Week?

Originally, I was just drawing up ideas with what usually comes to mind when I imagine fridges--upright fridges. Here's my concept art!

In these sketches, my main concern was imagining how these fridges would fit into the community alongside their power sources--I didn't want them to be too bulky, but I also wanted them to be available for easy access. I also figured they'd need shelter for the fridge's longevity, as well as to protect any users from the element. It'd also be nice to have them alongside other mutual aid sources like little free pantries, little free libraries, the like. One of my favorite designs is the sheltered community space on page 2, with the fridge, the seat, the pantry, and the library all in one protected structure with solar panels on the top. Having a table near the community fridge would also be nice to give people a place to rest as well.

However, around this time, I started trying to find out just how big of a solar panel would be needed to power a fridge like this, and the results were... a bit discouraging. Until! I was informed that chest freezers use way less energy to keep cool--cool air sinks, so opening an upright fridge releases most of the cold air that's been building up and makes the machine work harder to keep cool, whereas a chest fridge doesn't lose nearly as much cold air. In addition, some people have converted chest freezers into chest refrigerators for as little as ~$30 USD. Due to the insulation in a chest freezer, converted chest fridges use way less energy than their upright counterparts to keep cool, making it way more feasible to power them with solar.

So of course, I had to get to drawing again!

Since I'd already concepted a variety of structures for upright fridges, for the chest fridges I mostly focused on their design and possible convenience/accessibility concerns I had been worried about, one of the main being having to reach inside vertically instead of horizontally--several of my family members have difficulty bending, so I was worried having a chest fridge would make things more difficult for others like them. There are likely other ways to address this concern that I haven't thought of, but for now I've concepted putting a grabber tool inside of every fridge so people with trouble bending can still get things. How well it'd work in reality, I'm not sure...

Buuut these are my concepts so far! I hope you like them, I hope they're cool? Let me know what you think! I think these would be cool to have in a solarpunk future--whether they're entirely possible today or will have to wait until a somewhat-distant, 'solar panels can generate more energy with less size and fridges are also way more energy efficient' future I can't say, but it's cool to think about!

[Image 1: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. An arrow points to a magnet caddy on the freezer door with markers and stickers, saying "Markers + labels for dating donations". An arrow points to a battery-structure at the base of a solar panel system saying "Doubles as charging station for phones & stuff". An arrow points to a slanted roof structure over a fridge saying "Bus stop-esque structure." An arrow points at a glass door grocery store-style fridge saying "any kind of fridge, any size."

Image 2: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. An arrow points to a fridge under a slanted roof structure, saying "Paintings on the fridge itself." Over a portion of a brick wall is written "Murals can be on accompanying walls or on the shelter structure for the fridge." An arrow points to a wheel-mounted solar panel saying "solar panel". A community space is named at the top "The Free Community Space: Open 24/7" An arrow points to the outside wall of a community space structure saying "mural on outer walls". Items inside are labeled 'Freedge, Little free Library, Seeds, Pantry'. An arrow points to a couch, saying "Maybe a bench instead?" Written on the inner wall is "mural inside." An arrow pointing at the space says "Community built space w/ lights, solar panels, little free library, freedge, seed library, little free pantry, couch (???). Solar battery stored behind or on top. Plastic magnet door to protect from elements? Like those magnet curtains?"

Image 3: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. An arrow points to a slanted structure over a mini fridge, saying "Solar panel on roof?" Another arrow points to the side saying "Chalkboard paint--anyone can art here." Underneath says "variety of sizes/energy needs mean wider availability". At the top of a curved shelter on a pole is written "solar panel", along the sloping sides is "curved solar panels" and "Or solar voltaic glass?" On the underside of the structure is a label saying "Could be in a park or smth (something)". An arrow points to a box at the base of the structure, saying "charging station" and another arrow labels a table and chairs.

Image 4: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. Along the top of a slightly-curved roof structure is an arrow saying "curved solar panel roof. renogy curved 4ft x 2ft for example". To the side of the roof is written "4 panels each side, 0.45 kWh x 8 = 3.6 kWh/h". A chest fridge is labeled "converted chest fridge", and a glass-front box is labeled "Old cabinet/case now Little Free Library". A box sitting between them is labeled "I hear car batteries are good solar storage for cheaper?" A standalone chest fridge has the following labels: "Could paint on fridge exterior" "solar panel on top of fridge?" "most chest freezers are 22-28 in wide &24-38 or 54-68 in long. The longest wattage panel needed would be ~50 in long & ~26 in wide"

Image 5: Pencil sketches of refrigerators connected to solar power. The annotations on them are as follows. The inside of an open lid has an arrow pointing to a grabber object saying "Grabber for accessibility for those w/ trouble bending". A label points at a strap fastened to the inside of the lid saying "straps to help shorter people pull the lid closed." A variety of arrows point to a drawing of an open, decorated chest fridge saying the following: "Counter-balanced lid" "Baskets/crates for storage -> can slide or be removed to access underneath" "Murals on front & sides (not back)" ]

[viburnt]

So hear me out! You did leopard touya and i FELL IN LOVE how about a lion or tiger bakugou tho🫢

LISTEN- HEAR ME OUT-

CONTENT WARNING: SEX, BREEDING, POLYGAMY, MENTIONS OF PREGNANCY

Lion! Bakugo SFW+NSFW

Lions, kings of the jungle: known for their manes and imponent roar, basking in a reputation a bit too big for them. Lion! Bakugo boasts about his skill and power, even more than normally, that is. Adding a Lion to this blond only accentuates his egocentric behavior, but there are some new traits to discover with this hybrid.

Lion! Bakugo is all roar and no bite. He yells and curses, and pretends to be the leader, but lions (specially male ones) take care and try to provide for their prides (in this case, his clique).

Lion! Bakugo can't bear the thought of having other guys close to you. You're his partner, not some pesky pray for others to take! He keeps a close eye on who your friends are and who you are with, defending his territory. This hybrid is also very possessive; if you had a previous partner, he'll make sure to get rid of any trace of them.

Talking about territory, lions get extremely defensive with their stuff: he doesn't share. Once Lion! Bakugo starts feeling comfortable in a determined space (like an specific lunch table, library spot or your/his bedroom) he'll make sure others know that area is his as soon as he steps into the room. Oh, you wanna sit in his spot? How dare you?!

Did I mention lions are polygamous? Both sexes are. Bakugo doesn't really practice it because you're more than enough to breed and form a family, but sometimes (just sometimes) certain redhead is added to the mix. He doesn't allow you to have more partners though, female lions can only have one or two males to mate.

Mating season is intense, to say the least, Lion! Bakugo tries to breed you multiple times a day. Alone at the library? He may be bashful but he'll sit you in his lap. After training? Don't worry, he doesn't mind a bit of sweat. Are you doing homework? You could work on his cock too, right? Prone bone is his go-to position, right where he can bury his girth deep inside you while also having access to your body.

He wants to knock you up so bad.

Lion! Bakugo is also strangely affectionate towards you outside of his rut, planting chaste kisses on your face and wrapping an arm around your shoulders. He is very calm and easy-going with you when you compare his behavior with others, you can even say he relaxes with you.

Going back to how this species accentuate his self centered traits, however, Lion! Bakugo is even more hated by others than normal. There's not a second where he is not talking big game about him and his strength.

He roars (unironically).

Also, one of the main predators lions have are hyenas... remember who is a hyena hybrid? Shiggy. Suits him right considering how he was kidnapped by the league.

Lion! Bakugo also has an even messier hair, a lion tail, and matching ears. His body is a bit more sturdy and even has a bit of a tummy because, well, cat pouches. He's still such a pretty thing to look at!

"Bend your legs a little more-" Bakugo growls, tightening the grip on your hips as he pulls you closer to him. You lost the count of how many times he's had his way with you that day alone, his thrusts making your legs weak.

You pant, looking at him over your shoulder. "Fuck, you're gonna give me a cub soon, I promise..." He grunts, hissing as he digs his nails onto your plush skin, painting your insides white once more.

You have to change your sheets.

Tags: @i-literally-cant-with-this @shonen-brainrot @doumadono @imagination-mess @trickster-kat @shionancientsblog

[hauntedhokage]

a little patience

PART 01: Stolen Shirt

WORD COUNT: 1.5K

SUMMARY: “That’s my shirt.” He doesn’t look mad, but definitely interested in the fact that you had access to his stuff, and you know that you needed to set the record straight on where you got it.

This was why you spent the night at your own apartment. Not really, but every little moment adds up, right?

[series masterlist] | {ao3} | [tumblr masterlist] | {ko-fi} | [spotify playlist]

The apartment was quiet. 

Your boyfriend was sleeping peacefully, worn out from a big villain fight followed by rounds of sex, and you were just watching him sleep. You wanted to wake him up, making him give you some good company while you were at his apartment, but instead you just kiss his forehead before getting out of bed to go make some coffee. You had your own work to get done, anyway, and you had your laptop and charger so there was no reason why you couldn’t get your work done. 

His roommate/boyfriend wasn’t home yet, which also contributed to the quiet of the apartment. He was an earlier riser than you were, which was saying something as your schedule had you waking up at around 3 am most mornings. Usually you could hear him grumbling in the morning after you stayed the night, mumbling to himself about work schedules and too many idiots getting themselves into trouble, but you couldn’t hear him so you could only assume that he wasn’t home. 

