56 and any Yamo pairing! 🫶

i just wheezed so hard when i saw what the song was i almost snorted coffee out of my nose i am so sorry for this one

#56 - kyoto phoebe bridgers + yamo

the story of how this song ended up on my wrapped is too long so it’s going in the tags but. let me set the scene for you.

2026 NHL GLOBAL SERIES™️ JAPAN - Presented by YPPI

November 13 & 14, 2026: Dallas Stars, Montreal Canadiens, Seattle Kraken, Vancouver Canucks

Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan

It’s a pitiful excuse of a consolation prize for not being able to go to the Olympics, but Kailer’s not going to look a vacation horse in the mouth. The arena’s cool. It’s huge. The people are cool. There’s so many more of them than he thought there’d be with jerseys that have his name on the back, and a lot more that have the familiar orange and blue. He takes a picture of the fifth Oilers Yamamoto jersey he signs—this one’s the good Reverse Retro—and texts it to Connor, says,

no one here has even heard of mcjesus

and gets a moon face emoji in response. Leon’s influence. Kailer’s still never really deciphered what that one means, and he doesn’t think Connor knows either.

They don’t have a lot of time off between games, but Kailer’s trying to be a good tourist. His dad had been so happy when Kailer had told him about the series that Kailer’d had to stop him from trying to book a flight a year in advance, and his mom’s been just as bad, sending him every article she sees about Best New Spot in Tokyo! Cool Restaurant! Have You Seen This Japanese Cat Café? that she scrolls across on Facebook since June. Suzy’s in the same boat, so they’ve been crossing off their compiled travel-guide list together, looping in as many guys as they can. Everyone’s been pretty game. All the teams are crammed into close quarters at the same hotel, which means everyone wants to spend as much time as possible outside of it, and it helps that Kailer’s gotten pretty close with all the other guys that the NHL picked up as Global Series figureheads. Robo’s memes? Absolutely fire. The groupchat loves them.

For every item he crosses off the list, Kailer takes a picture and keeps it tucked in his phone notes. It’s like speed-running a scavenger hunt—they’re only here for four days—but he’s doing a pretty good job. His favorite so far has been all the gardens. They’re stunning, trees shining bright red and yellow, and every vendor has been selling maple candies, maple cakes, and even fried maple, though the official maple festival doesn’t start until next week. The second garden he visits, he does it on his own after practice, buying two cakes from a cart near the gate and walking until he loses the bustle outside. It’s easy to get lost in the winding pathways, heading deeper into the quiet, and there’s dozens of benches underneath the burnished leaves where young couples are tucked away on dates, or old friends are laughing and catching up. In some of the little clearings, there’s small shrines where people leave offerings, a prayer for good luck or good fortune.

Kailer stops at one without any people and sets the second maple cake on top of it, then sits and scrolls through all the texts that he’s missed. His mom gets replied to with a picture of him outside the garden gate, grinning and surrounded by other travelers. He sends his brother a picture of a trashy graphic I Love Japan t-shirt with the threat that he’ll buy one for him, and Kailer’s dad gets a picture of the meticulously arranged and cut bonsai that are across from the bench where he’s sitting. The Seattle groupchat gets a recycled meme from Robo, and he gets two thumbs up and an “LMAO” before he can even exit the thread. Finally, Kailer takes a picture of the half-eaten maple cake in his hand, holding it next to a fallen maple leaf on the bench, and gets halfway through typing another message before he thinks better of it.

(On the plane over, Drieds was reading them a story about how when they first introduced the high-speed railway, people were afraid to use it because they thought it would be too fast for their souls to keep up.

“Bro, if that were true, you just left your soul in the middle of the Pacific,” Ebs had laughed. “Planes are faster than trains.”

“Are they?” Matty asked. “Isn’t the train in Japan the fastest in the world?”

Drieds couldn’t make it through the rest of the story over the sound of everyone ripping Matty to shreds, so Kailer didn’t get to ask whether or not they found out anything about planes. Kailer’s not worried about his soul, but the logic makes a strange kind of sense; after all, he traveled 429 miles in five and a half hours once, and that was a little too fast for his heart to keep up.)

Fuck it. Kailer’s been trying to write a response for the past ten days, and he’s sick of swiping in and out of the message, staring at the keyboard so long he starts to see swirls in his vision.

Kailer drafts the text again and sends it, no context, no caption. A text travels faster than a high-speed train or a jet. Maybe it’ll pick his heart back up on the way.

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: ROUND 3 MASHUP 4

Jade Harley (Homestuck) vs Entrapta Princess of Dryl (Netflix She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Jade Harley is a Nuclear Physicist, Roboticist, Ectobiologist, and Cosmic Manipulator (warping space and planets)!

Entrapta Princess of Dryl is a Roboticist, Programmer and First Ones' Tech Historian/Archaeologist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Jade Harley:

"She's soo fun and silly and her symbol is literally an atom. she regularly irradiates steak to feed her weird dog"

"She and her nuclear powered dog creating a new universe. she's cool"

"Built a modded bass guitar that's only playable when she's in her robot form and has extra arms. Became a doggirl. She also plays the flute :)"

"i think you have enough ramblings about her already but i couldnt NOT submit her, she is so dear to me <3"

"bbg has THREE scientific specialties!! she genetically modifies plants and makes them grow beautifully high just because she can and loves science. in her alpha timeline she’s a tech mogul and creates technology that challenges the evil empress that brought earth to ruin. AND she’s a furry"

"Doggy"

"She plays a silly flute refrain. She's a furry. Literally, she's a doggirl. She's also a god and created the universe. JADE BEST GIRLIE!!!!"

Entrapta Princess of Dryl:

"She builds robots!!! She's curious and inquisitive!! She loves her robots!! She has the coolest hair and also I want to be her bestie. She's an absolute love"

"autism :)"

"Builds robots and computers for fun and companionship. Can take apart and understand almost any tech she is presented with. Autism lever set to max and I love her. Mandatory boob window in all her outfits and I've never related harder to a character."

"autistic icon, amazing inventor and app round excellent character"

"she has prehensile hair it’s literally the best thing i’ve ever seen in my life, it’s never once acknowledged by any of the characters as abnormal or explained in any way i’m literally obsessed with it. also autism queen"

"PIGTAILS!!!! autism"

"Entrapta is very bubbly and positive. She never lets anything like losing her friends or going to the bad side or getting put on a death-sentence island stop her from scientific pursuits! She actually drives a lot of the conflict in the story, as she explains the technological backstory of the world, and helps both sides be better at fighting. She loves data, doing experiments, and the scientific method. She's also in love with space. She is an autistic queen <3"

"phenomenal canon autism representation without being weird & shitty. also she’s so strange & wonderful & relatable in so so many ways. my computer is named Darla bc that’s what she named the AI for the spaceship in s5"

"She is THE science queen because she loves science so much and her love of it is INFECTIOUS. I don’t know anything about science but Entrapta makes it seem like the coolest thing in the universe. I love her"

"She ourple. I luv her"

"She's so passionate about her work. Takes through notes! Figured out how to hack her home planet!!! She's autistic as hell and I like her overalls."

"You won’t get autism like this anywhere else bestie"

"amoral mad scientist who flips between the good guys and bad guys, loves building so many inventions, ends up converting the head bad guy (for most of the series) to good through the power of love"

"She has outfitted her entire castle to be a maze, and installed electronic locks on some. Her staff seems to be mostly robots she has built herself. In good part reverse engineering or adapting ancient tech found on the planet. She's incredible at what she does and personally fixes, invents and builds a wide range of stuff from space ships to portals to a prosthetic exoskeleton to trackers to war machines. She can do it all. Autism win! Girlie has been criticised for being treated childlike or being unable to understand those around her to a ridiculous degree, but I'm honestly just glad she's not a Sheldon Cooper. Her favorite bots have personalities and therefore implied AI (but not the shitty kind), which means she's pretty fucking good at software too. She likes tiny foods."

