#yknow those stories that grow up as you do?....yeah

[meanbossart]

Misc. Ask compilation

These aren't all of the asks I want to reply to, just some that I can answer relatively quickly to clean the ol' inbox out before things get out of hand. Thanks for your patience!

HAHAHA THANK YOU FOR PERUSING AROUND and for enjoying my work! I had a... Weird Gale experience my first playthrough which led to his characterization being what it is in my comics. Here's the beat-by-beat of all the shenanigans: https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/740827466716807168/alright-i-am-like-90-sure-there-is-one-line-in-a

And here's just some of my personal thoughts on him! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/736193145686114305/can-you-tell-me-more-about-how-you-would-make-gale

I would be lying if I said I'm not conflicted to know my style still bears some remnants of my edgy teen roots (not your fault not noticing it though, you aren't the first and won't be the last) BUT... That comic did mean a lot to me as a youth, so I guess I should be proud 🤷 and honestly it is a little cool that such a thing would survive for so long in what I do, crazy how that works.

LMAO, re: the bottom/top debacle, I was honestly so surprised to see people react to it like it's something novel. If I ever expected to get any push back on the matter, I thought it would be from people assuming DU drow was the top and taking issue with how violent and big he is (and yknow, some people are weirdly protective of Astarion as if he isn't a sneaky murder machine rippling with lean muscle)

Very disheartening to see that mindset still so alive and well among young people, but I guess it just means I gotta draw DU drow throwing more back and Astarion drooling over more ass until the stereotype is forcefully banished out of people's minds!

(more asks below the cut)

"Sleeper agent activation phrase" absolutely took me out, Thank you so much LOL

YEAH I got it pretty late though, Astarion had already told my durge that he was a vampire of his own accord (and the response was, of course, "no duh") I forgot wheter this happened before or after the first romance scene triggered, but I think after.

Since this was after DU drow decided he was gonna fuck him out of pure contrarian spite and was shamelessly laying it extremely thick, He happilly let Astarion drink his blood. Hell, he was probably a little Too Eager - the guy likes pain and he likes letting people he trusts do with his body whatever they will, and while he didn't yet trust Astarion at that point, that event might've very well reminded him of something from his past that planted a seed which would eventually grow into his genuine affection for the guy.

Ah, he definitely got a half-chub as it happened too. I'm sure Astarion noticed it and just walked off rolling his eyes and thinking "eugh of course" lmao.

Hello!!!

Oh man, I grew up fascinated with horror things. I remember from a very young age just looking at the covers and backs of horror movies at the film-rental even though I wasn't allowed to watch them. I was also easily scared but I sought those things out anyway - I think i just enjoyed the visceral reactions it drew out of me and was always curious about most things taboo.

When I got access to the internet that just opened a (very unfortunate) door to all things vile and awful like it did for so many people at that age in time. Though my tastes have changed a lot since then (Less August Underground, more The Devils kind of guy nowadays) my stories and art are just always going to fall into a horror-y category because I just... Don't think there's many better ways to showcase the human experience and emotional range without many of the elements native to the genre, and I'm all about that.

Thank you for your question and your sweet words, have a good week yourself!

I did a little write-up about that over here! https://meanbossart.tumblr.com/post/742508493562593280/i-dont-have-a-particular-question-in-mind-sorry

That's the result of a scene that happens relatively early in the story I'm writing ("A Novel Experience" on Ao3).

{SPOILERS} DU drow accidentally passes out on a blade which puts a relatively deep gash on his hip. Meanwhile, Astarion is weakened and starved after certain events that transpired the prior night. They have a private exchange both in a somewhat hazy-state of mind and Astarion ends up prodding and prying at his wound while feeding, so it's a laceration and bite mark that just scarred over badly.

Elves apparently don't grow body hair so never LOL guess they'll just have to slip&slide up on each other for heat

[eisforeidolon]

Question: I got to ask Jensen this a few years ago, but you were not there [?] -

Jared: Well that sounded judge-y.

Question: Because Supernatural was on the CW and a regular network, there were standards and practices. How do you think Sam's character or storyline would be changed or been different had it been on, say, HBO?

Jared: That's actually a better question than I think it sounds like. Sorry I wasn't there years ago -

Jensen: What'd I say?

J2: [crack up]

Question: You were onstage with Misha and you both looked puzzled but you went, I'm just trying to say that we're not having sex.

Jensen: That tracks.

Jared: That's the opposite of what I was gonna say -

Question: The entire panel went downhill from there, and I've been blamed for that for years.

Jensen: That also tracks.

Jared: You know what's funny is that I've thought about this, and I wonder what Ackles thinks. We've kind of talked about it here and there over the years, but I - and we talked about this yesterday in the Meet & Greet - I kind of really enjoy that there are guidelines. It's sort of - if you can just do anything? There was a funny interview with -

Jensen: You get The Boys. That's what happens.

Jared: Which is great, but - You kind of have to be more creative within boundaries. That's how I parent, these are the guidelines, these are the rules, this is the box you can't leave, play within it. As opposed to just do anything and everything. And I think you can lose some of the art - and The Boys is amazing. Like The Boys wouldn't work on the CW and -

Jensen: [laughing] No.

Jared: But that's what it is. And, you know, that's what it is. Like, I don't know if, when we come back, I wanna say fuck on a network. But I dunno. It's gonna be a discussion, between he and I - he and me - and among whomever else, but I don't know there's something magical and universal. And, I mean, there were probably a dozen or two dozen children here yesterday that if we're running around naked or saying this that and the other, it might not translate. And hopefully parents wouldn't show that to their kids. Yeah, I don't know. I'm happy, I'm happy with the CW, and also because we have y'all and because of the CW and they let us work through our growing pains, we did fifteen years and I think anywhere else we would have been dead in the water. After Dead in the Water, as a matter of fact.

Jensen: That's right. I think if anything it would be just maybe an elevated gore version of Supernatural. There was a lot of - like I don't think necessarily, y'know, more colorful language or, yknow, more skin or anything like that? I don't think that that would really benefit the story, necessarily. But I think what we could and couldn't show in regards to scare and blood and, y'know, that kinda stuff, we had to temper that. So I think maybe we'd probably elevate that to an extent if we were on a network or a streamer that allowed that to happen, where there weren't standards and practices. But there were - we pushed the envelope. The writers definitely pushed the envelope, like one thing I remember is we couldn't say prick. But we could say dick. So they wrote an entire season with a guy named Dick Roman just so we could hammer that home. And I think that was -

Jared: Wow. We could say hammer as well. [hits forehead on mic repeatedly]

Jensen: That's right. So it's like Jared said, there were ways of trying to push the envelope a bit with staying in the parameters that we had to and those guidelines. And I think as a show that was on a broadcast network we probably took a little bit more of a risk and took some chances, moreso than I think most network shows? And I think that was exciting for us, but I think if there were no parameters and we were able to do just whatever we wanted to, I'm not sure it would be that much different, because I don't know that it would serve the story as well.

