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totallyhextra · 8 months

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People? In MY computer?? It's more likely than you think!

The following is a fanvertisment and is not connected to the show. ****Yet.*** *Also yes, this is the fourth time I'm posting this because TUMBLR WONT LET ME EDIT SPELLING MISTAKES!

ANYWAY,

Once upon a time, back in 1987, Dire Straits put out this music video for “Money for Nothing”, which, as you know, was a song about wanting my MTV.

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The video was made by two guys (Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson) on a very moody computer. After the video went out, these two guys went to a pub:

Ian: “Hey, we should make a whole show like this!”

Gavin: “Dude, making three minutes almost killed us.”

And so it was decided!🎉

The two guys were joined by two other guys (Phil Mitchell and John Grace) and created the Hub, which then became Mainframe Entertainment. They got even more people, and then they all holed up in this hotel.

They were mad lads with a dream: a whole cgi animated show, and they made it happen a whole year before Toy Story!

Behold! ReBoot!

(Yes that fever dream was real)

Now before I get any of this:

Let me lay this down. If you can’t with the animation of the first season because it was CUTTING EDGE IN 1994, you can close your eyes and listen to it. ReBoot wasn’t just a CGI gimmick. The characters are fully developed, the voice actors are peerless, the plot is sharp, and there’s so many easter eggs that you’ll never find them all.

Never

(And yes the episode "Bad Bob" was the actual catalyst for Fury Road. Look it up)

ReBoot is about what life is like in a computer (in the 90s, because it was the 90s) called Mainframe (because of course it is). People are sprites, the guys that look like 1s and 0s are binomes (which represent 1s and 0s). Bad guys are viruses, and the good guy is a Guardian named Bob, who is a certified cinnamon roll.

In the first season the eps are light and self-contained, mainly because there was constant friction between the Mainframe studios and the Board of Standards and Practices.

They still got away with some pretty dark stuff, like Megabyte (virus) making Enzo (the kid) watch his dog get sliced open (dog got away, obviously) , Dot (sprite) have a hallucinatory breakdown, and the fridge horror of realizing the thousands of worm things (nulls) that plunged off a bridge to their death were actually people.

And Hex's (virus

best girl) scary face single-handedly traumatized an entire generation. 🙂

But busting through a window was a no go, because WhAt If tHe cHiLdReN dID iT tOo?

Anyway, halfway through the second season, ABC cut them loose, so they were like, fuck it, we’re going to start going hard. The story shifted from episodic to arcs and things start to get serious.

Third season the show moved to YTV in Canada, which gave no fucks about shielding the innocent children.

So it got DARK

How dark?

The UK refused to show the entire season, so the audience there had to wait until pirated copies made it across the pond to see how it ended.

Also by 1997, the animation was gorgeous. (Best example of third season animation I could think of that didn't have spoilers)

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The show was green-lit for a fourth season on Cartoon Network, but halfway through production Warner Bros took over and the same fucking thing happened.

Because Mainframe was halfway done, they decided not to scrap all of it, but knowing they wouldn't be able to finish it correctly, Mainframe stripped anything that would hint at Season Four's true ending, then left what remained on a cliff-hanger of angst.

FOR 22 YEARS

(It's also why the last four eps of season four seem to make no sense)

And so it was.

Other crap happened, the soul left Mainframe, and its animated corpse spat out “The Guardian Code” in 2018.

But never say die! The year is (almost) 2024, 30 years later. ReBoot shall rise from the dead, because here come the documentary!!

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Do you dare see what you’ve been missing?

What the (UK) government doesn’t want you to know??

Then come on down to ReBoot!

We got:

Magnificent bastards with sexy voices!

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(Tony Jay at his best)

Kickass women who could probably crush your head with their thighs and you’d enjoy it!

Innuendos in a kid's show!

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💗 This adorable cinnamon roll!! 💗

Insane third season glow-ups!

YOUR NEW GOD

These guys!

(Gay roller-skating binome is my boi. I named him Jerry)

Nonstop cultural refs (You'll never find them all. Never.)

(There are literally videos dedicated to trying)

So many computer puns!

Body Horror!

Existential Crisis!

HAVE I MENTIONED YOUR NEW GOD?

youtube

This is it, folks! The real thing, the gem hidden in the moose-filled forests of Canadia!🌲🌲🌲

Take a trip inside a mid-90’s computer!

See the World Wide Web! (omg):

Witness the original purple Gamecubes that randomly fall from the sky when the owner of the computer (OUR GOOD LORD THE USER) wants to play a game. If it lands on people and they lose, they dissolve into mindless energy leeches, fated to tormented by their former bretheren for all of eternity.

Just like in real life! 🙃

So watch the eps! They on YouTube!

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I think they're on Pluto, Hulu, Sling, and Tubi too! Also DVDs for people who have the patience to wait for them!

WATCH! BELIEVE! SUFFER THE SOUL-CRUSHING RAGE OF THE SEASON 4 CLIFF-HANGER!* (come on, its fun!)*

HYPE THE DOC!

The more people hype, the better the chances of actually getting it finished.

NOW SHARE THIS WITH EVERYONE!

And now I will leave you with this screenshot from the ep "Painted Windows", where dicks can clearly be seen drawn upon the wall behind the fleeing anthropomorphized television.

(PS: If you heard the clown pic at the top of the page in your head, you're welcome)

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This message is now approved by Gavin Blair! He's an awesome guy. Show him some love on TWITTER (fuck you musk) at @TheRealMrSweary Also, if you want to share this with non-tumblr friends, here is my attempt at a webpage version:

theseventhstarprojects.com/REBOOT.html

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shirefantasies · 3 months

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Can I request a How Many Kids They Want for the characters from The Hobbit? I’m curious to hear what you think!

Heck yeah! I already made a placeholder for it in my drafts cuz I had to let’s GOOOO! Last post pre-surgery, crazy that we’re only 3 days out 🥲

How Many Kids Do They Want? The Hobbit Edition

Balin

Certainly not a future he ever expected, but it’s not such a bad one, is it? How big his family is is a question Balin wouldn’t mind deferring to his partner, especially as he would never be the one bearing them! But probably not more than three if he was really pressed for an answer.

Dwalin

Girl dad. I said what I said. Secretly wants to settle down and adores the idea of domestic life, especially with a sweetheart of a partner who he can take care of. This transfers to his children, who Dwalin is the fiercest papa bear to! No one will touch a single hair upon his daughters’ heads. I can see him having two or three little girls, very unusual for a dwarf and a bit unexpected to him, who would have said he wanted sons. The moment he has to pull a knife out of his little girl’s hand, though, the very same one that held a doll on the other side, Dwalin realizes what he wants has nothing to do with boys. Raises the toughest girls this side of the mountains!

Thorin

Does not mind the idea of a small family, more time and love to give each member as king. Thorin is fiercely loyal and dedicated, so he wants to shower his partner and child(ren) with as much as he possibly can. Thus he would prefer only one or two children. While he hopes for a son to continue on the line of Durin, growing up with a sister gave him a soft spot and respect for femininity, too. A boy and a girl sounds perfect to him, Thorin’s little prince and princess. He would have such a hard time not softening his harsh ways and one hundred percent spoiling them, but the last thing he wants is to raise spoiled royalty with no humility!

Oin

Oin is so the type of father to have a big family and brag about them all the time! Five or six children. He’s the default carer when they get sick, being so good at treating any ailment or pain that they run to him upon feeling any sort of ill. Not picky about if he has boys or girls, ending up with two girls and three or four boys. All of them are welcome to become his apprentices and several even grew up playing ‘doctor’ for years beforehand! Literally Oin could be handling someone halfway to bleeding out and he’s still standing there staunching it saying how he has the best kids ever.

Gloin

The proudest father and family man in general! Cannot wait to have a family of his own and absolutely wants a son to be his mini-me. Has a special bond with his son as we all know. Gloin is happy to even have one child, but could be persuaded to go up to two or three. Would raise the toughest, shrewdest daughter as he shows her the ropes of getting out of uncomfortable situations and having the confidence to stand up for whatever she wants!

Bifur

A family is a future he never grew up expecting being a manual laborer and warrior. Parts of him weren’t even sure how long he’d live unless he got tough, which of course he did! One son sounds good to him, someone to pass on stories of battle and his ancestors to and shape as a fighter, though he also hopes if he has a family they would not be so forced to see war.

Bofur

Envies his brother’s family a bit, not that he wants quite so many! Bofur would be happy with two or three or four. He loves the idea of having a little girl, especially if she’s a tiny version of his partner, he would just melt at the sight of her. Total, though, he’s down for three or four, multiple but still small enough to feel cozy! Absolutely the type of father who lets his daughter dance with her feet on his and teases the kids whenever he can! Makes little hats for his sons so they can match.

Bombur

Going by the fanon/actor canon here as always, a lot. He’s so good with wee ones and just adores them, so he is down for as many as he’ll be allowed, even up to thirteen or fourteen! Because of this, he naturally wants several of both boys and girls, especially because girls are rarer among his people. So playful with them and a master of getting down to their level as a naturally lighthearted and whimsical person. He loves when the little ones help him cook or bake even if it gets messy!

Dori

The most caring father ever, forever doting on his children and making them feel loved, even if it’s a little much! His perfect number is two, one of each if he’s lucky but he’d be happy with two of the same, too. Dori grew up caring for both of his brothers for enough years, after all, but he also has the sneaking suspicion that with dwarven culture, his love for the finer things would be more likely passed on to daughters! Likes the idea of teaching skills like sewing or jewelry-making to whoever his offspring are.

Nori

Kind of suspects if he had a child, it might not be legitimate, but in the end he takes the plunge of settling down, feeling the urge as he ages to keep his bloodline on. One or two is enough for him, though, sons if he can help it, which being a dwarf he practically can! Realizes carrying a wee bairn around has a charm that lets him get away with even more than usual, and as they age teaches his little boys how to play games and even to cheat a little.

Ori

Softer, more caring than his middle brother, someone who fantasized about having a family if someone would have him. His vision is of four children, two of each. So patient with all the buzzing questions and curiosities of their young minds. All of them, boys or girls, will have the most enriching environments full of art and writing, being raised with culture over getting taught to fight. Since self-expression is encouraged, though, you can bet it’s a loud home!

Fili

Even beyond the weight of cultural expectations, Fili wants to experience being a father. Doesn’t have as strong a desire for a son as most kings and princes do, honoring his mother and what a great queen she would make. In fact, he loves the idea of raising a future queen more than king in some ways. She would be strong, resilient, free to be herself and not fall to the shadows beneath anyone if Fili has his way. He definitely wants more than one, though, and in fact ends up with twins, too! Identical twin sons he encourages both to train and explore as well as to mess with everyone by lying about which twin they are.

