#Since before I add a poll option I make sure that it's something that could actually be followed to it's logical conclusion and like
Text
Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 8: !!NOTE: this is different from the past polls - rather than choosing a story action, you're picking supplies to craft a little makeshift boat (EX: wood will be the main platform, so there should likely be the most of it, however, if there were 100% votes for branches and 0% votes for rope, then it'd just be a pile of wood held together by nothing - keep them balanced reasonably, etc.))
(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)
The winning option of yesterday's poll was that the adventurer should get around the barrier by crafting a little boat to take a river detour….
~
Finally crawling out of his hiding spot in the brambles, he meticulously brushes the leaves from his clothes and composes himself, now fully focused on his generic traveler's map of the area... After checking it about 500 times just to make sure he isn't confused, he determines that going down the nearby river would likely still get him where he's trying to go, and hopefully be much less treacherous than wandering through haunted forests or confronting the stern gaze of the barrier guards..
It only takes about 10 minutes of following a narrower rocky path off the main road to reach a nice shaded spot of land next to a small river. He kneels in the grass, eagerly rummaging through his backpack for supplies, in addition to whatever he can scavenge from the edge of the woods. The rush of excitement slowly dissipates however, once he realizes that he.. actually.. might not know how to make a raft as well as he thought... Surely it's quite straightforward, no? Just.. make it look like it does in picture books?? There are no rules, as long as it floats, it works! Probably anyone could build one on intuition alone! ... maybe...???
.. Once again sinking into a cloud of anxiety, he slumps over, staring at the pile of materials with teary eyes, doubtful what to even do next.... How should he build the raft? Help him by using the poll to choose the appropriate amounts of materials (determined by final % of votes in that category)!
#paventure posting#polls#choose your own adventure#Hopefulyl this isnt confusing or anything?? I know it's different than the other ones. and I wont do them this way#very often or maybe not ever again. I just wanted something that was really short and easy since the last two has#*had such long explanation text and more effort going into like what different paths there could be and etc.#Since before I add a poll option I make sure that it's something that could actually be followed to it's logical conclusion and like#actually happen (like I didn't include 'fight the guards' in the last poll because obviously just realistically he would lose#and be sent to whatever this worlds version of jail is and then probably the story would end lol. It could then become about#strategizing a way to break him out like.. obviously you can still do something with that and it can still be interesting lol. but I just#mean it kind of derails things a little too heavily. if that makes sense. etc. etc.). But becaue I've been busier lately and since#the last ones were more detailed I just wanted to think of like.. a really quick goofy one with simple choices#So instead of dictating new story paths - for this time it's just .. help him build his raft that he needs to complete the last story#path that was chosen. By picking an option you're kind of adding to the amount of that option being done#if that makes sense. so for example if at the end of the poll it was 100% votes for flowers - he would just have a pile of flowers#with no raft or anything. If it was 100% wood - he would just have a pile of tree branches held together with nothing#etc. etc. Ideal measurements are probably at least over 50% wooden branches. and whatever of anything else.#As long as there's also rope lol. 50% branches and 50% flowers still wouldn't be anything really jhhj#ANYWAY..#Though it could go wrong I'm actually not expecting some sort of weird result. most people have voted very reasonably so far#and are not like trying to sabotage him or anything or choose the weirder choices. Like last time there werent that many#votes for sneaking around the barrier or trying to bribe the guards. I think people chose stuff they thought he could reasonably do#Maybe they want to see him and the little cat succeed in their endeavors#Though there was one person who reblogged a poll once saying something like 'everyone lets make him EVIL!'#which is also valid lol
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
MORE GENLOSS BRAINROT LETS GOOO
!!!MAJOR SPOILER WARNING!!!
Generation loss’s ending is so incredible I can not STAND IT OH MY GOD I need to write out my thoughts before my brain explodes because I haven’t been able to think about anything else since.
The first episode was an absolute curveball to everyone who’s been keeping up with the spooky ranmail and everything and I’m not gonna lie I was a little nervous about what this show was really gonna be when I was watching it. But the thought process it took behind every detail to make something so goofy actually be horrifying once you understand the context of the next two episodes WAS BRILLIANT. Every piece of the puzzle just adds more and more to the storyline and it makes me want to dissect every detail of the vods for hours.
But I think the most bone chilling part of this-very intentionally I must add- is the final sequence. We witness every one of the characters sacrifice themselves for GL!Ranboo and GL!Slime isn’t any different spending his last breaths being killed by the wire creature (for lack of better words) to make sure Ranboo hits the finish line. But as soon as you feel any level of triumph you realize that Slime is just like Sneeg in the episode before sacrificing himself to ensure the show goes on.
Because it was never about the hero.
Ranboo isn’t special. He’s just another pawn in the game with the illusion of being the protagonist to make it more interesting for the desensitized viewers watching these people die over and over.
He was never meant to win.
And then that leads to us.
The audience.
Given the illusion of choice.
Do you publicly execute this man? Or do you let him live to be tortured the rest of his miserable existence until he is inevitably killed by Showfall for breaking the rules. If you spare him, is it a fate worse than death? We fight with this moral dilemma, trying to decide if it’s our decision whether people live or die.
But he’s a murderer! He killed people and showed no remorse! Showfall metaphorically whispers in our ear that he earned this fate for the terrible actions he committed. But was it him? Did he have any control over the actions he committed throughout the show or is he a victim?
He begins begging to be let go. To just escape from this snare he never asked to be trapped in the first place. The audience heavily leans towards letting him live because maybe being alive in this horrible show is better than the execution. But he knows that was never an option for him. He watches as a cartoony figure jokes about his demise and a audience poll decides his fate. And in that moment he realizes his choices were never his own.
So he gives up.
Begs to just be put down because being part of the cast means he will hurt more and more people the way he’s been hurt. That he will be the cause of more and more pain, and very likely more murderers.
And the audience decides death is the best route for him to take.
Maybe he died believing this is his fault. That the audience decided he should be dead for the horrific things he chose to do. But did he ever really choose?
His story was a tragedy before he could even pick up the pen.
And then there’s Showfall. Once again the ever present voice in our ear. Whispering that we are just the same as he is.
You just chose to murder a man. Is that not any different than him killing the innocent to progress in this game? Showfall now has the audience in the same grip as the man in the guillotine.
Your story as an audience is a tragedy long before you will ever pick up the pen.
#crown drabbles:)#genloss brainrot#genloss#generation loss#ranboolive#looking way too deep into things because it’s late at night#Ranboolive is rotting my brain
80 notes
·
View notes
Text
Dreamwidth and Lurking
In (I think) the notes on my "Why is everyone recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative?" post, someone asked if it was possible to lurk on Dreamwidth. My first instinct was to automatically reply with "yes", since wasn't lurking just kinda. Hanging out and reading someone's posts and generally not letting them know you're there in any way? But getting the question at all made me stop and think for a minute, because if that's all that lurking is, then why would someone feel the need to ask the question in the first place? Does that mean that lurking means something different on Tumblr than I'm used to?
This lead to my initial question post, and, a few days after that, my All About Lurking Poll, which wrapped up yesterday. I personally found the results fascinating, and while the answer that got the most votes out of the 2808 responses was "You do not interact in any way with the poster(s); you can only read", other answers together made up more than 50% of the responses.
So when it comes to the question of whether it's possible to lurk on Dreamwidth, it depends heavily on what you consider lurking to be! I'll be covering the first four options, which should between them cover at least most of the rest of the poll answers.
Option one: "You do not interact in any way with the poster; you can only read"
Generally possible! I had five different Tumblr accounts each open to their own tabs before I broke down and got my own account to condense them down. Given how many tabs I have open as a result of that decision, for reading or reblogging later, that backfired a bit, but the intent was there!
I did it for at least five LiveJournalers back in the day that I was too intimidated to add to my friends list (basically the equivalent of Following on Tumblr), only that was also before tabs, and I hated having extra windows open, so I would cycle through the links in the search bar.
That said, there are some people who have their journals set to "Access Only"; they have posts that only people with a Dreamwidth account who they have granted the ability to access these "Locked" posts will be able to see. It's a privacy feature that's very beloved at Dreamwidth, and it means that anyone without an account, or without access, can only see posts that are shared publicly.
I want to add that I'm not actually sure how Dreamwidth works on other RSS Readers, which I'm sure would simplify things somewhat, but I do know that you can subscribe to RSS accounts through Dreamwidth! If someone wants to chime in with more details, I would welcome them!
Option two: You can follow the poster, but not interact any farther than that
Yes! I've got any number of "ghosts" following me, who have Dreamwidth accounts and who have subscribed to my account, but who haven't granted me access and who don't comment on my posts.
Aside from the above-mentioned RSS Feed idea, the easiest way to do this is to create a Dreamwidth account and, well, subscribe to someone whose updates you want to see! It's basically the same as following on Tumblr, with a few functional differences; and for the purposes of this poll answer, it may as well be exactly the same.
As an important note, you don't actually have to grant anyone access to your locked posts in order to subscribe to them! On LiveJournal, these features were connected (you could only follow an account by adding them to your "Friends List", and this would grant them access to all of your locked posts, IIRC), but Dreamwidth made a point of separating them. This allows greater privacy for everyone involved. Dreamwidth went one step further, and created "Access Filters", so a given journal owner could make a post that only a certain subset of people could see, but that's a post for a different time.
Option Three: You can follow the poster and like their posts, but not reblog
Unfortunately, this is where things fall apart for anyone who likes this answer best: Dreamwidth has no "Like" function. The closest you can come here is to create an actual comment, and only include an emoji in the text. This is probably a little bit more interactive than a lot of people are interested in when it comes to lurking, and understandably so!
If you want to read about why Dreamwidth doesn't have a "Likes" system, site co-owner/co-founder Denise talks about that in a comment on an official news post right over here. (Full disclosure, I'm soc_puppet on Dreamwidth, so that's me replying to her comment there.)
Option Four: You can follow the poster and reblog their posts, but not like them
Almost no one picked this option 😂 I can understand why, since reblogging is a higher-interaction function than liking, and if you're reblogging already, you might as well go for the lower-interaction function as well.
That said, the answer for this is surprisingly: Yes! You can do this form of lurking!
Reblogging is not a native function of Dreamwidth, though, so it takes a bit more work to do it. If you want to reblog things, you need to learn how from this post. I'm still used to the old way of signal boosting from LiveJournal, so it's not something I ever installed myself, or really intend to install. But if you're looking for a way to reblog stuff on Dreamwidth, this is your answer!
Ironically, I'm pretty sure this script makes the Dreamwidth equivalent of reblogging lower-interaction than the Dreamwidth equivalent of liking. I'm reasonably sure that the person you reblogged from with this script doesn't actually get any sort of notification of your reblog, so you can add just about anything in the tags, or even in your own reblog, and it's very unlikely that they'll see any of it.
What about Asks, anonymous or otherwise, and DMs?
Dreamwidth doesn't really have an Ask function. A lot of Dreamwidth users have a pinned introduction post, and some of them doubtlessly use it to welcome questions from the public, but Tumblr's Ask function is pretty unique. There may be communities with an equivalent feature or interaction (such as posting questions to a community, which may or may not have moderated posts), but it's not something you can generally do with individually owned journals. But Asks aren't something that everyone on Tumblr has enabled either, anonymous or otherwise.
Dreamwidth does have a Private Message feature, but as on Tumblr, a journal's owner has control over who can send them a message.
So that's it!
That's all I can think of to tell you about Dreamwidth and lurking, and lurking on Dreamwidth. If you have any questions I didn't already cover, feel free to ask, and I'll do my best to answer them!
#long post#lurking#let me tell you about#dreamwidth#let me tell you about dreamwidth#lurking on dreamwidth#internet culture#dreamwidth culture#tumblr culture
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
My Trafalgar Law HC's!! pt.2 🤍🤍
Slight Spoiler!!!!
Thoughts🌸🌸
So, as I was writing Chapter 5, I got an idea for something I could add.
Basically, for my HC, I was thinking that maybe Law is secretly good at music? There have been some non canon material in spinoff content that I've been looking at that have hinted at the idea of Law having art classes when he was younger, so I thought it might be a cute idea that he had music lessons too! And considering his JP VA is good at singing, I thought it would be something that might be cool for this next chapter :)) Especially since Reader is a musician too and music is a key component of this fanfic, it would be a really cute way for them to bond.
His instrument would be...the ocarina!!🤍🤍✨✨✨
Inspired from Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea, I really like seeing Reader and Law's dynamic as Samekichi and Wadanohara. I've always had a really hard time seeing him with someone who's confident or cool. I never really vibed with the stubborn or teasing reader dynamic, considering how stubborn and cold he can be, too. I see that more as like a best friends dynamic, I suppose (I'm getting deja vu of saying this before lol)?
So I guess he could he called Lawdanohara lol!!🤍🤍🤍
I'm not sure what piece he would play for her. I've been thinking of maybe a song that's personal to him or something that reminds him of Reader. I feel like the latter would be overkill, but it would be slightly extra work to explain how the song is important to him if I chose the former option. So, we'll see.🌸🌸🌸
My idea is to have Law play her a song on his ocarina for her birthday and then teach one to her!! I'd like to incorporate "Sakura Iro No Yume"(Tzu-Shieh, Wen) from Deemo as their duet piece.
It'll be slight foreshadowing to their teamwork in the future, I suppose. overall, this chapter is very important, but I also want it to be sentimental and sweet since it won the poll that everyone voted on!! 🌸🌸
Anyways, this chapter still has a big component to be added to it: artwork. I'm gonna try my best to stay light and to stick to sketches and doodles like the one shown above. I don't want to stress myself out too much with Quiescence 1 (darn you, you complicated, stubborn chapter).
Also, I'm not trying to be egotistical or anything with these updates btw!! I just really like writing and coming up with new ideas ._.!! This is new for me and it's super fun. I feel annoying sometimes when I make these lol. I'll try to do them less and less and stay humble for future uploads.
Still, I hope you guys will enjoy this chapter when it comes out!!🤍🤍🤍🌸🌸 :))
And thoughts on this idea are always welcome!! ✨✨✨
#one piece#op#one piece art#trafalgar law#trafalgar one piece#trafalgardwaterlaw#law x reader#trafalgar d law x reader#my trafalgar law hc's!!#my trafalgar law hc’s!!
16 notes
·
View notes
Text
I've been thinking more about how I wanna handle things long-term. My decision to only allow children to join is a nice short-term fix to keep things interesting, but Poopy and Hairy are already pretty competent. By the time they hit 13, they'll already be way more useful than Yoshiko was as a 13-year-old. At that point, this should be a really solid, stable colony. Which is great and all, but I've played that before, and I'm not sure how interesting of a story it will make.