"So very autistic about technology. Initially believes robots are way better than people, eventually makes human friends but also very much still has robot friends (I love Emily so much). Gets so excited about finding new First One's tech. Also her happy spinning around in a space suit in that one season 5 episode heals my heart every time I watch it"

"She's the planet's leading expert on ancient tech (sci-fi/fantasy universe) and develops most of the tech in the show and is very autistic about it. i love her"

"She is fun and funky. Chaotic neutral. Definitely some autism coding going on, which is very charming. She has a pet robot? It is cute"

"Bc she is ENTRAPTA!! No srsly she is such a well-written character. At times kinda morally grey but always lovable and great and she is truly amazing at what she does!! I'm pretty sure she's already been submitted but I wanted to make sure :)"

Little OC Creation Ask List

I am trying to help a friend with their creative block around creating a FFXIV OC. So I thought I might try putting together a quick Ask List on the topic and maybe they would find people's responses helpful. Also it might be interesting to learn about how people approach the creative process!

How did you decide on the sex and/or gender of your OC? Was it important that it was the same as yours? Or the same as what you personally find attractive? Or did it not make much difference either way?

To what degree is your OC a self-insert? Are they in any way an aspirational version of yourself? Or perhaps a way to explore feelings and behaviours you suppress in yourself?

Is it important to you that you "like" your OC (as in consider them likeable)? Or is it more important to create a distinctive character, even if they are unpleasant or evil?

Do what degree did you intend your OC to be canon-compliant? Did you end up sticking to this or did you veer off into unforeseen territory over time?

How important is it to you that your OC is attractive? Does that mean attractive to you personally (sexually or just for purposes of playing dress-up!)? Or do you aim to make an OC over which others will inevitably thirst?

To what degree do you use the OC creation process as a way of exploring your own strengths and flaws?

Is your OC based upon another character or person? Or aspects of several? Is this just in terms of their appearance? Or also their personality?

Do you create the OC first and then the backstory? Or do you have a backstory lined up and then create an OC that will fit this?

Have you ever retconned your OC's story or situation? What inspired this? Did you just fancy a change? Or were you bored with them as they were? Or did you regret your decisions on first creating them?

To what extent does your OC function as a mouthpiece for your own views when it comes to describing their opinions or reactions? Do you quite like exploring how someone with very different values to your own might respond to a situation?

What is your main focus when creating an OC - making a character for yourself and your own enjoyment? Or do you try to create a character that will be popular with others or attract a lot of attention?

How much importance do you attach to humour when creating a character? Are there inevitably comic elements? Or are you more focused upon angst or drama?

Does your OC need to be believable (within the context of the fictional world in which you place them)? Or are you more interested in pushing the boundaries of what you can invent?

How do you want other people to view or react to your OC?

Is there anything you regret about how you designed your OC or their backstory?

Do you have the same OC (broadly speaking) across multiple fandoms or settings?

Did you design your OC with a specific aspect of RP in mind? Such as shipping, NSFW things, attending in-game social events, hosting events or entertaining others?

Has anyone ever reacted badly to your OC? Why was this?

Do you want other people to become invested in your OC? What would this look like ideally?

Is it important to ensure your OC has flaws or negative traits? Or do you try to make an idealised character as far as possible?

Do you want or enjoy your OC having in-game interactions with other people's characters? Or do you prefer to keep things more distant (like Ask Games on Tumblr!)? Or is your OC private and just for you?

How do you feel about others making art of your OC or writing about them? Do you feel like you need to vet their creative process? Or does anything go?

Was there a location in-game that inspired your OC (like Ishgard or Hingashi etc.)?

Was there something in the MSQ or even a side-questline, that inspired you to create them? Perhaps meeting the Sylphs or the Namazu? Or visiting the Unsundered World? Or even something to do with crafting or gathering?

To what extent does their appearance in game match your vision of them creatively? Are there things you wish you could change about them in this regard? Or possibly do, if you knew of a way to do so...

Do you have a voice claim for your OC? Did you have this before you did anything else? Or did you decide on it later?

Which OCs that are not yours do you most admire? What is it about that character that you find impressive or engaging?

To what extent have other people's OC influenced your own? Perhaps in the sense of inspiring your ideas? Or giving you "permission" to create a character you might not otherwise have done? Perhaps a lore-breaking one, or an overtly sexy one, or a self-insert, or a villainous one etc?

What do you try to avoid when creating an OC? Are these things you dislike in other people's OCs? Or purely your own personal preference?

What is your favourite thing about your OC or OCs? Is there something about them of which you are particularly proud?

To what extent does it matter that you are being "original" when you create an OC? Or is it OK to base them on an existing character or celebrity, so long as you enjoy it?

If you're stuck for ideas when creating an OC, what do you do to inspire yourself? (if you never have this problem, then what would you advise to someone that did!)

Is there an OC you would love to create in-game, but currently you are unable to do so, perhaps because that race is not playable or that sex is unavailable (hello female Hrothgar)?

How many OCs do you currently have? If you have multiple OCs then how different are they from each other? How often do you create new ones?

What things do you most want to see in someone's OC? Or what do you always find the most interesting? Or stimulating, if you're in that sort of mood?

i'm bored so it's time to throw rocks*, here are the types of reality tv/game shows i think the inquisition companions would watch

cassandra would watch one of those romance ones, like too hot to handle or love is blind, and get really, really invested. she's active on the reddits for her favorite shows. all of the cheesy, painfully heterosexual-but-strangely-sanitized reality TV horniness works well on her, she's the intended audience 100%. she's genuinely sad about it when couples break up after the show ends.

varric likes interpersonal dramas and gossip and backstabbing, he watches the vh1 dating shows. he knows most of it is fake, but that's what he likes about it, and he appreciates the classics. anything with "of love" in it, he loves it, he's there. he thinks newer shows work too hard to convince people they're actually real because he thinks embracing the fakeness makes it more fun.

solas has been watching reality tv since the OG: survivor. he's seen every season. he has very strong opinions about play strategies and a personal ranking of the best players of all time just ready to go if you just ask. he's convinced he would win if he was on it, but deep deep down he knows he would never get the votes to win at the end because he'd be seen as a villain and won't apply.

vivienne thinks she's above this kind of garbage tv, but she actually really likes the masked singer. she's pretty good at guessing the celebrities, but she doesn't put much effort into guessing after a point. she's in it entirely to relax and quietly fantasize about being on it herself, because so much of her life is about playing games of intrigue and survival and perception. she records the episodes and skips most of the judging because she doesn't think the judges are funny and gets annoyed when they make stupid guesses.

sera likes the obstacle course-type shows like wipeout and the floor is lava. anything where people have to come up with creative solutions and also might get hit with a giant thing made of foam and get smacked around like a rag doll. sera has been trying to convince people to team up with her and apply for this type of show for ages and it never works out. she also likes the really weird off-brand ones that only ever get one season, like who wants to be a superhero or opposite worlds.

blackwall likes the circle. he always quietly roots for the catfish. no reason.

iron bull is a drag race superfan. come on, one of them had to be. he's been watching since the season 1 vaseline filter days. he approaches each new season with the masculine seriousness of a suburban dad planning a fantasy sports lineup and correctly predicts every winner three episodes in. he would absolutely volunteer for a makeover episode if he could. his favorite queens are usually the pageant queens; he likes the sparkly ones, and the pageant queens always end up covered in rhinestones.

dorian loves innovation and being judgy, so he loves shark tank and anything similar. he enjoys episodes with absolutely terrible inventions just as much as the good ones, and is the kind of viewer who actually will go ahead and buy something he saw on the show -- including the really stupid ones, because he gives them to his friends as joke gifts.

cole watches those shows that are equal parts talent competition and sappy backstories, like american idol, x-factor, the voice, stuff like that. he always cries a little when someone does a ballad. he never votes because he can never decide who deserves to win the most, and he doesn't watch the results shows because they make him too sad.

cullen watches HGTV and gets belligerent if you point out that house hunters is fake. unclear if that's because he thinks you're being a wet blanket or because it was news to him and he doesn't want to admit it.

josephine likes strategy and competition, but the grime, physical danger, and "eat this gross thing" challenges of survivor aren't fun to her. instead, she's really into big brother. josephine is convinced that she would win big brother if she was ever on it, and she's correct, but she can't take the time off work.

leliana is an OG ANTM fan. she'll dabble in other shows that center on makeup and fashion, but she always ends up going back to the classics and the older seasons, as she feels like the current era of ANTM is too gimmicky and self-aware. the human rights violations are allowed if they make good TV.

