#you should really be aware of like. the major details about it and the characters. before you dive head first into it and go

[aroaceleovaldez]

they cast a 28 year old for Tyson 💀

[relevant rants: here and here]

yeah, i saw - i wasn't holding onto hope of them casting a disabled actor for Tyson (still disappointed, just not surprised) but casting a 28 year old for a middle schooler is really out of left field. It's just an odd choice? Particularly given how much they've been emphasizing age-accurate casting so far.

It makes me really wonder what major rewrites they have planned for Tyson's character. Because as things stand currently there's no way to make Tyson's existing character work with this casting. Tyson is supposed to be in Percy's grade, but Daniel Diemer sticks out like a sore thumb against the child actors. Tyson being in Percy's grade is pretty important for the entire arc of Sea of Monsters with the main character arc being Percy combating internalized ableism and establishing him as a character who stands up for other marginalized kids. If they remove that, what's Percy's arc going to be for that entire season? At what point are they going to establish that about his character? Or are they just going to exposition it at us like usual with nothing backing it up and no actual character progression? And in later seasons the age gap is only going to be more prominent - like how is Tyson going to work in BoTL or TLO? Are they planning on removing his character entirely for those scenes? Are they going to remove him as a recurring character in general? It'd be really weird if they killed him off or something.

I'm also afraid for if they do try to keep Tyson's disability coding in some form - cause there's kind of no good way it can go at this point. Either they completely erase Tyson's coding because they cast an abled actor for him and that messes up the entire arc of the book and his character particularly in relation to Percy, or they have an abled actor attempt to portray a character heavily coded as having down syndrome (and i believe they're already doing similar with iirc Chiron's actor is abled but they're doubling-down in the show on Chiron being disabled) and given how they've written the neurodivergence themes (or absence there of) in the show so far there's just no way that'd end well. Like, Tyson's characterization is a little questionable to begin with in the books, but given the show's writing so far it just feels like we're very rapidly ramping up for an extremely ableist characterization of Tyson. Like i'm sure Daniel Diemer is a great actor, but... i'm just getting real tired of the show erasing the entire premise of the series :T

anyways as per my initial post about pjo tv tyson casting theories i guess it's time for me to start tearing stuff apart with my teeth ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cripplecharacters]

Do you have tangible advice on *how* to research different disabilities for writing? How to find specific blogs beyond searching the name of the disability on Tumblr, forums, websites with good info, etc? I see a lot of advice that is basically just "research the disability and talk to people who have it" but with how Google has gone down in quality, I'm not sure where to look beyond the surface level info (plus how to find people with the disability who are willing to share niche details/answer really specific situational questions). Thank you for everything you do on this blog!

Hey!

I'd say that you should break the research process into a few steps.

First, figure out what you should actually look into. Think about the genre, intended audience, and role of the character. A background character in a comedy meant for elementary school kids and a main character in an adult romantic novel will have two different approaches. You don't have to (and probably shouldn't) overdo a character that doesn't need it - otherwise it can end up feeling like some sort of disability awareness PSA, and that's probably not what you want.

With that in mind, you can start the actual research. I think that the websites of organizations/foundations for people with that specific disabilities are the best, since they cover a lot of things from many different angles. They are also usually written in simpler language than medical websites (which are also great, but I get that not everyone can understand those, not everyone's fluent in English, etc.) and have more tangible advice for "how to function with XYZ" essentially. It also can give you a glimpse of what your character could specifically struggle with, especially in case of a recent disability - medical pages often won't talk about insurance problems, interpersonal issues, or actually coping with the new state one's body is in. Check the FAQs, or the most commonly visited pages, stuff like that to get an idea on what's important. For example, these are some of the most concise explanations of how someone with a complete spinal cord injury at a specific level might function and what they might need. Something like this can be a good start to figure out where your characters "is", so to speak.

Some organizations for common disabilities might also have some sort of "media representation" page that's made specifically for writers. UK's Down Syndrome Association has one, Face Equality International has one, Phoenix Society has one, US Foundation for the Blind has one, etc.

This alone is more research than the vast majority of writers bother to do. If you actually understand:

what the disability is,

what symptoms it has,

how those affect your character in day-to-day life,

how to avoid the most common offensive stereotypes,

you are doing better than a lot of published writers, to be honest.

Okay, but what can you do to make it even better:

Since at this step you know what symptoms your character has and which ones you will actually show to the audience, you can start researching them one by one.

Here you might have to go read some medical studies, and learning how to get information out of those is a skill that needs some practice. But it is necessary to figure out if your blind character's vision loss is more likely to be total with no light perception or 20/200 (and, to figure out if your character's eye condition even causes blindness... because I've seen "blind characters" who are blind from eye conditions that... do not cause vision loss) so that you can actually research appropriate accommodations or aids.

Knowing specific symptoms will be even more helpful if your character's disability isn't very common - symptoms are very rarely tied to just a single disability, and you might have more luck researching a completely different one. For example, if you can't find info on something related to being a unilateral arm amputee, try searching for solutions that hemiplegics use. Not all will apply, but a lot of this stuff will be the same.

Make sure you understand what you do or don't do with those symptoms. There might be treatments, there might be some lifestyle changes to be done, there might be some strict limitation that you will have to put on your character for them to make sense. I think it's better to fit the character concept to the symptoms that you want and not the other way around - if you do the latter, you might find yourself writing an essentially abled character or a disabled character that is just inconsistent. Not every disability will be compatible with every role or concept, and there's really no point in trying to put us literally everywhere. If you really can't find a solution for something you need the character to do, it might mean that there just isn't one.

Once you figure out the technical stuff and have all the "dry" information laid out, start seeking the real life equivalents. Start widely at first so that you can narrow it down later, not the other way around (unless you don't mind changing the character around a lot). If you have already done a lot of technical research before, you will have more specific questions (which are easier to answer than "how do I write a disabled character").

Look up daily vlogs and day-in-a-life videos on youtube from people with that disability (and don't be afraid of only very-low views count videos popping up as that's almost inevitable - there are very few big disability youtubers, so try giving the smaller ones a chance). Watch interviews where people with that condition explain how their daily life is, how their disability affects it. SBSK is one of the best IMO. Check out AMAs on Reddit. Read personal blogs (you can generally find some by just putting "living with Name of Disability blog" into search). There's a ton of people who sincerely want to help others understand the realities of living with their disability and name their stuff accordingly so that it's easy to find.

At this stage you should have a decent idea of how the disability affects your character both in the technical sense, and in the more practical one.

Try to write out their average daily routine - from how they get up in the morning to when they go to sleep. Try to actively think "how would they do it" - how would they get from their bed and into their wheelchair, how would they dress up, how would they commute to work, how would they communicate with others, how would they get from point A to point B. If you realize that you're suddenly stuck, you now have a specific question ("how to put on pants with no hands", "how do totally blind people use computers", "shower accommodations C5 SCI", whatever) which is much easier to research than just a vague awareness of Not Knowing how your character functions in general. All of these questions have been asked before - newly disabled people will be going through them in their real life, and they use the same search engines and same social media as everyone else.

If you get this far, you're doing quite great! I'd say that this is enough effort to make a good and complex disabled character that's important in the story, though maybe not the POV character.

For a POV character, if you aren't disabled, you probably need a sensitivity reader/consultant.

There are a lot of those in writing spaces already - a lot of disabled people write themselves. If you just drop a "I need a sensitivity reader for XYZ" and use the general writing tags, there's a high chance you will get a response (assuming the XYZ in question isn't something very rare and/or so severe it would prevent someone from using the internet in general).

You can also try the disability's tag (don't get discouraged if it's not used a lot, a lot of people lurk without posting anything themselves) since you're looking for a real person and intending to pay them (very different from abled writers randomly posting their blorbos in disability tags).

Some of the places where you can try looking are r/SensitivityReaders, WritingDiversely, FireflyCreativeWriting, even sites like Fiverr could work. I've also heard some good things about Facebook writing groups, but I don't have any personal experience with them.

You can also always reach out to an association for people with the kind of disability you need - tell them that you are a writer and are looking to pay a sensitivity reader to help you, and they might be able to refer you to someone who would like to do that.

Another thing would be to keep intersectionality in mind - if your character is disabled, but otherwise part of the majority in every other sense (in NA or most of EU: white, rich, Christian, cisgender, straight, non-immigrant), you will have less things to consider than if your character has the same disability but is also a Polynesian transgender immigrant. If any intersectionality is particularly important to what you're writing, you should include that as well (you can also work with multiple sensitivity readers to try and get as close as possible).

My last advice is to only seek out sensitivity readers if you're able to pay them a fair amount for their work. Don't ask people to work for you for free (which is probably obvious, but a ton of fanfic and whump writers on Tumblr seem completely unaware of this).

Technical tips:

For specifically avoiding AI slop, I recommend putting [before:2023] after whatever question you put in, it will filter all results made after 2022, eliminating 99% of AI nonsense (works for images too).

If you're constantly getting a specific kind of wrong result, use [-ThingYouDon'tWant] after the input, it will remove everything that contains it.

If you're not getting a specific result, put the word you need in quotes ["Word You Need"] and it will force only the results who use that specific phrase/term to appear.

So if you're trying to find a blog about living with quadriplegic cerebral palsy as an adult and can't find any relevant searches by putting just that into the search, try ["cerebral palsy" "blog" quadriplegic -parents -spinal -SCI] and you should get more relevant stuff.

That's how I generally try to approach research for writing and I would say I've had good results (including now). Researching is a skill that requires practice unfortunately, at some point you can simply tell when a resource is bad or good since you've looked at so many already.

Follower input is welcome and encouraged :-)

mod Sasza

[bonefall]

how much of Stormpaw’s demon are Maple’s curse vs just things that happen (cause in canon it’s really vague about whether Maple causes all those tragedies or has the ability to see his future for some reason)

EVERYTHING that happens in Stormpaw's Demon involves her. It's not being so dramatically renamed for nothing, she's a major driver and cause of the plot! Crookedstar's young name is in the title; but really, his demon is driving the misfortune.

That said... It's been a while and I'm heavily considering retooling the narrative.

Since I last REALLY worked on it, BB has changed in the sense that I'm a lot more willing to alter canon than I used to be. While my driving mindset used to be "telling a better version of the original story," and that IS a value I still hold... I've lost patience with the misogyny within the original work.

I've spoken at length about the way Crookedstar's Promise grinds my gears (PLEASE follow this link for a full breakdown of why), but in summary; it desperately tries to keep every male character likeable when they shouldn't be, saying nothing about the fact they are complicit in or even enabling abuse, while giving Crookedstar TWO flatly evil maternal figures. Even Brambleberry, who's heavily praised for being "like a mom instead," has a weird moment where she starts giving Crookedjaw the cold shoulder because she finds out he's chatting with a demon.

So like... I'm not sure if I want to make the "better version" of that story. That was the one that I already had, which had Mapleshade be acting entirely out of just the malice of wanting to hurt a child, while Hailstar and Shellheart are the excellent people canon wanted to see them as.

(not that it's even a BAD super edition, it's actually a really good one, but if it's my kitchen that's not what we cook here. Man I really do always massively overhaul my favorite SEs LMAO)

I think, specifically, I want to make Mapleshade slightly more morally gray and Hailstar more of an enabler. Shellheart is getting significantly retooled to make him more of the heartwarming parental figure I think he should be; someone loving to help balance out a very heavy rework.

And of course Brambleberry, I'm going to tweak her some. Try to make her flaws more consistent, get rid of that odd cold shoulder moment.

Old regulars will remember an old AU which is also still a massive favorite of mine; it was called Better Call Mapleshade, and it was kind of a commentary on how an environment can shape a person. Mapleshade, as a demon in heaven, was essentially their best prosecutor and defense attorney.

You can actually see how a lot of ideas from that AU ended up in Better Bones with the expanded trial system! I'm thinking of taking another page out of it, by making Mapleshade more aware of "the game" of Clan culture's structural unfairness, while also using it like a weapon against people she wants to hurt. A powerful demon of revenge.

Under the cut, what won't be changing, the way it was, and Draft 2 of Stormpaw's Demon.

(MASSIVE CONTENT WARNING FOR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CHILD ABUSE including ableism. BB!Rainflower is WORSE than canon.)

WHAT WON'T BE CHANGING;

These are major details of Stormpaw's Demon that are different from canon. I'm working with these as givens and won't be changing between drafts.

Mapleshade does have a bone to pick with Appledusk's lineage specifically. One option might make her more discerning when it comes to her targets, but no matter what, she is going to have her eyes on this bloodline. She Haunts Applekin.

Rainflower is Hailstar's deputy. And I will make her downfall spectacular. If you were worried I was going to make her more sympathetic then you have no idea who I am LMAO

Shellheart is not Crookedstar's biofather While I want Hailstar to maybe be worse; I do want to fix Shellheart by making him a good parent. I've decided a good way to do this is to make it that Shellheart adopts Storm AFTER he's been abused by Rainflower. He didn't have authority over him before then. In general, I do want him to have a bigger positive role in this narrative. DEPENDING ON WHICH VERSION: Oakheart might also not be his bio-brother.

Crookedjaw is not a cruel name; it's an Honor Title. I've ALWAYS been frustrated by how canon treats scars and injuries as bad things. It's a BATTLE culture. Surviving brushes with death is their WHOLE THING. There is no "crookedkit" or "crookedpaw," he was Stormpaw until he earned his warrior name, with "Crookedjaw" commending the massive lengths he's gone to in order to survive, adapt, and honor StarClan.

Mentor change: Goodbye Cedarpelt, hello Magpiesky! I decided to repurpose one of the Barn Cats! Magpie from the books is a daughter of Perchshine-- the cat who killed Mapleshade. She joined RiverClan long ago. She's actually the one who points him in the way of the barn, and has to train him "as a punishment for teaching him disobedience" when he comes back. I actually have a couple of minor reasons for making this change but I'll spare them for now. He might start with Cedarpelt, but then run to the barn when Cedarpelt is basically refusing to train him properly.

Some family tree shuffles I need to update this tree to show Crookedstar's new situation with Shellheart (and also reflect some other changes I made like confirming Hallowflight fully being Lizardtail's honor title and Robinpaw being the apprentice who gets eaten by Ripwater), BUT, overall this tree is solid.

The ableism Storm faces is going to have a different flavor I have built BB in a way where him surviving his injury would be very respected, but he'd get badly coddled and pushed into early retirement. Him running to the barn is because he suspects he wouldn't have gotten training otherwise.