My first thought was to make a rule that Yoshiko has to adopt any imperiled child that she can, but doing that still leads to the same situation, with an addition of 'and eventually the colony will be awkwardly big.'
What I'd like to do is: when one of the kids reaches adulthood, Yoshiko heads off into the wilderness and starts a new colony, leaving the existing well-established one in the hands of the new adult. The problem with this is that Rimworld doesn't have very good support for multiple simultaneous colonies, and I really don't want to manage multiple colonies anyway. Weirdly enough, as far as I can tell, even with mods there's no good way to have Yoshiko outright leave the faction and head out to start anew, at least not as a fully playable character. (If I'm missing a 1.4-compatible mod that'll do this though, please tell me.)
So, what I'm considering instead:
If Yoshiko encounters a child in need, she has to try to take them in. This includes ones who end up injured on the map for whatever reason, lone children who request to join, and child prisoners of war. When she's able to, she has to add the Emancipation meme from Vanilla Expanded - Ideology to her ideoligion, buy child slaves whenever it's reasonably possible, and emancipate them. If they decide to join, they're her problem now.
To simulate handing the colony over, once a kid turns 18, I banish them and abandon the colony. This approach sucks, but it's about the closest the game will let me do. Potentially I could use something like the RimDeed mod to instead send them off to a bright future, but that would effectively remove them from the game world. Banishing them instead means that they'll still be in the world and might turn up again.
Potentially, I could lower the max age for all of this from 18 to 13. Teenagers are effectively full adults for most purposes. so this would make it more of an actual challenge. It would also mean abandoning the current colony pretty soon. Poopy and Hairy are only a few hours of game time away from hitting 13.
Since this is meant to simulate handing the colony to the kid, Yoshiko's not allowed to strip the place bare before she leaves. She doesn't have to strike out into the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on her back, but she can't haul the entire storeroom off with her, either. The direction of her travels is pretty open. If I wanted to win, it would make the most sense to head toward the parked spaceship, but honestly, I'm not that concerned about getting an ending. (Most of them are kinda boring gameplay tbh.)
But, I'm not sure which option would be more fun, let alone which people would wanna read about, and I might be missing some relevant mod options. So, poll in the next post.
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
Alright, so what now? (FAQ kinda sorta)
As, I've said before, the character poll brackets, as I've been posting them, are no longer going to be made for this blog. The process is long and requires such constant upkeep that it's been a big portion of my free time for the last few months and I want to start putting that time elsewhere. I think this is a good end point anyway.
What does no more brackets mean?
Firstly, we aren't accepting new character suggestions for a sixth bracket. The inbox will still be wide open but any asks wondering when we'll add Backdraft to the polls will be quietly deleted. I know there are characters we missed but I simply do not have the energy for a sixth bracket. Second, the polls that we do post now will not be tracked. If a character wins a poll, good for them, but they're not moving on to any extra rounds.
Is the blog dead now?
No, I do still want to post My Hero Academia related things to this blog but posts will be much more sparse from here on out.
What will you post now that the brackets are done?
Remember our one off bonus polls? Yeah, we're going to keep doing those! One off popularity polls of who the best character is under a set theme like 'Best Calvary Battle Team' or 'Best OVA'. Just fun, week long, MHA centered, polls that aren't limited to only two characters or only minor characters like the brackets were. We could even do more silly polls like the AFO vs Miku one.
Can I give you a bonus poll idea?
Absolutely! You can send suggestions to my ask box or Tumblr DMs, just a theme is fine but if you have specific characters in mind be sure to tell me. I'll probably keep options for these polls in the 5-8 range but we can go as far as tumblr lets us.
Can I steal the bracket format?
Since I'm no longer planning to make underrated character brackets, you are more than free to swipe the idea for characters I missed or for different fandoms. Go for it! I'll even shout you out if you tag me on any up and coming brackets to help get you some traction.
So, about manga spoilers...
I've kept this blog relatively spoiler free (trust me for some characters that was NOT easy) but as we go into random silly fun polls I might be a bit more lenient on spoilers, especially when season 7 eventually starts airing. If I post anything that includes spoiler images, characters not introduced in the anime yet or if just the fact that these characters are grouped together is a spoiler, I will tag the post with #mha spoilers and #mha manga spoilers. Please keep that in mind if you don't already have those blocked.
Hey, you didn't address this thing I'm curious about.
I have the brain capacity of an overripe banana so if you have any questions feel free to ask me. Anon asks are currently open. I'll edit and reblog this post if something important comes up that I didn't already say.
For now though, I'm going to take a damn nap. Expect new bonus polls soon!
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
CHRONICLE ZERO, 30/7 - 6/8
(if any of the IRL dates are wrong by a day, blame it on my timezone being very different)
Okay! So! I'm just going to keep somewhat up to date by doing these in chunks! Yeah! Most of these are just initial thoughts and commentary, but that's to be expected. Anyways-
(long post, you know the deal) (isn't Tumblr supposed to shrink long posts anyways?) (I've seen it on other posts but not mine)(weird)
Dated July 30th 19XX
I've previously covered this, so here's a link to that.
Although as an add-on to it, I should mention that I am leaning away from the tape idea now (as cool as it was,) as some of the posts were a bit- too visual? Such as using arrows, the misspellings, and crossing out words. I've heard from people that it could be a journal, a typewriter, a pink pricess digital diary-
All of which would make 100% sense, absolutely.
-------------
The Poll (same day)
The poll! This will be another interactive, it seems. The options were just saying Hello in various ways. Didn't seem to affect or interact with the next batch of writing so likely it's one of those "keep trying, at some point it will work and get through!" features. (Ask blog Chronos go!!)
"Hello?" won, if anyone's interested-
-------------
August 4th (irl date, assuming it matches)
So, it's een eight months since some kind of event. (It was December 4th if so). It's hard to forget aforementioned event, although they wish "they could stop keeping time as much as they do." It's interesting phrasing for sure.
"been through hell and back since then" (awww Chronos....)
'yoXX you'd think I would get used to the looks, the glaXX (glances?), The phrXX (uh.. phrases?) the REMARKS, the notes. But they don't understand. "
Show them? Make them understand? Make them think about how their actions affecting Chronos and family? Who is them? By itself I was thinking that "they" are the GIC's, hense the inability to communicate. But with the stuff from before it could also just be the general populace being all "ooh something happened to those guys let's all STARE AT THEM AND WHISPER." Which isn't great either, or easily stoppable. Small town vibes too.
Then the list of good things, like "my family" and "my dog", including an individual named Jay (likely the "she' mentioned before) and another entry that is crossed out. (Also I'm worried that uh, everyone on this list isnt going to get out this well-)
Bad things: Unforgettable. But not a lot of information given to us just yet-
Chronos is also coming around to how useful/helpful the Chronicles are
And if anyone's curious, this is what was notable on December 4th last year:
(Photo sourced from @generationlossupdates with the following Id: [Id- a tweet from Generation Loss, it says "2" with a image attached to the tweet, the image is the logo, looks hand painted and bloody. - end id] )
I'm currently under the assumption it's just coincidence, but I'll give it to you all anyway.
-------------
Second Poll, Same Day:
Another poll, also with a just question mark for the text. The options are "Who?" And "What?". I think it's asking what we want to know more about in the Chronicles, the characters? Or the world? (Well idk for What, what can mean a lot of things)
These polls feel eerily similar to the early gamey interactions in TSE, with the first one being a little bit of a dud and not wholly consequential, whilst the second leads to more more information about the area, and kinda controls what the character says and does. (In this case, what they write about next for our information)
Choose your own adventure book style, ya know
"Who?" won, so let's see if this is backed up in the next lot.
-------------
August 5th
J (presumably, Jay) suggested Chronos log their "Wild dreams" the past few days. there's another X cross out in the word "another" (anohtX) but this time, only one. The first one is misspelt so could be simply just crossing out (quite literally) the misspelling.
(Damn Chronos just like me fr fr)
So... Kinda info about the characters??? In terms of the Who/What from before? It's not as strong of a link as I would like it to be but it's all good-
-------------
D1: (Same Day)
(a dream discription, one of a number to come)
Standing in field of an unidentified plant, under a red sky. Weird terrain, felt like the ssky was curving upward. The sun was gone. (gnX)
Walking, trying to find something, not presently remembered. Then they started to sink, and they fell into a Chasm, a created, almost geometric yet unstable cave. Smooth white rock or concrete walls. Shifted and changed as they went deeper, until they saw "it". (Whatever it is, they didn't want to see it.) Dream be forcing them to see it though.
Then they're back in the field.
Stay tuned for Zero looks up Dream Interpretation and pretends to know what they're doing! (Cause I'm 100% sure it will be a long one, so different post)
-------------
August 6th
(aka the funny post that made GLRanboo jokingly ask if I was Chronos/Chronicle, bc of the screaming about work thing-)
Damn guys I think they don't like their work or their manager. One could interpret the million years old thing as just another word for "old geezer" but wouldn't it be funny if he actually was a million years old-
Anyways, I'm going to hazard a guess that what they sell is something technology related. Anyways, we don't like the manager here, how dare they not give any respect to Chronos.
XX update: another two XX's on the word making (he's maXX), and then another four at the end of a lot of exclamation marks.
Moving on, Chronos showed their dream to Jay, who suggested that's to do with a cycle and being forced to relive stuff (RELIVE THINGS YOU SAY-)
As for the snacking comment- I have no idea if that actually has anyy correlation to what you dream. More J lore about liking the crazy and supernatural, but what I find interesting is the three different ratios Chronos gives. Like, yeah okay man we get it you wanna be right, I'm sure you are I'm sure-
50/50, 60/40, 70/30. Just constantly increasing your chances at winning, I see u-
So, we have got a little bit of lore building! Real cool real cool.
(I feel it in my bones that MatPat would mention all over the rewriting and changing and the three different ratios, but in that case he'd be absolutely horrified if he saw my old school books-)
#gen loss#generation loss#chronicle 0#tangled tape#zero thoughts#yoooo so this is cool#gonna use Chronicle 0 as the tag for this now#i still cant get over the zero thing like plz#maybe at some point i'll just accept defeat#but ya gotta admit#Chronos or even Chronicle is so much better in terms of uniqueness#im calling myself out#but yeah
6 notes
·
View notes
Text
Alright I might be whacking the bee's nest here but whatever here we go. Patreon mini rant time!
So back in the YouTube membership days whenever a new Sides video was posted it was typically followed by a live stream discussing said video. Insight to how it was made, scrapped ideas, etc. Just a fun little peek into the process.
And I was pretty sure that the same would happen for WTIT because that has been the norm and there was so much that went into that episode how could they not talk about it?
So skip ahead to some time after WTIT came out and a poll is posted onto the patreon to decide what this month's stream would be about. And the options were either a stream discussing the video (a talk back) or a stream where a video for the second channel would be filmed.
And to add on to my ever growing confusion, they added on to the second option saying that even if the talk back was voted for, the second option would happen during a future stream. So regardless of which one received the most votes, the second channel vid was guaranteed.
On the other hand, there was no reassurance that we'd get anything in regards to bts content for WTIT if the talk back wasn't chosen.
So this just left me wondering, why are we voting at all? Why not just, ya know, do the talk back for a video that was long in the making that we still don't have a lot of bts content for anyway (what y'all have seen on Twitter is all there is so far, unless stuff has been posted to the tiers above the 25$ one) and is still pretty fresh in everyone's minds?
Then since you already plan to do the other option anyway, why not just save it for next month's stream?
Anyways, I voted for the talk back because why would I vote for something we'd get anyway? And I always enjoyed the follow up streams for videos back in the membership days, and even enjoyed the one we got for FWSA.
But right off the bat the second option (which I'm not going to say what it is) was getting more votes and oh boy did shiz hit the fan in the comments.
Like, it definitely wasn't everyone, but a lot of people were going crazy over the poll. Just a mix of people wanting both options, some just choosing the second one because it sounds fun, and others trying to encourage people to vote for the talk back because we'd be getting the second regardless.
Things got to the point where other patrons were stepping in to try and calm things down but it was still pretty hectic considering the votes were tied up for awhile, eventually though the second option won which I was kinda expecting.
And I can't say I'm not a tiny bit disappointed, but seeing as I'll end up being out of town for the stream I'm also kinda glad the other option got picked because I wasn't too interested anyway, but seeing all the chaos go down and not having it acknowledged at all by anyone running the patreon, I dunno I got a little annoyed with the whole thing.
Like, I dunno. I feel like things would have been better if they'd just did the talk back stream (this will be the first video since the membership days that apparently won't be getting its own follow up stream and no I don't count return of the jam even though it did technically get a follow up stream) or at least had some kind of bts content prepared for the patreons regarding this episode because, like I said before, all we've gotten are the things that have been posted on Twitter.
And ya know, one of the main things the patreon promises is bts content, and there's hardly any.
I dunno, maybe I'm just being petty or asking for too much, but it just rubs me the wrong way that they saw all this going down (and I know someone had to seeing as this ain't the first time things got heated in the patreon comments and some moderator stepped in) and never acknowledged it or try to come up with a solution to the problem.
And for all I know maybe they are throwing something together for this episode, but I have yet to hear anything about that and as it stands I'm not holding my breath. Like I said I'll be out of town during this month's stream so I probably won't be able to catch it at all, so I'll have no idea if Thomas will acknowledge the poll, but I dunno the situation will most likely quietly vanish and no one will speak of it again.
Of course this just reminds me of another problem I have with the patreon and how the streams aren't left up afterwards but that's a whole other rant post and I've gone on long enough.
So to sum it up: I don't understand why there was a poll to begin with, and I think it would have saved everyone a lot of strife if they just did a follow up stream if there's no plans to get any bts content out in the near future and they're planning on doing the other option regardless that way it’s a win-win for everyone involved.
#dukeofrants#will i delete later?#maybe#but i really just needed to get this off my chest so here we are
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
[Vampire!Leon/Witch!Reader] “A Night of Tricks and Treats” (Halloween Fic~!)
A/N: HAHA, I did it! It’s later than I wanted to post this, but it’s here! So enjoy the story that y’all voted for: A Vampire!Leon AU, with cute/fun elements, and a black dahlia thrown into the mix (along with other creative liberties). Thanks to everyone who voted on that poll - this one’s for you!
