#some the info in the old post is out of date most is current

[mecachrome]

landoscar ao3 stats — 2023 overview

notes

retrieved ~sometime in march 2024

methodology: scraped metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag and...... that's it. however one important constraint is that all temporal data is date updated (not posted), so the above timeline isn't exactly a true representation of fic growth but rather how many fics were last-updated at that time. of course this is still its own reflection of fandom health in a way since dead fandoms don't update old fic but well... it's just not quite the same!

this is just info about general trends, fic content, tags etc... so nothing about kudos/comments or any authors specifically

i decided to focus solely on fics last-updated in 2023 (unless otherwise mentioned) because i wanted a tidy set that i can maybe compare & contrast in a year's time, because i expect a lot of details to look different then (tho as stated above this set isn't exactly static... 🤷‍♀️)

ngl i had to re-scrape a bunch of times because i forgot about it for like 3 weeks and then there were 100 new fics 😭 so if there are some minor discrepancies across the post it's because of that halfskh.

also i wanted to include more global comparisons (aka how 814 stack up against the f1 rpf tag in general), but this is also considerably difficult in some contexts since i can't exactly scrape 31,000+ fics can i... or i didn't even want to entertain the thought of trying to do so!!!

why did i do this? who knows.

anyway here's some viz T__T

ship growth

as evidenced in the opening graph, landoscar have been a very fast-growing ship over the past year — although interestingly enough they didn't really start growing substantially until july / the ~better half~ of the 2023 season. here are two views showing their "growth" (by date updated) alongside two other ships on the fringes of the f1 rpf top 10 (sebchal & galex):

landoscar are very much on-track to surpass them and officially enter the top 10 soon, likely before mid-april ❗️ :o

ship characteristics

onto the ship content — another thing i was mildly curious about was how landoscar differs in certain areas from other f1 ships, or the f1 rpf "global" average you could say. for example, here's a breakdown of rating popularity in their ao3 tag:

seeing as explicit is their most common rating, and that i don't necessarily expect this to be true for all ships/fandoms, i compared these percentages with the general f1 rpf tag to see whether some ratings are more commonly represented in 814 fic than average, which produced interesting results:

do lando ships simply skew more HornyTM in general? is it oscar? a secret third thing??? who knows... actually i think it would be fun to do more analysis in this direction but that can wait for another time!!!

similarly i also wanted to see which ships are the most "public" on ao3, as in have the highest share of fic that isn't user-locked... i will refrain from peppering in my feelings about the 4th wall too heavy-handedly but i was curious to see whether some sort of perhaps... er, generational gap (?) of sorts between ships that are more public vs. not could be identified. however i don't pretend to have any takeaways from this LOL i conclude absolutely nothing. (for ref landoscar is currently 72% public, vs. a global avg of 63%)

note that this graph is current stats, not filtered for 2023

looking at relationship tags, i also wanted to know whether landoscar suffer noticeably from Second-Ship Syndrome, so i tallied the first-tagged ship of every fic to find out. i know this doesn't necessarily mean that it's always the "main" ship but it's a good enough approximation. the results were quite positive!

filtered to top ships with count of >1 only

i then also calculated the number of ships tagged for each fic to discern the profile of multi-shipping in 814 ficdom; i did have to do a little bit of string standardization (all instances of implied / background / hinted collapsed to hinted for simplicity's sake + removal of other redundancies), but otherwise i left everything mostly untouched.

as you can see, landoscar also have a fairly promising amount of OTP: TRUE fic:

by the time you get to the fics with 10+ ships tagged, landoscar are less likely to be the primary ship, which makes sense just on a basic statistical level... this is also a very small sample size though

i also lazily tallied the 10 most common ships that weren't NOR/PIA or NOR & PIA to diff their shares of the 814 tag vs. of the general f1 rpf tag, to see which other pairings are more represented in the 814 tag than on average (because lestappen are the most popular by pure count but this is also true of fandom in general, so it would be a misrepresentation to say that their popularity is out of the ordinary):

maxiel's gap isn't really that surprising since i think that, generationally, in terms of when both pairings were teammates there is quite a gap; with carlando—actually let me tally this again but including all instances of "implied" and "past" as being part of the same ship, since that's how ao3 tag-wrangles as well:

Aha ! obviously as a direct ship there is competition between 814 and other lando or oscar ships, but this difference is somewhat less pronounced once we include all formats. tbh none of this really means anything but i thought i'd add it anyway... (it's also very possible that there are several errors in this, in which case my b 😔)

before we move on to additional tags, there are a few more basic characteristics of 814 fic we can calculate. i realize i never offered an overview of Super Basic Stats, so here are a few:

plus, looking at word counts, here is a distribution of those in 2023-updated fic, which shows that a majority of 814 fics were under the 5k mark:

85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & nearly 97% under 25k

i don't really have any reason to believe that landoscar's wc stats differ significantly from average ? so this is kind of just Data To Have Data, and it most likely reflects normal ao3 trends in general... but i thought i'd include it anyway because i already made it lol. similarly, here are word count distributions but stratified by rating:

& same info but heat map view:

i feel like this is also probably something you'd find across fandom in general — that gen fic is likely to have a higher share of under 1k works, since Building Up to sexual content often takes... Literal & Metaphorical Foreplay ! and the longer a fic is the more opportunities an author has to include a sex scene or other explicit content (ofc, not necessarily just porn but also graphic violence & so on). but i thought this was fun to visualize haha

additional tags & aus?

back in my old f1 rpf stats post, i made a table comparing fluff/angst "ratios" (not exactly a direct ratio because of how tag wrangling works, but an approximation) of the most popular f1 ships, and now that landoscar are somewhat popular i thought i'd first do an update:

also current data, not 2023 to make things easier

just like before, simi are one of the most fluffy ships and brocedes are by far the most angsty, but it's interesting to see 814 also extremely high up on the charts, with far and away the lowest % of angst. will be exciting 2 see how that holds or changes as the seasons progress !

finally, i also wanted to do a bit of au/additional tag analysis because you can kind of see this when you use additional filters on ao3 but the previews are limited and get bogged down by the prevalence of *checks notes* Fluff, Angst, PWP, Anal Sex and what have you. which are nice stats to have and all but what of the rest !

disclaimer that the set for these tables is a biiiit outdated because by the time i'd wrangled everything i was like I Am Not Changing It Again. unfortunately i clean my data with shoddy queries and regex functions in googsheetz...

there were 48 tags with at least 10 instances from 2023 fics, shown below, with ones that are (some ~vaguely) nsfw in red just to kind of get a rough sense of which tags get commonly used in M/E fic:

getting a bit too much into small sample size / specific fic territory so if you're an author i sincerely apologize for that... do not mean 2 put u on blast... TT__TT but i also tried to tally the most popular aus people write for 814, which is a bit dubious because people tag in really different ways and i had to accommodate for a lot of string formats but ... it's close enough ! (?)

i feel like this is very little interesting info but idk what else to add so i will stop here for now... well!!! if you made it to the end i hope u learned something or even vaguely enjoyed reading T__T and most of all thank you :')

[mageofseven]

How about a reader that was pregnant when they were chosen as an exchange student ? Like the baby's father is not in the picture and reader *isn't* involved with boys romantically and when the boys discover readers pregnant after lesson 16 they're just "oh Shi-"

This is an old ask from before my long ass hiatus, but I'm honestly still really interested in this.

Okay so here's some set up info for how Imma do this:

MC knew she was pregnant, but was so overwhelmed about it that she welcomed the fact that she was magically kidnapped into going to demon school and that she had something to distract herself from the literal growing problem in her uterus.

The baby was also transfered to the new body after what Belphie did to her.

Like it was requested, MC is not currently dating any of the Boys.

They found out because they had her get checked by a doctor despite Barbatos making sure she was okay with his time power; this was mostly done out of over-protectiveness and no one actually thought anything would come of it.

I don't do reader posts so obviously this will be MC.

Now that that's out of the way, let's give this a go!

•▪︎▪︎◇°●♡●°◇▪︎▪︎•

Lucifer:

Is visibly shocked by this and has MC explain herself.

When he hears how her boyfriend knocked her up and abandoned her not long before she was brought to the Devildom, the pride demon makes a mental note to ask her for the man's name at another time so he can handle that little pest.

Feels terrible guilty about what she went through and even worse that she went through it while pregnant.

I see Lucifer as this heavily anxious man with a soft spot for kids and that includes babies that are works-in-progress (WIP).

Hovers around her constantly after that, making sure she taking every vitamin and supplement she and her child needs.

Just becomes super protective of her while also trying to pretend he's not.

Eventually takes her off of cooking duty so she'll have one less thing to worry about.

Despite not being the father or having such a relationship with her, he takes full responsibility for all aspects of this from teleporting her here while pregnant to Belphie offing both her and her child in her last body.

Doesn't go as far as to call himself this child's father, but anyone who saw this man hovering over her would definitely think he was.

Like always, Lucifer just wants to take care of his family and now sees MC and her child as such.

Mammon:

Literally freaks out while trying to pretend he isn't.

To him, her being pregnant just made this whole situation 1000000x worse.

Feels bad that he didn't know about her kid.

Like, he's the brother whose been by her side the most and he never even noticed anything was off with her.

He's not the most observant man so I'm not surprised.

He's her First! She should have just told him, or so he tells her.

Keeps an extra close eye on her to keep this crazy freaking human from doing anything bad for herself or her kid

And let's face it, she literally got herself killed not long ago so anything can happen.

The further her pregnancy gets, the more this man tries to keep his brothers away from her.

He just extra possessive as time goes on.

I mean yeah, this kid ain't his but he wishes it was so freaking much but he's still gonna look after the two of them.

Honestly, this man wouldn't be able to handle a single other bad thing happening to his Human.

Leviathan:

Ohmanohmanohman--

Is really freaking out and doesn't even try to hide it.

I mean this is serious!

Not only did MC die but so did her WIP kid????

I mean yeah, they are both back but this all still sucks.

You know the phrase 'kicking a person while they're down'? Well this is like using a freaking flamethrower while the human was already down!

Honestly becomes super awkward with his Henry after learning about her pregnancy

But slowly gets used to it as he discovers that MC just wants him to treat her as he always has.

Yeah! He can do that!...kinda.

He feels bad that he can't help her through most of it.

This man knows absolutely nothing about pregnancy and feels like he is mediocre at comforting people at best.

Still, if she ever needs someone to distract her with anime so she doesn't have to think of the little WIP in her uterus then Levi is her man.

Satan:

Honestly...this man is less than thrilled.

MC is the first person he's ever truly gotten close to and that includes his 'brothers'

So to hear that the person he cares about most is pregnant...

Well on the plus side, he knows there's a human man in the other realm for him to torture so that makes him feel better.

Doesn't like kids, but is at MC's side as much as possible.

One of the brothers willing to hold her hair back during bouts of morning sickness.

Not one to hover, but does get a little protective when Belphie is in the same room as her.

Knows the Avatar of Sloth won't hurt her anymore but...well, he still can't get the image of MC's dead body out of his head

And angy boy is still angy at him for it.

Other than that, he reads a shit ton of pregnancy books to learn what MC's body is going through and different methods to comfort her through it.

Asmodeus:

Honestly, this usually chatty brother was speechless when it was announced.

When he saw all eyes fall on the human and make her overwhelmed, he ran to his friend and hugged her tightly.

Was the one to hype up the other guys and get everyone to say they'll take care of her and that they have her back

Because honestly, this woman and her child literally died for his family; you can bet your ass he's going to make sure each and every one of his brothers does their part in taking care of the pregnant human.

Doesn't immediately think about killing the runaway baby daddy, but if it becomes a family field trip to hunt the bastard and kill him, Asmo is so down for it.

Mostly focuses on what he can do for MC in the moment though.

Another brother to comfort her during morning sickness.

It's gross af but he uses it to remind his brothers that hey! I'm getting close to a vomiting woman each morning so y'all better be as dedicated to the cause as I am.

Beelzebub:

This man literally did nothing wrong, but acts as if it's all his fault.

So much happened in his family right under his nose and things led to such extremes that his twin literally killed this woman and her child.

More or less feels like he needs to step up and pay atonement for what his twin did

And is probably the brother who takes care of her the most.

