#but then most of what i don't post i don't like either

[cripplecharacters]

Do you have any tips (or previous posts) about how to write a young person who’s first-time cane user? This one is for a character who escapes a lifetime of being experimented on, and learns in the aftermath of being rescued that this rather compromised her ability to walk well again. I’ve written characters with other mobility devices for getting around. But never canes. I myself am physically disabled but have never needed anything like these before. I’m always eager to learn.

Hi!

If your character is a first time cane user, here's some things that could happen:

She will need to learn how to walk with the cane first. When you're starting, it's easy to mess up (though it could be my dyspraxia speaking) and overfocus on how you should walk because you're just getting used to it. She could randomly stop and correct her gait, or look down a lot to check if she's still doing the motion (left arm and right leg forward, or the other way around).

She's probably gonna drop that thing a lot. Especially if she has a weaker grip in the cane hand - now, I don't have this problem (the opposite, rather) - but the overall thing is a really common occurrence for most of us. Walking and hit the smallest pebble imaginable? Cane on the ground, somehow. Tried putting it against the wall or table? It's on the ground. And then you need to reach for it... it's a struggle sometimes.

If she's not helped in picking the cane, she will spend some time figuring out what grip and height are comfortable for her. (Grip depends on personal preference, no one's preference has ever been the doorknob handle, height is generally to the person's wrist from the ground up.) I think that this could be an interesting opportunity to talk about disabled communities - maybe she's frustrated with the process and goes to an older (more experienced) cane user to help her?

If it's during the winter, her hand is gonna be freezing - and the opposite in the summer - and she might not be prepared for it. The handle can get HOT and it can be an issue. Depending on what her actual disability is, she might try switching which hand to hold it in. If she's able to do that, another character could warm up her cold hand :)

The first couple of times walking with a cane are an Experience. You feel way better, but also everyone is suddenly staring. Some people care about that, some don't. But it can be somewhat overwhelming either way.

Spatial awareness is gonna suck at first. She will bump into what feels like everything with the cane. Especially doorframes. It's always doorframes for some reason. Or mess up and have her cane slip down because she hasn't realized how close to the curb she was.

She will hit her shin. It will hurt.

She's probably going to be speedy with that thing! Getting a cane is like getting a speed boost. Without it, I have episodes where I'm extremely slow (my highest, extreme-pain speed would be slower than a person walking very casually) and with it, I'm faster than a lot of able-bodied people! It's fun and she would have fun with it.

She will not know what to do with the cane when she doesn't need it. For me, using backpacks always cause issues because I don't know how to hold it without dropping it, but I also need to swap hands, something gets stuck on the handle... it's a whole process that takes a comical amount of time at first. Same when going to the public bathroom, where are you putting it when you aren't using it...? It's a lot of trial and error and a lot of "eww, my cane just touched the dirtiest surface humanly imaginable".

In the real world, people are (overly) interested in young cane user's business and tend to stare a lot. Now, it doesn't have to be like this in your story, but it's often just an annoying part of life. Your character might feel awkward and feel like she needs to explain herself, but this goes away after some time. You just get desensitized after a while.

In the real world, people are sometimes interested and nice about it! For example, a lot of older people can be insecure about using a cane, exactly like younger people. I've heard stories about older people asking younger users where they got their cane from, how are they so confident with it, etc. Another opportunity for a disabled community moment!

I hope that my suggestions were helpful, it's been a while since I was a first-time cane user so I wrote down what I still remember, haha.

Mod Sasza

Hi!

I agree with Sasza on pretty much every point and wanted to add some things from my own experience.

It's really, really hard to hold both a cane and an umbrella at the same time. Sometimes I'll give up and get wet. Sometimes I'll give up and store the cane. She might do either of those, depending on what she hates more: being wet or walking without the cane. Or she could get a raincoat if that works for her.