Vampire!Leon x Witch!Reader - “A Night of Tricks and Treats”
Word Count: ~3k
Rating: Teen (mild blood, reference to death, adult language, spooky stuff)
The third set of feverish knocks on your front door pulled a frustrated groan from your lips. You were finally drifting off to sleep when some rando decided to assault your door at some ungodly time in the night (or morning, since you checked your phone to see that it was a quarter past three). Pouted lips set on your face, you groggily slip out of bed, hardly bothering to grab the cardigan that you kept slung over your desk chair. Another fit of knocks was just starting up when you threw open the door, ready to say a few choice words to your unfortunate visitor.
But unfortunately for you, this wasn’t just any visitor.
“Hey, you’re awake!” Leon gave a cheery smile, oblivious as ever.
Ah. Maybe you should have put on some better clothes. But you’re already this far in - you decide to just play along like nothing’s wrong. Knowing him, you’d at least have a couple of minutes before the awkward sets in.
“Uh, yeah… You do realize it’s three in the morning, right?”
Leon shrugged.
“I’m aware, but it’s so much easier getting here at night. You have no idea how annoying paparazzi can be…” You sink in your hip a bit, watching his eyes flit down past your head for the briefest of moments. He tries to meet your gaze again, but the awkward smile twitching with some odd emotion that settled onto his face cues you in that he most definitely noticed.
The weather’s been oddly warm despite it already being autumn, so you were still wearing your summer pajamas. Which, of course, were a simple set of purple Wooloo PJs. Short-shorts that were baggy and comfy, a tank top that was equally baggy and comfy. Nothing scandalous, but definitely more revealing than what you normally wear.
You can practically hear the dial-up sounds going on in Leon’s mind as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, one hand tangling itself around a strand of that obnoxiously long purple hair, him just desperate to find something to distract himself with. It’s kind of fun to watch, actually.
“Did you need something?” you eventually sigh, crossing your arms over your chest as a hint of self-consciousness rumbles through your gut.
“A-ah, right!” he snaps out of it and lifts up his arm. Carefully pulling back the sleeve of his casual red hoodie, he reveals to you his forearm. A large, dark-colored burn covers most of the arm, even reaching down to his fingertips. You can’t help but wince, leaning forward for a closer look. “I, um, could use some of your help with this, if you don’t mind.”
“Again, really, Leon?” you can’t help but scold him a bit. He laughs, anyways. “This is the third time this month - one of these days there’s not gonna be much of you left to heal.”
He mutters a soft apology, but you’re still playing like you’re irritated with him and spin around into your living room. You don’t make it far before you realize that Leon’s still standing just before the threshold.
“Oh, right - you can come in.”
“Thanks,” Leon sighs in relief, still holding his arm with a smile.
Just like always, you guide him through your house, leading the significantly taller man down the halls towards a dark down just at the opposite end of your little cottage house. Expertly, you unlock the mystical mechanism that you yourself created (probably seven or eight years ago now? Man, how time flies) to reveal the ominous, shadowy basement. The two of you descend down the steps; you pass by a set of candles and light them with a snap of the fingers, a sight that surely puts stars in Leon’s eyes. He’s always been a sucker for parlor tricks like that.
Leon waddles over to the simple wooden chair you have waiting near the center of the room, taking a seat to watch as you tugged on your long black cloak (the one you made a habit to keep hanging down here for these very instances) and began pulling out various ingredients from one of the numerous cabinets that lined the upper walls of the room.
“Wish you’d just commit to being nocturnal, already,” you couldn’t help but sigh, checking the date you had written on the little jar of beeswax you were inspecting. “If you keep getting injured like this, your healing abilities might become permanently disabled.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m still champion,” he laughed, seeming more amused by your reaction than anything. “I can’t just step down for no reason.”
“Sure you can.” You climbed up onto a lower shelf to dig further into a cabinet. You left that jar of chamomile here somewhere. “Gym leaders do it all the time.”
“It’s different for champions. We’re the best of the best, the image of the ideal trainer for our region. Galar isn’t known for giving up, so that’s not an option I’m willing to consider.”
You almost settle for the bag of rosemary, only to quickly set it back in the cabinet. That would be bad, using rosemary on Leon. You were trying to heal him, here, not destroy the guy. You decide to check another cabinet.
“I know, I know, Mr. Unbeatable Champion. I’m just saying that it hasn’t even been a year since you’ve turned and now I’ve basically become your primary medical provider. And you don’t even pay me!”
“I pay you!” He whines a bit before pausing, no doubt trying to think of instances of proper “payment”. “I, um… Well, I’ll pay you back this time!”
You finally find the chamomile, and even stumble upon that jar of honey you were looking for earlier today (of course, they were both behind the several jars of cinnamon sticks). So you throw the man a perked eyebrow while walking over to your giant black cauldron, which rested within a rustic brick fireplace.
“Oh yeah? What have you, Good Sir Champion, have to offer to the likes of me?”
“Name your price and I’ll double it.”
You snicker, lighting the fire with a clap of the hands rather than snapping. You can barely catch Leon’s amazed smile from this far away. How is any of that exciting for someone like you, you can help but wonder. Champion, genuinely cool guy, recently-turned vampire… still gets amused at basic baby magic. Same ol’ Lee.
“Hm, that’s a bold offer, young man,” you muse, adding a dramatic raspiness that makes you sound like some aged witch from a shitty Blockbuster horror film. “A wise man would think twice before dealing with a witch~.”
“Please,” he snickered, “you still call me to catch baby Joltiks that wander into your house. Don’t even try.”
A playfully sour look from you spurs a booming fit of laughter from your old friend. You hide your smile by turning away, focusing more on getting some dandelions to add to the mix. A small bag of garlic slumps over in the cabinet, so of course you grab it and reveal it to the man. He instinctively leans back a bit, a nervous grin settling onto his face.
“Hey, maybe this’ll add some extra zing to your salve, huh?”
“Uh, n-no thanks…”
“That’s what I thought,” you cackle, tossing the garlic away. Thoroughly satisfied with what you have, you dump a shit-ton of beeswax into the cauldron, watching it slowly melt before adding in the other items. While all that boils away, you wander over to your other writing desk, skipping past your grimoire in favor of digging into a drawer. There, you retrieve a small glass vial and a bag of jumbo marshmallows; those in hand, you walk back over to where Leon resides.
“Time for the secret ingredient.”
“It’s not really a secret ingredient if I already know what it is,” he frowned.
“Shut up and open wide.”
He rolls his eyes a bit, but does as he’s told. If you didn’t already know the truth here, you might have not seen anything unhuman about his teeth. Overly white from years of meticulous care and likely bleaching or whitening strips (though the thought of Leon walking around at night with whitening strips on his teeth nearly made you choke on your spit), but otherwise normal-looking human teeth. However, you knew better, and peered a little closer to his canines. Sure enough, you could see it; a slight shimmer, something like seeing heat rising off the earth during the summer, wavy and hardly noticeable. You took a marshmallow in one hand, the vial in the other; expertly, you stabbed the treat into one fang and simultaneously propped up the vial against the other tooth. Leon flinched a bit (“It feels really weird,” he had told you one time, following the same procedure the night he needed a quick fix after accidentally grabbing one of his grandmother’s rosaries when cleaning up his mother’s house, “kinda like I’m spitting with my teeth. Yuck.”). In seconds, small spurts of a dark, sort-of maroon-colored liquid fills up most of the vial. You give it a few seconds more before pulling away, taking a moment to drain the liquid from the marshmallow before offering the remains to the champion. He childishly takes it with glee, stuffing it into his mouth with that stupid smile on his face (goddamn his smile was gorgeous, but it’s way easier to just say that it was stupid, instead).
With the last and most important ingredient, you return to your work, carefully pouring the vial’s sibylline contents into the concoction. You pick up the large wooden spoon that hangs over the fireplace and give a few generous stirs.
“Y’know,” you hear Leon’s footsteps creeping up behind you, keeping a slow, leisurely pace as he meanders around the room, “this really wasn’t the future I thought for us when we were kids.”
You exhale a chuckle from your nose. You almost say that you feel the same, but the fear of him inquiring further about what you did envision makes you choose a different set of words.
“Don’t even think about getting all Byronic on me,” you peered over your shoulder. He simply smiles at you - an even stupider smile - hands in his pockets as he slowly makes his way towards you. “I’m not going to listen to you moan and groan about your tragic fate for all eternity.”
He chuckles, something surprising soft instead of his regular bone-shattered laugh.
“Of course not. I’m just saying that I figured we’d be, y’know, doing other things.” You try not to think about what he could mean by that. “But I’m not really against this. I don’t think I would’ve found out about your little shop of horrors down here, otherwise.”
He’s got a good point there. Literally the only reason you admitted to your secret life as a decently skilled witch was the night he turned. You could still remember it all; he stumbled into your house, desperately holding his wound with that terrified look in his eye, as if he was looking at Death, itself. You’d never personally treated a victim of vampire’s night out (not a live one, anyway), but you did everything in your power to keep Leon alive. But you knew that it was nothing short of a miracle that he managed to wake up the next morning, having survived a night of literal death in slow-motion. Not so many victims were so fortunate to make it through the process, but like hell you were about to let your childhood friend die like that. So now he knew your secret, and you protected his. At least you didn’t have to worry about the two of you drifting apart any time soon, especially with him always forgetting basic vampyric flaws like sunlight all the time.
He settles beside you, offering a soft smile.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m really grateful to know someone like you. You’ve got better things to be doing, and yet you always make time to bring me back after I do something stupid again and again.”
You look into his eyes a moment too long before looking back into your task. The gooey mixture, now dyed a deep red, bubbled down below, seeming almost alive.
“You make it sound like I just started doing this. I’ve been patching you up since kindergarten.”
“Fair enough. But still… I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. So, thank you.”
He’s got that look in his eyes again, golden irises burning brighter than ever, and he’s far too close for you to be comfortable. So, logically, you look even deeper into your cauldron, grateful that the darkness of the room likely hides your ever-burning cheeks. Thankfully, the brew looks just about ready. You reach over and grab a small bowl from the table nearby, spooning some of the waxy goo into its hold.
From birth, it had been decided that you would carry on your mother’s family tradition of witchcraft. And you have - with much pride - and it’s become your greatest secret that would spell disaster should it be learned by the wrong people. You didn’t make many friends, but Leon’s dumb smile was so infectious that you were always drawn to him, even if he drove you bat-shit with his innocent antics. The two of you were close for so long, but after he became champion, things became a bit more strained. You figured that it wouldn’t be long before he forgot about you altogether - but then last year’s “incident” happened, and now a whole new understanding unknown to much of the world had formed between you both. You knew it was far too late to ever consider confessing any of your possible feelings for him (feelings of annoyance, you always told yourself - what an unfortunate lie that’s come to be), but now here you were, likely stuck as his clandestine nurse for the rest of your mortal life. And then what? You’d be reincarnated, would likely stumble upon memories of your past lives (such is the fate of those who take on the witch’s mantle), and see the man you once loved (or loathed, as you’d rather say) finding someone else to take care of him in your absence. For him, it’d hardly feel like a change. But for you, it’d truly be a fate beyond that of death or eternal damnation. You should be happy that he has a reason to stay with you for the rest of your life, but instead, all you can feel is a bitter aftertaste that you have no choice but to suffer through.
“I can’t say I believe in fate,” you shrug your shoulders, “but every now and then the stars align in such a way that has us thinking that God has a sense of humor.”
Leon chuckles again, but you don’t really know. He doesn’t really know what you’re referring to. Right?
You shuffle him back over to the chair, sitting him down and resting his arm across the armrest. As gentle as possible, you spread the salve across the burn area, letting it soak in a bit before applying a second coating that you massage into his skin. Leon watches with that dumb, stupid, bothersome smile of his; you make a point never to meet those eyes, not when you’re so close to him like this.
After a few minutes, you give an affirmative nod and pull back, inspecting the injury. Sure enough, it’s already starting to lighten up.
“Looks like we got power in the healing department,” you smirk. “You’re all ready to go, Good Sir Champion.”
“Not quite.” You must’ve made a weird face, because he’s quickly backtracking, rubbing the back of his neck with a laugh. “I mean, uh, I still have to pay you back double, right? You never said what kind of payment you want.”
You don’t like the way he phrased that. No, you hate the way he phrased that. It’s got your mind in all sorts of a jumble, now. So as quick as you can (before you accidentally say something stupid), you make up a response.
“Flowers.”
Okay that’s really fucking dumb.
Leon quirks his eyebrows at you, seeming amused once more.
“I, uh, I mean,” you stumble for words, hoping to dig yourself out of this hole you’ve thrown yourself into with one stupid word. “What I mean is… I’ve been looking for a specific set of flowers for this spell I’m working on, but they don’t really sell them in stores nearby. So, uh, yeah. Get me flowers.”
“Flowers? For a spell?”
“For a spell,” you affirm.
“Okay,” there’s a strange tone to his voice that you don’t really want to try and decipher, “I can do that. What, uh… what kind of flowers do you want - er, what kind do you need? For the spell?”
You run through a mental list of all the most non-romantic flowers you can think of. Unfortunately, you like flowers, so all of them kinda felt romantic. God fucking dammit.
“Uh… dahlia’s? Black dahlia’s - yeah, those’ll be good. For the spell.”
“Right, the spell,” he nods, glancing off to the side for a millisecond. “I think I can do that, yeah. For a second, I was kind of scared you were gonna make me get a bunch of super poisonous flowers. Not sure how I would explain that one to my bank.”
“Y-yeah, right.”
A brief (and awkward) silence settles over the two of you. Eventually, Leon moves to get up; you shuffle a few steps back to give him enough space to stretch.
“Well, thanks again for helping me - I feel a thousand times better. I swear, you’re a better doctor than, well, actual doctors.”
You smirk with a smidge of pride. “Magic is just a science that hasn’t been accepted yet. And it looks cooler, too.”
“Maybe you can teach me a few things, some time.”
You narrow your eyes at him, playfully glaring in such a way that has him laughing just at the sight of it.
“That’ll cost you more flowers, Lee - are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“I’ll buy you as many flowers as you want - any kind you want.”
You wait a minute for him to backtrack, or to say “For the spell” in a rushed manner like always. But that’s it, the end of the sentence. He just stands there, smiling in that stupid way evermore, eyes focused entirely on you.
It’s a look that you can hardly describe, the look in his eyes at that moment. It pulls something from your chest that you had spent years keeping locked up tight.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
You don’t know what scares you more - the fact that you said that, or the fact that he grins even brighter.
