#thats the general premise its much more detailed than that

[starrysharks]

What is ultimate Excalibur😭😭 I’ve seen so many of your posts with that as a tag I’m curious

it's my oc story/comic idea !!!! :D the tag is for art/stuff of the characters within the story :>

[cassandragemini]

Giant au? Owo? How’s that happen what’s the premise what’s the deal

i got 2 oc aus for misha and tseren where 1 of them has size changing powers and theyre sappy and run heavily on fairy tale logic cause these are fun and self indulgent. theyre more like non-canon offshoots than full alternate timelines technically cause they have the same backstory but with some weird shit happening to them suddenly. anyway both of these are a case of me writing something and then attempting to retroactively justify it in the story so some details are still kinda fuzzy but the tentative explanation im currently going with is that both of these are in some way caused by a mountain spirit who has a soft spot for misha and tends to unexpectedly give blessings or grant wishes on rare occasions but usually with a interesting twist. shes not really malevolent but she does have a tendency to give extremely unasked for “gifts” just to see how people react

side note as a general rule i usually write giant characters as roughly 60 feet tallish cause thats the height you would need to be for a tall adult to be roughly equivalent to the size of your hand

the basic gist of the au where tseren has size changing powers is that he tends to have intense emotions and he grows as a physical manifestation of that type of almost overwhelming warm fuzzy feeling where your emotions feel a little too big for your body. misha is very physically affectionate and one night tseren is laying in her arms and he offhandedly wishes that he (9 inches shorter than his beautiful butch wifehusband) wasnt too small to hold misha in the same way and make her feel that same sense of safety. he has 0 reason to even consider the idea of a mildly bored spirit listening and granting this one random whim on a very strange technicality. tseren isnt like actually aware of this at the time so it is extremely nightmarish when hes in a good mood the next day and it suddenly feels like the walls of their house are beginning to close in around him. tseren is kind of neurotic about sudden change in general and has had a deep terror around the idea of his body changing against his will after witnessing mishas traumatizing first bear transformation so this feels extremely bad. misha had the sense to pull him out of an enclosed space before he got too big to fit but she cant do really much to help him beyond that and tseren is too agitated to let her touch him at all. after a several hour long panic attack he eventually does go back to normal but hes very freaked out about everything and remains skittish and avoidant for days. it takes like a full week for misha to gently coax him into actually talking about his feelings and to stop being so distant. when he does finally feel comfortable trying to pick misha up hes uncharacteristically anxious about her which misha finds extremely endearing. both of them end up drifting to sleep with misha curled up against tseren’s chest

the giant misha thing is a way less developed idea cause i only thought of it like a month ago based on a movie scene but rn its mostly one isolated and dreamlike scene in my head with tseren being kidnapped by some other outlaws for bounty money or something along those lines. misha tries changing into a bear to protect him but unexpectedly gets very very big instead. she's objectively terrifying looking to strangers so that scares their attackers off but she tries her best to kneel down low and speak softly to tseren. they are Confused to say the least but misha doesnt seem to be in distress and despite their fear around sudden change thats the thing they care about most so theyre mostly severely disoriented instead of terrified. when tseren tries getting up he realizes he injured his ankle slightly in the initial struggle and cant put weight on it so as a solution misha simply scoops him up (with permission ) and carries him home

tldr gently picking up your big strong butch is very cute and sweet

first art is by me and the second is by a friend who isnt on here + prefers privacy. third pic technically doesnt officially count cause its chibi misha but like its cute

[suffarustuffaru]

What are your thoughts on Prideful Cinderella by Pinkshuchan

ooohh prideful cinderella..... again gonna leave the link to the fic here please show the author some love <3 ill try to keep linking to the og fic like this if i get any more asks like this hah

i remember reading it a loooong time ago when it first came out. and then i actually read the first several chapters of it recently again because "hey i havent seen it in a while. and i dont remember much about it" so i gave it another go out of curiosity and i got to around ch4?

but yeah i did enjoy reading it!! not sure if ill continue it soon but it was pretty solid. the writing style is very - formal, i'd say? a little flowery? but anyway the writing style is very well written. it gives the fic a super nice atmosphere which i think fits the whole point of the story - a cinderella inspired, fairytale-esque fic thats made a little Off on purpose just because its pride if and pride if is Understandably. you know. off the rails. yeah i think my favorite part was exactly that - the atmosphere and style was very nice to read through, imo. its just the perfect combo with the premise, as i said, and the setting of this ball and the fact that a certain doomed by the narrative duo reinsuba are having their drama HAH.

and also that antagonist is so. hes so hateable but that seems to be the point. and also he Definitely feels like someone you could come across in real life (unfortunately). so big kudos to the writer for that!!! the part where the antagonist states his viewpoint on women and how theyre like Flowers is so chilling. and also a perfect counterpoint to reinhard, whos 1. genuinely fond of gardening 2. not horribly misogynistic and 3. his family has this. Motif. with flowers.

and also i know its been a small detail so far (at my uhh. around ch4 mark hah.) but reinhard drinking and not getting drunk because of his dps has gotta be one of my favorite details of this fic. theres already like small little bits of details in canon regarding reinhard and his thoughts on drinking (other than the fact that his dad is an alcoholic but lajfls), but yeah. i think reinhard purposefully trying and failing to get intoxicated is interesting. and the whole reinsuba drama and this taking place in pride if is all very interesting as well. the author does a good job of establishing the premise of the fic (cinderella inspired) and making it Make Sense with rezero's setting - its not forced at all i think!!

also i liked the julius reinhard friendship moments <3 (i am someone very normal about their friendship (lying through my teeth))

other than that i do have like. a few criticisms but theyre more a matter of personal taste. like the formal writing style is wonderful with the narration and with dialogue from people like julius or reinhard. it does however feel a little stilted with subaru just bc i Personally cant see him talking like that Unless hes putting up an act (which he does in this fic to be fair!!! but even when hes not he sounds a little too formal for my taste). and also i have General tastes regarding pride if subaru characterization which 1. will of course be a little different with other people and i am welcome to people criticizing my own pridebaru characterization hah and 2. yeah my opinion with prideful cinderella is that pridebaru is a little too nice at times? yeah. hes just a little too nice at times imo despite the fact that this is post-pride if arc 1 and post-subaru joining the witch cult. so i do wish stuff like his hatred of reinhard was more pronounced bc i feel like it Would be at this stage.

but i do get that pridebarus One Line he wont cross is like. people like regulus mistreating his wives and the antag of this fic sure is a bit similar so ig that makes sense? :o and also i did enjoy a lot of pridebaru moments and lines in this fic otherwise (the detail of him rbding to practice his disguise for the ball and him casually going "yeah i did it like 30+ times lol" in his own narration was SO good). i think the characterization of pridebaru just had some moments that i Personally didnt like and others that i Liked A Lot so a bit of a mixed bag to me personally. i liked everyone elses characterizations though!! the witch cultist lackey was also an interesting take yes.

yeah so thats my thoughts on it!!! overall its a good fic just had a few things that werent to my taste but thats perfectly fine!!

[zukos-tiny-burnt-ear]

Inside out 2 thoughts

ok, so like i said i got to see inside out 2 yesterday and i really enjoyed it! ive been rotating it in my head all day and collecting my thoughts on it and i want to share them (long post ahead and naturally contains spoilers so if you care maybe consider avoiding)

so if you've seen any ads about this movie you probably know the general premise which is that the movie follows riley as a 13-year-old, and the new changes she is going through as a result of being an adolescent. additionally, four new emotions move into riley's mind - envy, embarrassment, ennui, and anxiety. it's a fun concept, and i think it's a very good expansion from the first movie! and after watching this one i actually kind of hope they make one last movie, perhaps set when riley is a senior in high school and getting ready for adulthood (and in the scene where joy/sadness/disgust/fear/anger are trapped in the vault they meet riley's "dark secret" who is kept very vague and not explored and says he isn't ready to come out yet so i could see them exploring it in the future. plus many popular kids films like to become a little trilogy, rule of threes and all)

anyway id like to first of all talk about the designs of the new characters. i don't have a whole whole lot to say about envy, but i do really like how little she is, it think it makes her come off as like a little dog, which adds to her being the embodiment of envy (you know how little dogs always want to act like they're bigger than they actually are). and i adore the way she likes to sit on the console, i think its very cute. i do wish she was green, as that is the color most closely associated with envy, but i can also acknowledge that they may not have originally planned for a sequel when designing the first five emotions. the first five are a nice almost-rainbow, and envy/jealousy is simply not as common an emotion for younger kids as it is for adolescents/teenagers, so it makes sense that disgust is green instead. envy also reminds me of a different character from somewhere else but i just cannot for the life of me think of who

embarrassment is one who i think was very cleverly designed actually. i love that he is very large, which means that it's nearly impossible for him to avoid attention which just makes his own feelings of embarrassment worse. i just think its a lovely irony of character design, and appreciate the thought that was put into it. i also enjoy the fact that he's pink, like the color of blushing (such as from embarrassment). also, despite the fact he doesn't really speak throughout the movie, his role in helping conceal sadness when she sneaks back into headquarters was very sweet and i think he's a lovely little guy