You didn’t stay over often, only when your boyfriend was nursing some kind of injury from his work as a pro hero or it was a guarantee that his boyfriend would be out all night. Sometimes it felt like his boyfriend didn’t like having you around, so you liked to respect the space that they had together in their apartment and just stay at your apartment. If your boyfriend wanted to stay the night, it was in your space 95% of the time. 

But you didn’t like to leave when your boyfriend was asleep, knowing that he worried about you disappearing in the night due to his known connection to you, so you were going to have to stick around until he woke up and could see that you were leaving of your own accord and not being kidnapped by a criminal. As if a criminal could get into their super secure apartment. 

“Oh, hey,” you hear as you turn into the small kitchen, and you look over your shoulder to see the blonde haphazardly laying on the sofa. Looked to be still in all of his gear, so it had to have been a rougher than usual night on patrol for the number one hero. “Didn’t know you were here.”

“Eiji brought me over after his fight last night, wanted me close or something like that.” You go back to looking at the coffee pot, grateful that the men kept your coffee in plain sight. The way they organized their cabinets still didn’t make sense after almost a year of dating Eijirou, it was easier for them and you to keep the stuff that you liked either just on the countertop (like your coffee and tea of choice) or in the front of the cabinets so you would see them immediately. 

“He said something about that. Sleep good?”

“Uh, yeah. Coffee?”

“Coffee is good, thanks.” 

You nod, moving about the space to have two mugs ready when it brewed. Bakugou took his coffee black, half a teaspoon of sugar put into the mug before the coffee was poured so the sugar would dissolve faster. It was easy to remember and just as easy to prepare, so it wasn’t long before you’re handing the mug over to the blonde hero who was now sitting up on the couch. 

“That’s my shirt.” He doesn’t look mad, but definitely interested in the fact that you had access to his stuff, and you know that you needed to set the record straight on where you got it. You didn’t want him thinking you were going through his stuff or anything like that, that would be so disrespectful. You literally just picked it up, and you hoped he would understand that. 

“Sorry, it was on Eiji’s floor so I assumed it was his. I’ll, uh, I’ll wash it before I leave today.” You’re leaving before he could really say anything else, knowing that Bakugou was notorious among the people who knew him for his temper and not wanting to experience his volatility over a tshirt. You don’t see the confused look on his face at how quickly you left, nor do you hear the disappointed sigh that leaves the blonde after the bedroom door shuts behind you. Your concern was removing yourself from the situation before it became a situation. 

The fabric is shed as soon as the door is closed, and you’re going back through your boyfriend’s dresser to find a shirt that you knew was his and not belonging to his boyfriend. 

“I liked that one on you baby,” Eijirou mumbles, propping himself up on his elbows as he watches you. “Why’d you take it off like it burned you?”

“It’s Bakugou’s, not yours.”

“What’s his is mine, and what’s mine is yours.”

“Did he also agree to that?” It’s a question you ask often, which has Eijirou sighing as he drops back into the bed. This dynamic was unique, and you never wanted to overstep or make Bakugou feel like you were trying to push him out - and you noticed that he did the same for you despite not seeming to like you much. But still, you couldn’t just wear his stuff without his explicit permission, and Eijirou had to understand that as the connecting piece of the puzzle. 

Sure, actually talking to Bakugou more and trying to develop some kind of friendship or commonality aside from who you both were dating would help, but he didn’t seem at all interested in getting to know you better so you opted to let him have space. A few of their old classmates had told you that Bakugou was a lot like an angry stray cat; you had to let him come to you and not come on too strong when he did, otherwise he’d back off immediately - which was weird initially but after being around him more it definitely made sense. He liked his space and set his boundaries, you weren’t trying to invade either.  

“Actually, since you’re up, I’m gonna head out. I’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m sure Bakugou wants some alone time with you since you stayed with me a lot last week.”

“At least stay and finish your coffee, baby. I’ll take you home after.” He sees how conflicted you are, but smiles when you pick up your coffee mug despite still standing naked in his bedroom. “I’ll find you a shirt that is mine, since I know that’ll make you feel better.”

“Thank you.”

It’s after he comes home from dropping you off that Eijirou seeks out his boyfriend. The blonde is laying in his bed, book on field tactics in hand but those amber eyes are watching the redhead as he approaches slowly before flopping onto the mattress. 

“I’ve been asked to unnecessarily apologize again for the shirt mishap this morning.”

“Wasn’t really a mishap, but okay,” Katsuki mumbles, going back to his book only to grunt when Eijirou takes it away.

“You’re not actually mad about it, are you?”

“Stupid thing to be mad about. She picked up a shirt from your floor, thinking it was yours. I didn’t think it was a big deal and if I knew she’d freak out I wouldn’t have said anything at all, since it’s a shirt.”

There’s a pause, the two men looking at each other before Eijirou gives the book back with a sigh. 

“Why doesn’t she like me?”

“She doesn’t not like you. She just doesn’t know how to talk to you, since you don’t really talk to her.” The explanation has the blonde nodding, setting his book to the side to allow Eijirou to cuddle closer. “She knows there’s mutual respect, and doesn’t think that you don’t like her. But, she’s afraid of overstepping a boundary with you and doesn’t want you feeling like she’s trying to push you out, so she keeps her distance when I let her.”

“Do I need to say sorry for anything?”

“No, but I think you should try to get to know her better, it’ll help you both.” The suggestion makes Katsuki grunt again, a more thoughtful grunt than the annoyed one from earlier. There was a valid point there, Eijirou’s girlfriend would only feel more comfortable with him if he talked to her more than just greetings in passing and updates on injuries whenever they occurred. Things like shirts picked off the floor wouldn’t feel so big to her if she just…knew him better. A concept. “You guys have a lot in common, and I think you’d be good friends if not more.”

Katsuki elects to ignore the “more” aspect of the statement and only nods, knowing that if the dynamic was going to stay healthy then there needed to be healthy communication between all three parties. She deserved better than to walk on eggshells around him, and he really didn’t want to make this more difficult for them all than it already was, but he wasn’t good at people.

That’s what he got for dating a people-person.

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

SAY THE PARASOCIAL THING SAY IT

Aksjfhk okay

This got super long but basically I was thinking about that post about Phil being more open in his boundaries and I think he actually always has been! More under the cut

I think Phil has actually always been more self-assured in his interactions with the audience and I have some idea(?) of why that is. Phil has been around forever on YouTube, he is kind of a performer in a very classical way. You can see this in like how he carries himself in his liveshows, using very basic tenets of performance that we're taught like face the audience always and fill up any lulls in the conversation. There is always a screen between the creator and the audience, of course there is. But the culture we see now of internet celebrities and their audiences having very little boundaries because of how accessible creators have become to audiences wasn't as prominent back then. You understood as a creator that your audience will make whatever they want of what you're saying and you can't account for any bad faith readers. Phil always came across to me as someone who knew how much he wanted to put out there and was self assured in it. He doesn't feel the need to clarify stuff, and likewise engages with fandom in a similar good faith. What goes on in his life and what informs his thoughts, beyond what he shares, is none of our business, that was an understood thing and he's left it at that. And what fandom talks about, how we interpret stuff, how we do our parasocial shit is also not meant to be more than a performance, it isn't supposed to Say Something Serious about the creators, which is also understood. And though of course audience interactions started getting wildly out of hand some years after Phil started posting, he still is a product of a time where that wasn't how things are meant to be and he maintains that distance with ease. Thinking about stuff like draw Phil naked where he engaged with it in good humour, or how he didn't mind having sponsorships and clickbait titles because there's an implicit understanding that this is All A Performance so he doesn't have to try and "act authentic". There's a confidence he has in his role as an entertainer, and that informs how he interacts with us. (also I had expressed this all much better earlier but Tumblr ate it up so now I have to type it again sorry if this reads weird ;-;)

On the other hand, Dan seems to worry about all that stuff a Lot More. (And I was apprehensive about saying this so I thank anon here for allowing me to say my parasocial shit XD) And the thing is, the reason I notice that is Because I am literally like Dan about that stuff when interacting with an audience (I did some videos as well yeah, but also when I've organised events that I had to host, or presented poetry somewhere, etc etc) where I constantly feel the need to qualify everything I say and do very worried I'll come off as being maliciously bad, or even perceived as being a certain way or having a certain tone when I don't. I find it in rather positive ways with Dan too (like correcting language in old videos or pulling them off when there's something in there that aged badly or could be seen in bad taste). But other times I see reflected in him my own tendency to overcompensate (self referencing how he is making Easy-Content a la 'some shit a youtuber would do', making sure he doesn't come across as having the wrong political opinions by stressing on his principles when something like that comes up 'don't settle for neoliberalism' ((also he is totally correct and I actually do love those clarifications just fyi)) )

You can see this play out so well that time when Phil accidentally says 'cockies' instead of 'cookies' and Dan makes a 'cut that out' motion and Phil just laughs about it and corrects himself and Dan goes "Are you keeping that in??"

There's probably a lot of factors to why they have those particular styles of interacting, and really there's merit to both. Phil knows where the boundaries are and ever since him just speaking random shit hasn't had the extra issue of possibly outing Dan before he's ready, Phil has just gotten even more open with how he speaks, but I truly think he doesn't care as much what we think about him. It's like, what's going on in his life is none of our business and what we're making out of our parasocial relationship with him is none of his business, which is a great way of approaching being a creator and unfortunately something that is becoming less and less of an option as the culture shifts completely with generations that have been within this internet creator culture since they were born.