You’re the witch here, and yet he’s the one trapping you in this terrible enthrallmetn that has you seeing stars with just that stupid-dumb smile of his. It’s hard to blame it on his status or his altered state of humanity when this has always been the case. No, that’s just the kind of person Leon has always been and (hopefully) always will be. And you would likely be stuck with this (gorgeous) idiot for the rest of your mortal life.
It’s got your heart beating faster - you can’t tell if it’s from fear or from excitement. Maybe both. Most likely both.
#halloween fic#halloween-themed fic#halloween#pokemon#Pokemon Sword and shield#pokemon swsh#swsh#sword and shield#leon#champion leon#Leon x reader#LeonxReader#Leon/Reader#reader-insert#gn reader#gender neutral#vampire!leon#vampire#witch!reader#witch#cute#romance#mutual pining#happy halloween
41 notes
·
View notes
Text
(Un)Conditional - Part 2
I Came Out to Have a Good Time and I’m Honestly Feeling So Attacked Right Now
You didn’t remember how or why you found yourself in Ransom’s bed in the first place, but now, poor, pregnant and desperate, you had your reasons for putting up with him, and they weren’t noble. His reasons for staying with you weren’t noble either.
Hey, long time no see... This took me longer than it should because I wasn’t sure about the dialogue. Still not sure about it. Some of you might have missed the polls I posted so you could help me decide the future of this series, so here they go: Whether or not I should redeem Ransom and What gender the baby (or babies, damn) should be. Democracy is important :)
Anyway: Reader meets the Thrombeys...
Story warnings: Smut, abusive relationships, mentions of past sexual assault, talk of abortion, daddy kink, drinking, mention of drug use (Will add more as the story goes on)
Chapter 1 - Truce
Chapter 3
Fandoms: Knives Out
Ships: Ransom Drysdale x Reader
Word Count: 6k
Chapter warnings: The reader and Ransom joke about incest and Ransom jokes about selling the baby to pay his grandfather back for all the money he lend him; people drink wine; there’s mention of drugs and people doing them; The Thrombeys are being particularly shitty.
You were off to the clinic to get an urine exam the next day. Ransom had encouraged you to get a more reliable test to make sure you were pregnant, but he wouldn’t accompany you. He was busy, he said, but he didn’t say with what. Probably begging his granddaddy for more money or chasing after another pair of legs.
The clinic would call you in a couple of days to let you know the results. The wait was killing you. The longer you waited, the harder it would be for you to get an abortion. At some point the pill would stop being an option, and you would have to go under the… knife? Scalpel? Coat hanger? Whatever the procedure entailed, it was bound to be more stressful than just taking some meds.
What was most concerning, though, was the possibility of you becoming attached to the fetus. Your misgivings originated from a fear that you might be doing something you shouldn’t, but you had no particular regard for the thing growing inside you. You might as well be carrying a rock – it certainly tired you like one. Some day that could change, though, and the moment it did you knew it would be game over.
The first thing you did when you got home was take off your coat, kick off your shoes and fall face-first on the couch. That was also the only thing you did. According to the sources you checked, fatigue was an early pregnancy symptom, but you weren’t sure it was meant to be this bad. Good thing you weren’t behind on your freelance work; you didn’t think you could handle doing anything that evening. You were hungry, but didn’t have the energy to even go to the kitchen. Your cellphone started ringing at some point, but you had dropped your bag by the entrance. Maybe something else happened too; you didn’t know, you fell asleep soon after.
You were roused from your nap by a cacophony of car honks right outside your window.
You jumped from the couch and stumbled to see what the commotion was about. You expected to find a car crash in front of your building, but all that was there was a familiar vehicle.
You stepped into your slippers and left your apartment. Ransom was still abusing the horn of his BMW when you came out onto the lawn.
“What are you doing?” You cried out, jogging to his car.
He put his head out through the window. “You don’t pick up your phone anymore?” He complained.
“I was sleeping.” The reason why you didn’t answer didn’t matter. This was a distraction. “Why are you here?”
“I came to pick you up, what else?” He seemed to notice you confusion and explained himself “I’m going to introduce you to my family. They’re having a dinner party tonight at my grandfather’s house. If I show up there with a kid before they even know the mother, my mother’s gonna kill me.”
That gave you pause. Introduce you to his family? That had never been in the cards before. Ransom had always been against anything that could hint to intimacy that went beyond sex, because intimacy entailed responsibility, and he was allergic to that. Your relationship was more of an arrangement, one in which he was the one with the most to gain.
Perhaps this would be your chance to really get something for yourself, something other than the occasional orgasm. Although Ransom’s charms and your proclivities were the biggest reason behind the start of your odd relationship, you’d be lying if you said his grandfather’s accomplishments didn’t affect your interest in him. Having been an avid reader of Harlan’s books back in high school (when you still had time and motivation to read) and now working as an assistant editor in the mystery fiction imprint of a large publishing company, you had hoped that maybe being involved with Ransom would give you the chance to meet him.
Even when it became clear Ransom didn’t like you like that, you still stuck around. He was inflexible when it came to your relationship’s dynamics, but you still had a sliver of hope that one day you’d get to meet his family. In the end you were right, and all you had to do to get your wish was let your idol’s grandson raw you after a couple of beers.
“I’m not even sure if I’m pregnant yet.”
“After five tests? Come on.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’m gonna keep it.”
“If you don’t, you don’t. Just let me introduce you before you decide. It’ll be awkward otherwise.”
You couldn’t argue with his logic. Ransom’s family wasn’t likely to think well of you if he introduced you as “the chick I knocked up by accident”. Your family wouldn’t be happy about it either, and yet you had to find a way to convince him to meet them at some point. You knew they weren’t going to like him, but it was better than trying to pretend it was a case of Immaculate Conception. They wouldn't fall for it anyway.
“Go get ready so we can go.” He said.
You nodded and ran back inside. He looked like he was in a rush, so all you felt comfortable doing was retouching your make up and putting on a different pair of pants. When you came back down, Ransom was pouting at his wheel.
“About time,” he said “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I took like five minutes.”
“Eight.” He tapped the watch in his wrist.
You decided humoring him wasn’t worth it, so you got into the passenger seat without a word. Ransom took off, his tires squealing as he did a u-turn on your sidewalk. He always drove like a madman, most of all when he was in a hurry.
“How long ‘til we get there?” You asked.
“I can make it in half an hour.”
“I mean safely.”
“In that case, thirty minutes.”
Shame on you, forgetting Ransom was convinced he was immortal.
“Is there anything I have to know about your family before I get there?” You asked, trying to take your mind off the traffic lights flashing by at an alarming speed.
“I could never do them justice,” he snickered.
“At least give me something to work with.”
“You are going to have talk to my parents at least,” he mused “Just nod and agree with whatever my father says. You gotta be smarter with my mother, but avoid challenging her. Joni and Meg are annoying, Walt’s creepy, and there’s no point in talking to Donna and Jacob; they’re gonna hate you no matter what.”
“And Harlan?”
The question put a grimace on his face.
“Be honest. He’s gonna like you.” There was a minute pause before he added “We just celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday, so if you can bring up how good he looks for his age without being obnoxious, he’s gonna love it.”
“Eighty-five? When was that?” You liked Harlan’s work, but you didn’t like it enough to bother learning his birth year. You expected him to be younger, what with all the books he was still pumping out on a yearly basis.
“Last week.”
“Your family is big on get-togethers, then?”
He grimaced. “Unfortunately.”
“Familiarity breeds contempt,” you offered. You weren’t sure you’d get along with your parents as well as you did if they didn’t live in another state.
“Sucking does too.”
“But I thought you liked people who suck?”
That was a twelve year old boy joke, but it got you a chuckle.
“Already know what I’ll be trying today: Hey, Joni, blow me.”
“That’s your aunt right?” You asked and received a nod in response “I can’t wait to see you asking her for a blow job.” You didn’t really think he would go that far, so you weren’t worried you were goading him on. If he did it anyway, it would be because he decided the amusement he would get from pissing his aunt off would be worth whatever she could do to get back at him.
“Fuck, I’d accept one from my grandfather at this point.” You two had had sex just yesterday, but that was fine, you supposed.
“I think I’m going to regret this, but since we’re already in too deep and none of us knows when to stop, where are your parents in the Joni-Harlan blowjob scale?” This question might’ve offended anyone else, but Ransom was made of sterner, more horrible stuff.
He replied without missing a beat. “Oh, my dad wins easy. I don’t fancy getting bit.”
The throwaway line about his mother killing him if he just announced your pregnancy out of the blue came to mind. You wondered if she was as terrible as he made her out to be. You wondered if any of his relatives were as horrible as he made teem out to be.
“Hard to think you’d be scared of anyone in your family with all the money they lend you and you never pay back.”
He snorted. “I’m not scared of any of them. Wouldn’t be going if I were. I already owe Harlan more ‘one-pounds of flesh’ than I weigh.”
“Good thing he doesn’t charge interest.”
“Who says he doesn’t?” His eyes flicked to you for a moment, comically wide “What do you think I want the baby for?”
“You- you want the baby?” You knew he meant to jest about selling your child, and perhaps the bit about wanting it was said in the spirit of the joke, but you couldn’t help but hope it was a Freudian slip. Why did you hope that?
His Adam’s Apple bobbed as he considered your question for a few seconds. “I said I would help you with it.”
“No, you said that at first, but now you said you want it. I didn’t even ask for help, I just thought I should tell you. Why did you offer to help in the first place?”
He shrugged. Something about the gesture felt off, less cocksure than his usual self. “Because it felt right.”
“But do you want to do it? Do you even know what raising a child means?”
“Do you?”
No, you didn’t. You might have even less knowledge of the subject than Ransom, weird as that seemed. You hadn’t said you wanted to have the baby, though. You weren’t sure what you wanted.
“Do you want me to drop you off at a clinic? Because we can end this now.” Something about the way he’d said it made it seem as if he was talking about more than just the pregnancy.
“That’s not what I meant.” You whispered.
Edifices were replaced by trees as Ransom drove on. It was easy to focus on the changing view, now that he wasn’t talking to you anymore. You had broken one of his unspoken rules: never get emotional around him. You knew he wasn’t in it for something as trivial as feelings, but now with the pregnancy thing you thought… Well, you weren’t sure what you thought.
The rest of the trip went by in silence, seeming to take forever in spite of the scenery flying by. By the time you arrived at your destination you were disheartened – lucky you that the house Ransom parked in front of was the stuff murder mystery fiction dreams were made of.
Harlan’s mansion had been plucked from one of his books, it had to have been. With its red bricks and the Gothic Revival style, it looked like it’d been taken straight out of “Around the Corner and Down the Lane”. It was a magnificent, giant, mysterious house you could easily imagine multiple murders happening inside.
It was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.
Ransom left the car, slamming the door shut on his way out. You had to hurry after him to get to the porch as he was knocking on the door.
You didn’t have to wait long to hear sounds coming from the other side. There were footsteps against a wooden floor and the shuffling of keys, and then time seemed to slow down. When you woke up that morning, you’d never have thought you would end up meeting Ransom’s family by the end of the day. Were they anything like him? What would they think of you? And what would they think about the thing? You weren’t going to talk about it today, but still…
The door opened, revealing a slim woman with an old fashioned bob-cut. She looked confused when she saw Ransom, and even more when she spotted you. She opened her mouth, but didn’t get the chance to say anything.
“Hey, Frannie,” Ransom greeted. If you didn’t know him better, you’d assume he was being friendly. “Take this for me, would you?”
He removed his coat with the speed you’d come to expect from him when it came to taking off his clothes and shoved the mass of fabric into her arms. He walked inside, brushing past her, ignoring the outraged look on her face. You followed after, and her expression was no kinder towards you. It wasn’t the first time someone got mad at you for something Ransom did, but what were you to do? It wasn’t as if you could control him.
As Ransom walked through an arch on the left and the woman scurried through a door to the right, you stood on the spot right in front of the entrance. The gargoyles sculpted in the wood of the stair railing paralyzed you, the lights from the ornate chandelier blinded you, and the memories of books read long ago, hiding under the blankets with a flashlight when you were supposed to be sleeping came rushing back to you. This was much more than you had been expecting.
The inside of the house was dark and sinister like the outside, but there was a sense of warmth you hadn’t anticipated. The soft lights, the lavish rugs, and the numerous trinkets scattered about gave it a lived in feeling. The decoration somehow split the difference between “home” and “haunted house” right down the middle.
Why was it that Ransom didn’t like visiting his grandfather again?
“What are you standing around for?”
Speak of the devil…
Your forced your feet to move and followed him deeper into the house. Something inside you screamed at you to just ditch Ransom and this stupid dinner party to explore by yourself, because you got the feeling he would end up dragging you to a place that looked much more boring. You needn’t have worried – the living room was adorned in much the same way as the hall, cluttered and discordant and fascinating. Every piece of decor seemed to selected based on its own merits rather than any common theme or style, but it somehow all worked together.
You had started making your way to a windowsill, from where a model of a carousel with fish instead of horses called to you, when a voice stopped you in your tracks – a voice you had never heard before.
“Who’s that?”
You whirled around to see a man standing just a few feet away from Ransom. The age was about right, and with the two standing so close together, it was hard to deny the similarities between them.
“That’s my date,” Ransom said with a shrug.
“Date? You brought a date?”
“Nice, Richard. We don’t want to make her feel too welcome.”
At that, the older man looked back at you with a grin that would be charming if not for the utter shock reflected in his eyes.
“Hey, there,” he greeted, extending a hand “Richard Drysdale, father of this,” he glanced behind himself to look at Ransom, who was busy messing with a figurine in the mantelpiece “rascal.”
You offered your hand to him (his handshake was strong, professional) and introduced yourself.
“I gotta say, this is really something else,” Richard said “Ransom hasn’t brought any girls home since high school.”
“I bring girls home all the time, I just don’t live with you anymore.”
The meaning of his words didn’t go unnoticed. You already knew he fucked other women on the side – or rather, there was no “side”; you guys weren’t a thing, and it wasn’t as if you only put out for him – but Richard understood him as well.
“Is that the kind of thing you say in front of your date? I thought we taught you better than this.”
“No, Richard. We really didn’t.”
You looked to the source of the voice, and spotted the woman who had to be Ransom’s other progenitor.
“Linda,” she extended her hand to you, but not a smile. Her handshake was even stronger than her husband’s.
Richard joined his son by the fireplace to fiddle with a pewter box, looking downright chastised. Ransom, for his part, seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh.
He had said his family was a mess, and that he found it all terribly fun. Up until now, you weren’t really sure you believed him.