He kills a fox there because it's Cool. I might give him the tail to wear as a trophy of the kill because that's also Cool. The fox was very old and feeble at that point, which was why it was attacking chickens, but shhh

The Way It Was (Very Evil Mapleshade)

Darkstar's Commandment creating the Queen's Rights, that no queen would ever have to reveal the other parent of their kittens, wasn't enough to appease Mapleshade.

Nor was the damning of everyone that Mapleshade killed. In a fit of irrational fury at all the death, StarClan sent all her victims into the Dark Forest.

But she can't chase them. In the Dark Forest, you don't see someone unless you WANT to see them, not unless you're hanging out in a "land mar" (a sort of personal hell that all demons get).

on the off-chance she does see them, Frecklewish usually rips her to shreds...

Which is the next problem.

You can't DIE in the Dark Forest if you're a demon. You poof back into existence the next day, no injuries, no scars, nothing.

she's bored.

And vengeful. In spite of the wrong being righted, she still thinks she deserves MORE revenge, because what she wanted was really Appledusk.

She finds it unfair that HER legacy is snuffed out, that it's Darkstar's Commandment and not hers, that her babies were destined for greatness and by extension SHE should have been great.

So she takes up a hobby in tormenting Appledusk's descendants. She wants to eradicate them completely, but is spiteful enough that she'll just settle with hurting them.

The first one she managed to kill was Applefrost, Reedshine's son. Just by accident. She didn't know she had such power over the mortal plane.

After that, she managed to drown Duskwater. The daughter.

But she couldn't wipe out HER daughter in that storm... and she brought two more Applekin children into the world.

Stormkit and Oakkit.

So, naturally, Mapleshade turned her sight on the little fuzzball.

He would be an easy kill, in theory. She smashed Stormkit's jaw on the rock, but Oakkit pulled him out.

From there, it's similar to canon for a bit. His recovery is long and painful.

Rainflower is disgusted, and wants absolutely no part of helping him through this process.

That wasn't an injury gained in battle-- it's because he's careless and didn't listen to her. He's going through all this suffering, and for what?

To never become a warrior?

She's cruel to him, begins to neglect and distance herself from him. Discourages him from suckling.

Mapleshade LOVES this. It's worse than she could have imagined. Rainflower is horrible.

Gleefully, she realizes that Stormkit dying now is what Rainflower wants.

So, she kills two other kits in the nursery.

Fallowtail's only survivor is Willowkit, so she has plenty of milk. She starts suckling Stormkit.

(Graypool is now an older sibling! She's actually an apprentice at this time! Later, she encourages Willowkit to visit their father, who decides to just kidnap them completely)

Eventually, being the deputy, Rainflower had some kind of conversation with Hailstar.

During that conversation, she asked him to do something very cruel to Crookedkit.

And Hailstar LOST IT

He's the successor of Volestar, who was appointed by Darkstar herself to uphold the Queen's Rights and protect children.

How DARE you try to turn RiverClan into a place of disrespect?? To use my power this way?!

So, her power was stripped, and Oakkit and Stormkit were taken from her.

From there, Storm eventually goes to the barn as discussed, and Mapleshade continues to do things to hurt him.

This was my first draft, and now having thought about it a lot, I feel like it's not super cohesive. A demonic Mapleshade who's entirely malicious is neat, but I feel like this makes her flat. Shellheart's not tied in super well either, and Hailstar's stand feels kind of hollow because Rainflower hasn't actually used or leveraged the new authority I've given her.

But most egregiously? Rainflower's abuse being so close to canon tastes kind of bland. I feel like I can make it sooo much more intense, complicated, and painful.

Draft 2 of Stormpaw's Demon (Demon of Revenge Update) Essentially an outline for the first few chapters establishing Mapleshade by dealing with Rainflower and then fragments for the rest.

Mapleshade's still malicious, but this time, there's more to it.

Darkstar's Commandment, and the damning of her victims, DID appease this Mapleshade.

But is she satisfied? No.

She doesn't feel like she was wrong at all, actually. Without her killing those three in revenge for her kittens, StarClan's anger probably would have subsided.

She can't hunt her victims down again though, because, they don't want to see her. She fights Frecklewish every now and then but what's the point?

She WON already. She already GOT the euphoria of dragging them all down with her.

Punishing everyone who had ever wronged her was the highlight of her existence... but now it's done.

She's in Hell and she's bored. Her punishment is never seeing her kits again, but more importantly, her punishment is eternal shuffling through the leaf litter when she's SO GOOD at getting revenge.

Problem with revenge is, when you get it, it's gone.

She probably messed with Duskwater and Applefrost a bit, but if she killed one of them, it was accidental. It made her realize that revenge without a motive is just boring.

The prologue would probably open up with establishing her as a character. Who she is, what she wants.

Because the first chapter would dive RIGHT IN to Stormkit. The only child of Rainflower, the deputy.

Right along with Stormkit, you only learn in hindsight that he was born in a storm that killed his grandmother. It's clear that Rainflower reminds him of this often.

And that she's nasty to him. Giving him unclear instruction and finding things to critique, telling him to jump and then barking at him that he didn't ask how high.

She has great expectations for him, and reminds him of their family lineage often. Of who killed his great-grandfather, of what a fantastic pair of warriors Applefrost and Duskwater were

"I lost everything the night you were born. You'd better be able to make up for it."

Unfortunately, Stormkit is not the sort of child who's good at listening to those sorts of orders. He's stubborn and defiant; angry and oppositional.

When he doesn't understand why you do something, he doesn't want to do it

He "embarrasses" her a lot, and gets hurt for it.

In public, these are swats and whacks. The things you're "allowed" to do to discipline your child. In private these are a lot more severe.

So when Stormkit is given an order or a command, he obeys completely out of fear rather than respect. And sometimes he forgets his fear.

The other cats in RiverClan? Well... Stormkit is a problem child, and Rainflower is a fantastic, organized, respected deputy.

Hailstar especially, unfortunately. He feels bad... for Rainflower.

"It must be so hard for her to have such a little brat as a son. He never seems to learn his lesson. When will he stop wandering off? What's wrong with him? He certainly didn't get that from her."

His best friend, Oakkit, gets in the SAME trouble he does.

He's mischievous, fearless, and outgoing, and... never gets punished for it.

There's times where Oakkit does something and Stormkit physically recoils, just imagining what Rainflower would do if HE did something like that. Especially in how Oakkit talks to his dad, Shellheart.

For example, Shellheart will come to get his son for suckling time and Oakkit will tell him to his face things like, "I don't want to! I'm HAVING FUN!"

and shellheart doesn't flip out. He just. explains why it's important to eat on time.

"I know. But Fallowtail wants to go have fun too! She's waiting for you to come and suckle so she can go play."

"Well why can't she just play now and I suckle later?"

"When a suckler is full of milk, it makes their belly very itchy. She's uncomfortable when you don't come and eat on time."

"nnnh"

"Tough sell? How about I sweeten the pile with a badger ride back?"

"Hm. You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Dad."

Stormkit doesn't know why he hates it. He's all angry inside when he sees them acting friendly. He's polite because Oakkit's his best friend and Mr. Shellheart is really nice, but he just...

He's too young at the time to know he's envious. He wants what Oakkit has so badly it hurts.

Sometime after an exchange like that, Stormkit is visited by Mapleshade for the first time.

And they talk about Stormkit's anger and resentment. Stormkit lets it slip that he HATES his Mi.

Waits for Mapleshade to stop him and tell him, like everyone else does, that "she's still your mother."

...but she doesn't.

Besides Oakkit and Shellheart, she's the first person who doesn't tell him that.

She just lets him talk. Lets him go on. Starts making nasty jabs, which make him laugh.

"She says she lost everything the day I was born!!"

"What?! That's crazy! She got you that day!"

"Right?! It's like she's saying I'm nothing! Maybe she SHOULD lose everything, then she'd know what she's got!"

And then she asks, "Do you want her to die?"

Suddenly, there's a chill in the air. He's really shocked by the suggestion of that. He didn't... he didn't mean it to go THAT far. That's not what he meant... is it?

But she's fading back into the shadows, just her eyes visible in the dark. Tells him that she can see he's unsure. That's ok.

Holds up a budding sprig of sycamore, the maple she's named for. Its buds grow in a "deer hoof," with one large bud in the middle and two "toes" sprouting on its sides.

Teaches him that if he needs someone in his corner, all he has to do is call.

(to summon her, a bud is plucked off the sprig and thrown in the river.)

He wakes up with the sprig in his paw, panics, and shoves it under the nest he shares with his mother.

The experience shakes him. He probably ran to Brambleberry for the first time, who explains very seriously that he was contacted by a demon.

From the description... Mapleshade. The cat who killed his great-grandfather.

He BEGS her not to tell Rainflower. PLEADS with her. He can barely hear her already saying yes under the throbbing sound of his heart in his ears.

When he calms down, he hears her saying yes. On the condition she will need to smoke the nursery with sage and cedar, and that he will be needing a bath as well.

When he's still concerned that Rainflower will question him, she makes a plan to distract her for a day, long enough for him to do his cleanse and the smell to fade.

And, of course, that he will not follow any instructions that Mapleshade left him. He agrees. But does not tell Brambleberry about the sprig.

For a while he's very "well behaved." But it's not about him, never has been.

It really doesn't take long at all for Rainflower to get worse. Kids who are defiant like that are usually exercising a defense mechanism-- if they're not aggressive about their boundaries, their limits are pushed to a breaking point.

And after a big blowout like this, which was probably a public spectacle, Stormkit runs back to his nest and digs out the sprig, runs to the river, and throws a bud in the river.

Having calmed down from his shuddering fury, the dread begins to set in as a dead-smelling wind ruffles his fur. He can't help but feel like he just did something very stupid out of anger.

Looking at his reflection, he sees no cuts or swelling. The blows weren't "bad enough." He doesn't have the kind of injuries that anyone would do anything about. Equal parts guilt and frustration swell in him like a tide at full moon. How could he be sitting here wishing she hurt him worse?

So he tries to soften it, "I don't want her to die, I just, I... I just want her to lose everything like she says. Please..."

The wind whispers in his ear, "it will get worse before it gets better."

"I can handle that," he sobs, "I can do anything. Please. Make it stop."

After that, Oakkit probably runs to come find him. Stormkit doesn't want to be found. He makes up a childish plan, on the spot, to run away and join ThunderClan.

Oak says that's mousebrained, but Storm has DEVOTED himself to this plan he made just now.

And is crossing the stones.

Oak sighs, but if Storm's going to ThunderClan, he should really go with him because then they could totally fight off a small fox (Childish hubris)

Unfortunately, Rainflower found them. asks Exactly What He's Doing.

The kids freeze. Stormkit in particular has that horrible, twisting anxiety that you get when you hear The Tone that means you're in for an absolute wallop when you get home.

He's about to start running, but then the voice tickles his ear-fur again. Mapleshade tells him to go back. It'll be ok. She's on his side. She'll make her pay.

Oakkit is still frozen in place when, as if possessed, Storm's body stiffly returns to his mother.

There's a silence. The river trickling through the stepping stones. Storm looking with fear and anger up at her.

She's waiting for an apology, groveling. He doesn't give her one.

So she raises her paw and gives him an awful, hard blow.

His little body twists, flung off balance, trying to correct himself, and he can swear he felt paws pushing him a second time, whipping him downwards.

The feeling of falling fills his stomach, the water sloshes into his ears before there's a ring of a sound like CLUNK-CRUNCH, and then the river floods his nose and mouth.

It all goes dark.

When he wakes up, it's with a throbbing pain in the side of his jaw so intense that he can feel it all the way down in the tip of his tail. He learns from Brambleberry that Oakkit rescued him-- jumped right into the water to pull him out. And then Rainflower pulled him out. That was when Shellheart came and found them.

There's a LOT of arguing outside, but Storm can't ask what it is because it hurts to move his mouth at all. Brambleberry hushes and soothes him, telling him it's nothing he needs to know about.

(MEDICAL INFODUMPING: i do actually have a medical reason I want his injury to come from someone hitting him which causes him to fall. The injury he'd get in canon would actually be a really simple and common split in the front of the mandible, which wouldn't cause his mouth to have a dramatic twist and would heal very easily. He needs to come down on the rock at an angle to shatter the joint like that.)

From here, the tune about Stormkit starts to change.

Oakkit was distraught when they got back, telling everyone that Rainflower smashed him against a rock.

Rainflower's story is that he was running, and she chased after him. EVERYONE knows that he has a habit of doing this.

Then HE slipped and fell and hit his face on the rocks. His fault.

Oakkit was running away with him, he's lying.

Shellheart is FEROCIOUSLY taking the side of his son, furious that she would imply he raised a liar.

Hailstar is taking the side of Rainflower. It's two troublemaking kits against his deputy.

Yes, Rainflower's disciplined him before, but that's no indication she'd do something like this on purpose.

Brambleberry weighs in that the injury that Stormkit has isn't the sort of injury a kitten gets from hitting his jaw. The bone is shattered.

probably does some kind of visual to go along with it, using a stick and a stone

"The bones of a kitten are like the young shoots of a tree. When they fracture," she takes a young twig and snaps it in her paws. The fibers in the center are bent but unbroken, with the bark splintered around them, "they flay but don't snap."

She places the stick on the ground, "So for the injury that Stormkit has," and violently smashes the rock down onto it. It's shattered and pulped, the fibers flattened, "there would need to be a great force."

Shellheart hisses, saying that THIS is the evidence. Oakkit's story is consistent but Rainflower HAS to have lied.

Several cats are now on his side.

...But more are on Rainflower's.

"She's his mother. She loves him. Oakkit has to be mistaken."

"Why would she chase down her own son just to smash his face on a stone?"

"She wouldn't pull them out of the river if she really wanted to hurt him!"

Hailstar prompts if there's ANYTHING else that could explain this?

It comes up that Brambleberry cleansed the dens the other day.

She says that it's possible there is a demon's influence at work. She can't know for sure which one it is-- but it may have a grudge against Rainflower.

She allows them to reach the conclusion that it's probably Mapleshade on their own. She will be talking to Crookedkit when he's able, but she's not about to tell anyone about his dream yet.

She doesn't want him to have the extra scrutiny when he needs to rest and heal, but if she'd shared that an unnamed cat had a demonic dream, it would set off panic as cats accused each other of dark magic.

Rainflower manages to escape consequences by pointing out that it was likely Mapleshade that injured her son.