Jared: Yeah, if the puzzle has no rules then is it really a puzzle? Y'know? That's a strange question, sorry.

Jensen: [exaggeratedly reacting] What?!

Jared: Have a happy Sunday. I'm saying if someone just gives you a thousand pieces of a puzzle but anything goes anywhere, then who gives a shit? If it's like -

Jensen: What?!

Jared: [exaggeratedly reacts] I love puzzles.

Audience member: We get it!

Jensen: You don't understand! Stop placating him!

Jared: Thank you for your question. Oh, you're still going?

Question: Basically Jensen many years ago you had mentioned at some convention that maybe Dean had had a history of sex work as a child* -

Audience: What.

Jared: You did what?

Jensen: [baffled] Huh?

Question: Someone said it to you, that maybe as a teenager with John being gone a lot, Dean may have resorted to sex work.

Jared: That was probably in jest, if he ever said that, I'm sure it was not a legitimate, like, character backstory.

Jensen: Yeah, no.

Jared: Just speaking for him here, because I think he's a little -

Jensen: [sarcastically] It's too bad we're on a broadcast show, I really think he would have done some teenage sex work. Yikes.

Question: I'm a writer so it sparked ideas -

Jensen: [flatly] Great.

Question: but you know like drug use, other things that maybe you would not mention in the show -

Jared: Thank you for your question.

Jensen: She has a high regard for Dean Winchester, clearly. No, thank you.

Jared: Thank you.

*Someone brought this up as a thing they vaguely remembered a while back here on tumblr and there was a discussion attempting to track down a source. Which eventually only came up with this quote from a 2008 interview [X]

“Dean’s a bit of a pool shark and also a bit of a gambler. It doesn’t really show it all the time, but it’s definitely implied that there are poker games and pool matches that they can win some money on. And who knows? Dean’s a promiscuous kind of guy. Who knows how he drums up the funds that they use?”

Which seems more than a little facetious, and while suggestive? Is not equivalent to what fandom wanted to remember it as. Putting aside how weird it is to ask about an off-the-cuff remark from fifteen fucking years ago even with a source? She's clearly repeating the source-less fandom rumor since she claims it was at "some convention" - because as we all know, fandom is always both accurate and honest about things like that! Even putting all of that aside, which we really shouldn't? It's such a questionable topic to bring up in a convention hall full of people, to J2 who have made it clear several times they want to talk about canon not fanfic. Who literally just finished answering your first question by saying they weren't interested in making the canon any more salacious! Just ... woof.

[casdeans-pie]

Falling (In Love)

Destiel Fanfiction 2,065 words Rated G

Tags: Aftermath Of A Case (we don't see the case, but we see what Situation Dean and Cas have ended up in because of it), Castiel Is A Fallen Angel, Dean Sees Cas's Wings, Near Death Experience, First Kiss.

Summary: Desperate times call for desperate measures even if those measures are jumping out of the window on the seventieth floor with nothing but hope and mangled fallen angel wings to keep you in the air. Probably not the best time for a kiss... or is it?

------Read on AO3------

---------

In terms of ‘situations where escape seems impossible’ Dean would probably rank this at a solid two. He’s not entirely sure what keeps it from being number one, since there are currently a group of eight witches blocking the only doored exit to the room, and the only other way out would be through the floor-to-ceiling window behind him – seventy stories up from the ground. Dean lost his gun a few floors back, and Cas’s angel blade was stolen by the witches, so they’re also weapon-less. But he figures that while the spell book that he and Cas just stole is still in his hands the witches won’t risk damaging it, so at least they can stall for time while he thinks of some way to get them both out with the book. He’s escaped with impossible odds against him all the time.

It just feels a little more impossible than usual.

Dean glances over at Cas, hoping to see some kind of glint in his eyes that means he’s got a plan. But he’s not looking at Dean. His eyebrows are drawn together in indecision and worry and he’s staring straight ahead with a vacant expression that means he’s deep in his thoughts.

Hope flares in Dean’s chest.

He’s learned enough from Cas’s expressions over the years to know that he’s got something up his sleeve. Something risky, but hell, Dean’s not picky about that right now.

The witches all take a pace forwards as a unit and Cas tugs on Dean’s shirt sleeve to pull him back further towards the window, to keep their distance. Nothing but a desk separates them now.

The huge glass window is pressing cold and solid against their backs in a cruel reminder that freedom is a pane of glass away, but they’d never survive the fall.

“Just give us the book Winchester,” one of the witches snaps.

“Give us the book and we’ll let you both live,” another adds in a low, persuasive tone.

“Like hell you will,” Dean retorts with a snort, “you think I’m gonna trust a single damn thing that comes out of a witch’s mouth?”

A witch taller than the others takes another step closer to them both, her chin held high, and she examines her long, blood red nails as if bored by the whole situation. “Boys, boys, boys,” she says, with a shake of her head, “I grow tired of this. You’ve stolen my book, and I want it back. There is clearly nowhere for you to go, so I suggest that you hand it over, or I will regretfully have to kill you both and hope that my book survives.”

“This book contains angelic spells, and it belonged to the angels before it belonged to you. You’re the ones who stole it in the first place. You have no more claim to it than we do,” Cas says suddenly, his voice firm and full of defiance.

“Yeah, except Cas is an angel, so really, yknow, if it belongs to anyone it belongs to him,” Dean adds, tapping the front cover of the old book with his knuckles and scoping out the room again while he stalls for time, hoping to find any way out of this. Preferably without him and Cas becoming spell-practice for witches or bloody smears on the sidewalk below them.

The bold witch at the front laughs in a throaty cackle.

Dean smiles. “Wow, nice laugh you got there, Wicked Witch of the West, you about to tell me you’re gonna get me and my little dog too?”

“Mm, you are pretty I’ll give you that. But no, I’m just amused that you can call that an angel. I’ve been using those spells a long time, so I can see something of this… abomination’s true form, and trust me, Winchester, if you could see what I see you wouldn’t call it an angel.”

------Read the rest on AO3------

[lesbianspeedy]

can I hear about the mia and ollie similarities whenever you have time...

theyre blonde :( thats it :( okay but ACTUALLY LETS GET INTO IT

They're loud assholes to people who need to be yelled at, but theyre actually hella introverted.