“Whatever this” Linda pointed from her son to you, then back to him again “is about, I hope it ends soon, for your sake.” The last bit, she’d said while looking at you, then she left through a different archway than she’d entered from.
It seemed Ransom had inherited the charm from his father, but the ability to put the fear of God in those who crossed him came from his mother.
“Who else is here?” Ransom asked once Linda was out of earshot.
“Mostly everyone is in the library,” Richard replied, pinching the bridge of his nose, all the former friendliness leaving him like a deflating balloon “your grandfather locked himself in his office with the nurse, and who knows where they put Wanetta. Meg’s not coming.”
“What excuse did Joni come up with?”
“Schoolwork. Essays, whatever. I mean, it’s a Friday, it could wait.”
“She’s going to spend at least half of the evening doing drugs with a friend, easy.”
“Dope.”
Ransom snorted “Like she’s shooting up.”
Richard fixed his son with a disbelieving look. “No. Dope is weed. Dope was weed just yesterday.”
“It used to be.” Upon seeing the defeated expression on his father’s face, Ransom shrugged “World’s passing you by, man.”
That didn’t help. Richard looked back to the pewter box, turning it on his fingers like he was trying to find the best angle to see his reflection. Ransom stared at him for a second longer, then stepped away from the fireplace and exited through the same way his mother had.
He didn’t call you, so you assumed you weren’t needed at the moment, but then, what were you going to do with yourself – watch a man have an existential crisis?
You didn’t have to wait long to find out. You had been standing there, watching Richard sigh to himself for maybe a minute when three other people entered the room. The first was the woman who had opened the door for you; the second, a younger woman, with something almost doe-like about her, and the third…
Well, Harlan Thrombey didn’t need introductions – at least, not to you.
He was the first to speak, looking at the woman Ransom had called Frannie. “Seems like you aren’t going mad, Fran. Unless we all are, which is possible. Can you see her too?” And at that he turned to the other woman, who smiled at him. It was hard to tell whether her smile was fond or embarrassed.
Then, his eyes landed on you.
“Since you’re just standing around with this idiot,” He said. Richard gave a tight smile and tapped his fingers against the mantelpiece “I’m going to guess idiot number two left you to fend for yourself?”
This wasn’t the kind of welcome you’d expect when meeting your not-boyfriend’s family, but Ransom was eccentric, so maybe his relatives were as well. Maybe it was a rich people thing.
“I’m used to it, when it comes to Ransom” you offered.
Harlan grinned at you, but then again, he had been smiling since he entered the room. There was something very Ransom-like about both expressions.
He ambled to you, extending a hand which you rushed to grasp. His smile grew, but maybe that wasn’t good.
“I’m Harlan, the proprietor of this” he gestured to the room with both hands “little menagerie of horrors. And these,” he turned to the women “are Fran, my housekeeper, the only one who can keep this mess in order,” the woman who’d opened the door smiled and raised her hand in greeting, but she still seemed suspicious of you “and Marta, my caretaker. Heaven sent, I would already be dead if not for her.”
Marta had smiled at you as she was introduced, but frowned at the last comment.
“Don’t say that,” she admonished “you’re strong like a horse, you’re going to live for a million years, I’m sure.”
Harlan whimpered theatrically and extended a hand as if trying to grasp at something.
“Marta, is that you? It’s so dark, I can’t see. Oh, is that a light at the end of the tunnel?”
“Really? You’re impossible.” Marta huffed, and Harlan laughed.
They seemed close. Close enough that they’d forgotten all about you in their banter.
Once he was done with his joke Harlan turned back to you.
“I promise you I don’t get any more charming, but you get used to it with time.”
Time. Did he think you’d get to be around long enough to get used to anything there?
“Let’s... get this party started,” he said with a wink “I don’t ask you your name because I’m dying to see how my grandson will introduce you, and I don’t want to get attached.”
That answered that question.
You followed the party of three into another living room(parlor?), then another(fainting room? How many rooms for sitting could one person need?), then finally to what you presumed was the library (that could easily double as a living room), given the floor to ceiling bookcases in every wall that wasn’t occupied by a window. The room was large, large than any room in a house needed or had a right to be, and there were so many books on so many shelves there was no way Harlan would’ve been able to read them all, even accounting for his age.
Despite the exorbitance, the place was cozy and interesting, not at all a monochromatic art installation behemoth the likes of the Kardashian-West mansion (Which you didn’t care about in the slightest… one of your coworkers had shown you the pictures, it was all), the sort of thing you expected from people with too much money and no sense of comfort. The library was furbished with plush seats, nooks where one could hide in to read in peace, even a mezzanine, and– was that a sculpture inspired by “A Thousand Knives”?! Excessive, very excessive, and somehow also really cool. You were sure you could spend hours perusing books and examining baubles, but there were other people already in the room, and you had been raised too well to just ignore them when it was obvious you had already seen them.
Linda leaned against an open window, balancing an unlit cigarette between two fingers, and looking out, as if debating whether or not to have a smoke and whether or not doing so inside. There were a man and a woman on a pair of matching high-backed chairs, looking nervous and annoyed respectively as another woman talked at them, and a teenager speaking to Ransom in between typing things on his phone. He was the first to notice you’d entered the room and he directed a brief glare to you before his eyes landed on Marta.
“Well, no need to stand up or anything,” Harlan spoke from behind you, waving his hand as he passed.
“Dad, plea-” the sitting man began, but he stopped once he saw you. After a moment of confused staring by both parties, he looked back to Harlan “Is that-”
“Don’t know; she came with your nephew.”
All eyes were now on Ransom. He was enjoying the attention, if the stupid smug grin on his face was any indication.
“I brought a date. I figured I had to be the first to do it, since Meg thinks all sex is rape and Jacob’s an incel,” that earned him an elbow in the gut, which he barely reacted to.
“A date? Boohoo,” Harlan spoke, and you almost winced “I expected something more exciting from you.”
“Would you rather she was a notorious diamond thief and I brought her here to steal every red penny you own, old man?”
“That would be more on brand.”
“That’s it,” Marta said, placing her hands on his shoulders and directing him to an armchair in front of the knife sculpture “I’m putting you to bed earlier, abuelo.”
“Not without me throwing a tantrum, you’re not.”
Ransom’s uncle looked back and forth from his father, then to you, then to his nephew, before settling on you and standing up. He picked up a cane that was resting beside the armchair and wobbled toward you, smiling.
“Hello. I’m Walt, it’s a pleasure to meet you…”
You gave him your name, exchanged proper greetings, shook hands; his fingers were trembling slightly, but the length of the hand shake was very appropriate.
“I hope you like it here so far. Any friend of Ransom’s is welcome here.”
“You say that because you never met any of my friends.”
“You know what Ransom,” Walt turned gave him a sarcastic smile “I’m surprised you have any friends at all. You sure you not paying her to be here?”
You didn’t know exactly what it was that Walt had said, but something had set Ransom off.
“Why, you want a round with her? Don’t think you could afford it right now, pal.”
Walt’s lips were still pulled up into a smile, but his pupils were darting from side to side like he was searching for escape routes. That was fair, so were you.
“Don’t speak to my husband that way,” the woman who hadn’t said a single word to or even acknowledged your presence so far, gripped the seat’s armrest as she seethed at Ransom “it’s not his fault that-”
At that she fell silent and turned to Harlan, who was looking at everything with mild interest.
“Actually, you don’t have a job either, do you Donna?” Ransom continued. You knew that look; he was getting steam and you didn’t want to know what would come next.
“I think we’re all just a little stressed with everything that’s been going on,” the woman who had been silent so far – Ransom’s other aunt, you presumed, the one he wanted to suck his dick – mercifully cut in before he could get anything else out “I think we need to roll things back, maybe start over? I can go back to the car and get my crystals so we can do a-”
As if on cue, Fran entered again, a tray with a wine bottle and glasses in hand. She left everything on a coffee table, then walked by Marta, whispering something that convinced the younger woman to move to a more secluded corner of the room with her.
Donna perked up when the drink touched the table, and, smiling the well practiced smile of a hostess who did her duty with no joy, she started pouring drinks and handing them around. When one of the glasses was placed in your hands, you weren’t sure what to do. You rolled the stem in your fingers, pondering as the other adults drank and Jacob sulked.
“So,” Joni began, giving you an easy grin “you and Ransom have known each other for…”
As she trailed off, Linda chuckled, but she wasn’t looking at you.
“Eight months, give or take.” You answered.
The answer seemed to surprise her “Eight months? And how long have you been dating?”
“Oh, I’m not...” you turned to Ransom for help, but he was looking at his nails as if they were the most fascinating thing in the World or as if he really didn’t want to take part in this conversation “I’m not sure. We haven’t exactly made things official.”
It looked like she was fighting to keep her smile in place “And you met-”
“What do you do?” Linda interrupted, still looking out the window “Do you actually have a job or are you just expecting to scam someone here?”
You turned to Ransom; he had placed a hand over his heart and was looking at his mother as if he found her comment deeply offensive.
You hadn’t thought about what you would say if Ransom’s family decided to grill you, deciding it would be best not to overthink things as he’d suggested. A question about your job was expected – it was just harder to process it when it had been asked in such a manner.
“No, I- I’m an assistant editor at Little, Brown and Company.”
There was a splashing sound, and you looked just in time to see Walt trying to rub off a stain from his sweater with one hand, while holding his wine glass with trembling fingers. When he noticed you looking at him, he offered a stiff smile.
That was the wrong answer, it seemed. It was the truth, of course, but the reactions around you were discouraging. Linda huffed, Harlan chuckled, Joni nodded mechanically, Donna seethed as she wiped at her husband’s clothes with a napkin, Walt trembled, Jacob’s scowl deepened, the sound coming from Fran and Marta’s corner of the room ceased, and Ransom’s grin was the widest you had ever seen on his face.
“Really?” Linda asked, now focused on her son “Where do you find those people?”
He laughed. “What? I’m very charming.”
“I need to use the restroom,” you squawked. You didn’t really need the restroom, just any place other than there.
“I’ll show you where it is,” Marta said, as quickly as you had. Her eyes told you everything: she was also dying to get out.
You handed your drink over to Ransom and followed Marta out of the room, the two of you almost running down the hallway.
She led you to a lavatory, where you turned on the faucets to cover the sound of you whimpering and heaving inside. After splashing your face with some water, you exited the room to find her still waiting for you outside. She offered an apologetic smile.
“So…” you started, not sure of how to best broach the subject. Good thing she already knew what you wanted to get at.
“They aren’t always like this,” she said “they’re all good people, but things have been a little… you know how it can be with family, right?”
You nodded. “Yeah, it’s just a little… seems kind of a bad time for me to be showing up.”
“No, I think it helps. They are better behaved when there’s company.”
But that’s true of everyone.
“Ransom didn’t tell you about…? Anything?” She asked.
“No. He said it’d be fine.”
Marta’s expression was of doubt, but she didn’t say anything to discredit him.
“Are you okay to go back?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
She nodded and stared leading you back to the room.
“They’re good people, but can be a little much sometimes. You get used to it with time.”
“You- I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, but you don’t look that used to them yourself.”
She shrugged “I guess I just… haven’t been around long enough.”
The scene you returned to was different from the one you had run from. Linda had abandoned the window and reclined on one of the armchairs. Richard had made his appearance, leaning against a bookcase behind Linda; He kept a respectful (perhaps even safe) distance between the two. Walt, Jacob and Donna were squeezed in on a single couch, looking like they’d just been plucked from a stuffy family portrait. Joni lounged on a window seat, leaning her chin on one hand and swirling her wine with the other. Fran was nowhere to be found. Harlan, sat atop the chair in front of the halo of knives, looking every bit the magnanimous patriarch. Ransom had taken his place on an armchair, just beside another empty one. On his other side was a small table with two empty wineglasses. His legs were crossed and he had a wide, satisfied smile that you knew well – so you knew it couldn’t mean anything good.
You sat beside him and angled your body in a way you felt would rend a pretty picture, because that seemed to be the game they were playing, while Marta made her way to a corner and stood there, doing the most not to draw attention to herself. Smart.
“So,” Harlan began as you settled into your spot “I think you were telling us about your career?”
“Yes, but there really isn’t much else to say.” Unless they wanted to be bored, that is. You had more tales of spotting typos than of interesting literary works.
“You said you worked at Little, Brown and Co?” He asked and you nodded “How long have you been there?”
“Two years. It’s about all the experience I have working in the field, other than internships in college.”
“Ah, College.” He grinned, but didn’t explain what he found so amusing “What did you major in?”
“English literature, with a minor in communications.”
“Good, good. Topical. You two bonded over books, then?”
You turned to Ransom, who was looking at you with a lazy smile. You had never told him about your job, let alone what you had studied in college.
“Yep,” he said. You two talked about books sometimes, but you didn’t think those conversations had helped with any bonding.
“You know, I think it’s so good to see Ransom has found a positive influence,” Joni said. The affectation in her voice and mannerisms was suddenly much more noticeable, and it felt like an omen.
You turned to Ransom. His lips were pressed together into a thin line and his chest was swelling like he was gathering oxygen for a screaming match or something worse. The longer you spent around these people, the more you were convinced he wasn’t the only one who liked to needle others.
“Honestly, I-” the words tumbled out of your mouth and you could only hope they were the right ones “I’m not sure if he’s influenceable.”
Ransom was still scowling and for a moment you were afraid you had only made things worse, but then his mouth opened and he let out the air in his lungs with a low chuckle. Much better than being in the middle of another argument.
Fran walked back into the room before anyone else could start a scene and announced that dinner was ready. Apparently Harlan hadn’t been exaggerating when he said she was the only one who kept his house in order – all around you tense shoulders relaxed and frowning brows smoothed with the promise of a meal. You must’ve looked happy as well, given you hadn’t eaten a thing since lunch and your stomach was starting to hurt. There was also (and you wished the thought hadn’t run through your mind, but it did) the chance that Ransom and his family would be much less likely to speak if their mouths were stuffed with meatloaf.
You wished you didn’t have those sort of intrusive thoughts about people you had just met, but they weren’t making it easy for you. Marta had alluded to a “family situation” that had left them on edge, but you had never seen people react this badly to strangers. This was the stuff or nightmares, or at least of “Florida Man” news reports. They were supposedly worse when there wasn’t company? How much worse could they get?
Ransom had told you not to worry about dining with his family. Maybe he was so used to them he didn’t think the way they acted was all that strange; maybe he knew his family would behave the way they had but he decided not to warn you for purposes of fuckery; it didn’t matter all that much. The worst thing was knowing that they sucked as hard as he liked to say they did. If you chose to go on with your pregnancy, this is what you would be bringing your child into.
