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edajcheel · 11 months

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TW: Cheating Eels, No one is a good person, Moray eels need a warning, Yuu's perspective, ambiguous Yuu, toxic romance, female reader (Leech twins x Reader)

I suggest listening to the song while reading, great experience if I might say ♡

Imagine....

Bubblegum Bitch ♡

The first time she took a step into Night Raven College, it was like seeing the embodiment of Aphrodite.

Beauty, romance, love, lust

Got a figure like a pin-up,

got a figure like a doll.

Don't care if you think I'm dumb, I don't care at all

Naturally, everyone was curious. Not to mention, a wide variety.

Her long heeled-boots would click and clack down the hallway, perfectly in rhyme. Comparable to the entrancing call of a siren, catching everyone's attention.

"Oh, goodness, shouldn't you move out the way lest you want to actually get ran over?"

The first time I saw her face to face, was when she chided Ace for blocking the way into a classroom.

"Oh— uh.. my bad! Haha..." Ace awkwardly scratched the back of his head as he gave a half-assed bow to her. It doesn't seem like she noticed when she instantly went in after Ace finally moved.

After she was gone from sight, a meager 18 feet away. Ace quickly came to me and Deuce, "Damn, so the new transfer is actually a girl!? You're telling me she was the one who threw Leona across the room at orientation two days ago?"

"Looks like it. It also seems like she's more capable than what the rumors said." Deuce let out a quick laugh, and glanced over to Ace

"Hehe, Ace was redder than a tomato I've ever seen!" Grim snickered behind my arms

"Hah? I think you were just seeing things!" inevitably Ace's ears and face became the exact same blush of red

But I couldn't help but block the sounds near me out while I stared at the entrance to Mr. Trein's classroom. The front row of seats on the right, in the middle was her, Y/n L/n. I also couldn't help but be memorized by her composure, and presence.

"Hey, you comin', Yuu?" Ace nudged me on the shoulder

......

"Oh yeah! Of course I will."

——

Oh dear diary,

I met a boy.

Who made my dull heart,

light up with joy

I was preoccupied by my journal in Alchemy class

Mr. Crewel clearly stated for us to write down the 5 steps to test if a mushroom is lethal, or not.. But I ended up drawing the two tall, and long legged men I've just seen today in the Cafeteria.

"Hehe, Shrimpy, ya'know that ain't the correct formula right?"

"Rather... b3+(8c +∆7) , would be the correct answer."

I shivered at the sudden coldness as I looked up from where the shadows on my shoulders came from.

The Moray brothers... Aka the people that almost kept my friends in captive if I hadn't intruded on their little shady business. "Uhh.. Well, thanks?"

They made me feel like an outright pitiful, and stupid person. But if it's a free answer to an unknown equation that I didn't know how to solve, especially from the Leech twins, chance is it's correct.

"If you ever feel any need to ask for anymore help in the future, we would like to recommend our house warden, Azul Ashengrotto." Jade smoothly cut in

"He's a real genius, got the answers to everything." Floyd twirled my eraser in between his fingers. A show of boredom, perhaps?

I clicked my tongue and pushed both of them away from me. "Please, you two. I've spent way more than I wanted to with both of your shenanigans."

"We were just suggesting, shrimpyy~"

"sometimes, I don't get why I like both of you.."

"What was that?" Floyd suddenly popped up real close to my face and leaned in, a mere few inches in between us

"Now, now, Floyd, you're probably making them uncomfortable."

The pumping of my heart could probably have been heard miles away as I stared into the differing orbs of both of Floyd's eyes. I opened my mouth slowly, just to close it again. I took the option to just nod in agreement to Jade.

"At last, we've wasted time enough, it's time to go back Floyd."

In the end, I was left with the exact same red, pinkish blush that Ace had once donned on his face.

——

I'm miss sugar pink,

liquor, liquor lips.

Hit me with your sweet love,

steal me with a kiss.

The chimes of the radio in the corner calmed me down somewhat. But, seeing.. the transfer talk to them worsened my bleeding heart.

I sipped, and sipped on my drink. I couldn't even taste the flavor, I was using it to relieve my stress and add some little comfort.

In the Mostro Lounge— where I came every Wednesday with my friends, the exception being Thursday today and also being all alone– was the transfer sitting on one of the chairs by the countertop getting all chummy with Floyd and Jade

"Oh please! Rid yourself of that thought now, haha!"

I think I want your, your American tan

Oh, oh, oh

my eyes narrowed even deeper, as I stared at her. What is she plotting?

"Hehe~ does Angelfish really think that we would let it go that easily?" Floyd giggled, as he poked her cheek playfully.

Angelfish??...........

I think you're gonna be my biggest fan

"Truly, she doesn't think that now right?" Jade's long pinky finger slightly grazed hers while cleaning the countertop with the small rag.

Was it on purpose or on accident?

.......

I sat on my bed. The pit of my stomach was full of dread, apprehension, fear. It was silent, dead silent. Exactly midnight, 0:00A.M

The only sounds that accompanied me in this dead night was Grim's grumbling snores. It provided no comfort at all, in truth, his snores completely crossed my mind

"Augh..."

I quickly grab my neck to cease the vomit creeping up, and sprinted all the way to the restroom.

Fortunately, I made it to the restroom without doubling over and making a mess out of the floor. I crouched down in front of the toilet.

Oh dear diary,

we fell apart.

Welcome to the life of Electra Heart.

My vision became blurry, hot drops of tears fled down my eyes, falling into the toilet.

Just like back then, she ruined it again.. Why can't I ever have my happily ever after? Why does she have to steal everything from me? Why won't she just leave me alone?

I'll chew you up and, I'll spit you out.

"W-Why won't she just give it a break...?" I slam my fist down to the wooden floor board beneath me as more tears crawled down my eyes.

"...eh, Yuu..? Are you okay?"

I looked to the doorway, to find Grim in the crack of the door.

——

"Why can't you just let go of the past already!?" I dabbed my finger into her chest, and I made it extra forceful to give her a slight grimace.

"Unfortunately, I don't understand what you're getting at."

I was behind the school, in a dark, small confined space where not much sun hit. I thought it was the perfect place to talk to the girl in question without any interruptions.

As I stare into her eyes. It reminded me of how they looked in the past. The exact same dull color, as if she's empty. There was absolutely no shine in them, nothing that can hint at her true feelings right now.

"Oh, you know damn well what I'm getting at. Don't play dumb." I hissed.

I'm miss sugar pink.

Liquor, liquor lips

"All those times, when we were younger. Dumber. Naive. Why can't you just let go?"

She was quiet. Just like back then. Her head was lowered. Just like back then. She didn't say anything. Just like back then. It was as if she couldn't figure out her own words. Just like back then.

"You stole him away from me. You played with me like I was one of your overpriced dolls. You made me think I was your best friend, just to target me and steal the boy closest to my heart."

She rises her head, something that was unfamiliar to her back then. Her eyes told me everything. How she regrets being friends with me. How she regrets letting me take him. How she regrets everything she's done for me.

"Did you not ever think that I would take revenge?" She took one step towards me.

"You'll feel what I felt back then."

She yanked my hair and pushed me down to the ground.

"Agh!"

Straight to number one...

I looked up, desperately, and opened my mouth to let out a call for help before a hand that grasped my neck stopped me.

"Heeeeehhh? What does Shrimpy think they're doing right now?" A similar sounding high-pitch voice echoes next to my ear, "It won't be that easy to escape, ya'know."

"Everything comes with consequences, dear Prefect." Both twins stood on each side of me, just like back at the cafeteria. But with more sinister reasons.

"N-no.. wait.. you have to be joking." It took all my strength to muster out that sentence. In disbelief, I looked up at Y/n.

"Maybe you should've considered your actions before. Oh well, I can't help you now." Y/n grinned. She looked almost insane with how her smile was growing second by second.

The most scariest thing is how different she turned out to be. The Y/n I knew wouldn't have hurt a fly. But as people grow older, they start becoming someone way more different than the person that used to play in mud, chase butterflies, play with water, and make flower crowns.

"If you think you could hurt Angelfish, and get away with it.. You're dead wrong, Shrimpy."

I'm miss sugar pink.