*this is for fun don't actually throw things at me please

**also if you like this and think "i'm gonna give this fine person a follow because they're so funny about dragon age", i made a new DA sideblog at @skyholdstarbucks where i'd post anything similar to this in the future

My Top 5 Bleach Filler Characters, Appropos of Nothing

5. Inaba Kagerouza, Reigai Arc

Inaba is, simply put, the pinnacle of Soul Society worldbuilding. He's got this long dramatic backstory and a bunch of rage bottled up in his chest, but also a guy needs a paycheck, so he's just been doing the R&D grind for a hundred years. He knows a shit-ton about the Dangai, which is relevant to his evil scheme, but it's also just his day job (also the Dangai owns, I want a PhD in "the Dangai"). No one else in Squad 12 seems to have the least bit of beef with him, even after he builds an evil duplicate of every person in the Gotei. Unlike a lot of mad scientist characters, he's good with his weapon. Maybe he's weirdly jacked under his villainous smock?? Also, his evil scheme was generally well thought out, and took into account the fact that the Gotei is a bunch of buffoons. ngl, I kinda wish his plan had succeeded, if only for the fact that it would probably really piss Aizen off.

4. Ran'Tao, Bount Arc

Everything about Ran'Tao owns, including:

Sexy glasses

Condemned so hard by the Central 46 that they gave her a kidou seal back tattoo

KIDOU. SHOTGUN.

Stabbed Kariya in the gut

Noped out at the end of the arc because Who Needs the Gotei's Shit?

3. Kuchiki Kouga, Zanpakutou Rebellion Arc I think that when you hear the story about how Byakuya was forbidden from marrying Hisana because she was a commoner, you're supposed to feel this great sense of injustice, like wow! Byakuya actually showed character by standing up for his love! And that's great and all, and then you get the Zanpakutou Rebellion Vintage Kuchiki Bullshit Flashbacks and it's like, oh, the last guy they married into the clan mass murdered a bunch of people and then they had to seal him up in a cave and I feel like that's an important piece of context in the entire Kuchiki Family-Being-a-Bitch-About-Who-Byakuya-Marries debacle.

Which isn't to exonerate the Kuchiki, here! It's very clear that Kouga wasn't that bad before he got pushed over the brink by Kuchiki family machinations. I mean, this is very much an Everyone's The Asshole situation.

I love the fact that they never come out and say that Kouga is Byakuya's uncle, but he's very obviously Byakuya's uncle.

I love the fact that he dramatically cut his kenseikan off with his sword and threw them at Ginrei and they made a gree card of it.

I love that he appears to be exactly Renji's height and has one chunk of hair that is the same color as Renji's and he over-accessorizes horrifically, and at best the Squad Six old-timer's had to be like "Byakuya don't do this to us again" when he hired Renji, and at worst there's a chance that Renji the secret baby that was born after Kouga was banished and he was hidden away in the Rukon so he didn't screw up the succession line but he's actually the true Heir to the Kuchiki.

2. Harugasaki Seizo, standalone episode 313 This dude had a homoerotic rivalry with Ikkaku (doomed, of course, because who could compete with Yumichika?), lost his shinigami powers when he took a blow meant for Ikkaku, and then spent the next hundred years putting his entire pussy into doing laundry for Squad 11. This man invented yearning, even if he did choose the worst possible person in the history of ever as the target of his affection.

1. Amagai Shuusuke, New Captain Shuusuke Amagai Arc He looks like Ross Poldark. He can't hold his liquor. No one knows who witnessed his Captain's Exam. Ukitake and Kyouraku tried to talk him into a threesome. He was nice to Kira. His bankai was a tuba that made a foghorn noise when it belched out fire. His dad was the shinigami equivalent of a narc, who got done dirty by the Captain-Commander. He fought the Dangai Cleaner and won. I love him more than anything.

Honorable Mention: Kenryuu and Enryuu, New Captain Shuusuke Amagai Arc Because they are an important reminder that for all the shinigami buffoonery I am forced to witness, day in and day out, some people graduate from Shin'ou, get shikai even, and still can't get hired by the Gotei.

I'm eternally full of wrath over the fact no one in Konoha knew about the chakra imprints of Naruto's parents in the seal.

Naruto would've died to Pein without ever knowing who his parents were because no one manned up and let him know what he had a right to know.

If not for his parents loving him enough to want to leave behind failsafes in case his seal was ever damaged so he'd at least get to be protected by them personally one more time he never fucking would've known. Maybe not until the fourth war arc with Minato as an edo tensei summoned by Sasuke and do you think Naruto would've EASILY worked with 4th Hokage who sealed the Kyubi into him right away? No. Konoha's inability to own up to its fuck ups and to be honest with the victims of those fuck ups would've endangered the entire world. And for what? "I just didn't feel up to talking about it" or maybe "We'll tell him when he's older/stronger/better/more mature/at least a chunin/can keep secrets" when they shouldn't be goalposting this anyway and also fucking you don't feel up to it? Naruto didn't feel up to being an orphan hated and despised by literally every adult around him

I'm sorry to continue to rant but

AND ANOTHER THING

Naruto goes literally YEARS without knowing the rasengan was his FATHER'S jutsu. YEARS.

Using this jutsu, his dad invented, without knowing it, all the time in every fight. And Naruto thinks he's just using a badass technique the perv sage showed him which belonged to the yondaime, he has no idea what it should mean to him and he is kept in the dark, for years.

