What’s she listening to?

WIP, prolly gonna line and color this in later but I like how this looks so far c:

Asks Compilation 16/6

The best thing about categories like Sburb Titles is that once you have a big enough sample size of Person/Category mappings, you can extrapolate their traits to any character you like. 

Example: I got an ask a while back asking whether I have any Titles for my own OCs, and to be totally honest I can’t stop thinking about it

Oh, that is awesome. I’m bookmarking that for reference, when I’ve finished the comic. Biology is not my strongest suit, but I do find it fascinating, and speculative biology is my jam. 

It’s a balancing act, trying to make a quirk both unique and readable. i thought about a capitalization quirk WHERE i only capitalize common programmINg keywORds, but it looks kind of funky, and I wasn’t sure how to define what keywords to include. 

@capribornio​ submitted: Part 1! Terrible memes to help you cope with what just happened.

Part 2! (Dunno why tumblr wouldn't let me submit you the two images at once, but.)

jettison to the moon drop it on those stupid pawns bye bye kids, you're gonna die now your session's dead and gone

That was made by abysswarlock! Their blog is linked below the main links in my bio.  It’s great, isn’t it? Really makes the Land come to life. 

Man, I’m really mad I missed the Club Penguin craze, because if I’d played it, I would absolutely have answered this ask with penguin designs for each of the kids. 

Classic Tumblr. When you edit you blog description in the appearance editor, it actually scrubs all the HTML you added, and replaces it with plaintext. To update your description properly, you need to do it in the theme editor. 

I fixed the blog description on desktop, but I don’t think it ever worked on mobile, since tags generally don’t work properly on the app. I think it should work if you access the blog through say, Firefox, rather than the app itself? 

So do I!!!

That’s one of my favorite anime tropes, and it’s vary Homestuck-friendly, considering how many characters are bespectacled. I’m glad that my ‘sona is continuing this proud tradition. 

Thank you!  I think a big part of it is just that Homestuck happens to deal with stuff I’m really into. I love time travel and alt-self/identity shenanigans, so I was already looking at the Paradox Clone system from every angle even before the Veil. Once that cursor targeted Nanna, a lot of things immediately clicked into place. 

I didn’t see the paired tubes coming, though. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment. 

Maid! That was the first class I chose for myself, because I liked the connotations around ‘organizing’. 

I’m planning on doing a bunch of Title tests over the weekend. The Official Sally Classpect will be an open question for a long time, but I am interested in how much the various tests will agree. 

We’ve already talked a bit about it on the blog, but Homestuck is a kind of meta story on a lot of levels. 

We saw it with the reader suggestions at first, but there are other things too, like Hussie’s narration interacting with WV. Is that ‘canon’, per se? Much to think about...

[ sent on the 12th! - Cat ] 

Happy belated birthday Carcino ‘Cancer’ Geneticist! May this year bless you with Grist, Boondollars and a successfully salvaged Sburb session!

Honestly!!! 

Hussie is very good at turning on the waterworks. It doesn’t happen much in Homestuck, but when it does, it hits hard. 

True, true. But that was just John’s opinion - now Hussie’s narration is saying she sucks!

These guys really have been great recently. It’s like Hussie has spent a while giving them improvised character traits based on reader commands, and now that their personalities are fully established, they’re actually getting full arcs with awesome moments of development. 

I honestly can’t wait to see what the Windswept Questant’s real plan is. She’s abdicated to PM, and seems to be putting a team together. Did she know WV had the Ring all along? What’s up next? 

Do you have any tips for writing? Or do you just have an unbelievable natural talent?

Oh. 

I don’t— I don’t even know how to answer this bc…😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥰🥰🥰 I would not consider myself talented at all 😫 I personally feel like I’m breaking all the rules when I write bc I don’t know them, the do’s and don’ts. I read an article the other day, and I def did everything on their “never do this” list. I look at other ppl’s writing and constantly think “dammit, I’ll never be that good!” So I dunno. I’m just making it up as I go along and learning a bit more each time. I still feel like a newbie even tho I’ve been writing fic for 2 years now. Since I never wrote before that, I feel like I’m playing catch up all the time. So yeah, no idea if this made sense, but I was blown away and am kinda reeling about your ask. Like, “who me?” So thank you from the bottom of my heart 💕💕💕 gonna turn into a puddle now 😭

To get to the other part, I did answer an ask awhile back that included suggestions for writing motivation and what works for me (again with the caveat that I’m more familiar with nonfiction writing). It’s super long, but I think it applies to your ask. I’ll link it here. There’s a lot of info there. I will say. I did try writing sprints after I wrote this, and honestly they got me thru last year’s Skam Big Bang. I’m easily distracted, but the sprints kept me focused. No sneaking off to tumblr 😂. And I also liked seeing how much progress I was making in real time. So yeah, sprints are great!

Other advice I didn’t mention in that post:

Write what makes you happy, what excites you, what brings you joy. It’s so easy to get bogged down with “will anyone like this? ” It doesn’t matter. Unless you’re trying to publish, which is a whole diff world outside of my experience, fic writing is for you and about you. It’s about your love for the characters or the show or the world. You’re sharing that love with ppl, and whether 30 or 300 or 3000 ppl read it, you’ve made someone’s life better. I still struggle with this, but in the end I ask myself what matters most, being proud of my story and being happy that I wrote it, or the kudos? I have a fic with 11 kudos, and that’s okay. So I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t focus on the numbers. Focus on writing what makes you happy. (Also the age old, write what you know 😂—but I have a whole shadowhunters collection, and I’ve def never swung a sword or fought a demon, so...).

So in a similar vein, there’s also the “is this any good?” question that haunts us. Honestly, just put words on the paper!! It doesn’t matter. Try something new. Experiment. See what you’ve got in you. You’ll never know if you don’t try. Try try again. You’ll grow and improve and learn about yourself, but that only works if you start somewhere. Fic writing isn’t about being a perfect, great literary author, it’s about finding joy in sharing the story that’s in your head with ppl who also love those characters. Plenty of ppl slap up unedited stories. There’s no expectation. We’re out there having fun. And anyway, writing is a process, your stories will improve from one to the next. Just keep writing. 

Don’t be afraid to take ideas from real life. So many of my fics are grounded in reality. Anything can be inspiration for a story. I had an ER nurse who looked like Merlin, and a sobbe fic was born (odd correlation, i know). I got bogged down thinking about how kinnporsche got their shirts off while handcuffed together, and another sobbe fic was born. You can also use fic/plot generators or ask for prompts if you need ideas. 

I don’t do this bc I don’t like being bombarded by information, but a lot of ppl follow writing and author’s blogs. They give out great advice, and Neil Gaiman in particular is very active and often adds to posts. 

Internet searches are your best friend. I have at least 30 tabs open when I’m writing fic. A thesaurus tab and all kinds of research tabs. You can google anything. Need to know what exact set list Queen with Adam Lambert played in Brussels in 2019, you can find that. (I did, haha). Sometimes it helps to ground your story in reality so that it feels more real to you. Will anyone notice? Probably not, but we can get a lot of enjoyment out of our research dives, and you’ll know, which is all that matters.

Read, read, read. As I said before, I never wrote stories, nor did I study creative writing. But i read a hell of a lot. I think that helps. I understand plot and character. I know grammar. I know the mechanics of story writing. I think there’s something to be said that the more you expose yourself to the literary world, the more you will be able to function within it. You’ll pick up on how things are done--plot organization, character development, etc. Also sometimes it can be just as helpful to learn what not to do.

I don’t know if this is even remotely helpful. I hope it is. I am a very insecure writer, and I still don’t think of myself as one. I’m still surprised I’ve written half a million words of fic. I hope this came across as more hopeful and helpful than negative nancy, but i do understand the woes and struggles of writing too. Please let me know if there’s something more specific. This was very general.

I apologize for the length of this and for the length of the linked ask. You know me, I always write too much. I wish you all the best in your writing journey, and I hope to read your work some day!!!  Thank you for this ask and for blowing my mind and making my day and making me cry. 💕💕💕

Tagged by @ongreenergrasses, thank you!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Way over 300! Tho it feels like it's been at 300sth so long by now, it'll be weird to look at once it hits 400 :D

Btw, funny how this tag meme asks for so much stuff that can be looked up by just... looking at my Ao3... without asking for any commentary by me? Lol

Anyhow, rest under the readmore bc this is 20 questions and Long!

Personal post - do not reblog

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

995596 - just a few more ficlets or 1 longer fic, and I've got a Million! Hey, maybe I should try to write one with... 4404? (I'd need to ask a calculator xD) words exactly... not rly a hardship with how many drabble exercises (exact wordcounts, 100 is the most used, I also do 200, 500, longest was 10000 exactly lol) I've already done... we'll see!

Over 400k for this year alone, and over half of that is my actual writing (not translations etc), I'm so proud! Last year I only barely hit 200k and that included a lot of translating work

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  

Again, one could look this up in my works filtered - sorted by kudos? But all three of my incubus!jaskier witcher series are in it, part 2 of the series is highest with 1091 kudos, then a Venom halloween oneshot, and 'Belonging', a fluffy snake-crowley piece from my ineffable spouses series (yes, sth with under 1k words - 666 to be exact - is in the top 5... my poor longfics lol)

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

...I try to? But atm I have 202 unanswered (and I always click 'mark read' on replies so these are all comments on my own fic) even tho I told myself I'd not let it get past 200, and now I'm doing a tag meme instead of replying to anything so ummmm

Edit: 203 unread now

But I do love love love all the comments I get! And while atm it's still semi-manageable, if it ever gets to the point where I really can't manage to reply to everyone cause it's too much, i'd rly take that as a compliment lol :D I'd still try to reply to the longer and/or more thought through comments tho :)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

*thinks* I have an MCD fic? But not only is that very much a case of ~posting a draft version that's barely in complete sentences insgead of taking the time to turn it into a real longfic~, I also just killed off the mlm couple I only semi care about and left the wlw couple with a happy/hopeful (rly don't remember) ending, so... hm idk whether that counts for angsty ending

Apart from that... I dunno, I just prefer my babies to be happy and fluffy? *.* i remember a mirror milippa in the mirrorverse one where in the end Michael is worried about lying to Philippa about her identity... there are some angsty TOG and Gomens ones but I think they end happy-ish (my memory is. Bad. but looking through my 'angst' tag I just saw a lot of h/c and 'angst with a happy ending')

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

They're all happy???!?

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Ahahahahahhahahaahaha

Check this out

I need you to know that all the works in that collection take part in the same universe (or rather, multiverse), and are alltogether just scratching the surface of my gigantic headcanon multiverse that I've been building in my mind since I was like 10

Actual crossovers other than that I don't remember writing

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeh but I only remember clicking 'delete comment', as it should be

Recently I've just gotten a bunch of 'you Need to continue this' and 'omg why isn't there more' or 'this shouldn't end' type comments, not hate, probably not meant maliciously, but So Annoying (maybe espesh bc I don't want to just hit delete on these, but I also don't want to pretend it's fine, but I also don't have the energy for a fight, and trying to explain why that behaviour is entitled and annoying and that I write what I want to write and nice comments should praise what I actually have written, and hoping that they understand and don't get mad is... hard.)

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Check out my rated E and rated M in my works

Mostly femslash lately, but I did also write other smut in the past

Most is a bit dominant/submissive play, but I do also like good fluffy smut with feelings! Best in combo, really :D

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not in the sense of pretending someone else wrote it (that i know of), but posted to other sites without my permission - writing 'don't repost to other sites' etc did Not help, they even copied those tags lol, so I just let it be, choosing my battles wisely etcetc, I'd prefer for my fic not to be cross-posted by others bc then I can't edit or otherwise influence the fic anymore and don't see everyone's reactions to it, but as long as it's not someone pretending they wrote it, I only semi care, not enough to fight it tbh

PSA: I Only post fics to Ao3 (and WIPs/prompt fills to tumblr&discord at times), if you see them somewhere else that's Not Me and you'd do me a favour by checking them out on ao3 and kudosing&commenting there instead :)

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup, one to Russian a while back, a floreleine (Gunpowder Milkshake) one to Korean just today actually, and I translated a bunch to German myself

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I made a TOG fic together with @cinnamonplums, well mostly I wrote and she made the art :D

Trying to remember whether I ever actually co-wrote anything... don't think so?

13. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Don't make me choose!!!

Atm Milippa is OTP bc I'm busy writing them for @discoveryfemslashfortnight (this is not a post to reblog for the fortnight), but I'm also still rly into Floreleine, Bering&Wells and Andromaquynh and Andronilynh, and I read a lot of Mirandy lately

All-time favs I'm not rly active in atm but will always be dear to me are the ineffable spouses, clintcoulson, heistwives, gosh so many more I'll stop here tho xD

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

A Heistwives Kinda Job immediately comes to mind

I also rly want to finish at least one cohesive original-ish storyline for the lverse that I already linked for the crossover question above, but I just have so much backstory (it's been over 10 years!!!) and it's... hard...

And everything else that's still WIP and untouched for more than a few months will probably have the same fate lol

Also have a few that haven't even seen the light of day at all, most recent a Mirandy ~what if Andy had been pregnant when Miranda hired her and how would it change the entire storyline~ bit - I wrote it in bulletpoints in one go as quickly as I could, I know I had the finished product in my mind, I don't remember anything now and don't feel like going through the bulletpoints painstakenly filling in the blanks

15. What are your writing strengths?

Writing one-shots quickly in one go

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Forgetting everything about a fic if I leave it in a draft for a second too long

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

There are many ways to go about it, and I think they all work (depending on the fic and the length and relevance of the dialogue)

I tend to leave single sentences as is, and for longer and important sequences use cursive and 'they said in xylanguage'.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Hobbit apparently? I remember thinking that fic was so long lol, it's 3k

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Kat/Ana from Reef Break, they have Such Shippable Chemistry, and it would totally fit Kat's player personality to bang both siblings (she's canonically friends with benefits with Ana's half-brother)... but the ship has one (1!) fic on Ao3 *cries*

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

TOG Andromaquynh longfic In Your Stead has had the title since last year and probably for a while to come! I loved the story idea so much I really worked with several drafts and only! worked on that fic until it was finished so I wouldn't get distracted & forget about it, and the result was wonderful.