Liquor, liquor lips

Hit me with your sweet love,

steal me with a kiss

"P-please believe me, i-i.. didn't do anything wrong!" I slowly start crawling away from those two, those three.

As I did so, tears started bleeding out my eyes, just like what was happening to my heart right at this moment.

"Oh, but you did? I don't understand how hard it is to just accept your wrongdoings and pay it back." Jade breathes, disappointed.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I apologize... I crossed a line that wasn't mine.!"

I could barely see the growing scowls on both twins' faces with my blurry eyesight.

It seemed like they were waiting for a call.

"I don't forgive you."

I'm gonna be your bubblegum bitch.

Bonus:

"Now that we've completed our side of the contract, it is your turn to complete yours, Y/n-san." Jade turned to me.

I smile and nodded. I wiped away the small glop of blood on my cheek with my handkerchief. "Thank you, both of you."

"C'moooon, Angelfish! If you really want to thank us, fulfilling your side of the contract wouldn't be that hard." Floyd grabbed me by my arms, and used enough force to make me fall into his chest

"Yes, we do deserve a reward from all our hard work." Jade let out a deep chuckle, slowly walking towards me.

"Please, go ahead. Y/n-san."

Both twins crouched to my height, expectingly.

Smooch ♡

Lowkey disappointed in this one.... But fuck it. I have many other chances to feed y'all better food. Y'all can get a taste of this trashy one!

#jade leech #floyd leech #twisted wonderland #floyd leech x reader #jade leech x reader #jade leech x reader x floyd leech #twst #Yuu #my love for these two brothers is infinity #trashy

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mackjlee9 · 2 years

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based on your theme, i’m guessing the floyd brainrot has started strong. how about him obsessed with a reader in pomefiore in their final year?

Yeah, although Malleus is so hot too 🤤, also this is a little wonky, since I wasn't really sure where I was going with this, but I hope this os is to your liking!

Floyd Leech x Male!Reader [Fluff]

[reader is a pomefiore student in his third year]

Masterlist.

Game; Twister Wonderland

When they first met, Floyd couldn't help but wonder how. How was (M/n) a Pomefiore student? As far as he noticed, pretty much everyone in that dorm was quite eccentric, both in personality and appearance. But he... wasn't like that.

(M/n) was also one of the few students that didn't bother wearing make-up and never acted as if the world revolved around him, which was nice.

Floyd met him in his first year, a few days after the semester started, and he was having one of his mood swings again, unfortunately, Jade wasn't there to help him, so he was aimlessly walking around the halls. And at some point, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone outside, sitting under a tree.

His mismatched eyes turned to look at that person, the purple band wrapped around his left arm, it swung gently with the subtle breeze, and something about him made Floyd unable to take his eyes away from him. His beauty was almost blinding, his hair flowing with the wind too.

Just by sitting there he looked mesmerizing, and Floyd was attracted to him, his steps slow and hesitant as he approached the male who was writing down stuff in a notebook. Silently he lay next to (M/n), who only glanced at him momentarily before showing him a small, sweet, and friendly smile.

Floyd stared at him, hypnotized by his calm aura, he felt his face heating up as he stared into the male's (e/c) eyes. He wanted to keep looking at him, observe his every feature, but when the Pomefiore student started humming a song, Floyd couldn't prevent his eyes from closing, soon enough falling asleep.

"...oyd... Flo... Floyd," the sound of his twin's voice got clearer and clearer as he regained consciousness, slowly blinking as he began sitting up, letting out a small yawn, just now realizing he fell asleep.

With wide eyes, he turned towards his side, deep inside hoping that the male he saw was still there, but he only saw an empty spot under the tree, and a small sigh left his mouth, getting up as he scratched the back of his head.

"I didn't even get to ask his name~" he whined loudly, and Jade stared at him, curious about who he was talking about.

//////

Ever since that day, Floyd hasn't been able to stop thinking about him, that guy whose name is (M/n), a now third year and a great magic user. He noticed how (M/n) didn't seem to have a lot of friends, but Savanaclaw's dorm leader, Leona, appeared to be quite fond of him, occasionally sitting with him during lunch break at the cafeteria whenever he decided to actually show up and eat.

It took months for Floyd to gather up the courage to talk to him since he was used to just remembering things like the melodic sound of his voice whenever he was able to hear him talk to someone, the pretty sound of his laugh, and the beauty of him whenever he was writing down potion formulas or just reading some notes from his class.

Floyd may be a little bit obsessed with the older male, but he was okay with that. Admiring (M/n) was the only thing that could keep him entertained for longer than any other thing could, and one day when Jade and Azul were done seeing his enamored look in his eyes whenever his eyes would lock onto (M/n)'s figure, they gave him the little, subtle push he needed to talk to him.

He was scared, something that he found unusual, stuttering as he sat down at the cafeteria table with him.

(M/n) looked up when he heard someone else with him, and a content smile stretched across his face.

"Is nice seeing you again, Floyd-kun," hearing his name being said by (M/n) made him become speechless and turn bright red, his heart thumping in his ears, and he was a little scared that he could be able to hear it despite the ruckus happening at the cafeteria. "The other time you fell asleep before I could talk to you," the sound of his chuckle so close and clear made Floyd feel in a trance, he wondered if (M/n)'s signature spell had something to do with his voice, it was so... nice and pleasant, "I'm (M/n), by the way."

Floyd took a deep breath before showing a more "normal" smile in (M/n)'s way.

"N-nice to meet you, (M/n)-senpai..." Uncharacteristically for him, he stopped himself from calling him by a pet name, even though he really wanted to, he didn't want to make (M/n) feel uncomfortable around him.

As easy as that, Floyd couldn't believe that he and (M/n) became friends.

Every day was fun, being able to be with (M/n) without hiding and observing him from afar, hearing him talk and hum, falling asleep on his lap, and knowing that he could make his mood swings go away as quickly as they came.

He's not exactly sure when he fell in love with (M/n), maybe when they became friends, maybe when he heard him humming, or maybe... when he first saw him sitting under the tree. He didn't know, and it wasn't like he actually cared, he knows that his feelings are there, and they are real.

This may be this "true love" people usually talk about, but he's okay with being friends for now, perhaps someday, he will say something and confess, but today... is not that day, and Floyd is happy with that, even if he wants more of that tingly feeling he feels when he and (M/n) touch, when they make eye contact, when they talk and even when they in complete silence.

Floyd loves that feeling and he's a little scared of it too, but he's happy with how things are now.

#floyd leech #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x male #male reader #one shot #reader insert #x reader #fluff #floyd leech x male #floyd leech x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twst x male reader #.mackjlee9 writes

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yandere-monoma · 7 months

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should i be insane and start the kill your masters commentary now

i am gonna be insane and start the kill your masters commentary now

hi this will contain spoilers for the killswitch au which imo is fine because i have no intentions of writing it in its entirety so HSJKFGFG

god. rose strider.

rosie rosie rosie rose strider UUUUUUGH.

fun fact i actually attempted to go off about all this weeks ago but tumblr deleted the fucking draft but now im drunk (or i was drunk when i started this at 1am and now its fuckin noon LMFAO) and trying again so LET'S GO!!!!

so. actually. my iteration of rose strider was first sparked after reading BGB by MermaidMayonaiise oh god bless tf out of them

like, guardianswaps is an ancient concept in the fandom so it's not like i've never considered her or any other strider kid before but GOD. this one line from BGB absolutely blasted through my soul:

You never knew her, but a Rose Strider would have been a killing machine. Considering the multiverse, she exists. Just not in any timeline that matters.

as i lovingly say in the comments of that fic, i literally copypasted that line to every hs friend i know. it drove me crazy

it'd still be a couple of weeks (months?) after reading that fic that i actually conceptualized her, though. rose strider was born via the homestuck renaissance chat which i will reference 6738459634563456 times in this commentary because killswitch would not exist without it. the renaissance chat went off with a million and one headcanons about a million and one different guardianswaps and my impulsive ass couldn't help but actualize them in some sort of written form, complete with ridiculous long ass plot and even a couple of sburb sessions that i'll never write cuz it'll take me years. like. the ideas were just so good.