Dan having entered the scene later on when this kind of culture had started (plus of course his own issues that did Not help the situation) means that it made sense for him to approach us with that bit of hesitancy and that he continues to do so. I know I have that hesitancy about how I word things because I've also seen people be taken out of context and treated in really bad faith and that is a completely understandable thing to take into consideration.

But yeah Phil being the "quiet one" has never really meant that he is less certain/more shy to me, personally, I think he is an incredibly professional entertainer is the thing and I love love love that about him because he's of a dying species in the current climate.

[feraliminal]

Cross-Faction Diplomacy

Titan TV tries to give Titan Speaker reassurance, but makes things worse. They both use various forms of communication to calm down. Ship-ish, but with plausible deniability.

I’m back from a super busy week and I want to start turning some of my (many) scraps into actual fic! This was inspired by speculation on how the Alliance communicate and think, and an essay on consciousness called “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” which concludes that you can’t know unless you are one.

—

“Why did you call me? Is that it?” The TVmen’s titan gestured across the hill range from where they stood with the speakermen’s titan, towards a very tiny, very new base. It was a few floodlights casting a glow over a few shipping containers, and a few speakermen on night watch, instead sitting on their arses and playing cards. This was exactly what they’d expected to see, no surveillance system had picked up anything more interesting than a few wandering toilets for miles, at least none that they had access to. But they also suspected it was worth keeping up appearances - two things could be happening, either the speakermen had picked up something big on surveillance that wasn’t linked to the Alliance’s general network -

- or their titan had pulled off a sneaky social call

“Strategic importance, and we’ve only got to make sure nothing happens until everything else arrives in a few hours.” Titan Speaker insisted through a speech transmission, using their faction’s habit of transmitting emotion data as well. In this case, it was something like you trust me, right? “And nothing else is happening.”

The emotion thing, Titan TV found hard to know what to do with. TVs didn’t do it, unless they really meant it. Or were trying to convince someone they really meant it. It was difficult to know if and how to respond, and they recalled Polycephaly describe addressing those kind of differences as cross-faction diplomacy - and as a pain in the arse. They switched to transmission too, encrypting it in case anyone at the base was feeling nosey. “Sure. What’s this really about?”

“Seriously?” Titan Speaker made a dismayed buzz. “You aren’t supposed to say that.”

“What was I supposed to say?” It seemed obvious that this was a way to justify an in-person chat without factions having to figure out a playdate protocol. But with the spectre of cross-faction diplomacy hanging over them, Titan TV tried to do the emotion thing. It didn’t work. Sincerity somehow became contempt-fondness. You’re an idiot but I like you hadn’t been the intent, but it was sincere.

The speakers’ titan tilted their head, lights shimmering a little brighter. “I guess you weren’t supposed to do that either,” they teased. “I thought you’d think meeting to talk is a waste of time, but…?”

“If you need to say it in person, I trust it’s important.” A dozen possibilities, and none particularly easy to contemplate. The TVs’ titan noticed they were shifting their balance a little, foot to foot, and stopped it.

Transmitting uncertain-awkward-worried, Titan Speaker looked out towards the little base, then up at the night sky, as if the words they were looking for were floating around. “Not important, I just… I dunno. I want to ask something first. Does it now feel like there’s more than one… uh, you?” They gestured with their finger, as if drawing an air-circle around the other titan’s primary and secondary screens.

“No, not a lot different. My conscious processing is more or less the same, just spread out and harder to kill.” Not a lot different was still different - the first time they’d switched from automated to conscious control of their secondary heads was an experience they still hadn’t entirely come to terms with and didn’t want to revisit just yet. Not while they needed to be in the here and now for whatever was going on in Titan Speaker’s own head. “Are you thinking about upgrades?”

“No. Well, yeah, maybe one day. But I asked because I’m thinking about weird brain stuff.” Wrapping their arms around themself, the speakers’ titan crouched down on their heels. They started to transmit something, a jumbled, ghostly kind of feeling, then paused. “Okay, I called you to talk about…”

But they didn’t. They stayed silent, on comms and audio.

The TVs’ titan noticed where the pools of light cast by the pair’s respective glowing components overlapped. The new outpost sat in its own pool of light downhill, part of a landscape of similar little points of light that made their mental map of the Alliance’s networks mirror the night sky. In the outpost, the guards were swapping tunes. Twenty miles away, a turret was dealing with one of those wandering toilets, the only other thing remotely interesting happening. Titan Speaker’s glow was receding “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Titan Speaker flopped back off their heels into a slumped seated position, and signed ‘No shit.’ Then, when their companion turned their main screen to watch, ‘Sorry, do you understand this? I’ve never seen a TV do it.’

“We understand it, we don’t tend to use it ourselves.” It was one of (many) indicators of how well the speakermen and cameramen had managed to operate as one, and their people hadn’t. “Use it if you need to, I can try too.”

‘Thanks. You don’t have to, it’s dark and my vision’s low resolution, so if you’re not used to sign…’ The speakermen’s titan shrugged, paused again, and with a might-as-well-go-for-it burst, quickly signed, ‘Being able to remember what I did when I was infected is still freaking me out and I want to know what you make of it. I know it’s not the same, but it’s all weird brain stuff and you’re the weird brain stuff faction.’

It was difficult to reconcile the ridiculousness of being called the weird brain stuff faction with the desperation in the request. Titan TV felt their screens flickering and needed to make an effort to hold back whatever might leak into the transmission. “You need to ask your science team.”

‘I don’t mean that, I don’t mean what happened to me, but what happened to me.’ They emphasised the last sign with a sharper movement, and had stopped transmitting emotion. The TVs’ titan supposed it was for similar reasons that they’d chosen not to - this needed straightforward discussion now and a fuckton of firepower later, save the anger for then. ‘They said it wasn’t me, but I was there, the parasite made me do it and I did it, it’s like, now I know I can do that, I can’t trust me not to do it again.’ They paused. ‘I haven’t asked again. I didn’t want to freak them out as well.’

“That was your body, and your body saved data. The intrusive thoughts are probably just subconscious metacognition systems sorting it all out. Really, ask someone, engineers think about this stuff so we don’t have to.”

Titan Speaker shifted to stare straight at their bigger companion, signing more slowly with a perceptible shake in their hands. ‘Me is also what my body does.’

The Alliance had shared (heavily redacted) schematics for the titans across faction borders, so Titan TV knew that what their companion was perceiving. Audio data and electromagnetic signature first, then visual data was a secondary source. But still, they angled their side-screens to illuminate their body and softened all their lights to reduce glare. Even with simulation or data transference, it would be impossible to know what it was really like to inhabit Titan Speaker’s perceptual space, with all its memories, meanings, metacognition. And even if visual data wasn’t that important, considering it was part of how Titan TV showed respect from their own perceptual space. “It won’t happen again. That was not you in any meaningful sense of what you are.”

‘I’m tired of everyone saying that.’ The speakermen’s titan rocked forward to crouch on their heels again, made an intention movement to stand that didn’t go further than a twitch, and clasped their arms around themself. They switched to comms again, and the transmission came out cracked with static. “I thought you, of all people, would get that. Everyone’s telling me it didn’t happen but… I was forced to kill my friends and I just… I just want to be allowed to feel like shit about it.” They let out a distorted audio “Fuck.”

“Fuck.” Titan TV echoed that statement, in reverse.

Neither of them had much to say right after that. There wasn’t really else that could be said. The TVs’ titan watched their companion looking up at the stars, softly illuminating their own little patch of red light. They uncoiled, slightly, from their gargoyle crouch, still hunched but dropping on to their knees.

No longer bothering to keep their slight swaying motion in check, Titan TV offered, “We need to get out of here. There’s a suspected underground lair, you’ll be able to locate it, and we’ll blow the roof off. I don’t have clearance to investigate yet, but two of us will be more than enough to overcome anyone’s concerns about risk.”

The sag in Titan Speaker’s shoulders was unexpected. “No. I’m not outsourcing my shit, not to my engineers and definitely not to everyone else by sneaking off.” But not nearly as unexpected as what they shared when they were the first to use emotive comms again. No anger, just sadness, confusion, and grief. Uncoiling a little more, they signed ‘Stay here. Sit with me.’

It wouldn’t have felt right to say no to this poor creature who’d sooner arrange an awkward clandestine meeting with someone they, really, barely knew than upset their friends. Titan TV shook their primary head with exasperation, and settled down cross-legged on the hillside. Titan Speaker watched, looked away and signed something to themself, then did an ungainly shuffle-flop to move right beside them.

They both took their time to adjust to the dissonance of this whole thing, pinging little status requests and presence acknowledgments at each other until they realised that they no longer needed to and had been enjoying doing it just for the sake of it. The speakermen’s titan trilled their approval and did a tiny wriggle.

“I like watching you move,” Titan TV commented.

‘I like that you moved your screens so I could see you better. Can I lean on you?’

“Yes.” Titan TV’s side-screen was obscured by the smaller titan moving closer and working out how best to arrange their speaker array, finally settling in and gently nudging their head against the screen casing. Making an adjustment themself, the TV leaned in little too. Staying had been the right decision, providing a few stabilising moments for both of them.