This situation has shown how much he actually wants to be a parent one day

And literally asks MC later in her pregnancy if he can be her baby's daddy

He doesn't care about genetics at all, just wants MC to let him help her raise the child and make him a daddy 🥺

Literally the sweetest man to ever exist.

MC would be a fool not to accept.

Belphegor:

Probably the guiltiest of all of the men.

I mean, he did it. He killed MC and relished in it.

Granted, he didn't know she was carrying a little hitchhiker, but still.

Belphie lost himself in his pain to such a strong degree that...he wonders that even if he did know...would he have been able to stop himself from doing what he did

And honestly, the fact that he doesn't know scares the hell out of him.

Avoids MC for the first couple months of her pregnancy because honestly, he feels too guilty to even look at her

And... honestly, he doesn't know if he even trusts himself around her.

Thanks to Beel's encouragement, the sloth demon slowly finds himself interacting with the pregnant human

And eventually decides that the best way to atone for what he did (if it's even possible) is to take care of her and the kid the best he can.

He doesn't like kids and just sees pregnancy as unnecessary torture for people with uteruses

But honestly, none of that matters anymore.

He may not have been the one to knock the woman up, but he did fuck up the worst out of everyone in this situation.

Will feel better whenever the family hunting party starts and he can give that pathetic man a taste of what he deserves.

Looks like it's Human Season for this hunting demon.

Diavolo:

Also a man with an overwhelming sense of guilt.

Other than the actual process of making the baby, everything that happened was either because of something he directly or indirectly did to start up the exchange program.

Also regrets not having regular check ups on his exchange students because surely they all would have discovered this sooner and prevented anything from happening to the pregnant woman.

Has regular doctor visits scheduled for MC to make sure she and her baby stay healthy and pays for all of it, including any medications she may need during this progress.

Pregnancy can be really fucking expensive, but the prince makes sure she never has to worry about that side of things.

Just focus on staying healthy and letting your baby grow, MC; he and the other men will handle everything else.

Barbatos:

Knew before everyone else did.

I mean, this man literally had to make sure the baby transfered over too.

This man is seriously a hero that doesn't get the credit he deserves nor does he seek such.

MC and her baby are safe now and that's all that matters to the butler.

Honestly frets over the woman on the inside, but shows no sign of it externally.

Is the man that takes her to all her doctors appointments and was there when she discovered the gender of her baby.

Congratulated her as she sobbed happy tears and was honestly grateful that he could share such a moment with her.

Honestly becomed really attached to MC during her pregnancy and looks forward to watching her child grow up.

Solomon:

Honestly, his intuition had been tingling for a while on this subject.

He suspected this pregnancy, but figured it was none of his business and didn't want to pry into the fellow human's personal life.

If he would have known such an event would happen with Belphie though, he would have stepped in and got answers.

He didn't though. The sorcerer had no clue how events were going to unfold.

Hindsight is telling him that he should have pryed more, but his manners told him it was right to respect the woman's privacy.

Doesn't do too much in regards to taking care of his friend since the demons seem to have it all covered and even seem to somewhat resent the sorcerer when he tries.

Believe it's better not to step on any toes, so to speak.

Is still a good friend to MC though and always offers an ear if they need to vent about the process with someone.

Simeon:

This all happened before the pregnancy had progressed enough for him to sense the baby.

He did however sense...something within the human since he met her, but didn't understand what.

Hindsight is really hurting this poor angel's heart 😔

Become the woman's biggest support in an emotional sense.

Pregnancy is hard and hormones flare and everything can seem so stressful, especially to a scared single mom.

This man is often the one comforting her when she breaks down into tears, even when it's over small stuff like someone ate the last cookie or she lost her pen.

He makes sure MC knows how strong she is and that she will make it through this this difficult time.

Luke:

Demons!!! Back away from the pregnant woman or this chihuahua will bite.

Okay, not really, but the brothers make this joke a lot.

Luke is very protective of MC in this situation.

Since he is just a child, he wasn't told what happened between her and Belphie in complete detail.

Really just thinks the stupid demon hurt her feelings and the angelic boy will not allow it to happen again!

Grows increasingly curious as MC's belly grows; angels don't have kids in this way so this boy has a lot of questions about what's happening to her body.

The fact that there's an actual baby just chilling and growing in her belly boggles this boy's mind.

Is honestly excited for MC's baby and feels like he about to be come a big brother!

This boy is determined to do his part and take care of her just like the adults do.

Mostly just keeps her company and bakes for her when her cravings give her a sweet tooth.

Little Lukey keeps her spirits up and MC loves him for it.

[cowboys-tshot]

A Beginner's Guide to Epic: The Musical

Are you new to Epic: The Musical and overwhelmed by four years worth of content to go through? This is for you! (Note that this is a work in progress post that will be added to in the future as new information and Sagas are released).

LAST UPDATED: 09/01/24

*There will be some spoilers in this! The Odyssey is thousands of years old, but Epic: The Musical is an adaptation, meaning things are different. I recommend listening to all the songs in Epic before reading this, as this guide is intended to clear up misunderstandings/confusing moments and provide context.

**All of the underlined bits are links to whatever it is I'm referring to, just in case I'm making no sense. I will try to include sources for everything, or at least indicate where I got certain information from if there's no link available.

General Info:

*This is basic information about Epic: The Musical as a whole. This includes where to find new information and content, BTS things, etc.

• First of all, here's a quick rundown by the creator himself. There'll be some overlap in terms of what I cover here.

• Epic: The Musical is created by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, often referred to as "Jay" or "Mr. Jalapeño" by his fans. This is who writes the songs, casts the characters, and voices Odysseus himself!

• Epic: The Musical was originally (pre-Ocean Saga) produced under Blair Russell Productions, but Jay has never been paid the royalties from the songs released under them (and they have yet to give back control of the Epic social media accounts), so Epic is now produced under Jay's own company, Winion Entertainment LLC. (source)

• Jay is most active on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. All videos that he posts to these platforms are generally the same, so don't worry if you can't follow him on all of them. He talks about several Epic-related things, including release dates, BTS, animatics, details about the music/story, snippets of released and unreleased songs, and also plenty of funny videos. He is very active within the fanbase, and you're likely to find him (and other cast members) leaving comments on posts by fans!

• Here are Jay's other links, including the Epic: The Musical Discord server. In my experience, the Discord server and Tiktok are the best places to get information as quickly as possible.

• Epic is still in progress. As of the latest update to this guide (09/01/24), the Wisdom Saga has just been released last week, leaving only two more sagas before the end. The songs are all part of a concept album, and there is currently no stage adaptation.

• Jay takes many creative liberties with The Odyssey for the sake of this adaptation of the story. He made a video recently explicitly saying to NOT use Epic as a basis for your knowledge of The Odyssey, at least when it comes to academic settings. Many of the things that occur in Epic DO NOT occur in the original story, and some parts of the original story have been cut out. Here is a video where Jay explains the purpose of Epic as an adaption. (I won't be including a list of differences in this post, but I might make a separate one if anyone's interested.)

• Although Epic takes a lot of these creative liberties, there are several little easter eggs sprinkled in among the actual plot points from The Odyssey. (I'll go into these later.)

• Jay will usually do a recap video before each new saga, going over all the events of the previous sagas for any newcomers.

• When a new saga is released, Jay will hold a LIVE listen-through. I highly recommend being there for these events, because they include lots of cool and important things such as:

official animations, animatics, and artwork, all of which provide insights into character design and events within the songs

Jay's live reactions (his facial expressions and little dances/lip-syncs are delightful)

details about the events within the songs that aren't made clear within the music itself (like what a character is doing, what is happening around them, etc)

Jay's comments in the LIVE chat, which includes details/easter eggs, BTS stuff, jokes, headcanons, and LOTS of love and praise for the actors and fans!

• Seeing as there is no stage adaptation for Epic, a lot of the visual elements come from artists and animatics/animations. Jay actually works with several of these artists for official trailers, artwork, and animatics/animations! Some of these artists include: Ainhoa Velasco, @wolfythewitch, @gigizetz, @_mircsy_, @drawing_angie, @anniflamma, Scilla_nimation, el_crafts, samantha_artt, and Giulia Toneatto. These people are all incredibly talented and deserve all the love from the Epic fanbase!

Info About the Music:

*I am not musically adept at all, and this post is already very long, so I am not going to list much specific information—just general common themes and some examples of them. Most of this information has been confirmed by Jay, in videos that I've linked below.

• If you're having trouble understanding the lyrics and/or the meaning behind the lyrics, Genius lyrics has the entire album and is full of helpful notes about the context within the musical. A lot of lyrics get misheard, so even if you think you understand what's being sung, I'd recommend checking just in case lol.

• The Troy Saga and The Cyclops Saga have been rereleased under Winion Entertainment LLC! This includes new vocals, altered music, etc. These were released alongside The Thunder Saga, along with new cover art. It's preferred that you listen to these versions of the songs, and NOT the originals, because Jay only gets royalties from the current ones.

• Many characters have their own musical motif, or even multiple motifs. There are also other motifs that are more general, like the "Danger is Nearby" motif.

• Many important characters have their own instrument that plays an integral part to the songs they're in. You can typically tell which instrument accompanies each character by listening to what is most prominent in a song that focuses on that character. (ex. Hermes with harps and the lyre, Athena with the piano)

• If you hear a character's musical motif or associated instrument in a song they don't play an integral part in, that can mean a few things (listed below). With the more general motifs, they have their own separate meanings outside of the characters.

That character is present, even if they're not singing. (ex. Hermes in "Puppeteer," signifying that he's listening to Odysseus' speech, which is brought up at the beginning of "Wouldn't You Like")

That character is related to whatever event/conversation is occurring. (ex. the same musical motif in "Ruthlessness" and "Storm," signifying that Poseidon is the one that sent the crazy storm)

The kind of instrument being played can indicate the emotion or tone of a scene. This is scene primarily with Odysseus, where the use of a nylon or acoustic guitar indicates that he is not being ruthless (source).

• When background vocals are accompanying a mortal, there is always a physical, in-universe source for those voices (ex. Odysseus' crew as background vocals in most of his songs). When background vocals are accompanying a god or other powerful being, there does not have to be a physical source for those voices—gods can basically summon a choir of voices at will (ex. "Ruthlessness"). (video explanation)

• Background chanting specifically is a common element in Epic songs. Typically, this chanting consists of the names of characters present/focused on in the song (as seen [heard?] in "Survive," "Ruthlessness," and "King").

Unclear/Vague Moments Explained:

*Some of the plot points, characters, etc. in Epic can be confusing on the first or second listen. So, I'll clear up some of the common things people (including myself) didn't notice or understand at first.

• The deep voice at the end of "The Horse and the Infant" is Zeus, voiced by Luke Holt. Zeus shows Odysseus a vision of Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, and tells him to kill the child.

• Odysseus drops Astyanax from the walls of Troy at the end of "Just a Man." Many people didn't catch this until the callback in "Monster" at the end of Act 2.

• "Warrior of the Mind" is quite confusing to those that don't have context. It is a flashback to a younger Odysseus, when he first met Athena and took her as a mentor.

• Athena has an ability called "Quick-Thought," which lets her have telepathic conversations with someone within milliseconds by pulling their mind into another dimension.

• Polites dies at the end of "Survive." He is the voice saying "Captain...". (I didn't realize this for a good while when I first started listening to Epic.)

• The voice telling Odysseus to wake up in "Keep Your Friends Close" is Penelope, not Aeolus.

• The lil' guys in "Keep Your Friends Close" are called winions (they're also the Lotus Eaters in "Open Arms"). Jay describes them as "little wind creatures that dance when they get excited and then float away uncontrollably." They don't actually exist in The Odyssey, but they're pretty cute!

• At the end of "Ruthlessness," the line "remember me" is said by Poseidon, who's basically sending his voice through the ocean fog (since Odysseus is very, very far away from him now).

• In "Done For," the yelling you are hearing in the background is essentially a Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh battle between Circe's chimera and the monster Odysseus summons using the moly plant given to him by Hermes. There is an animatic by mircsy to serve as a visual aide, which I find very helpful!

• In "There Are Other Ways," Circe was holding a knife and planning to stab Odysseus as she tried to seduce him. When he pulls away and rejects her, she quickly hides the knife.