#ransom drysdale fanfiction#ransom drysdale x reader#ransom drysdale#ransom drysdale fic#Ransom Thrombrey#knives out fanfic#mine#(Un)Conditional
208 notes
·
View notes
Text
RemRom Survey Results
To start my analysis of the data I’ve gotten from my RemRom survey, I first want to mention that this will *not* be an accurate representation of the entire Thomas Sanders Sanders Side Fandom.
I’d say it’s a fairly safe assumption to make that no more than about five percent of this fandom cares about RemRom in any real sense; therefore, about 2.5% are Pros and 2.5% are Antis. TO BE VERY CLEAR: this is an assumption of my own, since I doubt Thomas will try and figure out the specifics for who ships (and DOESN’T ship) what in this fandom.
Based on this, my overall data is definitely skewed, which you can see with the responses I got on my “Do You Ship RemRom” question of the poll.
If this were a true representation of the entire SaSi Fandom, then 42% (60 out of 143 responses) of the fandom would ship RemRom, 15.4% (22 out of 143) are on the fence for shipping RemRom, 18.2% (26 of 143) are Neutral towards RemRom, 11.9% (17 of 143) are in-between Neutral and Anti and will be called the NOTP section for brevity, and 12.6% (18 of 143) are Anti RemRom. I’m not sure how I got so many proshipper responses, though I’d be willing to be tit had something to do with DD (@demented-dukey) reblogging my post (thank you, by the way; I really appreciate it).
Based on the above, I will not be combining all of my sections (Pros, Neutrals, and Antis) into one lump assessment of the fandom, since it just isn’t accurate to this assumption. That being said, I can assume that each overall section (Pros, Neutrals, and Antis) is a fairly accurate assessment of those portions of the fandom and will be discussed as such as we go along.
Before I go ahead and share the data for all of my sections, I wanted to go through all of the questions on the survey first. They were all identical for all the sections, but I wanted to talk about them anyways before breaking down all of the responses I’ve received. I’ll throw these under the cut, since I doubt you all want to have your dashboards clogged by this monster of a post. The results for the “who is your favorite side” question will be at the VERY END of this post, but I’ll cover all my responses to the true final question of this survey in a later post.
The first question is, clearly, do you ship remrom. This question has five answers, all shown in the image below; however, I’ll write them here in case the text is hard to read. The first option is “No. I am very much against it-some may call be an Anti, or I may label myself as one,” and this answer took responders to the Anti Section of the survey. The next three are “No. I will go out of my way to avoid RemRom content, I don’t really want to see it” (which I will be short-handing to NOTP), “No. I am neutral towards the ship and those who ship it. I may not like it, but if it comes across my Tumblr dashboard it does not upset me,” and “Maybe. I'm curious about the ship, but I haven't gone out of my way to find (much) content for it;” these three answers took responders to the Neutral Section of the survey. The final answer is “Yes. I ship RemRom. Some may call me a Proshipper, or I may label myself as one” and takes responders to the Proshipper Section.
Looking back, I should have put the Maybes and the NOTPs into their own section; however, at the time of creation, I felt that they fit better into the Neutral Section, as they were neither a Proshipper nor an Anti. Moving their answers into their own sections won’t happen for the sake of this survey, as it’s a hassle to do. However, I will make my data available for everyone if others wish to undertake this task.
The second question that greets everyone is: How do DNIs (Do Not Interacts) apply towards RemRom Shippers on Tumblr? The options on this one were: “DNI's for Remrom usually apply only to Proshippers. If you ship Remrom, do not interact,” “DNI's for Remrom usually apply to Proshippers and those that support Proshippers, even if they themselves do not ship RemRom,” “DNI's for Remrom are evenly split between the above,” and “I do not have a Tumblr / I do not know.” Responders could only select one of these options. I added the not having a tumblr option here, since I figured that the survey may get spread to discord servers, and that people there may not have tumblrs. I forgot to add this to other questions (and realized it about 60 answers in, which at that point would feel like skewing my results more by tweaking that), but I’ll mention them when we get there.
The third question was “why do you think people ship RemRom?” This was a select all that apply question. There were many options here, including an “other” option to add your own or supposed own reasons for shipping it, but all the options can be found on DD’s post about the topic. I just want to add for the “Remus would ship it” answer to this: my apologies to any Remus kinnies I may have caused harm to. This answer was addended to include a disclaimer about hallway through my getting people taking this survey, as I received word that this answer was possibly triggering.
The fourth question was why should people not ship RemRom. This question was a select all that apply question. This one also had an “other” option.
The fifth question was “in your opinion, what is the best way to avoid any and all remrom content on tumblr?” and the sixth question was “whats the best way for those who ship RemRom to share it on tumblr so that those who don’t like it can’t see it?” These were “select all that applies” questions, and has an “other” option.
The seventh question was “Is there any acceptable form of RemRom content?” This question was multiple choice.
The eighth and ninth questions were “Do you think that the RemRom discordse on Tumblr has gone too far?” and “Please explain your thoughts on the above question.” For question 8, I did not put a “no opinion / do not have a Tumblr” option because I didn’t think to add it until 80 responses in, and at that point it would have skewed the data.
The tenth question was “Who was your favorite side?” On top of all the sides, extra options are Thomas himself because he TOTALLY COUNTS and also Remy because, while a fanon side, he ALSO COUNTS. And yall can fight me on that one. The final question was a “Final thoughts for this survey” question, which was a free response for everyone. Not everyone answered it, but I know for a fact that DD did because DD signed their Final Thoughts Response.
The favorite side of those who took the survey was... Janus!!! Second favorite was Remus, third was Logan, fourth was Roman, fifth was Virgil, sixth was Patton, and Thomas and Remy tied for last place.
#remrom#tw remrom#remrom tw#remrom mentions#remrom survey#survey results#next part in the survey results thing is gonna be the Proshipper Results#then itll be the neutral section that has the maybes and the notps#and then the antis#itll be GREAT
76 notes
·
View notes
Text
Round Robin Legacy Neighbourhood Challenge
A possibly over-ambitious idea, but one I'm legitimately hyped for and think would be really cool to try out!! Could get a little complicated, so please read the rules carefully.
I’ll work out official sign ups later today (so more people get a chance to check it out, if interested), but if anyone wants to discuss this in more detail or has any questions/concerns/critique, message me privately or hop onto Discord. I don’t wanna keep cluttering people’s dashes with discussion, haha.
Legacy Rules
Money - no money cheats! We won't know for sure if you cheat of course, but let's try to keep some of that classic legacy "challenge" in there. If any sims move out, they can keep the default £20,000 handout.
Lots & Housing - Lot size is irrelevant. No restrictions on moving house and entirely up to you whether to move the heir out on their own, keep them living with parents, move the entire family, etc.
College - no college as it slows things down too much! We want this legacy to be as viable as possible :)
Spouses - anyone can be moved in as a spouse, townies, NPCs, whatever. Hell, maybe your heir is poly and gets multiple spouses? It's all good.
Aspirations/LTW/Turn Ons - randomise these!
Supernaturals - these are allowed! let’s get wacky
Heir selection - Heir polls are obligatory! Only the first three kids are heir-candidates. The family can have as many as they want, but only the first three count. The family can have less than three as well, if you don't feel like raising all those sim-kids, though it's good to have at least two for the heir poll.
Playing the spares - Optional! Spares (or hell, previous generations too) can be townified, kept around, or played. Just keep in mind playing extra households will increase the time spent on a generation, so keep it reasonable. One option is to manually age them up using cheats, mods, or the freetime feature.
Age - Each heir gets to start their life with a full life bar even if they spent a few days as an adult "back home" waiting for all candidates to transition. (Use elixir of life or mods for this - otherwise no elixir of life abuse!)
Hacks & CC - do whatever you like here, just as long as it won't cause problems for later players (avoid, for example, stuff like mermaids where later players won't have the required mods!)
Bodyshop CC - allowed since everyone usually makes over sims to match their own styles anyway - but avoid using custom genetics such as skintones & eyes. Stick to defaults!
Neighbourhood Rules
Editing - Feel free to edit the neighbourhood to your liking, including adding new lots or making over existing ones!
Downloaded lots - You can also add lots you've downloaded rather than building them yourself if desired.
CC - Try to avoid using Custom Content in your decorating where possible, to avoid causing trouble for the next player in the chain. Some small amounts of CC are ok - just remember they won't stick the following generation!
Custom Memories & Food - avoid stuff like this! Any mods that can cause corruption when removed are likely to cause trouble. If you’re not sure what is/isn’t dangerous, best to avoid and play as CC/mod lite as you can :)
Multi-PT/Plantsim mods - please avoid these, too!
Townies - We will be starting out with this default replacement townie pool
feel free to age some of them up (using freetime, or mods) or add new townies to the pool when it is your turn.
If some of them just float around agelessly for the entire 10 generations, not a problem! that’s the classic legacy vibe ;)
Subhoods - We won't be starting out with any vacation destinations or downtowns but, if you would like to add these yourself when it's your turn feel free :)
Maxis vacations, default downtown, custom cc-free hoods, whatever! Just make sure any custom subhoods you add are safe & clean, follow the advice below.
Corruption - Please practice good neighbourhood "hygiene" & make sure you are careful to avoid neighbourhood corruption as per this guide!
Make sure to run the Hoodchecker regularly, especially at the begining of your generation & before passing it on to the next person!
Backups - Make sure to back up the neighbourhood often in case anything goes wrong with it!
Finishing Up - When you have finished your generation & it is time to pass it over to the next person, ZIP or RAR your neighbourhood folder, and privately send it to the next person in the chain.
Post Rules
Please tag your posts with "Round Robin Legacy 2020"!
You can use whatever style you like to document your generation - happy family one generation, a screwball caption story the next, and an angsty overwrought extra-posed one the third. That’s part of the fun, seeing the different takes on each generation.
You do need to document somehow, though!
What Ifs
People Who Drop Out: If the installment doesn't get posted or the player says "Sorry, I started with the heir, but real life interfered, I can't do it right now" it goes to the next person on the list.
If the neighbourhood becomes corrupted/broken: We will stop using the "Legacy Neighbourhood" and instead package & upload the heir. The next player in the chain will then start out a new generation in a new neighbouroohd as per the "classic" round-robin rules: https://roundrobin-sims.livejournal.com/466.html
Requirements
All participants must have a basic knowledge of playing "safely" and keeping the neighbourhood corruption-free (as much as possible, sometimes this happens for no obvious reason so you won’t get “in trouble” if something goes wrong)
All participants must be able to use SimPE (to extract clones & fix DNA and stats) and Bodyshop (to include any CC used that generation, if desired). This is so that if the “legacy hood” goes wrong we can easily switch to the “classic” ruleset.
All participants must have all EPs - having some SPs missing should be okay!
All participants should be able to finish playing/posting their generation within a month or two - we want to keep this legacy viable and it's not fair to the other participents if it ends up on indefinite hiatus.
61 notes
·
View notes
Text
PHYLLIS Logan is only minutes back from New York where the actress has been promoting the new Downton Abbey movie. The national station PBS has been beaming out interviews across the nation, given the series about toffs and toff-servers has been such an success in the classless land of the free.
Logan’s voice is soft and a little subdued. She speaks in thumbnails, not given to flourishes at all. I factor in that the expansive, often dramatic language of hyperbole was spoken by very few in Renfrewshire in the 1950s and 1960s (yet actors tend to be more effusive). And I factor in jetlag of course.
But then again, perhaps there’s a little more of her laconic head housekeeper character Mrs Hughes in Phyllis Logan than we’d suspected? “Well, I can be a bit snippy, a bit terse,” she offers, smiling. “But only to my nearest and dearest.” Would Kevin (actor husband Kevin McNally) agree with that? “Probably,” she says, dryly.
Logan’s thoughts on the Mrs Hughes comparison continues: “She was written down in the script, of course, but I like to think I gave her the legs to run. But when you play a character there are always elements of you in that person. You can’t completely step away from yourself.”
Downton is a phenomenal television success story. The series, which began eight years ago featuring the Crawley family and their legion of servants, began with the Titanic going down, and has covered plague, rape, murder, interwoven with romance, often crossing the class barriers.
Logan’s character was voted No 1 Ever in a 2014 Radio Times poll; no mean feat given the subdued nature of Mrs H, a woman to whom flashes of excitement are to be discouraged as much as relations with those upstairs.
Yet, the original script described Elsie Hughes as a Yorkshire woman. Logan reveals it was only when the casting directors heard the Scot’s natural voice that they asked her to read in her own accent. “I was happy when she was cast as a Scot. She had that Scottish bluntness and I felt right because I have known women like her.”
During the six series of Downton, Mrs Hughes negotiated Branson the chauffeur’s assassination attempt, Carson’s Spanish flu and helped Ethel with her illegitimate Upstairs son, Charlie. The psychologist with an apron also sorted out Thomas’s homosexuality. And although she fell for Mr Carson, (or at least lurched slightly in his direction) it took a bit of persuasion before she agreed to a “full” marriage, where he would make occasional visits downstairs.
“We all know those types,” grins Logan. “But what’s nice about her is she does have a sense of humour. And she’s quite forward thinking. She’s a republican, and has a socialist bent to her for sure.”
Does Logan have left-wing sympathies, considering her late father, an engineer, was a trade unionist? She deflects by referring to Mrs Hughes. “She was of a different type. She knew people were thrown into a caste system but had to make the best of it.”
Yes, but what about you, Phyllis? Did you feel working class containment in Johnstone, where most people’s horizons didn't stretch beyond Rootes car plant or the local carpet factory (where John Byrne took inspiration for The Slab Boys – Logan appeared in the sequel, Cuttin’ A Rug)?
“You just accepted the way things were,” she says, sounding ever so Mrs Hughes. “I never thought I’d break out and become posh. But I did think it would be nice to spread my wings a little.”
Just a little? She smiles and adds: “But I didn’t audition for some of the big London drama schools. I thought that was a step too far for me at the time so I went to Glasgow.”
Not a risk taker. Not a wild child. But very, very good at what she does. Despite her careers teacher declaring the teenager was wasting her time with acting, Logan picked up the James Bridie Gold Medal at the RSAMD. On leaving she landed work at Dundee Rep and worked continuously throughout the 1970s and 1980s with the likes of Borderline Theatre. Real talent was revealed. Yet few would have expected her to land the role of Britain’s most popular posh totty in dodgy antiques dealer series Lovejoy.