When they leaned back, the TVmen’s titan thought they felt something that could have just been an artefact of their movements, but it was a bit too persistent for that. Suspecting what it was, they inclined their primary head against the top of their companion’s array, and there it was - a barely perceptible vibration that was becoming more noticeable until it somehow managed to travel through their body and into the ground under them. It made their vision blur very slightly at the edges, but otherwise didn’t feel unpleasant. “Purring?” they rumbled, purr-like themself.

“You don’t mind it?” There was a new contentment in the speaker titan’s transmission, and the vibrations became a little wobbly. Signing would be tricky in this position, but they were making the most of that by sharing emotive comms freely. “Kind of. I’m just… feeling everything. Grounding myself. No sense of impending doom?”

“That’s oddly specific. Infrasound?” What Titan TV felt as a vibration was likely composed of echolocation and electrolocation and, being too low frequency to be useful for scanning, the infrasound component was probably just there for communication or self-soothing. They found it fun (if a little tragic) to imagine someone, possibly the cameramen’s titan, getting creeped out by an overenthusiastic purr. Cross-faction diplomacy again. “We use it too. Although admittedly not for purring.”

“For…?” Titan Speaker looked up, blinking their lights at their companion, who went ‘ ≽^•⩊•^≼ ‘ and said “Slaughter.”

“Terrifying.” They’d both aimed for a deadpan delivery - but it was interrupted for the better by the speaker titan’s failed attempt to suppress a squeaky giggle.

“You’re terrifying, you see sound and your idea of grounding is making the earth shake.” The TVmen’s titan wondered if speakermen were able to perceive the world as assemblages of vibrating particles. It was one thing to have the knowledge of that, it must be unsettling to really feel it. There was a lot to learn about the other factions, and their titans. “You’re well worth my time. We’re a sample size of three, and should be sharing data.”

With an affectionate hum, Titan Speaker bumped their head against the bigger titan’s chest and released a silent burst of something that interrupted their train of thought as well as their vision, and really did feel as if it had made the earth shake for a split second. A mischievous confirmation of you bet I’m terrifying.

“I’ll find something really strategically important next time.”

[babycharmander]

If you’re like me and you never learned a whole lot about cooking from your parents and, when you have to cook for yourself, found yourself cooking the same one or two things constantly or just eating a lot of foods that can quickly be cooked in the microwave or oven, here’s a tip I’ve learned to branch out more:

Be curious, and trust yourself a little.

Cuz, here’s the thing—if you let yourself occasionally wonder “huh, I wonder if I could make that,” there’s a very good chance that, yes, you can!

For ages when I had to cook for myself, I would often just make spaghetti or some kind of canned food or order out or whatever, because I didn’t know how the crap to cook. It especially didn’t help that when I tried to learn to cook by watching my parents, I learned bad habits like “eyeball the amount of ingredients instead of following the goshdanged instructions” which led me to, for a short period, freak out whenever I tried to make myself a box of mac n cheese.

Yes, I was that bad. But if I was that bad and got better, then you probably could, too.

The thing is, at the time, I kindof saw cooking as a magic thing that only skilled people knew how to do. Several of my family members are very very good cooks—good to the point where they didn’t always have to rely on recipes. I thought you had to be able to guesstimate or eyeball accurately all the time in order to cook at all.

But eventually, I started to just look at the recipes, trust there was not some magic skill there that I lacked, and do it. As dumb as this sounds, I know one of the things it started with was the aforementioned mac n cheese—rather than trying to guess or eyeball everything like my mom did, I just… followed what the box said for the amount of butter and milk to add, and what do you know? It turned out fine.

Beyond that, I also started to let myself be curious about foods—both in trying new ones and just in wondering if I could make them.

One day I ran across an animated recipe video for banana bread. I’d never made it or even eaten it before, but it was during lockdown and I had little else to do, and I realized I had all the ingredients on hand and thought “huh, why not” and gave it a whirl. Turns out it was very simple, fun to make, and tasted good! I’ve made banana bread muffins many time since then.

Another time I got a random YouTube video recommendation for a “3-minute breakfast” which turned out to be chilaquiles. I’d never even heard of that before, but I thought “well, making breakfast in 3 minutes sounds nice” so I watched the video. The ingredients all sounded like stuff I would like, so I decided to give it a swing and made half a recipe. It has since become one of my favorite things to make for breakfast.

Instances like this opened me up to being more curious about recipes. Sometimes I run across an interesting food video and try making the dish alongside it, other times I think of a food I’d had or heard of but never made before and go “huh, I wonder if I could make that.”

Sometimes the answer is “no.” There’s been times I’ve failed, or where I just did not like a recipe. But far, FAR more often, the answer is “yes,” and I learn something new I can enjoy!

(On top of that, there’s the added benefit of learning that there’s certain foods you like better when YOU prepare them yourself. I used to not particularly enjoy homemade hamburgers until I realized it was entirely the way my parents made them—through trial and error I’ve learned the ways I enjoy them the most!)

If you’re scared of messing up, look up simple recipes online or in cookbooks. (Libraries, if you have access to them in your country, can have a TON of different cookbooks to look through!) Starting with simple, easy recipes can help you build confidence.

If you’re scared of winding up with a food you won’t like, look for recipes for foods you’ve enjoyed previously, and try making those.

If you want something new but are still worried about not liking it, instead of looking at the finished product, look at the ingredients. I’ve found new foods I enjoy just by looking at the ingredients of different recipes and going “oh, yeah, I know I like all of most of the stuff that’s in here, so I’ll probably like this too.” Most of the time, I’ve been right!

If you’re feeling a bit braver and want to try something you’ve never had before, check out how much the ingredients cost first and decide if you’re willing or able to risk that. If so, go for it! You might find something new you really enjoy!

I know this isn’t particularly groundbreaking advice, but man I wish I’d been told it back when I was a young adult, or even a teenager. I hope this helps… someone out there.

[digenerate-trash]

hi!! that post about every character having yandere potential was super cool. can you talk about more characters?? you got me very interested in that now. :D

Yes!! Yes please I love talking about my stupid ideas-

Gonna start off with the school love intrests because they're easy and I know them the most. ( But if you want me to get to some real heavy hitters like outside love intrest baliey harper and that let me know)

First off of course there's kylar and he's kinda your classic yandare trope stereotypical in every way. Obsessive stalker vibes. But honestly I think he could be really amped up if he was more aggressive. He's got a real OwO soft boy ascetic and a need to be acknowledged that's nice and the jealousy meter is a nice touch but I'm disapointed that he seems to give up really easily.

Whitney just beats him up in the caf and he folds like a paper bag. When your alone he watches you but doesn't aproch. He kidnapps you one time. Then if you decide to ditch him and keep up with your regular shenanigans he doesn't even try again??

Like he's a little lack luster. His pathetic deminer is cute and all but he's supposed to be a ride or die type and he's not delivering to well. But he's still an yan so that's good.

Talked about syd in the other post so I'll leave it for now.

Robin has some real platonic yandare stuff going on and at high confidence he has some real obsessed with keeping you stuff going on. I feel like theyll never reach violent yandare statice like the other characters even when pushed but they have this vibe about them that I never really could shake off.

Robin cares about your life and everything personal about you. They want you to be safe and perfect. And in connection to you they also want to be perfect. Like childhood sweethearts.

Robin is always clawing for a way to never sexualy exploit anyone. They're a big fan of concent but it doesn't mean he won't go behind your back to make sure you're taking care of yourself. Robin is pretty soft for a yandare but something is telling me that they're biding their time a bit. Even if it takes a while.

Lastly whitney- I'm a big fan so this is gonna be biased but whitney is a violent yan bossed with power dynamics and you as the player. He's constantly showing off infront of students and even his friends that he has access to you at any time. Some of his scenes even say so. Like when he cornners you in a class room with his friends and tells you "don't worry they won't touch you I told them not too" or when you're dragged into a class room against your will and one of the students points out that your Whitney's property. And they scurry off.

Whitney also comes to the orphanage and offers to buy you. Like this dude is obsessed with the idea of owning you. Physicly mentally and emotionally. Controlling weather your life at school is plagued by bullying or not. He controls that. And by extention you. Even when your traveling alone around the streets and he spots you your instantly cornered. He doesn't even give it a second thought. This dude is a violent yandare and I can't express it enough. I also love him.

[fallloverfic]

Solo Leveling Episode 7 Thoughts

Excellent ep!!! Spoilery thoughts for the anime, novel, and manhwa below, CW: blood:

Jinwoo and Jinah are so cute together T-T I love them being close sibs. I mean obviously he helped essentially raise her since he was 14, when their dad disappeared and their mom was too ill to do everything, and then fully did so after he graduated because their mother was comatose, and I just... think about that a lot. This kid who has to raise another kid and never got to finish being a kid himself and had to immediately go into the workforce and give up going to university and he just wants her to have the opportunities he didn't and I just T-T

I feel like I accidentally am vibing with this because I got fried chicken on the way home from errands today, completely unaware this was going to be in the episode.

I love Jinah asking about him and how he's doing. Makes up for calling him a cheapskate >.< I mean to be fair to her, I grew up in a household that struggled for money and I was completely clueless about why we often didn't get stuff, though my parents really tried to spoil us to the extent they could. I do get it. It's realistic in my experience to react this way, especially when the younger person is kept clueless about finances. It's just T-T sometimes. But I do love that she cares about his mental health.