• In "The Underworld," shades (souls) are in a constant loop, repeating whatever they were thinking when they died. Tiresias is an exception to this rule, seemingly because of him being such a powerful prophet. (confirmed in "The Underworld Saga" LIVE listen-through)

• I feel like this is fairly clear, but for those that aren't familiar with The Odyssey, I'll say it anyways. (Spoilers? I guess?) The prophecy in "No Longer You" is SUPER heavy on the foreshadowing. I won't go into it here, since many people already have, but let's just say the Greeks were big on self-fulfilling prophecies.

• As mentioned previously, background chanting is a big thing in Epic. In "No Longer You," the background chanting also serves as a prophecy detailing the future events of Odysseus's journey. Currently, only part of these lyrics have been confirmed by Jay: "SIREN SONG - SCYLLA THROAT - MUTINY - LIGHTNING BOLT." This leaves two lines that are not confirmed.

• In "Mutiny," after Odysseus is stabbed, he is tied up and knocked out before the crew sails to the nearest island. Right before he says to get to the boat and row away, he manages to untie himself.

Fun Facts/Easter Eggs:

• Circe is voiced by Jay's girlfriend, Talya Sindel.

• When Poseidon kills off most of Odysseus' crew in "Ruthlessness," he says that there are only 43 men left. But in "The Underworld," the souls of his crew say that 558 men died under his command. Considering Odysseus started off with 600 men ("Full Speed Ahead"), this math doesn't add up. This is because in The Odyssey, when Odysseus and his men party with Circe for a year, a man in his crew named Elpenor woke up drunk on Circe's roof and proceeded to walk off the roof and die from the fall. He actually has a cut song.

• Jay messed up the amount of years in "There Are Other Ways." It had not been 12 years, but 10. This little screw-up is referenced in "Different Beast."

• Odysseus' mother is voiced by Jay's actual mother.

• If you see people commenting "rawr rawr rawr" or "🦖" on Jay's videos, they're referencing his April Fool's prank this year. He made a video saying he'd completely changed the Act 2 closing song, "Monster," and proceeded to play a happy-go-lucky sounding song going "I am the monster, rawr rawr rawr."

• In every single saga, Odysseus says "what." in an absolutely bamboozled manner (or "huh" in The Troy Saga, and he does it twice in The Ocean Saga). It happens in "Open Arms," "Polyphemus," "Keep Your Friends Close," "Puppeteer," and "No Longer You." Occasionally, this "what" will be said by a different character (Poseidon in "Ruthlessness," the siren in "Different Beast")

• Perimedes (another man in Odysseus' crew, who lives all the way until "Thunder Bringer") and Elpenor were best friends.

[acewritesfics]

Mrs. Detective Jay Halstead | JAY HALSTEAD

⚠️ THIS IS A REPOST FROM MY MAIN BLOG @/DLMLUFICS. UNFORTUNATELY, I HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY. MORE INFO IN MY PINNED POST.

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader

Request: from @/runnning-outof-time for a celebration from my main account.

Fic Type: Imagine

Warnings: Fluff. A little cringy PDA not from Jay and Reader. Reader has a younger half-sister named Annie (if that’s your name you can change it to something else) and Annie has a boyfriend called Daniel. Annie and Daniel are both 18.

Word Count: 1,438

JAY HALSTEAD MASTERLIST || TAG LIST SIGN-UP

As they sit across from her younger sister Annie and her boyfriend Daniel, who are clumsily making out, Y/N looks at Jay, embarrassed. Jay returns her gaze with the same expression, feeling exactly what his girlfriend and partner is feeling. Dinner had been going well, Y/N and Jay were getting to know Daniel well and both concluded that he seemed like a good kid. He seemed to really care for Annie. He talked to her respectfully, treated her nicely and didn't have any sort of criminal record - Jay had checked before the double date. 

It wasn't until the teens decided the middle of the restaurant, they are currently at would make a good make out spot when things took a turn becoming awkwardly uncomfortable for the older couple. 

Jay returns his attention to the younger couple and clears his throat, forcing the two teenagers to finally stop swapping spit. 

"Sorry," Annie apologizes awkwardly, her cheeks heating up as she looks down at her hands. Daniel beams as he takes one of Annie's hands in his. 

"Why did we agree to this again?" Jay whispers into Y/N's ear before kissing the side of her head.  

"It was something I agreed to. Like the sweetheart that you are, you went along with it," she also whispers. Looking at him, she sends him a quiet apology while placing her hand on his upper thigh and kisses his cheek. She knows she'll be making this up to him later. Jay needed a lot more persuasion than she did. Y/N returns her gaze to the teenagers and manages to smile. She intervenes just as the two teenagers lean in for another kiss. 

"So, Daniel, what are your plans after high school?" She inquires, making her feel more like a parent than a sister, as she did most of the time. 

Annie was the result of her father's affair with his then-23-year-old intern. Their father and the intern eloped the day after the divorce papers were signed by Y/N's mother, and they are still married to this day as far as she knows. Y/N has been raising Annie since she was seven years old, when her father and Annie's mother dropped her off with a bag of clothing and her favorite toy. The two L/N women hadn't heard from, spoken too, or seen them since.  

It took Y/N months to acquire full custody, but with the help of her mother and intelligence, particularly Jay, who became Y/N's partner a year after she won custody, she was able to raise Annie to be the wonderful young lady she is now. 

"I've decided to take a gap year. I'll be travelling with Annie and some of our friends," Daniel replies, hesitantly glancing between Y/N and Jay. He was clearly attempting to make a good impression on the two.  

"I did that as well," Y/N says, smiling, happy that Annie will have others with her. Her maternal instinct would rather the 18-year-old do her gap year in Chicago so she's close to home, but Annie had worked her ass off for this since she was 14 and saving what money she earned from babysitting the apartment complexes kids. Y/N knows she can't stop her and there would be no point in trying. She did lay down a few ground rules though. "It is the third best thing I've ever done." 

"What are the first two?" Annie wonders aloud, her attention drawn to her sister. 

"The first one is choosing to raise you," Y/N takes a sip from her drink, beaming proudly at her little sister, who was more like her daughter, before turning to Jay and smiling warmly at her partner of ten years and boyfriend of five years. "And the second is being more than just partners with this man." 

The two detectives began working for intelligence at the same time and were assigned as partners on their first day. It had taken them five years of walking around one other, attempting to ignore their feelings for one another that only seemed to grow stronger by the day. It only took a meeting in New York for the two to move from being work partners to also becoming partners in everything else. 

Jay lifts her hand away from his leg and presses a delicate kiss to the back of it. "I love you." 

"I love you too," she says, leaning in to kiss him. 

Returning their attention to the teenagers across from them, they see that the two have gone back to their making out session. 

"Do you think they'll notice if we leave?" Y/N ponders out loud. After dinner, Annie isn't going home with them. She and Daniel are going to see the latest superhero movie with some of their friends from school. 

"Honestly, I don't think they will," Jay answers, rising to his feet and withdrawing his wallet from his pocket, taking out some money and placing it on the table to pay for dinner. 

Y/N stands and circles the table, taking Jay's hand in hers as they leave the little restaurant and return to their apartment. 

Y/N closes and locks the door behind her as she follows Jay into their apartment. She walks into their bedroom to change into something more comfortable. She intended to spend the remainder of their night on the couch, curled up beside Jay, watching whatever horrible movie was on TV at the time. Jay walks up behind her as she is removing her earrings, wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her shoulder. 

"I'm sorry about Annie and Daniel," she mumbles as she leans back in his arms. There was no place she preferred to be more than in Jay's arms. 

"We were both 18 once," he reminds her, disregarding her apology.  

"I don't remember ever having dinner with my sister while making out with my boyfriend in front of her," she says. "They could have toned it down a lot." 

"It's new and exciting for them," he adds as he kisses her shoulder once again. 

"I know," she sighs as she looks at him in the mirror. "But I'm still sorry. How can I make it up to you?" 

"First and foremost, you must promise me that you will never agree to another double date with those two again," he states as he stares at her through the mirror. 

"I promise," she asserts. "You said first. Is there anything else I can do?" 

"Maybe you could, I don't know, spend the rest of your life with me as your husband?" he shrugs his shoulders, with an apprehensive look in his eyes. 

He takes a step back, and she quickly spins on her heel to face him, a surprised look on her face, "Are you finally asking me to marry you?" 

"I am," he says as he walks over to his dresser, opens the top drawer and reaches inside. 

He closes the drawer after pulling out the ring box and returns to her with the ring box open. "So, what do you think? Would you want to become Mrs. Jay Halstead?" 

She looks down at the ring seeing two smaller princess cut diamonds on either side of a beautiful oval cut diamond. It was simple but elegant and she loved it just as much as she loves him. She grins lovingly at him, barely holding her excitement as she accepts his proposal, tears welling up in her eyes. "How about Mrs. Detective Jay Halstead?" 

Jay's smile spreads from ear to ear as he takes the ring from the box, slides it on her finger, and pulls her into a passionate kiss. 

"Annie won't be home until tomorrow morning, which gives us plenty of time to celebrate," Y/N mentions as she breaks the kiss way too soon for Jay's liking. 

He chews his bottom lip and appears to be thinking about it as his fingers run up her back to the back of her neck before reaching for and pulling down the zip at the back of her dress. "Let's not waste any more time." 

She smiles, bringing him in for another kiss as she reaches up to unbutton his shirt and push it off his shoulders. His hands travel to the straps of her dress and slide them down her arms, allowing the dress to fall into a black pool on the floor before lifting her up and carrying her to their bed. 

"I love you, Detective Jay Halstead," she murmurs quietly, breaking the kiss to let them breathe for a moment. 

"And I love you, Mrs. Detective Jay Halstead," he chuckles, kissing her again. 

[gunsatthaphan]

~ Monthly BL Breakdown: January 2024 ~ 

✨ Happy February!!! 🎭

Disclaimer: ALL shows can be streamed here or here, as well as on Youtube and other platforms. For more info on where to watch what, check out this post! 

New breakdowns are coming at the end of every month - feel free to add stuff! -> previous breakdowns

What came out this month? (green = seen/currently watching)

🌟 BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita: Crank In Hen - January 2nd (Japan) 

🌟 Ossan's Love Returns - January 5th (Japan) 

🌟 Refund Love - January 7th (Thailand) 

🌟 Time The Series - January 9th (Thailand) 

🌟 Intern in My Heart (BL side couple) - January 10th (Thailand) 

🌟 Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Although I Love You, and You) - January 11th (Japan) 

🌟 Beside You (mini series) - January 11th (Thailand) 

🌟 I Wish You Love - January 21st (Thailand) 

🌟 Happy Ending - January 23rd (South Korea)

🌟 Love for Love's Sake - January 24th (South Korea)

Monthly likes/dislikes

👎🏻 I've been catching up on some KBLs from last year this month and sadly most of them were very disappointing. I put a few on my watchlist that generally had good reviews but yeah let's just say I'm glad I didn't miss anything in the last 2 years lol. The only one I liked was Love Mate, the rest was pretty much pointless. Hopefully the upcoming ones will be better 🤞🏻

New series & movie announcements

🎥 Beating Again (dance-themed, starring Kaownah K., Earth K. and others) - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Unknown - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 The Book Store - Date TBA (South Korea)

🎥 Term Begins - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Mafia Prince and the Bookworm - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Black Forest - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Go Alone With Me - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 Can I Love You? - Date TBA (Thailand)

🎥 The Shining Star - Date TBA (Vietnam)

🎥 At My Fingertips (Unintentional Love Story spinoff) - Coming May 2024 (South Korea)

🎥 Connecting To You - Date TBA (Taiwan)

🎥 The Star (movie) - Coming March 2024 (Thailand)

🎥 What's the Nong? - Date TBA (Thailand)

Other news from the BL world

❗️ Actors Mike Chinnarat, Fluke Pusit, White Nawat, Pluem Purim and Lee Thanat have left GMMTV.

❗️ After Korean actor Choo Youngwoo won an award for "Best Rookie Actor" at the recent KBS Drama Awards, he came under fire for not mentioning his participation in the BL You Make Me Dance which launched his career and earned him the award.