ironically, our first official swap we discussed was actually john strider, who i hopefully will get to at least allude to in the next iteration of killswitch, along with dave lalonde (WHO I FUCKING LOVE AAAAA), jade egbert and rose harley... then we actually discussed jade before i finally revealed how insane i was about rose strider rose rose rose rose ROOOOOSE

from that first initial outline to the first chapter of kym, it took about two months of plotting and dragging through drafts which is CRAZY cuz it rly does feel like time has fucking flooown by. a lot of that time was also dedicated to the first installment of killswitch, which got interrupted because the third chapter of kyd got tragically deleted and i've never recovered and i only recently healed past the hurt enough to start to rewrite it. god. trauma.

anyway.

before i get to the first chapter, i wanted to talk about rose's initial concept as a strider and what it meant. as i've said 738596356 times already, nature vs nurture was how i approached every placement within the au. it was very important to me to blend every character with who they initially are in canon and who their guardian's influence turned them into. this made for an incredibly fun process that lent itself to a pretty easy formula characterization-wise.

for example, rose strider's excessively extreme experiences with self-harm are born of rose lalonde's early act 1 habit of engaging in empty suicide threats towards her mother. i took that tendency to act out and cranked that fucker up to 11 because there is nothing passive aggressive about how bro raised dave.

every killswitch character features this pairing blend approach to their writing. jake lalonde, for example, inherits roxy's hyperactive silly energy, though he lacks the grace, ease and confidence to carry it out without stumbling. however, rose is especially special because i wasn't just trying to blend rose and dave. because of rose's identity blurring motif, i had to build her up using elements of rose AND dave AND dirk AND, most importantly, bro. that made her, honestly, really fucking hard to write because i still wanted her to be recognizable enough, while still sounding like a carbon copy of bro, simultaneously perfect and flawed all at the same time. and, ngl, it's super interesting to me, the way she deviates from the formula and refuses to follow the easy pattern i followed for literally every other character in the au. it's just so fitting for her to fuck with the meta like that JSKFG

anyway LETS START READING

fucking with the commands was actually a last minute choice done right at the very final edit. so much of the narrative fuckery that happens in kym is very on the spot, lots of last minute decisions that start with the impulse of 'oh shit yknow what'd be cool' and end with a big ole internal ramble of what it could all ~represent~

in this case, i thought this was nifty, i've been using this same one fuckin glitch generator for YEARS at this point: but also, i think it was a fun way to allude to her classpect, even though it's never really discussed outright

yeah see this was actually supposed to be a description of her room but in the very last draft as i was cleaning it up i saw this section that i still had to write and went nope. JHSKFGSDFG which is hilarious to me because doing so literally transformed how i approached the rest of the piece. originally this chapter really was supposed to just be a pretty direct copypaste of act 1, but god. GOD i'm glad it isn't. i've had so much fun with this style and it's so amusing to me that i have laziness to thank for that JKGFG ah yes the creative process

facts about john harley and his first conversation with rose!!

i suck at chumhandles and enlisted help from the renaissance chat for a lot of them. other handle options suggested to me at the time include: garrulousGallivant, groovyGallywag, galleyGaffer, giddyGelogenic (this was in second place to me i rly loved it sob)

(rose's handle was incredibly easy in comparison, largely because i hardly put any effort into it. i just wanted something suitably edgy and what could be edgier than naming yourself after genocide HJGKF)

his initial character premise:

the hardest part about starting the fic where i did is that there was just so much imagined backstory for rose and so little time to actually get to detail with it. the purpose of the first few pesterlogs with john and jade was to establish something that honestly i don't think got as much spotlight in the fic as i would have wanted: the fact that rose strider is a compulsive liar who actually tries her hardest to seem normal to her friends, both out of habitual manipulation and out of a subconscious urge to escape her life. it's an attempt to sprinkle her with the void traits that she clings to at the beginning of her arc (guess what her classpect is >:3) before embracing what she really is, but damn. if i could have, i would've written 100k of cute casual conversation with rose seeming like the sweetest most thoughtful friend in the world, only to reveal what she's really like

anyway! we get to see her make up a life for herself first through john, as she lies about going to school when ngl i don't think she's been since like. idk. the 3rd grade. GJKFLGS

this is always an interesting pesterlog to reread remembering how much i fucked with rose's dialogue jesus christ. i did NOT want her to sound like herself in the rougher drafts. she was honestly just a straight up blend of bro and dave, very casual, very ramble-y, however at the last second, i incorporated a touch of her usual more formal vibe/dialogue. again, because i was blending four different characters rather than two, it was difficult to find a balance i really liked. i definitely got there eventually but. hoo.

ro-stri originally used to copy the punctuation of anyone she spoke to. there are still aspects of this in the current draft, rose plays along and sprinkles more exclamation points in than usual to match john's hyperactiveness despite the fact that she feels like roadkill atm. however, in the end, i thought it was a little too subtle and wanted her to have a more uniform sound to her, rather than disappearing into anyone she encountered.

john harley thinks the funniest possible thing to joke about in the world is the fact that he's pretty much a feral kid who has never touched humanity and thus doesnt know the most basic things. he does this 9356354963 times a day. he loves playing dumb. in truth he's experienced a Lot through movies but sometimes he simply cant resist the urge to pretend he doesnt know what a fork is. jsdkfgsfg he was such a delight to write, jesus christ.

despite rose's attempt to fade into the background a little, all of her friends depend on her massively to fill a hole in their lives, which she ends up using to further manipulate and control the topics of their conversations. for john, he's just so incredibly hungry for what life in the real world is like. so rose fabricates a normal school life for him. and she's not even doing that for him. it's completely coincidental that they both just desire the same thing of each other and ngl i really adore and am fascinated by their dynamic. johnrose fuckin sneaks up on me i SWEAR.

rose calling herself a bishounen is the first hint of her weird gender fuckery. it is a hilarious hint that i'm so very proud of cuz it's so dumb HAHAHJKFS

john's flirtiness towards rose is inherited by (epilogue) jade's sexual promiscuity and slight pushiness towards the people she's attracted to. it also just seemed like so much fun lmfao it rly snuck up on me as i was writing and i couldn't help but go all in once i realized what was happening. like, john really does just find one bad joke (usually at someone's expense) that he really likes and does it over and over and over and OVER cuz so much of the joy for him is knowing that he's the only one fucking laughing and that everyone in the vicinity wants to throttle him. but they can't :P

someone tell me why :B emojis are so cute. the very first time i went >:B as john harley i went oh no because i fell so hard at that point HAHA

jade lalonde!!

can you believe this is the first time i've ever written jade in my life jesus fucking christ

other chumhandle option: tipsyTurvey

rose's canon handle is a pun that fucking murders me every time i acknowledge it and i desperately wanted a cute pun for hers. i am bad at puns. i am so very bad at puns. telekineticTactoe is the first pun i've made in all my decades of living. i am so proud of her fucking handle jesus christ GHJFKGS

something that's fun but also agonizing about pesterlogs like these is, again, i don't really get the chance to explain things. so much show, so little tell, which works out great for the narrative but makes the part of my brain that built up so much of the world pout so much. so i never actually go into detail about the fact that the 'update' jade is working on is to a webcomic that she has picked up and abandoned 87593456 times. this is seen more in her later conversations but one of jade's whole shticks is that she has tens of thousands of hobbies and she can't commit to a single goddamn one. she is absolutely CRUSHED by how much she wants to have a perfectly successful career like her mom. everything she tries just isnt perfect enough and it frustrates her endlessly. she is so so very cute i love herrr

it is SO fun discussing the lalonde issue through someone who is earnest and honest about their feelings and who airs them out the second they feel them. it's so fun to interpret some of the issues rose perhaps had with her mother, while also just poking at issues i think would have just. always bothered jade because of the type of person she is. she is going to be an incredibly fun perspective to write through the rest of the au and i rly hope i can figure out a way to focus a fic on one of her iterations one day

jade having a having a habit of traumadumping and rambling was supposed to be a play on just how excessively wordy rose can be. idk how much that shows (people associate rambling way more with dave imo) but either way it was super fun to write

rose's manipulative streaks are more obvious here. jade is incredibly vulnerable and rose jumps at the opportunity to attempt to further isolate and pit her against her mother. she's doing that completely out of habit, too. she has no malicious plan behind it all, it passes the time and it keeps jade close and that's really all she wants. she can see the way jade suffers under the weight of her work and she makes up her own stressful worklife, just so that jade can relate to her more than she can relate to the others.

