#but i hope the rambling under the readmore helps :)

[unexpectedbrickattack]

Some (scary, Huge) fake peppi sketches i managed to get out recently

Ramblings under the cut heehee

Wanted to emphasize his HUGE and Hulking body. Hes got Similar movesets to the ingame fake peppino, but theyre fundamentally very Peppino-esque; he is strength and speed based just like Peppino instead of being (primarily) unpredictable and speedy. Thinking of the grab still being one handed but its more like him grabbing Peppinos shirt/body, and immediately chucking him against the wall (similar to peppinos two-armed grab)

The shouldercheck that Peppino does is mimicked with Fake Peppino using his hand as a mace/heavy weighted head weapon.

Runs up the wall on all fours instead of the regular run he does ingame (similar to Peppino using his hands to help with wall climbing)

He is INCREDIBLY loud and shrill during this fight; his voice echoes over itself and its very fast and unintelligible. Hes got very loud and nervous laughter bubbling up alongside the shrill screaming so its just NOT a fun time for Peppino at all.

He is normally very docile, but bc of some hcs I have wrt to him and pizzahead (and the tower overall), he is EXTREMELY stressed out and out of control when Peppino goes through his boss gate. Once he gets his ass handed to him AND he exhausts himself w the chase sequence, Fake Peppino is calmed down enough to think rationally again. And he has decided that Fighting Sucks and he would much rather just keep making pizzas lmao

(yoinking this from discord bc i do Not want to paraphrase lmao)

[I make my peppino SO hulking despite being short so i wanted to convey that same kind of Hugeness but like, if he had the extra height to go along w it Like peppino throws his weight around so i wanted fake peppino to do the same; hes very fast but also incredibly destructive and brutish]

[Im trying to find the best way to put it but like. In the same way getting angry gets u worked up and ur face gets hot and ur heart starts pumpin, the same thing will happen to fake peppino, only it translates into his body starting to bubble up and boil. Which looks AWFUL and it FEELS awful and it further aggravates him when hes burning up and falling apart So he will escalate very fast and essentially go blind w rage until he either passes out or gets knocked out]

[I want him to be a somewhat close parallel to peppino; act first think later. Everything makes him emotional and just like peppino, it will build up out of control very fast, and make him blow up in anger before he can think of a better way to handle it]

[ALSO wrt to fake peppino fighting i want the direction to be less ‘oh that is a weird freaking thing’ and more like ‘that a scary huge monster what the fuck IS that’ Like he makes the ground shake in his own pizzeria when hes chasing after peppino like hes throwing his weight around in such a way that makes him feel like the tank from left 4 dead. Big mans. Charges after peppino, misses; and where peppino would just bonk the wall, fake peppino makes a crater in the wall before shaking off the debris]

[hes not really throwing temper tantrums hes like. JUST as emotional and unable to ‘mask’ as peppino is but he does not have the 40+ years that peppino had to at least have the awareness to be ‘im destroying my own home’]

[I feel like. He is just as fast and strong as peppino, the difference being that peppino has Self Restraint, even if its not Alot And body limitations like breaking limbs n such, but fake peppino does not have that hindrance]

[He and peppino arent like emotionally unstable they are just incredibly volatile when under immense stress. Like most people!! Peppino is just under maximum stress 24/7 and fake peppi is a brand spankin new peppino that finds everything raw and stressful

(From a tagentially related convo)

[hes got a weirdass hobbled together nervous system (since u always see those nervous system diagrams laid out w a floating brain lol)

Its very human like but also inconsistent in some places ie he can feel pain but not All the time. The human body is very VERY complex and theres so many things working together to make shit happen. A nervous system but no bones to help hold it up and send it through the body; its floating in doughy goop ALL the time. His skin isnt Real skin so it doesnt have the same kind of like. Setup to easily receive pain and touch overall. Stretching his body out makes it hard to actually access the nerves so hes often unaware of Pain. But he can Feel things happen. I dunno]

[(responding to the idea of Fake Peppino getting hit with something blunt vs getting impaled or stabbed and grazing his nervous system)

[YES its like literally hitting a raw exposed nerve. The same pain youd get from a fucked up tooth i think however, if u managed to do that his instinct to protect himself would go haywire and hed literally try to maim you or die trying. He has no built in shock response to extreme pain like a normal human does]

#pizza tower #fake peppino #body horror #arts #no rambly tags bc i have a FLIGHT to catch i am going HOME #but i hope the rambling under the readmore helps :) #i guess i would add that he has only fought aggressive clones up until this point #and its not until AFTER the fight that hes like 'oh i think. i think that was a human. thats the human that that weird pizza showed me..... #so he went absolutely apeshit on what he thought was an unusually smart clone #hey being a big brute usually works on them lol #scares them away from his shop and from scaring potential customers #gotta go right now so um #if theres spelling/grammatical errors. no there isnt.

[blindmagdalena]

Did you or do you ever struggle writing character x reader fanfiction? I read it quite a lot but I just can't get used to writing in that format. I'm writing an OC x Homelander story, though.

I had never created an OC before, but I am certainly more comfortable writing a character that has a name, face and backstory of their own than using a generic reader. Particularly when I'm writing about the character's past and other individual characteristics, addressing the reader as you seems so weird to me. It makes me feel like I can't give in to specifics because it breaks the illusion.

Also, I've enjoyed the act of creating an OC. Giving them a name, a story, motivations, designing their psychology, etc.

However, I find it discouraging to see that OC x HL stories are nowhere near as popular as HL x Reader and I worry that I may not find an audience. When I post anything in ao3 it gets like two likes and in tumblr I'm just ignored completely 😢

Could you please give me some advice pls?

oh my darling! i hear you. the disparity in interest between x oc content vs x reader content is undeniable, but it's also inevitable. all the reasons you describe struggling with reader perspective fics is why it's so popular: the lack of detail allows the reader to adopt a nebulous perspective, whether they see their own oc in that situation or their literal selves. it doesn't require them to get to know or become invested in your creation, it allows them to indulge in what feels like their own.

i don't think readers get enough credit for their suspension of disbelief and the mental work they put into filling in the blanks that authors leave. similarly, it's absolutely difficult to tell a compelling story while leaving what is often the perspective character a near blank slate. that said! the fics i get the most feedback on are where the reader does have a stronger personality. people love banter, and even if the reader's voice doesn't always feel like something they would actually say, it always produces much more engaging interactions.

i've definitely had my struggle with this in the past, but i'm still learning. the series i'm working on right now, Guilty Pleasures, features a reader with quite a lot of personality, and i've established things about her that i wouldn't normally go into such detail, and the response to it has been great! your reader perspective SHOULD still feel like a character with thoughts, motivations and feelings. otherwise, the story is going to fall a little flat.

if it's easier for you to write the reader perspective as if they're your oc, you should do that. there's a delicate balance between too much and too little information when it comes to reader fic. sometimes taking liberties really works, and i think you'd be surprised how well readers can stretch that illusion. reader perspective should resonate, but not be so overpowering that the actual person reading doesn't like them.

but you absolutely do not need to force yourself to write a particular style of story if it's not something you actually enjoy. i also write and enjoy oc fic! i honestly think my oc fic Eat Your Ego is some of my very best work. unfortunately, it's rare that any of those chapters ever break close to 100 notes, whereas even little reader drabbles will see 2-3x those numbers, sometimes more.

but i write it because i love it, and it's the story i want to tell. that's what matters! and because of my dedication to the story, people have been kind enough to trust me with their time and investment. oc fic will never have the same broad appeal that reader fic does, but that doesn't make it less valuable. you just have to invest more in promoting yourself and convincing people that your story has something to offer them.

my best advice is just don't give up! i'm horribly erratic when it comes to the creative projects i work on, but i've been writing Eat Your Ego for over a year and it has gathered a lovely little following. feedback on that fic means SO much to me. even though there's less of it, the joy it brings me is immeasurable because that fic is special to me. don't give up on your story! it deserves to be told. 🖤

#got long so i threw it under a readmore #sorry i ramble haha #i hope this helps even a little bit! #i come from a generation/culture of fic and rp that was extremely negative towards BOTH oc and reader content #so being involved as heavily in them as i am now is pretty surprising #but more and more i'm finding i prefer both of them to purely canon content #homelander x reader #x reader

[neurotonic]

I looove your latest fic... I was rereading it again and it got me thinking about their entire situation. If things didn't escalate the way they did, do you think Prism would have been able to sick her robots on Phoenix after being so up close and personal? Seeing their scars and realizing they're as much of a human as the agents she was trying to save? Sure, Phoenix could have broken out at any time, but would they even need to?