im not 100% sure how i feel about ennui's overall design. at first i wasn't so big on how human he looked, but as im thinking more on it (and double checking his appearance) i realize he's shaped more noodley than i had initially thought, and he moves like a slinky which i think is fun. also the way he just kinda hangs out in his socks is a nice detail (whereas the other characters have some semblance of shoes or just little feets). i also like that he was given a french accent, as the word comes from the french language, and i just think its a good touch. i did remember him having a beret, but apparently he does not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. im a big fan of the indigo color though, but thats also just cause i love a good dark blue

and lastly there's anxiety, who i have found i absolutely adore. she completes the rainbow with her orange color,* which is just perfect to encapsulate the feeling of anxiety (think like orange traffic cones and such that are meant to serve as caution signals). someone else on tumblr made a post talking about how they were glad that she was very creature-esque, as pretty much all the other "girl" emotions were much more human shaped, which i whole-heartedly agree with. she reminds me of a muppet, or perhaps a strange bird. most importantly though i love how she portrays the feeling of anxiety which im gonna get into in the next paragraph

so when i went to see the movie, i went into it expecting anxiety to be characterized as your typical nervous-wreck type character, as it is a disney filmed aimed at kids, and it seemed a simple enough portrayal. instead, she is characterized as intelligent and friendly, though she is most certainly a fawn and an over-thinker. she toes the line between logical and illogical in the same way that anxious thoughts do in real life. the way she rationalizes all the poor decisions she makes for riley almost seems to make sense, despite the fact that its clear riley's life and personality are crumbling and then being held together with duct tape. for example why on earth would riley leave her friends to hang out with the high schoolers? well her friends are going to be leaving her anyway so we better get a start on making new friends. it almost makes perfect sense except it doesnt. and as anxiety continues on at the helm of riley's mind her decisions get worse and more frantic, more worried about how riley will be perceived and what her future will be like, until she literally begins to spiral out of control

those are all my big thoughts on it, but there's honestly probably more i could say. however this post is long enough so im going to stop here for now lolol

the climax of the movie is when riley is playing in the scrimmage at her hockey camp, and anxiety is doing everything she can to get her onto the high school team. however after being too focused on scoring, anxiety accidentally causes riley to harm one of her old friends and gets her sent to the penalty box, where anxiety begins to panic because in her eyes, if she can't get riley to score she can't secure a good future for her. she begins to move rapidly around to console, giving riley an anxiety attack. in my personal opinion, it is such a perfect visualization of how it feels to spiral, where your mind is moving a million miles a minute but you're completely stuck, terrified about this one little thing that you've put so much unnecessary weight on. visually it was beautiful and it was an amazing analogy

*i also really like how all put together the characters complete the rainbow, with red (anger), orange (anxiety), yellow (joy), green (disgust), turquoise (envy), blue (sadness), indigo (ennui), purple (fear), and pink (embarrassment), which circles right back to red

[8uny]

im really really really happy that the Afterparty season 2 is soooo much better than season 1 and actually hits the premise and feels like what i wanted it to be !!! deeper thoughts below

i tend to enjoy lord&miller's sensabilities, so when i heard miller had a tv show about murder mysteries (my FAVORITE genre) i was stoked. and while i enjoyed season 1, i dont think it actually hit the premise, which is 'murder mystery where each episode is from a different POV, therefore a different genre'.

the most obvious hit is i just dont think it was a good mystery. there were a lot of elements added to give mystery and suspense that ended up meaningless and unsatisfyingly irrelevant. the bow and arrow, the stuff found by xavier's body, the ominous texts. the fact that the big clues that were explained at the end was 'yasper came from a different direction than he claimed' and 'the door was closed all but one time' rather than any of the other myriad of hints they took the time to call attention to was a little unsatisfying. for a lot of the evidence to be meaningless.

for the other half of the premise, i just dont think some of the genre moves were done well. horror wasn't scary, action wasn't thrilling, the kids movie was shot just like a normal one but with funny sound effects and different acting. animation is also not a genre but lets not get into that.

and finally think maybe only a few of the characters are likable and memorable. and not many of them were really believable suspects. it goes to show that in season 2, i think aniq and zoe are the weakest

in season 2 though, i think theyre doing SO SO SO SOSOSOOOOO much better. for the 'mystery' aspect yes of course there are still red herrings, but rather than like a character's secret being only important to them, figuring out a dud is a dud still leads to 'ah... but what about this!' and shedding new light and context rather than 'well, you wasted your time caring'. i just think there x10 more thought in putting puzzles and little details everywhere, that i can pause and pick apart testimonies and think ive found something

and for the genre thing? SMASHING IT OUT OF THE PARK. season 1's flaw was it was so generic, so devoid of personality, so tropey and lifeless and boring. season 2 is delightfully specific! season 1 might have an episode thats just 'romance' as the genre, season 2 would have 'rom com sequel, jane austen regency romance, romantic drama-tragedy' and each will have its own musical and visual identity. season 1's music was so boring it made me wince hearing action movie riffs and horror stings that sound like theyre from a stock library. season 2 actually has that strong sense of identity per episode i was craving

and of course i just think the characters are straight up more funny and likable. even if zoe's family keeps cheating like jesus what sup with that lmao. im very excited for the last 3 episodes i hope it remains on point

[thatone-highlighter]

Hello my friends i am here to inform you all about Skeleton Leif AU

The basic premise is that when the trio open the box and get transported to Amphibia, Leif and Barrel get brought back as ghosts to follow around and help out Anne and Sasha respectively. But only they can see them

More info and detail under the cut!

The only people who can even see Leif and Barrel are Anne, Sasha, Marcy and Andrias (generally. technically the olms can also see/sense them, cats including killapillars and killamoths can see them and the lady from the second temple can see them also. the olms and second temple lady have to wo with a connection to the gems themselves) . For most of the time that is. When the gem powers get used it also has the effect of making Leif or Barrel depending on who is using it more tangible. the extent of it directly correlating to how much power is being used, for stuff like ep 1, Barrels Warhammer, Marcy at the Gates, S2 ep1, that sorta hint of glow in the eye thing makes them visible but still very transparent and they don’t last very long seeming more like a trick of the light than an actual person, and people nervy can faintly hear them say things. then for more powerful stuff like Anne-sterminator they become completely visible and audible but they still cant touch things. Thats the last thing to come and requires a very large amount of power to be used. The only one of either of them to become fully physical is Leif, and she only does it twice, once in True Colors and again in Escape to Amphibia.

their other ghostly abilities include:

- Minecraft Dog Teleporting

- always knowing where their ward is and vice versa

- phasing through objects and walls (it feels weird tho so neither of them do it much)

- bound to always be near their ward, they can be away from them but if they say walk in a straight line in one direction they will always find their way back. but its like a general vicinity thing not a they have to be Right There

-they can float around (tho neither of them really do, they either forget or just prefer not to)

Andrias gets some of the abilities in slightly altered or reduced forms. he and Marcy still get the always knowing where eachother are thing. it helps Andrias keep an eye on Marcy and Marcy can always find her way back to newtopia no matter how far she goes. instead of Andrias becoming visible when Marcy uses her powers 

They also didn’t 100% know who could and couldn’t see the ghosts to start with and its a strange bit of trial and error as they figure out who can and cant. Barrel and Leif both start off with the feeling they’re invisible to everyone bar their respective ward, then that they’re invisible to everyone but the four of them, then Marcy and Andrias just throw a wrench in everything by being able to see them.

The ghosts don’t really know fully Why they’re there. They just have a general feeling of “i need to help this kid”, so they do. Andrias also gets this feeling about Marcy because he still fills the same sorta role he’s just, not dead. But he  interprets “i need to help this kid’ more as “this kid is important” which while not technically incorrect, still misses the point.

when Anne first meets Sprig she actually thinks hes just Leif for a bit and gets really thrown off for a bit.

After the events of The Core & The King, Barrel and Leif never actually saw each-other again. so when Reunion rolls around and they finally get the chance to talk after almost a thousand years, it doesn’t go super well. Barrel never got the chance to get Leif’s side of the story so he believes what Andrias said and kinda blames her at first for being the reason Andrias got rid of him too. but it’s okay by the end of the episode they’ve managed to communicate and are on good terms again just in time for Barrel to watch Sasha fall from Toad Tower knowing he can’t do shit about it. 

Between Reunion and Anne leaving for Newtopia Barrel and Leif also regularly start meeting up in the woods between where Anne and Sasha are because they can both get about half way and they just Vibe and Be Happy.

Leif starts off very cagey about the music box. doesn’t want Anne to use it at all. to hide it away don’t let anybody see. When it comes out that Hop Pop hid it she sides with him. eventually after getting to know and care about Anne she relents a bit and shifts to you CAN use the music box to get home. but under no circumstances are you to give it to anyone in Newtopia, especially not the king.