Kili

This dwarf loves his mother and is just dying to show his children the love he got and respect his partner especially if she’s the mother of his children! The idea of a family makes him happy like nothing else, for despite all his flirting and seeming like he wants to have fun he really wants to settle down with the love of his life. He wants at least one of each, loving different things about having a son and daughter. The kind of father who would play dress-up with his daughter and spar with her just as much as his son! All in all, he’s pretty open on numbers, but he wants at least two and the ideal range in his mind is around three to five.

Bilbo

Didn’t think he wanted children for a long time, but Bilbo is definitely the sort to change his mind if he meets the right person. Still would prefer a smaller family of one or two children, though, as more would be overwhelming to him and he wants to keep his home in order! Boy or girl, his kids would learn so many skills ranging from folding handkerchiefs to cartography. No strong preference from Bilbo on what he wants, per se, he more just hopes to have things in common with them and be able to bond.

Thranduil

Torn between his desire for an heir and not exactly paternal ways, Thranduil really only wants one child. All his attention can be focused that way, too, because at his heart he does know that duty makes it hard to be as involved as he could be with family and it would not be fair to have a massive family he can’t spend time with. Likes the idea of a son, again considering an heir, but a little girl would have the woodland king absolutely wrapped around her finger and get every pretty little thing she wants.

Bard

Pretty obvious on this one, but he would want three! Not so picky on having sons or daughters, especially when his legacy already has pressure upon it. In truth he’s the sort who wants ‘the full experience’ and says he’d want to try for one of each. Teaches all of his little family valuable skills, wishing them the best chance in life. They’ll learn to heal, defend themselves even if it’s not fighting, simply keeping safe.

Beorn

Intimidated as he is by the prospect of having children in a world that was so cruel to his people, his papa bear instincts run deep through his veins. I can see him having twins or even triplets, like a little litter all his own. I see triplets, two boys and a girl. Beorn cannot help the way his often harsh expression softens at his little ones, the hopeful smile that creeps onto his face at the thought of continuing the Skin Changers’ legacy through his sons and daughters, his name-bearers and the one who will choose her own.

Taglist: @kilibaggins @lokilover476 @fuckyoumakeart | Message/Reply to join 🥰

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nartml · 29 days

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To Pimp a Butterfly and 1989: a rant

Listen here, three things about me are that I'm a) white as snow, b) Greek, c) still a minor.

What does this mean? It means that I obviously wasn't raised with hip-hop, and I got into Kendrick Lamar's music pretty late.

As in, early this year.

I've known of him for some time, and the moment I found out he had a Pulitzer prize at some point in late-ish 2023, I decided I had to sit my ass down and pull out Spotify.

Now, as an avid reader of both fanfiction (ao3 raised me) and books [I feel the immense need to clarify that I don't associate myself with mainstream booktok. Capitalism's consumerism has overrun that shit and all I see are the same 20 books being recycled and recommended (a substantial amount of those are Colleen Hoover and her variants). Tropes and spice* are officially the defining factors of whether a book is worth it (*your porn addiction ain't cute) and quantity is heavily prioritized at the expense of quality. Also, diversity who?], I was, for a lack of a better word, hyped.

A Pulitzer prize is nothing to scoff at in general, more so in music, more so in hip-hop.

(Edit: Upon quick reflection, I realize that putting emphasis on hip-hop can come across as coded.

I am in no way, shape, or form trying to undermine hip-hop or say that it's somehow less 'sophisticated' than, for example, classical music. I'm very aware of the amount of skill and technique one needs to write a masterful hip-hop album, and I'm not doubting that there are hip-hop artists out there who are also incredibly deserving of such a prize. I meant it in the sense that I've unfortunately never heard of another hip-hop artist who won a Pulitzer before, which is quite telling.)

That's some huge shit, and I'd be a fool not to be intrigued.

Admittedly, I didn't get on that immediately. For a while I procrastinated, because I wasn't in the mood to hyper-fixate on anything new just yet.

Which of course meant I ended up forgetting about it for a few months, because of course I did.

But then I came across a TikTok that talked about how it was insane that '1989' won the Grammy when To Pimp a Butterfly was right there.

Now, a fourth thing about me is that I don't fuck with Taylor Swift.

And a fifth thing about me is that I'm not baseless in anything that I do, say or feel, and that includes annoyance.

Her immature understanding of activism and feminism leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The way she built up her fan base around this portrayal of her as a relatable girl's girl, her refusal to accept criticism, and always making a victim out of herself (even now when she's in her thirties and is a fucking billionaire) while never using her position of power and privilege for good are all reasons that serve to fuel my dispassionate dislike.

And before any Swifties get on my ass, no, I don't think that "But she's a singer! Why are you expecting so much out of her, she isn't even qualified to speak on XYZ—" is a good enough excuse.

She has always been rich, and now she's a billionaire. There are no ethical billionaires, and that includes her.

Fame is influence is power. Uncle Ben said it all: With great power comes great responsibility.

And let me tell you, I don't see her owning up to that responsibility, especially after all that talk about how she supports women, supports the LGBTQ community, and supports the BLM movement. Has she ever actually put her abundant money where her mouth is?

I've never seen her speak about anything that doesn't immediately concern her.

Don't get me wrong. She's not the only celebrity like this out there. I'm sure there are worse cases. I know it for a fact.

To wrap this segment up before I get even more sidetracked, I'll outright state that I don't hate her, because hating her would by definition mean that I, in some way, actually care about her, and that just sounds exhausting.

Best way to describe me is indifferent, leaning towards distasteful.

She's annoying.

And that's how I feel about both her as a person and her as an artist.

I'm not denying her talent, nor her impact on the industry, nor the fact that she does have good songs that even I like.

A select few, of course, but still.

Apart from those...what? Ten songs? I have never, ever been able to listen to any other song of her's all the way through.

I get bored. They do nothing for me. They sound empty. Hollow. Plastic. Repetitive.

Her lyrics, that are praised by fans for being deep and complex, sound pretty surface level to me.

Not all of them. But I'm a sucker for analysis. A literature nerd. Greek is my native language. I can tell when something's deep and when something wants to be deep.

(Not necessarily including Folklore and Evermore in that category. Her storytelling ability is actually great.)

Her music largely sounds like it wants to be deep.

Most recent example being her latest release, The Tortured Poets Department.

Anyway, back to Kendrick.

My initial plan was to listen to 'DAMN.' first, because that's what he won the Pulitzer for in the first place.

There was a change of plans after that TikTok.

I decided to compare the opening tacks.

I put on Welcome to New York, and predictably, I felt nothing.

The rhythm is dance-y, I suppose. But there's nothing substantial about it. There's nothing exciting about it.

The lyrics are juvenile, and I get it, it's a pop song and she was in her twenties.

Nobody is expecting Shakespeare (no matter how much you scream or kick your feet, the only reason Shakespeare couldn't write Taylor Swift is because he's in another league entirely) or Odysseus Elytis. Nobody is expecting mind-blowing lyricism.

But it's the opening track to an apparently Grammy-worthy album. The very least I'd expect from it would be some additional levels of artistry.

Am I being harsh? Probably. Do I care? No.

Disappointed but unsurprised, I put on Wesley's Theory.

I ascended within the first minute.

Don't get it twisted, I barely understood shit.

Not only am I white, I am also entirely removed from America and its culture as a whole. I don't know what's going on there in y'all's daily lives.

And this was baby's first proper introduction to hip-hop as a whole.

My untrained, white-ass ear barely caught two references. I got what the gist of the song was about, and that's about it.

I had to look up analyses of the track to fully grasp what Kendrick was on about, and even then, there was obviously still a disconnect.

And I expected all of that.

I didn't expect to get hooked on that song within the first listen.

I swear to fuck, the beat is addictive. I swear to fuck, even when I was fighting to understand what the lyrics were referencing, I was having the time of my life.

Even I, an amateur in every sense of the word, could tell that there was depth and there was quality and there was intentional meaning in every line of that song.

It didn't matter that I couldn't understand it. It mattered that I knew it was there. Not because someone told me that was the case. But because it was audible.

I listened to the next track. And the one after that. And the one after that. I had listened to all of the tracks, before I knew it.

And the evident permeance of quality, of substance, carried on throughout the whole album.

It had exactly the type of lyricism I'd expect a Grammy-worthy album to have. It had exactly the amount of artistry I expected a Grammy-worthy album to have.

Even better, it had all the ingredients I expected a timeless album to have.

The poetry Taylor Swift fans insist hides in her discography, I found in plain sight within Kendrick Lamar's.

After meticulously reading the lyrics, I watched video essay after video essay, searched for analysis after analysis on this album, each time understanding the meanings behind it a little better.

Needless to say that the Grammy's are rigged and I love Kendrick Lamar.

Hip-hop is gorgeous.

#tpab #to pimp a butterfly #kendrick lamar #he's awesome #hip hop #1989 #taylor swift #just to be safe #anti taylor swift

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firexima · 1 month

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YOUR ART IS INCREDIBLE DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS /nf

Thanks so much!! I’m so grateful to hear you like my work :)

And boy oh boy I could go oooon and on and on about tips, like genuinely pages upon pages or talking hours upon hours but I’ll share a few things!

1: Put your drawing in black and white to check the values

TLDR: It helps check that your drawings are clear and helps figure out what needs to be brighter/darker.

-> First if all, I want to explain what value is. Value is how bright or dark a color is. Every color has value even when fully saturated and those values change depending on the color. Red for example is naturally darker in value than yellow but naturally brighter in value than blue. You want to be aware and therefore deliberate with how you use value in your art.

Push your darks and push your lights— unless there’s a deliberate reason as to why you don’t want to, you want a fairly large range in values: that means that if you were to put your drawing in black and white only, you would be able to see a large range of greys going from very dark to very bright, black to mid/light grey, mid/dark grey to white depending on the mood of your drawing.

This helps to give your art more depth and volume and generally helps to read better and is nice to look at. When you’re creating art it can be difficult to keep track of everything, so by putting your art in black and white you are only focusing on value and it helps you see what’s getting lost and what you can push and pull more to make brighter or darker.

You can do this by either taking a picture of your drawing and editing it in your camera roll to remove the saturation or set it in one of the black and white filters or if you’re working digitally you can create a new layer above all the ones you already have, fill it with black/white/grey and set the layer to “color”. With your layer, you can turn it on and off whenever you want

2: Do multiple small thumbnails!