Thank you so much, first of all! ;u; It really means a lot, especially since I don't...really write all that much and this one's a little more self-indulgent wuhjkhrger BUT um. yeah. If you meant without the whole agency 101 seduction stunt I still think Prism wouldn't have been able to find the strength to kill Phoenix, even with her robots. One of my earlier ideas for this had absolutely none of that making out stuff involved, and it still virtually ended the same way. If she was given the chance to really think about it, I don't think she could kill them. A bit more of my thought process under the cut :]

I wanted to toy with the idea that humanizing the legend is enough for Prism to like... doubt what she's really doing here. The proximity I think is something I wanted to keep in mind, because even in the games, she's always somewhere else or there's a barrier in between them that she couldn't interact with Phoenix directly. I could only think of two instances where Prism gets real close to Phoenix before her eventual change of sides: the Robot confrontation in Blind Spot, and the ending of Cold Shoulder (WHICH is what directly preceded her change of heart). I thought to myself mmmmmMaybe there's something I can work with here. Maybe she did have a distorted image of Phoenix in her head that only fueled her frustration and vengeance towards them............... so what if she finally meets them and they're. much realer than she anticipated? so this was born.

I call it kind of self-indulgent because. Well. There was no other reason I added the makeout thing except for me going "AH I just wanted to do it" LMAO!! Half-joking half-serious though, I just think exploring the agent's body was the tipping point for me. There was also one time where I wanted to let them have their fun and finish what they started, but that felt like I was straying a bit too far from what I originally wanted to do. That, and I feel very insecure about writing something That explicit.

.......Well I hope that answered your question KSJDFHS sorry I just used your ask as rambling grounds for this fic. I think the girlies are allowed some more yuri in the tags okay. Okay? Okay. Short answer she would've still released them, in the hopes that the distance between them will make her vengeance return again. It would've been a much shorter fic if that happened.

#gene answers #anonymous #roxana prism #agent phoenix #im not gonna main tag this it's a lot of ramblys #roxanix #but im glad you liked the fic HEHEOOOHOEUHO #depending on my motivation i might be able to make mores. about this ship or just anything in general. mm #putting the rest under readmore bc it's a little long #i also Hope i understood your question right LOL!!!! HELP #escalate as in. well. waves at mature rating #or something else?

[void-chara]

My gift for the @technoblade-gift-exchange !! i was assigned to @simplepotatofarmer who asked for dsmp rivals duo. i hope you like it Loyal!

rambling about headcanons, designs, and my process and stuff under the readmore, because i wanna talk about it but dont want the post to be super long !!

i had originally planned to not have a background and then at the last second i decided to speedrun drawing one in a few hours so um. quality difference but its fine. also unrelated but im pretty sure everything about how i draw animals and anthros makes it very obvious i used to be in the warrior cats fandom lol. anyway onto the designs!!

the gold on techno is scars from the totem at the execution, which i think is a pretty common thing for techno designs. he isnt supposed to be a piglin, but rather similar species of anthropomorphic pig. also his mane and tail fluff are naturally brown but he dyes them pink ^_^ so cool !! um. i maaayyy have forgotten the crown until i was way too far into the piece to add it. haha. oops. pretend its missing because. uuh. hes in a casual outfit. "but he still has the cape" yeah its comfy. "but dream has a mask thats not casual" dream is dream he does Not relax fully ever. see entirely intentional i would never make a mistake.

dream is an original shapeshifter species i came up with because i couldnt decide what i wanted him to be. i havent decided on a name for the species yet but i plan to make almost every solid-color or nearly solid color mcyt into this species. theyre mostly involuntary/unconscious shapeshifters. so like they change slowly over weeks or months to adapt to their surroundings, with little conscious control. basically i wanted him to be like five different things so i shoved them together lol, rabbit ears but in a pattern that looks like an axolotl, a cool tail, TOE BEANS tho you cant see them. this was actually the first time ive ever had a dream design im happy with so thats really nice.

i um. i made full use of my time lol, i spent a bit over a week on the lineart, another week on the coloring, and maybe a week and a half on rendering. unless i suddenly became shit at math(which is possible) that adds up to roughly the amount of time i had to work on it. im really proud of myself actually since i usually take a while to do art, and i wasnt sure i would be able to make something id be happy with in this amount of time. but i did! woah!! this was my first time participating in a fandom gift exchange and it was so fun, and also helped motivate me to draw more instead of getting distracted like i usually do (classic adhd moment) lol. anyway super cool!!

Loyal if u decided to read all this for some reason then again i really hope u like it!! u are so cool and i really love ur rivals duo opinions and creations so i hope u like this! i know theres been shit happening lately, i hope ur doing ok!!

#technoblade #dreamwastaken #rivals duo #dream smp #dreblr #technogiftexchange #<- thats the tag right? #also wow i think i said too many words. i dont think anyone else rambled that much about their gift. um. in my defense the only thing more #powerful than my written language learning disorder is my adhd and autism. so. yeah. lots of words. #aaaaaa i feel like how i wrote everything is so awkward. i am just a creature imitating others i have no idea how to interact with people.. #hmmm. posting now before anxiety gets the better of me! #edit: wait fuck i forgot my art tag. how do i ALWAYS forget my art tag. #chara makes things

[baalzebufo]

two years ago I tossed my designs for some fan cogs, the adbot department, onto tumblr. well its been a while and ive gotten back into toontown again, so! it was about time I gave them a fresh coat of paint and a few new faces. please zoom in/open in new tab for detail!

the adbots deal primarily in broadcasting and propaganda. they aim to reach toons through their tvs and radios, either convincing them to buy their products or their ideals, or skipping that in favor of straight-up brainwashing. a quick tldr of each cog below the readmore, if you’re interested!

- ⚙️-

sockpuppet - a bold new recycling technique using parts from cogs that were either faulty or too broken to put together properly was used to create these lackeys. they can only mimic other cogs voices and follow orders very well, but most cogs dont like working around them- likening them to zombies and being generally unsettled by their presence.

signal jammer - adbot tech support, these guys are tech-addicted and always grouchy. usually because they keep accidentally jamming their own phone signals! they tend to work as cameramen, engineers, really any behind the scenes help an adbot would need.

viral marketer - working alongside signal jammers, these guys are ideas cogs and adept with technology themselves. small and numerous, none of the ideas they come up with are very good... but thats why they make so many of them. one of them is bound to have a profitable idea eventually!

wheeler dealer - these speedy cogs are door to door salesmen and expert at pestering toons until they just give up and take whatever theyre selling. they often run advertisements on cog radio signals and slip themselves into commercial breaks.

motor mouth - fast talking loudmouths, these cogs feature primarily in lengthy- and loud- infomercials. they have boistrous personalities and a smile that could sell sand to a beachgoer. however, they tend to get caught up in rambling unrelated to their actual sales pitch, seriously damaging their productivity.

string puller - these cogs tend to hide behind the scenes and help produce most of the adbot syndicated shows and advertisements. theyre sketchy talent scouts whose contracts always- always- have strings attached. often seen with a posse of sockpuppets, they love bossing them around.

talking head - they say each face has its own personality- but theyre all so boring, nobody can tell the difference. these cogs make watching paint dry seem interesting! their natural lack of charisma can be downright deadly to a toon if they spend too long listening to their droning.

crowd pleaser - uncharacteristically upbeat, these cogs seem fun until you learn that they work exclusively with talking heads. they charm toons into watching their shows before switching to their co-host, who can turn a toon sad before they can even change the channel! theres an insidious nature under that cheerful grin.

tv personality - these bots rarely leave the adbot studios, and thats a good thing- they’re highly dangerous! they seem to have technology similar to toon hypno goggles, and it works through a broadcast signal to boot. thankfully, their ego refuses to let them take parts in a show or commercial they feel is ‘below their level’- seriously reducing their screen time.

- ⚙️- 

if you read all this, hi! wow! hope you liked them! i’ve got plenty more lore about these guys and especially about their boss- the Executive Producer- but that’s stuff for another time and another post. hope you have a good day :D

#toonblr #toontown #toontag #cogs #toontown cogs #i dont know how to tag this! hi #alloyart #the adbot department #is probably the tag im going to use for them #if you remember my og adbot post you are entitled to a veterans discount tbh #secret lore for the tag readers #signal jammers are all Gamers. they use the company bandwidth to farm gold on runescape #motor mouth absolutely sounds like billy mays in my head. but like. a sketchier billy mays. #even other cogs find talking heads a drag. but crowd pleasers unironically love spending time with them #ok thats all folks

[lunarwintyr]

Don't Touch Me (Or I'll Break) Rating: M Pairing: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair Content Warnings: Mild Sexual Content, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

------Summary-----

What happens if Wednesday can't accept her feelings at Nevermore and it leads to the fracturing, and eventual ruin, of her and Enid's friendship, along with every other friend at Nevermore Wednesday might have had? What happens when an Addams is so determined to defy the Curse that they self-destruct every chance given to them? ============================================== Wednesday ruins it all. Six years later, she runs into Enid at a club in New York City and gets a second chance. Will she do it right this time? Will she be honest about her innermost feelings, not only with Enid, but with herself? Or will she fall back into old habits? Will she resort to denial and lies? Can Wednesday ever break free of her self-inflicted misery and self-destructive patterns or is she doomed to them forever?