Jinwoo just processing his first murder(s) essentially alone cause he certainly didn't confide in Jinho and he is the older brother with a sister in high school who is just living a normal life and wants her to be happy and so cannot confide in Jinah and it kills me he kind of doesn't do this with anyone, ever T-T Sort of when the Hunters manager warns him, but not on an emotional level. I mean to be fair he's also kind of just, "I resented them for thinking they had a chance against me," which is pretty dark lol But he's obviously really conflicted about that cause these were humans.

Jinwoo has one goal and that is protecting the people he loves. He's pragmatic. I think it's interesting he doesn't focus as much on "they tried to kill me multiple times, it was self-defense and defense of another person". Just... "My family is what's important and I'd do it again if I have to." Which, yes, that's a consideration you can have.

I mean he "could" have incapacitated the Lizards, maybe, rather than killing them, but he's not trained to do that, lacked equipment for it, and in the moment it's hard to process that. It just bothers me he doesn't really do any actual emergency training or whatever other than just building up muscle, EXP, and fighting/movement skills. Even his healing solution is just... shove a potion in people's mouths and it's unclear if he has literally any training in first aid of any kind outside that time he helps Song Chiyul wrap his arm.

Also Jinwoo is still really cute :3 He's animated well.

Hehe learning about the detox, poor guy lol I honestly do love the detail that the system detects alcohol as a harmful substance. It's fun when stories add it in.

Jinah worried about him drinking too much T-T They love each other T-T I love themmm

(just skip down three paragraphs if you don't care about my rant about cellphones lol)

One criticism I have because I always focus on the appearance or absence of mobile phones in modern stories where they should be there: the novel focuses a decent amount on how Jinwoo's cellphone broke in the double dungeon, and he has to get a replacement specifically from the Korean Hunter's Association, and that is completely absent from both the manhwa and the anime, and the anime is compensating weirdly. The novel explains, "Hunter-issue smartphones used specialized technology, so Jinwoo had to put in a request directly with the association." (Vol 1, Chapter 4). So the phone does more than just allowing the Hunter's Association easy access to hunters (I think at one point it's shown it works inside the dungeons, when most technology does not, so I imagine it's powered somehow by mana/essence stones). Jinwoo doesn't have the money to speed up the process, so he has to wait for multiple weeks for them to provide him with a new one, and he forgets to take care of it until I think after he's out of the hospital, so that puts off the process even longer. This means: the association cannot contact him except via landline, and anyone with his cell number cannot do so either, unless, presumably, they have his landline number. In the novel, Jinwoo demands an explanation from Jinho for how Jinho has the number on the presumed landline (it's just called "phone" in the Yen press English translation, I don't know why he wouldn't have his cellphone if he has one in the anime outside his bedroom where Jinah is, and I can't imagine Jinho getting Jinah's cell number, or why the Association would have it other than maybe as an emergency contact, which, again, why would he get that number and I feel like Jinwoo would kill him if he did lol), and Jinho explains that he knows someone at the Association.

Most of this revolves initially around various people trying to contact Jinwoo during this non-cellphone time and not getting to him because he literally does not have a phone and, presumably, they don't have his landline number. The nurse whose number he got tries to contact him via his mobile and nearly gives up by the time he gets his phone back to see her messages. Like many related subplots, this is also part of showing that Jinwoo is just... bad at keeping in touch with people lol (I mean he explains, sadly, in the novel, "No one ever calls me anyway." (Vol 1, Chapter 4). But he gave this woman his number and ultimately decides to ignore her/not respond when he sees all the messages she sent him rather than saying literally anything like, "Sorry I was out of touch" or whatever, or just politely turning her down. He does this for most people: most of his interaction with his cellphone is to decide not to use it lol I can see why the manhwa dropped this plot nearly entirely (except for a later modification, which I really like) because it feels clunky. But it creates this weird scenario where... it's South Korea, Jinwoo doesn't have a ton of money but he's doing fine-ish enough to have a giant TV and a computer, and he needs his phone for work. Phones and mobile phones in particular exist in the anime (e.g., we see Woo Jinchul use one, Dongsoo crushes one). So one would ask: why does he not have a cellphone (and when/how did Jinho get his number)? And unrelated: why doesn't his email almost ever get used? The webnovel released in 2016, both would have been commonplace things then; I mean the guy goes onto a forum to ask if other people have leveled up in the novel; it would have been a lot simpler to have Jinho send him an email, though I guess I appreciate the added Jinwoo & Jinah bonding created by keeping this to some extent.

It doesn't ultimately matter in the grand scheme of things. It was really one of the weaker elements of the story and it's really incredibly minor. I can, again, see why the manhwa dropped it and why the anime is side-stepping it when considering what to adapt. But anyway, that was my aside of "how cellphone usage/lack of it when it should be there changes stories". (Also for the record, I think it's good he didn't respond to the nurse, in the end, because that entire plotline is really creepy and probably violates some ethics, but it's also so completely unnecessary).

Jinho pointing out the fight with the Lizards was self-defense :3 Good!

The "this cafe sells coffee" glamour shots are making me laugh, I don't know why lol

One thing that's always intrigued me with this series, and I don't know if this is common to the genre or something, maybe it is, is how much buildings are used as collateral. Like it is a simple truth that buildings are a very core part of value for wealthy people and organizations. Real estate is where big money is made. A lot of people in power literally control large chunks of your local real estate. But a similar story would probably just say like... "I can wire x money to you as needed". Instead this just upfront goes, "I'm rich, but here's this really big money item you could have: a building." It's just neat.

O.o Jinwoo doesn't take Jinho's offer. That's interesting. He does take the offer in both the novel and the manhwa, so I'm unsure about why the change? Maybe it combines into his realization that he needs to level up to face enemies past Cerberus and Jinho is a convenient way to do that.

Dongsoo's Japanese voice actor (Junichi Suwabe) has too pretty a voice for Dongsoo alkdjaldja Like he sounds unfairly beautiful aldkjalalkj (Unsurprising for the guy who voiced Viktor in Yuri on Ice) I don't precisely know what I expected him to sound like, and I'd love to see who they picked for the Korean dub, but alkdjal dang. To be fair... he did also voice Jaeha in Yona of the Dawn, and Grimmjow in Bleach, so I'm not that surprised the actor sounds good... I just. Wow. Salud. I don't know that this works for Dongsoo (at least for me) but he does at least sometimes play annoying dudes lol (I love you Jaeha and Grimmjow, and Viktor and Oda, but still aldkjalj).

Stop fatshaming your sister Jinwoo. You deserved that kick even if you did not at all feel it.

Bonding time ruined T-T

The way the buttons on the system get clicked is such a satisfying look/sound.

O.O oh, Jinwoo's learning about the Elixir of Life way early. That's intriguing! In the novel and manhwa he doesn't learn until way later. The anime is really focusing overall on making his goal centrally about caring for his family rather than more about improvement for the sake of improvement (I mean in the novel it feels kind of like 60/40 trade-off with the former being improvement). I get why the change: it makes him more sympathetic. And it also makes him look less strange for trying this difficult dungeon early, and for why he focuses so hard on getting back to it, even before he knew about the elixir. Also gives him a solid goal for season 2.

The gentle piano is lovely, and really sets the mood well. Jinwoo has a lot on the line: his mother's health, caring for his sister, beyond his own survival. The juxtaposition is really good.

As someone who loves Greek myths, I have seen a lot of designs for Cerberus (I have two plushie three-headed dogs, including the Cerberus from Hades the video game). Can't say I'm a fan of this design lol It's fine. It's functional. It's a very good remake of the manhwa design. I guess it just... didn't look as eh. It moves well and works, and the team did a good job. I think just... seeing more of it highlights how I really don't care for the design lol Dubu/the team were really good at designing some monsters, but not others.

The fight is really amazing and well-paced, though. Though it's an interesting change that the system is the one reminding Jinwoo about the gland during this fight, rather than him doing it on his own (he figures it out after discovering the detox in both the novel and manhwa). I like him making the connection on his own. Jinwoo can be a little thick a lot, but he is pretty intelligent, and that was one of his smarter moments. Ah well.

Will never get tired of his eyes glowing in shots. His wounds steaming as they heal is also a neat effect.

He's getting the Elixir of Life recipe early too :3 That makes sense. Would be weird if they bring that up early and don't reference it again for... goodness I don't even know that they'll come back to it before the season ends. I don't think we will, because I wouldn't be surprised if the season ends with the Igris fight. But it gives something to look forward to for maybe season 2.

Also he gets the dog collar :3 BUT... like the manhwa we don't see him put it on lol In the novel he's really nervous about people seeing him wear it, but canonically speaking, particularly since he never seems to take his armor off other than to exchange it for improved gear, he puts this on and wears an invisible dog collar through a good chunk of the story (until he gets a better neckpiece) lol Love it. Ah well. Would have been funny to see animated but they are generally sticking to the manhwa, so. It would be funny if I was proven wrong <.< Have him put on the collar, anime!!

All in all, a really good episode, with some great animation, some more lovely music, and some lovely moments between Jinwoo and Jinah. This continues the trend of modifying stuff in interesting ways. Looking forward to episode 8!

More episode thoughts:

S01E05

S01E06

S01E07 (you are here)

S01E08

S01E09

S01E10

S01E11

S01E12

[lesvegas]

My Beginner/Newbie Guide to Neopets

Never used the site before in your life but wanna check it out? Just logged into your old account and wanna get back into it? Saw my promo and wanna take advantage of it? Wanna make loads of neopoints? As someone with about 20mil in the bank I can't guarantee following my advice will make you MEGA rich but I can get you pretty close with pretty minimal effort.