❗️ Actors Jin Hoeun (All Of Us are Dead), Kwon Hyuk (The New Employee), Byun Junseo (Perfect Marriage Revenge) and Nam Yoonsu (Extracurricular) have been confirmed to star in the upcoming BL Love In The Big City, which portrays the life and love of an HIV-positive gay writer.

❗️ ZeeNunew and GeminiFourth won an award respectively for "Best Thai Artists" at this year's Seoul Music Awards.

❗️ The Chinese BL Stay with Me is getting an audiobook. The series furthermore recently confirmed its second season, further details are unknown.

❗️ Over a year after its initial premiere, the Thai BL To Sir, With Love won "Popular Foreign Drama” at this years's Vietnam Face Of The Year Awards.

❗️ The Thai BL Playboyy will no longer air on youtube after the suspension of the channel due to explicit sexual content. The show will continue to exclusively air on Gagaoolala, as well as RakutenTV.

❗️ Actors EarthMix had a cameo appearance in Ossan's Love Returns; they will star in the Thai adaption of the same name later this year. Details about the production are still unknown.

❗️ MileApo (KinnPorsche) were announced to star in the upcoming series Shine. The show is an extension/spinoff of Man Suang and focuses on Khem and Chatra's story in more detail.

Upcoming series & movies for February

👉🏻 Anti Reset - February 2nd (Taiwan)

👉🏻 Perfect Proposal - February 2nd (Japan)

👉🏻 City of Stars - February 2nd (Thailand)

👉🏻 Love Syndrome: The Beginning - February 8th (Thailand)

👉🏻 Baka Pwede pa? - February 9th (Philippines)

👉🏻 1000 Years Old - February 14th (Thailand)

👉🏻 My Strawberry Film - February 16th (Japan)

👉🏻 A Secret Love - February 17th (Thailand)

👉🏻 Unknown - February 24th (Taiwan)

👉🏻 Wedding Impossible - February 26th (South Korea)

👉🏻 Kiseki Chapter 1 & Chapter 2 - February TBA (Thailand)

[mothmanssweetsucculentass]

BEN Drowned headcanons

Finally I’m getting around to posting my current standing BEN Drowned HCs! The ask I got a couple weeks ago definitely motivated me to finish this finally lmao.

Trigger warnings for: Mentions of death, manipulation, suicide, drowning, violence, and the general mature stuff you should expect from the adult side of the Creepypasta fandom. There are NO CENSORS BEYOND THIS POINT. Read at your own risk.

____________________________________________

ageless/has kinda always existed since the internet has been publicly accessible

It/it’s pronouns, occasionally caught using they/them and even rarer he/him

Manipulative as fuck

Malewhore mansplain manipulate

Literally makes up a huge chunk of its personality idk what to tell you

Will doxx you

No seriously if you catch its attention you’re getting stalked

Stalks potential victims through the internet

Finds potential victims on forums and the “dark web”

Often goes after people who are heavily depressed and/or suicidal

Thinks it’s funny telling people to off themselves

Like fr its favorite hobby is basically being an average redditor

Probably the WORST mf to date out of all of my interpretations of Creepypasta characters

Gives zero shits about anyone besides itself

Seriously it does not care about you Y/N RUN!!!!!

Lies lies lies omg loves lying so much

Lies to get what it wants

Master “hacker”

If it’s stalking you say goodbye to any and all digital important things you have

Say goodbye to your laptop too

And switch

And iPhone

It’s all getting bricked by BEN if it finds it funny to do so

And it probably will

You like sleep? Too bad

Woe, nightmares be upon ye

Gaslighting KING. Deletes messages between you and people in your life on purpose

Has extensive knowledge of internet culture and video games

Knows every meme ever

Has created most of the “video game” Creepypastas as their own personal “proxies”

Sonic.exe, Smile.jpeg, The Princess, etc, anything inhabiting digital media that torments people, BEN is the one behind it all

Finds friendships useless but respects Slenderman enough to continue being a proxy for it

Got bored of tormenting the other pastas pretty fast, generally avoids them unless slender tasks it with giving specific info pulled from the web to the other pastas (news articles, police reports, locations, etc)

Out of all my HC characters BEN is probably the most serious/grimdark/gritty, I prommy not all my blorbos are as mature and serious as BEN

Takes on the form of a late teenage boy’s body, waterlogged pale skin, constantly glitching and dripping water. Speaks in at least five different voices/tones at once, including robotic AI voices

Only physically manifests to scare the fuck out of people

Stans Hatsune Miku

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER!

All these HCs are for BEN! Not Ben!!!!

Because after much deliberation I have decided that yeah I kinda do want some of the old BEN middle school me liked to fuck around with. So without further ado, here’s my Ben headcanons:

Created BEN as an AI program for when he can’t be at his computer

BEN is kinda like their “avatar” for the internet

He/they pronouns

Roughly about 20 years old, give or take a few years

Died in the mid 2000s

Sort of??? A ghost?? Like a fusion between a ghost and zombie

Like is obviously a corpse and can kinda go in and out of corporeal and non corporeal form

Has the skin tone of a freshly drowned corpse, but isn’t constantly dripping water

Eyes constantly leak and drip with blood tho. Tissues are scattered all around his room with his futile attempts to keep the blood tears at bay. Face has a “pinker” color compared to the rest of his body thanks to how many times they’ve wiped and smeared the blood around

Similar in behavior/personality as BEN but toned way the fuck down

Like. Still enjoys tormenting people but can (sort of) empathize

Still an asshole tho

And a pervert

And a stoner

And a gamer

He’s a discord Reddit mod irl. Scummy guy tbh

Not afraid of water, just afraid of water damage on their equipment

Lives in the mansion basement

Hasn’t seen sunlight since 2004

Introverted as fuck

Prefers to be physically manifested, leaves all the digital movement to the BEN AI but can enter technology if need be

Cheats in any and all video games you play against him in. Hacker aficionado

Y’all know those fits people used to wear in the 2010s of like, cargo shorts and legend of Zelda t shirts? Almost exclusively his fashion sense

Like yeah he does have the link getup but finds it pretty tedious to get into

Does enjoy scene fashion quite a bit tho

And EDM

electronic stuff in general is his favorite shit ever

Him and the BEN AI never physically kill people, just manipulates them into offing themselves

He’s a weak motherfucker he physically cannot kill somebody

Emotionally tho he would mass murder if he could

The one thing him and Jeff can agree on

Bi, and aro. Kinda too horny and despondent to society to care for someone emotionally for more than twelve seconds

Could definitely stand to make a few friends though, and isn’t opposed to conversation if he ever leaves his gamer basement

Currently friends with EJ, Jane, Liu, Nina, and Helen

Has a tolerable relationship/mutual respect for Masky, Hoody, Jason, Puppeteer, and Slenderman

Doesn’t get along with/hates Jeff, LJ, and Clockwork

Sally sees him as an older brother figure. Unfortunately he’s a bad influence on the kid and also has no idea how to look after a child, he just kinda goes “fuck it we ball” anytime someone puts them in charge of Sally. Has taught her every swear and slur known to man. Thinks it’s hilarious to put her on the mic in gamer lobbies

“Hey dude check this out” proceeds to show you the nastiest shock video ever

Semi-fluent in Japanese despite being whiter than paper. Unsurprisingly a weeb

If he owns a body pillow he keeps it hidden with his life. They won’t be caught dead cuddling up to something like that at night

The mansion’s go to IT guy. Against his will but unfortunately if he wants to continue living in the mansion (or living in general) he has to take this role lest slenderman eviscerates him for defiance

Both him and the BEN AI have a major superiority complex, he thinks he’s way better than everyone else and is the cockiest bastard mf on the planet

Stans Hatsune Miku

[venbetta]

Okay, regarding the last post/ask, there's a part of me that worries for internet safety in recent times, because it's very easy to become a victim of hacking, doxxing, or in more extreme cases, actual harm (grooming, stalking, etc.).

Not to age myself (and others) but there was a time in school where teachers would show us videos and presentations of the dangers of lacking online literacy/safety. Net safety videos were a stable of my childhood and many others, and most of those videos discussed the following:

Do not post personal information about yourself online

Do not interact with people you don't know

Do not meet people you met online in real life

The effects of cyberbullying

Those were the basic stuff. There was a lot more to take away from them

And those videos were scary. That was the point of them. I think about them less now, but it stuck. Because it can happen. And it has happened.

That's why I'm worried and a little taken aback about the lack of understanding of safety and knowledge of the current internet user base. I know that kids and teenagers use the internet, it's nothing new at all. But they're not being taught how to be safe or use common sense!

At least not in a way that I'm aware of.

If they are being taught, it's either not taught well or it's not being retained. Either way, it's clear that it's not being implemented.

And yeah most of those rules above are broken almost immediately, because we as people have gotten too comfortable with posting and sharing our intimate lives publicly. Our ages, our genders, our dating status, our home state. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't acknowledge that, yeah, I also have some of that info in my bios!

However, some make the mistake of including very sensitive information such as their state, town, school, and worst of all their face!

Even if you don't do it intentionally, whether your posting on tiktok or whatever, if you have your state flag in the background of a video with your school logo just barely showing, someone with enough time and effort will figure out where you are. It's been shown in not only those tiktoks doxxing people but in those old net safety videos, too!

If this is scaring you, that's the point. That's what those net safety videos did. And sure, you'll forget about the rules and get comfortable with providing that info... I know most of us have, but it's up to you to keep yourself safe as much as possible.

With the state of the internet now, it's imperative to have an understanding of what the dangers are. Especially with ai in the mix. That's why I'm hesitant to even post my selfies anymore (Fuck Instagram for their ai scraping feature). It's because of what people might do. It's anxiety inducing. And that's why I'm making it a point to just be mindful as to what you do when you're online.

Don't join spaces that might have people that may take advantage of your naivety (I'm talking to kids and teenagers). If you find yourself in a space with someone or a group that makes you uncomfortable, leave. If they threaten or coax you to stay, follow your gut instinct and leave. Do not communicate with anyone who makes you uncomfortable. If it feels to be too much, tell a trusted friend or adult who can help you get out of the situation.

Don't post your current location. Don't post your school or work. Don't post your face if you can help it. Don't click on random links from people you don't know, even if they're offering free robux or nitro. It's a scam!

And before anyone makes a comment demeaning those for not knowing these scams or basic net safety, get over yourself. People who don't know either were never taught to look out for those things or never encountered such things.

People of all ages fall for scams regardless of what it is, kids to old people who aren't tech savvy. It's in our interest to teach people these things so that they can protect themselves. It doesn't make us better for knowing something and then shaming others for not.

Just be safe out there.

[vgfm]

Predicting the Release of Deltarune Chapters 3, 4, and 5

a.k.a., “I spend way too much time analyzing a dev cycle that I do not fully understand and have no control over”

Undertale’s 8th anniversary has come and gone, and it’s left some fans feeling disappointed. I wasn’t expecting anything too major this year since the last three anniversaries were a bit of an anomaly. We’ve truly been spoiled to have gotten the Undertale concert, Chapter 2, and the Spamton Sweepstakes back-to-back-to-back. It’s easy to forget that the anniversaries before this were far more low-key affairs.

Even so, the 8th anniversary still felt a bit lacking. I had been hoping for a full status update post to the Deltarune website, but instead we got a much shorter update in the autumn newsletter. It’s true that we’ve gotten 3 other newsletters in the time since the 7th anniversary, and each has had tidbits of Deltarune news as well as their own share of fun extras. However, even all four newsletters combined seem to have less to say about Deltarune’s status than an annual update post usually does.

Fans who’ve been paying attention also seem a bit disappointed with the current progress of the game. Early status updates made it sound like Chapters 3, 4, and 5 were speeding along, while later ones make it sound like Chapter 3 has slowed to a crawl. I initially felt this way, but upon reflection I think this mindset is due to two main factors: (1) fans interpreting status updates overly optimistically, and (2) Toby sometimes using unclear language when describing the status of development.

I’ve poured over the recent newsletters, Deltarune’s past status updates, and Toby’s old tweets and interviews to get a better picture of how the game’s development is progressing. I also looked to the development of Chapters 1 and 2 to get an idea of what a completed chapter’s dev cycle looks like, and with that info I’ll try to piece together my best estimation for when Chapters 3 through 5 might finish.