DAVE FUCKIN EGBERT LET'S GOOO

the first words uttered about dave eggy in the gc:

and what his character ultimately turned into:

there is so much to say about dave i love him i love him i love him let's gOoooOooOOo

first off, i wanna explain why he's an egbert rather than a lalonde, since swapping the strilondes is way more common:

dave lalonde would have taken up too much screentime which would not have worked for the fic/verse. he is. god. an INCREDIBLE and fascinating specimen that i need to specifically write 100k about and pairing him with someone like ro-stri would just be a disservice to either of their stories. they simply can not exist together in a way that i would find narratively satisfying because they both just take up too much SPACE. GOD!!!

dave egbert is just cuter LMAO.

i am a dirty dirty multishipper and making him an egbert means i get a version of johndave and a version of daverose all at the same time

(and this doesnt even also allude to the fact that john strider and dave lalonde are also a hugely amusing dynamic like i rly needed the homophobic af angy boy paired with the darling excitable lil femboy ok

but really, my approach to dave is this: as much fun as tragic backstories are, sometimes a really fascinating narrative can be watching someone getting actively traumatized in the present for the very first time. being a bystander to someone you love's suffering, the survivor's guilt of not being the abused one, the overwhelming stress of being someone's sole confidant, the way it feels to be crushed by codependency and forced to witness unrelenting suffering when you are so woefully unprepared to provide proper support. dave just being a normal boy in an incredibly toxic relationship with his first love is just. GOD. so fun to me. so so fun it's honestly one of my fave decisions coming into the fic

there's also something to said about the fact that dave finally gets to experience normalcy and familial love at the expense of his sister taking his role in the narrative. there is a point in the au where the killswitch characters (who i also refer to as the 'zeta' kids) are made aware of their canon counterparts and thinking about what dave eggy will think about dave strider is SO exciting to me

anyway, again: this was a hard pesterlog to incorporate. i needed a quick summary of their dynamic and a quick summary of both of their characterizations: dave egbert being dryer, quieter, more withdrawn and blunt with his words, rose strider being abrasive and quick to anger and almost sadistically playful in the way she immediately seeks to tease and degrade her boyfriend. i also needed to show this without making rose the most unlikeable character this side of homestuck HGJKFGGS. fun fact, so much of how they talk to each other and exist in general is based on the fact that i think both of them just, like. fuckin LIVE on 4chan. rose is a 4chan troll while dave is just, like, a lurker. and i do wish i could have showed that more and showed even more of both the cruller kinds of dialogue rose can dish out and the more weird/fond/playful parts of their dynamic, because to me rose is the type to just constantly drop slurs and insult people and speak in a way that's designed to shock and horrify people and dave was her punching bag as much as he's her stuffed animal, and he's just so in love with all the ways she overwhelms him. he has so much fun trying to just desperately keep up with her and it all just creates this intense atmosphere that he's absolutely addicted to.

like, it's tragic that her talking like this never shows up in the fic itself but alas. alas, alack...

anyway

HOW CAN I FORGET HOW FUNNY DAVE'S HANDLE IS TO ME dave making his whole personality around himself being a npc is so funny to me ok godhjskfg

There is no excusing what must have occurred the previous evening, but there’s no point trying to contend with what happened.

considering 'what happened yesterday' is a big huge plot point in chapter 2 i'll leave it to the chapter 2 discussion but just know that this is one of my fave part's of rose's characterization that i ALSO mourn its lack of focus in the fic. i think it's present enough but UGH i wish i got to write it so much MOOOORE, DAMN!

🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

there were so many versions of this line and this introduction in general HJGKFGS happy with what i settled with

this section was hard because, again, had to quickly establish all the things i wish i could have spent time just slowly building up. i do enjoy how the final product looks, though. one of my favorite styles to utilize is a very compact, slightly minimalistic type of prose that leans

lil cal as a corrupting force is one of my fave hs things in the world it drives me insane to think about, so it was incredibly fun deciding that this was one of the biggest and most important differences between dave and rose is that dave fucking hates lil cal but ro-stri is not scared of puppets :D she loves them :D

When you sleep, if you sleep, your gaze never breaks from his, and you spend your nightmares drowning,

rose having an eternal staring contest with dream cal amuses the hell out of me especially thinking about dave going to derse just to watch in horror. it's also another aspect of that internal soul flaying she keeps forcing herself through, trying to create a perfect ouroboros between herself and what bro has been turned into. trying to fuckin speedrun through her own corruption

gurgles blood.

this next section about all the ways rose attempts to cope with her trauma was so nervewracking to publish. a lot of parts of this fic was but jesus christ. was really worried i'd get flack for a few of the ideas that got tossed out there, but i couldn't remove them even despite that anxiety. there is such a specific vibe to the 00's that i really wanted to incorporate into the fic... just, how it felt to be an absolutely insane teenager, always overwhelmed, constantly abused, and gifted with unadulterated unsupervised internet access to do terrible AWFUL things to. i wanted to depict it because it's what i relate to, what i've experienced, what i've seen and heard from others.

it's also just generally rly important to me to sprinkle darkweb references into as many of my strider fics as fucking possible cuz i know those boys LIVE on it LMFAOHJGKFG

In reality, you have no hobbies your brother hasn’t given you.

short but important: the fact that rose just does not get the opportunity to start creating her own personality like dave does was very important for me to highlight, though it's also not necessarily true. since the narration is filtered through rose's perspective, and rose is the one that is so adamant (especially at this part of the story) that she is a perfect clone of her brother, she skips past the experiences she has where she's strayed from bro's influence.

the end of this chapter was a very fun escalation that i'm very satisfied with. ahh, my killing machine 🥰❣️ how i adore you... now that i think about it, i forgot that originally i really did just want to make a quick oneshot summarizing all of my thoughts on her. as i was writing, the ideas got bigger and bigger, the hcs spiraled more and then my friends in the chat [shakes fist] dropped a huge BOMB of a plotline right into my lap that forced me to extend it way past its original plan but ughsjfgdfg i'm so glad that they did because this is a story that i'm so incredibly proud of godddjksfg

AND THAT'S CHAPTER ONE, STAY TUNED FOR MORE

#fic: kill your masters #director's commentary #meta #rose strider #verse: killswitch

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voxiferous · 1 month

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Thank you to @mathclasswarfare for tagging me!

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (or however many you have) posted fics and see if there's a pattern!

“Good evening, Madame,” Caleb said, inclining his head politely to a woman in a feathered blue mask as she took two mini quiches from his tray of hors d’oeuvres. (Masquerade Heist / Critical Role)

“I hate this place,” Prompto said, his voice muffled in Noctis’s shirt front. (Window of the Soul / FFXV)

“Take the ship around to the cove. If I don’t come back in three days, assume I either drowned or I decided to stay here for a while,” Shion said, neatly folding his last shirt and tucking it on top of his pack, then closing the bag. (The Siren / No. 6)

“Ooh, and the walk-in closet is big enough to turn into a dark room if you want to. Dave, you could work on your vampire portrait portfolio at home!” Jade said, squeezing the steering wheel a little too hard with her colourfully-banded fingers. (Welcome to the Polycule / Homestuck)

Once-mighty tanks were stacked up in the streets of Omashu like so much rubbish, and children played there once more. (Four Slices / A:tLA)

“We need a miracle,” Ignis muttered. (See Through / FFXV)

Muffled explosions and loud cheering filled the air. (grab your things, I've come to take you home / Critical Role)

When Mollymauk died, he suddenly understood a lot of things. (The Moonweaver's Child / Critical Role)

Caleb shivered himself awake as the warmth of Nott’s small body suddenly left his arms. (RE-ROLL / Critical Role)

Caleb knows he’s smart, but he would need a major in psychology with double minors in tiefling and carnie to figure out why Mollymauk pays him as much attention as he does. (Why Do You Like Me? / Critical Role)

Woof, I am almost a one-trick pony, and I didn't expect that XD The Vox opening line formula is apparently:

["Dialogue hook", establishing information.]

To be fair, though, three of the first four fics were all written within the span of a month. I probably was out of ideas at the time.

I've always felt that my last lines are a lot better than my first lines. I am confident in my ability to close something well. Never felt particularly good at opening.