Tagging, if you want to do it, @sarah-fiers @purlturtle @cookie-sheet-toboggan @ussjellyfish @onaperduamedee @startrekgeorgiouery @rosalie-starfall @lonely-night @banashee @xvnot15 and everyone else who sees this

Questions to copy:

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? 5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? 6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? 7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? 8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? 9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? 10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 11. Have you ever had a fic translated? 12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? 13. What’s your all time favorite ship? 14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? 15. What are your writing strengths? 16. What are your writing weaknesses? 17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? 18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? 19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? 20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

SCP AU

So @emeraldtrainer1 (Ao3), @writingforfunandbecauseboredom (Ao3), and DarkstarWolf53 (<-Dunno if they have Tumblr) did an SCP AU three-way Convo fic some months ago. I really enjoyed the outline and concept and asked if I could expand on it. With their permission and about a month of research into what the actual SCP Foundation is (and holy cow there is so much, no wonder people are all over this) I've finally managed to get a start on this. There is a decent amount of things that are different from their original Convo (via their permission) but it will basically follow the same storyline that they created. Please go check their Convo out, it's a very long and fun read with a lot of good fluff and Angst mixed in.

I will hopefully be drawing some of my designs soon but for now, writing seems to be the way to go. Here is a link to it on Ao3 -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/33213928/chapters/82464553

I'll also have it below in case you would like to read it on Tumblr instead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Error: (The End Of All But Me.) There are too many unworldly traits that spiders have that I couldn't just not give to Error, so I've kind of combined their Puppetmaster concept to my design. He has 4 arms with clawed fingertips, his tail is prehensile and his jaw can split open. He has 5 tongues still, 2 of them are spear-like, and can shoot out and impale victims. The saliva produced under the tips of the barbs on the two tongues can liquidity a prey items insides so he can drink them up (still a clean freak, using the skin as a cup and drinking up any mess leaving a skin bag behind). His other three tongues are prehensile and can extend to an unknown length, they are barbed aswell but do not carry the venomous saliva. Strings wrap along his bones from his eye sockets, which he uses to create a nest atop the ceiling of his cell.

SCP-002's (Apollyon class) cell is a blank room (it ask for a TV later on) that goes up vertically 2 floors. The top half is required to be shrouded in darkness as it likes voids of either white or black. It has filled the darkness of its cell with a nest of strings that it spends all of its time in, even when feeding. It does not attempt to attack staff, when asked why it replied with, "Not yet." Personal have not been able to decipher what it means by that statement. In an interview via speakers and mics within containment cell, it was asked why SCP-002 stares off at seemingly nothing for extended periods of time and never touches the ground. Subject responded with, "Busy." When asked what it was busy doing- "Watching." When asked what it was watching- "The world. Everything." Due to this experience, it can be concluded that 002 can view any place in the world and perhaps beyond via "screens". These "screens" are unviewable to anyone but 002 and 001 as the latter SCP had called them so, hence their given name. SCP-002 has a strange relationship with SCP-001 and it can not be determined if 002 likes or dislikes 001.

Ink created Error on accident. In the beginning, Ink didn't know what he was doing, and the brutality of Earth's natural forces of destruction were uncontrollable. If he wanted to bring life to his chosen planet he needed a way to control the chaos. And so through the storm, a new force was born. And even if Ink didn't create it, he did wish for it.

Error is a ticking time bomb for extinction. He waits and watches until he decides it's time for a "spring cleaning" and starts his work. The Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous mass extinctions were all him. He deemed the human race ready for a "cleaning" a long time ago and Ink agreed with him, ready to see and make something new. But Nightmare threatened the both of them by stating that he would make the earth forever inhabitable and they would have to kill him before he stoped his rage. Nightmare fears that if another extinction event were to occur he'd lose his boys.

Ink: (God doesn't care about what's right or what's wrong. God just wants to watch interesting things happen.) His form is always changing, different traits from different animals and organisms he's created. Ink is basically Gaia. Born when Theia crashed into Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, he made everything that ever existed. Since he's made A LOT of organisms he has a ton of favorites and the traits from them are what mostly show up when he mutates. Sometimes it's Kaprosuchus with belonged snout and fangs. Sometimes it's Tylosaurus with its marine reptilian posterior. Sometimes it's Chital Deer and their antlers. More often than not though, his tail has consistently stated having bristle-like hair at the tip of it, which is basically his brush. The concept of paintbrushes is pretty new to him since the human race has been around for a short time compared to other species, so while he does have one, his tail is his broomie. If his next from doesn't have it then he just uses his hands and his blood.

Ink can't be contained. It's that simple, he just can't. He just sticks around because it's interesting and hilarious to see his creations so intelligent but so stupid. (remember how humans are still young in terms of Earth's age, so the fact that they're so smart... on a thought level that could almost match his own is so very interesting to see and watch. even if there ruining his planet.) The SCP foundation just has to let him do his thing and hope that he doesn't override 003's and 004's decision to not have an extinction event.

His cell is basically a mini-ecosystem, with all of his favorite organisms living within whether they are extinct or not. He loves his little sample of the world and it keeps him in his cell for a good amount of time so the foundation let him have it. If any of them even touch what is HIS without permission then he rips them apart and feeds them to the baby Rhamphorhynchus. Don't touch his babies.

...Cross though... he can touch his babies... and Dream... and maybe Error... That's it though!

SCP-001 (Apollyon Class) is a being older than all living things, despite his toddler-like mannerisms. Even more infuriating, within an interview, 001 openly admitted to being the cause of all SCP's and their anomalous effects. It stated that they were all just mistakes and/or experiments, testing the limits of their own abilities. 001's quoted response- "You don't get it do you? I made everything here! All of your little "SCP's" are just of my creation as all of you. Sure there all mistakes but, it just proves my point that it's time to start over again. A clean slate y'know? Pfft- wow you look mad! If it makes you feel any better, I don't like most of them either. They were cool at first but... it's like flicking black paint over a finished painting. Sure, you can try to get over it but eventually, it will just bother you so much that you just can't stand it! Well... I do kinda want some of them to stay... If I could just convince Ru..." -shows evidence to this conclusion. Termination trials were approved by the 05 Council, though have not been able to start since 001's creation of a barrier around its cell, preventing entry of anything that tries to pass.

[Note: Error, Dream, and Nightmare are not included in what Ink views as "mistakes". Y'know when you're trying something new and you don't know what you’re doing, yet it works somehow. That's them, happy accidents. Ink adores them.]

Ink finds the attempt of Termination trials on him to be absolutely hilarious. The fact that humanity's insecurity about their lifespan and control is so great that they'd try to KILL HIM. Amazing. He can't believe he's managed to make the simultaneously best and worst organism ever.

Dream: (When day breaks.)  Again he was accidentally created by Ink’s actions in an intense solar storm. The flare drifting over the earth in combination with Ink’s magic still working to bring life brought him to existence. Dream’s design is almost harpy-like, with beautiful golden, sun-like wings with a small feathery crest atop his skull. Two tail-like feathers sprout from the crest that can rise up and down depending on expression and mood. He also has bird feet and legs, and a tail.

Dream adores all life, his is the warmth and growth of the sun (original form being a ball of light and plasma that literally looks like a mini sun). He is basically like a piece of the sun on earth. His cell is kinda like Ink’s, only in the fact that there are just a couple of animal species. Some deer, birds, and insects mainly. Ink obviously just appeared in his cell one day and made it for him. While Dream could be considered to be a Safe SCP, his ability to damage or completely ruin the planet if inraged prevents that classification.

SCP-003 (Apollyon Class) has proven to be a relatively docile creature. It is elegant in nature (like that of a bird) and shows greater empathy towards all life in general. Unlike SCP’s 001, 002, and 004 who view it as more interesting and admirable, more like a pretty crystal than an actual being with its own consciousness. 003 can not be fully contained and has shown the ability to travel through light rays. Its aura has also shown to be some form of anesthesia, and exposure for prolonged periods causes victims to feel more at peace and calm. 003 does have the capability to travel through the “dreamscape”, what exactly that in tails is unknown.

Dream doesn’t agree with the extinction event thing because the Holocene period hasn’t lasted for nearly as long as it should. On the other hand, he does distaste humanity/monsterkind for all it has done to the planet. Even so, he feels like they deserve more of a chance.

Nightmare: (Does the Black Moon howl?)(Death) Complete with the theme of being Dreams opposite, Nightmare was born from a black moon and the combination of Ink’s magic bringing life to the earth. He isn’t an evil force or anything, just the night to the day. His design is pretty true to OG nightmare, although his legs and feet share the same digitigrade format. His tentacles are more ghostly than slimy and they drip upwards instead of towards the ground. His bones also have a ghost;y wisp to them, but it isn’t that noticeable. Instead of only having a turquoise glint in his magic, there are sparks of purple aswell. (His original form being a black sphere of what looks like smoke).

His cell is basically an entrance to a cave system that Ink had made for him. Inside is a galaxy of crystals and gemstones that glow and sparkle like the night sky. A small stream runs through, the light refracting off of the water, adding to the glow effect. It is a nice calm place for Nightmare to just chill in, his separate own little world.

Nightmare is kind of mysterious, in the realm of Error in which he likes to watch things happen. Just lurking in the shadows, a quiet observer. Though, he wasn’t as fascinated by life as the others. So to prevent his boredom Ink made him a present- Killer. Nightmare hated the little thing at first but it didn’t take too long to grow fond of the little guy. Not too long later Ink pronounced his joy in watching Nightmare sigh in frustration by sending 2 more bundles his way -Dust and Horror- and Nightmare had to threaten Ink to stop before any more joined the fray.

SCP-004 (Apollyon Class) is an entity whose intentions are completely unknown. A mysterious being that chooses to dwell in the cave system 001 made for it. The entity refuses to interact with personal unless in interview. And when it does respond, it does so in riddles and metaphors. It seemingly takes joy asking more questions than the interviewer, turning the conversation in its favor. On such question that has been repeated multiple times - “Does the Black Moon howl?” has puzzled personal. Though 004 states that if answered correctly and explained why, then it will share its secrets with that person and that person only.

004 proves to be uncontainable like its counterparts, able to travel through shadows. SCP’s 012, 032, and 024 seem to be “followers” of 004, and regularly go missing from their cells. Most likely 004’s doing.

[Ink created Killer, Dust, and Horror during the era where dinosaurs were still alive, so they have some traits from them.]

Killer: (War) Was created by Ink for Nightmare to keep him entertained. Killer was born as a baby in Ink’s very hands, a little skeleton with curved blades for hands and digitigrade legs and feet (and little quills on his back). Growing up under Nightmare’s care was an interesting experience, but he thought Kill’s everything he needed to know.

-[SCP-012, Keter]-

Killer is fast, very fast. And he enjoys killing things (what a surprise). He’s pretty much the same cocky boi as always. His more SCP side is that he doesn’t seem to ever feel pain and the black liquid that leaks through his eyes. That can be used as a type of venomous toxin to whatever he pleases.

Dust: (Pestilence) You know Epidexipteryx and Therizinosaurus? Those are Dust hands, long with even longer claws. He can also turn into literal dust, more of a phantom or wraith in nature. He can walk through walls, and turn others to dust and grow himself if he wishes.

He and Horror could be twins since Ink made them both at the same time. Holding his little creations in his arms as they wriggled and whined in confusion at suddenly being alive.

-[SCP-032, Keter]-

Dust is pretty quiet and tame. He has his episodes but he stays pretty much the same as bookwrym’s, writing’s, and Dark’s Dust.

Horror: (Famine) Since Horror is a vent crawler I based his design on that. Horror’s second set of arms are like a praying mantis with an extra joint, hands serrated blades almost like Killer’s. He used to sit in trees and wait for prey to walk underneath him, plucking them from the ground with his long arms and eating them alive.

Same thing when in vents, just waits over the openings and plucks a person off of the ground and into the vent (if personal don’t keep up with his feeding times)

-[SCP-024, Euclid]-

Other than his design Horror is pretty much the same as bookwyrm’s, writing’s, and Dark’s concept.

Outer: [SCP-044, Safe] His stardust makes him have luminescent galaxy and star patterns on his bones. He floats regularly without control over it and can sometimes make other objects float, in rare cases people, aswell. Ink made him a jacket where pieces of its hood and aglets float off like a sort of fluffy foam. The pieces orbit him like planets to a star before joining back, making a continuous cycle.

(And yes writingforFUN, he will still keep his anime sparkling eyelight’s).

Cross: [SCP-00X, Thaumiel] Was created by Dr. X to help contain and terminate Keter SCP’s. Being forced to kill his brother when he turned Keter, not completely in control of his actions. Dr. X’s “programing” making him see his brother no longer as such, just an object to be eliminated. When Cross became uncontrollable Dr. X put wiped his memory without the 05’s or administers permission and an MTF was sent after him that came back empty-handed. Cross was brought back soon enough and had his memory wiped.

They bring him back in as a staff member and that’s when the story kicks off, mostly following bookwyrm’s, writingforFUN, and Dark’s original outline/convo.

(I apologize for any typos)

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

Possibly Nonsensical ToG Representation: Personal Perspective

Nate nobody wants to read six thousand paragraphs of your inane ramblings okay?

Well maybe that IS the case, maybe SO but maybe I’m going to ramble anyway. And maybe I’ll never ever undraft this post because well who knows.

I ended up not drafting it, I just posted. Because why not. Pls don’t regret this, future me.

BUT.

I will say that, one thing that The Old Guard did that really stuck out to me, and has only continued to do so since reading others posts about it was, ironically, send my dysphoria sky-fucking-high.

(Not in a wholly bad way, that is!)

(For the record, I’m 29, and an AFAB pre-T trans guy, pre-T in like pre ANYTHING, I’m barely out publicly to anyone that isn’t a personal or really close friend, or like, my therapist, anywho)

In most cases, my dysphoria is on a very low simmer, there, but something I try to ignore because of circumstances, etc. It’s always a bother, sure, but well, I live, I guess.

So, I’m a Marvel fan, and in most cases..people I see on TV have been, well, lets be real-Chris Evans. Standard Hollywood types. I do have other examples of less ‘classically’ attractive actors on my list of things I like to watch, and absorb, and I’m a basic person who has basic ass thoughts sometimes. Those people are hot, those people appeal to the most innate feelings of people who feel things from attractive looking people.

But in my head, it’s ALWAYS been through the lens of ‘This is nice to look at. Utterly unrealistic, but nice.”

(I actually only recently learned about using dehydration to get those looks, and it further cements Hollywood shadiness, but anyway)

So for me, AMAB and men on TV have never really done much to my dysphoria. It’s not a look I’d ever have..so it never set off those bells in my head. I dislike having an AFAB body, sure, but it’s not like looking at the equivalent of a modified human art project on TV really did anything to it.

And then..the Old Guard

Fuck this is long, more under the cut.