Yes, I’ve hit peak hiatus brainrot and, like some others, I’ve run out of things to theorize about the game itself and now I’m trying to write a theory about game development, despite the fact that I have zero experience in game dev outside of making a couple of goofy low-effort mods. I want to emphasize that I’m doing this for fun and that I don’t want to rush Toby or his team—I’d like for Deltarune to take as long as it needs for the best result and for the team to not be overworked.

With all that said, before I can make a prediction, I must first break down my observations for each chapter’s development cycle so far. As mentioned, I’m pulling this info from newsletters, status updates, and Toby’s tweets and interviews. I won’t cite a source for every bullet point, but it’s not too hard to track down this information.

Note: Dates referred to here are release dates for products and status updates/posts. I’m aware that most major posts that Toby writes nowadays are made at least 1 month in advance due to the need for translation. To make things simple, I’m using the publishing dates instead of second-guessing the date of writing.

Chapter 1

Took roughly three years of total development time, from late 2015/early 2016 to October 2018

An unknown amount of early planning was done during and prior to Undertale’s development.

Toby and Temmie largely worked on this chapter alone

This chapter required creating the entire party-based battle system

This chapter required designing the entire Hometown and ensuring it would “set up” future events in the game properly

Except for composing some songs and writing the story, Toby didn’t work on any future chapters during Chapter 1’s development

My assessment is that this was almost certainly the hardest and most time-consuming chapter to develop. Toby had to create the game nearly from scratch with the fewest resources at his disposal. All future chapters benefited from using chapter 1 (and later 2) as a base and having things like Hometown already set up in advance

Chapter 2

Came out three years after Chapter 1, but Toby later said Chapter 2 only took 1.5 years of active development—beginning in May 2020 and releasing in September 2021. This 1.5 year period likely does not include planning and pre-production, since Toby tweeted about designing and writing parts of Chapter 2 prior to May 2020. However, this 1.5 year development period would include testing and other finishing touches.

The other 1.5 years prior to Ch 2’s full development were spent experimenting with other game engines, hiring team members, pre-production on Chapter 2, and planning future chapters of the story.

Toby finished outlining the rest of the game and writing most of the full game’s dialogue during and prior to Chapter 2’s development. Toby decided what all battles will be for Chapters 3 through 5 and most battles for the rest of the game. Toby also has all locations planned (in the form of text) for 3 through 5 at this time. This is all outlined in the 2020 status update.

After the first four months of active development, Toby guessed chapter 2 was 50-80% content-complete by the time of the Undertale 5th anniversary. He also projected that the game would be ready to enter beta testing by the end of 2020. 

Chapter 2 was in beta testing by April 2021 at the latest, since Toby tweeted about it at that time, so Chapter 2’s development phases can be broken down thusly:

Design (Pre-production; writing, planning, designing assets): Less than 1.5 years

Implementation (Active development; programming, graphics, creating battle assets and environments, music): 8-12 months

Finishing (testing, translating, polishing): 5-9 months

My assessment is that, although there was a 3-year time period leading up to both Chapter 1 and 2, it feels like Chapter 2’s development period got a lot more done. Toby has said that chapter 2 is the largest chapter in the game in many ways. Toby was working with a team starting with Chapter 2 and he was able to start planning and pre-production work on future chapters in the meantime, allowing for a much smoother start to Chapter 3’s development than chapters 1 and 2 had. Chapter 2’s release also seems to mark a shift in how Toby’s team structures their development phases, which I’ll go over in 3 through 5.

Chapters 3 through 5

Most early planning for chapters 3 through 5 was completed during chapter 2’s development, likely shortening the pre-production phase compared to previous chapters. However, Toby did mention in the 2022 update that “certain aspects” affecting 3 through 5 needed a while to set up. As of 2022, those “aspects” are now in place.

As of September of 2022, one year after Chapter 2’s release, Toby’s team is working on 3 through 5 in parallel and has already completed more than one chapter’s worth of “bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks”. I will elaborate on this in a bit.

In March of 2023, Toby’s team is primarily focused on finishing Chapter 3. We can say for certain that Chapter 3 entered active development in early 2023 at the latest

As of September 2023, Chapter 3 is in a fully playable state from start to finish and is presumably ready for alpha/beta testing

Chapter 3 seems to mark a slight shift in the team’s production order for each chapter. Chapter 2’s phases were outlined in the 2020 update as three phases: Design, Implementation, and Finishing. Based on context clues from last year’s update and this year’s newsletters, chapters 3 through 5 seem to be following a modified four-phase workflow:

Phase 1 – Design – writing the story, planning the game, and assigning roles to team members. It’s hard to quantify how long this took with chapters 1 and 2, but the good news is that most of this phase was completed for future chapters during chapter 2’s development, according to the 2020 status update. The 2022 update does imply that there was still some set up required leading into chapters 3 through 5. This could be connected with the rumored engine changes to GameMaker to allow multiple games to be launched from a single launcher. Either way, this set up was finished before the 2022 update and be presumed to be done for all three chapters.

Phase 2 – Early Implementation – I’ve split implementation into two phases for reasons I’ll explain in the next phase, though these two halves likely overlap. I suspect this first half of implementation involves preparing dialogue for translation (which was previously done as a finishing step for Chapters 1 and 2) and creating assets in bulk to plug into the game later. This phase is likely when the “chapter’s worth of bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks” mentioned in the 2022 update was created. Later newsletters imply that Chapter 3’s locations were in an earlier state of development than many fans expected, so I think Toby has artists and programmers design enemies, puzzles, and cutscenes in advance before areas are created to put them into. Chapter 3 seems to have completed the early implementation phase. Chapter 4 has had a significant chunk of this phase complete, based on the 2022 update, and currently 4 and 5 both seem to be in this phase, as of June 2023.

Phase 3 – Full Implementation – This consists of programming game world locations and assembling the full structure of the game. I believe this can be treated as a separate phase from the early implementation because (1) Toby mentioned in the 2020 update that he doesn’t draw map designs until the team starts programming, (2) Chapter 2’s maps had only just been started when its cutscenes, songs, bullet patterns, and other assets were nearly finished in 2020, and (3) Chapter 3 seemed to be early in this phase in 2023, despite more than a chapter’s worth of assets being created in 2022. Chapter 3 recently finished this phase, and chapters 4 and 5 likely haven’t gotten far in this phase or reached it yet. All implementation for Chapter 2 lasted between 8 and 12 months. It’s likely this will take less time per chapter for 3 through 5 due to Toby saying Chapter 2 was the longest in the game and Toby having more resources available to complete early implementation on 4 and 5 while 3 undergoes full implementation and the next step:

Phase 4 – Finishing – This is presumably the same as Chapter 2’s finishing phase, only with translation likely occurring earlier in the process, per the March 2023 newsletter. Chapter 3 recently entered this phase. This phase took anywhere from 5 to 9 months for chapter 2, depending on when that chapter entered beta.

Conclusions

Overall, we know that chapters 3 through 5 are using Chapter 2 as a base, Toby has a larger team and more resources available to him than ever before, and Chapters 3 through 5 are being developed in parallel. Chapters 3 through 5 also had the advantage of having most of their planning and design taken care of during Chapter 2’s development cycle. To reiterate, Chapter 2’s development ended up like this:

Design: Less than 1.5 years

Implementation: 8-12 months

Finishing: 5-9 months

Based on what we’ve heard regarding chapter 3, I think we can extrapolate the following timeline for Chapters 3 through 5 so far:

Design: FINISHED (all chapters). Less than 1 year – I’m not counting the design work on 3 through 5 that was already completed before Chapter 2 released. The 2022 update did hint at some form of set up or planning affecting 3 through 5 that had been resolved by September 2022—this makes one year of design the maximum possible amount in this development cycle, though it was likely considerably less

Early Implementation: FINISHED (Ch 3), IN-PROGRESS (4&5). 6-17 months – The 17 months figure is from adding up the year between the 6th and 7th anniversaries and ending at the March 2023 newsletter, when finishing chapter 3 was announced as now being the team’s main focus; this assumes that early production began as soon as Chapter 2 released and that priorities didn’t shift to Chapter 3 until right when the March newsletter came out. The 6 month figure is assuming that most of 2022 was spent on design and resolving the “factors” that affected 3 through 5, which is highly unlikely. We know that early implementation assets were worked on for chapters 3 and 4 simultaneously in 2022, and it’s likely that Chapter 3 alone would have taken less than a cumulative year at this stage. Extrapolating from where things were in 2022, I’d guess Chapters 4 and 5 are at least halfway done with this phase cumulatively.

Full Implementation: FINISHED? (Ch 3). 6-12 months – I base the 12 month figure off of the idea that focus switched to Chapter 3 immediately after the 2022 update and I base the 6 month figure off of the March 2023 newsletter being the point where focus shifted. Chapter 3 became fully playable in September 2023, marking a probable end date for this phase

Finishing: IN-PROGRESS? (Ch 3). Unknown. This could match the 5-9 months for Chapter 2. It’s also possible that 4 and 5 could move onto full implementation while 3’s playtesting takes place, since the latter can rely on people outside the team playing the game while members of the team are freed up to work on other things. Bumping up translation earlier in the pipeline might also shave some time off this phase.

The Prediction

Overall, I’m reasonably certain that Chapter 3 will be completely done within the next 6 months, barring some unforeseen difficulties. Game development can be unpredictable, so anything’s possible (especially delays). Toby has remarked on how strange chapter 3 is and he’s implied that some segments have had to be removed or cut down, so it’s possible this chapter was a lot more experimental and needed more time.

I’d say chapter 4 is, bare minimum, halfway through early implementation. More likely, I think it’s nearing the end of early implementation. I say this because having more than a chapter’s worth of assets completed in 2022 meant that not all of that was for chapter 3, and 2022’s update made it sound like 3 and 4’s progress was roughly neck-and-neck at the start of this phase—hence, half a chapter’s worth of assets done for 4. Obviously focus has shifted to chapter 3, but Toby did reiterate that assets are still being made for 4 and 5 during the summer newsletter, so it’s likely 4 has the majority of this phase done and 5 has made some progress.

Where do I think we’ll be in a year? The optimist in me would like to say that all three chapters will be done by next September, but I’m honestly doubtful. I think a more likely scenario is that 3, 4, and 5 will release sometime between the 2024 and 2025 anniversaries. If we’re lucky, then end of 2024 or early 2025. I think the best case scenario would be that Chapter 3 wraps up around the end of this year (or final testing frees up the team to focus on 4 by then) with Chapter 4 ready to have its maps created immediately afterwards (or already started). Chapter 4 would then enter testing in early-to-mid 2024, with chapter 5 following a few months after to be ready just in time at the end of the year.

I know it may sound bleak to some to be willing to wait another 1-2 years, but keep in mind that this pace is still much faster than what development has been so far. In six years we got two chapters of Deltarune. With my estimate, we’d be getting three chapters in 3-4 years. Chapter 2 took 1.5 years of dedicated development time, plus pre-production, whereas 3 through 5 seem poised to take less time per chapter. I predict that chapters 4 and 5 will go more smoothly, partly because they seem to be more “standard” chapters but also because the groundwork is already being laid for them while 3 is being finished. It took less than a year for Chapter 3 to go from a pile of assets to an assembled and test-ready game. At that pace, it wouldn’t take much longer for 4 and 5 to both bridge that gap—the only extra time will come from finishing up early implementation on 4 and 5 as well as testing each chapter.

I don’t have much else to say in terms of predictions, but I did write up a big timeline of Deltarune (and Undertale’s) development while making this post. I was originally going to put it at the beginning, but it was hard to parse and contained some redundant information. On top of that, Tumblr messed up the formatting so it may be a little hard to read.

Instead of placing the timeline front and center, I’m including it below for all you truck freaks out there who want to know where I pulled various dates from, or if you’ll just read anything Deltarune-related. For everyone else, this post is basically over now. Bye!