TLDR: It helps pushing yourself to brainstorm other options and it helps finding out if your composition works before you spend time on it.

-> Obviously not a complete necessity whatsoever and I don’t even do this with all my drawings especially if they’re just to have fun and de-stress but if you have an idea for a drawing and you really want it to get to its full potential, sitting down and forcing yourself to do more than one sketch can be really great! It doesn’t have to be good at all, just enough for you to know what it is supposed to be.

Often when I come up with an idea I’m excited about I already have a vision for how I want to do it but making myself brainstorm other ways I could draw the same idea and forcing myself to make them noticeably different has helped me come up with some of my proudest works! You are deliberately considering all options for how you can execute the same thing and realizing ways you could do it that you hadn’t initially thought of. In my experience by doing this I realize that the first idea I thought of isn’t always the best possible one or I merge it with another one and therefore end up making it better. (This can also be applied to other creative processes)

Another good thing about it though, is it helps focus on just the composition. Again, there’s a lot of things that go into making an art piece so isolating just the composition helps you figure out a plan and checking to see that it looks good before you spend hours and hours on it. It’s as if you were to build a house and spend days of work and loads of money on making it beautiful but it isn’t structurally sound and falls apart. You don’t want to spend so much of your time on all the details only to realize it just doesn’t feel right all because the composition itself is off.

3: Remember to have fun and don’t be discouraged!

-> I know it’s something nearly everyone says and at first I kind of always ignored it because it felt like it was something people just added to be nice but it is just as important as anything else. Art takes so much time, even just doing a single piece— let alone time to keep building up your skills over time. We don’t have unlimited time, and what you choose to spend your time on matters. Honing your craft and even wanting tips to help you improve means you care. The reason why is one of the most important things of all, don’t lose sight of that. Whether it’s to have fun, to decompress, to express yourself, to depict something you care about— whatever it may be: remember that and don’t beat yourself up or stress yourself out if you aren’t where you want to be or stressing yourself out to meet certain expectations. It really does impact both your art and your learning process whether you’re having a good time or not.

A few last quick tips:

- Don’t be afraid to start over or completely redo something that isn’t working!

- When drawing from reference, trust what you see and not what you know! Drawing what your eyes are telling you is there instead of what your brain thinks should be there will usually always give you better results.

- Step back from/Zoom out of a piece regularly! It also helps to squint your eyes.

- It’s great to make a folder of pieces/artists/pictures that inspire you!

- When studying other people’s art, be aware that they can also make mistakes so that you don’t repeat those.

- You don’t have to take every tip/rule by heart, as long as you understand why they’re there, you can also deliberately choose to go against it if it enhances what you want to do with your piece. Most rules artists teach can be broken, just make sure it’s a deliberate choice to not do those things and why you’re choosing to do that instead of just not knowing about it!

Hopefully these are helpful! I have way more but this is already long enough as is. I wish you the best! <3

#this is so much longer than I meant it to be #I am so sorry for anyone reading #I doubt anyone will read the entire thing #but hopefully this makes sense !!

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zombie-and-puppet-child · 1 year

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Heres a general synopsis of the lore I have so far for my AU(subject to change, especially after Ruin comes out):

So this is basically my take on a “What if Michael was in SB” AU but with the addition of Charlotte for extra spice

One way or another, Charlie figured out the Pizza Sim fire wouldn’t finish William off for good and she convinced Mike that they should escape the fire together and stop him For Good

The damage Mike sustained from the Scooper and the fire means he’s physically weakened (even requiring a cane to walk for an extended period of time)

Mike uses his knowledge and skills with animatronics to get a job at the Pizzaplex as a mechanic (mans is DONE with being a Night Guard)

(He is also VERY thankful that a lot of the heavy lifting when it come to animatronic repairs can be done for him, cuz lord knows how much more his poor body can take)

He rebuilds Charlotte using spare parts he salvaged from the fire and scrapped Staff Bots, making her a more humanoid looking puppet this time around

Both Mike and Charlie have Illusion Disks to help the blend in as Totally Normal people

Charlie goes around the Pizzaplex befriending any lost/vulnerable children in an effort to make them less likely to be targets of a certain murderous rabbit

This is how she first meets Gregory before he stows away in Freddy’s stomach

Upon realizing that there is a kid trapped in the Pizzaplex, both Mike and Charlie are working to find him and keep him as far away from Vanny as possible

Aaaaaand that’s about it! I do have more story fleshed out, but I’m gonna hold back on it until Ruin comes out just incase it clashes too much with what I’ve come up with

EDIT: Ruin is out and I have finished it! I’m starting proper work on this AU, though I don’t have any solid idea of when I’ll be done as I’m still sorting through what we’ve learned from the dlc

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf security breach #fnaf sb #michael afton #mike schmidt #charlotte emily #gregory fnaf #zapc au #zombie and puppet child au #zapc lore

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presidenthades · 5 months

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Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 5!

(Using the “Book of Clarence” GIF because I just watched it today.)

For this chapter’s title, I picked the Warrior lyrics from “The Song of the Seven” because toward the end, Jace has to pick up a blade (so to speak) and physically defend herself for the first time in her life.

Chapter content warnings also apply for this commentary, since we’re talking about the same topics.

Aegon seems like he’d be an oversharer when he’s emotional. Just get everything off his chest, either as a form of catharsis or in the hopes of receiving validation, or both. I feel like Aegon is capable of having an excellent poker face (useful for gambling), but TGC puts so much emotion into Aegon’s every expression that it makes me think Aegon chooses to wear his heart on his sleeve. Everyone has already made up their minds about him so why try to pretend to be something he’s not?

Jace doesn’t like being idle, and Aegon’s speech is very very long. So she keeps her hands busy, and her instinct is to clean up Aegon’s face 🥺.

I was debating whether Jace forgives Aegon too easily, since she was very upset earlier. But Jace is generally quick to forgive, and she now has the missing pieces of the story. The drafts I wrote where she continued to be angry at Aegon made her seem unreasonable, and she isn’t the kind of person to value a feast/public appearance over innocent lives. But she is the kind of person to worry about lot (at times unnecessarily), so that becomes the new thing she fixates upon. Aegon and Aemond were a bit reckless, and of course Jace is going to focus on the worst possible scenario that could’ve happened.

Aegon sees Jace as perfect and himself as the total opposite, so he blames himself instead of Jace. But Jace isn’t afraid to do some introspection and examine herself for flaws—in fact, she often thinks about what she did wrong and could do better next time. And because Aegon is an oversharer, she picked up on his feelings of being neglected, even if he didn’t explicitly state them, and she’s able to put herself in his shoes. So they have a little marital spat, as every couple does, but they’re able to work through it without dragging it out unnecessarily long. Neither of them is looking to “win” the argument, they just want to put it behind them and return to their usual state of contentment.

Jace’s line about Aegon not being a beggar waiting for scraps of her time resonates with him. A variation of it pops up again in Chapter 10 when he makes his resolution to play the game.

The “send me a note so I know where you are if you need rescuing” line is foreshadowing Jace’s kidnapping. She sends him a sort-of note in the form of the necklace she gives to the Garden girl Liane. And “that’s what guards are for” highlights how Jace isn’t a fighter. She’s a lady/product of her society and upbringing, and nobody—herself included—expects her to pick up a sword if there’s trouble.

I wanted Jace to explicitly say “I’m proud of you” because that’s the kind of validation Aegon lives for, and she knows his love languages. Honestly these two have a mutual praise kink

The original draft had Jace being jealous and telling Aegon to get rid of the brothel, but the jealousy ended to seeming kind of petty, so I deleted that bit. Jace doesn’t want her husband to own a brothel (people are always going to assume he’s patronizing his own business), but now that they’ve had a chat, she feels very secure in his affections. Also, when they have more time to think about it, I think they both realize that hastily offloading the brothel to the first person who’ll buy it could potentially go very badly; if the buyer is a nasty person, the girls there probably suffer. Hence, Aegon’s hands-off, “I’ll pretend it doesn’t exist” managerial style.

Jace is usually very self-conscious about her body, but this is an era where it’s normal for royals/nobles to be assisted while bathing and it isn’t sexual at all. So she mentally compartmentalizes it differently than, say, bathing with her husband. Aegon is aware of this, but he likes teasing Jace 😛. (I’m sure he actually has caught Sabitha, who supposedly likes women in F&B, admiring Jace a few times, but otherwise Sabitha knows how to be professional.)

Aegon genuinely cannot comprehend the idea of Jace being unattractive. Bless him.

When Aegon pauses over Jace’s stomach, he he realizes it wasn’t just Jace waiting for him tonight but also his unborn child. Jace’s earlier words about him endangering himself really hit him, and he has a little growth moment where he realizes he can’t just act like a reckless bachelor but has to think more about his growing family as he runs around the city.

Like most Targs, Aegon is officially raised as a member of the Faith but he doesn’t really believe in it. Meanwhile Jace does have sincerely held beliefs which are pretty standard for the time. It should be remembered that historically, religion was more widespread and important in daily life, and going to weekly services would’ve been the minimum expectation.

In the show, Rhaenyra is portrayed as not even knowing how to pray at age 14, which was an odd writing decision IMO. Religion is pretty engrained into medieval society, and Aemma is from the Vale, which is a region that strongly worships the Seven. So even if you argue that Viserys didn’t care much about Rhaenyra’s spirituality, I’m sure Aemma did. Rhaenyra doesn’t seem to believe in the Faith at all, but she can still perform the outward motions of belief while being agnostic inside. So in my version of events, Rhaenyra arranges the typical education for her children, which includes a septa (especially important to girls) and the in-world equivalent of Sunday school, even if she isn’t going to otherwise encourage them to pay heed to religion. But because Jace is a very good girl, she paid attention to all the lectures. Hence, Jace and Aegon’s very different reactions to his blasphemy.

Anyway, I hope I made it obvious with all the religious dirty talk and innuendos, but this smut scene is intended to show that Aegon literally worships Jace 😇.

Rhaena hasn’t heard about the Targbros’ adventures yet, so from her perspective, Aegon has miraculously managed to talk himself back into Jace’s bed after a colossal fuckup. No wonder she’s exasperated lol

Aegon doesn’t usually read for pleasure, but he’ll make an exception for trashy erotica 💋.

The garden party scene is an appetizer to how Jace and Aegon can work together to manipulate the courtiers if they’re so inclined. Most of the plan was Jace’s idea, but Aegon was definitely the one who suggested showing off the hickeys. And he ad libbed licking his finger 😛.