Mia "i think fast i talk fast" Dearden will mouth off at villains and batman, and take the piss out of people she loves. BUT she wasn't exactly shown to have like a friend group at her school (she was shown to be popular. but we only see her specifically interact with one person), and was extremely nervous to join the titans, not because they intimidated her, but because she didnt really...want to be there. She'd rather be with people she knows. She spends most of her time practicing archery, even before she was speedy. The only time we ever saw her go out anywhere was on a date with Dodger. And I will be pretending for the sake of this post that all of this is bc of character stuff and not just bad writing!

Similarly, Ollie "goateed loudmouth" Queen thrives when he's alone, he prefers it, he rarely spends time with people outside of his family or close close friends. He'll rant and rave at leaguers and cops and capitalists and villains all day long, but he's at his happiest and most content when he's alone, and often when on the move too, this man cannot sit still he is like a fucking shark he will die if he is in the same place too long but thats unrelated to this post.

As is pretty much a requirement to be in the arrowfam. Neither of them are here to fight the big alien threats you take on while being in the league/titans. They're here to save the little guy and fuck up capitalists. They have both seen the worst of society on the very opposite ends of the spectrum, Ollie with the rich, Mia with those the rich forget or ignore. I don't think I really need to add an example of Ollie here considering thats like his main this if u know anything about him. But look heres mia thinking abt it in her first titans issue.

Now with coping mechanisms they're a lil different, Mia tends to isolate and stay in one place. Ollie will isolate but fuck off somewhere. Accidentally walk to canada. That sorta thing.

(pls ignore how terrifying bald ollie is)

They also both mask their emotions and deflect with humour when around other people, they don't want others to have to deal with their shit, they don't want to burden them (hence the isolation, this also often leads to them imploding in on themselves). Heres my most favourite example of their similarities ever (yes I will continue to post and talk about this specific thing every 3 weeks and no one can stop me) I do owe Hester my life for this

Now heres the best part. They both did this a lot right. And yknow what that led to? Learning and growing and being there for each other :] Now im going to be honest we dont really see this growth in vol 3 bc judd winick is incapable of writing character development but! Phil Hester is here for us once again with his story in the 80th special and this part specifically <3

Also once again a whole arrowfam thing- neither of them give two shits about their secret id lmao. I choose to believe Mia is so flippant about hers bc she so easily realised Ollie was GA that she just went like. Yeah sure I won't give a fuck either, it's clearly working for him.

oh and they both like musical theatre, hate batman and are homophobic**. sad. **not actually thats just an in joke in fandom

[aroace-polyshow]

also a thing for you if you ever want to ramble about hw- what's emu's story for this? how did she get into illustration, and how did she meet the troupe?

RAUGH I ALWAYS WANT TO RAMBLE AND IVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS TY FOR ASKING!!!! also took a while this time my bad man. the route my bus takes has very very shit internet so i couldn’t continue my draft during my ride 💔

anywayyy. good lord this is fucking long. im sorry.

for emu, i’m still figuring stuff out with her, but i’ve been thinking about her a lot more recently, and so far what i’ve got is that she has a little bundle of issues including grief over her grandpa, toxic positivity and not letting herself feel negative emotions properly, some internalized hatred of herself and how childish she is following an argument w shosuke, and generally feeling kinda lost, like the rest of hw, after wonder stage closed bc she doesn’t know what to do w/o shows. yknow.

so like. she still has her whole thing w/ her grandpa. and she while she wasn’t doing the *best* she wasn’t doing that bad in the mental health department. still wasn’t letting herself like. grieve properly. but she wasn’t the worst. she performed a lot on wonder stage and knew that the stage was in danger of being closed down, so she tried really hard to keep it from happening. but the actors for wonder stage began to leave as time went on and the ones who stayed didn’t really get why she was so persistent in keeping this stage open when the others in the park were better and shit. and she didn’t have much help. so unfortunately despite her best efforts wonder stage was kinda doomed for closure. butttt she’s not giving up yet. so she tries to convince her brothers to not close it, or at least to just give her some more time. which Does Not Go Well. shosuke gets real frustrated with her and starts yelling and shit. and while keisuke shuts him down once he gets too heated. well. it’s kinda too late. with what he said about her being childish and demanding that she just grow up already and stuff like that, my girl takes that to heart. and then with the official closure of wonder stage…yeah…she’s not doing the best…

emu’s grief here is made worse w/ the wonder stage closure. cause like. that was her and her grandpa’s favorite stage. girl feels like she failed him. she loved that stage. she loved doing shows there. it was something she had to remind her of her grandpa. and now it’s closed. :(

since then she’s been. different. like it’s just barely noticeable to a lot of people but she’s definitely changed. she smiles and acts cheery and seems like her usual self but like. her smile isn’t quite the same. she’s not quite as talkative. she avoids her brothers a lot more. and her brothers have noticed btw and they both feel AWFUL. especially shosuke. they done fucked up and they know it.

also like technically she could keep doing shows, after all theres the other stages in pheonix wonderland, and she has experience in doing shows + is related to the people who literally own the place so it wouldn’t be hard for her to join one of those stages. but she doesn’t bc after all that, she thinks her goal of just wanting to bring smiles to people is childish. shows make her so so happy but she thinks it’s immature and naive of her to still want to pursue that, especially considering she failed last time. it’s a silly and childish path to pursue, and she needs to pull her head out of the clouds and grow up already, like her brother says. so despite loving shows with all her heart, she gives up on doing them. but since shows are so important to her, she doesn’t rlly know what to do without them, so that’s where that feeling lost stuff comes in. yknow.

for her art, i just think she enjoyed art in general, and with her grief and the wonder stage closure it helped her cope. i have a very specific idea in my head of her style. but i cant remember the artist here on tumblr that i think she does art like. if i can remember their name i will though. i might actually do a post dedicated to what i think her art style is like….

not set in stone just yet, but what i’m thinking for the original meet up is that she meets nene first. nene does music and emu finds it, and it gives her some inspiration for some art. she posts it and credits nene’s music as what inspired her, and nene is so fucking honored. through some light encouragement from rui nene gets the courage to dm emu to tell her thank you, and they start chatting!! they get along pretty well and emu starts making art for nene’s music. eventually rui has the idea to start animating them, so they can make music videos for the songs, and boom hw gets its beginnings online.