So I want to point out that I LIKE action movies. I like things that blow up and gun fights on TV. I get a kick out of the dramatics and I’ve been in the Bond fandom since Craig Bond became a thing. I have some familiarity with the genre in general, on a low scale. And again, the Marvel fandom ofc. I also like comic books, and have for years. 

None of these things are new to me.

But what is new, I think, is seeing it done differently.

I’ve noticed a HUGE difference in reviews of the Old Guard. On sites like IMDB.com. YouTube, etc, it’s..not getting the best reviews. And I know now why that is-it wasn’t MADE for the audience action movies are usually made for. And if you compare the comic for the Old Guard to the movie, it’s VERY obvious where Gina Prince-Bythewood made changes with Greg Rucka (And possibly Leandro Fernandez) to give it a better appeal over all. (Especially with giving the characters more layers, even in two hours, and making the story have more of a family and emotional value, which is a great choice and I wholly applaud her and her team. The team feels so much more lived-in in the film than in the comics, though I’ve not read through Vol 2 yet)

Compared to Tumblr, where people are raving about the movie *myself included*, and people who NEVER see themselves in a movie, let alone in a movie done WELL are flipping over themselves over it. And I am in that group entirely.

It has been an absolute delight to see people raving about this. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s so incredibly important to people who don’t ever get any GOOD representation that isn’t terribly forced, overdone, stereotyped, etc.

Is Old Guard perfect? No, is it really nice to see yourself in a movie outside of your ‘assigned genre’ (alternative films, etc)

Have I watched it six goddamned times since it came out? Yes, I have. I’m down this rabbit hole, I am living here.

Which brings me back to the original point I was making before this spawned into something entirely different. 

“How did that make you dysphoric, then, Nate?”

Because, to be perfectly blunt, I want to link this post here, by @lindstrom2020 which hammered home why, and that point is that, there is virtually 0 sexualization of the characters. There is nothing gratuitous about bodies on screen here, nothing. And we never.ever.see.that.

And no, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t eyeball people on screen. I’m not devoid of sexuality, I am entirely pansexual. But that’s not what I’m trying to say here. I think that, well..seeing bodies that are still entirely masculine, and yet not..what’s the word I want..’done up’? Made all the difference in the world. For the first time, I saw, on TV, an average body, presented in a way that makes it look good, strong and almost achievable. Almost completely NORMAL in that way.

And no, none of the actors in the movie are unattractive. Not even a little bit. They’re still really goddamned pretty. But it was JARRING to see them as pretty but fairly average appearing.

And my brain..synapsed.

As a trans dude, I’m going to straight up say it’s VERY hard to envision what your post-transition body might appear as. It will never be entirely cis-looking (if you will) the way a body that’s biologically created will be, if you will. So you’re stuck working with so much imagination, so much of it relies on looking at post-transition bodies, those done after surgery and YEARS of hormones and even then not knowing.

And for me, well I’m tall, bulky and overweight. I’m also curved, and have a massive back, broad shoulders and long tree trunk like legs. (None of this is said to be a put down on my end, btw, I’m not fishing for compliments, this is the best way I can describe it)

(None of the characters are overweight, so obviously there’s still something there too that’s left to my own imagination, but I digress)

But! There is still something REALLY fucking validating about seeing men on screen who are still attractive without dehydrated abs and veined out skin because the flesh is crying out for sustenance.

I dunno..for me, it was just..strange to see. And there’s also something really really fucking NICE about queer people in the action genre that haven’t been shoved to the back of the movie, appear for five seconds and leave so the movie can scratch of ‘representation’ on it’s proverbial audience appealing points card.

And I’m sure if I watched more movies on my watch list, and stuff that’s been recommended to me I will find more! I know they’re out there, but for the Old Guard, it’s a genre I’d actually watch, something that APPEALED to me and was easy to get into because with my ADHD-Autism, it’s hard to get invested at times. So 2 hours was a good starting point.

Especially if I had to take breaks *but I didn’t need to, it was engaging enough for my wandering head*.

Wow this is messy, I stg I meant for this to be cleaner, but, anyway.

The overall thing is that the Old Guard makes me feel things I really do not usually feel watching movies. Sure it’s still a fantasy, sure it’s still got flaws, but wow if it isn’t just..really goddamned nice to connect to something outside of the box.

It’s not perfect, nothing is.

But Old Guard has done various forms of representation RIGHT, it has done extremely valid and important things. And since I’m old enough to remember the NONSENSE when Brokeback Mountain came out and it was called ‘career ending’ for it’s actors..to see this is just..

It’s nice.

And I KNOW that this movie and series is always going to hold a special place in my heart as a result.

A lot of others have made excellent representation posts, and I wasn’t going to publish my jumbled up nonsense thoughts, but feck it.

It’s not coherent really-my thoughts never are, and it’s long and rambling, but hell, so is my brain.

Survey #290

“you’re a little pistol, & i’m fuckin’ pistol-whipped.”

What’s the biggest argument you’ve ever had with a family member? Did things ever go back to how they were beforehand? Definitely something with Mom. The biggest was probably in the car one night where she got so mad at me that she tried to kick me out of the car. No, I didn't listen. I don't really remember exactly what we were arguing about... other than it was something small that blew up about bigger themes. Have you ever experienced some kind of natural disaster? Hurricanes. If you have pets, do you feed them human food or do they just get regular pet food? If they do get human food, what’s their favorite thing to have? Roman only gets cat food. He's actually really well-trained about not taking human food after he did once as a kitten. Now he might just sniff around curiously and give it a look, but food can be pretty close to him and he doesn't go for it. Have you ever been in a physical fight? Who won? No. What were you lighting the last time you used a lighter or matches? Probably a candle. What’s the mode of transport that you take or use the most? Mom's car. Are there any sequels to things that you prefer to the original? I'm sure. Oh, Shrek comes to mind; I love the original, but the second is my favorite. What games do you play on your phone, if any at all? Just Pokemon GO, really. I have a couple others up there just for my niece and nephew to play. Aside from family, who was the last person you spent time with? How do you know that person? miss rona doesn't allow "hanging out." Do you spend a lot of money on your appearance? No. Have you ever had a zoo keeper experience or anything where you’ve been able to go behind the scenes and look after/feed the animals? I wish! :( Do you have an item that is your good luck charm? No. Your favorite thing about your job (or school)? N/A Least favorite thing about your job (or school)? N/A Do you have a "funny" toenail? No. Favorite canned soup? Meh, not a soup person. Do you have a particular coffee mug you drink from? No. Your take on declawing cats? It's cruel as fuck and you're despicable if you think it's all good and well to torture your cat like that. Do you have smoke detectors in your home? Yeah. What was your favorite snuggle toy when you were a child? First it was my little stuffed bunny that held a polka-dotted blanket, but through most of my childhood I cuddled a stuffed moose I got from Ohio at Cabela's. Brownie is still on top of my dresser. :') What did you do on your first date? Got Sonic and saw Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance in the theater. I had the weirdest first date in that he invited my mom lmao. I still count it as our first one, though. The last time you let someone go, was it to make yourself happy or them? Myself. Who was the last person that could tell something was wrong with you? My ma. Have you ever thought about online dating? If so, were you desperate? Well I had a long-distance relationship, but it wasn't through a dating app or anything. Had one of those once and am mortified by it (even though no one shoud be), but no, I wouldn't have called myself "desperate." I was just incredibly lonely. Do you try not to take a lot of medicine or do you take it whenever? I just take it if I need it, honestly. I've been medicated pretty heavily most of my life, so whatever. Are you ever scared of people reading your survey answers? I wouldn't put them out there if I was. Would you ever go back to your most recent ex? That's the plan if things go ideally, but I'm not letting my hopes get too high. It'll be nice if that happened, but I'll still live on if not. What’s your best friend’s pet’s name(s)? She has lots of pets. There's Martha, Crowley, Little Dot, Jane Marie, Doris, Buster, Mango, and for her fish, I only know the one pleco's name: Raisha. When was the last time you got a splinter? I'm not sure. Are there any spiders in your room right now? I mean, probably. Somewhere. Have you ever taken a picture while laying in the grass? Not of myself. Who’s your favorite Disney charater? Dory. Are there any framed pictures of you in your house? In family shots, yes. What was the first television show you were obsessed with? Pokemon. Do you and your friends normally say you love one another? Definitely. How often would you say you get sick? Almost never. Let's not jinx it. Is there anything you get for free as a benefit for being a member of something? No. When were you the saddest in your life? 2016 was a year I'd wish upon absofuckinglutely nobody. Do you think bald guys are attractive? It would depend on the person? I don't find them inherently unattractive or attractive. If you don’t recognize the number of who’s calling, do you answer anyway? Nope. How do you pronounce route? "Rowt" What's the last thing you looked at under a microscope? Something during a biology lab when I was still in school. We looked at a number of stuff. Pretty cool. What internet service provider do you have? ... We just moved and changed providers and I already don't remember. Do you ever hear of something disgusting that you haven’t seen, so you go and look it up? This is very rare. If something is *disgusting*, I don't exactly wanna see it. If you had to get a tattoo on your face to save your life, what would it be? I'd have to think on this. I'm not opposed to a subtle face tat anyway, maybe near my ear or eye. Has someone ever made you a Build-A-Bear? No... but I've always kinda wanted a partner to lmao that's cute as fuck. Who was the last person you were “in a relationship with” on Facebook (including anyone you may have put “in a relationship with” for a joke)? Sara. Were you ever “the other man/woman”? How did it turn out? How do you feel about it today? No, and I never would be. What do you think of open relationships? If your partner suggested it, what would you say? Not for me whatsoever, but it works for some people. I'd honestly leave the relationship because I'd feel like I wasn't good enough. Would you ever date out of your race? I have before, would do it again with no problems. Have you ever had a reptile for a pet? Oh, plenty! Did you have a swing set when you were a kid? Yes. Swings were my favorite outdoor "toy" as a kid. What is a book that you really want to read? The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. I fucking adore The Handmaid's Tale and I literally have the book, I'm just too into WoF to make time for it. What is something that you really want to try, whether it’s a hobby, food, etc.? A lot of things. I guess to name one... wow, now that I'm actually thinking, nothing is coming to me, lmao. What sort of things do you like to post or look at on Tumblr? Mark-related stuff, what a shocker. What type of people are you usually attracted to? "Different," but not in a super weird-you-out way. I like clearly unique, truly one-of-a-kind people. What song are you listening to at the moment? "Watching For Comets" by Skillet is on. I'm surprised I feel okay listening to it. How often do you take naps and how long do they usually last? Almost daily. They can be an hour or two... embarrassingly, haha. Who’s one person who changed how you viewed something? Hannah Hart on gay rights. How many pillows do you like to sleep with? Two. What was the best conversation you’ve had recently? I dunno. Have you ever considered modeling? Nooooooooooo sir. When was the last time you did something daring? ME? DARING? Who in the world knows. List five of your favorite foreign foods. Uhhhh. 1.) This requires a lot of thinking and 2.) I'm very uninformed in what is *actually* truly foreign food that I've eaten and not just an American adaptation. I'm not very adventurous with foods, either, especially when I know it's "foreign." What types of seafood are your favorite? I just like shrimp. Do you write a lot for pleasure? I wouldn't say "a lot" anymore. Do you like bacon? Oh yeah. Do you like Rammstein? Hell yeah, they're in my favorites list. Have you ever been to a State Fair? Maybe, but I don't think so. Do you like YouTube? Maaan, I don't know what I'd do without it lmao. If so what's your favorite channel? I like that Mark R. Pliers guy a little bit, and lately I've really been digging Snake Discovery and Hazelnuttygames. Good Mythical Morning/Rhett and Link are deep, deep in my heart still, even though I don't watch them anymore. There is truly a *lot*, it's why I don't need television, haha. What is your favorite small dog breed? Papillons, probably. When was the last time you went through a McDonald's Playplace? Oh yikes, no clue. I definitely haven't ~really~ been in one since I was much younger (uhhhh and smaller), but I do have a faint memory of starting to go in one chasing after a kid. Maybe my nephew when he and his dad visited? idr What was the first comic book you ever had an obsession over? I was never into comics. Do you like kids pop-up books? BITCH you are LYING if you say you don't like looking at the cool effects lmao. Have you ever ridden a camel? No. Have you ever punched somebody? No. Can you sing opera? Oh, definitely not. Who was the last person you video-called with? Have you done this more often since COVID hit? My therapist, and you could say that, considering I never did before because I hate video calls. If you have pets, when was the last time one of them annoyed you? What happened? Roman (my cat) was just playing too rough with my hand. He's always hyper in the morning. When was the last time you took a dog out for a walk? Is this your own dog or did you borrow someone else’s? Wow... it's been many years. I walked Teddy sometimes, but that definitely slowed down and eventually came to a halt as he aged and his joints got bad; he would hesitate going down the porch steps, and I didn't want him to get too tired mid-walk and then have to go up them. Have you ever been the victim of a theft or robbery? What was stolen? Did the police ever catch the person who did it? No, thankfully. Are you a fan of garlic bread? Do you eat it on its own or as part of a bigger meal? Garlic bread would ruin my life if I let it, lmao. It's always a side. When was the last time your area was under some kind of weather warning? Did it end up being as bad as predicted? There was literally a tornado warning three days ago. I don't think so, no, but then again I didn't really look into it. Do you prefer having the blinds/curtains open or closed when you’re at home? Does it depend on the weather or the time of day? OPEN. You NEED natural light, I promise. I used to like my room as dark as possible in my worst times, but I am so glad I cut that out. I like, feel a part of me lighten up when I open my blinds in the morning. Who was the last person to tag you in something on social media? How do you know that person? My mom shared something that reminded her of Roman. Have you ever eaten a Big Mac? No; I don't like lettuce in my burgers, so I'm sure I wouldn't like it. What brand is your vacuum cleaner? I'd have to check. Where was your favorite hangout as a kid? So at my childhood home, down the road was a "stream" (aka a ditch and drainage pipe going underneath the road) that usually had at least some water in it, but if it rained, it really started to feel more like a real stream to us kids because of the movement. It drained into the pond just beyond the woods, and my sisters and some neighbors loved to play around that area. What’s your favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni,ig. Which sport do you suck at the most? All of 'em lol. My hand-eye coordination is awful, and hell no can I run. Are you good at rapping? I've never tried, but I'm certain I wouldn't be. I stutter so badly, and it's been getting worse. Can you say the alphabet in more than one language? I know it in German. Do you eat three meals a day? It varies. What do you want out of life? Fulfillment. To feel like I did something worthwhile.