I don't know anyone writing a lot of fic at the moment (except Rev, but yours are secret...), but if you want to do this go ahead and tag me! :)

#vox memes #vox writes #tagged #mathclasswarfare

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littlestpersimmon · 2 years

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Posting this again! But expounded upon.

Writing a short story about a wonderfully boring disabled transmasc aged 42 who likes to appear feminine (but he is a man at heart!) a jaded but once renowned magician in a world where magical spells are copyrighted and taxed on + his whirlwind romance with a young, hotshot, asshole sorcerer!

In my notes I just called him "professor" and the younger guy "hotshot TA". I don't have any names for them yet. The professor is beautifully tanned and coded south/southeast asian and persian and has long, salt and pepper hair in very loose and soft ringlets tied back carelessly, meaning many smaller ringlets escape his hairtie.. he has cute crows feet and laugh lines and he dresses of course like A Wizard.

ANYWAY.

You guys know how like.. when people look at inventions in the past and scoff and be like "I could have thought of that.".

That's how people in the world view the professor. His written spells are weak, meek, and considered "homely, run of the mill, kitchen witch pennyspells" that anyone could've come up with; In the past, people marveled at the simple ingenuity of his spells. Now it's sneered at for being very basic, though the professor always knows how to smile and invite other people to improve upon his magic. Seemingly, never offended and always unaffected.

In my story, the professor pretty much invented sympathetic magic- he invented it to help other disabled folk make spells and magical tools that can make life easier...... like creating magically charged prosthesis, self operating earpieces and stuff like that. Buuut Because the professor is naive and Believes In The Goodness Of The World, he does not copyright any of his spells. Now, Other witches took that sympathetic magic and started using the base formula and immediately capitalized on it, mass producing low-quality tools from it.

Everyone started turning on the professor for inventing sympathetic magic, because "back then" magical tools had to be crafted painstakingly by hand, more potent and less breakable, and thinkpiece upon thinkpiece was written and scapegoating on the professor. Magicians all live in workshops, universities and ateliers, and the professor lives in one particular Special university that was an abandoned lighthouse that got towers and towers and towers built on it, to function as discussion rooms, meeting places and classrooms! A lot of the elder witches still understood the importance of the professor's work, so they let him stay in one of the towers. In these towers he holds classes under his big telescopes and orreries; though few come because his "kitchenwitch" magic is seen as emasculating and cringe lol.

In their world, their magic is drawn from many sources, but because Capitalism, some engineering witches have created fairy-veins and sun-discs and numerous receptors. These things "amplify" and "route" magic- without these amplifiers, magic would be near useless in their world. The professor uses a very old type of amplifier that draws energy from hearths (fire), and only one company maintains hearth magic, and he has to pay titanic fees and taxes for the receptor to continue to be in use- which is why he, an esteemed, 40 year old inventor.... highly respected (even though considered cringe) professor with SEVERAL awards, lives paycheck to paycheck.

Anyway he tends to mind his own business, satisfied he neither died as a hero nor lived long enough as a villain, but just someone seen as silly and overrated. Of course until hotshot TA comes along under the pretense of wanting to learn from The Professor, who is Pleasantly Surprised that such a renowned and fiery young mage wants to learn his crafting of simple, kitchenwitching.

The professor would be Devastated when he finds out that the university professors sent the hotshot TA to him to train under him and learn the ropes of the university life because they want to kick him out!!

"Twenty years of service and it didn't mean anything!!" So obviously a resentful rivalry between the professor and TA comes about, until one day, while trying to get the TA to light a candle, the professor finds by accident out that TA is unable to manipulate elements- which is the simplest form of magic one could learn. It's like. A disability in the thaumaturgy community. He'd be flummoxed at how the TA even GOT IN the university (which is sadly still ableist). It's like managing to get into juilliard without knowing how to play do-re-mi. It's like being very good at art but unable to draw a square. The professor laughs, but not because he thinks it's funny that TA was running a con, and is disabled just like him, but because, he's in so much disbelief. But then of course, an opportunity for the professor, who is the master at simple magic, arises. He will teach the TA how to "mask", if the TA could convince the board of magis that run the university to let the professor keep his job. Obviously this will only end in the soft-hearted professor, who has always fought tooth and nail for the rights of disabled magicians, to not really expect the TA to fight for him to be able to keep his job, BUT WORTH A SHOT ANYWAY. And yeah they will fall in love eventually and kiss and all that. BUT FIRST. Gay turmoil !

#long post

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lost-into-the-depth-of-a-twist · 2 years

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Happy Mermay!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The black and dark purple tip of the tentacle was tapping rhythmically on the edge of the big pot where Azul was working on a new spell and Floyd really couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from it: its movement almost seemed to have put the little eel under some sort of hypnosis. His stomach growled as the little tentacle curled on itself and he found himself swimming closer, his eyes still fixed on it. A small part of his mind pondered that maybe -just maybe- skipping breakfast that morning had been a mistake but he really really wanted to visit Azul that day and not even Jade had been able to stop him from rushing out of their house with the speed of a marlin.

The young octomer was alone at home when the Leech brothers had knocked at his door -more accurately, when Floyd had tried to knock down his door- and had agreed to let them in only after they had promised to not interrupt his studies. And so there they were, Azul curled up in his nice comfy pot writing formulas while the twins were entertaining themselves by watching him. At least, Jade was. At first, Floyd had spied Azul’s work from over his shoulder too but after five minutes he had lost interest and begun to roam around the room. This until Azul, deep in concentration, had started to tap on the edge of the pot with one of his tentacles, catching the attention of the hyperactive little eel, who now was only inches away from the tentacle and was still looking at it with round eyes, as if lured in by its moviment. Lost in his thoughts, Azul failed to notice the incoming danger but Jade did: guessing his brother’s intention with just a look at his face, the young merman grinned in amusement while slightly stepping aside in order to leave his twin more space.

Slowly, Floyd opened his mouth wide and…

CHOMP!

His teeth sunk into the soft flesh of the tentacle, not deep enough to break the skin but with enough force to leave a dark blue mark on it and make Azul screech from pain and surprise. The poor little octomer crawled backwards in his pot at once and curled up on the very back of it, gripping his wounded tentacle with both his human arms while big tears started to form in his blue eyes. His face was a mask of confusion as he stared back and forth between the twins, who were curiously peering inside the pot.

“What-? Did you just-? Why!?”

Floyd smiled mirthfully, without even an inch of guilt. “Little Octopus looked so squishy and soft, I couldn’t help myself!”

Azul’s eyes went wide as he hugged his tentacle with more force than before, curling on himself to put enough distance between his tender flesh and those sharp teeth until his survival instinct kicked in and he went on aggressive defensive mode. “I’m not squishy and if you get any closer I’ll cover you in ink from head to fin!”

“Aaaw, com’on Little Octopus, I’m not gonna eat you for real…”

As he was beginning to crawl inside the pot, Floyd got hitted by a thick cloud of ink right in the face, with enough force and close enough that he scrambled backwards and almost landed sprawled on the floor. Jade had to cover his mouth with his hand to hide the silent laugh that was shaking his shoulders at the sight of his brother's stunned face covered in dark ink.

Azul’s head appeared from the edge of the pot, looking pretty satisfied with himself. “Serves you right.”

Floyd blinked at him. He tried to wipe his face clean with his hands but only managed to transfer part of the viscous liquid on his palms. He blinked again as tears started to form at the corner of his eyes. "It huuuurts!" he announced, a light laugh escaping his throat.

"Of course it hurts: mine isn't just any ordinary ink, you fool."

Jade swam closer to his brother in order to have a better look at his reddening eyes. "So it is true you ink has irking properties?"

"Of course it is. Well, it isn't that bad," Azul added, looking in amusement at Floyd, who was trying to wipe his face with Jade's hand after having miserably failed to clean it with his own arms. "You'll get better in some minutes but you need to stop rubbing your eyes like this."

The little eel let his brother's hand go and slowly opened his yellow eye, staring at the octomer with a small pout. "You're a meanie, Azul."

"Isn't it your fault for biting him in the first place, though?"

Floyd slowly moved his gaze towards Jade, narrowing his eyes at him. "I'm going to bite you too."