this happens before wonder stage closure btw. when it does close, emu disappears from their group chat for a bit. she comes back like nothing happens and while she doesn’t tell them what happened, they both notice she doesn’t talk about what shows shes doing anymore, or shows in general. nene and rui are both very sad at this btw. seeing emu have so much love for shows and be able to talk about them like she did was really nice, so to see her stop with that and seemingly not enjoying shows anymore after something happened, just like they did, it sucks. :(

anyway i think my timeline is like. during nene’s last year of middle school when she transfers to home schooling, she starts doing music -> everything i just mentioned here happens -> eventually they meet tsukasa, and he joins the group -> hollow ☆ wonderland does its thing as a group for a while -> main story shit happens. yeah. 👍

uhhhh. dear god i’m so bad at explaining my thoughst. augh. i hope this made some amount of sense. and that i wasn’t too repetitive lsajdkhfgyfdhsj. anyway miscellaneous emu thingies now.

like i mentioned, wonder stage hasn’t been replaced yet, it’s just closed down and sectioned off. so emu still visits it all the time. there is nothing being done to maintain it. so it is absolutely unsafe. but does emu care. no. girlie wants to disappear and while she’s not *planning* on dying, if she had to die anywhere she wouldn’t mind if it was at wonder stage. she draws there a lot.

a lot of her drawings are traditional!! with lots of bright colors and crayons and colored pencils. she has lots of fun drawing.

this applies to non-au emu as well but she has gifted stickers to all her friends. nene’s synthesizer is covered in them.

wonder stage was closed off at sunset. btw. just to give her another reason to hate sunsets.

[oh-hools]

10, 21, 23 🫡

10. would you say you're an emotional person

i think in semi recent developments. yes?. yes. in a lot of contexts im still not used to being emotional but friends and othersuch people close to me-wise i do find myself Feeling the radiating love&more. i wouldn't call myself outwardly sappy but it's hard not to feel those emotions inwardly yknow. I'm happy ive been getting better at expressing those kinds of things because like if those sentiments of comfort and happy were expressed to me about spending time together for example. well it makes me feel reallygood. words mean a lot to this thing. ❤️

21. are you a spiritual person?

not the most. but shrug! ofc u know being filipino there is a baseline lvl of spirituality that's rooted in is and i would say i at least meet that. but growing up in an urban area (& growing a little sheltered) definitely makes it different. that being said yeah our old house definitely had shit going on in it. my dad recently was telling us stories abt his encounters and the encounters on his side of the family and it's pretty freaky. i do believe him. i somehow never clocked him as spiritual To That Extent before then. but it makes sense.

23. say 3 things about someone you hate

welllllll wellll welll @ this person in my class stop talking + listen for once in your life + you're genuinely the most exhausting person i know

[yonpote]

I need to know why and how you were anti-phannie from 2014-2016

alright here we go i get to talk about THIS shit now.

i was generally anti-rpf at that point, and honestly? i think it was for fair enough reasons as some people were a bit too eager about showing (general) youtubers stories they wrote about them sucking and fucking their friends. i think i was also pretty high and mighty about being a somewhat oldhead phannie tbh, like ugh do these gaming-channel-only people even know about dan being super edgy and offensive 🙄 and lowkey it was a lot of subtly misogynistic "i'm not like other girls" type shit like i was sooo much better than yall cuz i hadn't watched that video (yet.)

i was generally not into these sorts of fandoms to begin with. i wasnt on the superwhopotterlock side, i was on the homestuck/dangan ronpa/anime of the month side of tumblr, if that gives you an idea of what i was like lol. around 2014-15 i was very much in a community that is kinda similar to what you might see on twitter now, where if you had any interests in media that portrayed anything problematic, that means you are in full support of that problematic thing. if dan howell said something racist in 2010, it doesn't matter that he wasn't being racist in 2015 he's still racist and liking him makes you a racist etc. and of course, rpf is included in problematic topics. if you ship real people, even if said people say they don't mind it, you are a sick pervert and you should be in the loony bin for being so depraved. and if you write or read any fiction that has immoral acts, it means you support those acts in real life too and you are trying to normalize abuse and SA (yknow as if whitecishetpatriarchy hasnt normalized that enough) and you're a danger to children and you deserve to rot in prison (yknow as if a queer person writing stories about queer people hasnt heard that one before)

now here's the real kicker. in 2015-2017 i ran a game grumps fan blog where i did talk about shipping the grumps. "wait how were you anti-rpf if-" well have you ever heard of this thing called Lying? or perhaps even, Cognitive Dissonance? i HAD to run a separate blog for this interest, because if my friends knew i consumed slashfic about arin and danny they would stop being friends with me and think im this evil horrible monster etc. genuinely that was where my brain was at, and is a little bit the reason i decided to this day, to make my phannie accounts completely separate from my main accounts.

nowadays, none of my non-phannie friends actually give a fuck and i do occasionally talk about dnp being silly gay white boys w them! at this point i dont post about em on main just out of respect like "hey im sure you dont actually want to hear about british yaoi constantly regardless of our level of friendship so i'll keep it over here okay?"

also, yeah i grew out of thinking consuming media with deplorable acts makes me deplorable. my favorite tv show is hannibal. i know its shocking, but i dont actually support serial killer cannibals. i will say, i dont fuck with "pro/anti" language with regards to what is considered "problematic" or having that be an identity marker. i think that people are free to write fiction as they please so long as its all properly tagged for people who dont enjoy that kind of content to avoid. but i also think there can be and often are problems in the way these stories are written, and yeah if all the romance stories you read growing up involve some sort of force or danger, that CAN normalize this sort of action as inherent to romance stories/real life romance. but i think thats an issue with like, society at large, and it's not on an individual fic writer to be educating teens who read their dead dove fic despite the explicit rating and tags.

TL;DR: BASICALLY. I WAS A DUMBASS KNOW-IT-ALL BUT DW I GOT BETTER.

[arowrath]

Where do you get most of your autism info?

oo good question,, tbh a lot of stuff i just know cuz my both my brothers are diagnosed + my best friend growing up has it, so a lot of stuff i just kinda absorbed over the years from my family + friends. usually with factchecking that stuff i just google it and scan a couple sites that look trustworthy to see if it's something that seems widely agreed on or not before i say it conclusively

for specific online sources, i know the autism self advocacy network has a lot of good info, and embrace autism is also good. also spectrumnews.org and autistic women and nonbinary network <- these r all as far as i know but also i havent done like, a full background check on all of them so i might be incorrect

i think the main thing is double checking anything from social media or any article/news story/whatever with big red flags- it definitely varies and most of these things arent like, 100% indicators that something is wrong, more that the source might be biased or ableist or just outdated. but for me big red flags are -> allistic writer/speaker insisting on person-first language (tho thats still very common in psych spaces unfortunately), calling autism a "disease"/"epidemic" or saying it needs to be cured, the puzzle piece logo and "light it up blue" (red instead is the alternative movement for that, it's for autism Acceptance rather than awareness which is the movement with weird ableist undertones (overtones?)), that sort of thing. also checking for things written by autistic people or with imput from autistic people

also academic papers can be super dense (and somewhat ableist tbh) but they also have good information sometimes, so again just checking and seeing if there's other sources for stuff & if those look reputable

+ id say just in general be especially careful with stuff on social media bc ppl will Lie or misinterpret stuff or misremember or whatever and misinformation gets spread very very quickly . but also community is nice & can be incredibly helpful so it's difficult to completely disavow it yknow .

but yeah a lot of stuff ive learned from my family & friends over the years, and dont have super good specific sources for learning that sort of thing other than just hanging out with autistic people and absorbing stuff via osmosis HAHA but i hope some of that helps :}

[icanttypo]

Would anyone be interested in an Owl House Fangame RPG? (Spoilers for finale insuing)

I'm considering turning my old fanfic plots into a playable fangame, but I wanna make sure that's something that people would actually, yknow, play. So, here's my ideas!