Oakkit is still trying to tell everyone SHE did it, he SAW it, Stormkit walked back and she hit him and smashed his jaw on the rock

But he's hushed. It's decided there's not enough evidence. And not enough reason to doubt the noble deputy.

She's never done something like this before, after all. It's more likely it was an accident.

There is a group of cats that are dissatisfied about this, though, and it only grows when Brambleberry explains that Stormkit's prognosis is not good.

There is a very high chance he will die. Even adult warriors can wither slowly from this sort of injury.

Recovery will be slow and it will be painful.

...but after that incident? Rainflower gets bolder. She got away with it in public. She got a taste of the leverage she has, how much they trust her.

Stormkit spends a lot of time floating in between his dreams and his living-world pain. There's at least one interaction where he speaks to Mapleshade, screaming at her that he TRUSTED her, he KNOWS she's the one who hurt him! How could she?!

She can't say much, kept at bay by a hazy smokescreen of sage. "You must live! You must survive!"

Her old words echo in his head; It Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better.

Throughout the recovery, Rainflower grows more cruel and more distant.

In public she likes to talk about how difficult this is for her, but he's strong, he will survive.

In private, she'll do things that hurt him, like repositioning his head in a way that "his jaw will heal better in." When he cries, she's unsympathetic.

"You brought this on yourself. This is for your own good."

Her definition of "private" is also changing. She's getting more comfortable with snapping at him in front of limited groups of people.

Since she's deputy, the other two parents in the nursery, Shellheart and Fallowtail, do their best to care for Stormkit while she's away. He's pulled away from them when she gets back, any ideas or suggestions they have vetoed.

When they try to go to Brambleberry about this, she shakes her head with frustration and tries to make them understand she knows... and she's just as unhappy with it as they are.

She tells them she keeps going to Hailstar, but he's still hesitant. Even though she's trying to tell him that Stormkit's recovery is being undermined.

"Rainflower's son has always needed tough love. She's his Mi and knows him best... she's still taking care of him. Give her a warning before suggesting anything drastic."

In the other draft, I had Mapleshade kill two of Fallowtail's kits to free up milk for Stormkit. I'm not sure I need that anymore honestly, plus, this rework's heavy enough! She can just have Willowkit without any deaths, while Graypaw remains an older sibling.

When Brambleberry informs Rainflower and Stormkit that the jaw isn't healing straight and it will probably be at an angle forever, Rainflower reacts with disdain.

"His first scar and it's nothing he earned?!"

She's reminded he might not even survive. He's lost weight. He's eating less. Stormkit curls up quietly. He hates how they talk about him like he can't hear them.

"Surviving is the bare minimum," she scoffs reflexively. There's a silence so thick you can cut it with a claw. After an uncomfortable heartbeat, she continues, "What kind of a life will he live if he-"

"a life," Brambleberry cuts in, "he'd live a life. And it can be a good one"

Rainflower growls, spitting that the twisted jaw is a disfigurement. He'll never be able to open his mouth all the way. He can't chew and he can't suckle forever. Stormkit will never become a warrior if he can't even dispatch a fish with a killing bite.

"Scars are the sign that StarClan has mended our bodies after fighting a good fight, making any Clanborn cat worthy of being an elder" Brambleberry preaches, "Names are what mark us, calling upon our ancestors to look down at us and witness our actions, Rainflower. Don't say anything you wouldn't want them to see."

Rainflower flicks her ear, seething, a rumble in her throat, "was that some kind of threat? As if I've said something wrong?"

"If you feel threatened, look within."

Stormkit resents all of this talk. He can feel his mother tensing up next to him, hears the low rumble progressing into a growl. When adults play stupid games with his mom, he's always the one who ends up dealing it. Why don't they get that?

It's only Shellheart who seems to have it click, "Hey, this is the nursery. Can you take it outside, please?"

As Brambleberry and Rainflower leave, Stormkit lays curled up in his nest, cold and alone. Oakkit leaves Shellheart's paws to curl up around his best friend.

Shellheart stares at them, shifting, but ultimately stays where he is.

There's a lot of words I could write there, between Storm and Oak. Ones where Storm speaks about how he just wants the pain to be done with. Others where Oak comforts him, tells him how much he means to him. More where they end up running into the wall that they're just two little kids and they've both learned the truth that they have no control over what happens when Rainflower comes back into that den.

But I think it would be good to end there, at the lowest point. Because it gets better.

Pissed off by being gently confronted, after her warning from Brambleberry, this is the moment where Rainflower goes too far.

Hailstar is gradually losing his patience. Every time this issue comes up, he's making some kind of new excuse for her.

She's still a competent deputy who holds the Clan together, but this has taken a toll on her reputation.

Her biggest mistake was becoming more open with her abuse after being emboldened. And I think Hailstar is beginning to feel like he's got "egg on his face."

After standing up for Rainflower several times, getting heat from Brambleberry, and now the Clan also starting to murmur...

It's getting very difficult to justify why he's sticking his neck out.

and maybe, part of him is starting to feel a little self-conscious about the way that his deputy is acting about her injured child.

When she comes storming up on this fateful day, interrupting whatever he was doing to make a proposition, it's the breaking point.

Her suggestion: "I've realized that there's only one way to ensure my son survives his injury. He's being haunted by our demon, which only started threatening him when he disobeyed me for the last time. WE need to teach him a lesson, and make sure StarClan gazes down upon him to acknowledge his mistakes."

"...how do you intend to do that?"

"Stormkit must be given a Dishonor Title."

A Dishonor Title, one of the greatest shames that a leader can put onto one of their warriors. A punishment that ranks just below exile in terms of severity.

"you want to put a dishonor title... on your child? one with a life-threatening injury?"

"One that acknowledges his carelessness. To protect him from the demon."

Protect him from the demon. "I see now what must be done."

Previously, I'd thought of Hailstar as someone who would be loud and merciless when he does this. Now I'm thinking it was something he put a lot of thought into. He stands up, brushes past her, and goes to talk to some of his most trusted cats. Brambleberry, his mate Echomist, an experienced warrior such as Piketooth or Ottersplash, and lastly, Shellheart.

So it's not a surprise to anyone but Rainflower herself. He doesn't want this to be dramatic. He doesn't want it to be another big scene. Stormkit has gone through enough.

When he eventually has this Clan meeting, he calls it quietly. In his address to the gathered cats, a crowd that Shellheart and his family are missing from at his request, he says that his greatest regret is that he didn't do this sooner. He even doubts that Mapleshade is haunting her at all-- now having seen her behavior, he says it's more likely that Rainflower bashed her own child against a rock and simply lied.

First, he announces that Stormkit will be removed from her care. He will no longer be of the Applekin bloodline.

She is banned from the nursery at the request of Fallowtail, and will only see Stormkit when supervised by his new Mi, Shellheart.

Brambleberry has already agreed to this necessity, and is performing a ritual so that StarClan may approve of this choice.

He also strips her of her deputyship, and appoints Ottersplash instead. (I might change this to a different deputy eventually)

Not everyone agrees with Hailstar. There's an uproar from Rainflower's supporters.

She was a VERY popular deputy.

More that are just uneasy, feeling that this was a BRUTAL punishment that she didn't deserve.

Lots are happy and optimistic, though. But the mixed reception is exactly why Hailstar asked Shellheart not to be here.

This isn't something Stormkit has to deal with right now.

When Darkstar herself, who created the Queen's Rights, was on her last life, she appointed Volestar to uphold the law as her legacy knowing that Oakstar might try to break it again.

Volestar appointed Hailstar, in the hopes that he would uphold her legacy in turn, to protect kittens and those who can't protect themselves.

He was late, and can only hope he was not too late. He hopes that Volestar can forgive him for that.

Meanwhile in the nursery, Shellheart, Oakkit, and Stormkit are alone, far in the back, where the padded moss keeps out arguing voices.

Oakkit, bless his little heart, is babbling with excitement because his best friend is his BROTHER now. And it's gonna be THE BEST.

He's talking about how it's fine he can't chew because now they can have soup, and they're going to make the nest bigger, and they can stay up later because they can whisper quieter if they're this close together

But Storm doesn't really hear him. His head's swimming, thinking about the dull ache in his jaw, how MAD his mom's going to be because he can't imagine her not finding a way to hurt him, how this is all his fault because he called Mapleshade.

He can't stop it anymore and starts sniffling, which turns into weeping. Still, he's TRYING not to bawl, knowing, knowing he looks stupid when he does that

Shellheart just pulls him in close, so he can bury his face in his fluffy chest. Tells him it's going to be ok. He's safe now. No one can hurt him there.

Not on his watch.

Unfortunately, it's not the last he sees of Mapleshade. After this...

Mapleshade shows him everything she did for him. Yes, she did smash his jaw-- but it was to get him away from his mother.

And she planted an idea here and there, just little whispers into Rainflower's ear. Nothing she wouldn't do all on her own.

And now... Mapleshade believes she's earned some respect.

Stormkit can't disagree... she did exactly what she told him she'd do.

And now that he's not Applekin anymore, they can be Real Friends. They could even strike up a partnership, of sorts. After all, what did StarClan do to help him?

It wasn't StarClan that answered his prayers.

I'm still figuring out what, exactly, she's going to want from him. I have a scintilla that she wants to give him a life, maybe as some kind of bridge to StarClan to see her kits?

Some strange "attempt" at redemption, perhaps? Which she ultimately doesn't get.

Not that she didn't enjoy doing all that for love of the game, mind you. She's very good at getting revenge and it's fun and exciting to pull it off.

But hey, if you're good at something, never do it for free.

What causes Mapleshade to ultimately turn, and begin haunting the bloodline again + Oakheart, is Crookedstar rejecting her in some way.

She comes to collect on her end of the bargain and he refuses, breaking their partnership. He chooses StarClan.

And then from there, it's ON again. Now she has another EXCUSE to do what she wanted to do, and take out her boredom and malice on his family.

This time, it includes Oakheart as well-- because he was Crookedstar's brother.

It was also her curse that harmed Willowbreeze and eventually Silverstream. She's on the warpath.

Maybe she actually helped make him leader on purpose. Like he explicitly asked so she helped him by making the squirrel omen, instead of just doing it for him unprompted. Still figuring it out.

Shortly after the scene where Stormkit cries, he needs to have a confrontation with Brambleberry about Mapleshade I think. She needs to explain why Dark Forest demons are seen as bad.

She's biased, of course, but it's not like she's TOTALLY wrong either. Cats like Mapleshade ARE vengeful, in ways many other spirits are not.

If you're curious, Crookedstar's dishonor title from Rainflower would have been something comparing him to a parasite and referencing his ""accident"" like Fleaskip or Midgefall.

The point she's trying to make with the Dishonor Title is that her son is an annoying bug who didn't listen, as well as subtly erase she fact she knocked him off that rock.

She wanted his name to say "everything that happened was my fault and my mom did nothing wrong"

Not that Hailstar got as far as even asking lmao

[vorecommunitywoes]

Okay, I don’t want this placed on my own blog as I’ve disowned the whole vore community, but as I was a major voice in my teens I really NEED people to hear me when I say this community is not safe for kids and why.

I was Bioluminescent-Bat. I was the coiner of the tag “extreme cuddling.” I do not think people understand what horrible things they’re getting into, so I’m sharing my story here as a cautionary tale.

I was 15 when I was a big name in the community. I left Tumblr’s when I was 18; the overarching community at 21. I was drawn into the community due to my interest in biology & wildlife science; I’d been pretty consistently writing these tropes for most of my life as a mechanism for exploring mutualistic relationships with species. My involvement, however, started on Deviantart at 13. People over there convinced me that this interest was/had to be vore vs just a STEM/character design interest, and that they kept theirs like a “dirty secret” / not to talk about it with others. I was encouraged to write the subject matter into my works up to almost pornographic detail, with their guise of it just being “detailed” biology discussion. The attention I received became a dopamine rush with each new writing piece, where I was desperate to please an audience. An audience with no respect for my boundaries (kept pressing for fatal/digestion, outright smut, some really weird kinks I wasn’t even old enough to process WERE kinks, etc).

On Tumblr, folks adored the little rambles and blurbs I would do on the subject matter. I was not prepared to be put that much on a pedastal in my mid teens, and deeply regret that I was. Several individuals noticed me as I became more known, and pretended to be mentors within that space. Within a Skype group I was discussing with them, they outwardly discussed vore kink-related stuff (by which I mean folks eating strange & dangerous objects for fun) all while being aware I was a teen at the time. This they denied being kink related because they were “nonsexually interested” but supposedly just “respected those who were kinky” as though they weren’t part of that group. Due to Skype’s automatic deletion/hiding of messages two years back, I cannot retrieve these. But this is more so background than anything else.

The individuals within this group (glowinside, tastylittletiny, and Spartaku17) essentially made me the figurehead of the “sfw” side. By telling me that the vore was nonsexual, I believed them and thought it was fine. I was encouraged by them to continue writing the content, posting the writings and asks, and were more or less my biggest fans at the time. They actively packed around me (especially the first two) and told me to ignore anyone trying to convince me otherwise as it was just “harassment.” I was never once told to avoid the kinky spheres (or told how to identify them), and was often pressured to ignore my boundaries to “not exclude the other sides” and therefore pushed much further than I should’ve. They also showed high interest in “recruitment” type efforts wherein I was pressured to “educate” my peers regarding the trope (to those who were with me on that ride, I cannot even begin to express how sorry I am. I hope you are recovering well and have managed to break your chains from that horrible place.)

When I turned 18, I discovered that I was Demisexual. This was immediately used for blackmail. I was told by the nsx side that I had to essentially keep an “UwU wholesome” energy to myself (nonsexual, not a breath of darkness in theme, etc), because if I so much as looked into anything outside of the “SFW” areas as an adult, I would be “proving” I was lying and essentially lose the rights to my autonomy. This also branched into “having permission” to strip my asexual identity away from me. I should not have to explain how fucked that is.

To people outside of the specific cultlike circle I was in, I was presumed to be much older than I was and accused of being a groomer for echoing my abusers’ beliefs. Instead of asking, this was assumed and pushed me in deeper. This was made worse by said groomers insisting I stay away from anything labeled 18+ only - many of which WERE people my age just chilling out and existing. So I was actively therein forced to either give up the right to my autonomy, or be forced to babysit kids to “protect them from people who would hurt them” for two more years. The call was coming from inside the house the whole damn time. This is when I removed myself from the spaces themselves, but only fully processed and disowned it March of this year. I’m still recovering from the damage of a decade’s manipulation.