There was originally supposed to be a comedic sequence where the story of the Targbros’ heroics wins them a lot of fan girls. Since Aegon is married, most of the ladies begin obsessing over Aemond, who literally runs away from his admirers and at one point just straight up leaves for Driftmark for an extended visit. Alas, it didn’t fit in the chapter—but I might retell it from Aemond’s POV in the next fic LOL.

As Aegon starts hearing the petitions and doing more investigating, we see that he might not be as averse to duty/responsibility as he claims. He’s averse to feeling unappreciated, and since the smallfolk are very appreciative of his help, he keeps doing the petitions.

Aegon assumes that the Tyroshi does the reasonable thing and flees Westeros when he has the chance. Unfortunately, we shall see that the Tyroshi is not a man driven by reason.

Now that our couple have recalibrated so Jace isn’t overworking herself, Aegon feels less like he’s competing for her attention so he’s able to open himself up to impending fatherhood. A lot of his growth in this regard is a gradual process, not a huge eureka moment, and he’s still working on it when we get his POV again in Chapter 6. But he develops the new habit of communing with the baby because he wants to try, even if he still isn’t sure he’ll be any good at fatherhood. At the very least, he knows he doesn’t want to make his child feel neglected by his father, as Aegon felt growing up. And because Aegon spends so much time talking and singing to the baby, Cheeseball essentially comes out of the womb recognizing his father’s voice 🥹.

Aegon does still have some hangups. He acts a bit weird during the name talk because he thinks he would prefer a daughter. Similar to Laenor, Aegon thinks a daughter would be easier because in his mind, he’s imagining a mini-Jace whom he can spoil. Also, daughters tend to be raised more by their mothers and he thinks Jace would do great. But fathers are supposed to be more involved with sons, and Aegon thinks he’ll be a bad influence. So he’s still trying to wrestle with those feelings.

Gyles is NOT a good businessman. There’s no way he could ever recoup the costs of shipping cheese from the Vale just through selling pies. He’s lucky he found a royal patron 😂.

In an early draft, I had the baby’s name down as “Rhaenor” so it could simultaneously honor Laenor and Rhaenys. Then I started doing High Valyrian on Duolingo and I noticed there were words like aegion (iron) and rhaenagon (to find), which had the same roots as some Targ names. I developed a theory that the Targ names are supposed to have some kind of meaning, just like how our real world names have meanings (the High Valyrian creator David Peterson basically confirmed my theory on tumblr when I asked in December). So I began hunting through an online Valyrian dictionary for other roots. At first I wanted to use the word for gold, but that’s aeksion and I couldn’t think of a pleasant sounding name based on it. Then I stumbled across the words eleni and elenar, music and tide respectively, and that was PERFECT for a baby who’s part-Velaryon and has a daddy who likes to sing to them. And it sounds really nice! I played around with some name suffixes (Elenaron, Elenarys) but I liked the original word the best. I decided that instead of continuing to use the same dozen Targ names, or mixing up different name prefixes and suffixes, Jace picks a new name for her child which symbolizes that her reign/generation is going to do things differently, while still paying homage to their ancestors by continuing to use a Valyrian name.

The above then led me to exploring potential meanings for Jacaerys/Jacaera and Lucerys/Lucera. They’re supposed to be traditional Velaryon names, and Velaryon names seem to be mildly “corrupted” forms of Valyrian with some Westerosi influence, so I gave myself a little more liberty with picking origin words. I imagine Jacaerys/Jacaera as derived from jaes (goddess), which Rhaenyra picks after Laenor’s comment (and I guess it’s even more fitting with all of Aegon’s blasphemy and worship 🙈), while Lucerys/Lucera is derived from lyka (quiet, silent, calm). For our Lucera, it’s an ironic name because she’s the complete opposite, but Rhaenyra picked it because of lykiri (a dragon command we see in the show, “calm down”).

I wanted to emphasize Jace’s loving, pampered environment during the first half of the chapter. She’s in her element when she’s inside the castle, but if you take her out of her natural environment, she has no idea what to do. She’s also never truly been alone in her life. She’s always with her husband, family, or ladies, and even if she’s alone in a room, there are plenty of guards and servants nearby. When she’s kidnapped later, it’s the first time she actually has to figure out what to do with no help whatsoever. And she’s jumping from her life of backrubs and hot baths to walking alone in the rain with only one shoe.

The second half of chapter 5 was originally VERY different. It was actually supposed to start with Jace and Aegon having a Jasmine/Aladdin-esque “whole new world” adventure where Aegon shows her around the city during a weeklong festival, then later their siblings all want to join the fun, and it spirals into the Tyroshi grabbing Jace. I even wrote out the whole thing…and then I realized how idiotic everyone was acting 🥲. When you have Jace, Aemond, and Rhaena in the group, somebody would’ve mentioned how reckless the outing was, and I just couldn’t go through with all the Targkids being willfully blind to the risks of sneaking out to the city. Afterwards, there’s a scene with Viserys yelling at them all for being so stupid and endangering an entire generation of Targs, and then he decides to put 100% of the blame on Aegon. I actually really liked the confrontation between Viserys and Aegon, but I couldn’t keep the “family outing” plot, so I had to get rid of that aftermath scene too. I might be able to reuse it one day in another setting though.

Instead I went with the Sept outing in the final version. Jace does everything right, but unfortunately the grippe (a medieval illness that was probably the flu) strikes the entire Kingsguard. I’m a firm believer in writers being able to use luck/coincidence to get characters IN trouble (as long as it’s believable, and it’s super easy for the flu to spread among seven dudes living in a frat house!, but not out of it. And this definitely gets our characters in trouble. Without the grippe, Jace still would’ve had other guards at the sept, but a Kingsguard would’ve been in charge and more competently handled the bathroom trip. Instead she gets a less experienced knight, whom Viserys picked to be in charge probably because of a combination of vibes and politics. The Grand Sept is a normal and frequent destination for royal outings, and Jace is very popular with the city’s people, so nobody is expecting trouble.

I invented Maiden and Mother’s Day as a two-day holiday, so that there’s an explanation for the Tyroshi being able to suss out Jace’s plans. On day 1, he observes the guards not following her to the septas’ quarters and figures out she’s likely to repeat the pattern on day 2; it’s pretty common knowledge that heavily pregnant women need to use the bathroom often. And I added the growing crowd of beggars receiving alms to show that Jace’s outing is far from a secret from the public. On the contrary, in addition to the religious stuff, it’s another PR opportunity.

I kept Sabitha and Rhaena back from the outing, because all six ladies really would have been too much for the Tyroshi and his henchwoman to overcome. Also, Sabitha canonically takes up arms during the Dance, and I think she would’ve walloped the Tyroshi. Rhaena isn’t a fighter, but her presence alone would’ve impacted the odds, and her absence allowed me to play with some tension between her and Jace later. (And yes, Helaena was getting some bad omens about the outing. But as I’ve said before, I think her visions operate on vague vibes, so she knows something bad is coming but not what exactly it is.)

The Garden madam doesn’t immediately leave Westeros because she’s lured into a false sense of security after the Targbros raid the warehouse. She’s taking her time planning her trip to the Summer Islands or wherever she wants to retire when the Tyroshi—who’s pretty cunning and knows she snitched on him—leaps back into her life and takes her brother hostage. Considering how brutally the Tyroshi has killed other people in the past—and she has firsthand knowledge of Daisy—she’s too afraid to risk angering him further by trying to report to the Targs or anything like that. And she is very close to the bottom of society; really poor smallfolk like her don’t think that royalty are going to pay any attention to them, even if she wanted to try sending a message. So she’s just in this to try to save herself and her brother. All the descriptions about her odd behavior and cosmetics are to foreshadow that something isn’t right, and she’s not a normal septa.

I got snarky feedback from someone who thought it was stupid that the Tyroshi didn’t immediately kill Jace and that the ladies didn’t immediately scream for help, and apparently they were hoping for a red wedding scene 💀. Idk about other people, but if I were reading a fic tagged with fluff, comedy, hurt/comfort, and “detour into drama and angst,” I would honestly be quite mad if one of the narrators/ship characters/a pregnant girl died horribly on screen, and there was nothing in the tags or chapter notes to warn for it. ANYWAY, here’s my unnecessarily long rebuttal of that reader’s feedback about my characters 😇.

The Tyroshi’s goal isn’t to assassinate Jace, it’s to get revenge on Aegon, against whom he’s developed a vendetta. He is a sadist and sociopath. This was already seen in how he treated Old Willow and Daisy in Chapter 4. Instead of just killing them, he drew out their deaths with horrible torture and abuse. His plan to take Jace so he can extend the torment Aegon feels is in character with what little we know of him so far, and we haven’t even gotten to the convos with him in Chapters 6 and 7. Sure, he could’ve just slit Jace’s throat and that would’ve been ample revenge against Aegon. But if he’s going to go through so much trouble to get his hands on Jace, he’s going to make it worth his time. And he’s very confident he’ll succeed, which he would have done if Jace didn’t have a secret weapon. Also, he quickly becomes interested in Jace as soon as he talks to her, so his desire to kill her goes down sharply.

As for the ladies’ reactions: like Jace, they’re all pampered girls who’ve never had to deal with real problems before. They’ve always had other people, like guards and servants, to deal with problems for them. This is a very shocking situation that they are in no way prepared for, and it’s natural for them to have have a moment where they’re trying to comprehend that Sara just died. This is definitely the case for Jace, who is initially too tongue-tied to do or say anything.

Why don’t they instinctively scream? I’ll address each of the girls below, but there are some answers that apply to everyone. There’s a saying “fight or flight,” but it’s more accurate to say “fight or flight or freeze.” All the girls are initially defaulting to freeze, and this includes their mouths/throats; their bodies/instincts are telling them to stay still and silent so they don’t draw more attention to themselves.

The Tyroshi “immediately” turns on Elinor, who has her inglorious moment. She acts as a selfish coward saving her own skin. I wouldn’t expect her to shout for help from the guards. She’s too busy hiding in the privy and praying the Tyroshi forgets about her.

Floris is 9/10 years old. She’s the youngest of the group, and she takes a lot of cues from the others. She has to be specifically instructed by Bethany to do something before she acts. Think of the bystander effect, and how in modern emergencies, it’s advised that you say “you [specific person], call 911” instead of a generic “somebody call 911.”