Author ramblings under the readmore.

I was possessed by a demon to write this around 11 pm and finished around 3 in the morning. I don't really know what else to say.

A lot of Wenclair fanfics follow the trope/trend/idea of Wednesday kind of going a little insane at Nevermore and, through her antics, her feelings about Enid come out, everything is okay and they get together and it's lovely.

I wanted to know, what does that look like if that doesn't happen?

And not only that, what if Wednesday's antics stop being endearing after a while, and get to the point where it completely shatters her friendships, including with Enid?

What happens next?

This fic is me exploring that idea. Wednesday becoming an even-more-dead-inside womanizer because she likes the feeling of power it gives her and it helps her pave over the hurt underneath it all backfires when she's on the prowl at a club and meets Enid by total chance, who doesn't recognize her (sort of).

Idk, I really don't have much more to say. I think the story speaks for itself. I definitely pulled from personal experience for a lot of it (having a lot of mindless sex over a couple years can really do a number on you if you're doing it for the wrong reasons) so I hope the story resonates with some other people as well.

I will say I fucking hate the ending. I had no idea how to properly end it after the final "proper" scene. I may flesh it out further in a second chapter or just an additional one-shot.

I have some ideas on an E-rated sequel that shows Wednesday recovering with Enid from self-inflicted sexual trauma, but we'll see.

Thanks for paying attention to my nonsense, I hope you enjoy the fic <3

#wenclair #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic

[tomatoluvr69]

I think you’re very wise so I’ll ask you: how does one make friends in their 20s. Like I have a friend group and stuff but I’d like to branch out more. Maybe fuck around find love. Who knows. But how …….

I’m pretty floored by this compliment not gonna lie…and I should be clear that I’ve also struggled with finding friends out of college. I wound up moving back to my college town where I had some connections already, but I can tell you what I did to branch out from those people and make new ones? This is just what’s worked for me, and it’s been slow going, but here goes :-) putting it under a readmore because it got really long and rambly hehe

I had a pretty rough summer when, after 5-6 months of my living here, two of my closest friends (literally 2/3 of the people I decided to move here to be near!) moved to other cities in rapid succession & i had a tough adjustment. What I did to heal was to take some time where I was very intentionally kind of scaling back my social life because I recognized that the irrational hurt that resulted from those departures made it so that I wasn’t in a healthy headspace (thinking a lot of thoughts like companionship is pointless, friendships are born to die, my life will be a long and pointless cycle of making friends -> they abandon me for a partner -> make new friends -> they abandon me for a partner). I had the wherewithal to recognize those thoughts as reactionary, and pretty far removed from the truth, but I was still having them all the time. But I gave myself a purposeful fallow period and I think it REALLY helped. I know that’s not your situation but it’s helpful to explain my experience. (And also just to say, see if you can recognize thought patterns and doubts you have around new friendships as fallacious or insecure if you think they are! Challenge them in your head, and correct them.)

Then, in the fall, I found myself opening up again. Because of my little break (I spent a LOT of time with my very close friend, which maybe wasn’t the most ideal for either of us— but we weathered it) I had the clarity to observe what worked for me and what didn’t, and set challenges for myself. I’m a pretty shy person, and the really fucking annoying truth I’ve come to realize over and over again is that in order to have a rich and thriving social life, I must grit my teeth and fight against those impulses nigh constantly. It is not my nature to cold text an acquaintance who’s on the brink of being a friend to make plans for the first time. That shit is scary to me!!! But I have been fucking forcing myself to make that kind of leap. Basically, the rules I have been trying (and oftentimes failing!) to hold myself to:

1. Almost every other young adult around you is also quietly lonely and hoping for more social connections, especially at that post-college stage. People are thrilled to be reached out to. Remember this first and foremost!! Reassure yourself that no one thinks you’re a freak for being friendly.

2. Text first sometimes (often). You HAVE to do this— if everyone sat around and waited to be enveloped into friendships, no one would have any friends at all. Think about how touched you are when someone makes the first move to you— asks for your number, uses it, suggests a hangout. It’s scary and it sucks but then it’s sooo worth it.

3. This one’s controversial…but I have a policy of “yes”. I do not say no to an invitation. And I do not allow myself to cancel unless I’m ACTUALLY ill. No “self care” excuse. No “I’m tired/depressed/long day at work” excuse. The ONLY exception is if I have a rigid commitment already (or if I’m vomiting or have covid which is…infrequent lol). I always go to the scary party, the nerve-wracking dinner at a friend of a friend’s. Sometimes I have a hunch I’ll hate it, and I do. But most of the time I have that hunch I’m proven wrong and very pleasantly surprised at how nice of a time I’ve had. This is how I’ve deepened acquaintance relationships into friendships, because it allowed me to see people a whole bunch of times and get accustomed to them and talk to them little by little and be less scared of them. but it was harrrrrrd, and it took a long time. I’m only now feeling like I’m actually friends with people I met like… 6-10 months ago.

Those are my rules, but basically it boils down to forcing myself out there way more than I’m comfortable with. And honestly, it’s already changing my personality and becoming more easy.

Also re: seeing people again a whole bunch of times. Become a regular somewhere!!! Join a club, my friend is in a writer’s group that has formed some very solid connections, I have friends who meet up all the time in an earth skills sharing capacity. I have a friend in some sort of trans baseball league or something? I’ve seen posts online for like idk a queer craft meetup, a diverse authors book club, affinity hiking groups, etc. A lot of my friends (and sometimes I!) go to a weekly themed night at a dive bar & over time have gotten to know a lot of the other regulars. Is there a bar near you that has a recurrent event that intrigues you? Goth night, dyke night, karaoke? it won’t happen overnight, you gotta go again and again and and again. But find social hobbies, and by seeing people again in the same place, you will first recognize them, then become friendly, then perhaps even become friends.

Now some disclaimers: I’m very lucky to be well positioned as the best friend and roommate of an incredibly outgoing person, who is the type to become a nucleus of any social scene he enters into. People love him, and want him around, and he loves me and wants me around! This makes things much easier for me, and without that connection, I’d be much more isolated! So I guess some advice there is to be on the lookout for the type of person who effortlessly gathers people. Sometimes I think (unfortunately lol) of the biblical phrase “fisher of men”. But it’s quite apt. If you find yourself being fished, go along with it!! Even if you don’t click completely with that gregarious person, the likelihood that you’ll be thrown into orbit with others is high, and you may find people through that. Let them invite you places! Meet their friends!! Friends who have served this role in my life have been absolutely indispensable for me & I try to actively emulate their modi operandi as much as possible

If you have a pretty closed off friend group, you could work on changing that? Another concrete piece of advice (and one that’s brand new to me lol) is to become a host! Have a brunch potluck or throw a birthday at your place. Invite your friends and have them bring along someone you might not know! Invite people you’re friendly acquaintances with. One of the nicest ways to build community is through like casual, open, and recurrent gatherings. Highly, highly recommend low stakes evenings like potlucks & yard fires & movie nights but especially potlucks. Sometimes you gotta be the gatherer if you want it to happen. I’m brewing up a brunch potluck later this month & im forcing myself kicking and screaming to include a few people I don’t know that well, despite the voice in my head that’s like “why would they want to come hang out with YOU…” (see rule one!!!!!). And again, I’m very lucky to live in a very special town with social people all around, but no one is going to come along and create that culture where it doesn’t already exist. Well, they might…but you can either sit around and wait for them to appear OR you can start fostering that community for yourself. I guess the idea is to take the connections you already have and BUILD! :-) I’m happy to hear you have some friends around you already, I’d really encourage you to start holding casual gatherings and make it explicitly clear that you’d love for them to bring people along.

Oh and also, I’ve found that hosting things TOGETHER is a huge help, it’s hard for me sometimes to put myself out there as the person for whom people will be showing up— but I have teamed up with friends to take the scary edge off. Me and my best friend had a combined birthday party last spring despite our birthdays being a month apart. No one cared about that, and we had so much fun with our goofy wacky theme!! And me and my roommates are all hosting a backyard party together at the end of Jan. This is a great arrangement for me as the shy one of the trio lol. So team up, if you and your friend see a tiktok of a theme dinner, or a costume party, or a scavenger hunt you’d like to recreate, toss it out there! Throw the soup party. Throw the dress like your fave character night. Throw the movie night with themed snacks.