Ce qu'il a donné Un an, deux ans, cent ans de bonheur Puis la vie te cueille comme une fleur || GW

☾♔; March 5, 2018 ☾♔; sotd: Котик by Alexander Rybak   ☾♔; comedian otd: JOHN OLIVER   ☾♔; GW To do list ☾♔; {G} https://goo.gl/XSTtMc ☾♔; mod(s): @themadmonarchist @maybones et moi

Title: lyrics from "Requiem" by Alma

--featured not-mine oc's - Eloise Avery | @themadmonarchist - Minah Delacroix | @maybones (see what I did there with the Serena and Blair positioning? -eyebrow wriggle thing-)

- - - x - - -

Updated GW to-do list: - Division of labour (we should really start saying when one of us starts working on something because otherwise we'll end up with redundancies since we think disturbingly alike) - the "chuck" problem: okay, tbh, it's more of an Ed Westwick problem than a chuck one. I don't know how you guys have reacted to the me too and time's up movements, but mine has been to cut all those men out of my sphere of entertainment, I even cut out "witch hunt", "not all men" type dudes, and "only fondled their breasts on tv and apologized for it" men (aka Ben Affleck), because time is up for all of you! Soz, not point, but since last October, Ed Westwick has been caught up in this, and thus far 3 women have accused him of ra.pe and a fourth of sexual misconduct. Now, I know it's not Chuck's fault that his portrayer is a ra.pist (allegedly), but there is still an issue with including his face, etc in aesthetics and gossip girl material because his face is that of a ra.pist's (allegedly). Tbh, I wanna leave him (Ed Westwick) out of material and only discuss Chuck and avoid showing his face or use a dreamcast instead, but like, I dunno what you guys wanna do. Chuck is a great character, although, early on, he was quite rap.ey, the character, and it does not help that his portrayer has since been revealed to be a ra.pist. Allegedly.

- also, going back up to the redundancy issues, I love both of your aesthetic collections and playlists, so for those, I was thinking for playlist, we should make one big playlist on spotify that's collaborative, so that everyone can add their music and it'll kind of be a huge explosion of musical tastes. But also, maybe have a collection that has a link on the group info for individual playlists for characters, and the group made by us and/or others. For aesthetic collections, basically the same idea with one big collaborative collection, and then that collection will have links to other collections (yes, I'm a little ocd).

- also, also, this is completely unrelated, but I was watching trevor noah's show and he made a joke about how much trump's male employees snitch and gossip like sht, but the woman haven't revealed squat. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpmlVWFTW8A) It's really funny, and honestly, stupid people fcking up in trump's circle very publically is basically what's keeping me alive. It's just hilarious how stupid some of these people are. ___________________________ Another Update (I'll leave those up until @maybones weighs in on them)

I was working on a draft of the group description to show you guys, and I was using a template of one of my old groups and rewriting stuff and changing it to suit our purposes and I realized how many freaking rules I have (I'm so picky), anyway, some of this stuff obvs won't be applicable (like, there's one about characters dying and I don't think we were planning on going that dark. although, serena was an accessory and chuck kind of killed his dad, so meh, maybe?) anyway, I wanted your opinions on what rules to keep and/or change:

✠ RULES AND GUIDELINES {GENERAL} ✠

I. Please be kind to each other. Your characters can be total jerks, but let us, the creators and/or writers be kind, polite, and respectful (aka, channel your inner Canadian guys). There will be absolutely ZERO tolerance of discrimination. You will be immediately removed from the group, and your actions will be documented and reported. PM me immediately if someone harasses you or you notice harassment between members. ⠀⠀Ia. If you want to be anonymous, for any reason, you can send in your complaints here {https://goo.gl/kbTXeU}, it's a google form, and it doesn't ask you verify your email, and the username option, is just an option, it's not required. If I need to make further contact/information from you regarding your concern, I'll make a group announcement vaguely describing your issue, and you can send in further information anonymously again. I'll be checking the form at least once a week.  

⠀II. I'm not giving this any specific rating, however, I will say, you're free to include whatever "adult" content you want, whether it be swears, gore, or the dirty stuff (I'm totally a mature, grown up adult guys). However, do be careful of polyvore's stupid censors, use workarounds like writing your story in google docs, or accents for swear words.  

⠀III. This is a non-elimination group,  but characters can die. It may be used for inactive members, or if you wanna kill 'em off or maybe revive as a ghost or something else. Permission will always be asked of the creator first (with the exception of characters belonging to inactive members, whose characters may be killed off as penalty).  

⠀IV. If you miss 3 consecutive contests (without informing me), you'll receive an "x", "|" will be used to break up non-consecutively missed contests, anyway, if you miss 3 in a row, that will open your character to be killed by either myself or other group members. You will be notified, but your permission will not be asked. If you wish to rejoin at a later date, and you character has not been killed off, simply pm me and continue with whatever contest is in progress. If your character has been killed off, you can re-audition with a new one, and I will transfer your points to your new character.

⠀V. Always pm me, your vodka aunt mod, if you feel you'll be unable to enter a contest, your reason doesn't matter. Just let me know you can't get your entry in, that way you won't receive an "X".

⠀VI. Plotting will be left open throughout the group, however, please establish a few of these before contests begin, and always ask permission when using someone else's character(s) and be sure to tag them in your sets. Please, PLEASE work with others, I hate when people just do their own thing in oc battle groups, this is a collaborative story, everyone's stories and ideas matter. I will call you out if I notice something that contradicts the connected story, and I will always, ALWAYS incorporate the stories of group members into the overall narrative. ⠀⠀VIa. Narrative precedence will always be given to the person who completely finishes the description of their set first.

⠀VII. There is not a list of roles to pick from, you can create whatever roles you want, however, I may ask you to change it if I feel your character may become "villager number 6" and not fit in with the action. Rules, regulations, and suggestions for roles can be found here: [placeholder].

⠀VIII. Always be sure to tag the member's when you use their characters and give credit where credit is due.

⠀IX. Plagiarism will not be tolerated and you will be removed and reported. If you're inspired by someone else's work, credit them, otherwise you're stealing.

⠀X. Sets unrelated to the group will be removed.

⠀XI. You will NOT be required to write out a full story. Story portions can be answered in paragraphs, but full stories are always welcome and appreciated.  

⠀XII. Do not use templates for contest entries unless otherwise stated.

⠀XIII. Always feel free to contact me with any and all questions, and/or suggestions. You can also send them through the anonymous complaints form, found here: https://goo.gl/kbTXeU

_________________________________

✠ RULES AND REGULATIONS {FACECLAIMS} ✠

I'm quite picky about these, but I'm not gonna be pedantic about it this time. You do you. Having said that, there are still some rules and regulations, as well as a challenge.

⠀I. All faceclaims must be above the age of majority (that's 18+ nearly universally on the planet), there is an exception for child characters but all main OCs must be at least 18.

⠀II. All faceclaims MUST be professionals. They can be actors, models, even singers. However, they must be singers of some note signed onto a label company, like Taylor Swift, or my beloved Dima Bilan (who's also an actor. a good one. yes, I'm bragging). Your faceclaim CANNOT be someone insta-famous, youtubers, or tumblr tweens.

⠀III. Whilst I'm not going to reject any faceclaim on the pedantic basis of "I don't like them", there are some faceclaims that I will and for one reason, and one reason only. Sexual misconduct of any and all kinds. Hollywood and the media are finally cleaning house, and I don't want those dicks in my nerd sht either. To be clear, I don't care whether the misconduct was simply groping a woman's breasts on camera and apologizing about 10 years later, I am going to reject everyone who's been accused. Examples include; Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Ed Westwick, Jeffrey Tambor, Danny Masterson, Andy Dick, Dustin Hoffman, and fcking Mel Gibson. (Side note, these are just actors, for a wider list of men who have fallen since the Harvey Weinstein story broke in October 2017, I recommend you check out this article {https://goo.gl/Uq65Qv} by the NY Times) ⠀⠀IIIa. If you notice I have accepted someone who has been accused of sexual misconduct/harassment/assault please inform me right away, and ideally with a link to a news source from where you learned about (I will google it myself, but the ready-to-go link would be much appreciated.) ⠀⠀IIIb. Also, Alec Baldwin is on my list of rejected faceclaims. He's not been accused of anything, yet, but I'm not liking his defensive attitude of alleged rapists. Fúck off. Matt Damon also falls under subsection B, for a slightly different reason, but fúck him too. In this watershed moment, I have no time for defensive d i c k s and "not all men" a s s h o l e s.

⠀IV. The Challenge: a lot of us have certain fave fc's we use over and over again (I'm certainly guilty of that), so my challenge is for you to use a faceclaim you have never used before as your primary oc. This is gonna be based on the honour system, some of you guys I may know well, so I'll know if you're using your fave again, but others I may not, and I can't aggressively stalk everyone, so I won't call out anyone for not doing it. It's just a fun little challenge, worth 10 bonus points, if you opt to do it. But again, it's based on the honour system, I'm not gonna stalk anyone, but if I know you and you lie to me on the audition form. First, I'll be hurt, and second, I'll say sorry and tell you you're not getting those bonus points.

(I know, two sets of rules makes me such a di.ck, it's why I need your help guys!)

Press Start letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3

It’s a long list of character combos so the specific requests aren’t overly detailed, please draw at will from my general likes and general fandom likes in addition or as an alternative to any of those!

All requests are art or fic - for art, the stuff I like is the kind that depicts the characters doing something. I’ll always be happier with a very simple drawing of two characters walking together or sharing a cup of coffee than with an ambitious composition that looks like an Avengers poster. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s).

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships)

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay), canon retellings, consent issues

Dark Souls

I’m only familiar with the first game+DLC! It’s probably relevant to mention that I think that linking the fire is kind of a dumbass move and Gwyn is an ass, but on the other hand Kaathe has his own agenda and there’s no winning move in this world, or at least no obvious one. Feel free to deviate from anyone’s canon endings, to make things happen that’ll stave off their hollowing. I am interested in any of these people meeting and possibly striking up a friendship, and also in exploring Lordran’s temporal/dimensional fuckery, where it’s possible to meet people who have been gone for ages…

Group: Solaire of Astora & Siegmeyer of Catarina: so much fanart of Sun Bro & Onion Bro being bros, so little fic. And yet, the potential! How’d they bounce off each other, what about the fact that Siegmeyer is apparently a proper Catarina knight after all while Solaire just painted his self-made insignia and left, what would Sieg think of Solaire’s quest?

Group: Alvina the Cat & Sieglinde of Catarina: dunno, kitty. I love them both and I want everyone cool to go on adventure with each other. What’s left for Alvina now that Sif is gone, Artorias’ grave desecrated? For her part, did Sieglinde, you know, (mimics Ash Lake)?

Ghost Trick

I am very interested in various characters finding about the erased timeline, but not getting their memories back, and having to live with being told about what they did but never remembering it. Exploring the ghost lore is great. All what-ifs welcome (what if they managed an acceptable happy ending but didn’t reset the timeline, what if a different party went back to the past and kept their memories, what if Alma’s ghost stuck around…) Also open to AUs here, especially for generic fantasy or sci-fi settings or the Final Fantasy ones I prompted last Yuletide.

For the non-canon sides of Jowd/Alma/Cabanela, please no infidelity? I’d be good with either setting the fic during the game timeline or some what-if thereof when the other spouse is dead or unavailable, or simply keeping them offscreen and not mentioning them (eg Alma/Cabanela beach day, Jowd/Cabanela precinct shenanigans)

For Jowd in general, I do love my big boy and enjoy milking that size difference for all it’s worth. In gen contexts too, it’s neat. him big.

Group: Jowd & Yomiel: I’d love to read about the intimate understanding that comes from their shared memories and the horrors they’ve mutually forgiven (and a penchant for morbidity they’ve gained from such horrors probably). Cat dads things welcome.

Group: Alma/Jowd/Cabanela: maybe once Alma and Jowd have figured out he’s smitten and that they do in fact reciprocate... they tease him to death, slowly and deliberately? Is it even a Jowd romance if there’s not an exhausting amount of teasing involved, I ask?

Group: Alma/Jowd & Cabanela: Cabs’ life is wild; his best friends’ home is a safe haven...

Group: Emma & Pigeon Man: Emma’s unsuspected beta reader...

Group: Alma/Cabanela: (taps mic) legs. And fashion!

Group: Cabanela/Jowd: a recent tumblr post made a convincing argument for Cabs liking to be in charge (the argument is just pointing at Cabanela, honestly). Jowd is... agreeable, by his own admission. But is it that simple?

Kentucky Route Zero

I love the ending and I’d love to see its themes and setting explored. I’m all for exploration of any of the game’s themes and for including any staples from adjacent genres - wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I love AUs so that’s an option too. Or of course there’s Xanadu at the height of its glory, an infinite what-ifs generator. Were the requested characters part of it, what were their digital counterparts up to? A Xanadu narrative would be great! I’d also love to hear about any new spot along the Zero or the Echo river, or an expansion of some place that’s only mentioned by Will in HATATE or only gets a few paragraphs of text. Mostly, I just love all these characters so much and I’m going through the tagset’s options like a hyperactive cat. Any fragment of their lives will make me happy.

Group: Shannon Márquez & Conway & Conway's Dog: does Shannon get to see them after the ending? Even for a moment?

Group: Lula Chamberlain/Joseph Wheattree/Donald: so Lula went back to Mexico. Joseph is pensive. Did the events of the night shake up Donald, or what will it take?

Group: Junebug & Lula Chamberlain: artists! Outspoken... artists... with a complicated personality. Put them in the same room and...?

Group: Junebug & Johnny: where’s the strangest place they played in, and what did Johnny find there?

Group: Conway & Johnny & Junebug (Kentucky Route Zero): their story is about finding individuality, his is about succumbing and losing it. Would any of them pick up on this mid-Act IV? Or just... talking about limbs and stuff?

Group: Cate & Will & Shannon Márquez (Kentucky Route Zero): a few months later, Shannon finds herself on the Mucky Mammoth again...

Group: Carrington & Weaver Márquez & Shannon Márquez (Kentucky Route Zero): maybe the cousins were trying to bond or reminisce or whatever and Carrington dive-bombed into the conversation, but in the end it was an enriching experience... of sorts?

Group: Carrington & Lula Chamberlain (Kentucky Route Zero): I don’t usually look for college shenanigans but this may be the exception? Or Art Opinions?

Group: Carrington & Clara (Kentucky Route Zero): would she even... get a word in? Maybe with the right topic?

Group: Carrington & Cate & Will (Kentucky Route Zero): Mammoth life! ...what does theater have to say about mushrooms again?