Timeline

2011

Toby is first inspired to make Deltarune from a dream (according to interviews)

2012

Toby attempts to create a Deltarune-like project but abandons it before creating Undertale

2013

May 23 - Undertale demo is released

2014

Toby develops Undertale and continues creating Deltarune concept art on the side (according to 2018 tweet). Toby also teases Deltarune’s existence on the Undertale Kickstarter at some point between 2013 and 2015

2015

September 15 – Undertale releases on PC and Mac

Toby creates and updates the Deltarune.com website between 2015 and 2016. Development on Deltarune chapter 1 likely begins in earnest in late 2015 or early 2016

2016

July 17 – Undertale releases on Linux

2017

August 15 – Undertale releases on PS4 and PS Vita

September 15 – Undertale 2nd Anniversary. Toby releases early draft of alarm clock dialogue. First mention of Rudy Holiday

2018

September 18 – Undertale releases on Switch

October 31 – Deltarune Chapter 1 releases on PC

According to Toby’s Twitlonger, Chapter 1 was content-complete “a little while” prior to October 4th and was still being translated as of the 4th. This implies that, during Chapter 1’s development, translation was one of the final steps. According to Toby, Chapter 1 took “a few years” to create. At this time he says 7 years is the maximum time he’d be willing to spend on a project. Toby announces his intent to release all remaining chapters at once. It’s implied that Toby created chapter 1 mostly on his own, with art by Temmie. He mentions wanting to hire a team for the rest of the game. Toby mentions that Chapter 1 needed to create the entire Hometown “correctly on the first try” in order to “set up properly for the rest of the game,” likely adding to development time. Toby says that apart from creating some songs and writing the whole story, he hasn’t completed any work on the other chapters at this point. Specifically, no programming or final art has been done.

According to later statements by Toby, he and his team will spend the next two years writing, composing, designing, and drawing content for future chapters

2019

February 28 – Deltarune chapter 1 releases on Switch and PS4

March – Early development on future chapters begins, but “99%” of the work at this time is spent on investigating alternative game engines to GameMaker. During this period, Toby continues planning the game and writing its story

April 18 – Toby tweets that he’s “making great progress designing Chapter 2” and posts concept art, indicating that the chapter is still in early development

June 12 – Toby tweets that he has “about 50” songs past Chapter 1 in various stages of completion, compared to Chapter 1’s 40 songs. He also mentions that he’s currently writing and drawing bosses, bullets, cutscenes, and characters for future chapters

July 5 – Toby reiterates via tweet that he plans to release all remaining chapters at the same time

September 15 – Undertale’s 4th anniversary and Deltarune Chapter 2 status update

Toby reveals annoying dog in toy car sprite from Chapter 2. Toby posts early versions of the songs Lost Girl and Welcome to the City. Toby posts concept art of Susie’s angry reaction to Noelle looking at her tail. Overall, Toby says the design of the game is going “really well” but that other aspects are “facing some hurdles”. This seems to imply that Chapter 2 is still in early development at this point.

2020

Around March or April, Toby experiences severe wrist pain that slows down his ability to develop the game

“A few months” prior to August/September, Toby completes readable outlines for every chapter in the game, including first-pass dialogue for almost all cutscenes. All major events and battles that will take place are now known. Toby also decides around this time to go back to GameMaker as the engine of choice for the full game

May – Deltarune chapter 2 begins full development, using Chapter 1 as a base

September 15 -  Undertale’s 5th anniversary concert and Deltarune Chapter 2 status update

Toby reveals he’s now working on a team with four full-time members (including himself) and other part-time members. Toby is designer and programmer. He also proposes hiring more people to work on Chapters 3 and beyond. Toby believes that Chapter 2, content-wise, will be done before the end of 2020 (not accounting for translation, bugtesting, and porting). This likely meant that, by the end of 2020, Chapter 2 was in an alpha or beta state where it could be played through from beginning to the end. Toby estimates that Chapter 2’s design/early development phase is 100% done. Toby estimates Chapter 2’s art is 90% done, Cutscenes are 80% done, Bullet patterns are 70%, other battle elements (ACTs) are 30%, audio is 80%, “other”/misc content is 65%. Chapter 2’s maps are mostly started or placeholder but with all NPC interactions completed. Toby reveals that he doesn’t draw his map designs until his team starts programming. Chapter 2’s balancing/bugfixing/translation/porting are all 0% done. Overall Toby suggests that Chapter 2 is between 50% and 80% done. Toby makes a distinction between Chapter’s 2 development and the development of remaining chapters. He also says that the game will be released in “many Chapters,” perhaps implying he was already reconsidering his goal of releasing all chapters at once at this time. Toby describes Chapters 3 and onward as having story and progression 100% done, cutscene dialogue 95% done. Ch 3+ Textual map design is 70% done overall and earlier chapters 100% done. “Earlier chapters” likely means 3 through 5. Drawn map design is 0% done. Ch 3+ enemy conceptual design is 90% done and bosses are 100% done. Enemy bullet designs are 80% done overall and 100% done in earlier chapters. Ch 3+ music concepts are 95% done, completed music is 50% done. Ch 3+ background concepts (first-pass) are 75% done. Ch 3+ bosses (first-pass) are 100% done. Ch 3+ sprite art is 20% done.

November 23 – Toby tweets the giant toilet from Chapter 2

2021

March 16 – Undertale releases on Xbox One

April 17 – Toby tweets about a friend playing the beta version of Chapter 2, confirming the game was in beta and undergoing playtesting around or prior to this time

July 20 – Toby tweets again about another friend playing the Chapter 2 beta

September 15 – Undertale 6th anniversary, Deltarune Chapter 2 announced

September 17 – Deltarune Chapter 2 is released

Toby’s team has expanded since the last status update and he considers expanding the team a little more. Toby says Chapter 2 was the biggest chapter in the game in many ways, including by cutscene count. Toby confirms changing his mind about releasing all chapters at once. Instead, Chapters 1 through 5 will be bundled together as a paid release once 3, 4, and 5 finish development.

September 23 – Deltarune Chapter 2 released on Switch and PS4

September 24 – Toby confirms in an interview that Chapter 2’s development took 1.5 years. This would line up with development starting in earnest around May 2020. Toby also confirms that chapter 2’s programming was handed over to another member of the team due to Toby’s wrist injury. Toby is now working as director on the project.

2022

February 9 – Toby posts concept art of future chapters

May 17 – Toby posts more concept art and mentions he’s gotten more people to help with development

September 15 – Undertale 7th anniversary

Toby’s team is simultaneously working on chapters 3, 4, and 5. Toby confirms more people have joined the team and the pace of creation has improved from Chapter 2. Most work completed has been for Chapters 3 and 4. Between 3, 4, and 5, the team has created more than one chapter’s worth of bullets, cutscenes, and gimmicks (likely meaning puzzles). Toby mentions 3, 4, and 5 having “certain aspects” that took a while to set up but are now in place, which will make development go smoother. Toby releases screenshots and songs from chapters 3 and 4.

September 17 – The Spamton Sweepstakes

November 17 – Toby announces Undertale/Deltarune mailing list

December 19 – The first Undertale/Deltarune newsletter is delivered

Toby says “the end is in sight” for some of the content in Chapter 3, but is very vague overall.

2023

March 30 – The second newsletter is delivered

The team’s main focus is completing Chapter 3. Translation for chapter 3 is close to starting. Based on what we know from later updates, it seems that translation is beginning sooner for these chapters than it did for chapters 1 and 2.

June 29 – The third newsletter is delivered

The team is still focusing on Chapter 3, but a few people are working on bullet patterns and puzzles for later chapters. The team is creating the final overworld area for Chapter 3, which is the last thing to complete before Chapter 3 is fully playable from start to finish (i.e., entering an alpha/beta state). Toby mentions how chapter 3 is an unusual chapter and implies it may have been harder to work on than a typical chapter. He also says Chapter 4 will be a “much more standard chapter”.

September 14th – The fourth newsletter is delivered

Chapter 3 is now playable from start to finish and is (presumably) undergoing testing and polish.

[hwsfemmephenomenon]

Check out our preemptive FAQ here!

Without further ado, here are the answers to your questions from the interest check:

☆ I would like to apply to be an art mod, but my Hetalia fanwork is a bit old and not up to date with my current skill level? Can I submit some non-Hetalia fanwork for my mod portfolio?

If this is the case, submit any work you're proud of, regardless of its relevancy to Hetalia!

☆ What does "spread" and "page" mean?

☆ Where do I sign up?

Contributor applications will be opening July 1, 2024. We’ll make a post with the link to the contributor apps at 3PM EST on July 1, but you’ll also be able to find a link to the apps on our Carrd when the time comes! Right now the button on our Carrd is a placeholder, but if you press it now, you’ll be rewarded with a cool and funky video :]

☆ Will page size/formatting guidelines be given?

Yes! At the moment, there are placeholder measurements in our info-doc. Proper formatting will be finalized before contributor apps open once we’ve onboarded our formatting mods and discussed what sizes are best!

☆ Can my contribution include multiple HetaGirls?

YES!!! Let them interact!

☆ Are ships allowed?

Yes! As of right now, our only restrictions are no Belarus x Ukraine and no NSFW content.

☆ How many contributors will you accept to the zine?

At the moment, we’re a bit unsure! This is both Soph and Arson’s first time hosting a zine so we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. As of right now, we may accept up to ~30 visual contributors and ~10 writing contributors, but those are estimates. We’ve gotten a ton of support for this zine, but we need to find our footing first! Ultimately, the final number of contributors will depend on what the mod team feels they can handle and how many applications we get!

☆ Why are you putting limits onto how Nyotalia characters can appear in the zine?

This zine originally came to be with the canon women in mind. We want the zine to focus on Ancient Egypt, Belarus, Belgium, Czechia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Seychelles, Taiwan, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Wy, as much of their canon material treats them as supporting roles to the male characters. We additionally would love to see submissions for Ancient Greece, Kenya, and Zimbabwe!

The Nyotalia characters are understandably very popular because they're a different take on the main cast. While we also love Nyotalia, we worry that very popular characters, like the main 8, will overshadow the characters we created this zine for in the first place. Nyotalia women are allowed in supporting roles because it would understandably be a little difficult for the writers if they were only limited to a specific set of 12-17 characters.

Some examples of work featuring Nyotalia characters would be:

A frying pangle fic where Hungary interacts with Nyo!Austria and/or Nyo!Prussia

A group illustration centering Vietnam’s interactions with Nyotalia ASEAN

An AmeBela illustration where Belarus interacts with Nyo!America

Some exceptions may be allowed on a case by case basis.

TLDR: You can draw Nyotalia women so long as they play a supporting role to one of the canon ladies.

☆ How many OCs will be allowed?

It depends on how many applications we receive! So long as they're a nation & aren't already canon to Hetalia, it's fair game. We want to see ladies from all over the globe!

☆ Why do you want more than one pitch?

We don't want to force people to make work they're disinterested in, but we also don't want there to be a disproportionate amount of material for one girl over another. As of right now, Hungary is in the most demand with 69.2% of responses, but Wy (34.6%) and Monaco (42.3%) have the least amount! We want to encourage more work for the more neglected ladies!

☆ Can I make more than one submission?

As of right now, yes! So long as everyone isn't doing more than one piece and if the contributor thinks they can handle two pieces during the time frame, we wanna see those HetaGirls!

More on this to come when acceptances roll out and we start working on pitches...

Got more questions? Submit them to our inbox!

Thank you all for the love and support you've shown the zine thus far!

[the-banana-splits-blog]

2 banana

Introducing the gorillatan on the drums, Bingo B. Grey

Any post with the tag The Gorillatan on the drums (Bingo) will have Bingo on them

Below is his info post on the blog.

Bingo is a very energetic and mischievous gorillatan, if there is some kind of problem, he most likely caused it.. but besides that, he is a pretty sweet guy and just a big teddy bear. He is quite strong, but never really wants to hurt anyone, but he seems to be the most protective of the gang if they run into trouble.. well, most of the time. You can mostly find this gorillatan reading comic books or stealing sweets and stuff (mostly goes after any baked goods Snorky had made)

Since retiring from the show, he hasn’t changed much. Still as mischievous as ever and has no plans on stopping. Though he does sometimes give the gang a break from his shenanigans every now and then and goes to his parents place for a bit to catch up. (He lives kind of far from his parents and siblings)

Bingo is currently 29 years old, people assume he’s dating Snorky, but they seem to have a relationship that’s hard to tell?

Personality:

A big time prankster, very happy go lucky and rarely anything other than happy (if Bingo is sad, it would most likely be something serious), very energetic, a bit too much energy.. quite protective, 100% a goofball, but will be serious if needed.