The corners of Jade's lips slightly moved upwards in a wicked smile, showing his jagged teeth. "I dare you."

As Floyd launched himself at his brother, starting a fight that awfully looked like the premise of the doom of Azul's room, the little octomer sighed in annoyance and briefly glanced at the forgotten spell circles drawn inside his octopot before swimming forward, strongly gripping the waist of each twin with one of his tentacles in order to force them apart.

"Can you two fools at least try to not destroy my room, please?"

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ceruleancattail · 10 months

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do you mind giving me writing advice? like, advice on how to portray characters in fics, specifically malleus, silver, jade, ruggie, azul, and jamil? if you do give the advice, tysm!!! - 💌 (hope this anon is not taken yet?)

HELP IM SO LATE IN ANSWERING THIS,

HI HELLO 💌 anon!!!

Ok firstly, take everything I say with a grain of salt. I am dumb, and I don’t pretend to be anything else. My writing advice is just a suggestion. It may work for me, but not for others.

So take my advice with a grain of salt. Actually, just take the entire Dead Sea for good measure.

Alright, so that’s out of the way.

Character portrayal. To effectively write for a character, you need to understand them. Get into their head, go through their browser’s history, dig through their trash… I’m half kidding, but seriously.

If you’re having trouble understanding a character as a whole, try to break them down to their key traits.

What does the fandom know them for?

What comes to mind when you think about them?

What makes their character unique?

What are their goals and what motivates them?

Try to come up with as many questions as possible for them, and slowly search for the answers. Play through their card stories, take note of certain vocal habits they have, or certain gestures they do.

For example, Ruggie does tuck his hands behind his head to deescalate a situation. Malleus has a smug look, tilting his head backwards. Read into those actions. Why do they do that? Why why why?

That’s going to be your best friend in analysing a character.

Another trick is make friends who simp for those characters. It’s always useful to hear their views on these characters.

What makes them attractive?

How do you think they’ll act in a relationship?

These are all important factors of a person’s character.

Looking at other people’s portrayal of these characters may help too. Read more fanfics, and try to notice a trend. People are naturally creatures of habit. Study their works long enough, and you’ll find the “formula” that the writer uses to portray the character.

Everyone has their own opinion, so don’t be disheartened if your portrayal of a character doesn’t matches theirs.

Hope this helps!

#the mage’s hat 🎩#writing advice #??????#writing ‘advice’#I’m nowhere good enough to offer advice #but yeah here you go

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steampunkforever · 5 months

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At a glance, the plot to Fools Rush In is pretty simple. Matthew Perry plays a high powered yuppy real estate developer sent on assignment to Vegas with the promise of his dream project in NYC should he manage to pull it off smoothly. While in Las Vegas he meets Salma Hayek's character. Sparks fly, they meet briefly then reunite after a few months, and the two of them must learn how to love and bridge their cultural differences. Congrats, I've just described to you the majority of Rom Com plots from a high level. Go now, no need to watch another one for as long as you live.

Except Fools Rush In doesn't take the route most Rom Com plots would. Perry and Hayek have a passionate one night stand just like any other Rom Com, but when reunited the situation is much different than your typical romantic meet cute: She interrupts an important business meeting to tell him she's pregnant and they get married that night.

The rest of the film is pretty well done, with entertaining writing and a fun script as the two of them must navigate their different backgrounds, wants, needs, and living situations while the specter of a clean divorce looms in the background. Will love prevail?

As someone who's posted about a good share of romantic comedies, I can get a little jaded about them. I've mostly seen all the good ones and am really only missing Vince Vaughn's catalog before I can fully claim to have a good handle on the genre. But Fools Rush In still managed to put a spin on the typical Rom Com formula that kept me engaged the whole time, all the while doing it without falling for the typical worship of the Vegas Strip that most films set in the area seem to be contractually required to

#filmposting #fools rush in #matthew perry #film #romantic comedy

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thewertsearch · 2 years

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Asks compilation: 09/05

God ok that actually sounds like it would work really well. John would be a huge McElroy fan, wouldn’t he?

I just looked up the Washington accent to compare it to Griffin’s, and wow, my mental voice for John is completely different. I probably have all the wrong accents for these characters in my head, since I don’t have a clue which accent maps to which state.

At least we’re all in the same boat about not knowing Jade’s accent - unless we learn where Grandpa grew up later on, since she’d probably have picked up his.

Brilliant! Yeah, no, I’ve been trying to nail down that font for ages.

Dammit, I just realized I could have inspected homestuck.com’s source >:(

It narrowly edges out Gen 4, for me. D/P/Pt were great, but Black and White were the games which really perfected the formula. I honestly don’t think they should have gone 3D, but whatcha gonna do?

Oh my god, of course there are. I’m going to rewatch that show some day and lose my mind, aren’t I?

Hey, thanks for the ask!

I thought about this back when I was first starting the blog. I dunno, though. You’re really not missing much - my live reactions aren’t nearly as coherent as the writeups - mostly just a lot of ‘oh my god, what?’ moments. I write more articulately than I speak. Trust me on this.

I’m honestly impressed you came up with something more headache inducing than the bogo algorithm, which for the uninitiated literally means ‘randomly shuffle a list until it’s sorted’.

aw fuck we’re getting a bogo modus aren’t we

I like Bogleech’s writing, especially his creature design reviews, but I could never get more than a handful of pages into Awful Hospital. I respect his commitment to the stereotypically ‘gross’ organic aesthetic, but it kind of just squicks me out. Plus, I dunno. The premise is really dark, but the comic seems to be a full-on comedy. The dissonance just doesn’t really work for me.

Still, though. Pokéween is some of my favorite writing on the web. Check out his stuff.

I’ve never been super into horror. Mind you, I like having something to listen to when I’m out on a walk, and I’ve heard good things about the Magnus Archives, so maybe this is my opportunity to give it another chance?

No, yeah, we have a winner. Step aside, Broderick.

I have come to accept that Hussie is just really prone to making unintentional references. When Dave Strider is one of your primary characters, you probably can’t avoid constantly referencing pop culture - even, it seems, accidentality!

The Queen is dead! everything has gone to shit! Long live Jack the Ascended!

Haha, I never considered that tumblr’s format does kind of resemble John and CG’s inverted conversations, in a way. When you reblog a connected pair of joke posts, you even have to make sure to reblog them backwards, or you’ll invert them!

Ah, indie devs. Heads, they’re legends, tails, they’re assholes.

I’ve never played it, but it’s been sitting in my steam library for months! If it’s anything like Celeste, I should have started playing it yesterday. Lore is pretty much the only thing Celeste is missing - not that it needs it.

Those giant Underlings are nothing compared to what you see in Pipecorp. This is just another day in the office for Harold P. Egbert.

Awesome! Yeah, I already see why the comic’s music is so popular. And considering we’ve got Toby ‘Leitmotifs’ Fox on the music team, these are all sure to return.

So what, it’s like, Act 6: Act 1? We’re going to start recursing?

Don’t lie to me, guys. This comic is a fractal, isn’t it? It goes on forever, the sub-acts shrinking into the infinitesimal.

I know not what awaits me.

Six, right? Based on the above ask, there can’t be room for any more, unless they shrink dramatically after Act 6.

I have no idea how many sub-acts there could be, though. Once you pop open that can of worms, you can’t easily close it.

Done! From now on, all theoryposts will be tagged #theories!

Yeah, noted! I didn’t expect Homestuck to require the equivalent of waiting for the post-credits scene, but here we are?

In what sense? The Trollslum showed up pretty soon after Jade’s intro, and CG chimed in up not long after. The sense I always got was that Hussie improvised a lot of the comic, but maybe the trolls were a particularly spontaneous addition?

Liveblogging a liveblog! I can get behind that. Yeah, like I’ve alluded to before, I’d be having a very different experience with this comic if I wasn’t reading it in bite-sized chunks.

Thank you!! I’m really trying to convey the same feelings that I’m getting while I’m reading this comic. I’m glad it’s working!

Honestly, my guessing technique is essentially just throwing theories at the wall to see what sticks.

I usually have like, two or three explanations for a a given event in the comic, which means I can be eerily correct and ironically wrong about the same thing - or ironically wrong twice over, as is probably more likely.