TL;DR do your dailies and invest in stocks (it's way easier than it sounds, idk shit about real life stocks)

(And before I hear any "isnt neopets run by scientologists" the answer is no, it never was, neopets.com once fell into a company that was run by a scientologist for about a year back in the early 2000s)

Guide below the cut!

THE MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE TO TAKE FROM THIS GUIDE:

Spin Trudy's Surprise wheel every day (link here)

Invest in stocks (guide here)

Do whatever dailies you want (link here)

Use Jellyneo's item database to search/price anything (link here)

This guide assumes you've already made an account, a pet, and have about 2000np (given to every new account) to spend, and that you're currently logged in (you'll need to be for most of these links).

Confused by the site layout? No idea where to go? No worries, I'll link just about everything you need here.

DISCLAIMER: There's a lot of stuff I DON'T do, but if there's something that interests you, go ahead and try it!! I just do the bare minimum when it comes to dailies lol

~~Dailies~~

If you clicked on this link, you're probably already overwhelmed by the sheer number of dailies your expected to do. The good news is, I don't do at least half of these. Most of these aren't worth your time or points and I only really do easy 1-click dailies that net me free shit. I'll show you exactly which ones those are.

Let's start with the Classics-

I've already gone ahead and erased the ones a new account will never have to worry about.

These are the priority freebie dailies you should be doing each day when you can. Lemme explain what each one does:

Soup Kitchen: Until you have 3000np, you can feed your pets here for free!

Free Jelly: One free jelly (worth 2 meals) each day

Giant Omelette: One free omelette (worth 3 meals) each day

Interest @ Bank: You can collect interest on your bank account each day (you need a bank account, I'll explain later)

Money Tree: Free stuff people throw away, guide further down

Trudy's Surprise: Free neopoints daily

Monthly Freebies: Once a month, not daily, free 2000np and food

Obsidian Quarry: One free piece of obsidian daily. I just sell them for 1np a piece to get people coming to my shop

Apple Bobbing: Free item daily (small chance to lose an item or nps)

Anchor Management: Free item daily

Mysterious Negg Cave: Solve a puzzle for a free item (solver here)

Grave Danger: Petpet required. Send it down into the catacombs daily to find items.

These are all the easiest of the dailies. Next up we have

The Wheels-

Yes, just these wheels, because none of the scratchcards are worth trying to me. I've never won anything good from them. These wheels are all relatively low-cost, but if you only wanted to pick ONE, do the Wheel of Mediocrity. I've found it has the highest return for the cost.

Also, the Wheel of Monotony can go for literal hours. I tend to let it go in a muted tab and do other stuff in the meantime. Anyway, next is

Win NPs, Items, Stats-

I've erased anything that takes too much time, doesn't work cause flash, can only be accessed at certain times, or isn't newbie accessible. I'll elaborate on the rest;

Tombola: Draw a ticket and win a prize (free)

Deserted Tomb: Go into a tomb and potentially find treasure (may hurt your neopet)

Fruit Machine: One free spin per day for fruit

Coltzan's Shrine: One of the best dailies. Potentially increases stats, gives NP or items

Kreludor Meteor: Free items when it works

TDMBGPOP: Free items (usually plushies) or NPs

Underwater Fishing: Free fish or fishing-related items

Forgotten Shore: Requires treasure map (guide here)

Healing Springs: Heals your pets or gives you an item. Can be done every 30mins. I recommend coming here last to heal pets after some dangerous dailies. You can also come here every 30mins if your pet is sick until they're cured.

These are also good, easy freebies I recommend doing daily. Personally I also use the Battledome but that's because I've actually trained one of my pets to fight. Now for the

Pay NPs and Win-

No, really, that's it.

Okay, I also personally do Cheeseroller, and I used to do more carnival games when they worked, but these are the only ones you really need to worry about in this section.

Faerie Caverns, Test Your Strength, and Pick Your Own are simple games where you can win NPs and items.

Garage Sale is a shop where most items are sold below market value. Great for reselling.

Bargain stocks are cheaper than regular stocks and are only for poor/new users.

And what about

Other Neopets Stuff To Do-

A lot less intimidating now, huh?

Most things in this section are just... things to do. Things that aren't all that profitable. These four are the only ones you should bother with if your priority is getting NPs.

Symol Hole requires a PetPet. You can win items, but this is rare.

Stock Portfolio... I'll get into that soon. But this is important.

Trading Post is where you go to offload tons of junk, get tons of junk, buy/sell anything worth more than 999999np, and find good deals

Employment Agency is where you take jobs that involve finding and buying a certain number of a particular item in a certain timeframe. I only recommend this if you've become familiar with Jellyneo's item data base and the Shop Wizard.

Now what about the next sections, Quests, Competitions, and Games?

Don't worry about 'em.

When you're financially better off, you can try doing some daily Faerie quests if you want, but I don't recommend getting into them right away. Contests are cool and all, but not my thing personally, so I can't tell you much about them. As for games... most of them are still broken.

But the game Fashion Fever is an easy free 900np a day. Just wait 10 seconds before finishing the game, then send score.

Wait, how does the Stock Market work?

Great question!

The stock market is the easiest way to rack up neopoints. I can't comment on bargain stocks because I haven't done them, but I can tell you all about the regular stock market.

(You could also uh, watch this 5 minute guide here, which is how I originally learned how the stock market works)

Conceptually, you buy stocks while they're cheap, then wait until their value goes up and sell them at a high price. You can easily turn 15000np into 45000np by simply waiting.

Also, I really recommend you have 15000np before buying any stocks. Do other dailies until you have that much at least.

Your stock portfolio is here. Read the scrolling stocks at the top of the page:

Until you find a stock valued at 15np (circled above). Once you have the stock name (this one is SWNC), go to 'Buy' (right under the scrolling stocks in blue),

And buy them! Buy 1000 at a time.

15np is the LOWEST a stock can go before it's unbuyable, and you can only buy a total of 1000np per day.

Now, we just have to wait for the value to go up.

I only sell stocks once the value is +300%. SWNC is currently at 0.00% because it's worth the value I originally bought it at (15np).

Check your portfolio daily, buy new stocks when you can, sell when they're high, and sooner or later you'll be raking in hundreds of thousands of neopoints per sale!

Does Trudy's Surprise really guarantee thousands of free NPs?

Yes. No, seriously, yes.

The first time you spin the wheel, you'll probably only get about 1000np. Come back the next day, spin it again, maybe you'll get 2000np. By the end of the first week, probably 6000np.

And on day 25? 100000np. Guaranteed. Then the cycle resets to day 1, and it's back to about 1000np.

With Trudy's Surprise, you can very easily obtain around 200000np a month.

BUT. You need to spin the wheel once EVERY DAY or the counter resets and you're back to day 1 again.

There are days where I really don't feel like doing my dailies at all, but I always try to make sure I get this one in. It's absolutely worth logging it.

You mentioned a Bank Account?

If you haven't opened a bank account (for neopoints, not actual money), do so now!!

A bank will hold onto your neopoints for you so you don't lose them during random events, and you can collect interest every day. There's a cost to open and upgrade an account, but no fees besides that. The more nps in your account, the more interest you can collect! I collect about 6000np a day just from my nps sitting in my account.

Okay, I did my dailies and now I have all this stuff sitting in my inventory. Now what?

Well, you have a few options:

Use them. Food feeds your pet, books educate them, toys entertain them... before doing anything else with some items, consider if you want to use them on your pet.

Donate them. If you're completely at a loss or don't want to bother selling them, you can always donate or discard them to free up space.

Store them in your Safety Deposit Box. Got items that you think you'll use later that are currently taking up space? Store them in your SDB or Closet for now.

Trade them. Go to the trading post, browse new trades, and use these items as fodder for getting good deals. Alternatively, put them up for trade and see what people offer.

Sell them. If you haven't opened a shop yet, I highly recommend you do so. You can put items in the shop, but they won't be displayed until you've set a price. Don't know what to charge? Search the item in the Jellyneo item database to find out how much it's worth!

Why even do any of this?

Honestly, that's up to you to decide.

Neopets is a weird site. People came for the pets, but the only ones that stayed have remained for the economy. You either find it fun or you don't, and I know it's harder when you're a beginner.

What really got me into neopets again was finding a goal. If you want to get rich, that's the one thing you need most: a goal. It could be a static number, a dream pet, a dream gallery, w/e. My first main goal was a gold paintbrush for a pet I don't even have anymore, and my current goal is 25mil in my account. After that, I think my next goal will be to access the lab ray.

If you're just starting out and don't know what you want your goal to be, I'd suggest finding that old dream pet or picking a new one here: This site shows every pet in every colour. Find one that speaks to you, find out how much the paintbrush or morphing potion or whatever method costs, and work for that.

I'm still confused/have questions.

Please feel free to DM me!! I love neopets and am trying to get more people (especially my friends) into it. I don't know everything but the least I can do is point you to a guide that can help. Don't hesitate to reach out to me!