Kakashi was 26-27 at the start of the show and 30 when Naruto comes back from the time skip, trauma or no that is a grown-ass man an adult the entire time we know him, who just.. observes this hard-working teen in his care who's clearly all about his bonds (See the Gaara rescue and the find Sasuke missions) because he never had anyone in his corner before team 7 and he just.. goes "hmm" and never fucking tells him anything about his parents who Kakashi knew? EITHER OF HIS PARENTS??? Anything about them!?? What they were like? Their habits? Their techniques? How happy they were he was going to be born? How he wasn't born an orphan? How he was loved? DOESN'T EVEN TRY TO PASS DOWN FUINJUTSU TO THE UZUMAKI HEIR BECAUSE WHAT?! NARUTO'S 'TOO DUMB' or 'Too much of a bother to explain all the backstory why he should know/why I'm teaching it/too much of a bother to teach such a complicated thing' or 'the village doesn't want its jinchuriki to know how its own seal works we'd rather keep that power in our hands' like what. What would even be a good reason he is literally his sensei, and Jiraiya had three years to train him and focused on 'unlocking the seal to make use of more seals' while again not teaching Naruto how the seal worked at all and then once he got a scar from naruto abandoning the plan. Yes, Naruto got proper taijutsu training and training with the toad summons but still. What a waste. I'm still fuming.

~~~

Naruto got failed all the way around by a lot of people and only a few attempted to really and truly make up for it.

Characters with wasted potential: jirou kyokua

Thanks to @doodlegirl1998 for giving me some inspiration for Jirou's character and honestly Iam so sorry for taking such a long time to actually post about jirou.

My direction for this jirou rewrite is one where she doesn't become a hero as in the actual job but invents heroism in the music and media industry.

There isn't much to jirou in canon so I can't really critique anything.

Her design. I love her character design I guess the only thing I wanna add is that I want to see her sometimes just wear skirts or trousers when it comes to her school uniform

Jirous backstory. She is someone who has always had an interest in music and made it her escape during middle school because she would find the chaotic environment of school overbearing. Some people would try and isolate her because a rumor or a situation started where people became weary of her and her quirk thinking that she listens to peoples conversations and talks bad about them. However, she still had 2 friends that she could always rely on and she still talks to them in highschool

Jirou's friends at UA . For jirou UA is a fresh start for her she wants to be a hero and also make friends. She ends up befriending momo, tokoyami and becomes a minor friend with Izuku then the rest of class 1A. Since her and denki were paired up in the beginning he became the first person she talked to and by the time of the usj arc they became friends her friendship with denki was something that happend unexpectedly to her at least. Tokoyami and her bond over their taste in music and the fact that they just enjoy some peace and quite which is why she may be found hanging about in an art classroom with tokoyami and some quiet 1 A members at lunch. When it came to momo, jirou worked up the courage to ask momo to become her friend because she found momo cool and wanted to hang out with her. Momo accepted her request and they hit it of from there. For Izuku: one time jirou noticed that Izuku was feeling more nervous than usual (she could hear his heartbeat) and started a conversation to reassure him this then ended up getting them into a conversation where they both started talking about heroes and after izuku found out that jirou's favourite hero was present mic he ended up getting both him and her present mic signature. They aren't really close but they hang out every little while and help eachother out.

Jirou's UA arc. Through her time in UA she is making friends and trying to be a normal teenage girl but the villain attacks have started to make her and her parents both anxious and scared. At the usj everyone is feeling the impact of the usj and jirou is glad that everyone is well. Usj incident makes it so that her and her classmates coincidentally become closer and her parents+ middle school friends become a bit worried for her. This worry starts to decrease slowly as the year passes on and is immediately brought back stronger after the training camp arc. Jirou and her parents have a conversation suggesting that jirou shouldn't come back to the school and jirou feels inclined to agree but doesn't. She convinces her parents to stay and she does. However, she doesn't abandon the idea of leaving UA and ever since entering the dorms she feels like there's something of, instead of her worries being eased she is more panicked and it's affecting her negatively both mentally, physically and in her studies. This continues until after the school festival performance where she learns that gentle was going to attack the school. After her performance she also feels like music may be an actual career path she can take. All of these factors weight on her and she talks to present mic (who is her mentor) about it. He encourages and comforts her telling her whatever decision she chooses he will help her.

Jirou withdraws from the hero course. On a random weekend, jirou finds herself going home and she sees a thief who stole a woman's purse. She chases after the thief and gets the purse back for her. The woman is thankful and before parting ways reveals that she actually works for a news agency. It seems like her and jirou are heading towards the same area so they end up talking and jirou brings her passion for music, how she is conflicted about staying in UA or leaving, how she wants to help people and how she finally views her voice as something powerful that can help people. The lady offers jirou a role as her apprentice, telling jirou that if she chooses to leave UA that she can have a job with the journalist. Jirou accepts it and talks to her parents about it. Her parents seem to also agree with her and jirou makes the decision to leave. She wonders if she is being selfish leaving and how her classmates would think. She is dreading having to tell everyone but she does and as expected her classmates are upset that she is leaving but understand. Momo, tokoyami, denki and izuku are all supportive of her and ask her about what she plans to do, if she will visit them back and all that. Tenya reassures her that if she wishes to come back that there is always a place for her in 1A. Before jirou leaves the class decide to throw a leaving party and celebrate jirou's new start.

Present mic is her mentor and she interns with him

At the job/ apprentice. She starts to see the way of the media industry and how heroes fit into this elaborate scheme. One of her middle school friends does a UA business course and they choose to work closely both nitpicking the media industry. Jirou starts to see all the injustice and wants to give a voice to all these stories and issues that the news tires to cover or deems as unimportant. She talks to denki and momo about this. They suggest that she creates a website where she shares these stories in the form of videos or articles. Izuku and her business course friend suggest that she should make music about this. Izuku talks about her in the school festival and how her performance can influence people, how she can use her voice for the greater good to help people. She starts this website and labels herself earjack she talks about all sorts of things that she views as important and even opens up/critiques things that she finds wrong. The website starts to gain attraction and present mic finds it. He ends up promoting the website and even offers jirou an interview in one of his radio shows where they end up talking about things.

I would have jirou learn other things as well as promote her website. I personally think that due to her new found free time jirou would start learning things like first aid and trying to better her quirk.

During the war arc. I would have jirou put the skills she earned put to work. She ends up helping people as a first aider and working with the woman she met as news reporters raising awareness as to what happening in Japan.

Overall, I hope I done this justice I wanted at least one character to leave UA and I think that jirou is a great character for that. I wanted jirou's character arc to be about her gaining confidence and actually standing up for others and herself. Jirou is someone who is very closed off but also close with her friends she seems to be someone who is hard to approach but has a big heart and big passions. She doesn't think that heroics is for her especially after seeing the cruel reality of it so she starts to explore her opportunities within the media/ music industry and tackles the injustice she sees. She ends up making herself known well within the heroics and media industries earning the title of the earjack hero journalist

Some other people found out from the teaser that Saki has a ring on one of her fingers, likely a wedding one. It doesn't seem like any of the other girls have rings, so she might be the only one in this sequel that is married, initially at least.

My hope is that she's married to Mai, or Michiru, I'm not picky, but it's most likely to a man.

Off the top of my head, there are two possibilities from the original Splash Star. The first is Mai's older brother, Kazuya, who Saki is very clearly crushing on throughout the season, but it seemed more like an unrequited love a young girl might have for an older boy the same way in Cardcaptor Sakura where Sakura has a crush on Yukito.

The other option is Kenta, the boy that Saki occasionally banters with, and he also seems to crush on her a few times early on, but as the season progressed, their "romance" didn't really develop, like Saki never really saw him as anything more than a friend. I wouldn't be that opposed to him being her husband, since he's not bad compared to some of the other guy love interests in this franchise later on.

They could also just make up a man for Saki to be married too, and it's not like that's unrealistic, you don't always end up marrying your childhood friends/first love. In my opinion, that would feel a bit odd, because OtonaPre has about a 10-20 year timeskip from when we last saw these women, so to start off with Saki married to someone we know basically nothing about, feels a bit cheap, unless there is enough backstory to make it work. Even so, it's still up in the air how many episodes OtonaPre has, so I'm not sure they'd want to spend too much time laying the groundwork for that potential new character.

Moving onto Mai, it would be really sad if Saki was the only one of the two who got married. Like, for better or worse, in Splash Star, Saki is shown to be crushing on guys, while Mai didn't get as much development regarding romance, other than acting like a third wheel for Saki's endeavors. I don't recall Mai ever falling in love with a guy, in fact, you could say she was in love with Saki instead.