#asks #act 4 #full liveblog

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monstersdownthepath · 2 years

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Monster Spotlight: Chon Chon

CR 1/2

Chaotic Neutral Tiny Aberration

Adventure Path: Jade Regent: Tide of Honor, pg. 82~83

One of the more bizarre inhabitants of Golarion’s forests and Earth’s myths, the Chon Chon are creatures of madness and hatred whose every interaction with creatures besides themselves tends to end in swift hostility. Seemingly plagued by madness they cannot alleviate, Chon Chon babble to no one in random strings of language that, to an uneducated listener, seem to be profoundly confusing arcane formula, but any actual caster listening in can quickly piece together that they’re reciting meaningless gibberish.

And yet, this Jabbering is almost hypnotic in how closely it sounds like actual mystic recitations. Any creature within 15ft of a Chon Chon as it mutters and mumbles finds themselves compelled to follow along in their mad litanies; while this isn’t especially dangerous for non-casters, actual casters have to succeed a DC 11 Will save each time they cast a spell or some of the flighty creature’s chattering makes its way into their own incantation and they flub it, losing the spell slot entirely. Swarms of these creatures can potentially drain low-level casters of all their slots quickly, as the save against the Jabber must be made for each individual Chon Chon and there’s no 24-hour immunity clause against its effect. While their low AC, no resistances, and pittance of HP means that impatient Wizards and Sorcerers can simply pull out their emergency crossbows to shoot them down, this isn’t entirely feasible if, say, Chon Chon suddenly attack while the party is already engaged with another, far fiercer foe.

The disembodied Aberrations are too consumed with hatred to work willingly with other creatures (even “working” with their own kind boils down to wallowing in their own misery until it compels them to attack another being over it), but their Tiny size makes them easy for other creatures dwelling in their forests and ruins to capture them and keep them contained until they’re needed. Their mad jabber wasting caster spell slots is more or less all they’re good for, as their ability to cause damage is laughable even at low levels; their meager bite struggles to deal lethal damage (1d3-2), though their nasty spit may actually catch some players by surprise with its potency. Not damage-wise, mind, as 1d4 Acid isn’t anything to write home about, but anything that fails a DC 11 Fortitude save is nauseated by the experience for 1 round, keeping them from fighting back. Once more there’s no immunity clause on this ability, meaning an especially unlucky enemy might get stun-locked by the spit until that 1d4 damage slowly grinds them to nothing, and it’s all the worse if there’s multiple Chon Chon in the area.

Before we end, though, there’s one more interesting bit of lore about these things that I think is worth bringing up: No one knows how the hell these things reproduce. Even in-depth examinations of their corpses yield no biological explanation for how more of them are formed. Near as anyone can tell, new Chon Chon merely show up, perhaps formed from echoes of madness and magic in the same way cobwebs form from dust and stray spider silk, or perhaps breeding in dark and secret locales no one has yet found. Whatever the case, there are at least some Chon Chon that used to be people.

No, this isn’t a curse cast upon them. This isn’t the action of some fiend or ancient Fleshwarper turning innocents into insane bat-headed monsters, or even a rare side-effect of being kissed by a Vargouille; this is something someone does to themselves. For whatever dark reasons they may have, depraved sorcerers called kalkus can craft Chon Chon Elixirs provided they have about 1,300gp laying around and took the Craft Wondrous Item feat. Any creature drinking this draught sees their head twisting from their body as their ears grow into leathery, bat-like wings. These elixir-born Chon Chon do not possess the insanity of the “natural-born” Aberrations, granting them the Tiny size and flight of their targeted form while retaining all of their normal powers, potentially making them quite dangerous if they’re powerful casters... but their bodies remain vulnerable to damage, and the transformation lasts for an unpredictable amount of time (anywhere from 1 minute to several hours to several days to permanently). If their flying head isn’t within 5ft of their helpless body when the transformation ends--and they are alerted to the transformation ending no sooner than 1 minute before it simply shuts off--they die immediately.

An especially sadistic kalku can force this mixture into an unwilling victim’s mouth and trap their flying head in a cage, threatening their victim with a swift and unavoidable end if they refuse to cooperate, but most kalku use this power on themselves to turn into wicked flying, spying beasts. One wonders, though, if especially powerful or tenacious kalku simply refuse to change back or even die if their body is destroyed, clinging tenaciously to a new diminutive form to continue surviving, their magic keeping them alive in this shape even as madness begins to set in, their mind slowly melting away as the trauma of holding this form causes them to forget their previous power, and then their previous life as a whole, reducing them to babbling half-remembered formula and spells...

You can read more about them here.

#Monster Spotlight #CR 1 to 5 #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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elizababie · 10 months

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Happy STS! How do you like to wrap up books? With an epilogue that ties up all the loose ends or with room for a sequel?

Happy STS! I’m a huge fan of stand alone stories. Even in works that i want or plan to serialize I like to end them in a way that wraps up each story in a self-contained way. In longer series’s there’s usually one overarching through-line plot that ties each book together, but when it comes to the character arcs, themes, and plots of each specific book i like to tie them up individually.

One specific quirk of mine is that i’m like,,,, allergic to writing epilogues though lmao. Idk what it is about them, i love reading them, but i can never WRITE one in a way that feels satisfying to me. i think the endings i like the MOST typically follow a self-referential formula and just hard-ends the final chapter (Examples under the cut).

(from early on in my WIP Somebody Elses Parking Lot):

“Nixx sits between the two of them and looks out over the city that she was born in and the city that she will die in.

She loves it.

Nixx puts one arm around Amelia and the other around

Amel. They both lean closer to her.

She loves it.”

(The closing line of Somebody Else’s Parking Lot):

“Bells toll and call home the bloodbath. Amelia smiles and Nixx smiles and she loves it.

She loves it.”

(the opening lines of my WIP The Glass Delusion):

“Millicent Vahara has always loved road trips. The wind in her hair, the radio brairing, the way that traffic blazes by as they devour the road in front of them. Millicent loves it all. She loves the sound of sirens, the smell of smoke, Maeve up in the driver's seat screaming,

"Millicent, if you die I will never forgive you, I swear to god."

Millicent Vahara has alwavs loved road trips. Millicent smiles. Millicent coughs up most of the precious little blood she has left. Then, Millicent Vahara dies.

It's not surprising. Millicent almost always dies at that part. Maeve will be mad, but she'll get over it. She always does.”

(The closing lines of The Glass Delusion):

“Millicent opens her mouth to reply but Maeve is already fading, fading, fading, gone.

Millicent Vahara is alone.

She lays back on the icy beach and thinks about taking a car ride.

Millicent Vahara has always loved roadtrips.”

(the opening line of my WIP Treasure):

“Jade Manath buries bird bones. She buries bird bones and a sachet of small, round river stones and a bundle of sweet-smelling twigs. She’s digging a hole at the fourth corner of her property, the important one, the last one, the one that will offer the most protection, when it becomes apparent that she was not fast enough.

A shadow falls across her path.

She has a guest.”

(The closing lines of Treasure):

“Jade takes the spade and digs a second hole directly beside the teacup. She sets the spade into its bed and gently tucks it in. She thinks that she’s not going to be needing it after all. Maybe nothing needs to be buried under the creek. Maybe her new little life is perfectly protected after all.

She nods resolutely at a job well done and stands shoulder to shoulder with Maeve. ‘Come on,’ Jade says. ‘Let’s go home.’”

#I should post literally any of these stories in full bc i LIKE them #but also the second i finish something it is erased off my mental hard drive and it ceases to exist to me #I also did zero editing here so we’re gonna watch autocorrect beat me down in real time #you’re all obligated to point and laugh #writing #STS

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moonluringfrost · 10 months

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potion tester for the WIP title meme!

Hello Nopal, thanks for the ask :D

Potion tester is very new wip, still mostly in the brainstorm stage but I have some of the opening written up. It's a little darker than what I usually write but i'm having fun with it.

It's about a fella named Simon, who can die but can't stay dead. At the start of the story he's being imprisoned by Jade, a lich alchemist who uses him to test if the new potions they come up with have the intended effects. Since Simon can't stay dead, he's very good for testing poisons and the like. Things start looking up for Simon when a potion turns him into a slime person, but the reversal potion doesn't work. While Jade attempts to fix their formula, Simon uses his new slippery form to sneak through the bars of his cage and escape.