Bethany is the likeliest candidate to actually shout for help. If Elinor hadn’t run for the privy, I think that would’ve been Bethany’s next step. But because Elinor abandons Jace, Bethany switches from “freeze” to “fight” since she’s the only person left who can defend Jace (she doesn’t count Floris, who’s too little). I was also hoping that it comes as a pleasant-ish surprise to readers that Bethany actually takes her duty as Jace’s LIW very seriously when it matters. So even though Bethany is very scared, her priority is putting herself in front of Jace. And even though we the readers might be thinking, “This is a logical opportunity for Bethany to shout for help now,” I think most of us overestimate how logical and capable we would be in an emergency. Bethany is only able to think one step at a time, and those steps are 1) protect Jace 2) send Floris to get help. Only after Floris fails does she think of 3) shout for help, when it’s too late.

TLDR all the ladies are acting like the scared girls they are. Everyone reacts differently in an emergency, and it’s easy to provide armchair commentary of “but they SHOULD have done this instead” when the truth is most of us would also probably freak out and act irrationally ☺️.

Notice how the Tyroshi addresses Jace as “Princess Targaryen.” I’m sure he’s learned her name during his surveillance, but he sees her as Aegon’s princess rather than her own person, hence the impersonal address.

Jace’s good manners are so engrained into her that she defaults to using them while in survival mode. And honestly it probably saves her life. If she were rude or mouthy, like Baela, the Tyroshi probably would’ve killed her much faster. Instead he’s intrigued by meeting the epitome of a well-bred princess.

Confession: I originally had Cheeseball kicking in the womb when the Tyroshi touches Jace, which meant the Tyroshi was the first person to feel the baby move. Then I got really angry at myself for writing that, so I changed it and made Aegon the first person to feel the baby in Chapter 6, as he deserves ☺️.

Earlier drafts had Jace conscious while the Tyroshi fled with her from the sept, because I wanted her to drop a trail of cedar beads from Joff’s amulets to help people find her. But if she were conscious, she would’ve tried VERY hard to escape the hay wagon or get passersby’s attention, and it would’ve been really dumb of the Tyroshi to give her that opportunity. So dreamwine and strangulation it is. I highly doubt dreamwine takes effect instantly, so I added the strangulation part to speed things up. I did think very hard about how strangulation can cause miscarriage, but Jace proves to be a lot tougher than expected, as does Cheeseball, and it’s not a guarantee of miscarriage. Now, I don’t know for sure if dreamwine plus a moment of strangulation would actually cause Jace to black out and remain unconscious for hours, BUT dreamwine is fictional and you can only google so many things about strangulation, so we’re just going to say it works.

Jace uses the dragonglass from Joff’s amulet for a girl-child. Jace is a girl, so in a way, the amulet’s protection works even though Joff had a different target in mind 🥲.

Initially, Jace is hoping somebody miraculously comes to her rescue, because she’s been raised to expect that someone will always be around to help her. But it’s just her 🥺.

The Tyroshi’s inspection of Jace’s features is intended to be very uncomfortable and to show that he sees her as an object, albeit one to be admired. He compares her features to various Tyrosh-related things because he’s already thinking about bringing her back to Tyrosh, so he’s kind of justifying it in a “she clearly belongs in Tyrosh” way.

In case it isn’t clear, he wants her gown because he intends to wrap the baby in it for Aegon to find 🙁.

The Tyroshi has decided he enjoys cosplaying as a courtier and princess engaging in courtly love/romance, hence his very polite mannerisms. Jace senses this is what he’s up to so she plays along.

The Tyroshi is convinced he can keep Jace alive (as he says, he’s done this before), but it is REALLY dangerous for Jace to have moon tea so late in pregnancy. In ASOIAF, Lysa Tully almost dies and has fertility issues when she’s forced to drink moon tea, and I suspect she was earlier in her pregnancy than Jace. So even if Jace survived (big if), her health would never be the same. (Would be an interesting succession crisis issue, but I can’t bring myself to write that AU.)

Laenor in the afterlife is so happy that his advice about rivers helps save his firstborn 🥹.

I just want to point out that it’s REALLY fricking dark where Jace is. There’s absolutely no light other than the occasional lightning, and the light pollution from the city is minimal since we’re in an era where lighting at night is expensive and firelight only. Girl is operating on hopes and prayers and thoughts of her husband right now. TBH if I were in her place, I’d just give up and cry 🥲. But even though Jace is pampered and gentle, she’s surprisingly resilient, and she has her baby to think about. I mentioned earlier that Jace has never truly been alone before until now, but she actually has Cheeseball to keep her company, and I think that helps her keep going until she reaches civilization.

#my writing #meta #house of the dragon meta #hotd meta #fanfic meta #aegon ii targaryen #female jacaerys velaryon #the golds

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josnhoes · 2 years

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Halloween.... Spooky scary skeleton 🎶

Okay since halloween is near what if humans do not exsisted in two world but as a myth, like we humans make mythos out of thin air or drugs

And child yuu just appear one day?

I'm assuming you mean twst so I'm going to write it that way. But if you meant a different Fandom feel free to message me again. Also since you didn't pick 3 characters I'm going to do a more general version then focused on characters.

Edit: I ran out of steam and only did the first 3 dorms.

Content warning: Monsters, child reader

In the world of Twisted Wonderland there are a few truths none question; the great seven where revered, the races of monsters where to do their best to keep the peace the great seven created, and humans where nothing more then myths. Though the stories of humans where common, told as tales of fun and whimsy most of the time. There where a few cases of stories where humans where dangerous, abducting monsters to have friends. A set truth about humans aside they didn't exist was if you befriended one, and treasured them in return of their loyalty they would help your magic grow. Young monsters often sought out humans for fun and with hopes of becoming a mage worthy of being seen along side the great seven.

The world of humans was real, a reality mirroring the monster's own. Where humans where viewed by monsters like fairies are to humans; to humans a majority of monsters where to be fear. But just like the monster world their counterpart was viewed as fake.

On rare once a millennium event the realities overlapped allowing for travel between realms. Though usually it was with out incident, but on occasion someone fall through. A monster and a human switched places. But none truly knew of this.

Mc was little even for their age. Though their age was small as well, not even in double digits yet. So waking up in a strange place alone was not ideal. In fact it was the opposite of what any child would want. Alone, lost, and hungry you could do nothing but cry. A cry that caught the attention of a certain Tengu headmaster.

Crowley was in shock to find such a little monster alone in the mirror chamber and approached. Only for the little one to scream. At the fearful wailing he took a closer look and was in shock to find the child was *human*. Oh how fortunate for his school chosen to host such a rare guest! It was a sign and he couldn't wait to see who you chose to bestow power upon, would it be one or many?

Once you're calmed down and reassured no one would hurt you, he asked how you arrived. The answer of you didn't know wasn't ideal but no matter. Soon you found yourself bounced between dorms to find someone for you to bond with.

Heartslabyul was first. The dorm leader refused at first finding no possible way a human could exist, as such he was very hard on you for the first week. The werewolf was strict on everyone but especially himself lest he become a mindless beast. Trey the gentle living doll however was kind and managed to help Riddle realize you where human and not some monsterling shape shifted. Once that gets out the school is vying for your attention. The various monsters in Heartslabyul did their best to keep the havoc to a minimal for your sake.

Savanclaw has a mixed reaction. The sphinx dormleader Leona was the worst at having mixed feelings. He wanted the promised power a human could offer, but you where a child and children where such a pain to deal with..or so he claimed. Most of your care while with them is from Ruggie the resident Knoll and Jack the werewolf wind spirit hybrid.

Octavinelle was the first to have actively tried to bribe your affections. Even with out the bond you brought profits galore. Everyone wanted a deal with Azul the water element Slime, as such his power was growing and growing. The twins a pair of sea serpents where extra busy keeping the lounge in order as many monsters fought to get contracts for a chance to meet the small human.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #x reader #monster!au #child reader

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raayllum · 2 years

Text

So Fake Rayla

Otherwise known as “Stella is cute and I don’t trust her within an inch of my life” + other various thoughts about whether or not the initial Rayla reuniting with Callum scene features a real Rayla or a very convincing Rayla illusion.

First up: evidence that the Rayla we see in the first clip is real.

The first is that her updated look is consistent with a clip later in the trailer (both blades, braid and bun, general personality) and that we know Rayla has a tendency towards both 1) adopting strays and 2) having a soft spot for animals. It’s small, but we see her at the funeral they hold for Ibis at the Storm Spire with Stella still on her shoulder

Another point in Rayla being real is that, if she isn’t, they’ll have to very careful as to how they handle the reunion (and I think perhaps by the reunion itself we’ll know the truth or not). They won’t want to waste emotional reactions, particularly if Callum airs a lot of his hurt, as it can feel cheapened (for ex: illusion Viren worked in 3x09 because Soren being willing to kill him permanently changed his and Claudia’s relationship, so it didn’t feel like a cop out. Here, there wouldn’t be something ‘real’ to ground it except Callum processing his anger etc. in ways Rayla herself would never get to see). So again, we’ll have to see how it plays out.

Rayla has also always wanted to come back to Katolis, she just felt she was unable to. I don’t find it hard to believe that upon keeping her word and feeling like she’d completed her mission, she would high tail it back to Katolis and be pretty thrilled to get to come back and hopefully reunite with the boys. The look of love on her face certainly fits, even if both their reactions have clearly been trimmed down and edited, and the first look itself will be much longer (TDP loves its micro-expressions after all). Twitter gave us a glimpse at another one of Rayla’s expressions from this scene, as we know it’ll be emotional no matter what

We also know that the Cube only ever glows for one primal at a time. It doesn’t always glow when Callum picks it up (hence his escapades in early 3x02 seeing all the things that do glow) and it glows brightly when it’s around Rayla’s moon opal in 3x08, or with the fish in 1x05 even though Bait, a Sun prima creature, is also in the boat. So the Star primal glowing rather than the Moon primal doesn’t mean she’s an illusion, the Cube only ever glows for one source at a time, so it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

So there’s really only two issues in terms of characterization and narrative to consider that makes her returning seemingly so soon in the season (before the mid-way point and of her own accord) feel decidedly off

1) Rayla set out determined to personally kill Viren once and for all. We know that she was adamant that she’d find him alive and have to take him out. Post-TTM, Rayla wasn’t even looking for a body anymore. She thought she’d have to make one. But we know there’s no way that happened, as Claudia has revived Viren and been safe guarding the body all this time. At first I thought perhaps Rayla had found the empty cocoon perhaps once Claudia and co. had exited the cave and that had been enough to convince her, but I realized it probably wouldn’t be. After all, seeing the cocoon being empty would probably horrify her, as she would just assume that whatever Viren was had gotten out and was walking around. And Rayla never gives up on anything, unless she finds a new mission, but considering she thought the world and Callum’s life was at stake, what would make her divert course without trying to handle the problem on her own (like always) to continue protecting the boys?