My other disclaimer is that I have a healthy and moderate relationship with drinking, and because of that, I can have a glass of wine or something to help me out at a gathering where I feel very scared. They don’t call it liquid courage for nothing. That’s not an advantage everyone has, and I’m not necessarily advocating for it, but boy does it help me feel less like an alien robot when I’m out somewhere. Having a single g&t sometimes makes all the difference between going into the bar where my friend is playing a show and running back to my car and driving home listening to radiohead all alone. Weed has the opposite effect so I avoid it almost entirely lol. Just pay attention to the way substances affect you if they’re rife in your circles. If you’re sober, look for people who do lots of other things other than drinking— easier said than done, I know, but that’s another reason to throw your own little gatherings— they can be dinners or brunches or movies or hikes or museum outings where there’s no need for things you don’t partake in.

Ok the TLDR of all this is a) push yourself by force to put yourself out there. This is unfortunately an iron-clad prerequisite, like it or not (and I don’t like it…). Grab someone’s number, text them first, go to your random nice coworker’s birthday party where you’ll only know the host. throw a potluck so you can gather budding connections together. b) find what you love to do and do it with others, regularly. You don’t even have to like it that much I guess— just find a way to be exposed to the same people again and again and again. c) repeat to yourself over and over and over and over again that people are WAYYYY more receptive than you think they’ll be— they’re fucking lonely! Our way of life is fucking lonely!! And they think WAYYYY more positively about you than you think they do!!! I absolutely promise. I have ABYSMAL social self esteem and am frequently floored by this discovery but it’s very true. But people want me around because I’m funny and smart and kind and unique. And they want you around for all those same reasons, I promise.

And last thing, it takes fucking TIME. it takes forever. It takes practice and discomfort and stomping all over your hard-won instincts and behaving in ways that are terrifying and brand new to you. But keep seeing people, and take the leap of being the initiator, and give it time and effort and you can do it!!!!! Again these are just the things that have worked for me, your mileage may vary! But genuinely best of luck and I would LOVEEEE to hear updates :-)

PS (I hope this (or like any of this answer lmao help) doesn’t sound condescending, it’s not meant to come across that way, I just tend to ramble. And also I tend to forget that other people don’t always have as much trouble with these social skills as I’ve had so if I’m overexplaining that’s why!! Lol) you can rehearse things in your head as much as you want and no one will ever know. I literally have small talk scripts lmaooooooo. I’ve literally used strangers to practice a method of like interviewing people to get to know them where you just continue to ask questions relevant to what they just said. and you could practice saying things like “want to grab some coffee after this?” or like “hey let me make sure I grab your number, here’s my phone!” and no one will ever know you had to practice like you’re in an elementary school play LOL. I’ve learned so many like normal person social skills just by watching gregarious friends talk to people and straight up intentionally emulating them. bc im normal…. And also intentional and borderline saccharine phrasing like saying “I’d love to have you!” Instead of “if you wanna come” or something. Ok actually I’ve rambled on for soooo long now I hope at least a tiny shred of this was helpful :-)

Okay and another quick edit SORRY. CAMPING!!!!!!!!! If you have ANY desire to camp whatsoever DO IT!!!! NOTHING jumpstarts a new friendship like a camping trip, you can like fast forward through literal months of the early stages if you can get your friend to bring a friend etc. and if not, a nice long hike, if that’s something your body’s not gonna scream at you about haha. GO OUTSIDE WITH PEOPLE IM SO DEADLY SERIOUS.

#asks #also it’s funny that I’m perceived as social by tumblr standards bc I frequently feel like one of the shyest quietest ppl in my circles irl #but I’m in like…abnormal circles by national standards. very very lucky #and it really must be emphasized that a lot of the time I’m like…waterskiing on the social clout of my best friend who does this shit #effortlessly #like a recurrent theme for him is ppl telling him he could lead a cult… #i have learned so much from straight up just copying and imitating him it’s actually unreal. i used to straight up be like at a party and #think to myself What Would [friend] Do/Say and it was like a crash course in being charismatic #but really I moved here a yer ago almost to the day and I only just now feel like I have a pretty robust network LOLOL #but I LOVE parties when they’ve got lots o people I know at em :-) #our bday party was Frenchman vs h*nchmen themed btw. it was awesome #im so lucky to be in a spot where I can be very odd and still like…fit in… #I just gave my number to a roommate’s friend so we can process roadkill together. that is not like a suburban Atlanta experience!

[lesbianfakir]

"#if anyone cares send me an ask id love to ramble about my issues with how mangahood are structured" oh? owo?

ANON YOU ARE MY HERO!! You have been warned these are my personal taste opinions and don't necessarily reflect what makes a "good" story

I have two main points that sort of tie into one: I think fma makes more sense as a smaller scale story.

Under the readmore because this got long:

Yes, it’s a shounen of course it eventually has a grand arc with the world at stake. I can’t really blame it for that. But at its core the story is about the Elric brothers’ love for each other, and their loss of innocence as they venture out into the world that's hurt them so. We care about them, about their near impossible struggle to right a mistake and get their lives and bodies back. And we see how cruel and horrible the world can be through the eyes of children. Keeping with mangahood’s hopeful tone we also see how good the world can be, and imo this works best in the smaller interactions ie winry helping to deliver a baby, the hughes’ family’s generosity to the elrics and winry, etc. The jump from a character driven story (Edward wants to save his little brother) to a more shouneny plot driven story (Edward needs to save the world) takes the focus away from a lot of what I find compelling about FMA.

3/4's of the way into mangahood the Elrics are sort of subsumed into the plot at large and the story doesn't come back to them until Al makes his sacrifice. If I'm being honest, the final battle feels a little contrived to center our protagonists when the whole conclusion could've been written with them at the center to start with (that said I LIKE the end of Brotherhood, this is just a personal taste for story structure thing).

Now obligatory 03 ramble, in contrast 03 keeps the Elrics centered throughout. The final battle isn't much of a battle at all. And sure, it isn't as grand. But it feels in keeping with the heart of the story--Dante is going to kill Alphonse so she can live forever. The whole series up until this point is about Ed trying to save Al, it makes SENSE for this to be the conclusion. The brothers' codependent love comes to a forefront with each unwilling to let the other die, even at the cost of his own life. In this way not only do we begin and end with the Elrics, but we've stayed with them the entire time. 03 is a much more character driven personal story and that's where its charm lies.

My second and bigger issue with the structure of mangahood isin the way it uses large-scale tragedy to fuel its plot.

There are better posts than I can make already written about how mangahood centers the feelings of the perpetrators over the victims. What I will say is the fact that the ishbal war started due to an “accidental” hate crime against an ishbalan child by a military officer is a very sensitive topic and hits close to home (I’m American and this is a very, very relevant conflict). It feels a little in poor taste to me to take something so political and so sensitive and go ahaha but you see it was ENVY all along! Arakawa picked a very heavy subject as the backdrop for her story and sort of relegated it to that: a backdrop. What’s presented as a racially motivated genocide actually was just the bad guys being evil. It falls just short of a real, in-depth criticism of the military. Instead we are left with good men and women who were just following orders (which she DOES explore to a good extent and I appreciate how she does not shy away from making it clear what they did was unforgivable). The corrupt military being corrupt because it is the pawn of a big bad inhuman god-wannabe just... falls flat for me.

In 03, the child's murder at the hands of the police is a fabricated story created to "explain" the genocide--instigated by the military without provocation. And this happens because one, powerful human selfishly wanted to extend her own life. This is the story that feels more true to life and dares to really engage with the themes presented instead of writing them off as some plot device. Not to say that 03 didn't have its own problems with its depiction of genocide because. oh boy nazis in shamballa?? HUH!.

Anyways again these are all my opinions. I think FMA has a lot of heart, and it works best on a smaller scale in order to tell a more personal story.