You can also neomail me if you want <3

[cock-holliday]

hey not rly a question just saying i appreciate your 2cents on things generally. i am a gnc transfem but am really a boy more than anything so someone looking out for those of us who arent palettably feminine is rly cool of you. a lot of the stuff you mentioned in your long post just now hits at some of the stuff thats making me feel uneasy around some of my transfem friends. i fear if i was fully myself i wouldnt be accepted. i hate to feel too queer for fellow queers, but. but yea anyway most of the time ive known i was trans most of my friends had actually been trans guys so when i hear this anti transmasc rhetoric going around it makes me rly uncomfortable im sick of the idea that trans guys have it easy. its not true and not fair do you fear being not accepted by others like you too? is this normal? idk. i didnt feel this when i came out 5 years ago this is new to me

I’m really sorry you’re dealing with that, and I can relate. Essentially I came out as a binary trans person a decade ago and raced to transition as quickly as possible (it was not fast, it was slow and frustrating) and when I finally got there then I had to endure Gender Crisis 2 where I realized I wasn’t this binary gender either.

It was very difficult to sort out. Did I just not feel special enough as Gender 2? Was I faking this whole time and was really just cis? Was I detransitioning? It took a lot to figure out what I wanted, how I wanted to be seen, and to grapple with the idea that it will continue to fluctuate.

I am masc but do not consider myself a man. Boy, maybe. Do I see myself as a woman? Also no. Girl, maybe. But a masculine girl. I think my boyness is more feminine than my girlness…but still both…butch.

I am trans but not a trans woman or a trans man. While figuring myself out in round two I flirted with transmasc/transfemme as labels, but neither fit better than the other. Or maybe neither fit. I know some use transfemmemasc but idk that I like it for me. I use trans women’s shaving tips. I use trans men’s voice training tips. There are members of both camps who wouldn’t consider me one of them.

I currently work a full-time job. I cannot present or fluctuate in my presentation when I want to. We have gendered locker rooms, gendered bathrooms, my ID badge has a photo that doesn’t look like me. I think a lot about that post that’s like “I might be nonbinary but I have a job so I can’t worry about that right now.” Only, I already know I am nonbinary. I’ve already been out to a lot of people IRL. How do you put that cat back in the bag? Can you? If I was allowed to present how I want now and everyone was cool…will they still be understanding when it swings back the other way? I don’t want that sort of pressure at work.

I am lucky I have a partner who understands and likes my presentation—and spectrum of it. I have trans friends who understand or try to understand, and genderweird friends who get it. It is a bit isolating—how everything is split into one camp or another. Things I supposedly couldn’t relate to I do, things I am not meant to have experienced (or acknowledge I experience) are not welcome topics in trans discourse.

It is difficult! There are huge Boy v Girl (but make it progressive) pissing contests on tumblr and it’s very irritating how deep the anger goes. Carve room for yourself and you’re accused of belonging to the other camp, as if it really even is ‘the other’ camp, it’s the same fucking camp.

I started to identify with the word butch only in the last few years, and because my gender exploration had taken me back to the trans folks of yore. They were brash and bold and contradictory and I liked that! It made me yearn for vague labels and defiant privacy while also being unabashedly authentic! Then I learned that it still exists. It’s small, and got pushed to the fringes, sure. But I’ve only had access to the books and zines and tales of the genderweird from the internet, and to hear it resonate with so many others proves to me we’re still out there.

It’s very tough to want to be true to yourself when there is a constant pressure to conform to something. It’s doubly tough when that pressure comes from other trans people. But finding more and more people who live this way and feel this way makes me feel surer in my choice to just loudly be what I am, fuck the rest, whenever I can.

I cannot always look how I want or be seen how I want, so the spaces where I do have control I refuse to be anything other than what I am 110%

I really hope you can find more and more space that lets you exist in the grey. I hope your friends become more accepting. In the meantime and hopefully continuously in tandem—you are not alone in this experience and others out there understand what it’s like. ❤️

[nethergreatrack]

QSMP Elections

(Disclaimer, I am a Slimecicle main for the most part, I do watch other povs)

It’s interesting seeing everyone argue about what is the best policy but calling q!BBH, Gegg and q!Baghera naive for believing in revolution as opposed to fixing the system from the inside is failing to consider recent ideology promoted in leftist circles of the US about Law Enforcement. From a US perspective the idea of fixing the system from the inside could seem naive. If everyone in the federation is corrupt how could a single person fix the damage in a more effective way than a council? Also, it is very easy to point out the lack of official policies planned by Gegg, q!Baghera and q!BBH but this fails to account for the fact they (at least q!Baghera and q!BBH) only want things that people agree on. Say there was a mod they wanted to add but someone else doesn’t, they don’t know that until the council is assembled so that everyone can voice their concerns hence they can only say things they might do if agreed by the council, not what they definitely will do. For example, invisible armour (I don’t know what exact mod q!Cellbit is suggesting) might not be supported by people who enjoy duels like the q!Quackity and q!Slime one at the funeral as it gives a greater opportunity to cheat during these kind of duels. However it is the job of the candidates to make these kind of points during the debates to prevent any confusion so them not explaining a reason for not promoting a lot of their own ideas is a flaw.

Opinions on the candidates more specifically below:

Gegg/q!Slime has said that he thinks the election is rigged, which is likely a factor in him campaigning for revolution. He is also, from a meta perspective, highly likely to die and has expressed a desire to be a martyr. So him promoting this ideology allows him to continue lore if he dies too early in the electoral process. I love him as a funny little guy; even if he will likely die before the voting. Also, his stuff about burning everything is actually suspicious and I hope if he is elected he immediately becomes corrupt. If he doesn’t die and I can vote. I will probably vote for him.

I genuinely love the duo of q!Cellbit and q!Forever and I think they have a lot of great ideas, q!Cellbit acting as a shield for q!Forever is a genius strategy and they both care so much about this server and the people and eggs on it. But I don’t know why they necessarily think this is a good idea since q!Cellbit and q!Felps got close to the Federation and ended up kidnapped. Although, from a Meta perspective q!Forever is for sure a great choice. He greatly cares about the people on the server, he does so much for the community and is overall a great guy. But he also someone I don’t want anything bad to happen to. Richas has been through way too much at this point.

When thinking about q!BBH he is a great guy and friend to most of the server. I support the sharing of power. But there is one thing that worries me, this is probably a trap and q!Bad is a single parent. If this goes wrong, it is very much a concern for Dapper. But this would also be very angsty and I do like angst in moderation.

On q!Baghera, I think she is a great pick and would be a good choice. The council seems like a good idea and, much like Forever, Cellbit and BBH, she is on the server a lot and does a lot of RP. Something bad happening to her would be very angsty and there are other parents who can take care of Pomme if she ends up taken. I do think she needs to ask more people what they want if she hasn’t already due to her campaign being rooted in being a voice for the people.

I think q!Mike would also be a great choice from a Meta perspective and a lore perspective. Tazercraft having an increased access to things they might want to add to improve the server and make new events is genuinely great. It would be interesting to see how q!Mike would implement Communist ideology as well. His roleplaying is funny and I think if they went with a corruption arc he would be quite good at it. (I know I used the argument that Richas has been through enough, but I think q!Mike is more likely to be a corruption arc and do think what the Federation does with the winner will depend of which candidate wins, probably)

I think, taking into account that this whole thing is likely some kind of trap and/or rigged, q!Etoiles might actually be a good choice. He is strong and has a great desire to protect others. If this was some kind of trap then it would be greatly dramatic to have one of the strongest players be taken out or impressive to see him fight to escape. He also cares deeply about the other players and I do think he would give other players a voice while also, as president, being a target. I do think that whoever the president is (if not ElQuackity) will be a target for something.

When it comes to q!Foolish, I think he is the best choice if you want a revolution. He seems to be vaguely corrupt already and even tried to assassinate Gegg. It would be an interesting and funny arc but there would be the looming threat of q!Vegetta so the actual damage this could do might be higher than we might expect. He is also silly and already likes the Federation (or at least pretends too); so we might get funny Federation employee and q!Foolish interactions.

I don’t know a lot about q!Felps and his policies outside of the power of pasta (if I am remembering correctly) because he didn’t really get to speak much and my Wifi is pretty bad. I would love to hear more about him though and I think it would be funny if he won. I do really love pasta.

I do not want ElQuackity to win. It would probably be interesting lore wise. It would also likely lead to a revolution arc but he has less allies in terms of server members so it would be less conflict than if a revolution occurred under another candidate. Although, he is the closest to a guaranteed one if a revolution is a must.

[innytoes]

imagine Now stay with me here.

Imagine

vamipre flarrie

Okay but Carrie would be the kind of vampire that tries to become a star like every century. She's been an opera singer, stage actress, famous harp player, artist's muse, whatever tickles her fancy and gets her accolades (and also maybe riches and easy access to tasty blood snacks).

It's harder in the modern age, but also the audience and rewards are much bigger. But she has to be very careful if she wants to keep this gig up for another 500 years, so right now she's aiming for Pop Starlet in a pink wig and a lot of sparkles.

Carrie has to remind herself that no, the other Candis are human and cannot practice for 12 straight hours. Sigh.

Flynn was on another 7-soda-binge when she came across some paintings for her art history college class and lol, don't these look just like that girl on youtube trying to be the new Britney? Julie why aren't you answering I'm hilarious. Oh because it's 2am, that's fair.

She makes a tumblr post instead and it kind of goes viral so she does deeper in the rabbit hole and suddenly there's this whole conspiracy.

Carrie on the one hand is happy for the extra clicks. On the other hand, it's a liiiittle too close to the truth. So she goes to find Flynn and tell her to stop.