True Colors still happens, just a little bit to the left and some stuff shifted around but it all ends the same. Anne on Earth, Marcy stabbed, Sasha out a window. when Marcy gets Core’d they become a spirit guide ghost as well. all the same abilites and rules as Leif and Barrel.

there’s more but that’s all i can think of right now! ill link to the other concept pieces i did for each of the pairs

Leif and Anne | Barrel and Sasha | Andrias and Marcy

[dirty-xenobladeconfessions]

hey fellas, if I may ask: do you guys think the women in xc2 are better written than in xc1 (I know xc1 suffers from misogyny in writing and design too but. yknow. which do you guys think is the lesser evil)

hmmmmm. like it kinda depends on what you mean by "women"? like just the women in the main party or women in general? like I would say pyra and mythra in particular are really detailed and interesting characters that are mostly marred by the writers trying to shove Anime™ on them but i wouldnt say anyone else has much more detail to them than the women in xb1 do. like morag and brighid are pretty paper thin when you get down to it. nia is really interesting but her big character moment is marred by sudden romance with no lead-in. overall xeno women tend to be "good premise shitty execution" and thats consistent across every game.

except for melia who is handled with respect and grace pretty much the whole way through, she's the least shitty part of the love triangle plot and her struggle with it makes sense for her character. I guess xb1 wins through melia existing but I dont think i could say its the best one just because of one character LMAO

[seawing-vibes]

Would you... would you care to elaborate on those other ideas you had for Peril's father and how Darkstalker's scroll could have been found? /pos

(honestly I completely forgot he was her father, probably forgot while reading, too. The explanation that was given just didn't make any sense to me)

*cracks my knuckles* alright gamers get ready to hear some REALLY rambly spitballing ideas. So this is all a very loose concept and the fact that I have only read Escaping Peril once probably doesn’t help (I’m re-reading the series again rn so that is likely to change, Escaping Peril & Winter Turning are the only two books I haven’t read more than once hughe)

The Scroll is hidden by Fathom on the costal islands near the rainforest. He hid it on a small inhabitable island, time treated the island poorly and most of it eventually eroded away, becoming nothing but a sandbar now. What happened to the scroll? Lost at sea. Or so we though

A Seawing is the one to find it, which one? Dude I’ve got no idea, either way this Seawing sells it off as some authentic antique scroll (I can imagine the wood thing the paper is on is very fancy & in a very 2,000 years ago fashion) and is picked up by a Skywing. Who is this Skywing you may ask? It’s the man, the myth, the legend *does a quick wiki search* Prince Hawk >:)

Hawk is an enjoyer of antiques and collectibles, he found this scroll and thought it was pretty, he figures out about its power in an interesting way when he writes down his wishes for his one of his sisters to remain alive (in-canon its suspected that he saw some of his sisters die) with this info he comes on Scarlets good side by working for her. This written wish is grated in the form of Ruby

He doesn’t allow Scarlet to know how exactly the magic works and just that he can just mess around with dragons appearances & whatnot, allowing things like Ruby & Pyrite to happen

He eventually hides the scroll once Scarlet is gone, he fears it and doesn’t wish to remain near it anymore, this is when its found by Moon on her own, Darkstalker basically directing her to it and bam, canon stuff happens

So thats my very bad & loose idea for the scroll stuff, there’s a lot of holes and stuff i need to stitch up but for the most part thats the main premise :]

And my main idea for Peril’s father is that he was one of Scarlets personal guardsmen, someone who was close with the royals and knew Scarlet well. He would’ve been a general or just a high ranking guard or something. He met Kestrel and the two actually hit it off really well, I imagine the two had a close and sweet relationship, and one that Scarlet despised. Her personal guard was now milling off with some low ranking grump who had tread on Scarlets tail one too many times. Once Sky & Peril were hatched everything happened normally, and right under the Guardsman’s Nose. He (besides the eggs) become the first dragon to fall victim to Peril. He had found out what happened to his wife months after the incident and had been brewing a revolt among the guards agents their Queen, he was great at planning things and waited until the Brightest Night to strike, but there’s always a talker, in this case the one to double cross the small rebellion was young Prince Vermillion, what a mama’s boy. The guards were thrown into prison, some executed, some being kept alive. Okay so note!! I think this next part is from a fanfic I read YEARS ago. I cannot find the fic anymore (I cant even remember what I read it on) but I remember the action scene that stuck with me. If I’m being completely honest I cant remember if this was a fic I read or something I thought of on my own (I tend to do that a lot so bear with me huregha) but uh. Keep that in mind! So basically Scarlet reveals the info of who his daughter is to him and the details of Kestrel’s death as she’s personally walking him to the Arena. He’s in schock and cant do much beside listen, and before he knows it hes out in the arena, a lil Peril sitting across from him. He loves his daughter despite not knowing her, and he refused to allow scarlet to have it her way, so he sits down, giving Scarlet one last defiant look, and introduces himself to her, and simply asks for a big hug. And I’m sure you can conclude how that ended. I love that being the way he goes out, I just think its neat and im so mad that I cant remember if that was a fic I read or not ggrgefg But I hope you like my long rambling !!! :]

[katewaliss]

! write with me or fight with me!

you either die by my sword or the most painful head canons imaginable! *merida vc* choose yer fate

just kidding!

 hey there gaymers, i am crissy! i am 22, live in pst, go by she/her pronouns and honestly would very much like a distraction from life -- preferably in the form of 1x1 and rp in general. i am currently doing online school plus trying/failing at adulting, being a crazy pink haired college student living on microwave dimsum with my crazy fluffy demon cat, but that still leaves me with a lot of time and what better way to spend that time then crying and dying, am i right, boys? 

so without further ado ( adieu? idk gusundheit ) here are a list of discomboblulated plot things that have been floating around in my head that i might be fun to do ( plot fragments, ideas, ocs, fcs i like, settings, genres etc )! i’d prefer a message if u liked any of these in the inbox or dm form, my tumblr ims are open and my discord user is mr. worldwide#2918 ( pitbull supremacy ) but if ur shy i will message u and be annoying! 

lastly: i prefer hcing in the dms to replies, however i will do replies/ask memes slowly, i don’t really like making blogs and prefer google docs/discord and i ask ( gently and respectfully ) that minors do not interact.

thank u and happy hunger games! xx

COLLEGE TOTALLY SPIES -- i was really obsessed with this picture right here and i thought that the picture would be a good premise for a little four person group based on totally spies. i was thinking that these three college students/young adults some friends maybe not some enemies or just on completely different ends of the social agenda get bonded together when they accidentally end up roped in a top secret spy organization that is fronted by a record store. the details and flesh of the plot i think would be cute to figure out all together maybe in a google doc or a big discord so we can make the rp to perfect world building specifications. right now i have two spots open! 

my friend lexi over at comradc has taken the cool goth asian girl and is using lyrica okano

i am playing the freckly backwards hat lesbian in the red polo named aj mccallis and i think im using diana silvers ( not sure might switch to tati rodriguez )

we also have the cute blond girl w the dyed hair who is giving me kind of like sydney sweeney energies, blonde girl maybe like lalisa manoban/jinsoul,

and we have the rad black girl with the bandids who i would only accept black fcs for for such as diamond white, ryan destiny, salem mitchell, 

i’d prefer if this stayed kind of sapphic and female and enby friendly. we can def make make npcs and characters but i’d prefer if the characters looked like they do in the picture ( minus the white girls who can be racebent as long as there are vibes ) mostly bc i want the poc people to stay the correct poc! but yeah! if u like this message me specifically!!!!! seperately and hit me w a role ud like maybe an fc an idea anything < 3 im working on a google doc and discord sever

- i really want to play a himbo skater boy evan mock like its my dream i know nothing abt him other than he probably goes by something like mouth or juice or tris or dex or dante but !!!! he has buzzed hair he buzzes designs into, does stick n pokes, hates cops, will kiss anyone, likes to mosh at house shows, smokes a lot and sounds like crush from finding nemo, probably ur parents worst nightmare if im honest rodrick heffley energy -- adopt him for any plot

- i also really am obsessed with simay barlas who is my mascot rn -- i want to play her in some sort of dark academia setting with like gossip girl blair waldorf energies lu from elite and have her be really mean and cold and pretentious and play the cello and probably have secrets and be uptight idk the name mallory is resonating hard w me ( we could even do a gossip girl the secret history type group if people liked that ) 

-ok i also really really want to play streak aka silas montgomery who is like very like sidekick best friend to the golden boy main character, does a kick ass goat impression, class clown, relentlessly hits on like the most difficult person in school, does crazy things for laughs and attention, just wants to make people happy, only wears hawaiian shirts, finger guns, is going nowhere in life, his dad is probably the dean at whatever prestigious school also he is very very depressed and drinks often! love u! a I Feel Like Im The Worst So I Always Act Like Im The Best electra heart baby PINTEREST

also yes his hair is pink reg verse he did it on a dare but hp verse he did a potion wrong and it never came out

SOMEONE DO A LADY HANNIBAL WILL GRAHAM RP KILLING EVE RP W ME! i made this will graham adjacent gal for a genderbent hannigram rp her name is bisexual disaster enida johnson and sometimes goes by needy or will bc her middle name is willamena! has basically all the will things wears flannels is a mess but has a bunch of cats instead of dogs in her woods log cabin and im using crystal reed bc it fits perfect in my head idk if u like her hmu hit me w a lady hannibal PINTEREST

other stuff

ok i really want to do a princess and knight plot but with knight zendaya and princess anya taylor joy ???? ALKHALKSHALK LITERALLY HELLO literally modern or like dnd style i do not care but know i love dnd! we could make it like them goin on some skyrim quests like hi

speaking of dnd and skyrim if anyone wants to do like anything based in dnd stuff or skyrim stuff i am DOWN

jennifers body plot!!!! maybe set in college!!!!! sounds spicy i will do a f/f or m/m version leggo leggo 

UNTIL DAWN UNTIL DAWN!!!! i wanted to do a little like 6 person or mumu until dawn thing where everyone either makes new characters or characters based on the existing six! i made a girl adjacent josh character named riley PINTEREST who i love very much ( fc might change im thinking maybe medallion rahimi ) pls hmu if ur down

i looooooove breakfast at tiffanys!!!! like i really love breakfast at tiffanys we love a call girl broody author ship and i want to play a mishti rahman holly golightly type character so so bad 

pygmalion plot!!! basically like an author and the main character of their book comes to life and the book character is probably from a different period of time or realm so doesnt know how to do modern 2020 stuff like microwaves and the tv! and then maybe they get sucked into the characters book world thats written by the author and have to navigate that! enchanted! w the kdrama! energy!