Little Facts:

Bingo is the main interpreter for Snorky, while the gang knows some of the honk Language, Bingo is quite skilled in it

Bingo’s bedroom is customized with many handlebars and rings on the ceiling as it’s his way to burn some energy while swinging around his room. Speaking of his room, Bingo is the only one that doesn’t sleep in a normal bed, he sleeps in a hammock and surprisingly, his room it pretty clean.

As you know, Bingo rarely loses his smile, but if ya get him angry then he can lose that smile. (The two things that make him the most angry? Messing with someone he cares about or messing up his banana buggie)

Bingo has a fear of tight spaces (you can thank a certain older brother of his)

Bingo is actually the strongest, but he gives the title of strongest banana to Snorky (he don’t like to hurt people anyway)

He has a huge appetite, he can eat a lot.. has been banned from quite a few all you can eat buffets

This gorillatan is prone to danger, he seems to get hurt a lot but always bounces back rather quickly. Out of everything he’s been through, he only has one scar.. that being on his chest, somewhat near his heart.

Relationships with the gang:

Fleegle- he has known Fleegle the longest and were (still are) best buddies, Bingo does consider Fleegle a brother in a way despite already having plenty of brothers. Nowadays, Fleegle is clearly tired of all of the pranks and stupid things Bingo does on a daily basis, but occasionally, he’ll get a smile out of that beagle.

Drooper- him and Drooper do consider each other friends, but they do have their ups and downs. As teens, they never got along, it was always Fleegle trying to separate the two so a fight doesn’t start. Nowadays, they are friends but do get irritated at one another if they spent too much time with each other.. of course with Drooper’s mindset today, he normally runs away from Bingo if he irritated him a bit too much…

Snorky- Bingo and Snorky are quite close, he is the whole reason Snorky even joined the band. Bingo was the first to learn the honk language and Snorky was over joyed when someone that wasn’t in his family could understand him. Their relationship can be a bit confusing from time to time as Bingo likes being a pest to him, teasing him and stealing things Snorky bakes and it all normally ends up with Bingo thrown by the little elephant, but at the end of they day, they are as happy as they can be and have no harsh feelings towards each other

Family:

Bingo is the middle child of 13 siblings. Out of all his siblings there is only one girl, her name is June and she is also the oldest. Bingo does in fact have a twin brother, his name is Dingo. They look nearly identical, but the main differences is that Dingo is calmer, has a different voice and does not have 2 different colored eyes. There is also 2 more sets of twins and one set of triplets in this big gorillatan family.

Bingo’s mama is Bethany Grey, a laid back, calm, and very loving orangutan. She has a big heart for all her children and is very protective over them no matter how big they are. Bethany doesn’t have a favorite, but she does say that Bingo has always been the most unique one out of them all. Bethany seems to always be sleepy even though she takes a lot of naps, she just says that’s how she looks.

Bingo’s pops is Charles Grey, a monotone and stern gorilla. He doesn’t speak much nor does he make a lot of expressions, but he loves all his kids greatly and has been as gentle with them as he can. He isn’t as social as Bethany, but he tries to be there for his many kids, but it is a bit hard for him. Same with Bethany, he doesn’t pick favorites, but he did think that Bingo would make a name for himself one day with his unique personality and he was right about that, he is quite proud of Bingo.. even if the gorillatan gets a bit too much for him.

[sonikkublue]

Do you have a master post of all the mafia au info? I've been scrolling through the tags and I fear I'm missing info

Tysm for lookin thru my au i rly appreciate that, but also plz excuse my secretive behavior, as I trouble myself with sharing barely any info on my projects🧎 specifically AND especially this AU of mine

I’ve been thinking of making one whole archive of it alone for the art, as well as a page that just explains the characters and a little of the story, just so ppl know a bit of what’s goin on, and who they are. Since I know illustrating this whole story as a comic/manga will take a while, especially just getting one vol out with only 2 ppl workin on it together- I want to keep my audience busy, informed and happy with, until the first vol comes out

To make up for not havin a proper explanation of ANYTHING yet, I will list some characters in brief for u. Mostly the ones u need to know. Others will show up over time:

Mr. H (he is the Sonic in this au. 30 yrs old and has been running his Uncle Chuck’s company, as well as the family mafia. He’s greedy and only cares for what’s in it for him, and money. He has no interest in relationships or love, but would make u pay to date/marry him)

Miles (he is the Tails in this au. Plays the role of Mr. H’s son, being adopted since day 1. He also hates Shadow. He looks up to his dad and wants to be just like him someday. He just doesn’t know abt the mafia…yet)

Shadow (he’s Mr. H’s right hand man, his consigliere, his lackey. Him and Mr. H have a little romantic connection, even tho H is not the romantic type)

Amy (she is one out of a krillion of Mr. H’s exes. They had a married life together at one point, but that only last abt a year. She has been there for all his troubles n struggles. They’re friends now, but when they bump into each other, they’re bumping heads. Amy does it out of fun, as she still cares for H somewhat. Mr. H always means it, bein a bit oblivious to Amy’s care for him nowadays)

Knuckles (he’s a detective in this au, currently on a secret case that has Mr. H involved as a suspect of a crime. Someone could be framing him, but honestly who knows. Knuckles has a bit of dumb in him, but when he finally puts the pieces together, he can close that case faster than H makin easy money in his free time. H n Knux have a little tension between em, w/ H flirting with Knux most of the time when he walks into his office. H doesn’t even know he’s flirting with Knux, he just thinks he’s messing with him)

Robotnik (he’s like a toy maker in my au, but also a tech genius. Mr. H and Robotnik still have that ‘Sonic vs Eggman’ relationship, but also like a ‘Mr Krabs vs Plankton’ one too. They’ve been at each other since childhood. Mr. H always bein better and succeeding, than Robotnik LMAO)

Oh ya Metal H is also exist HSKDKFKF

[acinongalli]

Haiii, welcome to my blog! This is where the cutest enby fox loser in the world goes hog wild and does whatever they wants :3

check back every once and a while, this post gets updated :3

Some quick info about me:

•I'm 18 years old

•I'm bisexual/pansexual, and enby/fluid

•I'm polyamorous

•I'm part of a system (DID)

•I consider myself a very accepting, loving person to anyone who spends time with me.

•I am autistic, and do struggle with depression, self-doubt, and anxiety.

My blog has no set purpose, so expect anything to appear on here, from cute cartoon discussion, to hornyposts, to social issues, to roleplay, and everything in-between. Im truly an angel fallen to extreme lust. I'll try to tag as best as I can, but noone is perfect. I do not support racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-poly talk, or religious extremists. Try it on me and you'll feel pure enby fox fury.

Asks are always welcome, though sending hate will result in being ignored and I may turn off anon asks for a while. Both sfw and nsfw asks are encouraged, and I'll answer most anything. Please talk to me, I beg you.

If you want to talk with other parts of my system, we are happy to meet you. Two of us have their own blogs, @ashe-is-a-fox and @rae-the-succubus. They dont post as often as I do, but they are active nonetheless. The rest of the system will  talk through any of the 3 accounts, we just are the main ones.

2 of us are currently dating the amazing @angelwithmajordaddyissues , check their blog out sometime! I personally am also dating @thnx-cul8ter @lavender-flowergarden and @space-rocc ! They are so amazing and you should go see their blogs!

I also share a blog with some of my bestest friends, over at @the-mountain-cabin! We have lots of fun there. If you want any of my other socials, dont be afraid to ask. My DMs are always open to people :3.

Also find me on Mastodon, Bluesky, and Discord .galli2.

With that, I think I've said everything I wanted to, so see you around!

.......

also have a nsfw blog @galli-is-fucking-horny... too scared to put it in main post though.. feel free to fuck me there..

Who's ready for a lot of pictures in a slideshow?!

^a post with info on my neurodivergency^

you may visualize me like this, my darlings.. ehe..

here's my pronouns page, if you really want to know me.

ask game in progress.

[crocheting-cupio]

Recently on Reddit I learned that there is a dating/friendship site just for a-spec people! It's called AceSpace. I wanted to share it here to help spread the word to anyone who might be interested.

It does not follow the swiping model popularized by Tinder. Instead you search all users (with filters)! There no limit to how many people you can like, match with, or message. There is also a built-in social media feed that anyone can post to. Because of the small community, it's a very relaxed place.

All the main features are free, and they're going to stay that way. Anything you have to pay for is either purely cosmetic or not necessary to enjoy the site.

You are not required to have a profile picture, although that is strongly recommended, but it doesn't have to be a photo of you. One of your pet, or a Picrew, or something like that is fine! You are also not required to use your first and last name.

Right now it's browser only, but a mobile app version is in development.

It's pretty small at the moment because it's fairly new, so don't expect to find 50+ people in your area. I think right now word-of-mouth is the main (or only) way people are finding it.

It's also friendly to all of these people!: Aromantics and anyone on that spectrum People looking for Queerplationic relationships People looking for Polyamorus relationships Sex-repulsed people Romance-repulsed people

Link to AceSpace

Under the cut is more info for how it all works!

Okay, let's go through this one tab at a time!

Home:

This is the social media feed I mentioned earlier. So far my experience is "it's like if Facebook wasn't full of old conservative people, unfunny memes, and clickbait." Which is to say it's mostly life updates, asexual memes, and "Hi! I'm new here." Everyone on AceSpace is allowed to post here.

When you post, you have to option to specify that the post is relating to one of your interests. It's the button inside the text box that says "AceSpace". Only people who have the same interests on their profile as you will see these posts. For example, if I change it to "crochet" only other crocheters will see it on their feed.

You can filter your feed by your interests and your location, but some locations and interests don't have any posts right now.

Discover:

This is where you find and match with people! Since the userbase is pretty small, searching all users is not as overwhelming as it sounds. Especially once you have a few filters set the list of people will become much more manageable.

On the left, there's a sidebar with the current filter settings. By default, the filters are set to what you specified you're looking for on your profile. But you are free to adjust them as you wish.

If you set your profile to relationship only, only people looking for relationships will see you in search results. Same with friends only. So if you're only there to make friends, you won't have any people who don't stop to read trying to flirt with you.

Right now most of the userbase is in the US and UK, but there's a handful of people in other countries.

Messages:

Pretty self explanatory. Just your standard DMs. No limit on these, nor do they expire or close after a certain time.

My Profile:

The profiles have a ton of room to give a detailed description of yourself, your interests, and what you're looking for in a partner/friend. You also have more than one text box to fill out, and you can title those boxes whatever you want! Although there are preset titles to get you started on what to write.

On the right is a sidebar that gives the basics for what you are looking for in a partner/friend. Specifically age, gender, and their repulsion-favourableness towards sex and romance. Unlike for your own attitude, you can set this as a range. (e.g. Indifferent to favourable towards romance.) If you want to get any more specific in what you're looking for, you will have to write it out yourself in one of the bio sections.

The rest of sidebar gives basic details about you, so you don't have to write them out in your bio. Not just gender and age, but your physical build, your education level, your feelings about marriage, your interests/hobbies, kids or no kids, your preferences with long distance relationships, your political leanings, how much you do or don't drink, and more.

VERY IMPORTANT: DO NOT LEAVE OPTIONS BLANK

Let's say you're indifferent about marriage. You'd be happy with whatever your partner wanted to do. So you just leave your feelings about marriage blank/as prefer not to say. Well, unfortunately this means anyone searching for "does not want marriage," "open to marriage," or "does want marriage" won't see you! Sadly, there is no way to say you feel indifferent with these options. The closest thing is "open to it."

So if you want people to find you, fill out all the options if possible.

(I'm only bringing this up because I've seen so many profiles where people only filled out half of the options. Or just the required ones. So I don't see them in search results unless I clear almost all filters, and the same goes for everyone else on AceSpace.)

Okay, but what is it like to use AceSpace?

I've been on there for about two or three weeks, and I'd say it's pretty slow paced and easy-going. You don't need to constantly check it or always have the tab open unless you're currently messaging someone.

The busiest the feed gets is one post every 15-20 minutes, but usually it's about one post an hour. I'm able to fully catch up on all the overnight posts in like 5 minutes. So yeah, you could easily just check in once or twice a day and be fine.

So far I've only had one person Like my profile and send me a message, but they never got back to me. (They might have deleted their profile, actually.) But! I'm not losing hope. This is pretty standard to see on any dating site. Lost of people come and go and come back again.