Group: Shannon Marquez & Weaver Marquez (Kentucky Route Zero): at the end of it all, Weaver was waiting. After this end, they can stand side by side again...

Group: Emily & Ben & Bob (Kentucky Route Zero): so what does it mean, like, poetically, that they were temporally displaced and Act I is in their future from Act V? Is it possible they were not aware of it?

Mutazione

The island, the sense of community, newcomers joining the community, gardens and music... I love the mood of this little game. Got ideas for some part of the island we haven’t seen? What stories do they tell each other about Moon Dragon and the first days of the new life it brought? The plants encyclopaedia was great - do Yoké’s archives hide some other cool tome? Please, if Graubert is mentioned, I would much prefer a sympathetic portrayal - he’s got his issues but I felt that the game was much harder on him than anyone else.

Group: Yoké & Karoo: I love the friendship between Yoké and Nonno and filtering it through Karoo feels even cooler to me. When did the big spooky bird first visit, did Yoké know or perceive what was going on?

Group: Yoké & Claire: book club book club book club!

Group: Spike/Claire: they’re so cute! Dinner at Mori’s? Swimming together?

Group: Nonno & Spike: I love Nonno’s role in the community and Spike’s role in the community, and they’re the two people who landed there and decided to stay. Could they bond over this?

Group: Dennis & Nonno: Important Tree Health Business!

Group: Bopek & Jell-A: Jell-A is the absolute coolest and Bopek grew on me a lot. Their friendship is adorable! What could they do together? As a side note, Jell-A’s place has the tightest interior decor in the whole game. How’d that happen, and does Bopek get a flair for vintage shapes and volumes in his weaving?

Group: Mori & Nonno & Yoké: FRIENDS. Friends for a long time, through so much pain. An evening together while The Youths (tm) are at Spike’s bar?

Yoké: catch-all Yoké request because he’s my fave! Doing Yoké things, being a big nerd, caring for books and plants and stuff

Pyre

The burning found family feelings, the revolutionary passion, the tension between topside social constraints and the kind of freedom allowed by the Downside! Thoughts about finding oneself at  the end of an age, as everything crumbles down to form something new. I love all the themes, the solemnity, the heart of this game. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure. Out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. My main interest usually lies in post-canon exploration when applicable, but I’m also into various adventures during canon. Pick a location or a place outside the map and see what happens? As for the ending variables, I’d ask for a peaceful revolution and Oralech alive, but no preferences for who’s up and who’s down, pick whatever works best for any given plot bunny.

Group: Tariq & Soliam: what were Tariq and Celeste like in their earliest days? Were they made or summoned from some sort of preexisting star consciousness? They’re wildly different scenarios! I’m good with either. Does Soliam then see Tariq as a child of sorts, someone he made, or something greater than himself? Did he mean to do that, to have these two immortals around? What does Tariq learn from the First Scribe?

Group: Tariq & Dalbert Oldheart: Any excuse for Tariq to hang out with the Fates for a little while, and treasure and be treasured by dear Dalbert...

Group: Oralech & Vagabond Girl: after all is said and done, Oralech’s view of the Scribes is probably... understandably... dire. So of course I want to see him talk it out with ae!

Group: Celeste & Ignarius: look, listen, if the various triumvirates just camped out near their respective Scribe’s place during the Nightwings’ years-long absence (not the only possible explanation for how you find them all neatly lined up before the first lib rite, but an explanation nonetheless, I think. just let me have my crack), that means Iggy was Celeste’s neighbor for a long time. Neighborly hijinks please?

Group: Bertrude/Pamitha: Pam returning from her travels, again and again, and finding a home in Bertrude’s lab, finding an understanding there... Bertrude’s attitude being thorny in a way that’s just what Pam needs to allow herself to open up... also: snake kisses.

Group: Volfred Sandalwood/Oralech: waking up and remembering that the mourning that’s set deep in your roots is for someone who never died, waking up and remembering that the bitterness that consumed you had made up a betrayal that never was, finding each other through these crumbling walls... 

Molten Milithe: that’s the pov for a love letter to the Downside, right? And/or which Scribe did she bond with the most? Or the least for that matter?

Volfred Sandalwood: catch-all Volf’n’anyone request. I want to see our tree interact with any friend and foe you might fancy! Arguing for his beliefs, being a history professor through and through, finding himself in a tight spot and getting unexpected help, verbally tearing Brighton a new one if they ever cross each other’s path again...

group: Volfred Sandalwood/Tariq | The Lone Minstrel: Volfred’s zodiac sign is Cancer and Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so there’s that.    I love how they both hold the other in the highest esteem, especially on Tariq’s part since he’s the immortal Herald of the Scribes and Volfred is, all in all, a history teacher, but listen to him and you’d think the roles were inverted. I love my nonviolent canon but could anything happen to either of them that may require a rescue, and/or some good old-fashioned h/c? What’s something that could make Tariq of all people lose it? How’s life 100 years on?

Shenmue

This game cares for the little things. I’d love to see fanworks that try to out-slice-of-life canon...

Group: Qiu Hsu & Xianzi Bei: cormorant kung fu adventure! Do they hang out sometimes?

Group: Hazuki Ryo & Shenhua Ling: any moment, discussion, small adventure from their travels together! I love their bond! For all its waifufication of Shenhua, S3 really sold me on their friendship and a shared brand of dorkiness. Alternatively, sometimes I remember that they’d be 50ish in the present day - how and where do you picture them?

The Silver Case

I‘m all for the surrealism, big things being introduced and never picked up again, Rashomon’ing it up with six explanations for the same thing where no single one can be true, people dying and then popping up again like nbd...  maybe the thing I like the most is characters transcending their humanity and looming over the dystopian world like ominous avatars. Correctness’ first ending had me swooning, that kind of mood is unparalleled. I have played TSC, FSR and 25W so far and have vague memories of K7. I’m aware of the “everything’s connected” readings but that’s not my main interest in these games. For FSR-focused requests, I see Lospass as a real island but also a metaphysical  place of transformation first and foremost, where strange things happen that don’t make sense elsewhere.

Group: Toriko Kusabi & Remy Fawzil: What’s Toriko up to when she’s not chasing Chris? I think it could be fun to throw her at Remy and see the island from their point of view!

Group: Tokio Morishima & Edo Macalister: since Tokio stayed at the Flower Sun and Rain... I’m interested in peculiar happenings on Lospass that are not centered on Sumio...

Group: Tetsugorou Kusabi/Sumio Kodai: Tetsu picked one hell of a crush, huh! What’s it like in the aftermath of the games, when Sumio is Like That? How does Tetsu grapple with Parade? Is Tetsu an anchor of sorts for Correctness Sumio, who seems (at best) to be existing on a slightly different plane of existence at any given time and could disappear if you blink too hard?

Group: Tetsugorou Kusabi & Shinko Kuroyanagi: I’m joining the “let these two be foulmouthed friends” masses - who’d be more fed up with the other’s nonsense, and in which ways would they be an unstoppable team?

Group: Shinkai Tsuki & Tetsugorou Kusabi: Both of them end their stories in the shadows one way or another, and defending their protégé may have had a hand in their misfortune one way or another. What kind of understanding could they reach? What IS Tsuki up to anyway?

Group: Christina & Catherine: anthro Catherine, as per the Placebo bonus chapter Yami, was unexpectedly charming. What was Chris before reaching Lospass, and did he also have a chat with her on the plane or on the island?

Fanfic Author Meme

Tagged by @diligent-thunder and @rockmarina​ =)

Okay, so I’m me, and I talked way too much, so I’m putting this under a cut to save your dashes. You’re welcome 😘

Please do not reblog this post.

Author Name: 

Fleetofshippyships + Knowyourincantations + Legendaryroar

Fandoms You Write For: 

(in order of decreasing # of fics) Harry Potter, Voltron, Merlin, Yuri on Ice, Star Trek, Star Wars and then a few one-offs that aren’t really worth mentioning.

Where You Post: 

AO3 primarily, Tumblr, trying to post more on Pillowfort, I also post on a couple of sites for knowyourincantations

Most Popular One-Shot: 

Fleetofshippyships: Potter’s Insatiable Cock (Drarry, Explicit (duh XD), 20k (viewable only for logged-in AO3 users)).

Knowyourincantations: A Decent Start to Things (Pansmione, Teen, 7k)

Legendaryroar: Finding Time for Rest (Sheith (Voltron), Teen, 3k)

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: 

RestraintNone of my old multi-chapter fics are available to read at this time and I don’t really write multi-chapter fics anymore.

If oneshot/drabble collections or two-shots count, then:

Fleetofshippyships: Vanilla and Sweet Spices (Drarry, Explicit, 2 chapters, 20k)

and this really doesn’t count, but technically it has multiple ‘chapters’ soooooooooo

Legendaryroar: Kinktober 2018 (Multiple ships (Voltron), Explicit (duh), 31 ‘chapters’, 26k)

Favourite Story You Wrote: 

I don’t think I ever have a static favourite, I’ve just written too many things, I too quickly move on to the next (and frequently forget some of my own fics exist XD), but recently I re-read In Pursuit of Red Wine (Dreville, Teen, 29k) and really enjoyed that again, and I am really attached to it cos it was my first longish rarepair fic, kind of proving to myself that I can write longer rarepair stuff. 

I also recently re-read Unburdened (Merthur (BBC Merlin), Explicit, 2k) and really enjoyed that too, had a total disconnect from having written it since it’s been so long, so I was able to read it without self-judging, and oh boy that was nice. 

I’m also quite proud of Healing What’s Left (Parkgrass, Teen, 2k) for some reason, I dunno, maybe the dark political backdrop of the fic, or maybe just cos it’s the first time I’ve written Daphne as the main character and I’m happy with the result and now have some headcanons about her rather than her being an unknown blank character to me. 

I also binge read a lot of my Voltron stuff recently and had big feels over that so....I also specifically enjoyed re-reading The Perks of Skincare (Klance (Voltron), Explicit, 3k) again cos I dunno, I like how I wrote Lance XD and also the Sheith fic I linked earlier is a fav for sure. Shiro/Rest is the ultimate OTP.

It really depends how soon after I write something or when I go back to re-read it as to what my fav is at any given time (or people commenting on it and hyping me up for it again).

Story You Were Nervous to Post: 

Everything. But most recently I was terrified out of my mind before posting: 

Friday Night by the Fire (Harry/Neville, Teen, 583 words) because I have a lot of fears about screwing up trying to write ace characters and somehow not even making that a focal point of the drabble made it even more terrifying,  No More Waiting (TianShan (19 Days), Teen, 2k) because it was a new fandom to write in, Harry Potter and the Maudlin Merman series (Drarry, Teen+ Mature, 3k +6k) due to my feelings of inadequacy because it would be better as long fic but I struggle too much with writing these days to write long fics and can only manage short things. I’d rather write this as a long fic, but then I’d never finish it so connected oneshots are the best I can do right now, but I still feel it’s not good enough and have a meltdown whenever I post one. And speaking of which, I’ve been sitting on the next one for months and should probably just fucking post it already.

Actually, most recently: Minding One’s Limits (Cho/Ginny, G rated, 1.5k), because I gave Cho a disability modeled off my fibromyalgia and wrote a scenario similar to something I’d dealt with myself, it was incredibly uncomfortable to write in the first place, and then terrifying to post, even though it’s so short. But in the end I’m proud I finally wrote about it a bit? I dunno, might take me a while to work up the nerve again though XD (also was my first time writing that ship, so there was a lot of nervousness over that too)

Oh, and I was a super ball of anxiety posting  Kinktober 2018 (Multiple ships, Explicit, 31 ‘chapters’, 26k) because for almost all of those it was the first time I was writing those kinks (and some were kind of squicks for me but I wanted to see if I could write them anyway cos I’m dumb like that) and in a lot of cases those ships were completely new for me to write too, in addition to trying to write and post 1 a day, so...yeah. Also that was my first time writing tentacle and human/werewolf smut so...yeah. I was an absolute mess that month and not in a fun way. But I’m still really glad I did it, it was fun =D

In summary, I’m always an anxious mess posting anything, but most especially if it’s something I’ve not written before or is personal to me XD

How Do You Choose Your Titles: 

Most of the time I’m staring down the empty title field in AO3 cursing like a fucking sailor when I choose titles XD Sometimes it’s a line/theme/feeling from the fic. Sometimes it’s totally random and just comes to me. Sometimes I just grasp the first thing that I can no matter how stupid it sounds cos it’s been three days and I still don’t have a title and I’m over it and ready to post before I lose my nerve.

And tbh, it’s only getting harder to think of titles as my number of fics increases, and I’ve now started thinking of the perfect titles only to realise I already have a published fic by that title so....TITLES CAN DIE A FIERY DEATH

Sometimes, not so much anymore, it would turn out that I would give a wip doc a name just so I’d know what it was, sometimes as a joke with whoever was reading it and cheerleading while I wrote it, and then I would refer to it by that and think of it as that so much that when it came time to actually give the fic a title, it was too late and I could not think past that stupid file name, and that’s how Potter’s Insatiable Cock happened, and how I very nearly called a Merthur fic Arthur’s Wanking Tower (saved that one at the last moment thank god cos the tone of that fic is actually really serious and emotional and wtf was I even thinking with that file name and actually I linked to that fic above XD it ended up being called Unburdened). 

Potter’s Insatiable Cock slipped through cos it’s actually relevant to the fic content and I could live with it.

But needless to say, I don’t give my wip docs joke names anymore XD

Do You Outline: 

Only if I never want to actually write the idea...once I outline, it’s over. I can’t write to a detailed plan. It stifles me. I’ll always get stuck having to try and think ahead to the plan, and then I lose the flow and nothing works because I’m a pantser/intuitive/instinctive writer not a planner. Sometimes I jot down ideas but in like, the vaguest of ways, usually more focused on emotional development than actual scenes or events or anything because then I won’t be able to write it (and I rarely stick to those vague ideas anyway). 

I can really only write when I’m staring down a blank doc with no idea where it’s going and discover it as I go (which is why writing is so fun for me). I can only finish a fic if I don’t think too hard about what’s going to happen next and just let it happen as I write. 

This of course means that editing is a fucking bitch when I finish anything, beginnings often get totally re-written, but if I plan, it just doesn't happen at all, so I’ll take the extra editing if it means I manage to write something.

I do have a lot of detailed plotty fic idea outlines...and I mourn them cos I’m never going to write them now, but they’re so goooooooooood XD

Complete: 

Online (across all 3 accounts): 381 (incl. my hidden drarry fics as they are technically online just hidden, not incl. individual oneshots/drabbles in collection ‘fics’, of which there are ridiculously many). Offline: 20 (I have the worst habit of just sitting on completed fics and I really need to stop)

In-Progress: 

Too many to name, last time I counted it was ~60 but that wasn’t even including my vld wips so...I don’t actually know. I hoard wips and just switch up what I work on all the time depending on mood/interest levels/effort required. 