#fma #fma 03 #03 gets its own tag now #if you read all this ily #peope have written much much better criticisms of how ishbal is handled than i have #anyways anon tysm for enabling me #i have a lot of feelings about this #like the final battle in brotherhood iis good its good #but at that point the series turns full shounen

[gay-robot]

okay so very rambling thoughts on undertale yellow and about clover specifically under the readmore, spoilers for all the routes

so theres a few main points about clover that color my perception of them

they repeatedly take/eat things that either arent food or are very dubious food, even by monster standards- martlet at one point comments on them grabbing food at a weird time

at one point the narration mentions that the sight of a cramped room gives them uncomfortable memories

flowey mentions that in all of the resets before the game where he watched clover, without his intervention they ALWAYS stay with toriel, every time.

so like. clover clearly hasnt had a good home life prior to the game.

and i feel like this feeds into this concept of, like. Justice™️ yk. they come down intentionally to find the other fallen children which is already like, painful amounts of self-negation/self-harm, but like this framing of it combined with what they do in a pacifist route gives me this impression that they desperately need to feel like theyre helping yk, and to me it feels like this idea has been distilled into them by their upbringing- a kid that self sacrifices to the degree of climbing mt ebott in the hopes of finding missing children, or to the degree of giving up their life in some endings, obviously does not have a healthy amount of self-worth. no matter which extreme they go for its still framed in this idea of doing something that is Just™️ in their view- BUT they're easily convinced that something is the correct choice, whether thats giving up their own life to benefit monsterkind after seeing whats happened to them as injustice, or whether its going on a rampage to "right the wrong" of the children disappearing and the fact that this initial motivation of theirs to find the children is so quickly defused by being shown genuine love and care from toriel. its only when, in previous timelines, flowey manipulates them into keeping their distance from her that they even leave the ruins and continue this idea of revenge, and even then as we see in the pacifist route they cant help but latch onto people who show them kindness. like the fact that theyre so easily defused puts them on the same level as the rest of the monsters who dont really even WANT to fight you, their only motivation being this generational trauma

like they are fundamentally a child. they have immense power in the form of the yellow justice soul but theyre a KID and so theyre easily pointed in new directions/outlets for that sense of "justice". you could even argue that them staying with toriel is learning to accept that justice is being done to them. and whats especially interesting about this is how their yellow soul powers manifest- like, for instance, the point on the no mercy route where they GAIN LV WITHOUT KILLING, something we've previously never seen. they realize that theyre face to face with someone who was immediately responsible for the death of a fallen child, and THAT causes them to immediately shoot up something like seven levels- because theyre powered by this idea of justice, or at this point closer to blind revenge. they dont have determination, they can only access the power of a human soul when its through this lens of righting a perceived wrong or getting revenge. on a pacifist route they ONLY enter the yellow soul shoot-em-up mode when their friends are blasted with an attack right next to them.

[moodymisty]

Hey! How're you doing? I hope you've been able to get some good down time :) If it's ok, I have a bit of a...writing query? How do you know which tense is best to use? I realised that I have a habit of "tense hopping" and that's why I get in a fluster when I write. Is present tense better for writing fics or is this just personal preference? (This is why I draw more than write, I am very rusty with my grammar skills lol, I'll make sure to post some tastefully horny art the ppl will approve of)

(I never know if I should answer these queries public or private, I'll answer public just in case anyone else wants to hear my deranged writing tips)

Uggghhh I'm massively guilty of this as well, especially around like a year ago when I started writing again. I had to go back and revise one of my old posted fics recently because I wrote half in present and half in past.

Putting all this under a readmore because I rambled XD

TL;DR: There really isn't a 'best tense' or anything you can apply, since they can all work. It's largely personal preference, unless you really want the reader to feel a specific way.

Generally however, if I follow one character specifically, I like to use present. Which is why many reader inserts are written in it since we're following 'ourselves' as we do things. It also seems to help readers connect more with what a character is feeling or doing in that exact moment. Present also helps if you're someone (like myself) who likes describing small or mundane details. Like how someone's hand moves, how the pins on their bag jingle. An example ↘

It isn’t as if Crosshair is exactly a stranger to watching people, given he’s someone who is far fonder of scoping out a situation from afar. But ‘scoping out the situation’ implies he’s at some point going to jump into the lake, to take a swim; He’s not, and what he’s doing seems to tread more into the lines of leering, than anything else. It makes him furious at himself for not being able to do something so simple, but no matter how much he tries, he can’t seem to get himself to do much beyond just thinking about you. It’s not like he even can get himself to stop doing that either, as he sits in front of the Marauder with his rifle in his lap. Crosshair wonders if the way your body moves is intentional; The way your hips sway, turning on a heel scurrying from task to task like you’re simply floating on air. There’s just something about you; You’re only updating a maintenance report for one of the reg starfighters to keep it on schedule, and he can barely keep his eyes on the maintenance he normally does religiously. You must be finishing up with it, because the next time he looks up you’re walking this way, waving hello to all of them. There’s not been a day since you met them where you haven’t at least tried to spare them even the tiniest moment of your time.

Meanwhile past tense is usually better the longer your work gets, or works where you're not focusing on anything or anyone super deeply. 'Past tense' also tends to be easier for people to read, and you get more flexibility with how you format the writing. For instance if you're skipping time, it's easier on readers to flow into the idea that an amount of time has passed with past tense wording. Example ↘

“It’s… Cleaner in here?” It’s not clean by any means, but stuff was off the floor, which was a major accomplishment. “Yeah, had to clean it up before we haul it back to Coruscant.” Hunter walked by Echo as he spoke, the rest not far behind. Echo closed the gangplank behind him, and gently crossed his arms as he watched Tech diligently wrap up a cable that has been laying there ever since Echo had first stepped foot in this ship. Having walked into the cockpit, he put a hand on Hunter’s seat as he looked out the viewport, before he spotted the outside of the hanger they’re currently landed in. Tech was fiddling on his datapad for a moment before they took off, having crossed his legs one way before he then swapped to the opposite. “Before? What’s the big occasion? Not that I’m complaining.” Hunter gave a small smile.

Using italics, for instance like say using them when a character is thinking of a past interaction, can be helpful for if you NEED to swap tense briefly, but don't want to jolt the reader. Forming it more as we're watching the character in the present, think of the past. Rather than sending the reader themselves to the past. Golly I hope that makes sense. Here.

He remembers the way his legs were hanging off the side of his bunk, aching and in pain after a nightmare had woken him up from his sleep. He’d been sitting just like this for ages, staring off with his heart racing in his chest before you’d come over, sitting beside him. You were quiet for a bit, with Echo silently enjoying the feeling of company. And when you did finally speak, you were offering him even more of your time than you’d already given him. ‘I think I just need some sleep. But…’ He had glanced your way and saw the dim light shadowing the edges of your features, as you looked right at him. ‘Thank you.’ Your lips pressed against the corner of his mouth, eyes closed. When you pulled away, there was tiniest smile on your face. ‘Night, Echo.’

Apologies for the tangent, and again, this is all just my personal thoughts. I have no professional writing experience beyond middle school English class. I am but a humble fic writer. But I really hope it helps! And If I didn't answer your question (I have a tendency to go off the rails) Feel free to tell me!

(exclusive image of me writing)

#follow me for more mediocre advice as I just write about dick for the 2973429742th time #forgive the ramble #I am far from a perfect writer and I'm sure posting this in a writing forum would get me torn to shreds #But I hope my advice helps none the less! If not? I sworry ;; #not writing #reply

[davepetea]

((just ranting abt writing fanfics you can ignore me lmao. I'm just in a weird place atm but I'm feeling kinda passionate abt writing rn so I'm gonna vent

originally I wrote a lil of this in the tags but then decided to just chuck it under a readmore so people aren't subjected to it against their will. then it got really long.

I'm not actually expecting anyone to read this im just sorta venting to myself. it helps me get my thoughts sorted if I write them down. I can also look back through my #.vat file tag in a few years from now and hopefully be like "wow I'm doing so much better than THAT now", so if that's the case, hi future Vatta! I hope you're having a good day. and if you're not future me, then I still hope you're having a good day, I love you, and this is your chance to turn back bc my rants are boring and LONG

(not turning back yet? ok. your funeral)

so, I haven't been online much bc I've just been in a weird limbo lately and I'm really busy when I'm at home either sorting stuff out or, with my PDA, doing anything I can to avoid my responsibilities lmao

I've been rereading my Tokyo ghoul light novels (I only have Void and Days ? I think they're called), rewatching Zankyou no Terror, and Bungou Stray Dogs (plus the live action Beast film which was? hilarious but I don't think it was supposed to be), and just suffering lmao

(you're still here? wow. you need a hobby. jk. ily)

I've been locked out of the systems at work for a bit, but I still need to be there and wait for the IT ticket to be sorted, so I've gotta be at my desk, cant have my phone or anything, so instead of sitting there doing nothing, I've either been reading, doing codeword puzzles, or I've been writing up 'drafts' for potential fanfics.

in this year of our sufferer 2024. I've been writing up some self indulgent homestuck college AU lmao. I've written over 60 sides of a5, (not inc the inbetween sections where I wrote some stuff on the chromebook at home) some notes, some accidental first draft, bc I wanted something to take up the time. but my handwriting is terrible, I don't write fast enough for my brain, I have a lil dyslexia so the letters and words get jumbled sometimes, and I have this weird thing where I don't do spaces right. but I've been trying to upload it to Google docs with Bixby's photo text extraction. it's pretty good considering how bad my writing is, then I just need to go through and touch it up, the main issues are things like names, there's some letters I do weird like my v turns into an r, or every p it thinks is a capital, but overall. amazing how technology do that.