Showing up in someone's 7th story window does not help your "lol that pink candi girl is an immortal" case, Carrie. But Flynn is too dumbfounded to think about the whole 'don't invite them in' rule, she's more worried about WHAT THE FUCK COME INSIDE BEFORE YOU FALL TO YOUR DEATH.

Insert a very weird conversation where Carrie is trying to figure out what Flynn knows and Flynn is trying to figure out if this crazy tiktok starlet is here to murder her because she does love a good true crime podcast but she'd rather not be the subject but also Carrie is kind of hot and...

Let's just say in exchange for her secrecy and wiping all that stuff off the web, Flynn gets a hot new girlfriend and a promise to be turned into a vampire 'as soon as I decide I am at my hottest (and I don't get carded anymore)'.

[anitalenia]

hii i luv your work soo much and also the headers and the stuff you make is rlly good 😻 i was wondering if it’s too difficult to make the headers etc? specially the ones that are more like gifs? and also is it too hard to find the images? bc honestly i haven’t seen a lot of them, just wondering! i get it if you don’t want to share i just genuinely think that the work is rlly rlly good<3 (sorry for such a long ask omgg)

Omg thank you so much hi hi 🥹🥹💞💞💖💖🌸🌸 first of all thank you so much for liking my work and supporting me, I so so appreciate it ✨✨🫂🫂💐💐 And omgggg you’re making me BLUSH thank you thank you thank you for the kind words 😭😭🫂💞💞 I love when people compliment my works it makes me feel like I’m doing something right 😫💐💐 flowers for you for being so great ✨💐💐🌷🌷🌹🌹🌸🌸

To answer your question, the dividers and headers are actually very easy to make. The animated dividers I make aren’t difficult per se, they just involve a few more steps than making a normal divider does. As for my animated headers that I use for my fics or masterlists and what not those are also pretty easy. I’ll try to explain a little more about what I use in depth below. If you would like a detailed walk through explaining how I make them I could do that as well 💕 Prepare yourself, there’s a lot 😭💖

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐒 / 𝐖𝐄𝐁𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐈 𝐔𝐒𝐄 — Picsart, Pinterest, PicCollage, Vita, Polarr, GIPHY, Photopea, Etsy, DeviantArt, Phonto, ezgif.com, onlinegiftools.com, Iloveimg.com, various fancy font generators (I don’t use these anymore, I use an app now for fonts, but this is what I used to use the most), various sparkle emoji combos + decorative text ( I use this one a lot + there are a lot of symbol apps on the App Store you can download, I have two apps that I use from time to time )

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒊𝒄𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒕 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is a photo editing service / app I use to make regular dividers. They have a lot of aesthetic / cute stickers and pngs like the ones I use in a lot of my dividers. They have a transparent background option I love that makes it easy to make a divider. You can save the stickers you like to a collection and follow artists / users you like as well. I 10/10 recommend this one. They also have a bunch of photo editing software like cropping, retouching, etc. if you’re into that.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — You have to buy Picsart Pro to use a lot of the “pro quality” services, and the better quality stickers not made by an individual user (I.e. stickers Picsart itself has created) are not accessible to users not subscribed to Pro. Also, when you crop an image Picsart has a certain limit to how thin it can go, so I use an image cropping website I mentioned above Iloveimg.com. I only use Picsart for divider making purposes though so I don’t have to worry about allat. Not compatible with animation / gifs

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑬𝒕𝒔𝒚 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is one of my favorite shopping apps in general. If you don’t know about Etsy it’s a small business / individually owned business kind of shopping app. There’s a lot of different stores / sellers that sell a bunch of different things. It’s a good place to buy dividers for very cheap, less than $5 dollars, I’ve also bought pngs / stickers as well. I’ll buy a divider pack from time to time and edit them however I please. I never just buy a divider pack and claim it as my own on Tumblr, I always edit them in some way that fits more to what I want. It’s just a good starting point in my opinion. Of course, you can probably find simple dividers online, only you know what’s best for you. Also, this is just a good place for anything web related in general ( they have sticker packs, dividers, procreate brushes, decorative elements, really anything you want for a relatively small price)

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒐 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is an app for fonts. Unlike the usual fonts you see in fancy font generators (𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰, 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼, 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔, etc.) Phonto lets you upload your own fonts to use on pics. Using font websites you can upload whatever fonts you like in just a couple seconds. I personally like to use Dafont.com for my fonts. You can also use dingbat fonts / decorative element fonts. Not compatible with animation / gifs

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 ⊹₊ ⋆ Who doesn’t know Pinterest?? Literally my favorite app ever. I use Pinterest for image inspo / my aesthetic images. Here’s my Pinterest if you’re curious. This is besides the point but I used to be a Wattpad girly so I have a lot of boards relating to my past OC’s and wattpad stories (like 2016) 😭💕 You can search up literally anything / any aesthetic and the pictures / gifs that relate to it will pop up. Very easy to use and so much fun to make your own boards and stuff. I spend hours organizing my pins, I need to get back into it tbh 😿

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — Users upload a lot of fan made art that isn’t always crediting the original artists who made it. I have found some jjk fan art I use for my headers but no source as to who the original creator is. A lot of profiles do give credit tho so that’s good.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒊𝒄𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒈𝒆 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is the same service made by the people who created Picsart. I use this for many purposes. I mainly use it to combine my animated gifs with still images and combine animated dividers together with other dividers. To be honest it’s hard to explain what I use it for specifically but it’s just good for combining gifs and still images into one.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — I don’t think there is a transparent background option, so I have to use a certain website mentioned above to remove gif backgrounds. You also can’t crop the image and unless you pay for no watermark it gives you one. It saves animated dividers / gifs as videos, so I go to Ezgif to make it into a gif and crop the image to remove the watermark. Again, this one is a little hard to explain.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑽𝒊𝒕𝒂 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is a free app I use that’s a rip off of the “real app” I used to have. The “real app” started charging for its services and so I moved to this one. It’s completely the same and FREE. This is where I apply text to my gifs and add the motion to it. Like how my masterlist header is, where it spins and flips, this is the app where I apply those effects. Side note, this is a good starting app for making edit videos like you see on Tiktok. You can turn off the watermark for free.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — This app also turns gifs / animations into a video when you go to save it, so again I go to Ezgif to turn it back into a gif.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒓 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is my favorite filter app for photos. Has very aesthetic filters that I use for my still images and as of recently my Pinterest boards as well. Not compatible with animation / gifs

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑮𝒊𝒑𝒉𝒚 ⊹₊ ⋆ I use this app solely for its stickers. You can find sparkles, butterflies, hearts, anything you want with a transparent background and turn it into a divider. I use this app mostly for gathering animated stickers to make my animated dividers.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒉𝒐𝒕𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒂 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is my go-to for applying effects / filters to gifs or animations. I use this to add filters to my animated headers. I download PSD’s from DeviantArt and use those filters for my gifs. This is not an app, just a browser I’ve added to my Home Screen. I recommend using on a computer because there’s a lot of stuff on the screen and you’ll want to see it all spread out. I use it on mobile only because I know which buttons I need to press so it’s not a problem.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — You have to upload your own filters to be able to add one to a gif. Once you open up the site it can be very overwhelming and confusing with all the buttons and drop downs and yada yada. Photopea is like an animations version of photoshop. I recommend searching for a tutorial, or if requested I can personally make a separate post showing you how to add filters to a gif.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑬𝒛𝒈𝒊𝒇 ⊹₊ ⋆ my go-to website for literally anything gif related. Cropping, removing frames, optimizing a gif, making a gif, turning a video into a gif, and many more. I even use the effects tab from time to time to add a border around my gifs (like the one around the Sugar Water Series header) There’s other stuff you can do of course, I recommend checking it out, I’ve been using it for years.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒇𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒔 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is a browser I use to remove the background from gifs.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — It doesn’t do the best job at removing a gif background unless it’s a solid color. I always do solid black and it removes it pretty well. If your background is white it will have a hard time differentiating the gif from the white background and will clip out parts of the gif and make it choppy. I recommend having a plain black background as that works best for me. Also it just recently had an update where you need to wait 10 seconds before you can download the finished product. It also claims you can only use it a certain amount of times a day but tbh I’ve used it a bunch in one day and never seem to have a limit. So idk. Like I said this update is recent. I guess a lot more people started using it and now they want to charge people.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑰𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒊𝒎𝒈 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is the browser I mentioned in the picsart section where I crop really thin images. Does not have a limit on how thin you can make an image. I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure this is not animation / gif compatible.

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒇𝒐𝒏𝒕 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔 ⊹₊ ⋆ ONE TWO THREE

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒔𝒚𝒎𝒃𝒐𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓 ⊹₊ ⋆ ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 ⊹₊ ⋆ Evernote (a notes organizing app I use to organize my fics + I love it so so much), Amino (can find clubs / communities dedicated to bio decor & symbols), Gif Toaster (the og app I used in the very beginning to apply text to gifs), Canva (good stickers / elements + can find aesthetic / cute stickers with keywords on Pinterest), Videoleap (a video editing software I used to use), Remini (an app that upgrades the quality of an image), Symbol Pad & Symbol (apps I use for individual symbols) Snow (has cute animated effects I used to use sometimes a long time ago), VLLO (the app I used before Vita that charged for some of its services), DeviantArt (where I get all of my PSD’s + they have a lot of stuff you can use, pngs and whatnot, I just don’t really use it for those purposes)