Now, I do not believe that people who have nonsexual interest in the concept are lying. I’m amidst this group, where my interest is predominantly thematic & Demisexual in nature. However, there is a difference between sexual and “safe for work.” Plenty of nonsexual things can be mature in nature and need to be left to adults. This is where the community falters. Vore still overlaps way too much with the explicit sides, and is NOT for children. I’ve seen far too many people getting chained into this idea that if they just label their work as SFW they’ll be safe - and no. You’re not. The entire community has a common theme of trashing consent for their own kicks; the place isn’t even safe for the ADULTS in it. Anyone who says otherwise is lying, or has been made to think that way.

I’m begging minors not to listen to people coaxing you into a fetish space. Use your mental energy on making some cool monsters & study biology instead. Just don’t believe the “SFW” side of any kink-based community has your best interests at heart. Trust your gut. You’ll thank me later

.

[cpvnksabm]

@ rtc fic writers

you really do have to research neuromuscular disabilities if ricky significantly appears in your fics. few to no exceptions. sorry.

ricky potts is important disability representation and, more specifically, he has a rare degenerative neuromuscular disease. this specific representation is important and therefore it's important to depict his neuromuscular disorder accurately. all disabilities are different and it's a huge problem when people, not understanding and/or not wanting to research neuromuscular disorders specifically, just give him any disability while erasing the one he canonically has, and think it's fine just because "well he's still disabled isn't he?".

i think canon (as in 2015-2018 scripts) is a good starting reference point for depicting ricky accurately because again, the specific disability he has in canon is important to represent. but canon also only seriously depicts him as disabled very briefly on-stage and spends most of the musical doing singing and dancing that he wouldn't be physically capable of if he was alive. if you're depicting ricky realistically for longer than canon does then you will have to do outside research to see how his disability would likely impact him, because you're definitely not getting a full picture from him using crutches for 2 minutes onstage.

i think sometimes people assume they don't have to worry about researching to write ricky, because they don't think he's a major enough character for his disability to become relevant - or, more upsettingly, i think sometimes people make ricky a more minor character so that his disability won't become relevant, because that way they don't have to do research.

unfortunately there's one big issue here, which is that if you haven't done the research, how can you know when his disability will be relevant?

ricky has a complex disability that would realistically affect his whole life in varying ways and what we see in canon is only a surface level view. let's say you're writing a fic where you don't need to bother researching for ricky because his only appearance is going out for lunch with the choir - did you know that neuromuscular disorders, especially ones that cause difficulty speaking or an inability to speak (which ricky has!), often cause difficulty swallowing? this would affect his diet and in fact potentially imply that he uses a feeding tube (which is also implied by one of ocean's lines in WTWN), making it very relevant when getting lunch with the choir!

of course that lunch idea is just a hypothetical example, and it's just one example. what i'm saying here is that there are many activities that seem simple, that you wouldn't even think twice about in relation to ricky, that would realistically be complicated by his disability.

of course not every fic has to tackle disability in detail, or even has time to do so, but it's noticeable when something happens where ricky's disability would impact him and it just isn't mentioned. it's something that can accidentally slide into disability erasure, which is a problem, and it also just makes it really obvious when the writer wasn't aware of something or didn't think very hard about it. heck this post is mainly directed at fic writers but i've even seen headcanon posts where it's been obvious the OP needed to do a little more research.

so basically, when i say you need to research to write ricky accurately & understand his disability, i don't just mean that if you're planning on writing a fic that significantly involves his disability you should research for that fic specifically. i think that you should do some basic research before you plan on writing anything, just to make sure you understand his disability when you're active in the fandom. and then if his disability becomes more relevant in a fic - which you will be able to recognise due to the basic research you've already done - you can do more research as needed.

besides, even if it turns out you never write anything where this is relevant, there's no harm in learning more about neuromuscular disease and disability in general! it might become useful information in real life at some point, or it might just be good to know.

[shallyouobeyme]

Rise

Obey Me - Yandere!Brothers x Reader (GN); Yandere!Diavolo x Reader (GN)

Summary: Your death had not been an unexpected one - at least for the seven reasons behind it - what had been unexpected was what happened afterwards. How far are the residents of hell willing to go to get you back?

! Minors Do Not Interact !

TW: Major Character Death, Death of a relative (mentioned), Yandere!brothers can be interpreted either as platonic or romantic, poison, murder, Manipulation, blackmailing, non-consensual kissing, angst generally, I do not condone this - this is all just fiction

Everything about your death had been planned prior, not a single detail was unaccounted for. At least for the ones behind it. You yourself had no idea that you were eating your last meal one Friday evening - it had been Lucifer's turn to cook and he made one of your favourites - and you were enjoying dinner with all the brothers. Quite honestly, you should have known something was afoot simply by the fact that all of them were on their best behaviour, no fighting, no cursing - the literal and the magical kind - and even Levi was acting sociable, without a handheld console anywhere in sight. Belphegor was wide awake (at least for his standards), Beelzebub was eating with relative moderation, Mammon wasn't bragging about any of his new purchases, Satan was calm as he could be, and Asmodeus had his complete attention on you, but not in his typical flirty way. It was like they were all trying to savour the moment.

Lucifer seemed to be the same as always, but you knew him too well and knew how to look beyond his shell. He was sad, somehow, and you would have guessed this sense of self-loathing that his pride usually didn't allow, but that always was just below the surface was bubbling up. Why, you didn't know, but you figured you'd ask him after dinner when you had some alone time. When you were finished eating, Mammon jumped up exclaiming that he'd do the cleaning today and you knew one of the brothers would ask what he was trying to even out now, which scheme of his he needed to repent for before it had actually come out. Not a word was said though. That was the moment when you became slightly suspicious, but sadly not suspicious enough - not that there was anything for you to change at that point. The deed had already been done.

A yawn straight out of your mouth pulled you away from your suspicions. You were really tired all of a sudden. The day must have been more exhausting than you had thought. 'Oh well', you thought as your eyelids slowly became heavier, 'you had time to ask Lucifer about what was going on tomorrow, after all, it was the weekend and you had had all the time in the world'. 'All the time in the world', oh how silly that phrase now sounded. You said goodbye to the brothers, giving each of them a small kiss on their cheek as it had established itself in your routine before you turned to leave for your room. 'MC', Lucifer had called after you as if wanting you to stop, but when you turned around to him, he seemingly had discarded whatever it was he had wanted, instead telling you to sleep well.

And you did sleep well, for about two hours and twenty-seven minutes. Two hours and twenty-seven minutes later, your heart beat for the last time, and then your body grew cold and stiff and lifeless. Death had come for you at last. A peaceful death, that the brothers knew for sure because as they all sat waiting in the dimly lit living room, they only felt a slight ache and a sense of finality as their bonds broke apart. It was regretful that they had to these measures and they were well aware that for the rest of their eternal lives, they'd mourn their actions - but what had to be done was done, this was the only way. The one way that would mean that you would spend eternity with them.

Their plan had first started being formulated when you had gotten news of a relative of yours dying - they had been old and sick and their death had not been an unexpected one. The brothers had decided they'd be there to help you mourn and cheer you up, but they found that while you felt the pain of your loss you were actually relieved, knowing that your relative now didn't have to suffer anymore, especially since they had made peace with their end already. It was what you said when Levi had wondered how you could be so nonchalant about death that kickstarted it all. 'We all die at the end, some sooner, some later - death is a part of life and I find that fleeing from it is impossible so I might as well embrace life for the short time it blesses me.'

They had always known that you'd die one day - they knew you were mortal, but still, knowing that you knew that you would, made this more real. It meant that it was something that would happen in the near future (for them at least) and after they had a long talk where all of them agreed that they could not, would not, live without you anymore they decided that the only way for you to be with them forever was to make you like them, to have you be a demon. That way you'd be safe in the Devildom - not that they'd stop protecting you - and you'd be bound to them for eternity, just like the pacts had bound them to you. But for a mortal to become a human, they had to die first.

Lucifer had cleared things with Diavolo - made him promise that once you died and came to hell, he'd make you into a demon (decidedly not mentioning that your death might happen sooner than the prince might expect) - and Satan took care of a poison that would make you die peacefully and painlessly in your sleep. From then on everything would be simple, your soul would come down to hell, that much was sure, you had made pacts with not one, not two, but all seven of the lords of hell, so there wasn't a way in the world that you'd end up in heaven.

That's what they had been so very sure of, but they didn't realize just how pure you were, how you had been able to keep your soul shining and clean even while surrounded by the worst of the worst, how you hadn't indulged in sin even while being surrounded by it. It might have been your celestial heritage or just your heart of goodness, but it seems the great father had his eyes on you and decided to give you another chance after your death. A new life as an angel - the same soul just elevated into a high, celestial position, and without memories about your mortal life. The brothers had no idea of your new angelic self, just mulling over the fact of how long it was taking you to make the track to hell, worrying that you might have been trapped in the mortal realm with unfinished business. It was Simeon who cleared it up for them, he had been in Celestia with Luke while they had ended your life, so when he appeared in the mansion, face white as a sheet and eyes filled with sadness, exclaiming that you were in Celestia now, that you had no memories, asking the brothers what had happened to you, why they hadn't been informed of your untimely demise. They improvised, exclaiming that you had died of some natural causes that unsuspectedly came with a mortal like you spending so much time in the Devildom, that they were in deep mourning and hadn't even gotten to contact your family yet. Simeon - too goodhearted for his own good - believed them, telling them that he'd mourn with them, but it was what he said before he left again that stuck in their mind: He'd take good care of your soul in Celestia.

No, they wouldn't let this happen. They'd do whatever they had to, whatever it took, to have you back in their midst again. A new plan formed, this one more destructive and with much more dire consequences, but they did not care anymore. Lucifer was again the one to get Diavolo's help but this time he was straightforward about it - he knew that he'd act on it with or without the prince's help. It was a surprise how quickly Diavolo agreed and how eager he was to help, it was a sign of his own ulterior motives, but having Diavolo on their side was the biggest trump card they could gain so Lucifer decided to keep that to himself.

Their plan would surely lead to another century, if not more, of animosities between the realms. It might even lead to another Celestial war, but the brothers were more than prepared to fight their former brethren if it was just to have you in their reach again. And so it was enacted ruthlessly and without hesitation. The seven of them along with Diavolo could easily summon an angel, even one as protected and new as you, and so when you arrived in the middle of their circle they were all too ready to embrace you tight enough to make sure you could never escape, the would have clipped your beautiful white wings - the same that Lillith had sprouted out of her back when she was alive and celestial - and would have buried your halo below the deepest ditch in the deepest sea, but they knew that that was not the end goal of their plan. Instead, Diavolo made you an offer. To join him. To become one of the rulers of hell, the eighth lord/lady of hell, and get a power beyond a simple angel's imagination. Of course, you declined, no self-respecting angel without any reason would agree to that, after all, angels were made, born, with the knowledge that the inhabitants of the Devildom were evil, the enemy.

Again, the brothers had expected you to decline, but they wanted to have at least offered it to you under these circumstances. They would get what they wanted one way or another though and so after a simple snap of Diavolo's fingers, Barbatos entered the room, carrying in his hand a small angel. He was holding him with his hand around his neck from behind and Luke was either unconscious or... you didn't want to think about what the or was. Of course, he was just sleeping from a potion in the cookies he had made with Barbatos earlier, during the baking session they had used to lure him down to the Devildom to work as their blackmail.

The ultimatum was clear. Agree, become one of them, and Luke would go free, or decline, go back to Celestia with the knowledge that the young angel, one of Michaels's very own pupils, had died while you could have stopped it. Had you retained your memories from your mortal life, you might have believed that they wouldn't have dared to hurt Luke, but even then you would have been wrong because there was nothing that was too far in their attempt to regain you by their side.

The goodness that had brought you into this situation in the first place was now also the reason for your decision. No way could you live with yourself knowing that you could've stopped Luke's death. And so you held out to shake Diavolo's hand, only for him to pull you towards him and kiss you deeply. The kiss was unexpected, but it turned out to be a welcomed distraction from the burning that started in your midst and widened out until it had reached every single part of your body. Your wings felt like they were made of pure fire as the feathers that were white as snow before turned into an ashen grey. The pain was almost as bad as the one in your temples where horns came out and curled backwards until they were horizontal to your head with a slight angle.

When the kiss - and the transformation - had ended the complete morph of your body took its toll as you fell right into Diavolo's arms. At that point Diavolo saw himself faced with a choice, he was so tempted to just take you with him - make you his partner like he knew you would one day be the moment he had given you your first kiss, now was the perfect chance, you were a demon like him now - but the brothers would surely wreak havoc up him and his kingdom if he did and he had more than enough time after all. People didn't expect him to be a patient man given his childish demeanour, but for you he was willing to wait decades, if not centuries, knowing that once he had you, he'd have you forever by his side. For now, he'd let the brothers take you home, coddle and care for you while they searched for ways to bring your memories back. They'd surely have their work cut out for them, after all - as Barbatos had explained after your transformation - as a result of a mix of celestial blood and the pacts you had with them during your time as a mortal, you were now the ultimate sin, an amalgamation of all of them: pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, hunger and sloth.

A/N: My thirteenth entry into Yandere Writetober - based on the result of a poll I held - I hope you all liked this slightly longer and more experimentally written Friday the 13 'special'. If you did, I would really appreciate a comment or a reblog. Look forward to tomorrow's entry 'castle'

[muddyorbsblr]

feels like mine pt2

See my full list of works here!

Summary: On the worst day of his life, Tom receives an offer impossible to refuse: getting you back. Well, almost…

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: major character death; possibly a wonky timeline (the math wasn't and still isn't mathing in my pea brain); probably a wonky depiction of soulmates [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: sad meow meow hours

Three days ago…

After a good dozen takes on the same sequence from a variety of angles, Tom finally had a moment to himself, giving his assistant a signal to retrieve his phone so that he could give you a call. You'd been apart for nearly a month at this point and he missed you terribly.

The only remote relief he'd get was hearing your voice as often as he possibly could. You'd tell him all about the plot of the book you were reviewing, or what details you could divulge on the shows you were working on. Considering that you often had ironclad NDAs for them these days, you'd usually tell him of the former as it was less of a minefield.

Once his assistant handed over his phone, however, his heart caught in his throat at the screen that greeted him. Over a dozen missed calls from an unknown number in the last few hours, preceded by a text message from you.