Similarly, in the original Futari wa, Nagisa was the one who got most of the romantic development. Hell, in Max Heart, Honoka barely got episodes focused on her while Nagisa had several where she tried to vie for Fuji-P. Should they be in OtonaPre, and although I don't want it to happen, Nagisa would probably end up with Fuji-P. It would be such a shame, because one of her traits in the original anime is that she's popular with the girls, even getting love letters from them. She exclaims how she'd rather be popular with the boys than girls, but in a later episode, she says that if Honoka was a boy, she'd be in love with her, which I think does a good job at hinting towards her closeted feelings. I really detest the trope where romance between girls is seen as a thing to "grow out of," like it's just a schoolgirl fad.

Regarding Honoka, they don't really give her much in hetero romance. There are like, three guys that I can think of that only maybe could be paired with her, barring another new man they invent. The first is Fuji-P's friend/teammate, Kimata, but he barely interacts with Honoka at all, and I would hate that, because it would feel like a "consolation prize" if Nagisa ended up with Fuji-P. The second is Kiriya, the former Dotsuku Zone denizen who infiltrated their school to try and defeat them, only to end up developing a strong bond with the sisterly Honoka, but I never really saw this as a budding romance, especially on Honoka's end. Plus, Kiriya basically dipped by the end of the original Futari wa, and didn't even show up in Max Heart, so it would just feel like an afterthought if they paired them together with that missing development. The third option is Nagisa's younger brother, Ryouta, who has a crush on Honoka, but, lmao, that's really just played as a joke.

In fact, I think the anime actually portrays Honoka as being mostly uninterested in boys, despite being popular with them. She rejects all of their advances, says that if she were to go out with a boy, there'd need to be mutual respect, which implies that she doesn't feel respected by them and thus doesn't even consider them. There's also the fact that she admires Nagisa's popularity with the girls, which I feel hints at something a bit more about her romantic desires. I could go on here, but I hope this gets my point across.

To sum it up, Saki ending up with a family while Mai doesn't would create such a disappointing incongruity for these two women who were very intertwined in the anime we watched them in. The same is true of Nagisa and Honoka should they also appear. I would rather none of them end up with any romantic conclusion (thus leaving it up to interpretation) whatsoever than only some of them having it.

hi dess, I was thinking about drawcia and her siaters last night and was curious if you ever thought about a connection between her and adeleine and noir. because of the... art theme, and because her sorceress form has some glaring similarities to dark matter blade. and/or perhaps some relation to the painter and mysterious brush mentioned in paintra/DX's boss descriptions? the subject of 2 siblings being separated is something adeleine/noir and paintra/drawcia seem to have in common

Oooh, D00p... >w< 

I hate to say that while I've been passively aware of some of the visual similarities/glaring connections between Drawcia and Dark Matter Blade, I have never really thought hard of doing anything with it/come up with anything particularly HC-y for them. Kinda goes for Drawcia and Nightmare too, who also share some concepts.

(There's just too much Dark Matter in Kirby! Keeping them all straight yet connected in a way that makes sense is difficult, darn it! No wonder Shimazaki left! "Figure the rest out for yourselves!" XD) (1)

I do know that, for Apologies, it's canon that Noir and Adeleine's family are 'people upon whom the rest of the planet does not look too fondly on.' That is why, while it would already be hard for two kids to survive there, it has been especially hard in their case...

:Dess still in deep consideration whether she wants to finish drawing the content warning-required Noir backstory chapter or not, even though it keeps poking its head into other stories:

Ahem! But I do remember thinking that if the Dark Matter Blade is Lab Discovera's first cursed af attempt at trying to make or recreate, I dunno, Galaxia maybe(?) That Ado's Paintbrush is probably the same for the Magic Paintbrush in Canvas Curse.

So, they are tied into the lore of this somehow... And you're right that their story echos the separated siblings. In fact, I was talking with thecrashman a little about some Apologies spoilers related to the above mentioned sidestory and witches made of paint did dance through my head for a second... but I still don't have anything concrete as to how the four (five, counting Vividria) are related.

-

(1)

Speaking of, I saw someone post that another Japanese guidebook supposedly made it "clear" that the Dark Matter you fight in DL 3 is the same as Blade which made me gulp because in Apologies, I wasn't necessarily going to make the Dark Matter in 3 the same as Noir and I was pre~tty sure the Japanese wiki backed me up on the possibility that they were, or at least, could be different!

...God, making Blade be the same Dark Matter that's in both 2 and 3 in Apologies-verse would have even ME crying and screaming?!?

It was bad enough that he's just a shadow of himself in 2. Flickering whispers of fading memories fighting a losing battle against the all encroaching darkness, but now, in Dream Land 3, he's LITERALLY a thrice-dead soulless husk?! Made to repeat the same task he failed at before by a heartless tyrant who only demands of the boy:

"Again." How...many...more...times...? "Again until you succeed."

Noir was gentle enough to keep Dedede asleep the whole time he was possessing him. Noir only captured Kirby's friends, not hurt them, mildly inconveniencing Kirby. But Zero? Zero resurrects his dead pawn, rips open Dedede's stomach and shoves Blade inside the king like he was a prison made of flesh within which Blade can only gnash his "teeth" (...rattle the bars...) and shed tears of darkness...

Zero then parades him out before Blade's own BABY BROTHER as a meat shield and an "example" - to fill both Gooey and Kirby with despair and hopelessness at the inevitability of that which they face.

"...You thought you had ended this one's suffering?" "This is the fate of all who defy EYE."

What is this True Arena Noir Soul I have accidentally invented?

Oh no I tripped and fell and want to talk about Reigen again?!

Anyway I was thinking about the way the fandom views him, and I want to say it helps put Reigen into more context if you remember that he is very very normal. Like. The most normal person ever.

[Warning: Long Post]

Reigen, when we meet him, is in the middle of his quarter life crisis. He was living a normal, bland existence; raised by normal parents, going to school without doing anything of note, and funneling into an office job after finishing education. The most normal life a person can expect. Coasting on constant average. We know this much about his backstory because he's talked about it - he was living a normal, boring existence and he wasn't all that bothered by it. Then suddenly at the tender age of (insert an early-mid twenties age) he flipped. Some part of him thought "I remember wanting to be someone," so he quit his job, got a tiny apartment to live in, and on a whim started a job that looked like something fun to pass time with. Something unique and interesting and definitely not boring: being a psychic.

Now, Reigen's quarter-life crisis is, essentially, getting a bad case of middle schooler disease. He invents a new personality, it's over the top and dramatic, and while he knows it isn't real, it makes him feel special for the first time in his life. People come to his office for this and that, and sure he thinks they're mostly irritating, but they see him as someone unlike other people, they respect and look up to him. Especially due to the larger-than-life attitude he portrays himself with. And so, he's getting what he wants - he feels special and important, and he thrives!

But before long it's not enough, he starts thinking "this is kind of dumb, so maybe it's time to find something else" (again, he tells us this himself), but that's when Shigeo comes along and re-ignites that feeling of being special. Someone in his life looks up to him and thinks he's cool and dependable, someone with actual mind-blowing powers - and if I know anything about middle school disease, it's that if someone feeds into it, it'll intensify; especially if that person has some credibility.

From this point on, he's picking up more and more superpowered people who look up to him and feed into his need for attention, and he's getting more and more tangled into his lies. He even goes so far as to go and talk branch 7 of claw out of being bad guys with the reasoning that they're stuck in their middle school mindsets, while he himself is literally also in one. He just sees his mindset as different because he's self aware; he knows he isn't causing any trouble - he uses his conman skills to help people and do good more than anything. He's not like Claw, because to him the whole psychic powers thing is just an act - but they're adults who actually cause harm by acting that way, they're the ones with the actual power. And regardless of the outcome, middle school disease still is what it is; a desire to be more than you actually are. It won't go away until you accept yourself. He forces them all to accept themselves while... diverting attention from himself? Being the bigger person? Making excuses? Who knows. I don't think he does.

His birthday comes along and his mother emails him to wish him well, to recommend getting a less shady Real Job - because for all intents and purposes she knows Reigen isn't a psychic - she tells him he's getting older and she's worried that he hasn't settled down, all perfectly normal things for a mother to worry about. And yet, because by this point he's become so disconnected from the truth (that he's literally just some guy), he's quick to reject the entire message. He doesn't need to settle down, because he's living an exciting life right now, and he doesn't need a Real Job because this job is giving him everything he needs for his personal satisfaction. People with real powers look up to him, they're essentially a group of people he considers as friends and family. And, most important of all, he doesn't want to be normal. So he rejects the extension of her hand in favour of the life he lives, and goes on as he is.