(see my long ass rambling isn't just confined to venting. I also pretend to write actual things. you can still leave you know. I'm not holding you hostage until you read all this. you have free will)

can't remember how I ended up back in fanfic hell but I read back through like all my old published fics (aside from the cringe ones I orphaned) and the writing isn't terrible. I don't think I actually finished any of them though, which really shows my true nature lmao,,, but I've picked up a few things on my writing style now. and I've got a few things I see other people do that I wanna avoid bc I personally don't like it, and it's mostly about balance, like using names too often/not enough, being too descriptive like All The Time and making the writing really nice, but not much happens in the story so you take like an hour to read each scene, vs not enough description so everything is happening but you don't really get a visual or a breather to appreciate what's happened so far. I've been working on finding my right balance, which is imo easier if you're writing fanfic bc first up you hardly ever have to describe the characters. if someone's reading it they already know who they are. and for scenes you can take some inspo from the source material. does the original work put alot of effort into setting a cool scene? if not, then you don't have to either! if it's 90% scenery then you've gotta do it too I don't make the rules

I'm losing steam now I'm so sleepy and I've gotta go to work in a bit ugh.

(bet you're sleepy reading this too huh. told you it'd be boring)

I've been thinking about trying out writing some BSD fics but on an anonym not linked to my main Ao3, bc the themes are doozys and I kinda just wanna have the freedom of anonymity. also I'm a baby and if someone publicly criticises my stuff without it being a requested critique then it makes me bleh (I've had a few comments in the past of just general negatives, not even constructive feedback, not that I asked for any anyway...), but the abilities are tricky to write for, so it's effort lol

anyway I'm gonna stop now ive gotta get ready for work

(if you actually read this then thanks for going on this emotion deep dive with me. tune in next week when we'll get back to my usual mental breakdown)

#ooc post. #.vat file #genuinely I haven't been online on any blogs lately bc I'm doing. v bad. mental wise. #/rant off

[smallraindrops-blog]

Some wmftd and hades 2 rambles I wanted to share:

Possible Hades 2 Spoilers !

Hypnos with long hair makes me imagine y/n learning how to braid his hair to make it a bit more manageable

Also I feel like seeing hypnos with his long hair would make y/n want to try growing out his beard (achilles sheds a tear when he sees it bc his son now looks like his pa)

Rule #34 by Fish in a Birdcage reminds me of y/n and hypnos in the pirate au

The amount of angst you could get if hypnos actually does fall into a sleeping coma in the second game 💀 (reminds me a lot of the part closer to the end of wmftd)

I wonder if achilles and patroclus will ever meet odysseus in the second game (how would y/n act if he met him lol)

Imagine y/n and hypnos babysitting baby melinoe when zagreus goes on his runs 🥹 (maybe that would spark their desire for their own children ?)

The wmftd brainrot is getting stronger every day, but I'm glad I stumbled upon this blog <3

AHHHH i love these, legit making me feral rn. Same on the brainrot, my friend. I’m happy you found this blog too <3

Placing my replies and a little short story under the readmore. <3

Y/N would definitely braid Hypnos’ hair for him. Also he wouldn’t be able to cope with how pretty Hypnos is with long hair. Like he totally gets tongue tied just looking at him. He is so fucking pretty.help.

OH AND THE BEARD

I actually hc that Y/N rocked a short beard while working as a fisherman. He was shaved by the time he died because beards are often used as a grapple point during fights so he knew better than to have one.

Until they showed us Skelly I wasn’t sure if Shades could change their form like growing their hair but it looks like they can. (If Skelly counts as a shade, I am not certain where the lines between shades and undead are drawn.) 

But anyway, yeah. Funny enough, I was wondering how to show how time passed for Y/N and was considering having him grow a beard anyway lol.

Achilles would love seeing his son with a beard, Pat too. They would probably joke about him actually being a long-long family member that Pat didn’t know about.

However if I think what happens in Hades 2 actually happens, Y/N will grow the beard while apart from Hypnos. (Thanks depression! 👍)

I haven't talked about it yet but I suspect that Y/N and Hypnos will end up losing each other during the chaos and he is either trapped, helping Hermes or otherwise unable to find Hypnos. He has no clue where Hypnos is and just wants to find him.

Looked up the song, and dude that is immediately going on the playlist. Thank you for introducing me to them.

yeah, def. I’m willing to bet the Hades dev.team had their reasons for Hypnos being comatose. What I hope is that Melinoe still likes Hypnos after he wakes up ( bonus point for everyone if she actually thinks he is the funniest person around)

I hope those met up! It would be like running into that one coworker you dislike while in the dairy section at the grocery store and they won’t shut up and leave you alone. ( i love all three of them, those adorable old war criminals <3)

AHHH. Baby Melinoe!

Baby Melinoe is baby fever on crack, i adore her and will happily fight an undead army for her.

I personally think Hypnos is someone who always wanted kids, especially since he is kinda a big kid himself and would be one of those parents who could play all kinds of silly games with their kids.

Kids were kinda never on Y/N’s radar. There was his own trauma, the war then being on the run. Maybe in a lavender marriage, he might have a kid or two but it wasn’t something he seeked out. Seeing how happy it made Hypnos definitely planted the seed for him. I like to think Y/N would actually be a natural parent with kids.

I can’t articulate my level of love for her so here you go, a wholesome short for making past my rambling lol 

(The short)

The news of Princess Melinoe’s arrival was a welcome one in the house of Hades. It was as if the whole house had transformed around the little princess, there was a warmth, a sense of love, to the house that wasn’t there before.

You were going over the newly increased list of security measures that Master Hades demanded and Queen Persephone had politely requested. You had implemented countless measures leading up to the birth and more afterward but there was always more work to be done.

“Oh look who I found, Princess!” Hypnos’ voice reached your ears and you looked up to see Hypnos grinning at you, the aforementioned Princess Melinoe in his arms. At your questioning glance, Hypnos explained that he was on babysitting duty. 

“Besides, I am way more fun than your older brother, huh?” Hypnos cooed at baby Melinoe, tickling under her chin. The baby girl cooed back in delighted, high pitch sounds that only a newborn could make, little bubbles forming her lips and down her chin.

Normally Hypnos was extremely fussy about his cloak but grabbing an edge of it, he just wiped Melinoe’s drool away without complaint, his smile never fading.

Then, he lifted an expected brow at you. You looked at the baby in Hypnos’ arms, happily blabbering away. You never been around kids, not really. You weren’t sure if the little princess could even see past her small nose. 

She looked tiny and precious. And very, very fragile.

Hypnos laughed quietly. “She isn’t scary, dearest. You can tell her ‘hello’.”

”Hello.” You told her. Her eyes widen, staring up at you with wide mismatched irises. As if she was realizing you were right there. She blinked slowly. 

”Try giving her your finger.” Hypnos encouraged, and after a moment of hesitation, you obeyed.

Princess Melinoe grabbed at your finger with considerable strength and simply held on, staring at you with a surprisingly serious expression, blabbering away in nonsense. 

You made the appropriate noises like you could understand her and repeated, ‘indeed, Princess.’ along with ‘you are definitely much smarter than your brother.’

A smile formed on your face without you noticing.

You didn’t see the soft way Hypnos glanced at you, realizing the quiet hope that was forming in his chest. When it was time for Hypnos to return Princess Melinoe to her mother, you didn’t know that Hypnos was already putting together a conversation to have with you later.

You never knew.

[myrddin-wylt]

that same British anon here

You know what. Yes I will take Ukraine to be the point of reference here, Ukraine know what they're trying to do and are trying to fucking do it, I can respect that.