Tom, sweetie, I'm in the hospital. It's no big deal, just a little road accident, don't worry about me. I might not be able to answer your calls for a while, since they're taking me in for surgery in a few minutes. I love you. Always.

With trembling hands, Tom returned the call from the unknown number, his heart so heavy in his chest it was a struggle to even breathe right. The next words felt as if they passed through him in a blur; he could only pick up on bits and pieces from the other end.

Drunk driver. T-bone. Internal bleeding.

And the worst words of all. I'm deeply sorry for your loss.

He took the soonest possible flight back to London, everything around him seemed a blur until he finally got to the home you two shared, his and your mothers waiting for him inside. That was the moment he finally broke, dropping to his knees and breaking out into sobs, the horrible reality cruelly sinking in once he saw their completely distraught faces.

They took your body to be cremated that day, allowing him a few minutes to say goodbye before they began the process. Your mother advised him against looking into the body bag, insisting that he wouldn't want that as his last memory of you, that he should at least get to live on with his final memory of your face being that of the loving, beaming wife he knew and loved.

The next time that you came out, it was in an urn, weighing just about the same as a baby, and he cradled you as such. For the entire car ride back to your home until he settled you in his study.

"We didn't have enough time," he said through his tears, stroking the golden urn as if he was stroking your hair. "We should have had more time."

At that moment, a voice pierced the solemn silence of your home. "I'm sorry for your loss, Thomas."

When Tom turned to see who the unwelcome visitor was, he couldn't find any words to say except one. "Impossible."

"Quite possible, really," Loki shot back, stepping into the study with palms open in a sign to tell your husband that the god meant no harm. "Anything's possible in this multiverse, I'm slowly coming to find. And in that realm of possibility, I have something to offer you."

"All due respect, I want nothing that you can give," Tom declared sullenly. "You can't give me my wife back."

"And what if I said that I can? Well, in a way."

That suddenly got Tom's full attention, placing an arm in front of your urn as if he was still trying to protect you. As if that could really do anything against a god. "I'm listening," he said cautiously.

"I've recently learnt that in every universe, there is an iteration or an echo of me, and a corresponding iteration of Y/N. In this universe, Thomas, you are my echo. In every universe, Y/N's echo is destined to fall in love with mine, and in almost every universe, that love is reciprocated," the god began to explain, creating an illusion with a wave of his hand of your wedding day.

It was nearly enough to mesmerize Tom completely, almost losing himself in the memory. In happier times. "Hang on, what do you mean almost every universe?"

"Ah, yes. That part. Well, you see, Thomas…in the universes where my echo takes on your form, world-famous actor, hordes of adoring men and women and everyone in between at his feet, getting an entire crowd to fall silent with a finger to his lips--"

"I get it, I get it, can we keep it moving, please?"

"Right then. In the universes where my echo is…Tom Hiddleston, while it is a guarantee that Y/N will love Tom, it is not a guarantee that Tom will love Y/N. There are universes where Tom barely even knows of her existence. She's in the hordes, a part of her soul knowing that she's doing exactly what she was designed to do, but confused as to why she feels as if a part of her is missing somehow."

"That's--" Tom's words choked off in a sob at the back of his throat, a new type of sadness overcoming him as he imagined a world where he never even knew you. Never loved you. "That's miserable."

"It is," the god agreed. "My offer to you is that I can reach into one of these universes where her love for you is unreturned, and I can bring her to you. Fulfill what her heart yearns for, and in return, you have an echo of your wife. Have the time that was stolen from you so harshly. So unfairly."

Tom considered the offer carefully, only moments passing before he had his first question. "What of her universe? Her family?"

"In these worlds she doesn't have much of one. For the most part she's alone, and has learnt to fend for herself in lieu of a support system." Both their hearts broke for those iterations of you, the thought of you taking on the world without anyone by your side was nearly enough to bring both men to their knees. "If you were to accept, then it would be a simple enough spell with barely any ripple effect to nullify her existence and memories of her from the minds of those still around to remember her."

Every part of him wanted to jump at the offer. To accept it without thinking. Getting another chance to spend a life with you? There should have been no hesitation at all. Except…

"If she's anything like my Y/N, she'll be smart enough to ask questions. Why her life's different from what she knew before. Whose remains are in the urn in my study. What do I tell her then?"

"That is entirely up to you." Loki's answer was not in the least bit comforting. "You can conjure up a story that she will be inclined to believe, or you can tell her the truth. Alternatively, I can offer you an easier way out of this as well. Surrender your late wife's remains to me and I can keep her somewhere safe. That way you can live on with creating your new life with this echo of your Y/N without being as tethered to your past; after all, if you wish to start this life with her, then she deserves to have you love her to the fullest extent you can afford. She deserves not to be loved half-heartedly by someone still clinging to the ghosts of his past."

Much as he agreed completely with the sentiment, Tom found himself hesitating at the thought of simply surrendering your ashes to the god. He knew what the trade would mean, and that he in turn would have more time with a version of you; however, a part of him still protested.

For would this not be a dishonor to your memory? To simply let go of you and the time he'd gotten to know you and fall in love with you in exchange for something that might not even live up to his memory of you?

And on the other hand, he thought about the version of you that was doomed to live your life with an unrequited love. The knowledge that your souls were only partly intertwined in that world had him hurt for that iteration of you. You did deserve to be loved with the same magnitude that you gave love. And if he could give that to you, then the only way that he could do so was to accept that this wouldn't be a life wherein he picked up where you and he left off. He would be building something new entirely.

It was a near impossible choice. But ultimately he knew which way he would go.

Loki's offer meant more time with you. It meant having you again. Even if it was an echo of you. At its core, it was still you.

Right?

"What would you do?" he asked the god.

"If I lost my Y/N? I'd turn the multiverse inside out to have her again. Rearrange the Realms itself until she was by my side." He paced the room as he continued his answer. "Any version of her." A smirk tugged at the onyx-haired man's mouth before tilting up his chin, assuming an all-knowing stance. "But seeing as you are an echo of me, you already knew that this was the answer, didn't you? You simply needed to hear it outside of your own thoughts. Solidify your decision."

Tom could only nod, the depth of the situation still tremendously lost on him. All he knew was that if he did this, he would have you back.

He placed your urn on the desk, pushing it towards Loki. "What do I do now?"

The god held out his hand. "Firstly, your wife's ring. I'll need it when I find an echo of her that leads her life all alone. It will be her first tie to this universe. Your universe." Tom placed your wedding ring into his hand. "Secondly, you grieve. You've suffered a great loss, and what I am to do is not a replacement of your late wife, and should not be treated as such. Mourn your loss for the next day. Then after tomorrow night, go about your morning routinely, as if she were alive."

Tom nodded again. "How will I know that it worked?"

Loki only shrugged at the actor. "Have faith. Faith that you'll see your wife again the morning after next."

With that, the god disappeared, taking both your remains and your wedding ring with him. And Tom heeded the advice, crawling into the bed you shared with him, all the memories of the life you built together and the possibilities of the life you were yet to build overwhelming him. The weight of your lost future all but crushing his heart into a million pieces.

And he wept himself to sleep.

Today…

On the second morning after Loki's offer, Tom rose from your shared bed and listened to the god's instructions from days before. He laced his shoes up, went on his usual morning run, changed into business casual attire as if he was scheduled for a Zoom call in a short while, and proceeded to start preparing a breakfast for two.

Once he had coffee brewing, he started preparing a lavish breakfast for you two to share, starting with a fruit platter. "Have faith," he whispered to himself, making the last second decision to make it a touch more decadent with a small bowl of Nutella to dip the fruit into.

If this truly was going to work, he would spoil you at every turn moving forward. Never another minute squandered, nor another craving denied.

"Have faith," he whispered again, putting on an apron to prevent any spills from ruining his white dress shirt and proceeding to slice up the fruit.

Then he heard the bedroom door open. And for the first time in days he felt the tiniest glimmer of hope.

He waited until you made your way down the stairs, fighting every urge to meet you halfway and take you into his arms. He knew you needed to acclimate into this life you'd been suddenly thrust into; Loki had done his part, now it was his turn to ease you into your new reality.

Your footsteps got closer and closer until finally they stopped just outside the kitchen area. That was the only time Tom allowed himself to turn around and look at you, relief flooding his system once he laid his eyes on you. In the silk navy blue nightgown, wearing your wedding ring.

He finally felt like he could breathe again.

"Good morning, sweetheart."

A/N: *peeks from the corner* I promised I'd have a sequel for 'feels like mine' up, and here it issssss 🫡 This isn't 'sworn fealty' after all 🤣 (in all seriousness though I will be working on a sequel to that I just have 0 idea when)

And technically this isn't a sequel but more of a prequel to part 1…all I can promise you is that there is a part 3 and it's spicy 😳👀 Dunno when that'll be out tho because I'll be returning to the requests pile but we'll see where the vibe takes me

'everything' taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemis @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @peaches1958 @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th  @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @smolvenger @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @kmc1989 @november-rayne @goddessofwonderland @buttercupcookies-blog @peaky-marvel @lokiified

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi! So, I have a character who's Black and also has lots of themes of depersonification, violent and sexual behavoiur as a trauma response (not really related to her skin color, but to a story beat), also a fair share of dog symbolism. She hides under this maic pixie dream girl mask to keep herself sane. And altough I take care of the narrative not treating her as an objet (she makes her own choices and often is a major player on stuff) some characters and she herself do treat her like that at times.

I'm rroma, so I suffer of the violent criminal/hypersexual stereotype a lot too, and I'm afraid internalized racism might be playing onto my writing.Any tips?

(English isn't my first language, so sorry for any mistakes)

Well, before I get into details, I'll put this here for anything I might miss. When they treat her like that, and you have to pull the dog symbolism, I think what you should worry about most is that we're understanding and consistent that the characters are treating her that way, but not the narrative (unless that's what you want to do, in which case... Yeah I'd rethink this one).

As for your internalized racism, I think that that's something you will have to address as a Roma person (Romani person?). I'm glad that you were able to see that there was a potential issue there; that means you're self aware enough to address it, and that's the first step!

If you think you've internalized bad stereotypes about your community, that may have an effect on your storytelling. So if it were me (!) before writing anything else about anyone else's community going through such things, perhaps it would be better to take some time to recognize within yourself what you're trying to express, and if it suggests some frustration or lack of grace towards your own identity. Because even if you try to dodge it for Black people, if you end up projecting those similar stereotypes that you're familiar with... You will still end up with a problem in delivery 😅 and everyone's not going to know that it's personal.

Sorry if I didn't understand your question!

[hollowed-theory-hall]

hello! do you have any idea how long your fic is going to be? rather, is it going to spread over several years at hogwarts? i’m EXTREMELY curious about how you’d choose to portray harry’s fifth year — him being once again singled out and pointed at and called a liar by his peers, his feud with umbridge and her detentions, the anger and inner turmoil that finally slip through the cracks, causing him to lash out so much more. and of course — sirius’ death and the overwhelming grief it leaves in it’s wake.

fifth would be the most interesting in my opinion because now harry has theo, and while the two of them are so much alike, theo is also much more self aware and observant when it comes to emotions than harry is. he also sees harry for what he is — a powerful, intelligent and resourceful wizard, capable of owning up to the title of “the dark lord’s equal”. i’m sure theo having influence over harry’s own perception of himself will tip the scales of the events, even if only slightly.

nevermind the fact that now he cares about a death eater’s son too — he’s not entangled exclusively with people from only one side of the war anymore. so how would that affect his decision making?

sorry, i’m rambling, but i find that your slight change of canon events — just harry literally making a new friend — really makes for some pretty important character development.

Hello 👋

For the first question — looooong.

Like, I plan to divide it into multiple works in the same series. Book 4 (aka A Matter of Chance) should be 23 chapters (105k-ish words) and then year 5 would be about double that (40-ish chapters and 200k-ish words). Years 6 and 7 would be shorter than year 5, probably 😅, but longer than year 4, I haven't planned them in detail yet, so I don't really know. But I have, like, the plan for most of year 5, so I know it's going to be long.

And year 5 is definitely going to be interesting. At first, the plan is similar-ish to the books, like, there are some important differences, but it's like a parallel line to canon rather than something completely different. But there is a specific point in early-mid year 5 (which I won't mention yet) that basically throws everything in a different direction. There will still be echoes from canon past that point (including a few scenes I'm really excited to write), but, it's gonna be a more major divergence from canon afterward. Like, it would stop running in a parallel line because it's a whole new direction that would shift a lot of things. Things that didn't happen in canon happening, things that happened in canon not happening, and things that happened in canon happening very differently at a different point in time. The eventual war is going to be pretty different too.

But you're right, Theo, as I write him, being there is going to make a difference in Harry's personal arc and how he handles things moving forward. 5th-year Harry in the fic is going to be in a slightly different place emotionally to canon 5th-year Harry. His anger would still be there (because I love it) if not exactly to the same degree, and so would his sass (I'd never rid Harry of his sass), but he'd be more confident and feel less helpless than he does in canon, I believe.

honestly, I love the rambling, thank you so much for liking my fic enough to ramble about it like this. I love to read theories/hopes/guesses about future events and characters both here and in the comments on ao3. Even if I don't give out much information (because spoilers) I appreciate these ramblings so much! 💕

[glitchedsoftware]

well its been long enough so here it is -

My personal thoughts and issues with Sammy Lawrences characterization in Dreams Come to Life

little disclaimer im obviously gonna be pretty negative in this so if you like the books good for you!! i just want to put my thoughts on the matter out there its just some silly indie horror game book and i wouldnt take others opinions TOO seriously lol also spoilers for dctl of course

also another little edit - a majority of this was written before the graphic novel came out,, not like that changes anything rlly just yk remember im exclusively talking about the original novel here

Lets start with the most obvious point first - the racism/misogyny

The idea that Sammy's racist and misogynistic mainly stems from two parts from the book - the part where Sammy refers to Tom by his first name instead of "Mr Connor" to which Tom replies quote "Not used to giving someone like me respect?" and the part where he refers to Abby by her first name with Buddy directly stating how he wonders if this could mean Sammy has some sort of bigoted views.

Now of course he does consider if this is just a habit of his, but it is pretty unclear if that's the case. This weirdly vague and ambiguous way of writing a fan favorite character to be racist and misogynistic is just generally very weird to me. Before anyone tells me I am aware of the fact a former kindly beast member claimed that Toms race had nothing to do with it and Sammy just said that because he's a repairman or whatever, but that still doesn't remotely change the fact that it can easily be read as Sammy being racist.