GOSSIP GIRL PLOT ENERGIES

any sort of the secret history murder society until dawn ahs horror type setting i am on a kick rn 

i still really want a deaf sailor and siren plot bc that is so spicy or even like anything involving sirens like maybe one thats like vegetarian and doesnt like to eat humans so it ariel rescues one and keeps it safe!! or like only men are susceptible to the sirens song but aha! i am a woman! Romance!

anything in the realm of percy jackson i love mythology lets go i kind of want a echo narcisuss plot and i want it to hurt me so bad 

i will do harry potter stuff but only if its completely removed from the current canon like years in the future no existing families also maybe beauxbatons salem and drumstrang plots bc thats what matters

iiiiiiiii really like anime so i will do anything kakegurui, soul eater, ohshc

i kind of like grew up on the hunger games so i will gladly take any hunger games plots like young effie and haymitch is spicy or like a career tribute and one of the weaker poorer distracts enemies to lovers leggo

i have a kind of oc that had their parents die in a factory gas leak that was the governments fault and it turned them into a vigilante assasin that is slowly picking off bootlicker government people one by one pretending to be one of them until bam! gets attached to the rich asshole son or daughter of the head hauncho or one of the higher ups ... drama

rich little celebrity fussy wussy being held captive by the mafia and the tired stoic mafia guard but they fall in love 

i kind of like any plot that involves one person that is really loud or angry or dramatic or whiny and the other one is kind of sweet and gentle or does not talk much idk make brain happy 

speaking of!

no nonsense law student studying abroad in a european country and an artist there falls in love w them and is all romantic and gush and is like ur my muse!!! and they are like Go awAy and they explore the city together and themelseves its nice!

i want to be an avan jogia super villain idk why i need to but i do 

not to be a disney adult bc i am not but anastasia princesses dont kiss kitchen boys 

rival cheer captians? best friends brother? pop princess celebrity singer and like antiestablishment really angry rockstar in a publicity relationship? broody detective and sunshiney diner person that works at the diner they eat at everyday?

idk i will think of more hmu these can all be made f/f or m/m if they arent 

[fuck-customers]

I don’t care if you spend $150,000+ yearly here, you’re still getting kicked out

Hi! Im a casino dealer for a well known and one of the largest Casino chains in the USA. I adore my job and 9/10 nothing happens to me that I feel the need to bring up to a supervisor or security. My regulars are great, the new faces are usually fun, and the worst thing I have to consistently contend with is my players getting antsy over how long the servers take with drinks on busy nights. Its a great job for the most part.

The absolute only thing, that 1/10 times, that I have to deal with is people, usually men, getting overly aggressive or sexual. When money and alcohol are involved, it can bring out the worst in people. And Im also quite young looking, with a very soft voice and demeanor at work, and Ive been warned by management that bc of that I may deal with some harrassment. Luckily, theyre never shy to support me and do what needs to be done to get it sorted. Because of how great management and security are, Ive never felt unsafe, despite how people can act.

This story is not about the average guest, however!!! No, this story is about a reoccuring character in my casino, a misogynistic high roller who only ever seems to come out of poker room or high limit to harrass me.

At my casino (and those sister casinos under a larger, well known brand) we have a rewards program that ranks the guests on, basically, how much they spend and win.

Basically, you get 1 point for every $1 to spend or win on a table game (there are other ways to win but thats the way thats relevent to me, a table games dealer). For each rank, you have to earn, yearly:

Gold: 1-4,999 points

Platinum: 5,000-14,999

Diamond: 15,000-149,999

Seven Star: 150,000+

Which, yes, means that a Seven star player spends and wins more money at my job than Ill ever see in my bank account! In one year, EVERY year, they want to be a Seven Star member!

So, Ive had issues with this one Seven Star (7S) member, consistently. Mainly, he treats me like crap and calls me a b*tch to his friends when he loses (which happens, bc its gambling, and its not my fault). In the same breath, he’ll refuse to continue the round until I ~apologize to him or ~blow him a kiss to make up for taking his chips. Or he’ll make uncomfortably intense and detailed comments on my appearance.

Every time I go to tell my floor supervisor about him, he sees me and colors up his chips and runs before they can handle it. On the bright side, it means I usually only have to deal with him once a night, because after that he avoids me (although he will walk by my table and tell my players how bad of a dealer I am despite how attractive he thinks I am, and how much of a shame that is).

This weekend is Halloween weekend, however, and we were allowed to be in costume. Im in love with fashions inspired by older time periods, so I went into work in an all-wine red outfit inspired by Edwardian fashion. It was really cute, and I got a lot of compliments from my coworkers, so I was having a great night.

But 7S sees me as hes coming out of High Limit BJ and makes a beeline for my table. I dredge up my best customer service smile and buy him in and shuffle the cards. As Im working, however, he is wasting nO time in making sure I understand how physically attractive he finds me in my costume.

Before I can say anything, he is pulling his phone out and pointing it directly at me, saying hes going to take a picture.

1) Policy states that, for security reasons, guests are not allowed to have their phones out while sitting at a table.

2) Policy also states you arent supposed to take pictures on a table, or anywhere really, bc of above. There are of course exceptions, like taking a quick selfie or SC, that security wont bother with. But if the officers on the floor or the Eye in the Sky (the security watching the cameras) see you taking video or photos a suspicious amount, please know you ARE being followed my an officer, either on the floor or over cameras.

3) Common decency and security both also state thst you dont take pictures of employees without their consent.

Now, still smiling, I tell him he knows full well he’ll get in trouble if he takes a picture of me because he knows the rules. Hes not supposed to have his phone out, at all, at the minimum. He just smiles lecherously and tells me its an exception bc its Halloween. False.

Luckily, however, I’m just there for 20min to give a coworker a break. In the mean time, no matter how often I insist he has to stop, he doesnt. It just so happens that my floor supvervisor was having to deal with 2 drunk guests fighting 2 tables over from me, so I couldnt immediately reinforce the rules. I had to spend 20min dealing with this guy drooling and taking photos of me when he thought I wasnt looking until my coworker came back and I could walk up to my supervisor directly. (Poor guy was dealing with a lot, so i dont blame him for not seeing what was happening at my table.)

Typically, 7S saw my ratting him out and tried to run. My awesome floor sueprvisor didnt hesitate. All I had to say was “The 7S player at spot 5 kept taking pics of me” and he was calling security, no further explanation needed.

I was giving another coworker a break when the rest of the story unfolded.

Security and my shift manager track him down and force him to delete the multiple photos from his phone, explaining in detail why that wasnt allowed. The female security guard even went so far as to take the phone away, go into the deleted section, and made sure to hard erase the photos so he couldnt recover them.

He, apparently, insisted that it was an exception bc it was Halloween, that I gave him permission, that did we know how much money he spends here?!?! How dare we tell him no! He’ll never come here again! You’ll take an employee’s word over hIS? When he spends so much money here?!?!

Security, many of whom Ive made a point to become friendly with over the months Ive worked here, werent having his crap and told him that he had a 24hr ban for the premises. Unfortunately, the only way out was to walk him in front of my new table.

7S, no matter how many security officers were walking him out, kept trying to walk up to me and start talking. At one point he managed to just stand there in front of my table and just... stare at me, ignoring the security trying to make him leave. He just stood there, perfectly in front of me, with a gross, malicious smile, waiting to be acknowledged by me as a whole security team tried to urge him forward without having to take physical action.

I had guests on my table, so I wasnt about to talk to him, but I glanced up at him and smiled, and continued to deal the cards.

I wish I could say I was trying to be witty, but honestly after working so long in this position, my default response to guests in general has just become the Customer Service Smile. I was actually very afraid in that moment, and very grateful to the security guard who finally wedged herself between us and forced him on.

Later, the female security officer who made sure my photos were fully deleted came up to me on break. She let me know that she made sure to get everything off his phone, and that she was honestly frightened of how he treated me and how he was acting towards me, and that its now going to be known how he feels towards me. She said that if he ever sits at my table and even vaguely makes me uncomfortable, bc of his history with me they wont hesitate to take care of it.

Working here is one of the best things to ever happen to me, and Im glad the security and management here are able to minimize the guests who give me problems. And hopefully he hates me enough that he never plays at my table, again.