But yes I've noticed that all the germans I've known are very scared to criticise the government, and I'm not sure why, might just be a culture difference considering the bullshit the tabloids do here, but they seem genuinely a little afraid

imo Britain's problem in general is that while plenty of Brits can agree that the current situation is Very Not Good, even a riot ain't gonna do shit if it isn't goal-oriented and 100% clear what tangible action people want the government to take, and I imagine there's currently a lot of disagreement rn. like the French have a very clear tangible thing they want from Macron: repeal the law raising the retirement age. Euromaidan had clear goals: Yanukovych needed to resign and the Azarov government be dissolved only being the first of a very long list. also I'm putting this under a readmore because I love to ramble.

as a wider, historical uprising example - and please excuse me for coming off as like, US-obsessed patriot American I swear it's just the document really is written as just a perfect example - the US Declaration of Independence is really fascinating to read because it is literally a list of tangible grievances. 'we are angry and have provided you with a list as to why: because you did [a], [b], [c] etc concrete actions. so we are gonna do [x], [y], and [z] (which just so happen to be high treason).'

so grievances like 'being a tyrant' isn't enough, nor is 'hey I can't afford to heat my house or go to the doctor because you fucking suck at running the country, fix this shit.' ya gotta pick a very specific action, and that's not something I think the general British population has agreed on yet? I mean, yall are very good at getting Prime Ministers to resign (and without needing to use violence to do so), which is a very concrete action! and I'm not saying that sarcastically or in a mean way, I really am being genuine. like the Germans could fucking never. Americans could never, or else Trump would've resigned during his term. so I'm still holding out hope for yall and you know what, what does it matter anyway how many PMs you've had in however many years, as long as the transition of power was peaceful and legal? it's better to swap em out as needed than cling onto one that has shown to be Not The One. like what are you, fuckin Catholic or something? divorce them. serve them the papers. also I really, really do not know nearly enough about domestic UK politics in the last 25 years to be making any of the statements in this paragraph but that won't stop me because I'm an American!

......re: the Germans, hm. I thought they were more complacent than scared, but if they are scared it's presumably because the freedom of speech laws in Germany are............ well, the Network Enforcement Act is not helping. in any case, the Germans have always erred toward the side of censorship when it comes to the freedom of speech/hate speech/misinformation dilemma so maybe there's a cultural attitude of "better to be silent and let others think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt," if that makes sense? maybe they're less concerned about the government censorship and more about social censure/conforming to popular opinion, idk. I feel like I'd have to be fluent in German to be able to understand the attitudes there. you'd need to ask a German about that.

#ask #anon #silly #or at least I'm being silly. gotta break up the monotony #look you gotta admit it's fun to yell. rolls right off the tongue #yall need to come up with a new demonym because yelling I'M A BRIIIIIIIT or I'M BRIIITIIIIIIISH isn't near as fun as I'M AN AMERICAAAAAAN #it just linguistically doesn't work as well

[sege-h]

Thoughts on the State of Play reveal

Under a readmore just in case

1- I know I said I'd keep the Son*dow tag blocked for a bit after Prime ended but I think I'll keep it blocked till the end of the year now lmao

2- I know the rumor has been going around since yesterday but I took it with a grain of salt since it's. Yknow. A rumor. But even when I let myself think 'what if its real tho' this is SO FAR FROM WHAT I EXPECTED. A!!! I thought at most we'd get is a remaster that'd also make Shadow playable! As soon as I saw the new level I was like WAIT WHAT. WAIT WHAT!!?!? and it just kept going from there!!!

I'm so happy we'll be getting a HD biolizard fight! He'll no longer be contained to the 3DS! Also from what little we saw Shadow will get to have some dynamic posing in the boss fights, like Super Sonic did in Frontiers. Good! I loved those!

3- Ian Flynn has #KnowingSmile'd the announcement and I'm hoping this means he got to write for whatever new content there is.

And speaking of Frontiers! I'm hoping that this ends up being Shadow's 'Frontiers' moment. In that his writing and character get what Amy's, Tails', and Knuckles' did in Frontiers.

4-I had the stream off to the side in another tab since I wasn't interested in most of what was shown. And then I heard the first few notes of the Generations music and i immediately switched tabs and I just!!! Feel like I did in 2011 except my computer/internet is way better, and you tube is shittier!

5- I'm excited for this for such Me reasons. For those new here- I live in a country that had no Sonic stuff for...well, never, really. Not until about 2022. The second movie did what I'd hoped the first movie would do (but then the pandemic happened) and brought over Sonic stuff here. For the first time in my life I went to a toy store here and it had Sonic stuff. I got to buy physical Sonic comics for the first time. For the first time in my life I can go to a video game store and actually see Sonic games there. It's been wild

That being said, 2011 had Nothing. Sonic Generations came out. And I didn't want to pirate it because a friend of mine had worked on it. I was determined to find it. And I only saw it irl one time- for the Playstation. A console I've never had. It was pretty upsetting! I remember posting about it here even....I've been on tumblr too long SHDGSHDHS

Later I'd find that there was a 3DS version. I have that! So I looked for that version of it alongside the PC one

So, for almost a decade, I looked, to no avail. And for this whole time I refused to look at any playthroughs! Any knowledge I had on whats in the game came from the trailers we saw

And then in 2019 my best friend helped me buy the 3DS version. I had 9 dollars on my 3DS and whenever the game went on sale it'd be on for 10 dollars. So he gave me a dollar and helped me get it SHDGSHDH

So I finally experienced Generations! It was surprise after surprise in that one, because I knew it was different but I didn't know how. I didn't expect a Rush level in it, or for the Biolizard to be in there!

And then in late 2020 when I got my new computer and could finally get steam, another close friend got me Generations for the PC! I'd somehow managed to dodge spoilers on it all those years so all I knew about it was: Theres Green Hill, Chemical Plant, City Escape, and a Silver boss fight.

I got to play modern City Escape for myself- which is the level that inspired the current iteration of my main OC, Storm. It was a joy

All this rambling to say...it's wild to think that once this remaster comes out, I'll be able to get it day 1, at least I hope I will. Still-it won't take me almost a decade to get to it

And if there's a physical release? I'll be able to go to a store here- HERE, not in one of our neighboring countries, not from somewhere else, but in a store here. Right across the street. And I'll finally have a physical copy of Generations. That was my final goal with the game-- I love it, I have two versions of it! And the plan was always that even though I'd gotten to play them now, if I ever ran into a physical copy of the game, I'd buy it. And now I'll really get to do it

6- Bonus thought of me being silly: Wowow my OC was shown at the State of Play--

#Personal #Sonic spoilers #Generations #Sege rambles

[frecklystars]

Im so sorry to hear what happened to you. You deserve to be happy and enjoy what you used to love. You deserve to be able to reclaim the things that became a trigger to you. Starscream would absolutely never hurt you- he cares about you and wants you to feel better. No matter how long it may take, he'll wait for you if/when you are ready to be with him again. Even if you can't, he truly wants you to be happy. He wants to see you smile and laugh and enjoy things without worry. I know it's tough to overcome something that feels like its been branded into your being, but everything heals with time. I wholeheartedly hope you can enjoy transformers again, and i sincerely believe that you will recover from this, no matter how long it takes. I'm just a random anon on tumblr, but i promise that there are more people like me who care for you. You deserve happiness.

Thank you anon. Thank you so much. I love how you worded all of this... I hope you don't mind I wanted to keep your ask in my inbox for a few days bc I wanted to go back and read it some more. I've been so heavily depressed since I've lost transformers. There's this heavy physical weight in my chest, like I've lost a part of myself ever since I lost these characters that are so deeply personal to me. It's one thing to lose a special interest when you have to depend on it to get through the day, but it's a whole new level to lose it due to trauma. This has never happened to me before, I didn't know it was possible for me to ever be afraid of Starscream. He has always felt like my soulmate, I felt like nothing could ever make me believe he'd love me any less for any reason, let alone the idea that he'd enjoy hurting me so violently. I will never be able to put into proper words how devastating this has felt for almost a year now, how horrifying it felt feeling them slip away from me one by one by one in the span of just 2 or 3 months, until finally Starscream was the last one that turned into a trigger in January. I feel like I'm trying to drag myself out of a deep dark pit and I can't find my way up to the surface. It has really been "branded into my being" as you put it, I was disrespected for so long, and having my F/Os turned into a trigger at the same time made me believe that they really would want me to be disrespected too, that they'd find me unworthy of love or kindness solely because of the person who treated me that way, and how much I had associated these characters with that person. It hurts so bad. I just want them back. I miss Starscream the most and I'd do anything to feel safe around him again, even if it is ever impossible for me to reclaim the others, Starscream means everything to me and losing him was like losing a piece of my own beating heart. I really believed we were soulmates (in self shipping terms) and I still want to believe that, despite how scared of him I feel on my worst days, and how much I cry missing him every day. Bee, Knockout, Arcee, Bulkhead, Megatron, everyone, all of them used to make me feel so comforted even when I felt like I couldn't go on anymore, now I don't have them to rely on when i need them the most and it's so fucking empty. It feels like someone ripped my heart out, now there's this whole vital piece of me that's missing.