(Also even in said screenshot they said how could be easily interpreted as that. Also they didn't even write the book obviously so that whole point just falls flat.)

To be fair, there is a line from Buddys first encounter with Sammy in which he also refers to Joey by first name, which could imply Buddys other conclusion was correct and that its just a habit of his.

However, I'd argue this small details pretty easy to miss (even I almost forgot about it while writing this) especially considering the only other people he refers to by any sort of name was Tom and Abby. That paired with the other two scene previously stated still make this very easy to misinterpret and even considering this, very confusing on if Sammy was written with the intention of him being racist. Also Sammys bigotry in this book being conflicted by literally one word kinda speaks for itself. It's just super weird and definitely should have been handled better. If you don't know how to write topics like this with the amount of care they deserve then you don't need to write them. On another note, Sammy being racist or misogynistic just wouldn't affect the story or world building in any sort of meaningful way. Whether he was supposed to be bigoted or not, it has no bearing on the story or characters. Any time It's even slightly implied this could affect someone it's just super underdeveloped which makes this whole thing just feel completely pointless and unnecessary. It really does just come off like it was just thrown in there to "make it more realistic to the time period" instead of working it into the story in any meaningful way that actually works, or any sort of commentary on that sorta thing other than just "racism and misogyny exist".

On a related note, I saw someone speak out about how they interpreted specifically the scene with Tom to be intended not to show that Sammy's racist, but to show how Tom would assume that it was about his race considering he's of course a black man in the 1940s and has clearly faced discrimination over that before. I could almost see how that could be perceived, but that along with the part with Abby really makes me contemplate if that was really the intention behind that scene. Also, as I said before, it isn't really expanded on how that would affect Tom. I get that that could just be because Tom is supposed to be more of a rude abrasive kinda guy, I'm not expecting him to cry over it or something. I just feel it should have either been a bit more developed on, or not been there at all. I'm all for subtly, I love how the subtle misogyny is shown in BatIM with the Alice angel merchandise not selling as well as other products, but if that's what they were going for I think this was a bad way of doing it. If you wanted to portray how this kind of bigotry affects people, maybe choosing the rude asshole character who doesn't really seem to give a shit wasn't really the best idea. (Also who's in the games implied to be classist but that's a whole other conversation) Sorry for the little detour away from discussing just Sammy, I just felt it was important since I do get where that point was coming from, I just still feel like the execution of it all was FAR from perfect.

Also overall the idea that Sammy would be racist or misogynistic is just awfully misunderstanding Sammys character and it just really fails at what its trying to do. Sammy is shown to have had a genuinely strong relationship with Susie (whether you interpret it as romantic or not) and never shown to have seen women as less than, quite the opposite actually. I saw someone say Sammy being bigoted doesn't make sense because "he doesn't respect anybody" and I heavily disagree. I think it doesn't work because he does care so much about people. In the cycle Sammy isn't shown to be selfish at all, like he's not just trying to free himself but also others (albeit through sacrificing Henry, and even then describes that as seeming "cruel"). You know it's "he will set us free". Whether he himself knows or not, Sammy does care about people deeply so him being bigoted just really doesn't work at all.

I just generally thought the topic of discrimination was handled pretty bad. I could go on and on about this subject alone, but hopefully I was able to get my point across.

Now with that out of the way I can discuss just the general mischaracterization and demonization of Sammys character

This obviously being a more broad subject makes it a little difficult to start so let me just start with this- I believe that Sammys character get heavily dumbed down to just being an asshole. I of course have no problem with Sammy being a bit of a dick considering the sort of sarcastic tone he's shown to have had in certain audio logs, but the problem arises when that is practically all he is shown to be. Looking through every scene with him, all he ever did was just be super rude to everyone and eventually go insane and kill people and talk about worshiping Bendy or whatever with little depth. This, in my opinion, makes him both weak as a character and antagonist. I mean, Buddy only first met Sammy the DAY he got infected by the ink. He never even knew what Sammy was like before that incident which REALLY makes the line "I just know that Sammy isn't Sammy anymore" make no sense. Buddy never knew Sammy, he only knew the one dimensional character we got in Dreams Come to Life.

After looking through all of Sammys characterization outside the novels I can clearly deduce that Sammy was never even explicitly the sort of condescending asshole hes shown to be in Dreams Come to Life, but was just a bit blunt and stern due to the stress of working at the studio. I get that some people just chock up his behavior to the fact that he had been drinking ink at the time or whatever, but again the fact we're never shown how he was before that just makes this feel like overall bad writing to me. It just feels like a very poor attempt at writing Sammy that lacks any sort of nuance his character was shown to have. Characters have intended purposes, and I believe Sammys was to display a character who was so overworked it drove him to insanity. Part of the reason he even worships Bendy is just because the unhealthy hours he would spend working forced him to have to see his stupid face everywhere, not the whole ink addiction thing the book goes with. It's one thing to make him unnecessarily rude, but the thing is that they never really deviate from him being just that, which just left his character feeling very flat and lackluster to me. Buddy being an "unreliable narrator" doesn't excuse this both because Buddy only states that he sometimes forgets the order of events, not the actual events themselves, and, as I said before, it never deviates from this view of Sammy. I don't even think Buddy was supposed to be an "unreliable narrator" in that way as I've heard people excuse this for. If all of Sammys mischaracterization was because of that, than like half of the book would just be Buddy completely making shit up, which clearly isn't the case. The book just genuinely tries to portray Sammy in some of the worst light ever.

All that along with the the whole implied bigotry thing I just discussed really makes it seem like they tried dehumanizing Sammy as much as possible, which really goes against one of the core messages of BatIM. Sammy just being some asshole who got addicted to ink and went crazy because of it is FAR less interesting or emotionally compelling than him being an abused overworked employee and a prime example of what working at the studio can do to someone. Stripping him of that in favor of making it that he's always just been a total dick just completely misses a lot of the point of Sammys character and even BatIM as a whole. It's not just a game about "ooh scary ink" or whatever, it's also a game about corporate greed, capitalism and obviously how big corporations abuse and manipulate their minimum wage workers. And that's what Sammy is. He's not "evil" he's just a victim of a highly unhealthy work environment. Sammy being overworked to death (literally) is something that is barely, if at all, developed on in the book weirdly enough, despite being a very interesting part of his character that they had every opportunity to explore. It feels almost like they explicitly tried making Sammy so unsympathetic so he could be a more "evil" antagonist which, in turn, makes him a very poorly written antagonist lacking depth and completely missing anything that made his character so interesting. Again they just took Sammy being a bit irritable and sarcastic and wrote him as being a genuinely bad person, which really bugs me for sorta personal reason I'll get into in this next section.

Why this matters (to me)

I feel its of importance that I discuss how writing an implied mentally ill/neurodivergent character in such a demonizing way can, whether intentional or not, come off as ableist. TO MAKE THIS CLEAR I am NOT stating Adrienne Kress is ableist. This is overall just a much larger issue in general that definitely could have a discussion of it's own. However I will be briefly talking about it since it does unfortunately relate to dreams come to life.

As I said before, Sammy is a victim. Yes, he's still a morally grey character who generally does bad things with good intentions, but hes still a character. The way Sammy is shown to act and have acted in the past is very likely because he was mentally ill and possibly autistic. Taking an actually nuanced character like that who was clearly just extremely mentally unwell and writing it that he's some evil irredeemable asshole has always just rubbed me the wrong way. As an autistic person myself, I've always kinda had issues with regulating my emotions and coming off as "too blunt", so seeing a character who also has those traits be warped into being a "bad person" just. Really sucks.

When I read Dreams Come to Life, I had always sorta read Buddy as being autistic, all though this coding could have been unintentional. For instance, he's shown to not fully get some social cues and mentions feeling like people would kinda talk down to him for not getting certain things. This being the case really confused me for a bit as to why Sammy was demonized for also displaying traits of autism until it finally hit me as to why that is. It's likely because Sammy shows symptoms that are unfortunately far more stigmatized by society. Lack of emotional/impulse control can obviously lead to someone being more prone to lashing out than other people would, and I hate how just in general people or even characters who do that are labeled as "bad people" since that clearly isn't true. Again, he's not evil or whatever, he's just extremely stressed and overworked. That's all it ever was.

Sorry for getting a bit personal, in case it wasn't obvious I'm just very passionate about this character (and franchise in general) and just wanted to discuss how I personally perceived certain things. I'm sure I wasn't supposed to read into it THIS much and I know I'm probably stretching with this. Again, I VERY HIGHLY doubt Adrienne Kress intended for Sammys writing to be read as ableist, just felt like getting my thoughts out there (regardless of how insane I probably sound)

Conclusion

To sum it all up, I just found Sammy character to be heavily flanderized and lacking a lot of the things that I personally loved so much about him, as well as finding the way bigotry was portrayed to be very nothing. It just overall didn't build on what we know about Sammys character in game in any interesting way, at least to me. Despite how long this was, I honestly don't really mind people who enjoy the books, this wasn't some personal dig on anyone of course lol. Hell, I'm even friends with some people who like Dreams Come to Life!! I've tried putting different perspectives into writing this, and I've obviously concluded that this, on top of just a bunch of general issues with the book, have just made me personally unable to like it. I'm fine with people liking the books, however I do wish people would actually criticize them more than they do. Like, you're allowed to criticize the things you like, especially with a franchise as flawed as Bendy lmao

Anyways that's pretty much it. Thanks for listening to me ramble about this silly little series I'm hyperfixated on <3

[cirrus-grey]

Hi! While listening to TMA and slowly going through some episode tags, I found your blog! I really like your TMA takes, and since some other people's posts from back when the episodes were airing surprised me, I was wondering if it's okay to ask you for your opinion on something 4 years late.

I just got to what looks like the end of a longer subplot - Jon and Martin talked at the end of episode 174 about how Jon feels like killing people makes him worse. While going through the tags of the previous episodes, I was pretty surprised at how divisive episode 169 was. I definitely didn't expect people to read Jon as forcing Martin to go with him into the burning building or disregarding his wishes; I wasn't expecting people to read Martin as manipulative either. It felt like they communicated as well as they could while not being in a good place, mentally speaking (and, well, physically too). Still, I feel like it was easier for me to put myself into Martin's headspace, and even though I know Jon doesn't like admitting to wanting to hurt anyone because he feels guilty (which is good of course, that he lets himself feel conflicted, and pretty expected that he doesn't like broadcasting wanting to kill someone), his level of evasiveness surprised me, especially with how long he didn't admit there was another way to go. There are a lot of things in his head happening simultaneously (not wanting Martin to be in distress, wanting to kill Jude, trying to communicate, being aware he should have communicated sooner) that I can't seem to make sense of, and I wanted to ask you about your thoughts on this, if you feel like sharing!

Hello and welcome! I’m always down to offer my opinions on TMA. Sorry this one took a few days to answer - I wanted to check a few details in the transcript and I haven’t had a chance to sit down with it until today. That being said, one major caveat before I start: I haven’t listened to this season in a while, so I may be missing some extra context from conversations that surround this episode. Take what I say with a grain of salt!

Most importantly: Jon does not realize his actions are causing Martin undue distress until the tape turns on and the episode starts. Martin hasn’t voiced any particular dislike of fire until then, and Jon has promised not to read his mind. He’s keeping that promise, so when he makes the decision to go after Jude he doesn’t see any reason why it should be different than smiting Not!Sasha, or going after Oliver. (There’s also something to be said here about the fact that Jon is so used to physical pain at this point that he doesn’t realize Martin sees it as a reason to avoid an area, but that gets into a different sort of character analysis.) As far as Jon is concerned, going after Jude is no more unpleasant an experience than crossing any other domain, so he doesn’t see a need to give Martin advance warning. It’s a failure of communication on both sides, but an understandable one.

As you say, he’s hesitant to admit he wants to kill Jude… but I think there’s also a level of assuming that Martin will be absolutely onboard with it. So far, he killed Not!Sasha and Martin proposed going full Kill Bill, he didn’t kill Oliver and Martin was disappointed… surely this is just getting back on track, right? Martin’s the one that really wanted to kill avatars, surely he won’t object to Jon picking which avatars they kill, right? (“It’s just – when you said –” “You said you were onboard.”)

All of which is to say, I don’t think he sees it as hiding something from Martin, or needing to ‘admit’ that there’s another way to go. He genuinely doesn’t realize that Martin might want to find another way to go until he asks (“You’re sure there isn’t another way?”) and then literally the first thing Jon says is “I’m sorry,” because it doesn’t hit him until that moment that he’s just assumed Martin’s willingness the entire way without asking him. As soon as he realizes Martin might not be willing, he tries his best to let him make the choice. (“Alright. If you really don’t want to do this, w-we can go another way.” “I should have told you before, so – I leave the decision to you.”)

…Which is, I think, the part of the episode that most people were arguing about after it dropped.

Martin throwing the choice right back at Jon… it isn’t deliberately manipulative, but he’s definitely making an opening for Jon to step in with the chivalrous boyfriend ‘I’d never put you in harm’s way, let’s turn around!’ thing. He’s assuming that Jon knows how he really feels (‘please let’s not go through the fire’), and is using that to avoid having to disappoint Jon by asking to find another way. He’s the one who proposed Kill Bill - he doesn’t want to be the one to call it off now, certainly not when Jon seems to have his heart set on it.

Jon, of course, takes his “It’s your revenge; your choice, not mine,” at face value and decides to go in. I’ve never seen it as forcing Martin to go in, it’s just… trusting that Martin is being honest with him when he says he wants Jon to make the decision. Jon said he wanted to go through, Martin said it’s his decision, surely Martin must know that means they’re going through. Yes, he’s failing to read Martin’s subtext, but… Jon has struggled with paranoia for a long time. He had to make a deliberate choice to trust people (end of season 3) and in many ways trust is still a deliberate choice. That includes trusting your boyfriend when he says “it’s your choice.” Jon’s not about to start listening to that nagging little voice in the back of his head saying ‘maybe he doesn’t mean that’ because it’s the same nagging little voice that used to say ‘maybe he’s trying to kill you.’ By now he knows that Martin will be distressed by going through, but Martin has told him that he’s willing to undergo that distress for the sake of Jon’s revenge, so it's okay. (He doesn’t and can’t know that Jude will take so long to die and make it that much more distressing in the process; I think both of them would have handled this whole conversation differently if they’d known they were going to end up in the middle of an inferno.)