TL;DR: A guest who spends $150,000+ yearly at my casino repeatedly sexually harrasses me over a period of months. It comes to a head when he takes photos of me without my consent in my Halloween costume. Security and management make him delete the photos and temporarily ban him from the establishment in a scene that was bad enough for security to put a policy in place to keep him from bothering me ever again.

[somnilogical]

modular "ethics":

a wrong and two rights make a right

<<I've been known to cause outrage by suggesting that people who really care about something shouldn't have romantic relationships. Think what would happen if I dared to suggest that those people should also seriously consider getting castrated. That would be crazy! And who am I to suggest that basically everyone claiming to be doing good is faking it? Then people would feel bad about themselves. We can't have that!>>

https://squirrelinhell.blogspot.com/2018/02/men-have-women-are.html

previously i talked about an infohazard about altruism that seemed to fuck with grognor. it feels useful to pass by the dead and look at their lives and choices.

i dont think that castrating yourself is a good intervention for doing stuff you care about, like this is patchwork constraints for an unaligned optimizer. if you arent altruistically aligned from core values, castrating yourself wont make you more aligned.

the "altruists" having babies thing is actual insane and pasek is right about that. pretty much all of society will try and gaslight you about this the way sometimes people are gaslit about "i need to have sex with lots of attractive fems to keep up my moral so i can do super good stuff afterwards.". like if people want to do good for the world it will flow out as a continuous expression of value not some brent dill kind of deal that institutions like CFAR accepted until there was too much social pressure for them to maintain this facade.

the entire premise that morality is this modular thing and you can help set the utility function of an FAI while being a terrible person, is wrong. yet organizations like CFAR keep thinking it will work out for them:

<<We believe that Brent is fundamentally oriented towards helping people grow to be the best versions of themselves. In this way he is aligned with CFAR’s goals and strategy and should be seen as an ally.

  In particular, Brent is quite good at breaking out of standard social frames and making use of unconventional techniques and strategies. This includes things that have Chesterton’s fences attached, such as drug use, weird storytelling, etc. A lot of his aesthetic is dark, and this sometimes makes him come across as evil or machiavellian.

  Brent also embodies a rare kind of agency and sense of heroic responsibility. This has caused him to take the lead in certain events and be an important community hub and driver. The flip side of this is that because Brent is deeply insecure, he has to constantly fight urges to seize power and protect himself. It often takes costly signalling for him to trust that someone is an ally, and even then it’s shaky.

  Brent is a controversial figure, and disliked by many. This has led to him being attacked by many and held to a higher standard than most. In these ways his feelings of insecurity are justified. He also has had a hard life, including a traumatic childhood. Much of the reason people don’t like him comes from a kind of intuition or aesthetic feeling, rather than his actions per se.

  Brent’s attraction to women (in the opinion of the council) sometimes interferes with his good judgement. Brent knows that his judgement is sometimes flawed, and has often sought the help of others to check his actions. Whether or not this kind of social binding is successful is not obvious.>>

https://pastebin.com/fzwYfDNq

<<AnnaSalamon 2/6/09, 5:54 AM

Aleksei, I don’t know what you think about the current existential risks situation, but that situation changed me in the direction of your comment. I used to think that to have a good impact on the world, you had to be an intrinsically good person. I used to think that the day to day manner in which I treated the people around me, the details of my motives and self-knowledge, etc. just naturally served as an indicator for the positive impact I did or didn’t have on global goodness.

(It was a dumb thing to think, maintained by an elaborate network of rationalizations that I thought of as virtuous, much the way many people think of their political “beliefs”/clothes as virtuous. My beliefs were also maintained by not bothering to take an actually careful look either at global catastrophic risks or even at the details of e.g. global poverty. But my impression is that it’s fairly common to just suppose that our intuitive moral self-evaluations (or others’ evaluations of how good of people we are) map tolerably well onto actual good consequences.)

Anyhow: now, it looks to me as though most of those “good people”, living intrinsically worthwhile lives, aren’t contributing squat to global goodness compared to what they could contribute if they spent even a small fraction of their time/money on a serious attempt to shut up and multiply. The network of moral intuitions I grew up in is… not exactly worthless; it does help with intrinsically worthwhile lives, and, more to the point, with the details of how to actually build the kinds of reasonable human relationships that you need for parts of the “shut up and multiply”-motivated efforts to work… but, for most people, it’s basically not very connected to how much good they do or don’t do in the world. If you like, this is good news: for a ridiculously small sum of effort (e.g., a $500 donation to SIAI; the earning power of seven ten-thousandths of your life if you earn the US minimum wage), you can do more expected-good than perhaps 99.9% of Earth’s population. (You may be able to do still more expected-good by taking that time and thinking carefully about what most impacts global goodness and whether anyone’s doing it.)>>

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/4pov2tL6SEC23wrkq/epilogue-atonement-8-8

like opposing this isnt self-denying moral aestheticism or a signalling game of how good you can look (credibly signalling virtue is actually a good thing, i wish more people did it by for instance demonstrating how they win in a way that wouldnt work if they werent aligned. whose power seeded from their alignment.). its like... the alternative where people do things that it makes no sense for an altruist to do and then say that when they go to their day jobs they are super duper altruistic they swear; compartmentalizing in this way ...doesnt actually work.

people who want to obscure what altruism looks like will claim that this is moving around a social schelling point for who is to be ostracized. and that altruism as a characteristic of a brain isnt a cluster-in-reality that you can talk about. because it will be coopted by malicious actors as a laser to unjustly zap people with. these people are wrong.

both EA and CFAR are premised on some sort of CDT modular morality working. it is actually pretending to do CDT optimization because like with brent at each timestep they are pretending to think "how can we optimize utility moving forward?" (really i suspect they are just straight up mindcontrolled by brent, finding ways to serve their master because they used force and the people at CFAR were bad at decision theory) instead of seeking to be agents such that brent when brents plans to predate on people ran through them, he would model it as more trouble than it was worth and wouldnt do this in the first place.

CFAR and EA will do things like allowing someone to predate on women because they are "insightful" or creating a social reality where people with genetic biases who personally devote massive amounts of time and money to babies who happen to be genetically related to them and then in their day job act "altruistically". as long as it all adds up to net positive, its okay right?

but thats not how it works and structures built off of this are utterly insufficient to bring eutopia to sentient life. in just the same way that "scientists" who when they arent at their day jobs are theists are an utterly insufficient to bring eutopia to sentient life.

<<Maybe we can beat the proverb—be rational in our personal lives, not just our professional lives. We shouldn’t let a mere proverb stop us: “A witty saying proves nothing,” as Voltaire said. Maybe we can do better, if we study enough probability theory to know why the rules work, and enough experimental psychology to see how they apply in real-world cases—if we can learn to look at the water. An ambition like that lacks the comfortable modesty of being able to confess that, outside your specialty, you’re no better than anyone else. But if our theories of rationality don’t generalize to everyday life, we’re doing something wrong. It’s not a different universe inside and outside the laboratory.>>

--

to save the world it doesnt help to castrate yourself and make extra super sure not to have babies. people's values are already what they are, their choices have already been made. these sort of ad-hoc patches are what wrangling an unaligned agent looks like. and the output of an unaligned agent with a bunch of patches, isnt worth much. would you delegate important tasks to an unaligned AI that was patched up after each time it gave a bad output?

it does mean that if after they know about the world and what they can do, people still say that they specifically should have babies, i mark them as having a kind of damage and route around them.

someone not having babies doesnt automatically mark them as someone id pour optimization energy into expecting it to combine towards good ends. the metrics i use are cryptographically secure from being goodharted. so i can talk openly about traits i use to discern between people without worrying about people reading about this and using it to gum up my epistemics.

[harryseyebrows]

Hmm let me think, how about something to do with when they met? I’m having a hard time remembering if you’ve talked much about that? Like introductions to the family and how they ended up fitting into each other’s lives? Was it a perfect slot or did it take time and effort?

oooh hold on i have some Notes on this:

“Have you ever discussed how Jeff and Harry meet in this verse? Are they friends for a while before getting together or are they dating right from the get go? Who asks who out first? I think you mentioned that Jeff is a beta so does that affect their relationship at the start? How long are they together before they decide to start trying for babies? You talk about their relationship with the babies a lot, but not terribly often about their relationship before the babies so I’m just wondering

I havent talked about this very much, mostly because i havent really given it much thought! or, i did a superrr long time ago via whatsapp and couldnt find it if i tried lol the actual original premise for the beta!jeff omega!harry relationship was that harry has in a previous relationship with an alpha that wasnt really nice to him, which i havent quite decided to what degree or even if im gonna leave it kinda open to interpretation. but the whole idea is that it spooks harry enough that he almost swears alphas off? he even dabbles in a few things with other omegas, but thats superfluous lol i think the other day i said that they met through mutual friends, so thats definitely how they meet initially. but things arent immediate after that. now mind you, this is happening when harry is in his early 20s, probably like 21/22, and therefore jeff is 29/30. and harry is really tentative to date in general, and jeff can sense that, so he’s really hesitant to even ask. 