Then, a little later, when he gets destroyed by the media, his mother reaches out once more - to give him an apology speech that he can use at his press conference, apparently giving him all the talking points he needs to cover in order for the ordeal to calm down. Maybe it seems a bit rude of her to assume he won't know how, but actually it seems more likely that she knows her son is in a pinch, that he's kind of a rascal who's in over his head, and that she genuinely wants to help him get out of trouble. And this time, he's more receptive; he let Shigeo down, and that crushed him. Shigeo made him believe that he actually was special, as opposed to the fake-specialness that he felt before taking him in as an apprentice. Mob stuck around to hear Reigen's advice as a person, much more often than as an esper, and deep down he knows Shigeo must know he isn't one. He seems to fall a little from his delusions during the separation period due to this loss of specialness, and because of this, when Shigeo comes back, they share their first real connection beyond being a teacher and student, and actually that moment ("my master is a good guy") shows him that Shigeo honestly sees him as a friend.

[There are manga spoilers from here on! Just a warning!]

And so, as the story continues through the last few arcs, Reigen changes a lot. He still believes in his core principles (ie. children shouldn't handle adult's problems / people with power should be more responsible over themselves / it's your responsibility to fix your mistakes / etc) because those are his true ideals, those are his authentic thoughts - but he's a lot less self-hating and cruel about himself. He seems to be realising that regardless of his actual abilities, people like him, especially as Serizawa comes to work for him, genuine and honest and enthralled to have someone good to look up to (not to mention he also has a fairly large group of espers that respect the work he's done and also look up to him). But despite this growth, he's just not ready to drop the act yet - he still gets something enriching out of it. He still wants to hang onto what he has, and so continues his lie until the last moment he needs it.

All this to say: his story cultivates in him accepting his normal-ness. He tearfully, painfully says to Mob's face that he has no powers, that he's just a guy, and that he doesn't expect Shigeo to accept him or want to be around him any more. It's the most honest we ever see him (besides whenever he's like "you've grown up so much" which are very authentic moments) but because he's spent so much time in his lies, he genuinely expects Shigeo to be hurt by the truth and hate him for it. He expects to be left behind once he pulls back the curtain to reveal his true self.

But Shigeo has pretty much always known Reigen was normal, and has always valued him for the friendship and kindness he's shared with him - he's always looked to Reigen for advice and comfort. So yes, Reigen is normal, but he has inherent value, just as much as Shigeo is abnormal, yet also has inherent value - they are each others' opposite. One wants to be mundane, the other spectacular, but they've both always been influencing each other to be both at the same time.

So, as I said, it's best to view Reigen as your local theatre kid with middle school disease, hanging out with superheroes, and driven to save the world because of it.

i see "hualian invented love" so often & every time im like these are the standards you're setting? either unattainably high (not all of us can be ghosties AND sculptors!!) or kind of a weird low bar depending on your point of view

trueeeeeeeeeeee yeah on the surface they have some interactions i really like and i do enjoy elements of the devotion and hc's ride or die nature can be charming when hes not being immature about it but theres not much underneath that it is just fantasy wish fulfillment and in that sense i really do get it like yeah it would be pretty awesome if a hot guy showed up and you liked hanging out with him and he already knew all the dark things about you that you were ashamed of but he loved you anyway and would defend you against anything. but also then you find out youre his entire reason for living and thinks you can do no wrong. and maybe youre like okay cool but also he doesnt really have anything else that he cares about so you never really feel like hes choosing you over anything else it kind of feels more like he has no choice at all..... and if you love him back i feel like eventually that would make you kind of sad like i wouldnt actually want that and in reality its a lot of pressure being someone's only or most significant relationship even if you really love them. also yeah they dont really ever develop or change theres a vague question of what hc's intentions are but xl isnt ever really worried about that and then they get together. its cute! but instead of them really going through anything together i feel like the backstory reveals take the place of any character development they go through because of each other. and yes hc actually does a lot because of xl but thats in the past and xl didnt know about any of it so idk its not very satisfying to me like oh it already happened.... and theres nothing from hc's point of view which could really have helped a lot. i guess it's nice that hc never loses faith and hope in xl but it might have been better if he did and then found it again. thats kind of what happens to xl and its way more interesting and its the heart of the story!!! yeah as a romance theyre fun and cute i do like them and i think they make sense in their context but there's a lot left to be desired

Hello everyone, ArachCobra here. I've recently been convinced that I should start putting more of my original writing online. I've also written fanfiction and you should be easily able to find that if interested, as I go by the same name on fanfiction.net

So I figured before anything else, I'd do a short introduction to the tabletop setting I currently preside over. A lot of the stories I've written take place in them and go by the assumption that the reader is at least somewhat familiar with the setting, since it was originally meant for my players. Since an outsider would lack that knowledge, decorum dictates that I clarify.

And besides, I love rambling about my settings.

Pathfinder

Based on the setting of the same name, though also diverging heavily in many ways. Characters or species have been tweaked or changed depending on our personal tastes and preferences.

One of the most major changes is the general tech level of the setting. When me and my players got interested in using the setting, we've just come of a streak of medieval fantasy settings.

How long a streak? A fifteen year one, give or take, in between playing Fighting Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons and 13th Age. So everyone was a bit done with that. So for funsies, the tech level was in general raised to 20th century.

Another major change is all the stuff we've added. We've been stealing with arms and legs from everything we like and you can assume anything statted by @thecreaturecodex is canon and exists somewhere in the world.

In any case, the story focus is on the adventurer's guild called the Mystical Peacekeeping Society(My players decision), a band of eclectic do-gooders who over the year has become synonymous with chaos and upheaval. Most rulers start tugging their collars when they show up, since it doesn't seem to matter how benign or peaceful their purpose is, things will start exploding soon.

Spheres

Created in the wake of a necessary break from Pathfinder. It was heavily inspired by Pathfinder, being a sort of kitchen sink setting where you could run across a number of adventures. The titular spheres are the different worlds, separated by the arcane Mist, which must be navigated to get from sphere to sphere. Technology is generally at late 19th century level.

One of the goals with spheres was to solve a problem I discovered in Pathfinder, that being that things were mapped out. That may seem peculiar, but what I found was that when my players characters involved conjuring up new nations or kingdoms, even small ones, it was very difficult to slot them in anywhere. And the Stolen Lands could only hold so much. So while individual regions in the spheres setting would be mapped, no sphere would ever have a complete map. That way, if my players invented a new nation or something similar, it would be easy to say they were just over those mountains all along.

Shattered Age

This came about from a simple question, how would an open world tabletop look? This setting was designed to maximise the players freedom in what they could do and where they could go.

The settings backstory is that a great, calamitous war happened between the powers of the worlds, one so great and costly that just about everyone agreed that it should never be repeated.

Then two more happened.

This was known as the Age of War, it lasted about four-hundred years and exhausted civilization to the point that all the old kingdoms, coalitions and empires collapsed in on themselves. Civilization is now a number of points of light spread across the world, now slowly piecing things together. I was very much inspired by the idea of a Ghibli apocalypse, a dread event for sure, but one that life can move on from.

Technology is all over the place, as while the previous era was pretty advanced, the collapse meant that many places only has the capacity to sustain things at a medieval or older level. Others have scavenged and restored enough that they can be more advanced, though not producing as much as a modern industrialized society.

Anyway, I gave my players a number of options for where they could start and then basically just let them do what they wanted. Running Shattered Age has been quite educational for me as a gamemaster and has tough me some valuable lessons about how to help players invest in a setting.

Then we have the settings that I'm working on, but haven't run yet.

Panepithumia

The NSFW setting. Started as a running joke whenever someone in the other settings got frisky or thirsty, but over the years my players have gotten both more liberal and more open(The fact that I'm sleeping with three of them probably also helped), so the idea of an actual setting like this began seeming more plausible. And when I finally asked if I should give it a shot, I was told to go ahead.

So the basic idea is to take your typical fantasy medieval setting and just flip the amount of times encounters ends in fighting versus fucking. The different regions of the world appeal to different kinks and interests, with the players being an adventure's guild owning an airship, allowing them to travel around and get themselves involved wherever they want.

Varangian Project

The Varangian Project started out as my own take on urban fantasy, with a focus on solving crimes. However, the project eventually grew far beyond its original scope. A key part of this was the decision to not only include as much mythology as possible, but also canonize as many sources of urban fantasy as possible. Of course, that meant some pruning and adjustments were necessary to make everything work together, but the end result was a strange, bizarre and fascinating world.

It has now become the alternative earth urban fantasy setting, with opportunities to play games set in wildly different periods of times with vastly different themes.

Wild Lands

What if tabletop was also a civilization game? Inspired by various games and tabletop campaigns like Pathfinder: Kingmaker. This campaign not only sees the players doing the usual adventuring stuff but also being responsible for a burgeoning civilization, its management and military.