Phew! That got long. Tl;dr, it’s communication problems on both sides (it always is with these two), not anything deliberately malicious. Jon’s not forcing Martin, he’s just making assumptions; Martin’s not manipulating Jon, he’s just being conflict-avoidant. Under any normal circumstances it wouldn't be a big deal (“You said you were okay with me painting the living room!” “I didn't think you meant purple, Jon!” “Okay, okay, if it bothers you that much we can pick a different color.” “No, no, it's your project; your choice.” “Purple, then.” “Oh.”), they just have the misfortune of being in the middle of the apocalypse, which blows all those normal couple problems way out of proportion.

[tf2heritageposts]

Q AND A for our pinned post so people stop asking us these things

q. why do you use we/us? are there multiple mods?

a. no there is only one person who runs this account and it’s a person with did. we do not take quesrions. sometimes alters will post and do sign offs

q. why do you use i/me when talking about tfc heavy?

a. because i’m a cheavy fictive deal with it. look up what a fictive is yourself im tired of explaining

q. do you hate medic?

a. not even remotely, i actually love the character and the alter of him in our head quite a lot

q. you mention having a gi bill and talking with the va sometimes. are you in the military?

a. christ no. we’re a military dependent, which means we get the benifets of it without being in the military from our estranged family

q. why are you estranged from your family?

a. if you look at this blog long enough you’ll find out why

q. what’s the deal with your ex?

a. check the tag #the delilah situation and never talk to me about this, any asks will be deleted and i don’t take questions

q. i want details on x trauma

a. no

q. why do you have beef with x person? what’s the deal with you and x?

a. it most likely happened when we were 16-17 and even if it didn’t i don’t take negative questions regarding other people on this blog. i try to be positive. also, somehow this isn’t obvious i guess, don’t harass or even talk to people who you think i have beef with(i might not even know them stop assuming everything), and don’t tell me their every move. are you insane?

q. do you reaaaallly have did?

a. yes and we’re not faking and if you post us to any form of ableist cringe subreddit we will be taking legal action. find out if we’re joking

q. can you diagnose me with x?

a. we are not a medical professional and not taking psychology to become a therapist, we cannot diagnose any condition you may or may not have. we can give advice to the best of our ability but we don’t know you probably so

q. how should i use your pronouns?

a.

when referring to us as a collective, use they/it plural and call us the teufort dozen

eg:

they’re on their way to the store and they’re going to pick up wood to make themselves shelves for their apartment. the teufort dozen doesn’t care about security deposits because their rabbit already chewed up the carpet

when talking about me specifically, you can call me cheavy or tf2heritageposts and nothing else unless i’m friends with you, and use he/it NO THEY

eg:

cheavy really walks a lot, i’m surprised he doesn’t break his legs more. he really loves the bus

q. who do you main in tf2?

a. heavy and sometimes i play every other class except medic

q. this blog isn’t a heritage blog anymore

a. you’re an idiot and the queue has been going on since this blog has started. filter #not a heritage post dumbass

q. you should lose weight

a. i am actively trying to gain weight

q. what color is your hair

a. i don’t know

q. can i ask you questions specifically towards a specific alter?

a. yes you can! but please be aware that we’re not roleplaying and they can in fact get mad at you or decide not to respond to you

q. can i ask you about your source (memories)?

a. sure!

q. i am contacting you on behalf of someone else who you used to know

a. leave me alone

q. are you safe?

a. yes we’re very safe, we have many knives and we will kick a bitch

q. have you seen weird al’s albuquerque the movie

a. i watched it today for the 30th time as of writing

q. what’s your major?

a. currently getting my associates in general psych

q. are you aware you’re kind of stupid

a. yeah

[monsterkissed]

Rune Factory 5 on PC: mods for QoL

the pc version is (imho) the smoothest, best way to play this game, and mods are one of the key reasons why i would rec this version over the switch. there are mods to make harvesting resources trivial, add polyamory and even to fix Rigbarth's tragic trouser shortage, but i personally prefer mods that do what the base game does but Better. mods that fix frustrating issues or add functionality to existing features without feeling "cheesy" or like the game is unrecognisable. so here is a collection of exactly that. i'll tl;dr list the mods here so impatient people can get right to them, with explanations for why i think they're worth installing under a cut:

RF5Fix

RF4 Chara Unlock

NPC Details

Additional Warp Points

Less Compressed Textures

Better Furniture Placement

Time Speed Controller

Gender Neutral Pronouns

first off, most of these mods require BepInEx to work. what is BepInEx? it's a thing that makes mods work! (i am not a code person lol, it's essentially a thing that makes games in unity moddable and someone smarter than me can probably tell you more) for our purposes, what you need to know is that all these mods worked for me on BepInEx version 674 and some of them got very temperamental on other versions.

but most importantly: don't be intimidated or think that modding your game is difficult or complicated. if you can find your way around file explorer, you can add all of these. none of these mods broke my game (minus one temporary glitch i'll mention when it arises), broke steam achievements or sent the cops knocking at my door for Videogame Crimes.

RF5Fix - https://github.com/Lyall/RF5Fix

this is your obligatory "fix" mod, it's not glamorous, it's not exciting, but it makes things work better. like all behind-the-scenes mods, if it does its job right you won't even notice it's there.

RF4 Chara Unlock - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/100

i have played. hundreds of hours of rf4. i have played approximately zero of those hours on pc, which means that rf5 will not let me play with doug and margaret. this mod rights that obnoxious wrong. as the description says, if it doesn't give you the popup when you load in, sleep overnight and it should pop in the morning.

NPC Details - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/34?tab=description

probably the most "cheesy" of the mods here. this one adds boxes to the character and monster pages telling you which gifts they like, love and hate. there are a lot of characters in rf5 and keeping all their faves in your working memory can be difficult, or at least it is for me. i could completely understand if someone felt that this mod ruined an aspect of the game for them, but for me it's a fantastic QoL improvement.

Additional Warp Points - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/33

rf5 is a BIG game. as in, the maps are really big. too big, imho. while it doesn't bother me in the field zones or dungeons, navigating the town to track down all the villagers for gifting every day feels like it takes up about 40% of my play time. using the warp/fast travel system in the map helps, and this mod helps even more by adding warp points for almost all of the shops. an absolute lifesaver, in that it will save hours of your life spent running around Rigbarth. (one note: this game caused exactly one major glitch for me. iirc after a certain cutscene at the beginning of act 2 the game would hang on a black screen. uninstalling the mod for that cutscene and reinstalling it afterwards worked and i still consider it a great QoL mod, but be aware of this)

Less Compressed Textures - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/5

in case you forgot that this was a mid-budget switch title, seeing those rough textures on your big HD monitor will remind you. this mod makes everything look a little less like you forgot to put your contacts in.

Better Furniture Placement - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/2?tab=description

placing furniture in this game sucks. it was never exactly fun and intuitive in the other games, but the 3D setting doesn't help. i died a little inside every time i had to look at my wonky line of cooking tools. this mod gives you a grid-snap placement with the option to ignore collision when you place objects, thank god, thank god.

Time Speed Controller - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/113

rf5 is a BIG game. BIG dungeons. BIG town. BIG... amounts of time in the day. while i know a lot of people love long days in their farm sims, personally i find it really jarring when i am not even halfway thru summer and 80% of the main plot is done, and in rf5 the days are so long that i often find myself rushing the dungeons just for something to fill the hours. there's no sense of having to prioritise tasks for me, so a faster day helps add that time-management angle. but hey, if the days aren't slow enough for you, this mod is fully customisable. speed days up, slow them down, follow your heart.

Gender Neutral Pronouns - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/46

does what it says on the tin. regardless of whether you pick a masculine or feminine mc, you get they/them'd and, charmingly, sir/ma'am is replaced with "comrade". because pronouns belong to all of us.

Bonus Aesthetic Mods!

this is just a little additional set of mods that i've played with that don't affect anything gameplay-wise but look pretty. as i said there are a Lot of redesign mods for the cast, but i tend to care the most about the player character, since i see them the most. and as an afab nb i find the "Pink! for Girls!" design choice for the fem!protag kind of grating, so first off:

Blue Alice - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/112?tab=description

it makes her clothes details and highlights blue instead of pink. gender stereotypes begone! but... if you think there isn't enough pink, and just to show i'm fair:

Pink Alice - https://www.nexusmods.com/runefactory5/mods/76

i think this one is super cute and well done, and it even includes the kid's hair, too.

and that was my personal list of RF5 must-have and could-have mods! if anyone has any other suggestions i would love to hear them. this game is a lot of fun but it has its flaws and it's fantastic to see all the work the fandom has put into making it the best version of itself.

[weirdocat83]

obsessed with your tags, talk mdzs at me pls

Uh.

1) thank you, I really just put the random thoughts I have in the tags and/or accidentally steal other people’s tags

2) some thoughts about mdzs below the cut (I have a lot of thoughts about this novel) ye ask any ye shall receive. If you want to hear my thoughts on something specific plz ask :3

• My fav characters in MDZS are Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang. I love how WWX can be very complicated when he wants to be and has many layers and sides to him. Like, the fandom likes to simplify his character to someone self deprecating but always smiling but he is very complex. He acknowledges his faults and has only tried to do what he deemed right at the time even if he regrets what he does in hindsight. He isn’t infallible. He literally tortured a man to death (even if it felt right to do it considering said man orchestrated a massacre and tossed him into a literal pit of suffering to die in) and was a major player in a WAR. He’s probably killed more than he can count. I feel like a lot of people forget that the main cast is a bunch of war heroes that must’ve had insane kill counts. Including LWJ. It’s quite tragic that none of them really had any good authority figures to lead them seeing as the majority of them were at most 20~30ish and cultivators usually live extremely long lives (at least, that’s my assumption) anyhow, WWX is very aware of his faults, especially post-resurrection as he did kinda fuck up when he accidentally killed JZX. He acknowledges that and makes an effort to apologize and atone. That being said, his faults don’t stop him from being confident and above all likable. Yes he can be annoying but he does know how to behave himself probably better than most (unlike what many members of the fandom like to think). He knows his position well and that it is incredibly precarious (in both lives) but still manages to fit in well enough with essentially nobility that he is good competition for the best in his generation. He is a genius and a great leader and that isn’t stressed enough. Though I think one of the small details in his character that I think gets overlooked is how he “parents” A-Yuan in the burial mounds. Because for as immature as he is when he’s burying A-Yuan in the ground, he also knows that he isn’t the only one caring for A-Yuan and therefore is allowed to be silly but when they’re out at the market and A-Yuan asks for a toy he makes the mature decision to save his money (although LWJ spoils the kid immediately after). This reflects a lot on WWX because it shows he can be very mature when he needs to be but when he doesn’t need to be he’ll happily rely on others. It also reflects on his upbringing showing he knows how important money is (in contrast to the lans who are shown on various occasions to not really think about money much) Personally I love his character because he seems like a person I’d get along with if he were real (which, the incredible writing makes his seems very realistic) meanwhile my other favorite, Nie Huaisang, I love because he is misleading. Some of my favorite fictional characters are very misleading because of the masks they put up to fool people to achieve their goals. How a character will know more than they should but not let anyone know until the moment is right. NHS is someone who is easily underestimated because he seems helpless and unintelligent. And yeah, for a majority of his life he really didn’t care to further his education or really practice cultivation but later he takes this preconceived notion that everyone has of him and uses it to his advantage so nobody suspects a thing while he plans JGY’s downfall. It’s a scarily intelligent move and I think the fact that he takes pleasure in looking at art/books really adds to the fact of how intelligent he is. Most people see his art as pointless hobbies but I think it says a lot about the qualities of his character. I think a lot of people take for granted the patience it takes to make good art or the intelligence it takes to appreciate good literature. So when NHS's older brother dies under mysterious circumstances that just so happen to help the Jins? of course he catches on! He proceeds to keep his enemy close for over a decade until he finally gets his moment of revenge. Which, to me? Props, man. plus only one person even realizes what happened. WWX. 

Some things I don’t particularly like about MDZS (some people may yell at me for this and I'm sorry but this is my opinion): 

- how weird the yi city arc felt? It feels very out of place as we go on this whole journey to learn about all these people and what happened to them but after that they are pretty much no longer relevant. I only found out later that the yi city arc was initially intended to be its own story. So that might be why.

- how certain things are just *left* and never touched on again? We hear all this stuff about baoshan sanren but we never see her or really learn much about her at all. Similarly, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s parents? We hear all these things about them but never learn much at all. Which is weird all things considered when you look at it. It feels like a lot of background info for not much payoff. Yes, it gives us a lot of vital information on why things played out the way they did but it doesn’t stop the feeling that there should’ve been more. Part of me appreciated it though because it gives us no more information than the characters really have. Just passing information that is common knowledge but never really looked into just like many actual people have.

- how everything ended off. So we have that whole scene at the temple and then everything just… calms down? They all go home??? It felt anticlimactic. Especially with Nie Huaisang’s character as (in the novel at least) it sets him up to be the next chief cultivator despite being just as, if not more, sneaky than Jin Guangyao. And that’s probably intentional. The chief cultivator position was likely never meant to be a position of absolute good. It’s politics. But it is a bit weird that we never really see what happens to Nie Huaisang after, post revenge and all. 

[subaru-meteorlight]

I finished starforce 1-! I played the dx patch, ofc, I hunted the sp bosses but I gave up when deep space asked for a complete standard library like god bless dex filling is not my passion. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it. 25 hours across 6 days… it’s a bit sad actually, if I were a kid this would’ve taken years but now I just blitz through it in less than a week… aw.

But anyway I really loved it… I’ve never played mmsf1 before, only watched a playthrough and anime years ago so while I was aware of some major twists (pat/rey and AM-ian mega) and the boss lineup, I had forgotten a lot of the smaller details so it was still really fun… I really love geo’s character progression, depressed lonely kid who pushes others away but ends up being saved by people who insist on being in his life, insist on dragging him around and including him and consistently reaching out to him… as well as geo ultimately deciding to move on because he meets someone with the same pain as him and wants to reach out and help, so that she doesn’t fall into the same pit that he does, ending with the both of them moving forward and deciding to be strong together… it’s something I relate to/understand heavily so honestly I’m pretty floored that this is in a game for 10 year olds. If I had a nickel for every time a kid’s game smacked me over the head with its writing I’d have 2 nickels etc etc (tho it’s probably the fact that it is a kid’s game in the first place that makes me underestimate it then get surprised when it has good writing).