but he eventually builds up the courage to, i suppose, when he and harry had been “hanging out” a fair amount ie lunch, seeing a movie, things like that, but they’re Not Dates, bc neither of them called them that (but they secretly were lol) so things are pretty slow moving, even after jeff asks harry on a Real Date and harry is tentative to agree. however harry figures out pretty quickly that jeff is super benign and non-threatening, and thats really appealing to harry. 

now, that doesnt mean that harry agrees to go out with jeff for those reasons alone. they def genuinely like each other and they’re really compatible. but they both want to be able to feel comfortable in a new relationship. harry embraces is after a while, whereas it takes jeff a bit longer, because he’s never been involved with an omega before, and there are certain things, specifically sex things, that he doesnt feel equipped to deal with, not because they’re actually that overwhelming, but because he’s the type of person to think he’s not doing good enough, and to avoid disappointing someone, he avoids it altogether. but he’s also just like.. awed by it, specifically heats and whatnot. i remember talking to jes about a scene in the very beginning, where jeff has this kind of internal dialogue with himself where he’s like ‘sex ed and porn cannot prepare you for THIS’ and he’s not sure how to navigate dealing with a sexual partner who is really Really reliant on you to help get them through something that can be embarrassing and out of character and scary, for that matter, being so far out of yourself for a few hours. but obviously he learns to overcome that lol 

i also wanted to make a point to include some worldbuilding stuff, if i ever manage to get to the “prequel” that deals with the beginning of their relationship, in terms of how other people see their relationship, and just how things work in general for this a/b/o universe. i have a mini scene kinda planned, where harry is really close to a heat, and he knows it, but he’s also allowed to live his life and whatnot, so him and jeff are out at a park or something, and an old man makes a comment about how harry should be inside and away from other people in his condition, and then goes on to make another snide comment about how his ~alpha should know better, but obv jeff is Not an alpha. idk. just little details like that to show that its a bitttt unconventional, but most of the young people in society are very accepting, but like irl society, it mirrors how older people usually have more outdated views. 

now that we’re moderately up to speed lol they get serious when harry is 23, and harry gets preggo with the boys when he’s 25. but as we know, it was a rather long road to get there aka over a year of trying on their own before moving to IVF with a couple (2) miscarriages along the way that really test their relationship and their desire to carry on trying to have kids together. lots of self-doubt on jeff’s part for being a beta and harry feeling inadequate as an omega. fun stuff.”

WHEW. in terms of meeting each other’s families, harry is an only child. i knowwww. blasphemous lol but i think it rounds out his character nicely. i think it offers an explanation on why he Is the Way He Is when they have the kids, vs jeff, whos significantly more chill, because much like irl, jeff comes from a big family. so while one might think that harry meeting jeff’s huge family would be super daunting, he’s actually less worried about it than jeff is about meeting harry’s mom. but while anne is a little skeptical at first, she figures out very quickly that jeff is a good egg, that him and harry are good for each other. as for jeff’s parents, they like harry right away. harry is super good with all of jeff’s little cousins and nieces and nephews, so even though irving doesnt quite understand the b/o dynamic at first, it becomes perfectly clear to him why j&h are together

[damienisverygood]

you: deceit is an abusive, gaslighting asshole

me, an intellectual: not only does has deceit only been in one episode at the time of this post’s creation, but putting him in the villans chair after virgil was removed and making him seem like a evil monster while virgil was just a nuisance is highly unfair

‘but virgil is a pure angel’ you say, and i say to that you clearly don’t remember asshole virgil from the first ‘season’ where virgil wasn’t a villan just because he was an emo nightmare, but because he seemed like a narcissistic asshole. he regularly made thomas uncomfortable, insulted the others on a episodely basis (ie. “no one cares you’re the least popular character”) and was generally antagonizing during every video until the sides started getting used to each other. in the first episode he appears in, he literally talks down on everyone around him with some pseudo emotional abuse shit, the same that my anxiety does to me. 

‘still virgil’s a pure angel’ you may say and, yeah, he’s a good bean now. but before everyone knew that he was a pure bean? he was still the villan. the emo nightmare. and maybe lots of people initially liked him at first because he was an edgy kid and was named anxiety, and a lot of people could relate to that because a lot of us have anxiety, I being one of them. But Virgil was an asshole, and was never seen as an abuser, and yet as of the creation of this post, deceit has been in ONE episode and already people are writing him abusing the other sides when we know nothing else about him. 

‘But Virgil was furious at Deceit for impersonating Patton so he must be evil’ you cry, and honestly, that’s pretty easy to explain. I’m sure they do have their past together (anxiety is a mix of the logical things that can go wrong and the illogical things that you think are logical that can go wrong) but like, if someone was trying to impersonate my best friend, and managed to convince me they were my best friend while also keeping said best friend away, I would immediately begin to throw hands. no question about it. the deceiver doesn’t have to be an abusive dick for me to immediately punch them in the face

‘okay, so we should give deceit a try. but the word deceit still has bad connotations with it, and its often used for abusive assholes’

im not arguing with that one, but also, one again, consider Anxiety. Anxiety doesn’t have the best connotations either, his name really should’ve been ‘fear’, and when Thomas redeemed him in the Accepting Anxiety arc I was pretty damn concerned. For me, anxiety is Not a good thing. It prevents me from doing almost anything, makes my chest hurt, makes me feel like no one around me truly likes me or everyone is out to get me and it sucks ass. and yet he was redeemed anyways, and now I love Virgil with all my heart, and now he encompasses fear more than anything. maybe the same thing will happen to deceit in the future.

‘but what’s so good about deceit?’ you ask? and i am more than happy to tell you

his lying is so fucking ridiculous like is he being sarcastic or can he literally never tell the truth we may never know and its amazing

he’s??? a good actor??? like how long was he planning on impersonating Patton? did he decide to do it the day or minute before, because if he did wow??? good job???? and like, his subtle check of the hand for notes and him managing to fool all but the literal personification of detail nitpicker is so??? good??? Like he must be jealous that roman is regarded as the actor cause dammit he can act too!

on that note deceit apparently loves musicals and acting in general. that entire end card scene where he just lists off a bunch of puns centered around lying and plays? he literally did not have to do that but wild!!! not to mention his outfit i mean seriously the only thing more dramatic than that outfit is deceit himself (and roman too i guess)

HE ACTUALLY MADE SEVERAL PUNS ON THAT END CARD GUYS ITS AMAZING

on a serious note, Patton doesn’t hate Deceit. In fact, he describes Deceit as an ‘inner coach that acts with the one intention of self preservation’ (its also worth mentioning that morality technically isn't emotion, but whatever thomas believes is right or wrong. happy is good, sad is bad, lying is bad given some exceptions, etc the fact that patton is giving deceit some credit here speaks volumes)

and logan likes deceit a bit too i guess

‘so why do you care about him so much?’ you may ask, now curious, and i’m going to admit it, I’m pretty biased towards deceit because I lie a bunch. when I was twelve I lied about getting an online account because I was afraid my parents would be angry at me (they were). I lie about my grades because I don’t want my parents to be angry and disappointed. I lie about my opinions to others because I don’t want to out myself. I say little white lies every day to prevent people from getting mad, feeling insulted, or for bothering me too much.at me. I even lie to myself, giving myself hope that I don’t even believe in. ever hear the phrase ‘fake it till you make it’? thats been a whole lot of me this semester, especially since if i didn’t do that, I’d be too depressed to do anything, and that gets you nowhere (not saying you shouldn’t accept that you have to stop sometimes - you should - but remaining optimistic under false hope is better than staying depressed)

so uh, yeah

and thats my rant on deceit

Edit: *kicks down the door to edit this post* aND ANOTHER THING

The entire basis of Sanders Sides was created on the idea of getting to know yourself and the self improvement that follows. It’s about taking and understanding all of the strengths and flaws you have and using them to better yourself and become a kinder person, and yes, all of them. Making Deceit an abusive character who stays evil is counterintuitive. Not only does it help no one (especially Thomas since Deceit still is a part of him), if someone like Deceit is pushed away on the premise that he’s a bad guy (*cough* like Virgil *cough*), then there’s a risk of another case of ‘ducking out’, and who knows what trouble an overly honest person can get himself into. 

and on that note who here has never lied before come on

[bmichael]

Tanis vs The Southern Reach

In order to talk about the Southern Reach (TSR) trilogy, you have to talk about Tanis. There are a few reasons, both personal and intrinsic to the work. The most basic is that I’d have never heard of TSR without being a part of the online Tanis community. They would come up whenever anyone asked about works similar to Tanis, but they were generally recommended wanly, with the ending being a particular weakness. (This is absurd, because --) This was enough recommendation to get me to buy the book, but it took the first book from the trilogy, Annihilation, being both film-adapted and involved with my day job, to give the final push for me reading the books. 

The second main reason the two go hand in hand is that, without exaggeration, the Tanis podcast has tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to adapt or steal every good idea found in Jeff VanderMeer’s TSR books. Looking into Tanis provides an accurate map of the books’ general brilliance in the manner of a photo negative. An abominable necromantic double.

Fairly everything TSR covers -- psychological sessions and hypnosis; mysterious sylvan phenomenon; shadowy, quasi-NGOs running roughshod; oh yeah, and necromantic doubling -- Tanis has taken and used to worse effect. Everything. Instead of being set in a vaguely southeastern forest region of the country, Tanis sets its drama in the northwest. Again, another mirror-image type play, and not enough to give any sort of plausible deniability of blatant rip-off. But that Paramount money probably smoothes over any professional displeasure VanderMeer holds for Terry Miles’ podcast series.