1. Season 4 "The Game"

This would primarily be a game focused on wrapping up some unfinished storylines/rebuilding the Isles. I believe one of the main bosses would likely be the Titan Trappers since they were puppetted in WAD.

I think this would be the closest to a traditional rpg game, but I'm leaning more towards an unconventional combat style considering the way magic works in TOH. Regardless, combat wouldn't be a primary focus of the game. It'd be more exploration based and decision based, fleshing out the other areas of The Boiling Isles and all that jazz.

Possibly, the final boss may be the other archivists? I think in this one, by the end, you'll have the Collector in your party.

2. Side Stories

This would be more so a collection of routes trying to tell the stories that, sadly, The Owl House team never got the time to tell. These likely wouldn't actually be RPG games, but they're RPG maker, but I'm not sure how many of them there'd be, but I do have a few ideas for various routes, like:

-Wittebros Backstory (You play as Caleb, and it covers bits and pieces over the years up until... Well, you know the rest.)

-Hunter, Dale, and The Bat Queen (Focuses on two different interconnected plots. One is a story about The Golden Guard being tasked to find the last known Palistrom forest, only for those plans to get detailed by one sweet old man. Yadda yadda, learning ensues. And, the other is a story focused on Hunter going into the Palistrom forest with a few friends to start on some conservation efforts, facing his past, and him getting a new job.)

-Divorce Simulator (I think you know what this one's about :) )

-Vee (Have no idea what this one would be about, other than a game adaption of that MorningMark concept of Cabin ???- or one focusing on just her adapting to the human realm.)

3. TOH/GF/Amphibia Crossover

Okay, so I know probably nobody will vote for this one, but it's one that I have too many ideas for!

Basically, it's just going off the idea that after The Collector got that gross green stuff on him, from Belos, he was affected by Titian magic; screwing up his magic a little and making him semi-immortal rather than fully immortal. The Collector says they're going off to "grow up," but really, their main goal is to just find their siblings and find out what's going on with them.

This leads the little guy to the last known whereabouts of one of his siblings, Gravity Falls. Again, the dude's magic is kind of iffy, and he ends up crashlanding near the Mystery Shack and gets taken in by the new Mr. And Mrs. Mystery... Who... Somehow, are way more connected to Luz than he thought.

This is the closest thing to an RPG out of all of them because the main focus of the game is basically trying to stop the multiverse from splitting entirely. It'd be the casts from both TOH and GF; with a healthy addition of amphibia references.

In this universe, all of the archivists are just God's from other Disney Channel cartoons. And yeah. Told ya I had a lot of ideas!

Btw if anyone would be down to help either with writing, art, or music- please dm me! I can totally do it on my own, but I thought it might be nice to put it out there.

[pigeonwit]

hihi - 4, 18+19 for the ask game pls :)

4: ship you dislike?

yknow what i actually can give a good answer to this, livesies/92sies sprace. i didn't include it in the first answer because i figured since i liked uksies sprace it didn't count but i'm gonna count it - literally all those two did was be conventionally attractive white men (well. white children for 92sies) who stood next to each other one (1) time. i don't get it. i will never get it. thank you uksies for giving sprace substance, you literally did the impossible.

18. ideas for stories/aus that you have, that you might or might not end up creating?

manhattan, west virginia has already left the station, the part 1 plot is outlined and part 1 chapter 1 is already complete, i just don't want to post it until i finish run boy run. but apart from that there's the pet shelter au, which i know how to write but don't entirely know where to go with, you can find that under #daveys terrible cat au, and the stick season au which had the opposite problem as in it popped into my head fully formed but idk how to write it yet; jack and davey grow up together in the same small town, are best friends who go through their 'teenage nihilist' phase and agree that yeah, the world's all going to shit, but they'll be together when it ends and that's enough, eventually start discretely dating - and then davey gets a full ride to a college jack didn't even know he'd applied for. and jack can't exactly say 'you can't go, you promised me we'd rot here together and i can't do it alone' so he lets davey go with the promise that they'll be fine. and they are not.

19: what kind of story would you never write?

in fanfiction,,, hm. i don't think i have many boundaries there. like i'm writing my cringe wingfic aus and pet shelter aus and i'm probably gonna write even more tropey and/or comedic shit like that 'cause it's fun for me, but i also really like my plotty multichap stuff, so,,, hm. probably sickfics? i've just never seen the appeal. sorry if that's a boring answer.

in original works, psychological slice-of-life fiction. fuck that. fuck it to hell. hated reading it. hated writing it. respect to better authors and better readers but it is not for me.

[vacantgodling]

For the Pride asks:

5. & 9. for an OC of your choice

and 20. & 21. for in general <3

this took me forever to answer but we’re here now 👀 let’s do some… tcol generally

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

i’ll talk about clear for this but when tcol initially came into being clear and san were supposed to end up together — which in retrospect and hindsight literal just PFFFFF WHAT. terrible. but san’s character was kind of different back then and i hadn’t quite developed the skill of nuanced character personalities and backstory yet. but when i started to write the very old version of tcol (in notebooks) whenever i wrote clear and forte interacting there was just… something there, yknow? the first person that forte talked or laughed around was clear. they naturally hung out and stuck with one another and while i wasn’t quite sure what was going on with forte i felt like something was up with clear

(this isn’t necessarily unique to clear this whole… i notice you gravitating towards a dude because if i take ANY of my older ocs who are dudes: toph, clear and darren specifically, they all started in their initial concepts in relationships with femmes but then i realized that like… yeah no that’s not it).

when i started deciding to take tcol more seriously and started worldbuilding/fleshing shit out, i then realized why clear ran away from home and his sexuality was part of the reason why. there’s something to be said about why i do make this many of my characters struggle with sex and sexuality and it’s because of so. much. xtian upbringing repression. cough. but i ended up realizing that clear liked forte more than just a friend which was enlightening (wow, he’s gay!) but then also created the: oh. there’s kind of a love angle now.

but realistically me growing more comfortable in my own sexuality and attitude towards sex helped me peel back the layers of clear to discover that he’s a gay boy with mad repression and trauma lmao. basically.