2) If they do reunite with Rayla coming back of her won accord, then what was the Narrative Point of her leaving? It means she’s learned a thing or two about self worth and has back home, but again: only under the condition of completing her mission, even though she needs to learn it would be 100% okay to come home ‘a failure,’ to come home ‘empty handed.’ The later scene of Callum cradling her sword offers a path forward, as it would mean Rayla being self-sacrificial one last time or being forcefully torn away from her swords. This means her absence would be justified narratively by Callum perhaps reaching an epiphany, or justification, of doing anything to get her back. This would provide the self worth lesson Rayla needs to have (why is her life worth less than Callum’s to her, after all, who’s always wanted to be together or not at all?) and the background for Callum along the lines of “I’ve lost her / lived without her once. I can’t - I won’t go through that again.” We reach the same end point, but with a less isolated middle.

Because narratively with her absence, something has gotta give, and it can’t be wholly positive, and this is still a hurdle their relationship needs to jump. Rayla needs to realize she was horribly wrong to leave, but she can’t do it that by 1) returning on her own and 2) likely only returning because she thinks she successfully completed her mission, which would only reaffirm her unhealthy beliefs more.

Maybe she hasn’t succeeded at her mission, but I think that may require seeing more of her early on and too big a character arc to be crammed into a small episode space to watch Rayla “I failed and am therefore awful” of the Silvergrove realize that failing doesn’t mean she deserves to be rejected or shunned or believe terrible things about herself.

Perhaps Rayla with her small Star primal creature helps Callum learn about the Cube and Mirror. Maybe he still uses it as a distraction to not have to deal with all the big feelings between them. Maybe she only comes back to Katolis later on in the season then we think (say around end of 4x05 rather than end of 4x03).

As long as 1) Rayla can offer a reasonable explanation for why she’s come back and 2) her absence has a strong emotional narrative tie, then her coming back so early makes sense, because it’s providing context for later decisions rather than driving the narrative directly now perhaps the way we thought.

But now onto the more interesting side of things in way (that will also be hysterical in retrospect to look back on if we’re way off base) ...

Evidence that Rayla Isn’t Real

And why I’ll extend that one step further, because remember how I said there’s a shot of Rayla with Stella on her shoulder, and Rayla travelling with the boys into the dark caverns as well? If Rayla isn’t real in the reunion clip, then she’s not real in those shots, either. Which means the boys are travelling with a fake illusion of their friend for the bulk of the season, not realizing that something is undeniably wrong (or at least, not fully), and isn’t that a way to build narrative dread and tension.

This plays into a few things symbolically and counter-actively addresses the prior issues. If Rayla isn’t real, then why she came back doesn’t have to be convincing. If Rayla isn’t real, then her absence is ongoing and therefore has narrative weight and consequences to be attached to it, as well as for her doppelgänger.

Symbolic evidence for his theory is the light and dark symbolism they’re explicitly playing with this season and that have been tied to Callum and Rayla specifically, both in Rayla’s letter to him and even further in the trailer. This is something I’ve commented on before in s1-s3 pre-letter, so if you are interested in reading more check out this meta here.

In Rayla’s letter, she states:

Taking on hard choices and going to dark places is an act of love. It’s a gift. So, please let me give you this gift, Callum. Stay safe, and stay in the light. Don’t follow me, and don’t look for me. I don’t think you’ll find me, anyway.

Then in this season, we know Aaravos will ultimately be the main villain. He’s fraught with this dark and light motif already in his character design, as he is missing a piece of his literal chest star, is a fallen star, and whose name means “between light and dark.”

Then we have Callum, who states: “In Darkness, gaze upon a fallen star,” which is likely the transcription around the mirror he’s translating, as total darkness is necessary to see into Viren’s prison. This could explain why Callum has the black dark magic-y eyes of pouring the serum into his eyes (similar to what Viren did to see the mirror back in early s2) rather than a more grandiose dark magic spell (although that could come later).

So this means that Light is a good thing, right, and Darkness is a bad thing? Well... not quite. We know that Rayla’s absence has affected Callum negatively and left him more likely to pursue Aaravos’ dangers and more susceptible to his manipulations (even just by not having a counter balance and impulse control that Rayla and Callum each provided to each other). We know that Rayla left because she felt like she had no choice but to walk a dark path on her own and if she hasn’t learned that lesson that she was wrong, she’ll simply try it again every time, and that’s 1) something the narrative won’t do and 2) something Callum won’t put up with. And furthermore...

In the cave when Callum wraps his scarf around his staff to douse the light, it seems that it’s because light is dangerous. Large, terrifying creatures in the trailer that use lights to falsely lure prey right into their trap like a real life angler fish. Aaravos’ form looks like butterfly, moth mixture... bugs that die when guided to a flame.

Rayla chose to hide herself away, to Ghost herself even further. To erase every trace of herself that she could in order to not be found, in order to stay hidden to keep her loved ones safe and far away from her. We know the window of her being able to find Viren’s body when neither Claudia nor Terry were there is slim to none. So what changed her mind? What made her choose to not be invisible anymore, to purposefully reveal herself? Even in her Moonshadow form, the cube didn’t glow for her, too consumed by Stella’s primal. Why would an illusion be any different?

Because after all, Moon magic and subsequent illusions are at its strongest at a full moon. We know there can be illusions made that others can see and feel (Lujanne’s fake leg for Ava). We know that Aaravos is getting stronger and that Star primal creatures, like Stella, are incredibly rare, with cuddlemonkeys able to connect to any arcanum as they grow (just like a mini Aaravos, or mini Callum). We know he has familiars like the little bug pal. We know he can influence animals even outside his primal to do his bidding even when he wasn’t out of the mirror at all.

But why a Star primal creature in particular? The thing can’t talk. Callum doesn’t need it to help guide him to anywhere in Xadia. The cube itself already does that, always rolling in the same direction. Why not just have Rayla talk to herself while alone if she needed to (as she has already done in series) and why give her a pet if she’s going to be around people for most of the season anyway?

There’s been foreshadowing for a long while that Callum will connect to the Moon arcanum next. Given that S4 will factor in him reconnecting with Rayla and admitting the truth to himself (aka the small way he deflects about still loving her in 4x01), it stands to reason that Rayla’s symbolic associations will continue to be that of Truth and Light in a positive way. Of seeing through Aaravos’ lies and manipulations.

This would also mean perhaps Callum not trusting Fake!Rayla whereas everyone else does, and they chalk it up to his hurt feelings. But Callum has always known Rayla far better than she ever wanted him to in show, and he knows when something’s not right (“You know this is wrong” “She’s not telling us everything, I can feel it”). It would also explain this fragmentation that only Claudia (literal light and dark hair) that shares in the Fragments key art with her expression literally split in half, now even more notably fragmented than Claudia.

Why have Stella be obsessed with the cube, darting out from Rayla’s shoulder to grab and hang onto it, and keep hanging onto it as Callum and Rayla reconcile? It feels a bit like Pip’s foreshadowing all over again.

We also rarely see non-dark mages wear cloaks, as it is a symbol of dark Callum in his nightmares in 2x08, of Aaravos, and of Claudia’s villain turn in 3x09. Rayla noticeably wears her cloak upon entering, although she doesn’t wear it in any of the other shots she appears in.

The Two Raylas theory also speaks to Rayla’s continual thematic duality of her markings, her blades, her arcanum, her narrative relationship with Life and Death, as well as Lies and Truth. The biggest thing against this theory though would be the possibility of undercutting emotional moments on the way there, as well as a massive emotional fallout to possibly address, but regardless, I think it’s a really interesting idea if nothing else.

Conclusion

So what do you think of the Fake Rayla theory? Do you buy into it, is it just a fun fanon idea, and how long will we have to wait to get a definitive answer? Let me know down below and feel free to offer up your own thoughts one way or another!

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littlefankingdom · 9 months

Text

I watched the One Piece live action and here are some notes I took.

I'm a huge One Piece fan since I was like 10-ish? And so, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it. It had a lot of impact on my personality (Nico Robin is my role model). This live action adaptation matters to me and I'm going to rant. Spoilers ahead.

The director is a woman, and one of the two writers is a woman. Manga and anime are male dominated hobby (and the comic's world is sexist), so the live action of the most popular shōnen being run by women is so great, imo. Also, it's pretty successful, in contrary to other attempts, so it's a win for women.

Garp's actor is a very handsome man. Wtf, they made Garp hot. He also has a beautiful Welsh accent, which is great because it's an accent that gives a "tough guy" impression. At least, it does for me.

Luffy's actor is perfect. This Luffy is slightly different from the original one, but he's perfect in his own way. I will die and kill for him. Also, him being brown with a white grandpa is so good, it had a racial gap between the two of them, where there are already a generational one and a moral one. Like, the white grandpa in the army do not understand how his brown grandson do not like the gov, because he doesn't see it from where he is when the kid does.

Alvida's actress is so beautiful, she's so pretty. I suddenly support women's wrongs.

Damn, the violence is going up a notch (Roger executed on screen, Mr 7's body cut in half, MERRY IS FUCKING KILLED,...)

The actors for Koby and Helmeppo are queer (They/Them pals) Oda is, once again, showing his support to the trans community.

I do not like the colors. It's too dark for One Piece, imo. Look at how saturated the colored pages are, I would have preferred it to be more saturated. I know, this is because of the CGI (issues are less perceptible this way), I'm going to need to make some edits. But, they didn't have to do it to the costumes too. Like, Buggy, except from his hat, his outfit is not flashy like it should be. Would help with the colored hair if it was more colorful and flashy.

Young Luffy wear the same shirt as in the manga is a nice touch.

THERE'S A CAVENDISH'S WANTED POSTER IN SHELLS TOWN!

Dead bodies smell strongly, and Zoro is bringing half of one in a bar???

Episode 2 is pure art. I love it so much.

Buggy is attractive, wtf. I find him more pretty than Shanks.

Bogard is so cool looking. I'm gonna die if Hina is introduced one day (she's going to be so cool)

They changed the "If you’re gonna point your gun toward someone, you better use it" scene. The new one is cool, but the original is iconic.

THE MUSIC WHEN LUFFY REALIZES THAT SHANKS LOST HIS ARM! It's like the orchestra is interrupted, incredible, love it.

Nami and Zoro's siblings' energy is so strong.

Kaya and Nami interraction about the dress "it belonged to my mother" is so good, Nami gets uncomfortable because she also lost her mother and knows how it is to cherish her memory. But Kaya is nice and share it with her, which break her view of rich folks.

The decor's department must have had the time of their life for this show. It's a great job.

Zoro wanting to wear black and drink wine in the 3 episode, he's already embodying being Mihawk's adopted brat.