[bright-and-burning]

No bc I love women and football tell me all the gossip with mccabe and foord and the ex (who is she) ☕️

alright this is going to be long im sorry but get me started on woso and i just blabber. uhh most of my sources cited but this is mostly me going back thru texts from during the world cup and grabbing facts/pictures from then so a few of these claims are a little

BUT i promise i didnt make this up LOL i was Deep in google for the entirety of the world cup so i Know i got my info from somewhere

everything else under the cut bc this got SO long im actually so sorry

there's three primary people involved here:

katie mccabe: left back (but honestly left everything wonder woman). captains the irish national team. plays for WSL's arsenal, has been since 2015 (minus a lil bit loaned to glasgow in 2017). those are the two important facts here really but the below is ~flavor~.

she's 28 and 5'5 and she's a DREAM. scored an olimpico at the world cup (FIRST IN WOMENS WORLD CUP HISTORY!!!!) (THATS WHERE YOU SCORE A GOAL DIRECTLY FROM A CORNER. FIRST ONE SINCE THE 60S IN A WORLD CUP IN GENERAL!! LITERALLY INSANITY!!!)

also for context this world cup was ireland's wnt's first ever major tournament appearance. she's the first ever irish goal-scorer (of men and women!). she's amazing. here's her for arsenal:

ruesha littlejohn: striker/midfielder. scottish-irish, but represents ireland at the senior level. 33 years old. has played for a lot of teams club-wise. currently plays for london city lionesses, a second tier team, but that wasnt announced til after the world cup. her most recent wsl team was aston villa (but i mean it, she's played like everywhere lol). 5'6 if you're curious.

here's her in ireland's kit:

caitlin foord: forward! plays for australia internationally, and arsenal (so teammates with katie. this is important.) she's played for arsenal since 2020! used to play for the thorns in the nwsl once upon a time. 5'7, if, again, you're curious. she used to date a swiss footballer (lia walti, who's played for arsenal since 2018) but they broke up like six months before the world cup. walti unfollows the australian team on instragram right after they post a video of foord, it's all very dramatic (THEYRE STILL TEAMMATES AT ARSENAL THIS WHOLE TIME BTW). arsenal man, always at the scene of the crime.

ok so now you've met our main players!!

world cup happened this past summer (2023), btw. to give you an idea of timing.

katie mccabe and ruesha littlejohn dated for 6-7 years (some articles say 6, some say 7). they came out in june 2019 and said they'd been dating for three years already. their breakup was confirmed right before the world cup (like THE SAME WEEK??), in an article where mccabe was like "yeah, ruesha, my partner at the time..." very casual.

and then. in JUNE. (world cup starts july 20th!!)

foord and mccabe go to ibiza w an ex-arsenal player (jordan nobbs). who (in june 2023, not anymore) played at aston villa with. you guessed it. littlejohn. so yeah your ex gf goes on a trip to ibiza w a new girl and your current teammate, you might be a lil pissed off. maybe.

the sun's (i know, BOOOO but this made me laugh so hard) caption on a pic from the trip had me cackling:

(the title of the article was "inside the glam lifestyle of pals caitlin foord and katie mccabe after ireland’s star’s ex snubs world cup handshake." borderline galpals commentary like have writers there never heard of regular synonyms for friends?? there was also a line that just screamed please don't sue us: "However, The Sun does not suggest the Aussie forward had anything to do with McCabe and Littlejohn's break-up.")

so now we've got two exes on the irish national team going into their first world cup appearance, the captain of the swiss national team and an australian player having broken up like six months ago, and much more, but that isn't directly related to This Specifically.

while you, anon, presumably know how the world cup works, ill give a mini explainer for anyone lost: there's the group stage, where the teams get divided into groups (in this case, of four), and your team plays every other team in the group. you get three points for winning a game, one for a draw, and none for a loss. those points add up and top two teams move on. and then you go into the knockout stage, where you have to win to advance, and if you keep winning you make it to the final yay!!

but for this we only care about the group stage. and more specifically, about group B.

group B is made up of nigeria, canada, australia, and (drumroll please) ireland!!! it is the stuff reality tv shows WISH they could make happen.

ireland and australia play. it is (almost*) the very first game of the tournament (but it's still on july 20th). it is at 5am my time. you would not believe the timezone fuckery i went through that month.

(*ok new zealand played norway starting a bit earlier on the same day but that's not as dramatic sounding)

and you know how they shake hands with the other team before a game? yeah well here's littlejohn apparently refusing to shake foord's hand:

here's a lovely photo of a Look from littlejohn to mccabe:

here's a diff irish player (sullivan) separating littlejohn and foord after the game (australia wins 1-0, btw.):

and i already shared this on @powerful-owl's post BUT. here's mccabe's little sister, supporting mccabe. please note the date (july 20th) and the comment from foord (from after the game, im like 99.99% sure) asking if she wants her jersey now. me personally if i just beat my totally platonic friend/teammate on the world's stage i wouldnt be pulling up in their sister's comments asking if she wants a jersey now (also implication of the word now as in previously discussed, etc etc. this was the thing that pushed me over the edge into insanity at like 9am after no sleep)

i admittedly have not kept up to date on anything that's gone down since the world cup so it's entirely possible more has happened! in fact i would say that it is downright likely lol. i love soccer lesbians n the insane charts necessary to keep track of their relationships <3

[townsenddecades]

All You Want To Know And More

Why, hello there! Glad you made it to my corner of the internet.

This blog is meant to chronicle my most recent playthrough of Morbid Gamer’s Ultimate Decades Challenge, following a family of sims for many generations from the 1300s onwards. I started my first playthrough sometime in the first half of 2023 and had got to the end of the 15th century before the urge struck me to start another one in a more medieval world.

This is the challenge you’ll be seeing on this blog. More infos under the cut.

A note on my posting habits: I have a queue that puts out one post per day. Initially, I wanted to refill that queue after every five years played, but I'll probably switch that to after every year played so it isn't so much work at once.

Current Households (spoilers if you aren't caught up, obviously)

Family Tree (even stronger spoiler warning because it's up to date with my playing, which is years ahead)

Navigation:

Introducing the Challenge

Gen 0: Benedict & Anne Townsend | 1300 | 1305 | Recap 1300 - 1309

Gen 1: Benjamin & Malika Townsend | 1312 | Recap 1310 - 1319 | 1325

Links:

Morbid Gamer’s Ultimate Decades Challenge

Plumbob’s and the Past’s UDC

My Mods and CC

If anyone is interested, I could upload my spread sheet as well, but I currently don't have it online.

Some technical details

I’ll be playing this challenge in The Sims 3, which means no Ye Olde Cookbook, Royalty Mod, Simple Living Lot Trait or the like, but I’ve heavily modded my game to achieve a more immersive gameplay.  This challenge will start – but likely not remain in -  the gorgeous custom world of Praaven, which is both medieval and completely roadless.

A link to a post with the mods I use can be found above.

This challenge will be more historically inspired than historically authentic, both because the game has its limitations and because my scant historical expertise lies more in the early 20th century.

For the most part, I’ll be following the rules defined by Morbid Gamer, with some deviations:

I’ll take some inspiration from Plumbobs and the Past’s ideas to make the challenge a bit more interesting. For example, when my sims go fishing, I’ll have them pay a fee, I’ll deduct 10% of the proceeds for whatever they harvest or sell from household funds, I will use PATP's dowry rules, and probably more.

Instead of starting with three teenagers, I decided to start with two young adults that have already been married for a bit and have two children and a toddler. I had a bit of a story in mind involving the proverbial lady of the house and the local Earl, so I wanted to jump right into the action.

As Sims 3 has no option to plead with the Grim Reaper (although you can play a match of chess with him or be saved by your pet, but you would have to have a pet that likes you for that to work, or both a chess table and enough skill points) I substitute that action with rolling a d4 when a Sim I’d like to live rolls to die. If it’s a 4, they survive.

Since I think it’s boring if most sims (barring historical events) die at exactly 6/13/20/30, I’ll sometimes roll a die to see how many years of life a sim has left. Those years can never be more than the sim would have to live until the next life stage. If, for example, a sim fails their young adult roll, I’ll roll a d10. 10 means the sim dies immediately, 5 means they live to be 25, etc. A teenager or a child, accordingly, can only roll a d7.

Illegitimate children are not automatically out of the running, they just rank after all their legitimate siblings in the succession. So it's legitimate sons, then legitimate daughters, then illegitimate sons, then illegitimate daughters, and after that the nearest-related side household. Rule may be taken liberty with as is dramatically convenient.

For the most part, no re-marriages for side households. The heir, however, can and will remarry as necessary.

I’ll be starting with a family of farmers, the Townsends, but just for the fun of it, I’ll also be rolling for the two resident noble families, that of the Earl of Petersmarch, who resides in the city of Praaven, and that of Baron Elbenhawke, whose family seat is in the hills just above the Townsend’s village. As they are not even proper side households, I’ll only mention the nobles’ fates on the side, mostly as a little info text at the end or mentioned in the story as relevant.

Honestly, I’m just curious about how long their lines will last.

I've taken some heavy inspiration for the layout of this info page from @lilabella12, whose wonderful Decades Challenge you should really go check out.

Trigger Warnings:

Death (even of children, toddlers and infants) due to a plethora of causes

War

Epi- and pandemics,

Maternal death

Stillbirths

Likely at least mentions of miscarriages

Mentions or depictions of various substance abuses

References to sexual assault/coercion

Religion

Adultery

The sims featured in this likely often just won’t have a good time

[megaawkwardhuman]

don't mind me I'm just going insane over nandor's rings

OK OK OK SO idk WHY but my brain suddenly remembered this post by someguywife and it got me wondering how long has he owned those rings?

disclaimer: 100% looking too deep into this and most likely going insane also for the most part I only focused on old photos in the show since I doubt they would go out of their way to edit the rings onto the paintings for nandor

first I looked through the intro and for the most part the rings are nowhere to be seen.

(side note: didn't notice that the last photo was taken on the same night as the new years eve photo :D)

anyway I say for the most part cause of this fucking photo...

Now I don't know shit about polaroids but there's some numbers at the bottom of these photos.

This probably means something but after looking it up all the info I could find talks about numbers on the BACK of a photo so that's fuuuuuuuun. I would keep looking into this but I keep going in circles so please if you have any idea what 090111225 4 could mean please let me know It's driving me fucking crazy. I'm assuming it could translate into a date but idk it could mean nothing.

now looking at the outfits in the photo I'd say this is in the 70s maybe? idk I also suck at analyzing clothes so for now this photo is a dead end WHICH SUCKS CAUSE IT'S ONLY GOING TO GO DOWNHILL FROM HERE!

IF this is the 70s then on we have a rough estimate of WHEN he got them but that's just the intro what about in actual episodes.

if we go back to s2e8 collaborations we get a look at nandor in the 70s when he shows us photos of him and is old familiar benjy aND GUYS GUESS WHAT? N O F U C K I N G R I N G S

the latest date we see on one of those photos is 1974 so around the mid to late 70s he got his ring grea- oh what's that? there's more? greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat...

so going from season 2 to season 3 on s3e3 gail we also get to see some more old photos of our fav cringefail. he says they've been on and off for 30 to 40 years and doing the math that means they met around the early 80s so surely he should have his rings by now right? RIGHT?

at first no BUT THEN

DING DING DING I SEE A FUCKING RING FOLKS

so the next photo shows him celebrating new years with her and she looks to be around the same age SO THAT MEANS HE GOT THE RING IN THE LATE 90- wait the fuck a minute...

huh... WELP SHIT THIS GOT COMPLICATED!

so looking at the photo booth photos again it's most likely the rings nandor usually wears so you'd think he'd be wearing them since you know HE WEARS THEM ALL THE TIME!? but NOPE he's wearing this red ring instead.

and in the next photo you can't tell at all what ring he's wearing.

so what does this all mean? well here's my current theory:

at some point when he was first with gail he got his rings (whether it was a gift or something he picked up idk) so around the 80s or 90s but he didn't wear them as often as he does now.

head cannon: after guillermo complimented the rings we see him wear in the show he made sure to wear those specific rings everyday

thanks for watching me go crazy coming to my TED talk