Current main focuses are a 50k+ plotty Drarry (*fingerscrossed* cos this is my first time seriously attempting something long (will probably reach 80k at least) in a very long time and I put it down for a few months and thought that was it but then I picked it up again recently, yay!), and re-writing some hidden fics I can’t put them back up in the quality they’re in, I just can’t guys, they’re awful.

I’ve been thinking a lot about working on the longish 8th year Pansmione fic I started for the wlw big bang before I had to pull out of cos stupid life stuff. I might pick that up again for a bit too, couldn’t be more different from the Drarry one so it’d make a nice focus break =)

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: 

I don’t even plan fics I’m writing, I sure don’t plan ahead to stuff I haven’t even started XD The only think I can think of for this category would be me re-writing my hidden long Drarry fics.

Oh, and there will be a Merthur oneshot coming (hopefully) soon, because @april-thelightfury115​ won my custom fic giveaway with a merthur idea. Just waiting for my brain to cooperate so I can start that and not suck XD but I’m so fucking excited to write some Merthur again, you have no idea.

Oh, and lots more Sapphic September drabbles coming too, I’m way behind and only just posted day 11 cos this month is literal hell for me, but I am still planning on finishing the prompt list, no matter how long it takes, but no plan for those, not even which ships, I just sit down with the next prompt and a blank doc and see what happens.

Do You Accept Prompts: 

Yes, I love writing to prompts, I’m take them via google form here, but I’m in such a bad space with my health I’ve been really struggling with writing lately, managed to do a bit of editing (fuck knows how), but writing new stuff is so hard, so there’s a long wait while I wait for my fibro fog to ease off to the point I can write new stuff with more regularity (and less stupid errors I have to edit out later).

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: 

Again, I so don’t plan. But I really want to be making more progress on the long plotty drarry wip I’m trying to write. I’m still not sure I’ll have the guts to post it even if I do finish it, given its subject matter (it would make a great careers or consent fest fic tbh), but damn I’m really excited by it. Not sure I can maintain it being plotty and not revert to focusing on the relationship (which is easier for me), but I can only try and see what happens. (trying to write a non-relationship plot without planning is a nightmare but I don’t have a choice if I want to write it at all XD)

I’m also now excited for my longish pansmione wip too actually, just because it’s already longer than my Dreville long-ish fic and it’s exciting and scary to do longer rarepair stuff. I’m way out of my comfort zone with the fic itself, but I dunno, I re-read some recently and fell in love with it all over again, like, flustered lesbian-awakening, disaster for Pansy (but sure she still hates her) Hermione? YES PLEASE! and also, I am guilty of not writing female characters as much as I should because, well, canonically, they don’t have much depth and I’m very meh about them, but in this there’s a huge focus on them because they’re all determined to band together for 8th year and Hermione is making friends with them (Parvati is like, dragging her along all the time XD) where she once dismissed them so it’s scary but exciting =D I’m getting more practice with all the sapphic I do over on knowyourincantations, so I feel more confident working on this wip now =D

I’m also kind of excited about re-writing my old long fics, because they’re all 3 years old now, and my writing tastes (and skill, yikes) have totally changed, so it’s like I’m writing the story again but how I would write it now while maintaining the overall same plot, so it’s really interesting, like discovering the story all over again. Like in one (Making Malfoy Blush) I’ve gone as far as introducing a new side character to replace another’s parts because I no longer feel those parts are in character for them. It’s super terrifying, but it’s fun at the same time =) it’ll take me forever to do these though, so I dunno about ‘upcoming’ really, I only chip away every now and then when I’m unable to write new stuff but am still coherent enough to do something.

Eh, it is what it is, I can’t write like I used to, hence me being inactive more than active these days, but I’m trying to work within my new limitations instead of getting frustrated with them and just giving up entirely =)

---

Now, who to tag....I think anyone I would tag has already done it, and if not..I blame the fog if I’m forgetting someone obvious, if you wanna do it just say I tagged you so I can be nosy and take a look =)

Again, please do not reblog this post

Yugioh Ep 24 S3: Blimp’s Ultimate Form

So, I realized as I sat down to the blog today that I’ve been doing this for like...a year and half now? I think? So I figured...how many of these have I MADE? Cuz I thought...I MUST be getting close to the 100th recap pretty soon, and guys, the answer was shocking.

This is, in fact, the 121st recap (including Season 0). That is a LOT of content. I don’t think I have that many pages for my own webcomic (which basically only tells you how long and physically exhausting the drawing process is more than anything else). Along the way I realized I was a.) really bad at numbering episodes, and b.) reaaaaally bad at spelling Kaiba at the start of this series, really cringey how I used to spell everyone’s name, I can’t really look back there.

Anyway, in case you are curious, the 100th episode was the “Pharaoh turns Karibo into a rainbow for some reason” episode. So, unfortunately it wasn’t that extraordinary. I forgot to write down which episode was 69, which is a colossal failure on my part.

So that being said, this is the last episode of this arc! Honestly, this arc could’ve been a lot shorter because at this point the only resolution left is for Noah to be a decent person once in his life and for Kaiba Sr. to die (which he’s already done, so...mission already accomplished)

Noah recently came on the PA system to inform us that he accidentally decided to kill everyone (congrats, recently reformed Noah), and so he’s going to do the decent thing and let them know where the exit is without actually doing a damn thing to make a portal to get them to said exit.

Guess where the exit is?

I don’t know why the hell this show keeps going back to the local Dave and Busters where Tea got attacked on a dance machine.

At this moment, Gozaburo decided to turn into some sort of giant red ghost devil.

Yes. Exactly what it sounds like.

Apparently this was a thing he could just do this entire arc.

(read more after the cut)

The fact that Seto’s Dad can just morph into a giant red demon is like...not even a problem for anyone on this cast. He literally goes back to his side of the field and goes right back to playing cards. Cuz youknow. Cards.

It’s basically a "Anyone with a millennium item can shoot lasers but never actually does” but demon format. Gozaburo *could* turn into the hulk but like...why?

Meanwhile the rest of the cast are playing cards against the card monsters, that are really just 3D models that Gozaburo had on file. He could have used...literally anything to throw at these people and he went with cards. He could have just dropped a boat on them but...I dunno, maybe he didn’t know where the boat folder was.

Yugi trying really hard to not acknowledge the annoying as hell Joey face and give it any more attention than it already has.

Tea and Serenity scramble to the exit largely unscathed, dragging Tristan with them because he is too small to hold a card hologram and is too monkey to be at all useful back on the front lines.

And they just wake up. Just like that. Just like they woke up from a simple nap or something.

And voila, Tristan is no longer a monkey, his brain is back to normal, the writers were like “we really have to focus on Noah right now, please forgive us if we just pretend line all that brain damage Tristan went through, his brain being 5 DIFFERENT PEOPLE at the same time, having his brainwaves turned into an actual monkey, and then back again within the space of a few hours- just pretend he’s fine now. 

It’s fine. Tristan’s fine.

Tristan wasn’t really...all that bright to begin with so...he’s fine.

And so, as our B team is getting back into the real world, Noah sees this little post-it note on the side of his computer that says “PS, Yugi is a main character and must be present for the finale although he will serve little purpose there” and so Noah pressed that intercom mic button to say:

And it’s at this point that Noah says “I’ll just make you a portal and warp you right there” and then I guess everyone standing around Noah kind of looked at eachother and was like “NOW you do that? NOW? AFTER the chase through the monster copy-paste factory?”

The show is desperately trying to convince me that Noah is now fully a good brother but ehhhhh he’s not. Like, I’ll be honest, they give him the best send off they could have possibly given to such an irredeemably evil character. Like, Seto himself is such a bag of pistachios that you really have to stretch Noah pretty far into evil territory to make Seto look like the good guy in comparison, and it sort of made me not really buy this whole Noah redemption arc.

It’s more like a prequel to a redemption arc that apparently won’t even happen in this series of Yugioh. He comes back at some point, and I only know that because I had to do a google image search of this kid for some reason and it was like ah, yeah, this is definitely a screen cap of a later, glossier looking Yugioh. But, for now, I’d say that Noah’s arc isn’t so much about him coming closer to his family or turning towards the ‘light’, as Pharaoh put it last episode. It’s more about Noah finally letting go of his Father, which should have been the arc of Seto Kaiba.

Instead, Seto did absolutely nothing to let go of his Dad, to the point that Seto is now fighting a computer that just kind of looks like his Dad during a missile strike aimed at Seto’s own face, and Seto did not stop till he won, because of his own damn pride.

Like I think I mentioned this in the last recap, but if they wanted to have Seto show any changes in this arc (which he hasn’t done) then he should have walked away. Instead, he’s very clearly still using his past trauma to fuel the obsessive reasons why he’s playing cards in the present.

Oh, and PS, Yugi’s here, I don’t know why he is, but it does make for some good scenery shots for the commercials so you know, why not.

Gozaburo decides it’s about time to turn into a 50 ft rage monster, and he pushes them to a ledge. Ah, dangerous ledge trope, it’s been a while.

And, finally, as was hinted basically since S1, Yugi gets Seto to jump directly off a ledge of a very tall structure. It finally happened.

Don’t think about it.

And into a portal? That gets them to the exit? Like y’all...this is a kid’s show and all so I shouldn’t question any very convenient plot devices but like...what?

Anyways, they’re fine now, don’t worry about it.

And so, now for a brother pow-wow between Mokuba, who is either still very, very much in Stockholm Syndrome Territory or maybe just doesn’t know that Noah dropped a rocket on his face while Moki was AFK.

And so Noah walks off into the fog cloud because he is the only person on this entire show who would rather die than share a brain (and you know Moki would’ve been down. Moki/Noah as the next Yugi/Pharaoh could’ve been a great thing but youknow, also very much way too complicated for this already complicated show).

It was very melodramatic.

And TBH, I will miss Noah a little bit, he had a fun, insane sort of snobby sass, but I can understand why they might not want to keep even more villains around on this show that is already like...dozens of villains, just so many villains.

Anyway, remember that they woke up in a lab and not in a blimp, so they still have to like...get off this damn boat.

Lol nearly forgot this was an anime. Glad Noah got a magic girl moment before he kicked it.

Also, I’m pretty sure it was shirtless Noah in this glowing yellow farmer’s tan that got this episode flagged for Adult Content when it was still in my drafts folder. Tumblr’s bot got super excited to shut this one way down lol.

And then what follows is like one of the best animated loops in Yugioh. One so good that you bet your ass I clipped it to view for my own leisure.

Mokuba, sensing he’s slowing down for no reason makes the mistake of telling his brother “I’m not going to make it” and so, as an unsuspecting Duke Devlin reaches out and says “grab my hand,” Kaiba does...THIS

when the entire time Kaiba was strong enough and had enough jumps to do THIS

Like he could have easily picked up Mokuba but youknow, any chance to throw a kid at Duke Devlin’s face shoe-first, I guess.

Maybe this is why Moki wears a puffy vest?

And so it was here, as the flames encroach on my wonderful blimp baby that I was getting ready to say goodbye, but guess what, she ain’t dead because...of a completely insane reason we’ll get to in a bit.

Oh, and PS Kaiba’s Dad is a flame monster now. Because of...technology?

It’s probably supposed to be metaphorical flames but youknow, apparently Kaiba had the foresight that someone at some point would become a flame demon and try to devour his entire blimp, and so he made a feature you can add onto what ever blimp you decide to buy from him just so you can outrun fire people attacks.

And it turns out Blimp was the real Magical Girl all along.

Blimp lore is getting pretty wild y’all.

Imagine playing cards on it now...

And then everyone collectively decided that Noah WASN’T DEAD. It was very unhealthy! Thanks 4Kids!

The irony about this exchange is that it is Bakura who is the one who’s uploaded to a flash drive, not Noah--Bakura is on a flash drive around Yugi’s neck but they have never discussed this. Like I’m pretty sure no one even has still picked up that Bakura died and that’s going to be the thing I look forward to the most next episode. If they even address it. Which they might not.

And so, Kaiba looks at the wreckage and the rocket parts that he now has to explain to the UN (and probably not for the first time) and he says:

And thus ends the Kaiba’s Kojima-esque War Crimes arc.

Oh man, next time we get to go back to Marik.

Man oh man.

I don’t even REMEMBER what was going on in that arc guys. It’s been like...man.

I might have to read my own blog to refresh myself haha, I honestly have forgotten a lot of details.

Anyway, in memory of when the blimp still looked like a blimp, I guess this is the last time I can ever post this song:

And here’s a link to read these recaps from the beginning in chrono-order

Oh boy, you wanna know? It’s gonna be a lengthy one, but I’ll do my best to make it entertaining, heh

Under the cut because L O N G P O S T

So first things first, it’s best if you know how old I am. As of March 2019, I am 17-years old, and I’ll be 18 by the end of Summer. Kingdom Hearts 1 came out just 7 months after I was born, so I wasn’t into it from the very beginning. 

Right around 2009, I found myself getting a PS2 from one of our neighbors because they were buying a PS3. And among the games they gave us with the PS2, Kingdom Hearts 1 was in that batch. My sister played through and completed the whole game, but little 8-year old me couldn’t get past the Chameleon boss in Deep Jungle. So I put the game down for a year or so, never thinking about it since. I went back to finish the game, got stuck on the legendary ‘THERE’S NO WAY YOU’RE TAKING KAIRI’S HEART’ boss fight, and I eventually beat the game! Go me!

I got a Nintendo DS and my sister bought me Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the DS because she realized I actually liked Kingdom Hearts. However, I hadn’t played KH2, nor did I retain too much of the information from KH1. My sister got KH2 for the PS2 a few months prior and assumed that the other save file was mine. Turns out she just accidentally saved twice >.<

So I played through 358 until I got stuck on one of the ridiculous bosses, I think it was Leechgrave? And I didn’t retain any of the plot, so I kinda just forgot it. Then... I actually played KH2. 

And I had SO much fun! I played on Beginner because I was 9-10-years old and I needed to if I ever wanted the hope of beating it. And around that time, Re:coded came out. So once I beat KH2, my sister bought me Re:coded and I played that... before getting stuck on a boss again. I can’t remember which one though, heh. 