Aged 30 in 1986, Logan walked into an audition room as Lady Felsham. Logan’s Lady had a cut-glass accent, spoke authoritatively of renaissance art and invoked a world of stately homes and castles. But in reality, Logan’s only castle connection was her housing scheme, Johnstone Castle, where the recognised art on living room walls was a classic Sara Moon picture. This new cut-glass accent had somehow emerged from a world where ginger bottles were a form of currency.
Logan’s clever deception (aided by being forced to speak RP at drama college) revealed that you don’t have to be a loud extrovert to be emboldened enough to convince you are actually blue blooded: you just need to be talented. “I can’t believe looking back now that 20 million were watching us on Sunday nights. The show was so huge.”
Many other drama successes followed such as Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies. But did she feel Downton would be the massive success it became? “I read the scripts and loved them. And when I heard Maggie Smith and Hugh (Bonneville) and Penelope (Wilton) were on board it looked good. Then we signed an option for three series but there was always the chance it could have gone down the pan after one.” Her voice lifts. “And then six came along.”
Did this kill the fear, the insecurity that comes with being an actor waiting to be hired? She answers indirectly. “It used to be that you always knew that when one job was finishing another would be on its way. But that seems to be far less the case these days. That’s why it was great having that guarantee of six months' work each year. And each time it was like going back to school after the summer holidays and seeing your friends.”
Logan seems the worrying type, so why volunteer for a life of insecurity? “And rejection,” she adds in soft voice. “And I’ve had a certain amount of that.” She thinks for a second and makes a dramatic statement that seems out of character. “You know, I wanted this part in Downton so badly I think I might have given up [acting] had I not got it. I don’t often feel that. Usually I have a what’s-for-you-will-not-go-by-you outlook.”
She laughs and allows herself a little flightiness: “Somehow I felt, ‘This is mine! It’s meant to be.'" She then contains herself and becomes more Mrs Hughes. “No, I felt I’d like to give it a bash.”
Logan certainly didn’t get into acting for the glory. She doesn’t seem to be consumed by ambition or the fripperies of acting success. She had genuinely forgotten she’d won a Bridie Gold Medal, and mention of her Bafta for Another Time, Another Place, (the 1983 Scotswoman falls for Italian POW tragic romance) doesn’t swell her head in the slightest. What she does want, however, is to act. All the time. In all the best roles.
“I just wanted to be the best I could. To find the truth in every role. You don’t think about awards. Acting has been the only thing that remotely interested me since I played Mary in the Nativity play at primary school. Then at Johnstone High I’d join every club that had anything to do with acting and take trips to the Citizens'. I’d be in any play going, starting in the chorus and working my way up to playing Polly in the Boyfriend.”
But, of course, there have been set backs. “My dad [David] didn’t live to see me graduate, [he died, aged 59] and that was a real shame but my mum would come and see all my shows.”
Logan’s voice becomes more upbeat as she tells of how her mum and aunt landed roles in one of her films, when the actress appeared in a drama set in Spain, The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway (1989). “My mum Betty and my auntie Margaret came on set to have a look around, and they were asked if they wanted to be extras. They loved the idea of this, and were dressed up as posh ladies with big frocks and they had all the make-up done.
“But it was a night shoot, and the second night as they should have been getting picked up they declared, ‘Oh, pet, we don’t think we’ll bother tonight.’ I thought ‘Have you never heard of continuity? Do you know what this means? I had to tell the director they’d both eaten something dodgy.”
Betty and Margaret clearly weren’t captivated by the acting world. Logan herself once claimed she wasn’t captivated by actors. She said she wouldn’t have one in the house, that they were vain people. But then she met McNally while filming the 1993 miniseries Love and Reason and they fell in love and married.
“What I meant was I’d never get together with one,” she backtracks, grinning. “But in a way it makes real sense. We know the business. And we can help each other. Recently, Kevin was doing three episodes of the missing Dad’s Army scripts (playing Captain Mainwaring) and I read lines with him every night. It meant I got to play every other character in the cast.” McNally must have found it a delight, given his wife’s talent. (She slips into a remarkable Clive Dunn/Corporal Jones voice. “Don’t panic, don’t panic Mr Mannering.”
But if all that sounds a little perfunctory, Logan, who lives in west London, once declared: “There’s an excitement in discovering that you can still fall in love when you’re an ancient old trout.”
There’s little doubt the relationship really works. But the Mrs Hughes cross voice emerges when I ask if Pirates of the Caribbean star McNally, who has appeared in Downton in the past, playing Horace Bryant, has a role this time around? “No, he does not,” she says emphatically, (subtext: he’s had his shot and should be thankful, a sentiment which sits neatly against her husband’s quote of the time: “Phyllis said it was like take-your-husband-to-work day.”
Was she a bit territorial? “Yes,” she smiles. “I was thinking: ‘You don’t get me a part as Johnny Depp’s mother and take me to the Caribbean. So why are you here?’”
What of the Downton film, set in 1927, two years after the end of the series? It transpires tiaras and silver will be polished until they sparkle. “We get a visit from the King and Queen (George V and Queen Mary) and there’s a bit of friction between the Downton team and the Royal household staff. Mr Carson (now on gardening duty) is begged by Lady Mary to help out. The cavalry ride into town!”
And, of course, there will be lashings of scandal, romance and intrigue “that will leave the future of Downton hanging in the balance,” says the official movie site.
But what of the future for Phyllis Logan? Despite running up continuous film and TV series, success, from Taggarts to Rab C Nesbitt, from the more recent The Good Karma Hospital to Girlfriends – and attracting great crits for her West End role earlier this year as Patricia Highsmith in Switzerland – she certainly has Elsie Hughes’ worry gene.
Logan’s run, she feels, could end at any minute.
“It’s a snakes and ladders life,” she says in Mrs Hughes' tones. “Your career can be going really well and suddenly the snake appears. But I guess I’ve been lucky because I persevered.”
Nonsense, Phyllis. Talent kicked in. You don’t get Bridies and Baftas and almost continuous work for perseverance. “It’s lovely of you to say so, but I’m not sure that’s really the case.”
Downton Abbey is out on September 13
72 notes
·
View notes
Text
When a Star Truly Shines
Day 5 Greed @explodoweek 2020
Chapter 5 of 7 bakudeku rockstar AU
The sudden intrusion snaps Katsuki to attention. He quickly wipes at his face and turns to see who would dare to approach his car, because if it was a fan, he really wasn’t in the mood for it. His shoulders slump, of course it would be Midoriya. He cracks the ignition and rolls down his window. “What do you want mouse?”
Midoriya nervously scratches the back of his neck and musters a smile in the hopes of breaking the tension. “I’m sorry to disturb you Mr. Bakugou, but you seemed upset, so I wanted to see if you’re okay.”
“I’m fine dweeb,” the singer responds in a monotone reflecting very little emotion.
“Oh-Okay… B-but you were crying.”
Damn this guy really was annoyingly sweet. Couldn’t he see that he just wasn’t in the mood to be bothered. “Tch!” Katsuki turns his head away. “What do you care?”
“Well, you see” he fidgets with his fingers, “I just don’t like seeing people upset… and I know it must have something to do with that party, so I feel bad.”
“Well you shouldn’t,” Katsuki maintains a level tone trying not to show his annoyance, “cause you didn’t do nothin’ wrong.” ‘Shit, I was the prick idiot.’
“Mr. Bakugou?”
Okay he was really getting tired of the mister part. He rolls his eyes and stares forward away from the man, ‘Ugh,’ “What is it?”
“I’d like to start over, if that’s okay…. And maybe be friends?”
After everything he put the man through, he was still willing to be friends with him?! Katsuki’s head whips back to face the man standing outside his door. “Why? Is this a trick?” His brows furrow and eyes narrow. “Did Shouto put you up to this?!” He just couldn’t fathom, with the world turning against him, that Midoriya wanted to give him a second chance. “This better not be a trick or something, cause I’ve had enough bad news for one day…”
“N-No, No!” Midoriya waves his hands in front of himself frantically. ��No trick, I swear! Shouto doesn’t know I’m talking to you. He’d probably kill me if he knew!”
“Tch, you guys are still seeing each other aren’t you, just keeping it hushed up?”
“What?!” The man stiffens up. “No! He’s not really my type,” Midoriya blushes bright red. “He just worries because I get emotional really easily.” He fidgets with his fingers, “S-so, would you like to be friends?”
Katsuki thinks for a moment. This could be the saving grace he was hoping for. “Yeah sure, why not.”
They exchange contact information and agree to meet for lunch in a couple of days. Katsuki watches Midoriya walk away, and for the first time in days, a small smile registers on his face. It’s been a long time since he’s had such a normal interaction that it felt a little weird… but nice for a change. Who knew? Katsuki chuckles and drives home. Maybe there really was a way to dig himself out of this mess after all.
Their first luncheon went quietly without any problems, leaving both men with a sense of starting off fresh. The singer actually felt good at the end, like a small high without the need for chemical substances. But by the next day, they were thrown back into the spotlight when a blogger caught a photo of them together and blasted social media with it. Oh, was the singer pissed! Katsuki wanted to go after the man for spinning rumors of a new affair with the florist that made Midoriya look like some kind of whore.
Luckily Shouto had caught him before he could react, and with the help of the PR department convinced him to let them handle it. A journalist for UA Metro did a follow up story and interviewed Midoriya. The sweet natured florist sold the truth and confirmed the luncheon was nothing more than an innocent lunch to bury the hatchet, and by the time it had ended they were on the road to being friends. Shouto had been irritated about being caught off guard with the news and the fact that they’d met up, but he also couldn’t stay upset when in the end it helped to bolster Katsuki’s broken image just a little.
It was awkward and rough for the first few weeks despite the initial meeting going well. Over time, Midoriya’s positive and sweet disposition appeared to be rubbing off on Katsuki much to Shouto’s relief. His client needed all the help he could get to turn things around.
On the professional side, having Midoriya in his corner was thawing relations with the industry, but album sales were another story. Consumer polls hinted that the slight shift in the style of music from pop/alternative, to more of a hard rock style may have something to do with it. Fans liked Shockwave’s semi-edgy music, but at least the pop angle broadened his reach. By leaning too heavily into one genre, they may have lost some of the fan base. It was okay, they still had options in boosting sales such as putting out remixes to add back in the pop feel. In the meantime, working on rebuilding his personal image may also help sway the fans.
In reality, the covetous nature Katsuki had felt in the beginning was turning into an obsession. And the question now became, how far would he go to keep it from slipping through his fingers a second time? Now he understood his managers desire to protect. He wanted to keep Midoriya happy because of the warm, fuzzy embers it stirred in him.
The singer was a lot nicer now, but that didn’t mean he’d lost all of his bravado. Katsuki still craved attention and would do anything to keep it. At the same time, he wasn’t an idiot. Staying out of trouble and Midoriya’s friendship were the sources of the turnaround, so he showed his appreciation in the only way he knew how. Meals, movies, tickets to anything that interested the man, Katsuki would lavish gifts upon him. He put up with whatever the man was willing to give just to keep him happy, and if he was being honest with himself, simply cuddling on the couch wasn’t that bad after all.
By the sixth month into their friendship, Katsuki would spend every last dime if that’s what it would take to make Midoriya his.
#explodoweek#Katsuki bakugou#bakudeku#bakugou katsuki#Midoriya izuku#shouto todoroki#bakugou#midoriya#deku#kacchan#day 5 of 7#greed#when a star truly shines#bnha fan fiction#bnha fan fic#bakudeku fanfiction#bakudeku fanfic#katsudeku#katsudeku fanfiction#bnha edit#chapter 5#posting all these already since the event is not reblogging anyways
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Q&A #105 and talking about the Wiki
Yes, there’s a wiki if you weren’t aware which you can find on the No Haven tab above. It’s been getting some love recently thanks to Malcarther who has done a great job putting together and adding new resources for both the Racials and Aspects. I was able to get in contact with the original administrator and now both me and Malcarther are now also admins on there. So I can now also add others as is needed.
In other news the Alternative July Commission Poll is now up on the patreon. Currently the Heal Slut Training/Healing option is cruising to an easy win though still early days with plenty of time to go.
Now onto this batch of questions.
[Anonymous said:] So a while ago, I was playing a new game of No Haven, and going through the Profane Ritual to get my hands on a slave with M:Co to eventually train up to participate in the Truly Divine mission. Then I get to thinking. This Whorelock is hoping for a boon using the daughter of a rich merchant for their eldritch ritual. Wouldn't an angel, demi angel, or any of the other exotic lovelies be even better? So is there anything in the works for our own ritual using our own slaves? Possibly a victory?
- ...I love this question as for once I am well ahead of the curve :D There is already an assignment where you can pull off your own ritual, and you can do even more with if you have a certain demi-angel aquirable from another assignment.
As for Profane Ritual itself such rare exotics are very hard to come by and often a Whorelock has to make do with what they have available.
As a hint it’s obtained from the spin off from part of the Arrogance storyline that starts in the Deep Mountains.
[Anonymous said:] Just had a thought... on the Profane Ritual assignment, when attempting to complete the ritual, shouldn't the Anointed One corruption provide a bonus?
- Added that assignment well before I thought about including aspects in the assignment trait checks. It’s a good shout though now I’ve started to do so and will likely include it in the next update.
[Anonymous said:] Will there be pregnancies? I did not find any questions and answers that answered that continues with the good work
- There will not, and there won’t be lactation either. They’re just not my thing. Thank you very much!
[Anonymous said:] Hey I've been playing your game for so long I have forgot and love how everytime I start a new character I see and find something new. I would like some help tho. I have run across the truly divine mission multiple times throughout multiple playthroughs without ever figuring out what is needed to actually capture the true angel? I have had everything i think should be required. faith light, corruption, biomancy,insatiable etc.
- Thanks! Also you’re half way there with Corruption and Biomancy both being needed. The first one needs to be more specific than just having the Faith as the intro lays out and you need to catch someone with that from rare assignments on the Great Plains and train them up as a slaver. As for the fourth think more about the skill set involved rather than the sexual stamina. You’ll likely also use it in getting the first one into the position where they can help out.
[Anonymous said:] can you import or load saves made from older versions of the game?
- You can try it. However I generally don’t reccomend it. RAGS is a mess enough as it is, and as the game is still evolving I something need to make backend changes that can break saves even further.
[Anonymous said:] Hey found 2 different bugs. One where i could not go above 7 slaves. I would expand the pit and encampment ontop of recruiting more slavers. This would let me get more slaves but only for a day. Next day missions that acquired slaves were locked if i had 7 or more. Slave cap was 7/12 it just refused to let me have more Second bug is where hold back the dark crashes the game. I´ve tried different hold back the dark missions with different characters and time limits but it always crashes.