Tanis is easy to explain and difficult to describe. It’s a serial fiction podcast centering on the investigative radio journalism of Nick SIlver, for a fictional northwestern radio station (now) called the Public Radio Alliance. He investigates a phenomenon called Tanis, which is found in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. Its fourth season recently began. (Good timing?)

Going more into it, the story of Tanis unfolds glacially. The first season forms a relatively clean arc that doubles back upon itself using a neat trick of storytelling. From there, the Tanis podcast tells an essentially ten-page story over the course of tens of hours of audio drama (insert scare quotes) by 1- having characters speak slowly and repetitiously, using dialogue that moves in fits and few starts; 2- picking up various narrative strands like the suicides of Kurt Cobain and Elliot Smith; shod feet washing up on shore; necromantic doubles; Nikola Tesla; Baba Yaga; Manson Family-style cults; time dilation; exotic locales around the world that aren’t in the Pacific Northwest; etc. etc. etc. and never resolving or developing them past basically stating them as premises; 3- finally, falling somewhat under the first rubric but deserving special attention, the dramatically stunted narration/actions of Nick Silver, the protagonist. I can’t recall there being a more unlikeable yet vanilla character in any sort of fiction or literature I’ve experienced. The voice actor is obviously Canadian, which somewhat contributes to the blandness of the character. Throughout the podcast, Silver is supposed to be a journalist or investigative reporter or something, but he displays virtually no curiosity or initiative. He’s happy to passively be told (or not told) things by interlocutors, asking no follow-up questions save for repeating whatever he’s told back to them with a slight upturn of voice. It’s maddening and deadening and a perfect symbol for the total plot stasis and lack of narrative drive that surrounds Tanis like a noxious miasma.

So, while the second TSR book, Authority, is a little slow (by design), it’s nothing like the complete vaporlocked and broken narrative engine that is Tanis.  

Now, I stopped listening to Tanis after season 3, and even going through that was a slog. The podcast has recently taken up season 4, but I already have the work of Morton Feldman and Max Richter to help put me to sleep. It’s not that the narrative moves at a glacial pace; an overarching narrative thrust can proceed exquisitely slow and glacial if that’s part of an intentional narrative strategy. Kinetic pace and frenetic plot can serve some types of stories, but would be totally out of place for a piece that’s more about exploring space like, say, L'Avventura. The Southern Reach and Tanis are on the more meditative side of the dial, but I believe Tanis moves the way it does due to a lack of storytelling ability rather than design. Take a look at this piece of transcript from a season 2 episode. (The reader should note that things deteriorate rather steeply from season 2 to season 3, but I couldn’t find a transcript online for 3.)Two characters, Nic and Geoff (“Geoff”), are exploring part of an outdoor anomaly that is linked to, or possibly is, Tanis. They’re walking along a wall. After noticing a crow that he thinks is more than a crow (which he doesn’t elaborate on other than to say he doesn’t know why he feels this way), Nic says he sees something “interesting”. I understand that podcasting is an audio medium. For that reason, even more than for a written work, the narrative has to show and tell vividly. Tanis takes the opposite approach. Details are muted and obscure, the storytelling palette is limited to shades of gray. The bit-by-bit pieces of the story comprise a push-pull of exchanges like:— This is impossible.

— What? — This. — What is it? What? Here? — Yeah.

And you can read on above. It’s bad dialogue, sure. But also, given that it’s an audio medium, the eye can’t skim or travel quickly through soft focus detritus to get to the details of the bigger picture. There is no bigger picture, and all the details are like little croutons floating on top of a mushy, rotting word salad. Characters often can’t mutually decide, it seems, on what they’re seeing or thinking and exposition is stretched out to absurd lengths of what’s thises and who’s thats. This storytelling-by-stasis is my main complaint against Tanis, and 95% of the reason why I don’t listen to it anymore and would never recommend it to anyone. But it’s just the rotting frame that holds up an incredibly slender narrative idea, and I do think that’s by design. Very little happens in each episode. They’re edited such that several different storylines unfold in parallel, none of them very far, and they’re told so slowly and vaguely to mask how little happens. The first season had an arc with a beginning, middle, and end. If it had ended then, Tanis would have joined Limetown and Wolf 359 (which went on MUCH longer, though) as great narrative podcasts. But it’s continued drib drab storytelling over, now 4 seasons reminds me more of a modern “video game as service” than anything resembling a piece of fiction told by someone or someones in control of a story they’re telling. Every week you sorta log on to Tanis, see what minor things have happened, which for whatever reason takes 30 to 50 minutes, and you get to hear 4 or 5 ads as well. There doesn’t seem to be a larger point to anything, and that, I guess, is the point.

Most of the things that make Tanis a slog end up being positive features of TSR trilogy. The narrative metes out information in order to decontextualize and recontextualize different plot points and developments, sometimes in devastating fashion. Like most literary fiction TSR is about intergenerational family drama. The ways the past births already condemned presents and futures. When you’re finished reading it, you realize that the books told a relatively slight story powered about the mystery of Area X as it wove through a couple generations of the families who grew up in and around the environs of Area X. It’s not so different from various parts of Ulysses, where a minor event for one person is a major event in another’s life, which has a ripple effect for hundreds or thousands of other people in the environs of the plot. And when you experience the events through the different characters eyes, you experience a new meaning and significance.

I think, ultimately, I wanted to vent about Tanis and communicate that TSR is a significant improvement (or rather, that Tanis is a great degradation of it). Without spoiling (ugh) too much about TSR, it’s a propulsive story about ecological biomes and how change happens glacially and then all at once. This theme is somewhat reflected in the way the story is told, but it never drags and it generally always seems like the narrative energy is well-directed for the story it’s telling. Highly recommended. C+

[baconpal]

so heres the long super paper mario post

strap in for why super paper mario is fucking bizarre and why that’s pretty much awesome

gonna be a good amounts of spoilers, so if you’re on desktop then hit that read more, and if your on mobile, then here’s your punishment for using this god awful app

super paper mario is a game that is incredibly difficult to put into words, but it leaves such a powerful, lasting impression on me and i can’t come to say anything first other than I love it so much, and if you havent played the game, please just go do it now, even if you have to pirate or emulate or something, just let yourself play this game. It’s one of those games that I really feel I can just recommend to anybody

it’s difficult to think of where to start with dissecting this thing so i’ll just start with the art since lookin at things is pretty easy

ART/WORLD DESIGN

every world in SPM is completely unique, not just in what type of environment, but it’s art style, and this is premised with the fact that none of these worlds are capable of existing together and are completely separate, and NOT part of a cohesive universe (LOOKIN AT YOU ODYSSEY I STILL THINK YOU LOOK STUPID)

The hub and the first 2 worlds are mostly just slight variants on the same general style of simplistic shapes and colors, with world 1 delving into more linework type aesthetics, and 2 focusing more on impressions and silhouettes, 

world 3 changes this completely with what is obviously an 8 bit kind of style, but instead of jarring over sized pixels, the world is composed of detailed tiles arranged to look like pixel art that imply a more real world, and not a gamey one, 

world 4 focuses on patterns and big patches of color to give the impression of the vast emptiness of both space and the surface of a barren planet, before giving you the “Whoa Zone”, with a striking mix of wire frame and futuristic UI style to it

world 5 takes the idea of nature being crude and simplistic and humanity being sharp, angular, and extreme and flips that on its head, with humanity and the space they occupy being these absolute memes with no sense of depth, and the plant life existing in a system of clean cut caves with futuristic technology and elegant historic values

world 6 simplifies a kind of colored Japanese painting aesthetic, down to the funny cylindrical cloud clusters and brushstroke trees

world 7 depicts what is essentially hell (yes there’s hell in this game keep your pants on) as a squarish blur of bright greens and warm reds and purples, and depicts heaven as fluffy land of clouds and Greek temples

and lastly, world 8 is inverted greyscale, where light is black and darkness is white, its simplistic and striking and i couldn’t think of a better style for the final area of a game so focused on the concept of light and dark

MUSIC

I’ll just try and keep it simple, the musics fucking cash money

The game makes great use of motifs when it needs to, where specific themes and instruments are used in other songs to suggest relationships and put battles and travels into perspective

And when it ISNT doing that, it’s just fucking funky stuff, with a weird trend of BOING and PLOP and SPLISH noises in the percussion because fuck you i guess

There’s a lot of good songs that do lots of interesting things, any of the like 5 final battle songs are great things to point to, but i’ll just go ahead and say the main theme of world 8 “Castle Bleck” is one of my favorites that isn’t super highly rated. It brings in the types of instruments that have been associated with the villain the entire game, but also throws in 2 very important things; a sudden triumphant burst of almost JRPG styled chiptune that pushes away the constantly building tension, which is then followed by the sound of a clock ticking, which is a musical motif only present in the songs “Memory” and “Promise” which is played whenever the memories of the player’s little guide thing and the main villain’s past lives together are alluded to. This one song holds a lot of weight, as well as simply being a fucking cool song.