I eventually went back to beat 358, did so, cried a lot because Roxas was immediately established as my favourite, and by then I was maybe 11-years old. Dream Drop Distance for the 3DS came out and I had become invested in the games at that point. So I was about to start watching the cutscenes for 3D... when I realized I was missing something... 

I never played Birth by Sleep.

I had seen a few of the cut scenes out of BBS by that point, but I didn’t actually know who the characters were. Surprisingly enough, when I saw Ventus for the first time, I didn’t associate him with Roxas at all. I don’t think I even processed that they looked the same. To me, it was just Ventus. Maybe that’s why I can see their nuances so well, I don’t know. Anyways, I went and watched all the cutscenes for Birth by Sleep, lost my fucking mind because OH THAT’S WHY ROXAS- OHHHHH and then I went to watch 3D. 

And lemme just say, by that point, it was all over. This game was now apart of my life. You could tell ‘cause suddenly all the references to Ventus in all of the games clicked for me and I WAS LOSING IT so much. I love that kinda stuff, I dunno why, but I doooo. 

And then the year after... 2013.... y’all know what happened. KH3 was FINALLY announced to be in REAL development, even if it was development Hell. I remember watching the livestream for the first ever KH3 trailer as it was happening and I was crying. Lil’ 12-year old Storm Driver sitting at their father’s cracked and broken laptop, crying over one minute of pre-rendered game footage. It was real. I was going to play KH3. 

So then the next few years were me establishing my love for the series. Right around when I turned 12 was when I’d actually been introduced to social media. I’d played games like Toontown and stuff on the computer, but I’d never used Instagram or anything before... I actually pride myself over still having my first ever IG account. I think I made it after the first KH3 trailer came out. Interesting. 

I managed to get one of my at-the-time close friends into the game, and they let me borrow their 3DS so I could play Dream Drop myself! But we had a falling out the next year and we didn’t talk or communicate that whole time. Fun little anecdote, the name “Storm Driver.” I chose that name after I’d played 3D because it was the name of the track for one of my favourite songs. Except... the name was mistranslated. It’s supposed to be “Storm Diver.” But in pure spite, I kept it as it is today. 

And that was how that friend of mine contacted me again, years later! They found my Tumblr and realized I was the same Storm Driver from the years prior and we reconciled and made up over what had happened. We still don’t talk much, just having each other added on Snapchat. But I’m happy that they reached out to me. 

Years passed and my love for KH didn’t die, but it did settle a bit. It spiked again in 2015, when the gameplay trailers were finally being released. But nothing really dragged me back towards it. Until 2017. The orchestra tour...

OH FUCK MAN, I WENT WILD. I fucking lost it. I did not calm down, for three or four whole months, this exact Tumblr blog was busting out frickin’ KH posts and all the like. And it has not stopped at all. ‘Cause soon after that, 0.2 was confirmed and released and I was losing my god damn mind over it all. I was so hyped for KH3, words cannot properly describe. During those months, I came to meet some mutuals on Tumblr that I now consider very close friends. Even if we’ve never met, I still feel a lot of joy just seeing their names and icons pop up in my notifications feed.

I started playing KHUX after the orchestra tour trailer came out. I used to pride myself over having (at the time) ridiculously strong medals that pushed me forward through a lot of the Proud Mode content without spending a single dime on the game. But of course, those medals are outdated now. My KHUX character is probably just average at this point. But that’s okay. I don’t really play it anymore, heh.

And in the months leading up to KH3, I just did my best to stay relatively calm. I joined a few Discord servers for KH, but I found myself feeling out of place. I started getting interested in other things, and with no one to talk to over those things, i started to talk in the KH servers. I was asked not to and it eventually led to me go and create my own server. It was initially a Voltron server, but as VLD has ended, I changed it to be a community server, where people who just wanna talk can talk. It’s a “private” server at the moment, because I don’t want to overwhelm myself and my two friends who moderate it. I’ve opened it a few times, to help get some more people in who just wanna hang out. 

My experience with Kingdom Hearts took a weird turn when KH3 was around the corner though. Someone kept making one-day accounts on Tumblr and DMing me the leaks of the game, including the ending. Lucky me, I hadn’t seen a whole lot of the plot-related stuff. But my impulse control is weak and I’d click the links just from the sight of them. So I knew what would happen to Sora at the end of the game before I’d even seen the final boss. I didn’t know how Roxas ended up there in the ending and I was REALLY happy to see him and Ventus and Xion standing together in frame. So I guess it kinda hyped me up to see how the game handled him and his return.

At the end of it, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed KH and I will continue to, I’m sure. I’ve also played TWEWY for the DS, so I’m sure that the tie-ins it’ll have with the future of Kingdom Hearts are going to be amazing. This game latched onto me when I was an infant, and it’s been nine long and incredibly fun years so far. I’m happy that we’re not done yet ^^

To confused Supernatural fraaands joining pillowfort

Making a “how not to get lost” tutorial. I know a new social platform can be really intimidating, and I'm getting a lot of people flocking in from tumblr, sending DMs asking questions -- and no, that's not a sign to stop, I just recognize there's a lot of questions I can give you a masterpost to share to your confused friends!

Included is: how and where to find people and content, maximize your reach and impact, how to actually use the interface to its best capacity, what bugs to expect, how to talk to the staff and suggest new features, dos, donts, and how-tos.

Pillowfort tutorials and stuff exist, and I'll link those in a bit, but I can not emphasize enough how important it is to find the right communities for you as a base line to start. So, have a list of the biggest Supernatural communities and a few not-huge-ones that may still tickle certain fancies.

Supernatural: show, cast, and ship positive

Destiel: Take a wild guess what the comm is for

ProfoundNet: The PB/Destiel server related, I dunno how much they upkeep it at a glance but everybody seems to stay in touch.

SupernaturalArtsAndFics -  All ships, all cast, don’t be a dick is the rule there.

DeanWinchesterIsBisexual

And lo, though I hate promoting it I will be fair, there’s The_Wincest_Community  and just “Wincest” - the members and content seems pretty identical.

There’s an SPN NSFW Art group too -

Castiel fangroup

SPN Multishippers group

SPN Reverse bang

SPN Fanart,

Destiel Fan Favorites Survey Community

Cockles

After here, groups keep getting smaller and are all like… 30 people or less, I’m stopping centralized listing at the 30-mark. And right now, small groups still have a chance to boom once more people migrate across. But this is where you can start to find MOST of your people at.

You can search the community feature for smaller, related communities. Hell, there’s a Drowley community with 7 members right now. A Sabriel , a Sastiel. Etc. There’s a bunch of fractal J2 hat groups that have like 3-10 people, one has like 20. Any time I try to search J2M I’m getting a nightmare deluge of unrelated results and freeze when I click to page 2 to find something relevant. The Team Free Will group looks young and may end up redundant on a feed, only time will tell. Actor based groups seem… smaller. There’s a J2 Fanart group, but not one for them independently. 17 members. There’s a misha group called Mishapocalypse . So that’s still needing to get built up over there all-around.

For what it’s worth, I tried to paste a few together:

Right now, Supernatural Meta has 19 members. You don't have to be a meta author to join.

Annnnd I just put together a “The Brothers - Sam and Dean”place to enjoy non-shippy talk, content and conversation about the brothers. Just forage up the rules and roll.

And I have a Bobo Appreciation club I just launched but the site is in lag-mode and I don’t have the will to find the link.

Disclaimer: I’m just going with the biggest groups I’ve seen. I have not personally investigated all of these. I can’t say I’m necessarily endorsing all of these as awesome places or whatever, but it’s a place to START on a new platform. And before I get a concern troll asking why I linked a Wincest group, whether we like it or not, Wincest is here. It’s not the biggest ship, it’s not the cleanest ship, it’s not the - whatever. I don’t agree with it, most of my followers don’t agree with it, but lots of fans are multishippers, are scattered abroad, and frankly… now is not the time to be separated bitching over our differences.

Now  a short bit about what communities are GOOD FOR and why I endorse them so much.

See, when you join a community, you get subscribed to all posts going through that community, whether you follow the individual or not. If you fear a community will give content you don't want to see, blacklist the tag on the sidebar under Filters & Blacklist and, if someone just utterly fails to tag their trash you don't want to see, there's always the block function. If a community has more bad than good for you, maybe try to find another, or make your own. There's lots.

But that said, it helps us find each other and content while this platform is young. If you post, say, to the Supernatural group, several hundred people get your post blasted across their feed, presuming you aren't using a tag they blacklisted. It keeps feeds active and keeps us from climbing into holes we lose information in. And, frankly, gives even the smallest account a chance to be seen by the world.

Okay cool, you've found a few communities, there's posts on your feed, you know where to start chattering and finding people, so how does this work past THAT?

Well, first there's a few realistic messages from early beta users and devs about the platform worth reading.

A sort-of masterpost of tutorials and how-tos.

Where to find the beta community, make a wishlist of features to suggest to the devs, introduce yourself, find known issues, contact the staff, history, find other base cornerstone communities outside of fandom, tips, how-tos, you name it. REALLY USEFUL POST. MUST READ.

Realistic expectations for the client in beta.

How to jerry rig it to work as a mobile app with notifications.

In the area of visuals, if you're tired of the blue ... ocean that surrounds us while they refine their visual experiences, if you're on desktop, I made a series of SPN skins. Follow the instructions to install the skin of choice.

Sam Winchester - Vivid; Warm tones, mostly red

Rowena; Dark, black, violet, red.

Team Free Will - Dark; amber green blue slate

Sam & Dean - Earth tones, medium theme

Dean & Cas 1 - vivid; bright, blue/green

Dean & Cas 2 - dark, blue/green, slate, transparent side bar, feather head navbar.

The second Dean & Cas one is the most extensive. The first were quick generated slap-overs to get rid of the most persistent blinding elements, D&C2 I took it a few steps further. It’s lightly responsive with glows on link hovers, more image overlays tucked around quietly, wider use of gradients and color filled posts to match the theme, which the others don’t have. In time I’m going to see if I can start styling the divs themselves such as changing shape/align. Pretty sure I can. I’m weathered in the fires of RPH profile editing to make CSS do ridic stuff.

And yes, I take requests. I do it for free, right now at least. It’ll probably go obsolete. I don’t have a huge number of requests. So why not?

Keep in mind, there's some differences between pillowfort and tumblr, which most people are migrating from. Personally, I consider these HUGE improvements and steps forward once this place gets bigger. So let's do a breakdown, in complement to some of the resources I linked above.

So what makes Pillowfort so fucking special?

Okay, so check it out. On tumblr, we’re used to reblogging shit into the  depths of the internet. As Pillowfort grows it, too, has that capability with some differences. The boldest difference is that when you reblog, your opinion doesn’t get attached to the end of the post. It just reblogs the base post. Some people initially complained and thought that was the loss of a feature but came to realize it’s a blessing.

You see, that means someone can’t kidnap your post with a shitty opinion to reblog it to their friends with a shitty opinion that all attach their heckling shitty opinions. Like, let’s say it’s someone that’s Destiel fandom reading this. Ever had an anti shit reblog your post and it run wild? Well, now, if they try to reblog it, all they reblog is… your Destiel post. Thanks for that.

So how do we actually say what we need to?

Well, fam, it incorporated elements from LJ/DW, in having threaded replies. Multiple threads if so needed. The threaded replies are capable of housing just about anything an OP has. So a blog post has, alongside Like/Reblog notifications, comments. Open the post, read the comments, start an actual conversation with some merit. Did some douchebag come to spam your comments since they can’t reblog? No problem, delete their shitty comments and block them, problem solved.

But it doesn’t end there.

Double back to the stuff about communities I bragged up, above. Notice what all that gives you. Realize you can blog into/out of/across different communities.

When you make your own communities you can have internal discussions or blog in/out posts, you can set rules, promote moderators, remove or ban problem users, and generally control the flow of your community to keep out shitlords. But, if for example, you subscribed to a community that turns out to be secretly run BY a shitlord because, IDK, maybe they don’t like that you think Sam is bi or something, most of these communities are large and blog in/out/engageable enough that you won’t lose your contacts, you WILL find your people over time, and you won’t be completely choked off to a singular abyss.

So the base beat is

PF treats every single post like any root post on an LJ/DW comm, but is able to be reblogged from/to communities or your own blog page as freely as tumblr.  PF takes the best concepts of current and previous fandom platforms in its base application and lays a groundwork that literally all of us can prosper on if it survives and continues.

“I kinda like PF but it doesn’t have X feature-”

Okay look, PF is a smolbabe, like I said. It’s in beta. The thing is, they’re adding things every day. They have a dev list like 2 pages long for goals and things are getting crossed off and added like, biweekly. It might already be on their list to add. And if it’s not, guess what?

The staff actually give a shit and react to questions and concerns. There’s entire beta groups to talk about features with bugs, and/or features that should be added or adjusted. There’s a comm to talk directly to the staff about things. They're linked above in this post, and you can find them, leave what you want to see modified or added... boom! Help make this platform WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE.

A small, young platform needs people willing to be out there saying what would improve the experience. You’re not just fandom pioneers, you’re social media pioneers if you so choose to be. It’s not mandatory. You can just fan in your space how you want. Or you can go to the beta groups and staff groups and tell them what you think would improve the experience.  Keep in mind, tumblr didn't start with all the bells and whistles it ended up with. It didn't start with a bazillion users. But some people put their toes in the water while others jumped in, and others stayed back for years until all their friends changed pools.

Hopefully this answers most questions, concerns, and wants for people tripping into Pillowfort from the fandoms I attend right now. If anything still confuses you -- don't be shy about making USE of the powerful differences. Pop open this post, leave a comment, hold a conversation and I'll help how I can.

Endless Summer: The (un)Official Screenplay - “End Credits”

Yes, you read that right: this movie script does include an “End Credits” of sorts! Though since there are very few people who actually worked on this script (aka: just me), I’m also going to be including my final thoughts on how the script turned out, where the story’s going from here, what the hell is up with that “CIU Project” tag I keep adding to these, and... in true MCU-style fashion, even an end-credits scene! Or two?

Masterlist: Link

CREDITS:

Written by: SceptileMasterr (obviously)

Based On: Endless Summer, Book 1 by Pixelberry Studios (with some additional elements taken from Hero, Vol 1)

Copyright Info: All names, places, and concepts from Endless Summer and Hero are copyright Pixelberry Studios. The only things I own here are Ian and Alyssa, my various Vaanti OCs, as well as the majority of the Vaanti language except the words taken from canon (conlangs are hard!)

Inspirations:

The MC Twins: @blightarts (go read his Pokemon Summer Version crossover fic where I got that idea from, btw, it’s awesome)

Movie Concept in General: @mysteli and her amazing ES Fan Trailers (both of them!)