Kaya makes the oof roblox sounds when she slapped Usopp.

Usopp x Kaya let's gooooooooooo my boy deserves the best (Oda confirming a romance with one of his protagonists is huge)

Zoro IMMEDIATELY trying to look at something else the moment Kaya kisses Usopp.

Luffy sitting on Going Merry with "We Are" playing... Art.

Without a cook, they are eating pasta, with some fruit and drink (just like me, fr).

Garp is wrecking a brand new ship!

Episode 5 Title Card, my beloved.

Mihawk music, and voice, and character: beautiful.

"Oh, I do like your hat." Mihawk to Luffy upon meeting him, great.

Sanji needs to stop talking about food, I'm getting hungry but I'm broke and a terrible cook.

"Oregano is for savages!" 😂 ok kiddo.

Me watching Zoro nap for a whole episode because of 1 cut: "Bro, you’re going to go through so much worse, you better stop whining rn"

The "YES, YES WE DO" after Sanji says "heard you guys need a cook" is so good.

Sanji is, like, the only one after Nami to have the most experience sailing, they fucking need him.

Buggy coming back all the time is perfect. Love him.

Having Bell-Mere slaps Nami was not ok. Y'all are ruining a character I loved.

Sanji knows a man that can cook well is attractive.

Usopp and Luffy are 17 and drinking, and Koby is 16. Underage drinking baby 🍻

Garp is already having the crisis he has during Marine Fort Arc, it’s going to be difficult for him.

Buggy be swinging being carried by Sanji, who's fighting.

Luffy breaking Arlong's sword axe thingy is badass.

The fishmen are so ugly and weird looking

Buggy saying "I'm gonna get out of here" with 🖕🤡🖕(If we ever get young Ace, I expect so much vulgarity from his little shit mouth)

Usopp exploding star was badass.

Sanji's ass after Mouton Shot.

Zoro "Yeah, you're gonna fit in just fine" means you're as crazy as all of us

Sanji opening is arms for Nami and Nami ignoring him to hug her bros, lol.

Arlong Park destruction be crazy.

Sanji little laugh.

Luffy is a true bestie to Usopp.

It’s the confrontation from after Seven Arc

It's Logue town after right? Like, where Luffy's father is introduced? With the comparison to Roger? But they just compared them, are they going to do it again?

The wanted poster is the exact same, with usopp in the background.

Employee of the month lol.

Alvida and Buggy meeting, the bad bitches.

Mihawk and Shanks!!! (Shanks gave him the "ableist pos" look, lol)

Smoker introduced -> Logue Town

#one piece #opla #opla spoilers #my ramblings #it's not understandable and I don't care

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2c75ff · 11 days

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3, 4, 21 & 22 :D

🔵 'SHIPPING QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN [SFW EDITION] meme . ACCEPTING

3. Do you have a pet peeve when it comes to shipping?

Masha said something like this recently with more grace than I will, but one of my primary shipping peeves is when people try to influence ships into happening by making their normally prickly/violent/distrustful/rude characters act suddenly, inexplicably softer around the character they ultimately want to ship with, as if they're afraid that the ship can't happen if their character actually acts like themselves. Like--. If we talk, and I express that I'm interested in the possibility of shipping with you later down the line, depending upon how the characters bounce off each other, it means that I want your character to be themselves the entire way, imperfections and all. I want to see how things play out, and I want the jagged, difficult edges precisely as they are. I want the satisfaction of feeling that my character has earned whatever dynamic ultimately unfolds.

4. Do you prefer to plot a ship, or would you rather "wing it"?

I tend to prefer the happy medium of loosely plotting -- (like, spitballing ideas about how the dynamic might progress, plot points that would be interesting to hit and what the overall effect/significance [for the individuals and for the dynamic] might be, etc.) -- and just generally vibing together as players and getting an idea of each other's tastes and character takes so that we can more effectively bounce off each other and take each other's cues, while also maintaining enough adaptability and freedom to let the flavors develop organically, let ourselves be pleasantly surprised by little developments we didn't strictly anticipate, etc.

The short answer is that I think that communication between players is useful and leads to better, tighter, more impactful character work, and also think that, sometimes, planning too much runs the risk of choking things unwittingly.

21. What's something that immediately turns you off from shipping with someone?

You know, I always think that I'm not terribly picky about shipping -- (as in, it's not my immediate priority, but I'm really quite willing to consider pretty much any possibility, no matter how outlandish it might seem on the surface, as long as it's working for the characters and for us) -- but the reality is that I've really never tended to have more than one or two ships on any given blog, in large part because it turns out that I'm pickier than I consciously realize.

Some things that will make me immediately far less receptive to possibly shipping with someone in the future are things like [a] having lots of flat, under-developed ships already, [b] seeming more interested in the act of collecting ships than in the longer term work of continuing to explore/challenge the characters involved, [c] constantly fishing for flirty/smutty interactions in ways that don't actually invite exploration of anything new or interesting about the character(s), etc.

On a more arguably petty level, if I see a lot of 'super submissive doe-eyed kawaii uguu breasting boobily breeding kink' tells on a blog (come on, you know exactly the kind of characters I mean), I'm pretty much automatically, completely disinterested because I assume the writer is more interested in vicariously satisfying their own personal jollies than in actually doing anything with their characters that I'm inclined to care about.

22. Is there any ship you will likely never play?

Honestly, it's not the complicated, unhealthy, fucked up, ill-fated, or just generally weird dynamics I avoid (far from it, actually) -- it's the 'we have no desires in this world but to gaze dreamily into each other's eyes and sigh over how much we love each other' dynamics. Like, I like romance, but I want it to still have teeth, you know? Substance. Meat. Give me something to dig into and think about and play around with. I'm open to very nearly anything as long as it's interesting for us as players and workable for the characters as people.

I just really, really don't have any interest in juvenile, milquetoast fantasies of picture-perfect, conflict-free relationships. Fuck outta here with that shit.

#— inbox ▸ and what do you want now?#— memes ▸ nobody is as strong as i am #ozonelasher #y'all like 'damn bitch; no wonder you rarely ship'

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spirit-of-a-kiger · 8 months

Text

I thought of an Amazing Digital Circus sona/self-insert/OC thingy, whatever you’d call it.

WARNING: Long. Very long. Also kinda ramble-y and not that edited, though I tried to be organized.

She’s based on a maneki-neko, specifically the kind that’s mostly white but with a few small spots of calico here and there. Being based on a statue fits with her tendency to freeze when scared. I’m not sure if she should be made out of smooth porcelain or fur. She also has an adorable little bell collar which, like Pomni’s hat, is a part of her body and thus cannot be removed. She doesn’t have visible thumbs, but she can still grab stuff just fine, just like how if you watch Gangle’s character intro, she logically shouldn’t be able to hold the two halves of her broken mask. Her top right canine tooth is made of gold. I’m thinking of naming her Nikki, since it sounds like “neko” and “kitty”.

She’s generally very sweet, kind, and also a scaredy-cat, but her main flaw is her anger. When she’s wronged or thinks she’s been wronged, her eyes glow red, and razor-sharp, probably metal, claws come out, and she ruthlessly attacks whoever crossed her. Jax in particular is very well-acquainted with these claws. She has also tried scratching up Caine before, but he doesn’t feel a thing. In fact, these claws only come out during fits of blind fury. She has tried to figure out how to unsheathe them when she’s not angry since claws can be very useful, but so far, no luck.

When she first arrived at the circus, she spent all her free time lying around and moping. She never interacted with anyone, and if anyone tried to talk to her, the most acknowledgement they would get was her swiveling her ears in their direction. Later, she realized “Hey, this is basically a fantasy world, right? Maybe I should try to enjoy whatever I can.” So, she started doing things like acting a bit more catlike (in other words, embracing her new form), being friendly towards her fellow prisoners, and exploring Caine’s realm.

Due to having absolutely no sense of direction, she almost always gets lost when she goes exploring. The first time that happened, she got so scared that she started calling out for help, even knowing that Caine might be the one to come to her “rescue”. (He was. She'd never been so glad to see him in her life.) Since then, she’s learned that if Caine wants someone on stage, it never takes him long to find them, so when she gets lost, she just keeps exploring rather than panicking.

She doesn’t like how the bell on her collar always makes noise when she moves. She’s very sensitive to that sort of thing, so she usually holds it against her chest while walking. On the other hand, it does make for a very good fidget toy. Very often, she runs her fingers over it; she also sometimes flicks it or bats at it like a cat toy.

Over time, she starts attributing a borderline spiritual significance to the bell. She likes to think that it’s a vessel containing the last bits of her sanity. She doesn’t really believe this, per se, but it helps somehow. If, hypothetically, her collar were to be removed somehow, she would be devastated.

Due to having a fear of dolls, she was actually scared of Ragatha at first, freezing whenever she walked into the room. However, after seeing how kind she is, Nikki started to develop a crush on her instead. Ironically, she liked Jax upon first meeting him because “aww cute bunny!”, so that was a lesson in judging books by their covers. She awkwardly apologized to Ragatha, and now they’re good friends.

She has a massive sweet tooth. Sugar is one of the things she misses most from the real world, and she often talks about sweets and uses them in metaphors and such. I even thought of a quote where she’s describing the circus to Pomni: “It’s like, you find a field of cotton candy, and you eagerly dig in, but whoopsie-daisy, it's literally been poisoned! But then sometimes, you get a sip of hot cocoa, and it’s got just the right amount of marshmallows, and it’s at just the right temperature that it warms you on the inside but doesn’t burn your mouth, and you realize ‘Hey! This isn’t poison!’ *briefly glances over at Ragatha* You just gotta find your own mug of hot cocoa.”

#rambles #the amazing digital circus #tadc

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sm-baby · 2 years

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What mob are you voting for the minecraft mob vote? 👀

Personally I'm going for the sniffer mob but I wanna know urs! I won't judge because all the mobs seem rlly neat :D !

EDIT: I JUST REALIZED THAT I MIGHT COME OFF AS MAD OR JUDGMENTAL HERE, IM NOT, IM JUST IN OVER-ANALYSIS MODE, GOOD FOR YOU FOR WHATEVER MOB YALL VOTE, AND IM GLAD YOU'RE NOT BEING JUDGEMENTAL <33

these have been my overall thoughts on general mob votes lately:

But honestly, I'm (unsurprisingly) In it for the Tuff golems. They charm me the same way people were captivated by the Glare; overall useless, and you know it's useless, but they provide a little sense of companionship and make the world feel more alive. I would love those little fellas to wander around in my little village and help the villagers.