GAMEPLAY

This is, sadly, the one place I’ll not mince any words and say the gameplay is not amazing by any standard, it’s pretty much a classic mario game if it had RPG stats, items, and random abilities granted through the character and partner systems. The 3D flipping mechanic is nothing astounding, though it is very interesting to see how worlds are constructed

One of the biggest flaws people will mark the game for in its gameplay is that it’s tedious, and while I have to agree, that’s because I’ve already played the game before, and the tedium only comes from not being completely invested in the experience anymore. I’ll get some specific examples in a bit, but there’s a few cases of “tedium” that i believe are 100% intentional and drive the story in an interesting way

STORY/WRITING/GAME DESIGN

Thats a fuckin broad section, but its pretty much everything else i have to say on the game, and where the most spoilers and random praise is gonna be

I’m not actually gonna talk about the whole story, more just the strong parts of it, under the assumption you’ve already played it or understand a story as simple as “villain wants to destroy world, hero wants that to not happen”

The writing and characters are just flawless, everyone is fun to be around, especially the bad guys, who you see more antics of than your own party. There’s goofy running plotlines about O’chunks and mimi essentially getting grounded and being forced to write essays about why they fucked up at beating mario, and big stinky brother dimentio teasting and bullying them and sneaking them out to do his bidding when The big Count Bleck is away

The game is full of referential humor to not just mario itself but all kinds of games, there’s skeletons in hell who are clearly just Marios from the mainline games who died in stupid ways, there’s an actual dragon quest turn based boss battle in hell too, and chapter 3 has an otaku villain who tried to get with peach in a simulated visual novel

but the humor exists not just in references, but in simple good scenarios, with things like “Having a game show in a bathroom when everyone's life is at stake” and “locating an ancient manuscript to use as toilet paper” or “flying through black holes to find a convenience store” and things of that nature

It also interacts with the players emotions in many interesting ways, one of the more lauded being chapter 2-3, where mario is forced into working off a massive debt of fictional money, and is required to do hard, boring labor. There isn’t anyway to avoid doing both the hitting a block 100 times and the running on a treadmill for a few minutes thing, but the constant feeling of “there has to be a faster way to do this” drives the player to prod around, find the secrets, and slowly discover how to break the system wide open and get to the end, and i love it for that

This entire game is some sort of bait and switch, to put it simply, while it’s already a bit of a departure from both mario itself and the paper series, the first 5 worlds are pretty fucking tame stuff, other than the void, which is a giant black and purple spot that sits in the sky, always, every single world has the void growing in its sky, and it does grow, every chapter it gets bigger and bigger and takes up the sky, but where this truly culminates into the “switch” part is chapter 6, which starts itself by presenting you with the most TEDIUS sounding chapter possible, fight 100 enemies in a row, and nothing else, and for 25 straight fights, that is all it is, so you’ve locked yourself into it at this point, you know whats up, but the void in the background begins to grow to the point of being the entire fucking background, and every enemy you face speaks as if they know they’re all going to die, and by the 30th fight, one of the villains comes to stall for time as the void completely swallows the world, and the party is sent back to the hub. When they decide to go back in to world 6, its empty, the entire world is a white void with a single black line making up the ground, and colorless destroyed structures occasionally peaking out of the ground.

and you walk on this white void for so long and you just feel nothing but regret and fear and no matter how fast you make yourself go you feel like you’ll never find anything, but you do eventually get your plot item and escape

then, Dimentio, one of the villains you’ve seen the least of, appears in the hub world, the safest place in the universe, and kills mario

he just fucking kills him

he puts mario in a box and fills the box with explosions and mario fucking dies and goes to hell because fuck you mario

then you go through all of chapter 7 just to escape hell (called the Underwhere cus how could we possibly be allowed to take hell seriously) and join up with your full party before confronting the final world, which i’ve already stated i just love the design off

the game just takes the comfortable ride you’re on and throws it into the fucking sun and burns you alive and i love it so much, even the very end of the game doesnt let up, where the main villain is overtaken by that absolute madman Dimentio (Whose name is a play on both Dimension and dementia), who clearly was powerful enough to have done the whole “ending of the world” himself, but did it this way for the theatrics of it

there’s a lot i could still say about the game, but this post is absolute rambling and its 2 in the morning but as usual, i just wanted to shit my thoughts onto the internet to people could maybe learn somethin about either the game or me and how i think and look at and respond to stuff, and as always, anybody who read this whole thing is cool and i love you a whole heck of a lot

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also re ppl talking abt things in the concepts of Careers.....just like when it annoys me when ppl start “resume / interview tips” with a tone of “You Fucking Fools” instead of say “this is all a goddamn game and the whole hiring process is a halfassed attempt to weed out the less exploitable at the min wage level and reward the privileged at upper levels and decisions will largely be arbitrary and this is all just about trying to adjust your odds”......it also annoys me when ppl (artists on twitter........) talk abt the necessity of Networking (being considered amicable by ppl you may potentially work with) with a context of “you fucking fools” instead of “again although capitalism pretends its a meritocracy its really not and unfortunately its not necessarily realistic to assume the quality of your work will serve you nearly as well as not just making friends but trying to establish personal connections as a means of making professional inroads”

i mean again even at the minimum wage level, someone whose friend already works at a place and recommends them is way more likely to be hired than anyone else who hands in an application. because beyond hoping for someone who can be scheduled at any and all hours and never say “i cant work then,” they dont really care who gets hired and its kinda just eh fuck it lets call this one. and interview them as if their job here has anything to do w interpersonal skills and the ability to deftly maneuver their way thru interrogation abt how much they might value their family and own personal existence over the company that pays them about ten cents a minute.

anyways its not like i dont think “networking” (seems weirdly euphemistic to me also) or finessing details on your application ISN’T helpful, just that its kind of demeaning if not insulting to talk about it like its all obvious and anyone who doesnt strategize the way you do is incompetent and doesnt deserve to succeed and its their own fault for not thriving. coz thats accepting the whole “this is a meritocracy” lie—that is definitely an assumption found in basically all discussions of anything—that necessitates these ridiculous secret maneuverings to get a foot in the door at places that treat you terribly to allow you to maybe barely survive off your work

anyways like of course i dont think that artists should have to seem friendlier than other artists to succeed & even if thats how it works i’m not gonna accept/endorse that premise yknow......like damn. its an element everywhere that yeah your Social Skills impact how ppl treat you professionally but im not about to pretend the Real Solution is just that those ppl who get fucked over by that fact just need to learn how to Be Different

like to a degree its sort of nice that just being in the same general professional sphere can make artists known to each other......but also like. if ppl around you dont personally consider you likeable, it then might close doors to your career. like damn nobody likes me, i’m glad i dont have to talk to ppl to draw

funny story actually once i was in a situation where im pretty sure nearly everyone was assuming i was a serious artist with a serious project. it wasnt at all a formal setting or even relevant what everyone did like just ppl hanging out / chillin but i still like, got automatically accepted by random nearby ppl in a way i was like oh god no i dont do anything lmfaoo...i got drunk followed on twitter by an artist i actually vaguely knew of & i think it took them a couple weeks to realize their mistake......i had a guy who wasnt an artist but was still involved in working w/ them talk to me a few times, increasingly somewhat drunk which is probably why he was talking to me (not in a nightmarish oh no a drunk guy is talking to me way, luckily, it was fine actually) & at one point he mentioned some artists who were there who i definitely knew of & how he never knew them to hang out w ppl after events or whatever & he was like idk are they too good for us or w/e & i was like lol nah i kinda know of them & i think theyre both just pretty shy (which was true lol in my head im like ive seen their diary comics abt being a bit socially timid.) and also i was thinking abt how ppl will and have assumed i think im too good to hang out / talk to them or are generally snobby, when actually i’m just anxious, and then doubly uncomfortable when i find out abt the stuff ppl have said abt me (like an unrelated family friend talking abt me when i was like, 11 or something lol; ppl talking abt how i wouldnt take up their invitation to join a group chat, since they make me nervous and if i do show up i cant say anything and probably feel worse; ppl talking abt how i accepted hanging out w a group i mostly didnt know but like brought stuff to do quietly in the corner like draw and write and stuff & had just kind of been making fun of me in the bg for the subsequent months i continued to hang out w them w increasing misguided confidence lol)

its funny (no it isnt) that ppl will think their specific brand of social language is the one that gives them the only accurate reading of other ppls social cues, & that everyone else has to learn to accommodate that, instead of ever considering the fact that its actually not a flat universal constant & maybe THEY need to learn more that some kind of subtle facial cue doesnt mean the same thing for everyone, that everyone doesnt verbally communicate in the same way, that there are cultural differences in various forms of communication, that avoiding eye contact doesnt always mean someone is full of contempt or lies, that people dont express affection in the same ways, that ones immediate impression of someone isnt always equivalent to their truest essence laid bare, etc etc

like everyone has their own language really & there can be mistranslations & nuances that are lost b/w ppl & you can’t always blame the other person for your own misinterpretation unless you consider yourself constantly superior mm

like its definitely all a lot of personal connections everywhere but that doesnt mean it should be

and the personal appeal of someone to strangers l o l . . . which can be a largely harmless advantage to a huge one. smdh. well it all stretches into a larger topic and many things annoy me