Estela and Ian’s First Kiss: Borrowed from another one of my fics, “Sunset”

Screenwriting Software: Final Draft 11

Special Thanks:

@brightpinkpeppercorn: My fandom twin and “beta reader” of sorts; thanks for all the great and fun discussions we had about the twins, their loves, the story, and concepts and future plans; they’ve been great! I love and appreciate your feedback!

@mysteli: You’re the entire reason I started this project! Ever since your first ES trailer I have envisioned what an ES movie would be like. And then my imagination spiraled out of control from there... Appreciate your feedback as well!

@edgydepressedchoicesthot: A fellow Estela stan! I met you even before I had a Tumblr, back on AO3. I read and fell in love with your ES rewrite series there... then school blocked AO3 (grr) but I eventually caught up! I hope you enjoyed this rewrite as much as I liked yours!

@bbaba-yagaa: A more recent fandom friend, but I’m so glad I met you and your blog! I adore your Estela fics so much!

@endlesshero1122: I’m still amazed at how we had such similar ideas with our respective ES and Hero rewrites. Dual MCs and everything, with one of them even being named Alyssa, what are the odds?! Glad you’ve enjoyed this script!

...And of course, everyone not on the tag list who’ve liked, read, and/or commented on this script! Every time I get a new like or comment, it makes me so happy to know that I made someone’s day a little better with this screenplay-rewrite of a visual novel we all know and love. I love writing; I really have a passion for it, and I hope I can continue entertaining people with my future stories to come!

And SPEAKING of future stories...

FADE IN:

INT. THE CELESTIAL LOBBY - DAY

Estela is standing at the concierge desk, gazing at several sheets of paper stacked atop it. The elevator doors open, and Ian emerges, the folders he’d found previously now clutched in his hands. She turns at his approach.

ESTELA: Ian! There you are! Listen, you should see this-

IAN: Look, I... I’ve got something I need to show you. To show everyone, really. Where are they?

ESTELA: I think most of them are still sleeping. Can’t say I blame them, after last... night? Morning? Day? Anyway, look.

Ian crosses over to the desk and looks at the papers. On them, in a messy scrawl, are written several seemingly non-sequitur messages. Ian picks one up and reads it, confused.

IAN: “The Hostiles know.” “McKenzie equals Lupus.” “The STARS are key!!” “He’s here he’s here he’s here he’s here...”

He looks up at Estela.

IAN: What is this? Looks like nonsense.

ESTELA: I’m not sure. But more to the point, this wasn’t here before we “time traveled.” Someone was here during the 204 days we skipped. Is this Diego’s handwriting?

IAN: Nah. I’d know his scribbles anywhere. Doubt it’s the Hostiles, either, since they don’t speak English.

ESTELA: So that means... what?

Before Ian can respond, the elevators open again, and Alyssa and Jake emerge. They stop short when they see the folders in Ian’s hand.

ALYSSA: Wait, are those-?

JAKE (simultaneously): You found some too?!

Estela and Ian turn to face them. Ian shrugs and holds up the folders.

IAN: I... I didn’t mean to keep these from you guys, I just didn’t really get the chance-

He stops when he realizes what Alyssa and Jake had said.

IAN: Wait... “found some too?” You both-

Alyssa shrugs sheepishly.

ALYSSA: At that emergency shelter. One of ‘em was about you, Estela.

ESTELA: Me?

IAN: You should’ve shown her!

ESTELA: To be fair, we all had our reasons for not trusting one another, especially at first.

She pulls out her own set of folders. The top one is Jake’s, and she hands it to him.

ESTELA: This is yours, I believe.

JAKE: Goddamn...

He flips through it, saying nothing, but his eyes go wide in surprise.

JAKE: Hang on. Be right back.

He sprints out of the lobby, toward the entrance to the basement. Alyssa hangs her head and sighs.

ALYSSA: Sorry, Estela. Really. We’re long past the point where we should’ve stopped keeping secrets from each other-

ESTELA: It’s fine. Apparently we all did the same thing.

IAN: I was hoping to find everyone so I could show them all at once. I’ve got Craig’s, Zahra’s, and Quinn’s.

ALYSSA: But how do they know this much stuff about us? Birthdates, locations, history... except yours, Estela; a lot of it’s blacked out for some reason.

She hands the folder to Estela, who reads through it.

ESTELA: What is here is worryingly accurate. How could Rourke possibly know all of this? Down to the last detail?!

Alyssa shivers involuntarily.

ALYSSA: I dunno, but it’s freaking me out-

Jake bounds back up the stairs, a pair of folders clutched in his hands.

JAKE: Found these right before all that Aleister business started, and then I forgot all about it, given... uh, what happened that night.

He looks awkwardly at Ian. Alyssa coughs and glares at Jake.

IAN: What happened that night?

ALYSSA: None of your business! Actually, hang on: what were you two doing that night? I seem to remember you rushing in together-

IAN: “None of your business!”

ALYSSA: I really should’ve seen that coming.

JAKE: None of that matters right now. You two are gonna wanna see these.

He passes the twins’ folders to each of them. They stand side by side as they open the folders, staring openmouthed at the “Birth” sections.

IAN: “December 31, 1995 - 11:59 PM” ... “Location... La Huerta?!”

ALYSSA: Mine says “January 1, 1996 - 12:00 AM.” Also La Huerta.

JAKE: There’s no way in hell you two were born here. You’d have known that, right?

Alyssa and Ian shake their heads.

ALYSSA: Jake... we were adopted together when we were babies. We never knew our birth parents or anything.

IAN: Our birth certificates said “January 1st, ‘96,” so that’s just when we celebrated, but... Alyssa...

ALYSSA: If Jake and Estela’s birthday info is all true, and if the others’ are true as well, then...

IAN: ...We were born here. On La Huerta.

ALYSSA: Ian... who are we?!

FADE TO BLACK.

TO BE CONTINUED IN... ENDLESS WINTER

FINAL THOUGHTS AND FUTURE PLANS:

How do you actually write one of these things? Well, I start out by playing through the canon chapter(s) that a given scene is based on and transcribing the script into Word for reference. The canon ES chapters are L-O-N-G, by the way. Then, I decide what to keep, what to alter, what to get rid of, and which lines to include unchanged, and then I write the actual script! After that, I run through it once to edit, then I’ll read the lines aloud and make more changes to make them sound natural. Post it to Tumblr, fix the formatting (and edit once again), then voila! A scene is born!

What was up with the changes? You skipped a ton of scenes! I thought the script turned out well, and (based on people’s reactions and comments) reasonably easy to follow even with all the changes. Most of the changes were made with the aim of streamlining and shortening the story; even with all the scenes cut from canon, the script still ended up being an estimated 3 hours long! Yikes! The other major changes were mostly made with the aim of setting up threads for weaving a greater story, which leads us to...

What the hell is “CIU Project?” Okay, okay, if anyone’s looked in the tags, you’ve probably noticed the recurring tag “ciu project” as well as tagging my Vaanti OC names with (CIU) at the end of it. CIU stands for “Choices Interconnected Universe” and is what I’m calling any- and everything that takes place in the same universe as this ES rewrite. There will be a more detailed post about the CIU and a general idea of my plans for it later on, but I wanted to wait to announce it until this first script was finished!

Have you written anything else in your CIU universe? “Choices Interconnected Universe Universe?” Okay, but seriously, this is the first official, “canon” work set in the CIU. I have written my Vaanu “Post-Credits Scene” during ESAPW, but consider that more of a loose “teaser” for the project than anything. Once I get to the script that scene’s meant to appear in, I will rewrite it and it may have a few tiny details different. Anything else I write in the CIU will be tagged with “ciu project” (no quotes) so you can find it easily there!

What other Choices books besides Endless Summer are going to be involved? I’ll be explaining that in the separate CIU post I plan to make soon, but in the meantime... 

FADE IN:

INT. L.A.P.D. STATION - OFFICE - NIGHT (FIVE MONTHS AGO)

A man in a crisp suit, his back to the camera, scrolls through data about Rourke International on his computer screen; images of Jake, Lila, and Aleister appear beside a satellite view of the Caribbean Sea. Scattered on his desk are copies of the various dossier pages that Ian, Alyssa, Jake, and Estela had all found across La Huerta. The man sighs and rubs his forehead in frustration.

The door swings open, and a young auburn-haired policewoman rushes into the office, slightly out of breath. This is Jake’s sister, REBECCA MCKENZIE. The man looks up as she enters.

MAN: ...Officer McKenzie? I told you I’d let you know when I found something-

REBECCA: They’re pulling you off the case. You’re getting reassigned. I asked her not to, but-

MAN: Listen, Officer, I told you before: technically this case is well outside my jurisdiction. It’s not even in this country, let alone the city. I figured it was only a matter of time ‘til they wanted me working on something a bit closer to home.

REBECCA: But... what the hell am I supposed to...

MAN: Whatever I’m being reassigned to, I promise I’ll keep digging up leads on my own time. An entire island can’t just go missing with no one noticing; there’s definitely something fishy going on.

REBECCA: Yeah, and my brother was on that island. You’re a detective! Solving mysteries is your job!

MAN: Well, this mystery is tougher than most. But I promise we’ll figure it out eventually. He’s not the only person who’s gone missing in that area last month, besides.

He indicates the scattered pages on his desk.

MAN: Fifteen missing, including your brother. Don’t worry. You know I’ve got plenty of friends in high places.

Rebecca smiles, reassured by his words.

MAN: So what’s this new case I’m being reassigned to? I swear, if it’s another celebrity feud over nothing-

REBECCA: Nothing like that. You heard about the Tower Murders the other night?

MAN: Yeah, I thought Barton and Sanchez were handling that one-

Rebecca shakes her head.

REBECCA: Nobody can figure it out. Captain wants you. Specifically. There’s even rumors that... y’know... Li might be behind it.

MAN: Heh. Of course they think she’s behind it. If Li was behind everything everyone claimed she was, there’d have to be at least a dozen of her running around. 'Sides, murder isn’t her style.

He stands up from his desk, adjusting his suit and tie.

MAN: Tell the Captain I’ll do it.

REBECCA: You will? Just like that? But what about my brother?

MAN: I’m at a dead end for now anyway. I’ll find this murderer, get ‘em locked up, and be back on the La Huerta disappearances faster than you can say “Case closed.”

Rebecca laughs in spite of herself, then recovers and nods professionally.

REBECCA: Thank you, Detective. I’ll let the Captain know, and she’ll fill you in on the details. And... I appreciate what you’re doing for me. For my brother.

MAN: Of course. After all, there’s never been a case I couldn’t crack, and I’m not about to let that change!

Rebecca leaves the office. The man turns and faces the camera, adjusting his badge, which reveals his name: DETECTIVE DAVE REYES. He shakes his head, glancing back at the images on his computer once more.

DAVE: What the hell are you up to, Rourke?

FADE TO BLACK.

TO BE CONTINUED IN... MOST WANTED: THE HOLLYWOOD KILLER

It’s all connected...

Okay, two things- First, OPAtS, 2/5/9, If that’s okay! Second, should we send the asks over here and then they’ll be put on Pillowfort, or is there an ask function over there? Sorry if there’s an obvious answer to the latter question, I just wanted to check.

2. What scene did you first put down?

The very first scene I wrote for this story is one that hasn’t been posted yet, and is written in Red’s perspective following a major event that will occur later in the story. Whether or not I’ll find a place for it in the story proper, I’m not sure yet - it may instead be posted in the Skele POV piece instead, or be a Tumblr-exclusive post just for you guys. c: As for the first scene that has made it into the story itself, it was the semi-fluff scene between Reed and Edge, after Dust has his episode in the kitchen earlier that day during chapter 18. A few edits were made, but it’s a segment that had survived the ‘great purge’ from the first concept of OPAtS (see question 9 below).

5. What part was the hardest to write?

Honestly, I find confrontation to be extremely difficult to write. Physical confrontation is one thing, but establishing tension like the kind growing between Reed and the boys at the moment has been a lot more challenging since not many words are being exchanged. It’s more a manner of trying to set the overall mood, which I think I’m utterly terrible at - especially as we’re only seeing things from Reed’s pov at the moment. ;-; Things will undoubtedly make a lot more sense when the segment featuring the skeles pov comes up in chapter 27, but at the moment I’ve kinda found myself floundering in my attempts to find that perfect balance between the characters. ;A;

9. Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Yes! There were countless revisions on different scenes and entire chapters as a whole - chapter 24, in particular, had over 20 separate variations created (bless my poor beta-reader for having to read so many of those ;-; ), as I was having so much difficulty deciding on how to move the story along in the direction I’d wanted it to go.

The very first concepts for the fic itself was even it set in the Underfell universe and was to feature just Edge and Red, but I found it a struggle to iron out some critical plot-points. After several weeks of debating, I decided that not only did the multiverse setting allow for a wider range of new and exciting events, but it also helped with the aforementioned plot points. xD So instead of just Red and Edge you guys got the whole kit and caboodle!

Other versions included the events following the fire, where Reed would have recovered in the Springs, and wouldn’t meet up with the Skeletons again until she paid Muffet a visit to inform her of what happened once she’d been released. c: Muffet would suggest she introduce herself to Grillby and ask for his aid, and it would be while during her first visit to his bar that she meets Sans again. The monsters learn the fire was intentional through the burns (a fact Reed has been made aware of at this point), and Sans extends the offer to bring in a certain doc he knows to help treat her. It would be at Blue and Stretch’s insistence that Sans offers her room and board later, upon realizing she had no place to go following her discharge.

Another change was how she’d meet Black and Hickory - the fire would have occurred later near the start of summer, by which time Galvin and his brother Xander would have already been in the area for the beginning of their summer visits. :p They’d take her out for drinks their first night back in town where she’d inadvertently bump into Hickory, but she’d have still mistaken him for Stretch. :p I’d wanted the events for the fire to take place a few months earlier though to give Reed more time to establish her bonds with the boys, however, given that some major plot points occur at certain calendered events in our tale, and so this particular idea was scrapped.

As for your other inquiry, I don’t believe Pillowfort has established a system similar to Tumblr’s asks yet, though there is a more private messaging system I believe can be used between users (I dunno quite how the msg system works, as I am a shy bean who knows no one else on there xD). As such, anyone with a ns fw ask can send it to me here on Tumblr, and I will post responses on my pillowfort. Users who prefer not to remain anonymous will have their names accompany the asks on there, with a link to their Tumblr page listed if they would like (if they’d rather not have the ask linked back to them, they can simply choose to ask to remain nameless on there and I’ll treat it as an anon post c:).