- Those are two very odd bugs. Not all sure how those happened and I’ve not heard them mentioned before which is odd again as that I’d have thought would be both fairly common occurences. Please ensure that you’re not saving/loading when the click to continue is red as that might cause weirdness like that.
[From Hypnopics:] Also, as a simple feature request, could we get some color differentiation added into the hypnotic mantra either reinforcing or downgrading? Once your camp is fairly large it can be a bit of a pain to sort through all the messages checking for Mantras since you can't see them unless they are fully embedded anywhere but the implant trigger screen.
- That's a good shout and I've included some more highlighting in this update.
[From Hypnopics:] I have a zhar dwarf second in command (so sad he was my second in command and not a smith, he had all the smith traits). I have increased his size to the monster/ogresize via biomancy. But the dwarf doesn't want to equip an ogre armor.
...
A slaver with an epic armor. Change the armor with another armor in the camp => the fist armor disappear
- Zharr should be pretty easy to tell to do something else without fighting you too hard. I do need to change how that works with the crafting sizing as it was prior to the height stat being a thing but for now if you have a smith/seamstress with the crafting trait they'll make the needed adaptations.
That one is working as intended. Unlike items you wear or are worn by slaves anything you give to a slaver is a gift and will be kept even if you then give them another item.
[From Hypnopics:] I still can't figure out how to get puppet leader to fire XD. Is there a step by step in case I'm missing something?
- Get forced encounters repeatedly so more than one is using you with the max gold deduction of 120g and eventually it should fire. It's also more likely to happen if they're able to mess with your head like with Dominater, Hypnotic, and Malevolence.
1 note
·
View note
Text
Fanfic Progress Update: Light at the End of the Tunnel and Going Forward (Part 2 of 2)
Part 1: Here
Sorry this took awhile get out, my lying ass said “a few days” last time, but a month is about the same amount of time... right? I’ve been busy trying to finish up a fic I wrote for a very helpful friend as a Christmas gift, which obviously isn’t late as crap now. Besides that, some unavoidable stuff came up (including having my phone containing writing notes totally crap out on me, internet issues, oh and almost becoming homeless because my landlord jacked up rent a bunch without notice, forcing me to try to sell my plasma and to scramble for money. That was fun. But that’s a whole other story).
I hope you’ll understand that real life troubles have to take priority. I know, it’s always excuses with me, sorry. I wish I could control my life and not have all this shit constantly come up too.
Okay, now that my customary pathetic excuses are out of the way let’s get down to business! First up? Fic progress updates! But PREPARE FOR AN ONSLAUGHT OF WORDS! (as if that’s anything new).
The Bonds That Never Break: The last piece of the “Birthday” chapters (which were originally supposed to be one but got split because all these issues) has had some progress (maybe 1/4 of the way) and won’t be a difficult undertaking finishing it up since I know what I want to do, but... Honestly I've hit a major roadblock with the fic beyond this point. My ideas for original stuff are coming up empty and simply rewriting the entire plot isn’t my plan (even now I think the ratio is too far skewed for canon content without enough additions of my own).
The problem as I said in my Author’s Notes of the most recent chapter is the format keeps me tied to the canon, which limits my options. I love the idea, but I can’t deny doing a faithful canon rewrite is a pain sometimes. And in the coming chapters my new ideas are pretty much nil beyond a few scattered chunks from the Konoha Crush arc to about halfway through Shippuden.
Side Note: I planned on skipping canon rewriting most of Shippuden. The fights with Akatsuki and such don’t really play into Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship and I’m not interested in doing that much extra legwork beyond the main focus of this fic. I only care about the dorks and their story and elements of the anime that deal with it. So beyond that, we’ll jump a bunch of that and go directly to the end, a new ending where they get together eventually, where everything will be new.
So me being stuck being the case, I MAY skip forward a ways to something more solidly planned and thought out, and come back later to fill in the gap. Maybe to the point after the ending where everything is my own creation so we can see the dorks repairing their relationship and just making out like they SHOULD have done from the start. We’ll see what happens. I’d be very interested in hearing reader’s opinions, maybe I’ll set up a poll to see what you you think.
I REALLY think I need to put this on hold for a while and watch the anime start to finish, to help inspire me and bring back my passion. I love these guys but over the last year and a half my interest has faded. I need to get back into the ship and reignite those feelings I first had when I started the show so I can channel that into better chapters.
The Horny Canine Boys of the Hidden Leaf Village: Having trouble with this one too. To put it in semi-simple terms, I know what I want in chapter A and chapter C, but connecting them together with chapter B is causing me issues. Haven’t started the next chapter yet (technically the conclusion to the most recent one, since I broke that up because I wasn’t finished and had gone so long without updates) but I do know what it will involve and have plenty of notes so it shouldn’t take TOO long. That being said, from there I’m not sure what to do. I might skip forward and do chapters later on in the story first since I have a clearer idea of what I want them to be. This fic is mostly porn without plot so it’s not like skipping around would matter that much, but it’s still pretty frustrating. Probably going to make a poll for this one too, to get reader’s opinions regarding to skip or not.
Dogs Keep it in the Family: Some progress on finishing up the update I cut short, mainly need to assemble all the parts and ideas together into a cohesive whole. So not too much work. The problem with this one is mainly issues of quality I have with it, content not meeting my expectations. I have plenty of notes and a few more chapters plotted out, it’s mainly just finding the occasions where I can get some good writing done. That aside there’s also a lot of questions beyond the first couple chapters of what I want to include that I’m not sure about. I need to think more about this one.
The Unorthodox Journey of a Pokemon Breeder Boy: The next chapter of the Charizard segment is roughly half way done. But I pushed this out way too soon mainly because I was so sick of it being constantly on my “To-do list” in an in-progress state during months and months of interruptions. Going forward though I’m not really sure what I want to do with it; I simultaneously have this grand vision, but an abnormal lack of concrete ideas for new chapters. I’ve had some little sparks of inspiration and prompts, but beyond that I’m just not feeling it flow into a greater idea.
Here’s my planned schedule for this round of updates. Thing’s could change, but I’ll make a notice if they do.
1. Untitled Inuyasha fic; Koga/Ginta/Hakkaku threesome. This is a gift for a friend I’ve been trying to finish for weeks now
2. The Bonds that Never Break. Last segment of the Birthday chapter
3. The Horny Canine Boys of the Hidden Leaf Village. Next half of the Dogs Will Play chapter. This one has the least recent update (and is by far my most read fic) so I might push it ahead.
4. Dogs Keep it in the Family. Last chunk of the Mother’s Stern Hand chapter
5. The Unorthodox Journey of a Pokemon Breeder Boy. Second half of the Charizard segment
Next are details of my plans going forward. It’s lengthy (it’s ME after all) but important so I’d recommend checking it out. Long story short: After updating each of my current fics, I’m temporarily switching over from the large projects above to one-shots for a time.
But I’ll still be writing and I’m not dropping any of those big fics! I just need a break from the intensive work they require.
On to other matters. If you’ve read my other insanely long updates (if you have you’re a trooper) you’ll know I haven’t been having a great time for a long while. If not, check Part 1 or older Progress Updates for more info. Long story short, I’m completely worn out from endless months and months of bullshit. Even though its FINALLY quieted down now, I still need a break.
You might say, “But you’ve been on hiatus for months!” That was because I could never get a night without fist fights or drunk parties or literal death threats being screamed all hours. That hiatus was because I couldn’t focus, because I was in a stressful situation and had no real alternative.
Now I’m saying I need some mental health time, a break from scrambling between fics that went without updates or had half finished chapters as compensation for that utter nonsense, trying to catch up and failing to get back to normal because of it. I went straight from that atmosphere into rapidly trying to get everything back up to speed, never taking a breather and celebrating my freedom. I need to take a few steps back and gather myself, actually breathe easy without fears of drunk assholes trying to break in to people’s apartments, before I jump back into things.
Because of all that crap, I had to make do with putting out lazy and poorly constructed work. It made me feel like a shitty writer and that I was letting readers down. I can’t express how awesome people who stuck by patiently waiting for updates, understanding I wasn’t in a great place, really are. But not doing my best made me feel like I wasn’t meeting expectations of people who had been so nice. Yes it’s just fanfiction, maybe I’m getting dramatic, but still.
I’m so sick of putting out half-assed or incomplete chapters and fics. Rushing from one to another, scrambling to make updates that aren’t complete or as polished as I would like, leaving this trail of disappointment behind me. I look at what I’ve produced lately and I’m just so deeply unhappy with the quality. Most of that was the horrible situation I was in, but now it’s my haste, like I’m trying to do 5 things at once to catch up now that things are okay and none end up great. I appreciate dearly readers supporting me and being understanding all this time. But when you KNOW you can do better and aren’t meeting your own expectations it’s very frustrating. I take my writing, even if it IS only fanfiction, seriously. I feel a commitment to making the best chapters for people who enjoy what I do.
These big projects are so exhausting, so much work tweaking them just right. All the effort and time I spend has just worn me out. It’s gotten to the point that I’m starting to resent working on them, it feels like an obligation. I rush through stuff trying to make everyone happy and in the end my work suffers. It’s tough to make good stuff when it feels like a chore. And that’s never a good mentality to have when writing. I’m not doing my best work when it’s not fun.
Add to that the fact that my notes are an ABSOLUTE CLUSTER FUCKING MESS. Bits and pieces of stories saved in Google Docs, on my phone, and written in spirals, scattered everywhere. There are things for both Canine Boys and Bonds that I didn’t write down when I was breezing through work that I have now forgotten in my haste to churn out dwindling chapters and struggle with all the bullshit that had overwhelmed my life. That’s a big problem.
For example. In Canine Boys I know what I want to do with chapters 5 and 7, but my notes on 6 are paltry and I have since forgotten what I wanted to do. Problematic, even if it is just porn.
And there are pieces to the planned ending of Bonds that are hazy and difficult to remember because of the time that has passed, mental stress, and lack of organization. I need to get things in order first thing.
No joke, when I look at all my future plans and mess of notes, sometimes I get micro-panic attacks. Because there’s just SO MUCH to do, SO MUCH I need to plan and write, and oh god what did I forget this time, ugh I can’t figure out how to move on and do the next chapter, I can’t remember what good thing I planned for this and I’m disappointing my readers!!! ect. It’s truly overhauling sometimes. And it’s not pleasant or an effective way of writing. I need to get this mess sorted out, lay back and have some brainstorming to fix all those plot and continuity issues.
As if that wasn’t enough, my phone had loads of good things saved on it, ideas for both Bonds and Canine Boys that were GREAT and necessary to moving the stories forward. Well a few days ago it totally crapped out and I can’t access it. Losing the notes saved on my phone has left me pretty bummed. It’s like a knife in the heart. Because I had SO. MANY. GOOD. IDEAS. ON. THERE. And the thought of them just gone makes me just want to give up because I worry I won’t ever come up with something to match and replace all that was lost.
So yeah, I need to take a step away from these big works. All that being said, I’m not on hiatus anymore. More like semi-hiatus. I’m taking a break from “serious” writing, from these huge projects (all 4 current fics would count) and switching over to some smaller one shots in the meantime. I need time to recoup and rest and actually celebrate my newfound peace and quiet without deadlines. I want to work for a while with worrying about timely updates or letting readers down with quality issues. I’m going to take a breather, regain my confidence, organize my disaster notes, and come back strong, RATHER than keep limping along as I have been.
SO, once I make one more update to each of those 4 fics, I’ll be putting them off to the side for a while and focusing on simpler one shots. Hopefully people will check those out too, it’s still me and my style, just smaller (and a friend joked that I don’t do small projects. A one shot for me is like 10-20k words).
After these updates, which in all honesty won’t be my greatest work, not that I’ve been excelling for a while, I am DONE doing shoddy unfinished work. No more.
Once these chapters are out I’ll be shifting to one shots for a temporary cool down so I can gather my thoughts and organize my ideas. This should mean when I come back to these the quality is better, my inspiration is restarted, and I can get back on track writing fluidly instead of struggling.
I have no idea how long this period of smaller works could last. I would estimate anywhere between 3-9 months, since I want a more long term period of separation. Too much focus and worrying has made dealing with them tedious, I just don’t want to have to worry about them for a bit.
As you can see from teh Future Ideas section of my Masterlist I have LOOOTS of ideas. A good number of WIPs were recently inspired by my friend Ren and his beautiful, dirty mind. No I am not working on all those works in the Future Ideas at the same time, this is just a list of ideas that have popped into my head over time. Some may eventually be dropped if I can’t work them properly, but I do have a good chunk of progress already done on a number of those, while others have a few paragraphs written, and some are pretty much a premise and a few sentences.
Do not expect all those to be finished soon. This is a VERY VERY long term look at my plans. Like, over the few years or more probably, knowing how slow I write and how annoyingly perfectionist I am. I will likely shift priorities around between all these as new ideas inspire me or old fics require attention, but from now on I plan on trying to focus the bulk of my attention on 2 or 3 projects at once. Sort of like an assembly plant; one fic in pre-production, one in the process of being built, and one getting the final touches. That way I can churn things out more efficiently. I think that's a much better way to balance all my fics than rushing to and fro manically.
DO NOT WORRY! Just because I have all these future plans doesn’t mean I’m abandoning any of my current fics; Bonds that Never Break, Canine Boys, Dogs Keep it in the Family, and Journey of a Pokemon Breeder Boy will still get attention and I have plenty of thoughts, notes, and plans for those going forward. This list of fic ideas is just a glimpse into my thought process and future plans, in addition to somewhere I can keep readers updated with my priorities (I’ll make updates here as well).
I know what you’re probably thinking. “Oh great, more fics you won’t update on time.” Or “Perfect, the one I like is being pushed aside by this new stuff.” Remember this semi-hiatus is only temporary. Most of the ideas I have in mind are one shots. And they aren’t as intensive as my current works, they’re a much needed break so I can refocus and collect ideas for the major projects. I’m not abandoning ANYTHING, NONE of my fics are getting dropped. I’m just taking a more long term view of things so I can stay in shape.
I’m deeply sorry if some people don’t want to deal with that and jump ship, I completely understand your frustration. I fully expect to lose some readers, much as that pains me. But most importantly I need to do what’s right for me.
There’s a saying, “The candle that that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” I’m at that point. I don’t want to burn bright with a few good chapters and end up burning myself out before really finishing anything.
10 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