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it?

gender and sexuality are pretty fluid in tcol; there are some bigots who exist or people with slightly idk regressive viewpoints however: two of their deities in tcol are genderqueer (YUTARA, deity of medicine is also androgynous/nb and goes by they/them. they’re also the god of gender expression & MARTH the god of blacksmithing and alchemy is a trans man. got a whole city named after his origin story of becoming a man -> marthveil). the war goddess YLENE and YUTARA have an ages long slow burn going on (YLENE literally has a seared into her skin kiss mark on her body because she wanted to immortalize the time that YUTARA gave her a kiss on the cheek. however they aren’t “together yet” in the traditional sense because YUTARA can’t help but tease YLENE). the second king of lathsbury anele of kairos is a he/she butch and was married in a literal war enemies to lovers rival dawn nightwillow… etc etc. there’s a lot of lore of queerness in tcol basically

20. Have your ocs helped you in self discovery? How?

my preference for writing male characters and finding it easier to relate to them and get into their heads was kind of a big giveaway for me growing up. making a lot of mlm ocs also helped me kinda discover that yeah mood me too. and vice versa; the more i discovered about myself the more i was able to imbue those discoveries into my ocs

21. Free ramble card wee

i haven’t talked much about anele of kairos and dawn nightwillow bc i adore the first age of tcol quite a bit and these two only come around during the end and into the second era but their love story is supremely funny to me. basically the only time terrae had a civil war happened while these two were leaders and in part of the peace treaty they married each other. the funniest parts of their eventual romance is (1) that there was a romance at all bc the two of them were so set on just tolerating each other (2) the god of love MIRANKA was literally born out of their union and if that doesn’t say something idk what will and (3) the reason MIRANKA was born, isn’t bc love didn’t exist in terrae before them it’s because he’s also the god of relationships in general and his oracles act as magic relationship counselors LMAO. so he really was born out of hmm. y’all need relationship therapy and it’s funny to me

real enemies to lovers vibes yknow

[thrilling-oneway]

34 for the ask game?

i've wanted mafuhona mixed event for ages but now shit's hit the fan i really really want a mafuhona event soon. it's about the Narrative Parallels. gimme something like Mafuyu accidentally leaving something out when she goes to SEKAI when Honami arrives and then Kanade and Mafuyu having to explain things to her. Honestly this could actually be good for Mafuyu to have someone outside her unit find out, especially since Honami will be able to relate and sympathise with her.

gardening club event! i want them to do more with the fact that rui is in gardening club bc i literally cannot remember it being brought up outside his initial card story. ichika isn't in gardening club but she likes flowers and i wanna see more of that. add on saki because she's the link between ichika and her knowledge of flowers and because i want rui and saki to interact more. throw in An too ig because she grows mint and then you have 3/5 of passion heart class and passion heart class is great <3. tbh this is just me coping because i really want a costume set with wellies and stupid shirts and dungarees. basically like the paint what you like set. but with flowers and boots.

also another rooftop duo event because i am Normal about them. i know they've kinda had two already. but yknow. the flashbacks in kamikou fes weren't enough i wanna see more of their time in middle school (maybe you could connect it to Rui's 1st year at high school because there's a hole there and we know what Mizuki was doing then because of Now I Wear This Ribbon). also in an ideal world ena and tsukasa are on this banner but maybe that's just me being slightly too enthusiastic about narrative parallels again.

yeah i think those are the 3 i want most

[felikatze]

ok wait sitting on the arval stuff more (three hopes spoilers riu dni)

also i havent done the arval paralogue bcuz like. on god i'm not replaying this game rn cuz i will get burnout so bad

also this was the recruit byleth route on azure gleam so. again i am NOT replaying immediatly because i like the game but i also like myself.

ok ok so i think arval eventually betraying shez was set up really well actually.

the game does a good slowburn job of setting up that at some point shez just doesn't care abt defeating byleth anymore.

shez and arval initially are united in purpose, partners in destiny, but when shez joins one of the houses and becomes an important commander in a war, their personal revenge starts appearing insignificant to them and is eventually outweighed by their newfound trust and love for their friends.

additionally as they realize the connection arval and their power holds to those who slither in the dark, they grow afraid of their own power. the power they got from arval.

in azure gleam (and other routes similarly, probably) their fear grows so intense after unveiling how much tragedy those who slither brought into their friends' lives that they ask dimitri to strike them down should they ever turn their blade against their friends.

and, yknow, shez themself wouldnt just kill their friends willy-nilly. "if i ever turn my blade on you" actually means "if arval ever turns my blade on you." by making this request they acknowledge the possibility arval would do this.

whereas shez's drive for revenge fades, arval's only intensifies. arval's wrath drives a further wedge between them and shez, who starts to feel horror at arval's intent.

arval likely regained some degree of their memory when byleth went sothis mode, as seen by how fucking mad they got even before truly becoming epimenides again.

so like yeah this plot development was well-foreshadowed. and i think the map where you fight shez slaps. absolutely banger moment.

howeverrrrr. after that. i can accept epimenides banishing the three lords to the shadow realm as a cost-cutting measure because every route needs to resolve the arval plot and it would be hard to justify doing it differently three times so whatever. have a convergence point i dont care.

BUT. arval accepts becoming epimenides as their destiny. "i was always meant to become you," they say. but like? shez doesn't? shez never seems to acknowledge that the arval they know is gone. this is why i expected arval to show up again! bcuz. shez doesnr accept that they are the one who killed arval.

throughout the endgame they will still occasionally reference arval as their friend and like. pretend talk to arval in a more "if you could see me now" type of way but

epimenides makes it pretty clear that they (epimenides refers to themself as a man so did arval legit just forget their own gender? arval has so much transgender swag) don't really value shez and them calling shez their partner in destiny just felt like mockery to be honest. like oh you're not doing what i want so i'm gonna take over your body against your will you peon fuck you. that's the vibe on epimenides.

and then you gotta ask yourself how much arval actually valued shez for them to just become epimenides without a fight? without hesitation? cuz yknow typically in stories like this the power of friendship will snap whoever out of it which is what happens to shez but not to arval. arval just accepts what they've become and they die for it. the end. fin.

again!!! arval accepts this!! shez doesn't! it's such a weird dissonance. ig it's kinda subversive that power of friendship doesn't actually save arval but it still feels like a rugpull.

also suuuuper bad taste in my mouth from the azure gleam ending where like. thales and epimenides and all those slither guys talk about purifying the world from beasts right? reclaiming their rightful home above the surface by killing sothis? and at the end rhea says that she will purify the land by killing those who slither in the dark.

so it's like. both sides r the same. and the implication that sothis is the one who banished the agarthans to shamballah or wherever to let humans live in fodlan instead is. eh. everyone is the hero of their own story ig.

maybe i just dont know enough abt fe3h deeplore (<- has only played blue lions routes bcuz replaying academy phase gave him burnout and he hasnt picked three houses up since)

anyway this is just my experience. and my opinion

tldr: tho arval's betrayal is set-up really good and the first half of it is epic the actual fight against epimenides feels lacking because of how differently shez and arval feel about the situation with no attempt by the narrative to reconcile this dissonance.