I am hesitant because I don't trust the Minecraft team to code them well enough. they might be incredibly underwhelming or frustrating-- like- you want them to stay asleep but they don't, or they just won't drop the item they picked up.

The Rascal - Again, I don't trust coding to be good with them. I predict two things: 1.) They're going to be annoying like the wandering trader. 2.) It might take FOREVER to find them only to be underwhelmed by an iron pickaxe that would be made FASTER if you had just mined yourself. The only thing I can think of that could potentially save this mob is if it drops VERY useful loot, like diamonds, diamond pickaxes, discs, or netherite; Then Players would actually be HYPED AS HELL to stumble upon them

The Sniffer - Overrated in my opinion. I know yall say that they're cute but I'm not really charmed by their design. Which is-- fair, we all have different tastes, The golem is what I find most adorable in the bunch. I'm not really the most ecstatic about them because they're not-- really gonna be too of use for us. Yes, they get seeds but the seeds are just gonna be decoration, we're not even getting anything new from them... You say "oh new animal new mob cool, they could provide more gameplay", but other than the seeds, what else could they give? what can they give that cows sheep and turtles don't already do? breed them, feed them, kill them? Nothing for me X/ I think something that I would like though is if they drop something good when they're killed. I don't know, maybe a new sort of meat or something. Dantdm brought up the idea that maybe we could stand on their backs which also would be cool. Both designs feel less Minecraft and more fantasy RPG. I just like the Tuff Golem because they already look like the iron golems, and I like the little dresses <3

Overall I think they're all gonna be quite underwhelming the same way The Glowsquid was. The only difference is, I'm okay with the Tuff Golem being as simple as it is. I just don't want them to fuck it up

#glare #sniffer #tuff golem #rascal #minecraft #mineblr #minecraft mob vote 2022 #mob vote #mob vote 2022

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dexadin · 1 year

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Hi there! I love your guides for Curse of Strahd! 💞 If it's not too much, could you give some tips for running the abbey of St. Markovia? Or really just how you dealt with the module's ableism in general, since it's a lot to tackle and I'm not sure where to begin. Thank you! 💋

Hello! Sorry this took me a while to work on, like you said, it's a lot to tackle. Curse of Strahd suffers from being both a product of its genre and a product of the typical carelessness D&D likes to serve its marginalized fans. As much as I adore the genre, (modern) gothic horror does often rely on ableist tropes to create fear and suspense in what I'd call a misguided attempt to recreate the scenarios present in the literature that formed the basis of the genre in the early 19th century. Ableism is rife in early gothic novels, in part because of the rampant ableism of the time and in part because a lot of these works were critiques of ableism written by both disabled and abled but progressive authors. Then there's just WotC, who isn't exactly known for always making good moves in their settings. Sometimes they at least realize they fucked up, like with the Hadozee (😬), but as evident with their CoS "Revamped" edition, they thought making a meager attempt to Remove the Slurs was... more or less enough work for it. Lol.

So, here's some of my notes of what I've needed to fix up and how I did it. Abbey of St. Markovia will be at the end because... yikes. Major spoilers for CoS and CW for ableism below!

Casual Ableism A.K.A. The Real Curse Of Strahd Is Mental Illness

There are questionable story beats about mental illness from really early on. Mad Mary is the first NPC I can think of that really explicitly exemplifies this, but Stella Wachter in Vallaki and Luca Barbu in Kresk both also fit the bill of being random NPCs who got painted with the ableism brush. Treating these characters with empathy I think is the best way to fix a lot of them.

In ATSBB, I chose to keep the name "Mad Mary" as a pejorative title from the other villagers, because my game includes an amount of real-world ableism that is portrayed negatively. The party heard her cries and went to her house to find a lonely woman grieving the loss of her daughter. They spent a snall fortune at the mercantile to make her a big pot of soup she could simmer for days over her stove and helped her clean up her house a bit, before giving her hours of company over dinner. Mary was kind and appreciative and treated them terribly well. They did eventually sneak upstairs to find evidence of the circumstances of her daughter's disappearance (I just turned her into a werewolf to avoid the Yikes factor there). We see that Mary is unwell because upon seeing that her beloved daughter was cursed with Lycanthropy, she did everything (even too much) to ensure her safety, and then Gertruda still got out. Mary is more than "mad," she's heartbroken. She's devastated of grief and feels like a failed mother because she couldn't protect her baby. That amount of empathy gives her more depth and makes her portrayed as not ableist, but as a victim of vilified in-world ableism because nobody will give her the time of day.

In Stella's case, I did have a hard time. I wanted the party to have a clear reason to fight Victor (I don't know how some parties make him an ally, that guy is such a tool) and I did like the idea fleshed out in MandyMod's guide of Victor trying to leave Barovia through self-taught wizardry. Instead of changing much about Stella's cat curse, I just gave it privacy. They saw Stella very, very briefly--just enough to note the condition she was in and see that interrogating her would do very little for them, and then her siblings came in to tell them Stella needed her rest and it was time for them to go. Stella was not a spectacle to them, and it was portrayed as bizarre, but ultimately a product of Victor's abuse and Fiona's neglect to fix it. The party kicked Victor's ass and made a plan to sneak Stella out and get her to the house of a particularly nurturing NPC.

Luca Barbu was a little easier for me to fix because they tried to write him with sympathy but the module still certainly isn't nice to him, and it felt really gross a lot of the time. Luca is an adult man "with the intelligence of a 3 year old" who was "hit in the head with a rock" as an explanation for it, whose father and presumably full-time carer passed away, leaving him no support. If you didn't catch on yet, yikes. My Luca Barbu is autistic and had a farming accident that gave him a head injury that causes him to have a hard time processing information quickly, particularly numbers and the passage of time, and that can make him vulnerable to manipulation because he's a good hearted guy who has a hard time discerning if people are being genuine or not. He's very smart about farming, and good with the sheep like nobody's business, but he sometimes will forget to take care of himself when nobody's around because his dad isn't around to remind him. The townsfolk are not suspicious of him at all, and only have the chance to become so inclined if the party truly fails the encounter with Ilya. In fact, in my campaign, the situation with Anna Kreskov and the broken fence can only happen because she brings him dinner and bread every night since his fathers passing so she can make sure he eats every day. Anna's betrayal is then portrayed as desperate, not malicious, and it's a lot more tragic than it is evil.

Ez d'Avenir

Weird move of CoS to make an explicitly disabled character in a blink-and-you-miss-it passage who uses the coolest prosthetic ever and then just hide it from shame (???) They did add in a passage that changes this in the errata and in the revamped, as well as fleshing out Ez a lot more in Van Richten's Guide, so I'm giving them half a pass for this, because at least they admitted and fixed how they fucked up. That said, I think it's weird to do that with someone who is apparently the only disabled person in Barovia. This can be helped by letting Ez play a more active role in your campaign, as well as by having other disabled characters. You don't need to be ablebodied to be important to the world, so why should it be in fantasy? You don't really need a reason for a character to be disabled either, because disability doesn't happen because of a Reason in the real world. Not giving Ez the burden of being the only disabled rep in Barovia lets you have more fun with her and with other NPCs.

Finally, The Abbey of St. Markovia

The Abbey is infamous in ATSBB for me having planned out my alterations in advance and still finding places in the text I missed in which I said, "Oh, god, well, we're not doing that," and had to improv in several areas. To preface this, for my campaign, I did give my players a red/yellow/green light consent list in advance in which I included "asylum horror" as one of the potential triggers, and it was greenlit by my party, so we all went in knowing that there would be some ableist medical type horror. I explained that I wanted the vibe to feel less like Arkham Asylum and more like the way people treat asylums and old hospitals on ghost hunting TV shows--with the knowledge that something is deeply, deeply wrong here, but the fault never lies with the patients. Now, a lot of my edits are additions to MandyMod's "Fleshing Out CoS" on Reddit rather than on the official text, so if you're not familiar with it, I highly reccommend you check that out and then return here.

First off, I didn't call the people here Mongrelfolk, because... who thought that was a good idea in the first place, much less one that wss good enough not to fix in Revamped?? Anyway, I simply referred to the people residing at the Abbey as "patients" and it worked just fine. Inspired by MandyMod's guide, I wanted the Abbot to be an angel who lost his way in his desperation to help people in the absence of the Morning Lord, an angel who doesn't really understand the intricacies of sustaining life in humanoids, and treats sick and injured people with the same curiosity and naivety as a child "fixing" their broken toys by sticking together parts that only kind of fit with duct tape and glue. My abbot tried to heal the people as best he could with his limited magic, without understanding the differences between people and animals, or why a person with a broken hand might not be able to return to his every day life when that hand has been replaced with a turkey's claw. He's not trying to be evil, he just doesn't realize what he's doing isn't helping, because he's distracted by his own goal of building Vasilka. Now, I know Vasilka is sort of controversial in the CoS scene, but I think the concept is So Fucking Cool. I also think that building a little Frankenstein's monster that should be able to stop Strahd from hurting people is a suitible gothic, but ultimately noble goal for the Abbott to have. Does it justify the Abbot "borrowing" pieces from people who asked him for healing? Well, no. But it certainly makes sense for an angel desperate to escape Barovia to lose his shit a little bit and use unethical means to a supposedly moral end.

I also wanted to give agency back to the patients at the Abbey. Rather than the hallway of rooms of "laughing mongrels" and "violent mongrels," I just filled the rooms with families of patients. They were trying to start their own little civilization at the Abbey, far from their old lives, that they felt they couldn't return to for a variety of reasons. Some patients were too in shock and horrified by the results of their 'surgery' to return home alone, as the Barovian mountains are dangerous. Others had sought out the Abbot because they had already lost everything they had at home. Some people needed continuous upkeep on their replacement bits, just like Vasilka does, and don't want to stray too far from the Abbey. The Belviews and Clovin exist, but more as middlemen between the Abbott and the patients, who often understandably do not with to communicate with the Abbott. The Belviews will go hunting in the local woods and bring back stew meat for everyone at the Abbey (a plot point that makes them an easy suspect in Ilya's plotline). In short, the patients aren't 'insane,' they're disabled and/or chronically ill, and were failed by the Abbott. Again, this only works if you lean into the tragic, gothic horror tilt and lean away from the more modern "freakshow" type horror that was written in the text.

I think those are the main points I really wanted to make regarding the ableism in CoS, but if there's anything glaring I missed, please feel free to add on!!

#dexadin answers #dnd #dungeons and dragons #curse of strahd #cos #atsbb #dm tips #dungeon master #ableism in dnd #thank you for the ask!#abbey of st markovia #stella wachter #luca barbu

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