(whoops I ended up rambling a lot so I'm putting the rest under a readmore, you don't have to read it if you don't want to. contains a bit of venting and some thank-you's for your very kind message and how your words have helped me feel comforted)

I feel so incomplete without my transformers F/Os to encourage me to keep going. Flinching and crying at so many of them feels so awful, and then there's those specific 5 or 6 characters that I can't even look at without having an anxiety attack, which feels so dumb every time I think about it. I know they're fictional, but they're so important to me, self shipping and escaping into fictional worlds has always been my coping mechanism. I never thought somebody could ruin that for me. I need to self ship, ever since I was little I have always needed a character to hold my hand through my worst times. I remember being three years old and my first self indulgent drawing was a scribbly crayon picture where Spongebob is holding my hand while we're jellyfishing and we're surrounded by heart-shaped jellyfish. And I remember I was crying while drawing it because I was so sad that my parents were always working and hardly ever talking to me. It's one of my earliest memories. It never got better. I was such a lonely kid growing up and now I am such a lonely adult and I've always needed F/O companionship. Having that torn away from me from so so so many tiny betrayals of one person, over and over again, it was hell to go through for so goddamn long and it's been hell to deal with the aftermath of it.

Thank you for the written reminder that they wouldn't hurt me. Honestly I cried a little reading that, not in a bad way or anything, I just. I need that reminder so often, probably every day. I don't know how to make it stick in my brain again. I don't know how to go back to the way I used to feel so wholly and unconditionally loved without anything holding me back. I want to believe that they wouldn't hurt me deep down, and I know that love is still in me somewhere. I know I can feel that love from him if I don't give up, I know something, anything can bring it back, I just can't figure out what. I don't know how much healing progress I'll have to do first, I don't know if I have to rewatch these shows and just push through the anxiety attacks or something, I don't know if I need to simply not rewatch these shows until the ptsd is easier to deal with, I don't know if I just need to cry and grieve when they're on the screen and let those feelings pass through me, I don't know if I need to draw myself with a transformer every day, I don't know if I have to avoid drawing them entirely. I don't know. I am so lost here. I was in such a bad predicament for almost a full year so I know it's going to take me a long time to recover from it, as much as I wish I could just heal overnight. I didn't escape my abusive situation until a month and a half ago, so now I'm really starting to process what happened to me.

She has a lot of friends/followers who are trying to attack me, which is another layer of stupidity to deal with, I hear she's writing rumors about me and tagging me, I don't know how true that is because I am not looking it up. I don't want to even know these things in general, I don't care what she posts about me, it's her blog and her way of coping I guess, but I just want her to never speak to me again. Or her followers, I want her supporters to leave me alone, none of this is even their business. Some of her friends are apparently writing posts about me where they want me to "get assaulted and killed" (???) which I obviously haven't looked up, I'm just blocking the usernames that my friends are telling me to block. I'm just trying to heal from all the shit I endured. I want to heal. I just try to remember the handful of particular messages I got from people who said "hey that person abused me too, you're not alone, she ruined transformers for me at one point too, you're not alone and you're not going crazy just because other people are excusing her actions. just because she's struggling does not mean she gets to hurt others" and I try to remember I have almost four hundred supportive messages in my inbox and dms right now, all of you telling me that i can do this, that I never lost my love from my F/Os, they are still with me even if I can't feel it *for now*. The harassment from others is like tiny crumbs, so miniscule compared to the love I am receiving. I'm trying to focus on the encouragement and love thrown my way, but on my rough days like today, everything just feels so heavy. I can't carry this grief on my own. I was isolated for so long. I have never felt this bad before. I really really really need help, I can't do this by myself anymore...

God. It feels so impossible to reclaim my love from these characters when it hurts so bad. I feel so fucking hopeless. My damage done to me was so severe I'm so scared I can't possibly be myself again. But I have no choice but to try, what else can I do?? I can't let it end this way, I just can't, I love them so much and they saved my life for three years, I can't just drop them. It's so unfair that I have to go through this at all, I didn't deserve what happened to me. I will get them back if it takes me days or weeks or months or years. It's been almost half a year since these triggers formed, I'm ready to try to reclaim a few of them now bc I hate living like this. but it's so fucking hard some days especially with the niche triggers that aren't TF related. Like today I'm fine with 1 trigger but I'm hurting at 9 others. Tomorrow I might be fine with all of them except for 2. I don't know. And transformers... that always hurts in some way, not necessarily anxiety inducing as badly as it did 6 months ago, but now I'm always crying when I see them, I'm always feeling this missing piece of myself hollow in my chest when I look at these comfort characters. I miss them so much. I miss Starscream so much. I miss Megatron. I miss Bumblebee. I miss Heatwave. I miss like 50 billion of them. I miss listening to my ship playlists, there's very few songs that don't remind me of them, so not being able to listen to music is rly harmful for me too. I miss myself. I haven't been myself in so long. I have no clue who I am right now. I haven't been inside of my body in a few days either. I am so numb.

I probably should have kept your message in my inbox a little longer, seems like I still need it ^^;; but I'll just go back and read it again when I click my anon tag.

Thank you for sending this. Everything you said is extremely comforting to me. Please know that it's because of messages like yours that I am able to gather a small bit of strength to get back up every time I am knocked down.

I am relieved you think I can recover, I am relieved to hear that you believe in me, because I am not strong enough to believe in myself just yet. You're not just "a random anon on tumblr" as you said, to me you're a sweet person somewhere in this world who sent me kind words when you knew I needed them. Thank you. ❤

#keepsake #anonymous #asks #sorry my response is so long

[asmallermorehonestsoul]

Now that you mention it, what percentage of RWBYJNO even *knew* any grandparents? Weiss sure did, Jaune *probably* has, Oscar might...Nora certainly doesn't, and I have capital-D doubts about Blake (because persecution) or the Patch Megacabin Sisters (because cryptic traumatized magic special ops family).

HEADCANON/THEORY/RAMBLE TIME I have thoughts

Under readmore not to be annoying

First, Ruby and Yang:

Qrow and Raven are the ones I feel most comfortable theorizing here. I think they were taken in during a raid very young, and didn't have any specific parental figures given Raven says "the tribe" raised them (now whether their bio parents died before or during the raid... hmmm...) but yep they would not know much on that front

Summer... I am presuming she had at least one silver-eyed parent who was killed by Salem's forces. As for the other, I don't know.

Tai's I really don't know. Either the other Rose and Xiao Long parents are dead, or are very estranged/jerks not come help after Summer died. Neither is a good option, so it doesn't seem the girls would now much.

Weiss: Well, I'm sure she has met Nicholas and Nana Schnee (as dubbed by Chibi) but between Jacques' shady dealings and Nick's poor health, I don't imagine she saw them frequently. Jacques probably shuffled them off somewhere to keep them from interfering w his way of running the business.

As for the Gelés, I already made a post but to repeat, I could see Jacques ditching them when he managed to get Willow. I doubt the Schneeblings have met them (but I hope they are nice and do get to meet their grandkids)

Blake: I would have to agree that she has at least one grandparent she lost to violence... possibly the Faunus War itself since the timeline seems plausible. Furthermore it seems probable she travelled around often as a child with Kali and Ghira while they were active in the WF. So not many chances to know them. I made a post saying I think Kali's parents lived in Mistral based on a portrait in the home though. (I can imagine they got to say hello between Vols 5 and 6)

Jaune: He did have a line about his paternal grandfather in Jaunedice Pt. 2. saying "My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors! They were all heroes!" It's likely Jaune met him, but whether he died in the line of duty or is just retired I don't know. We also don't get anything concrete about his other grandparents though.

Nora: Yeeeep, I doubt she knew her grandparents given her backstory, even if she references her grandma in Chibi. I won't forget when a lot of poeple thought it was Fria though I suppose there is a question of how Nora and her mom ended up in that state to start with.

You said JNOR but I still want to bring up my headcanon of Pyrrha having only her mom, so no for her.

Oscar was being raised by his aunt. We don't know his backstory, but if his grandparents are alive they were not willing or not able to care for him. Any of those is as likely as the others.

I just made that post for Ren so yes, but maybe he met them a few times, or more frequently depending on how long they lived in Kuroyuri

#anon #rwby #ruby rose #yang xiao long #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #oscar pine #pyrrha nikos #lie ren #whitley schnee #winter schnee #willow schnee #jacques schnee #kali belladonna #ghira belladonna #taiyang xiao long #summer rose #raven branwen #qrow branwen #TAGS FOR EVERYONE #rwby headcanon #can u tell i was hoping someone would ask this sadfsdfdf