[shadeslayer]

I completely agree those are great points, I'm hoping he won't be a sadboy the entire time because that can be really exhausting, but I won't lie my primary motivation for wanting to read the book is I really want to know more about Thorn, I think he's really interesting and I'm hoping the story will focus more on their bond and Thorn healing from being magically forced to grow. It sounds like it's pretty soon after the end of inheritance

YOOO OKAY. you have SUCH a good point actually. we havent gotten Fuck All about thorn. its been too long since i read brisingr and i only ever read inheritance once or twice so i may not remember, but do we even *ever* get a pov from him or murtagh communicating with him and showing his internal landscape at all? bc i dont think we do, at least not one with any real insight into him or his mind

YEAH !!!!!! gd like the thing of thorn being forced to grow and hatch is so insane is the thing and i do actually really want to see what that really means for him. because i remember like.. i think it wouldve been a quote from brom or oromis probably about shruikan, where they say how shruikan grew dark and twisted internally bc of it all. but i cant remember if theres a quote like that about thorn, i feel there might be?

and this concept of like. the dragon hatching and the eldunari is all really cool on its own but like that dragons are sentient pre-hatch and that thorn iirc was forced to hatch for murtagh and then forced to grow as well, and this discussion of a twisted broken mind re: dragons under galbys control... it introduces this concept of thorn being "born broken" in a sense. like hes already been abused before he was even hatched and then all hes ever known is that and has only ever been able to take comfort in the (forced) connection to murtagh. and murtagh connecting to this bc of his childhood abuse etc but that thorn is like. it goes even deeper for thorn bc it was pre-hatching, but also that it raises consideration for what murtaghs childhood fully looked like outside of the little we do know, and it just AWOOOOO its a really good concept and ur actually so right i might have to read it just to see what thorn is like and what goes on there

thats honestly too part of why im wary about canon murtagh stuff - because his character touches on/brings up a lot of *really fucking interesting and complex* questions and issues about abuse and mind control and trauma that i dont know if i would trust anyone outside of like, some random ao3 author with a 30k slowburn backstory fic to have the chops to really do justice, yknow?

like as long as we're talking about old fandoms i was deeeep in that mcu back when the 2012 avengers came out and i got hooked into clint/hawkeye particularly the fanon version and theres some really good fics exploring like, post-avengers (2012) what that would look like for clint in recovery from mind control esp one where he was aware of everything he was doing but was powerless to stop himself from it (or, some interpretations consider, if his mind was warped into truly being happy/relishing it/wanting to do it) - esp if he had been abused as a child and still had that trauma to reckon with. and theres only a few fics that i really would say "THATS a Good Fucking Job writing it" and thats in a fandom with like hundreds to thousands to who knows how many fans + massive fanon pushing that type of longfic into popularity and giving lots of diff takes on it

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Episode 12 is 24 mins long, its the longest one yet please tell me theres something here thats not just filler

Its the same day as the previous episode and shes walkin around, doin what she always does and interacting w/ the villagers, I think we'll just show this as a kindof montage

I feel like she hasnt been interacting w/ Emmalyn since she moved into her own house, maybe they have a lil girls afternoon at Emmalyn's or something to distract her

Then we get the scene w/ Logan at the plaza, which plays out like it does in the OG, I might adjust Aphmaus dialogue to be a bit more irritated n shit. I also might lead into the scene by having one of the villagers be like "ay, this merchant isnt selling stuff, what up w/ that"

Once shes done w/ that, she goes to check on Brendan again and has an exchange w/ Garroth thats slightly different than the one in the OG, I mainly wanted him to say that he and the Brightport doctor helped Brendan bc yknow, he was there too. I would still like to have Garroth being good w/ injuries as a trait though, bc hes a guard and I feel like it makes sense for him to know how to handle them

Also, at the end of his plea for Aphmau to stay here I'd like to add something like "And I ask of you, please rest. You look... tired."

Okay, ive decided that Aphmau doesnt have a hamster, rn she just has her cat so Im cutting this subplot about the hamster growing istg if that turns out to be important

So yeah, Aphmau leaves decides to check on Zenix and asks him if he's feeling alright bc yknow, hes about to go chase not!Zenix and he seems like a dangerous fella. Their convo starts the same sans a few tweaks, Im extending it a little and adding more of a back and forth so it seems more like normal human interaction, and Im cutting that bit where he asks her to make him three arrows bc thats another one of those things that makes sense in a Minecraft RP but not really in any other story

Logan has set up a makeshift archery stand like in the OG and Aphmau approaches him but his dialogue is a bit different bc yknow, Zenix actually does have a bow and arrows here. Maybe he can instead mock him for being really bad at archery, saying smth like "A real knight would know how to use more than one weapon!". Maybe that could even trigger some kind of fight between Zenix and Logan bc Zenix is not standing that far away from him. Idk, I feel like quite a few of these convos really need to either be longer or feel less like they take place in a vacuum where no one else can hear them, but I'll worry about that when I polish this a bit more

In any case, ya girl is too tired to deal w/ this so she just interrupts them like "Hey, Zenix, do you mind showing me your archery skills" and so he does and he sucks ass which is. not great. And Aphmau is just like "ahaha, yea, you, youre not good... hopefully you'll get better though 👍 im leaving, have a nice day" and then she leaves and goes to rest at home

Man, I feel like some of these episodes are just so nothing, I hope i can rework them into something thats a bit less hard to pay attention to. And again, a lot of these issues just come down to "theyre trying to tell a story in Minecraft, but it currently just comes across as a playthrough of a fantasy openworld rpg in the worst way possible" but stilllllllll, i have a really low attention span man :(

I also get why theyre taking it slow in the beginning, I also want to take it slow so that the audience can get attached to this place and the people in it so that its like, tragic when shit starts hitting the fan but ughhhh idk what this is man