Gameplay thus exists on two layers, one which is personal and will focus on roleplay, dungeon crawling and battles between small groups, and the other, which focuses on resource management, research and military movements. We refer to those layers as the Strategic and Tactical Layers.

The setting is all over the place, to be frank. You can see knights battling mechs battling zombies battling WW1 tanks. This is because the titular Wild Lands, an endless expanse of land, can have anything and operates by this simple rule.

Everything is true, even if it is contradictory.

I'll update this list as new settings, and there will be more, get added in the future.

2, 6, 13, 17, 26 for RWBY

Alrighty, let's go!

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?*

Whiterose, Emercury, something that rhymes with stumblebee... Oh, and Roman/Neo. With Weiss and Ruby, I think that it's likely that Ruby had a bit of a crush on Weiss when they first met, but it faded pretty quickly and they're just close good friends and also I write Weiss to be in love with her sister. I understand why people ship it, but for me, the two of them are better off as friends. And then, I've been writing Emerald and Mercury as sibling like partners to the point where people refer to them as 'sister' and 'brother' for years at this point, and the same goes for Neo and Torchwick who have this whole backstory I invented where she was ten when she met him and he was fifteen and they've been like siblings ever since, and then eventually in my fics Roman takes on a dad-like role with Emerald and Mercury and Neo is like their aunt/much older sibling who also acts in a parental role - but that's not important. Basically, I've been seeing these guys as siblings so long that even though I understand why people ship them, I just don't really. With Blake and Yang, I've been pretty soured towards their relationship both by the show itself and by the wasps who try to punish people for not thinking it's God's gift to queer people. Though there's a lot of good to be found in this pairing, I much prefer to write them as 'Yang probably had feelings for Blake when they were first partners, but then all the division happened and they had a lot of problems to work through and meanwhile they both had feelings for other people and now they're close friends again but that's all they'll ever be.'

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

You know... I don't think so. Not in the RWBY fandom anyway. I've been in other fandoms where fanfiction and fanart has completely changed my mind on some pairings, but for RWBY, most of the time I either start to like a pairing I didn't really think about before, or the reason I change my mind on a ship is because of what I've seen in the show itself (like, I'm starting to come around on Monochrome but it's only because of an interaction I saw in the new ep.)

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

Weiss is a severely mishandled character and it's turned her into the worst member of Team RWBY. I love what Weiss could be when I say this, but almost every significant choice made for her character whether that's in her arc, her summoning semblance, or even her wardrobe is actively detrimental to her and makes her hard to enjoy - of course with the standout really hard to get over faunus racism she never apologized for and was never shown unlearning being the really hard hurtle to get over. I can never take it seriously when people refer to her as 'best girl' or freak out about her character arc.

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

Ohhh boy, I have so many of these. XD

Instead of focusing on Jaune's troubles with being a leader early on, I'd give Ruby and Weiss's problems more time and focus on developing their dynamic.

Instead of having Ironwood unnecessarily get shot into a rapid decline into a villain in order to get Ruby and Co to be on their own against Salem, I'd have Ruby come up with the plan for Ironwood and the others to take Atlas to Vacuo for extra protection and resources and then use the staff to make portals to evacuate the remaining people of Mantle that they'd volunteer to stay behind and fight.

Instead of Yang going to the Vytal dance by herself and standing around doing almost nothing all night, I'd have her go to the dance with Velvet but then express feelings for Blake to Ruby.

Instead of having all four members of Team RWBY fall into the void and wind up in Wonderland copy-paste so that dealing with the crisis in Vacuo is entirely put on hold so Ruby can be sad without seeing the consequences of anything, I'd have had Yang and Weiss fall along with Nora. And while they're trying to find a way back out of a more Narnia based world or Peter Pan based world or... Realm of Darkness from Kingdom Hearts based world, Ruby and Blake and the others would be dealing directly with what's going on in Remnant while they prepare for Salem's inevitable attack and deal with a mass-homelessness crisis and struggle to know if they should trust Theo and deal with civilians hating them for destroying their home and so on and so forth.

Most shippable character?

You know what, I'm gonna give this one to Ruby. I don't ship Ruby with a lot of characters, but there's a ship for her that fits pretty much anything you could want. You want a fluffy cute kids-have-crushes on each other ship where the characters have a lot of similarities? Ruby and Penny. You want something that's still cute but is a little more angsty and has a bit more drama where the characters have a lot of differences? Ruby and Whitley. You want some of the vibes of Ruby and Whitley but you want it to be a bit more high stakes and personal and based on a deeper connection? Ruby and Weiss. You want a slowburn of mixed feelings and mutual pining where two characters share similar beliefs but couldn't be more different in terms of personality and experiences? Ruby and Blake. You want a story where one person who is a leader trying their best is involved with a confident sly person who is able to challenge her and make her better? Ruby and May. You want two good friends who are really strong and secure in their relationship as friends but also you want them to be something more and explore a starts-out-awkward but ultimately healthy romance? Ruby and Jaune. You want enemies to friends to lovers who have a history of distrust and hurt but now they could end up leaning on each other? Ruby and Emerald. You want a wild ride that seems like it's a lot of fun but also there's underlying serious themes of finding joy in dark places and protecting each other both emotionally and physically? Ruby and Nora. You want a wild ride that seems like a lot of fun and doesn't have emotional hang-ups? Ruby and Neon. You want a bittersweet angst driven what-we-could-have-had romance based on mutual feelings that leaves someone emotionally devastated after a death? Ruby and Pyrrha. You want a quirky sweet ship between two cinnamon roles but for some reason Ruby and Penny just doesn't do it for ya? Ruby and Velvet. You want that enemies to friends to lovers thing but Ruby and Emerald is just too boring for you? Ruby and Neo. You want the close friends who have a secure relationship and are friends but you actually hate Jaune? Ruby and Oscar!

I could go on, but I'm probably already being really boring. The point is, Ruby is very very shippable with a lot of people. XD

Anyway, thanks for these asks, it was a lot of fun!

Queerphobia In Cobrin'Seil

Everyone in Cobrin’Seil is queer to any extent that word can mean anything in talking about my D&D setting. This is not because when you make a dude in that setting part of the character creation setting is ticking the backstory box that, at some point, he has sucked some dick or whatever, but rather is instead because Cobrin’Seil is a world where heterosexuality as you understand it was never invented.

And boy oh boy that right there opens a door, doesn’t it.

The ‘invention’ of heterosexuality is one of those terms that can confuse people because people don’t tend to think of these things as being invented. Cultural practices and roles are often things that we see as being obvious outcomes of a natural phenomena in our world, and that means we wind up imagining them as absolute and natural. That’s something really useful to cultural practices and they can create weird alienating effects when they’re demonstrated as not obviously true.

If you’re ever curious to see a different non-sexy example, ask a white person about bidets or lota. Or you know, capitalism.

Point is that when I describe ‘heterosexuality’ and refer to it as ‘invented’ I don’t mean that nobody was having boy-on-girl banging because nobody came up with the idea and the idea was invented a hojillion years ago just in time to save whatever species did that from extinction. That’s animal behaviour, putting dongs in hoohahs is a thing we’re all very used to doing as organic entities. So much so that there are a lot of animals that will try and do it with anything they interpret as a hoohah, even if it’s, say, a beanbag.

But that’s non-cultural practice, that’s things doing things transcendant of the way those actions are regarded by other members of their group. Chances are very good if you’re reading this, you share a cultural space with me on this point; you’re almost certainly going to be carrying around in your head a set of bigotries and affordances that people can have around heterosexuality, even if you don’t comply with them or value them, because the British Empire was really good at exporting its specific heterosexuality and then America refined that heterosexuality through most of the same cultural connections. The model of heterosexuality we’re talking about here isn’t even unified across that stretch of history either – non-heterosexual behaviour was tolerated extensively across chunks of both American and British culture but publically advocating for and talking about that practice was seen as vulgar (and was illegal).

What is socially accepted is determined by what is excluded from that acceptability. In our world, that acceptability tends to be tied to a serious academic structure, which is also a thing that had to be invented and if you read in your history enough you’ll find a lot of it ties back into the publication of a work by one dude, Richard von Kraft-Ebigg, who died in 1902. That’s where we get some words you may think of as ‘normal’ words, but which were Latin terms he crafted and put into a German book and we adopted them wholesale. Homosexuality, for example, or sadism. Or analingus.

We use that one every day right?

It’s also a moving target. Back in the 1920s, homosexuality wasn’t ‘has sex with men exclusively,’ it was ‘so obsessed with sex it formed a morbid fascination’ and that that focused on sex with men. Heterosexuality at that time was seen as an equally morbid fascination, a pathologised interest in straight sex. Ten years later, it lost the idea of being an obssession with it, and got the name ‘normal’ sex in the dictionary.

(You can dig into this more by reading Jonathan Ned Katz’s The Invention of Heterosexuality, if you want).