Geo and Mega’s relationship is so touching to me… I really love the dynamic of “oh dear god I’m stuck with this guy” but in the end it was because of mega first that geo started caring about other things, started trying new things and experiences for mega’s sake… and in return mega does learn more about caring for other people and being kinder too. It’s a minor detail that I haven’t seen anybody point out before but for transer requests in the early game areas (ie echo ridge) mega is often dismissive about other ppl’s problems (his dialogue along the lines of “ah geez let’s get this over with”/“yeah? let them figure out their own problem.”) but later on in the game he seems… disappointed? when megaman decides not to take on a request. It’s a really cute minor detail that I love. Sadly I don’t have any screenshots to prove this but you gotta trust me bro. Or you can look it up, compare say, echo ridge requests vs dream island or time square reqs.

And on mega- it’s actually very funny to me when you compare his sf1 and sf3 concept art, lol. In the art book it says that they redesigned him to have more upright posture and “handsome” appearance it’s killing me 😭 he’s a domesticated cat… geo tamed him….

Anyway! I just started zerker x ninja last night, played a lil bit of it- unlike sf1 I never watched a playthrough, only the anime, but honestly I totally forgor anything that was in it. Apart from there’s 3 main villains? And solo, god I love solo I can’t wait to meet him properly… but that was all from a rewatch of the anime op, so. First impressions of the game is- holy fucking shit mega follows geo around when you put on the visualiser?????? 😭😭😭😭😭oh my GOD. this is EVERYTHING. Tears in my eyes actually ohhh this is probably the best feature of the game. My god. It’s so cute….!!! Mega’s always by your side, geo… he’s like a following pokemon, lol. That’s a good thing. Number 2- oh, you can walk on the ground as megaman now, cool that’s like sf3- WHY DID I GET AN ENCOUNTER ON THE GROUND. When I tell you my jaw dropped…. Lmao it feels like my safe space got robbed from me </3 viruses should NOT be bothering me on the ground.

Frankly my initial opinion on sf2 was soured because of the negativity surrounding it online, which, fair, half an hour in and I can already see the translation errors… and I’m playing the lowered encounter patch so hopefully the rates won’t be too problematic for me… and ngl people saying that the game having a less heavy and serious tone unlike sf1 and sf3 is a bit of a let down, but ahh, I’ll play regardless and see how it goes. I’m excited to meet solo, at least-! Sf2 is entirely new sf content to me, so I’m way excited to experience it for the first time…!! After this I will join everybody else in the drought 💀

[pippin-katz]

just letting you know this ask will contain sensitive issues regarding Jewish identity and negative criticism that I’ve seen about rwrb. So I understand if you don’t want to answer at all - but I just wanted to see what your thoughts were about this (as I haven’t read the book but absolutely adore the movie) - if you want to make a separate post or something.

I saw a post on my “for you” feed (can’t find it anymore) that apparently Matthew’s decision to conflate and change Nora and June’s characters is antisemitic and bi-erasure? I only skimmed through it because it was very accusatory and the comments were also very negative.

I can understand being upset about losing some characters and the criticism about Nora’s bi-identity. I can’t really speak about the antisemitism as I’m not fully aware of that aspect from the book. But I was thinking - if they did make Nora bi and she still ended up being with Percy/Pez, would those critics be happy? Or would they still be mad because June wasn’t there for the polyamorous relationship that was hinted in the books?

They’re mad about Richards, Rafael Luna, Liam, divorce-free Claremont-Diaz household, no Queen Mary, no Princess Catherine, no this, no that. And they said it’s not a true rom-com because it doesn’t flesh out the romance between Alex and Henry? I just don’t understand what it takes for them to be satisfied. Casey said themself that if everything was done 100% from the books, fans still wouldn’t be happy with it. I mostly ignore the loud ones who hate the movie with all their being but when it comes up it’s so jarring. I don’t want the hype of this movie to lose out to the noise of the haters and bashers. This movie, and Alex and Henry’s love story has become so important to many people and we want more!

Funny you should bring that up to me of all people, seeing as I happen to be Jewish!

I think I may have seen posts like that in the past and immediately blocked the poster because I knew that if I wrote a response to them it would spiral out of control, and there were too many people in the replies to try and explain this to.

Post Writing Note: Buckle up for this one cause I definitely went on a tangent about Jewish culture, but I felt like it would help people understand, or at least be interesting.

The short version of this is that they are self centered idiots who have their heads up their ass.

Casey is 100% correct that even if they were completely true to the book, they wouldn’t be satisfied. They will always find something to complain about.

They also simply don’t want to like it, or understand it. All of those major changes were made for a reason, and make complete sense/were the right call for what Matthew was trying to accomplish with the film. But they don’t want to hear or accept that.

As for Nora and June, once again, they are being idiots.

Matthew has explained several times that the decision to cut June was a logical director’s decision.

With the limited time the film has, side characters simply can’t have as much detail or development as they have in the book. In the case of June and Nora, he explained that he essentially would’ve been giving half of a character to the two actresses. They would’ve been fighting for screen time, and would’ve felt unsatisfied with the roles. Therefore, he essentially combined the two into one full character to give to a single actress. It makes complete sense, and was the right choice.

Did that remove the polycule dynamic? Yes, but that was a side effect of the decision, not part of the reason. Matthew does not seem like the kind of person to remove something like that for no reason, or purely because it might "make the straights uncomfortable". It was just the way things happened.

Now, let me address Nora.

The thing that drives me a bit crazy about this is their determination to call her intentional erasure.

Just because those traits weren’t brought up in the film does not make them untrue. There is no reason to assume that she isn’t bisexual or Jewish just because they didn’t bring it up. They did not say anything that counters those details, therefore I don’t see them as being changed.

They are also exaggerating a lot.

Now, I’m saying all this as a Jewish person who would love to see more representation of Judaism casually included in characters.

Nora’s Jewish identity is completely irrelevant to the plot and is only mentioned in the book. When Alex wants to call someone on Christmas after his parents fight, he briefly says that she’s busy celebrating Chanukah. That is the only moment in the entire book that Nora being Jewish is brought up, as far as I can remember from the last time I went through to look for it, when I first saw a post about this. I checked again while writing this. Other book readers can correct me if I’m wrong about that, but I know for a fact that it is not something that’s regularly mentioned or relevant to the plot.

Again, I say this as a Jewish person with love, it was not important. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it until I fucking die: the book had no time limit.

The novel is not a massive one, but it is absolutely stuffed cover-to-cover with content. It’s a book told through Alex’s point of view, giving direct access into his thoughts and feelings through text.

When Alex offhandedly mentions in his head facts like that, the translation to the screen would be constructing a situation where bringing that up out loud is relevant. The other option is to put clues in the environment to indicate it.

The thing about those options though is that Nora does not have any scenes during the holiday portion of the movie. In fact, there is not even a mention of Christmas at all; the only reason we know is because of the decorations around the White House, but no one mentions it. There is only one scene that even takes place around Christmas in the film: Alex’s conversation with Zahra. From there, it’s straight to New Year’s.

Some may be thinking, “But those are so close together, it would still be relevant!” and I hate to tell you that you’re wrong, but there’s an 85% chance you’re wrong.

Chanukah shifts dates from year to year because it’s determined by the Jewish calendar, and that doesn’t match the normal calendar. As someone grew up celebrating it, and still does celebrate it, I can tell you from personal knowledge that most of the time, it happens before Christmas. Yes, sometimes it overlaps with it, or happens afterwards, but I can safely tell you that most of the time, it happens before; for example, this year Chanukah starts Dec. 8th and ends at sunset Dec. 15th. It starts and ends a whole week before Christmas.

Now, I have to also say, and I say this with as much love and respect as I can for all the normal Christians/Catholics out there, we don’t really… shove our holiday in everyone’s faces?

I know that sounds rude, and it might be, but I mean that everyone knows when Christmas is. Everything closes down for Christmas. Whether you celebrate it or not, you’re most likely going to be off-work or off-school for it. No one looks around and goes, “what day is Christmas again?” And most people know the basic gist of why it’s celebrated.

I’m pretty sure that at minimum 65% of the people who read this had no idea when Chanukah was, and have zero clue why it’s celebrated.

That’s not really their fault, it’s just a simple truth about Western society (especially American) that people don’t get educated on Judaism, even indirectly the way they do for Christmas. The same can be said for all of the religious minorities. I’m by no means innocent of being uninformed on the basics of other minority religions. I’m just bringing it up because it’s somewhat relevant.

When it’s Christmas, you know it’s Christmas. Everyone is talking about it and there’s decorations everywhere. And while there’s sometimes a few decorations for Chanukah and maybe Kwanzaa, it’s not common; especially given the unfortunate reality that said decorations are a beacon for hate crimes.

Circling back to Nora, the easiest way to provide indications that she is Jewish is through decorations in her office/apparel choices. I just explained why she would be unlikely to have decorations in her office for Chanukah, but what about non-holiday specific decor?

Well, in my experience as a reformed Jewish person, there's not a lot of decor that's not very obvious or specifically religious in its representation. I say "specifically religious" because Judaism is a culture as well as a religion. I'm a Jewish person, but I don't regularly attend Temple or practice daily prayer. My experience with Judaism stems more from how we celebrate the major holidays, the kinds of food we eat, clothing we wear, and stuff like that, not passages of the Torah.

We also just don't really have as much physical decoration options as Christians/Catholics, at least for Jews who are not devoutly religious.

Judaism is practices aniconism.

Don't be alarmed, most people don't know what that word means; I only know because I learned about it briefly in an art history course a few years ago. Aniconism is the absence of artistic representations of certain figures in religions. Judaism is generally "anti-iconic", meaning it's strongly discouraged to create imagery, specifically human imagery, of God or other saint-like figures from the Torah. It's not completely unheard of, but think about how frequently you see imagery of Jesus in Christianity/Catholicism, or all the famous imagery of God, and depictions of scenes of the Bible and the saints, etc. etc. etc. Jews just don't do that, at least not nearly to the extent or as commonly as Christians/Catholics.

Jews instead have focused artistry into the form of ceremonial objects, i.e. the menorah, Kiddush goblets, etc.

In fact, my Jewish heritage comes from my father's side, so my grandfather on that side has always been a practicing Jew, and my grandmother converted back when they married. They're not super religious, but more so than my parents and how I was raised.

Thinking back to their home, I'm realizing that all of their Jewish "decor" was fine dishware sort of like this they kept in a China cabinet, like this:

Nora's not going to keep fine China in her office.

The only piece of "decor" that I have in my parents' home is not even really decor. This is a super common thing to find in Jewish households. It's call a mezuzah:

It's a little container that keeps a scroll with two prayers from the Torah written in Hebrew by a calligraphist. They are a symbol of connection and protection amongst the Jewish community. They are an ancient tradition. Nora would definitely have one.

However, these go on the doorframes of the entrance to a home. They're not hung up anywhere to look nice. She wouldn't have one on her office doorway, which is glass anyway.

So I've eliminated physical decorations, so how about jewelry?

This is where I'm sure a bunch of those people will shake their fists at me. The easiest and simplest way to imply a Jewish character (especially a female one) is the same as a Christian/Catholic character: a necklace.

Obviously, it is common practice for crosses to be worn on necklaces. Wearing the Star of David on a necklace is also common, but not nearly as common as the cross. I've noticed over the course of my life an increase in seeing them, but they're still uncommon.

And incredibly recently, I actively chose to stop wearing mine because we are at a point of actual danger in the US right now, specifically Florida, where I happen to be so lucky to live.

Regardless, it's debatable on how likely it would be for Nora to be wearing one. I feel like it's pretty split on how much of the Jewish population does and doesn't. So let's take a look at her style then:

The only outfit I couldn't find a clear still image of was the one in the jeep, but there are GIFs of that:

Note: I swear, if this fandom doesn't start posting more content of the side characters, I'm going to throw something; y'all are making it very hard to write my essays!! 😂

Out of her seven outfits, she is only wearing a neck accessory in ONE. More notably, she's not wearing a necklace in either of her formal outfits: the wedding and the party dresses. If she were going to wear a necklace, a fancier outfit usually makes it more likely. She seems to like wearing earrings more. Earrings with the Star of David exist, but I've personally never seen someone wearing them.

So based on everything I've been talking about, and Nora's personality, and her characterization in the book, and everything else, it's probably unlikely that she would wear a religious necklace, if not because she's not heavily religious, then because she just doesn't wear necklaces.

Could you ignore all that and complain that they could've given her a necklace or something anyway? Yeah, you could, but you are just being annoying and overreacting. She's still a Jewish character. People who haven't read the book may not know that, but tons of people who have read the book didn't even remember that. It's not an intentional decision made to erase her Jewish heritage. It is purely a side effect of having very limited time to cover way too much content.

The same can be said for her being bisexual. There's no reason to assume she's not. Hell, we've been joking about the face she makes when she meets Bea since we saw it:

This look alone is enough to make non-book readers go, "oh ship! ship! ship!". She's not straight just because they don't address her sexuality. Again, it was not an intentional decision made to erase her bisexuality.

Look, I'm not saying you have to like it, but for the love of god, stop acting like Matthew is the devil incarnate who made every change and cut out of spite, and to hurt you specifically.

As for the comment about not fleshing out Alex and Henry's relationship? I... I have no fucking words. That's a lie, I have so many fucking words, but I've been writing this for too long, so I'll speed run this:

First of all, if you don't think the romance between Alex and Henry is "fleshed out" in the film, I cannot say anything else than you are a fucking idiot. I don't like rom-coms, but this one is so fucking genuine, emotional, and sweet that even my cold dark soul feels warmth while watching it.

Second of all, how the fuck are you going to make the claim that they didn't flesh out Alex and Henry's romance, while simultaneously bitching about 3+ hours of book content that didn't make it? Do you not have any logical reasoning skills or common sense, at all??

I WILL SAY IT AGAIN: THE BOOK HAD NO TIME LIMIT. THE MOVIE DID.

Alright, that's enough of all that; I have an essay that I wrote the day after the movie originally dropped that went more in detail about that last one, so I'm not going to get super into that here. That's the short version of that, and if you want to hear the long version, go read this.

I hope that cleared some stuff up for you Anon! Sorry for the rambling lmfao

Thanks for reading!! If you enjoyed this essay & would like to support me, you can give me a tip on my Ko-Fi! ☺️