[sageblogsthings]

to celebrate The Crimson Moon reaching 30k as of this morning, i thought that i would share the progression of the opening lines of the book, and talk a bit about how the book has grown and changed in the last year! on july 27th it will be exactly a year since i first started writing this and wow i’m not getting emotional you are aha whaaaat

*cough* anywayyysss!!

draft one: please oh god don't judge me

ok i'm not going to talk negatively about my past writing because it got me to where i am today but. [marge i am looking away meme] if you can't tell, i wrote this when i was going through the existential crisis phase of uni and just wanted to live in the woods, i say like i would not currently move to the woods in a heartbeat asdklfja

at the time that i wrote this i was really happy with it because the writing was fun and, as a result, easy! at this point i was just writing in my down time from uni, and i didn't know what the plot was or what my plans were for the book as a whole. because this was just something i did in my down time, i think my writing took on more of a conversational, stream-of-consciousness tone, and that's part of what made this draft (or start of a draft, i only got like 12k in i think) so easy to write. but eventually, as the plot started to come together and i started to gain more inspiration from sff writers as a whole, i realized that this book wasn't heading in the direction i wanted it to. it wasn't just something to do in my free time at that point, it had taken on a life of it's own. and thus, draft two began.

draft two: electric boogaloo

ngl these lines still slap and i love them. there are definitely things i would change, but these lines will be in the current draft of the book, albeit not in the first chapter and altered slightly. when i started this draft, i didn't have an outline but i had a very clear, cinematic image of how i wanted this chapter to go. i think having that before i started writing helped a looooot, both in terms of prose and just being able to convey aspects of the setting/character in the first paragraph. as i continued writing this draft though, i realized that some of the character arcs didn't make sense or were getting a bit messy, and that, based on the story i wanted to tell, it didn't make sense to start with Xalia. while there are six main pov characters in this book, Vanna really is the main character and i wanted that to be clear.

draft three: this time it's personal actually good

these are the current first lines of the book, and honestly my favorite so far! starting off with Vanna rather than Xalia definitely gives the book a different feel, and it's one that's more true to the vision i have for it. in my opinion, this opening does a much better job of setting up some of the book's themes, which admittedly i'm still figuring out lol. grief and loss are major components of all the character arcs, and are integral to the plot itself. switching to present tense has also been a LIFE CHANGER for me. it's funny because, on the second stab at this book, i kept slipping into present tense, but forcing myself back to past tense because i thought present tense sounded weird. turns out it only sounded weird because it was surrounded by past tense, and now that i've written 3 chapters in present tense i can solidly say that this is the way the book was meant to be written. it just feels like my book now, and i'm so happy with where it's headed!

i also made an outline for this draft of the book, and while i've already deviated from it somewhat to work out plot holes or increase ~foreshadowing~ in certain scenes, getting all of the events out of my head and onto paper has really allowed me to just write because i know that i have a document to refer back to if i get stuck on where the story is headed. making the outline also really pushed me to think about character backstories, most of which i had previously established, but now they've changed a lot to fit together more cohesively and integrate with the plot more clearly. i've also changed a lot of the character designs, and as a result of changing the appearances and backstories of a lot of the characters, i feel a lot closer to them and the story itself. the characters have well and truly taken on a life of their own, and now i'm kind of just along for the ride, telling their stories and loving every second of it!

ALSO!! the last big change with this draft, which i just implemented literally this morning and am so so sooooo excited about, is having first person referral, present tense mini-chapters/interludes! it gives the book a really unique sound and ties into the plot really nicely i think! i feel like the structure and form of the story are finally tying into the story itself and it's driving me insane a little bit askdfjka

as of right now i'm not ready to reveal who the pov and referral characters are in these chapters, because i'm debating between a couple ways of doing things and if i go one way that would end up being a pretty big spoiler! that being said, i got really hyped up about it earlier today and rambled in the spoilers section of my server so if you do want that sweet sweet spoilers content....join my server! ;)

also. i hope u all know that i almost deleted that first snippet about ten different times but transparency in writing and all that, i really do want to show how much this book has grown and changed! even if it's going to cause me immense psychic damage to type up the image description for this but i digress

i think that's all for now, and thank you so so much if you read all of that! the love and support this project has received and continues to receive absolutely blow me away, and i can't thank you enough for being part of the journey! <3

the crimson moon taglist (ask to be +/-)

@dallonswords | @isherwoodj | @florraisons | @aetherwrites | @childhoodlovers | @bijouxs | @ziyin | @moonhungers | @piyawrites | @avi-why | @svpphicwrites | @alicewestwater | @ladywithalamp | @spencers-tomes | @discreet-writer | @sunwornpages | @abalonetea | @the-bard-writes | @x-writes | @morganwriteblr​ ​| @aphaimaniis | @stephwriteswords | @ninazeniks ​| @araliensmagica | @fuyugomori | @ryns-ramblings | @greyjaywrites | @marimos

image descriptions below the cut

[header image description]

the background is a dark castle with a checkerboard-patterned marble floor. the hallway fades into black, with the hint of a figure standing in the doorway. white text across the image reads "The Crimson Moon" in a large, all-caps font, and below that reads "wip update post" in thin, lowercase text.

[image description for excerpt one]

I lay on my back, gazing up at the sky. The weather was absolutely perfect. I could hear the crickets singing, the birds chirping, the brook babbling, all that good poetic shit.

I came out here often, just to get away and pretend like I wasn't a part of the fuck-all society I lived in. How could humans be so ignorant? We live in a world with this, I gestured expansively in my mind at the field around me, how can we not see how beautiful it is? How perfect it is? How imperfect we are by comparison?

[image description for excerpt two]

Xalia strode down the marble halls, the soft leather of her shoes meeting each tile with a cacophony of echoes. This was not the first, second, hundredth time that she had walked these passageways, and yet the chill she felt when contained within their depths never seemed to subside. The looming corridors and billowing curtains always seemed to hide sinister whispers that breathed down her neck and pricked at the tips of her ears. Perhaps it was the High Council, with their unnerving masks and owlish eyes, seeming to know and perceive all — or perhaps it was the knowledge that every time she stalked back towards the exit, she would carry the weight of another’s life on her shoulders, a life that she had to take.

[image description for excerpt three]

Vanna’s mother always tells them that grief is a sharp, biting thing; something that latches its teeth around your stomach until you double over with the weight of it. But for Vanna, that’s not quite right. There isn’t something hidden and tucked away behind the confines of their gut because there isn’t anything there at all. As they walk towards the town well — a spell book in one hand and emptiness in the other — they think that their mother got it wrong trying to describe grief in terms of presence. Grief, to them, can only be absence. The absence of light, the absence of a smile, and the absence of a palm which had curled so perfectly into theirs.