Point is, heterosexuality as you and I us the word had to be invented and named. It is a cultural practice with a meaning and associated values and expectations and at no point did it get pushed into existence in Cobrin’Seil. The word probably exists but maybe it doesn’t, and when a player uses the word to express an idea through their character, they’re expressing a different idea with different weights and vibes in the context of the cultural space they’re living in.

This kind of misalignment between player and character happens all the time. A character asks someone something and they don’t understand you so you try again in Elvish. A player doesn’t need to speak Elvish to make that linguistic hop and yet that player is completely unable to use the Elvish language appropriately. The layer of fiction smooths this over.

This doesn’t mean that a player character in Cobrin’Seil reacts to the word ‘heterosexual’ like it’s a macabre outcropping from an alien universe. It probably has some useful cognate in the world, some idea like ‘oh my primary interest is in one of the major dominant genders of my culture that I don’t share,’ and we just roll over the gap there without any need for a contextual language report. But what it also means is that no character feels the need to explicate whether they are gay or straight because in the universe that is not considered an element of culturally expressing a normal persona. You might tell someone you’re straight or gay because you want them to know your personal preferences, but that’s something that they should only really care about if the conversation is about you having some access to your interests.

Basically, in Cobrin’Seil, the assumption is that ‘people have sex with other people’ and that’s about as specific an assumption you can make. It is not the same thing as we live in, because even in our own world homosexual and bisexual and pansexual behaviour are presented as concepts in opposition to a norm, and only need definition in the context of them being behaviours that need distinction.

This means that queerphobia in Cobrin’Seil is not any kind of stated default: there is no ‘normal’ for queer people to be functional rebels against. There may be communities and spaces where queerphobia arises, but those spaces by definition are going to be insular and weird and not places with widespread state power. You can have a queerphobic space to start from but when you get into the wider world of Cobrin’Seil, you’re always going to find that the world you’re in isn’t like that.

What about the Bernean Lodges, eh, though? You, Talen, after all, invented that place (and low key named it after a church you visited) and it’s meant to be oppressive fundie churches that patrol each other. Surely they’re a bunch of homophobes otherwise how else would you, the author, get cathartic joy out of hunting them down and knifing them in the head? Well listen, first, I can be violently opposed to religious bigotry on a number of axes that draw a visceral fictional thrill out of brutal retaliation, but also the Bernean Lodges are by definition isolated communities of weirdoes. Any given Lodge has a set of inexplicable faith guidelines that they are sure are the unique and true explication of divine will in the face of the apocalypse. They’re perfect for this kind of setup.

What about the Church of Olifar in the Eresh Protectorates? They’re very Catholic in their Holy City and their Bishops and Prelates? Aren’t they likely to have some of that same vibe? Well, the Church of Olifar’s vision on these things tends to be a little more Pauline. “Look, pursuit of the divine is the best thing. But also if you can’t just spend all your days in cloistered prayer, and you need to do things like eat, I guess that’s okay. And if that means you need a job I guess that’s okay. And I guess if you’re lonely, that’s okay to have partners. And I guess if you’re really into partners, that’s okay.” Or, perhaps, “Sure, sex may be great but have you ever spent eight of your days in deep fasting and meditation on the nature of the divine, bro?” It’s a faith system that’s a lot more about claiming there is an ideal minimum amount of sexuality, but it’s also way too widespread and pragmatic to actually enforce it.

Imagine one of those cathedrals but all the stained glass windows are ace flags.

Plus, there’s the church as most people see it and the church as its own doctrine sees it. Most Eresh Protectorate citizens are pretty sure that the church’s positions line up with theirs, because it’s just not vital to the doctrines they teach most of the time, because, again, talking about sexuality in an attempt to enforce a ‘normal’ isn’t a thing that happens in the setting.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#CobrinSeil #DungeonsDragons #Games

3 12 and 13 for res 🙏

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve ever seen on tumblr

there’s actually so much with res i did not know where to start. but i think it had to be the one “au” comic some artist made where ethan killed all the house leaders and th. then found a bunch of photos where rose was so happy. and it was basically like how dare you take your kidnapped baby back😭 you MONSTER.

12. the unpopular character you actually like and why more people should like them

william birkin! for a character whose work sets the entire series in motion he really does not get talked about in games or otherwise. like. at all. but i think that’s partially the fault of the games for not getting information across well because if you look him up he actually has a detailed backstory and was best friends with wesker for. i wanna say 21 years? which adds so much more context to the scene of him refusing to abandon his work which ultimately leads to his death. the underground lab was also specifically invented for birkin’s development of G so like you fucked up big time etc. n e way huge impact on the series, interesting character with really cool little nuggets lore, we love a mad scientist

13. worst blorbofication

oh fandom wise? do you want a LIST? i truly hate the majority of content and discussion about wesker on the internet because everyone seems to forget that he’s a weird psychosexually obsessed eugenicist who wears turtlenecks . genuinely cannot imagine him being anything but a total standoffish prude. i often see him characterized as like. a tragic sex god? and yes well there are tragic aspects to his character the backstory retcon they gave him in 5 was absolutely fucking pathetic. wesker was always more interesting when he was brainwashed into working for umbrella as a teenager and LOVED it. also this guy is NOT fucking, sorry not to project but he is so in love with his work he can’t even [REDACTED] get destroyed. weird psychosexual obsession or not that is the most asexual man i’ve ever seen he’s like a ken doll down there

oh, I love your music so much. My favorite is almost certainly Stay Safe, but I'd actually most love to hear commentary on the capsongs project! I’m Obsessed with the "real people writing fictional blog posts about fictional blog posts about real songs about fictional people" aspect of it, and the balance you struck with the low key academia vibe of it. You shared the last song but never wrote up a fake blog post for it (as far as I know), and I’m curious about if you'd had plans for what the history of that song would have been. Also just super curious in general how that specific context affected the songwriting itself!

aw thanks! and oh my goddd, i would love to chat about this!

so for anyone who doesn't know, in 2014, back when i was firmly on my Steve Rogers Bullshit, i got a little obsessed with the idea of Captain America as a contemporary symbol from World War 2 onward, the notion of how his story would be constantly framed and reframed and reframed as the story of America itself continued to be messy and contradictory. i wound up writing four and a half songs about it, and each song came with an elaborate backstory situating it at a particular historical moment. you can listen to the songs and read the lyrics here. (i didn't do anything to preserve the meta surrounding the songs because i started to feel like maybe it was a bit Much. your mileage may vary!)

"Take Up Your Shield, Steve Rogers!" (1952) was my attempt at a Woody Guthrie-style folk song, very much in the vein of "This Land is Your Land" where it's got a patriotic feel to it but if you pay attention to all the verses you realize A Criticism Has Been Made. In that case, the notion was a criticism of the Red Scare, with an added little jab at segregationists (the part noting that the Howling Commandos were integrated and everyone got equal pay). i very deliberately ended with the concept that someone else needs to pick up the shield, on an in-story level like "you should do it" and on a meta level, foreshadowing that Sam Wilson would ultimately pick up the mantle.

"Let Him Sleep" (1967) was going for, well, more of a sixties folk sound, and it played directly off a line in the previous song ("If he could see the things we’re doin’ in his name today / I think that boy would rather stay asleep") In fact I think writing that line was what made me realize this was gonna be a series, and not just a Woody Guthrie homage. in my mind, it's got killer harmonies but my writing brain doesn't generally work that way. Maybe obviously—it's criticizing the war in Vietnam.

"For the Crows" (1985) was my stab at Reagan-era paranoia, the notion that the government has been involved in something profoundly unsavory and the truth may fundamentally be unknowable. i grew up listening to Jackson Browne's 1986 album For America and that may be part of why i associate the 80's with conspiracy and political rage. I invented two fake bands for this one, I think, but I don't remember what they were. I think my notion was queer activists would be upset at the possibility that Steve Rogers was queer and the government had suppressed it. Or at the very least, that Steve Rogers' mainstream legacy had been sanitized and whitewashed to the point of incomprehensibility.

Finally, the song you actually asked about, "The Restless of New York" (2007). you're right, i don't think i ever did write any meta about this one. I wanted to write a more modern folk song but still set well before Steve Rogers was retrieved from the ice. The inspirations here were the band The Gaslight Anthem, the fact that at least some of the historic docks of NYC were literally torn down to build an IKEA, and gentrification. I imagined a tourist industry rising up around seeing "Steve Roger's New York" and how sad and almost ghoulish that would feel to people sensitive to the fact that we're talking about a real guy who died young, and one among many. I think it was also kind of me gently pushing at the whole concept of doing this in the first place—why do some stories get told over and over until they're unrecognizable, while some are never even recorded?

the line i am proudest of in this song is "that ain't how gone works."

(pretty sure i made the observation that steve rogers couldn't afford to live in modern brooklyn before marvel did but don't quote me on that.)