And that's all the plot i've gotten nailed down so far 😅

here's a little snippet below the cut:

You don’t manage to suppress your flinch as Jade’s hand approaches your head, but instead of a blow, you receive a gentle pat.

“You passed the test. That’s a good boy, not lying to me to try to escape punishment,” it says with faux-sweetness.

What?

Jade’s eyes flicker with smug satisfaction, the way they always do when it’s feeling smarter than you.

“I have to test you from time to time, make sure you’re reporting honestly. Can’t have you spoiling my data, can I?” it coos.

You don’t respond, because you know it doesn’t need an answer from you.

#ask game #potion tester

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hahanoiwont · 1 year

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You're encouraging me so I'm sending more asks /silly

Leaving Red be for now (I'll be back /j) how's *Fell* doing with all of what's happened the last few chapters. What're his thoughts on the Swapfell brothers + Paps?

Fell is having a Time. Seeing Slim is a gut punch because Slim outwardly looks so well-off by Fell standards--he and his brother are codependent get along, Black listens to him, Black is willing to change his mind if Slim asks him to...actually it's just his relationship with his brother that Fell is jealous of. It feels like proof positive that if he'd just been what Red needed, they could still be a family.

Black is also confusing to Fell, because he's just so different from Red. Being privy to the insides of everyone's heads, I can say that the difference is entirely because of two factors: their approach to their brothers, and their approach to justice. Black obviously views Slim as an equal, and did even when Slim was significantly younger than him and arguably should no have had that responsibility; Red viewed Fell as someone to hoard and protect until he nearly died, after which Fell was just that guy that for some reason kept him from dying and yelled at him a lot. Red cared about him, but didn't understand him, and Fell never understood Red's love as what it is. And justice--simply put, Black believes that justice can be achieved through effort, and Red believes that justice is dead. So Black puts incredible effort and self-control into the world, while Red gets bleak and jaded. The same drive to make things right pulls them onto opposite paths.

(interestingly, that difference in belief is itself because Black "succeeded" where Red "failed." Red lost a tooth and a parent and barely survived, then identified the "right" thing to do as sending Fell to another dimension, which he was ultimately unable to justify. Fell resented him, so he can't even fall back on having raised his brother right. Black, on the other hand, was endangered and controlled until he killed his parent, escaping into the world at large and being taken under the wing of his Gaster. He did a just but very difficult thing and his life got better. His belief that doing good things makes a difference was confirmed, and he had outside support by someone who respected his boundaries. This set them down different paths that continued throughout their lives.)

And uhh Fell's opinion on Papyrus: vague pity at first, because his brother vanished and that is the worst fate, but after their fight he grew to trust and respect Papyrus a lot more. I still need to write out their actual fight...they are best friends now. Papyrus has figured out the friendship formula, and it's starting a fight with a total stranger and then having a mild nervous break in the middle of it.

#whither then fic #i love these questions #i so much encourage you to send them bestie i love talking about my guys #i wanted to write out the fight to answer this but alas it was just not coming out #papyrus definitely starts out by saying how glad he is that neither of them wished this into existence #and definitely neither of them asked for their brother to disappear forever and ever #*cries in genies wishes*

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bubblesandgutz · 2 years

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From reading about Botch and your tumblr, it seems like you hold pretty progressive viewpoints and I imagine the rest of the band did too? Yet, your song C Thomas Howell as the Soul Man was mocking progressive bands like Racetraitor. I apologize as I'm definitely not trying to say you guys are/were secretly conservative or anything like that, but I'm just curious what the reasoning behind the song was?

I appreciate this question as "C Thomas Howell as the Soul Man" is easily the most misunderstood song in our catalog and I welcome the opportunity to dispel some of the rumors about it. It's one of the few Botch songs where I helped write the lyrics, so I'm particularly sensitive to the way the song is interpreted. When we were writing We Are The Romans, I approached Dave V about wanting to write a song about watching people become jaded in the hardcore scene, and how becoming jaded with the music sadly often meant becoming jaded on the progressive politics that went along with it.

The initial idea came to me after talking with a friend whose band played Goleta Fest---a hardcore festival in Southern California thrown by the Ebullition Records / HeartattaCk fanzine camp. I loved that whole scene earlier on in the '90s, though by '99 it felt like the groundbreaking acts of that community had been replaced by a bunch of new bands that weren't offering up many new ideas. Maybe I was just getting older and was a bit more discerning and harder to impress, but it felt less rebellious and more like there was a certain set of sonic rules that had to be adhered to.

My friend's report on the festival didn't do much to revitalize my interest in that scene. He said every band kinda sounded the same, and every band did the standard thing where they spent a couple minutes before every song talking about what the lyrics were about, and it was always one of the same handful of topics: veganism / animal liberation, anti-capitalism, LGTBQ rights, combatting the patriarchy, etc.... all great things to support and talk about, but not presented with any fresh perspectives, and never really transformed into compelling (or even intelligible) lyrics. It was sad and frustrating, because this scene had done so much for me as a queer kid. So much of my worldview was built around ideas I'd encountered in punk music, but everything was starting to feel very rank-and-file and formulaic, and I saw that as detriment to both the artistic integrity of the scene and to the progressive idealism that went with it.

So my idea was to address it in a song. I wanted to talk about how the formula was going stagnant, and how the cynicism surrounding a tired, played-out sound could easily morph into cynicism towards the radical politics that went along with it. If there's a fault to be had with the lyrics, it's that it points out the problem without really proposing a solution or alternative, so it winds up sounding like it's advocating for the exact kind of cynicism it was meant to combat.

Dave and I worked on the lyrics together, me with Goleta Fest in the back of my mind, and Dave, as he would later mention in an interview, with Racetraitor as his inspiration. We'd played a show with Racetraitor in Chicago a few years earlier and in many ways they were a fitting muse for the song's theme. They were a metallic hardcore band with indecipherable, cryptic lyrics, but they spent as much time playing their songs as they did talking about their lyrics, which were centered on racial disparities in America. Racetraitor were by no means a bad band, and their political stance was admirable. But we'd seen Los Crudos on the same tour, and they had been an ideal example of a band that was smart and inspiring with their between song dialogue and just straight up incendiary with their music. In stark contrast, Racetraitor's set the night we played with them was musically clunky and their banter was more confusing than inspirational. In many ways, they epitomized the whole "great message / self-sabotaging delivery" thing that was at the heart of "C. Thomas Howell as the Soul Man," but my gripe was never with specific bands. It was always about the larger pattern of the scene falling into a rut.

In Seattle, a lot of hardcore kids interpreted the song as being about the local political straight edge band Trial, which was a huge disappointment to me as those guys were friends of ours. And we would later cross paths with Racetraitor's singer, Mani, who was a super sweet dude who had a lengthy conversation with Dave about "C. Thomas Howell." But again, the song was never intended to be about a specific band, and it certainly wasn't meant to criticize their politics.

If I have any other regrets surrounding the song, it's the title. The placeholder title while we were writing the album had been "Tapping Song," since it had the finger-trapping section in the latter half of the song. Then it turned into "Taps." Then it turned into "C. Thomas Howell Stars in Taps." Then someone realized that C. Thomas Howell hadn't even been in the movie Taps; we'd had him confused with Timothy Hutton. So in our typically convoluted and absurdist song-naming tradition, we asked, "well, what movie was C. Thomas Howell in?" And there was our title.

At the time we were making We Are The Romans, I thought there was something strangely apt about naming this song after a movie that had attempted to take a really important stance on a tough subject (race in America) and completely blown it. That's what the song was about after all... well-intentioned politics that were undermined by mediocre art. If you've never seen Soul Man, consider yourself lucky. It hasn't aged well. Even in 1999, it felt like the plot, which involved Howell taking a bunch of tanning pills to pass himself off as African-American in order to get into college, had missed the mark and done a disservice to its supposed aims. But the bummer is that once the Racetraitor stuff was brought up, it seemed like the title was somehow a reference to their band, which wasn't the case.

TL;DR: "C. Thomas Howell as the Soul Man" isn't about Racetraitor and it wasn't meant to be a swipe at bands with radical politics. It was about mediocrity and stagnation, and the disappointment in watching people toss out their idealism when they get tired of their record collection.

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