Speaking of umbrellas, sometimes you need your umbrella and you need your cane and you also need a free hand. This Sucks. What I do for this sometimes (and maybe she or other people have better, smarter, more useful solutions than this) is shove my umbrella into my shirt or backpack strap or something, so the umbrella is Held Up by it. This is not very effective, and will not last long. But if I need to look up a map on my phone or adjust something on my clothes or get my keys, it can work. Sort of.

Just like mod Sasza said, people will take interest in your cane, younger and older alike. I've had people of all ages compliment my cane (it has flowers) as well as people of all ages tell me I'm too young to need a cane or ask what's wrong with me. An older woman once asked me where I got my cane as she had been wanting a 'pretty' one, and that was a nice moment.

She might develop a new awareness of mobility aid users. When you're new at using one and trying to figure it out, you're probably going to be frustrated, because it's a new skill like any other. But it might make her (like it made me) notice more people using canes. It's not that I never saw them before, but that they were more common than I ever thought, and I never would have noticed how common it was if I hadn't had to slow down and practice my skill.

Cane tips get dirty, and cane tips wear out. These both depend on where your character is using her cane (outdoors vs indoors, scratchy asphalt vs smooth wood) as well as how often. A cane with a worn-out rubber tip really sucks and is more unstable and if the cane is made of aluminum and the tip is worn out and you hit the cane the wrong way, you can damage the cane. Ask me how I know.

That's all I can think of right now that I had to learn to deal with when I started! As you can see I still don't have a solution to the rain thing and it's been like two and a half years...

- mod Sparrow

#mod sasza #maybe-its-beyond-words #canes #mod Sparrow #mobility aids

[moonlit-heartbreak]

Love Languages

Xaden, Liam, Bodhi, Garrick x Reader Warnings: Slight spoilers for FW and IF, some suggestive comments and themes but nothing too explicit a/n: I love these men a little bit too much, so now you all get to enjoy my takes on each of their love languages for my first post🤭. It’s a little short and all over the place, but once my finals are over expect some longer works. Definitely let me know what you all think!

Xaden - Acts of Service

Listen, he's an important guy both as wingleader and a lieutenant and now in being on the front lines of a war, so he has to make sure to keep everyone's respect, and of course keep them all a little scared of him, so he can't get all lovey-dovey with you in public

Instead I see him being big on acts of service. Leaving you an extra piece of bread he grabbed at breakfast that morning, sharpening your swords/daggers so you're set to go for training, things of that nature

He would want to be there for you and let you know that he's looking out for you and acts of service is the perfect way for him to do that subtly but still being more involved in directly making you happy

Don't get me wrong though, when you're alone the acts of service definitely don't stop and he's good at what he does. With this I don’t mean JUST sex (even though it’d be amazing), but he would also love to brush your hair, give you a massage, whatever he can do to make you feel loved and cared for after a long day of classes and training

If there’s something specific you liked back home like a specific snack or item just know that once he finds out he’s going to be bribing one of the fliers to get it for him during a supply run so he can surprise you with it just so he can see your face light up

It works out perfect for you because not only is he making you feel like the most special person in the world with everything he does for you and how well he knows you, but getting perks like him keeping you off the schedule for your least favorite chores doesn't hurt either

The moral of the story is that he would literally do anything to make you happy, and despite how tough he acts you've got him completely wrapped around you finger

Liam - Words of Affirmation

For someone who's experienced so much loss before, he still manages to be SO kind and caring and this would 100% come through in the way he acts with his significant other, especially in terms of how he speaks to them

In public this would probably come off more as supportive and encouraging comments, helpful tips for training, or even just a quick compliment thrown in here or there. He's one of the more laid back out of all of the guys, but he still knows not to let his kindness be mistaken for weakness or allow anyone to try and use you against him, so he's careful to keep a good balance of keeping his guard up and being sweet with you

With that though, neither of you really have anything to worry about. He's the strongest cadet in his year and he trusts that you can hold your own so he'd still be pretty open with you in public

He's the type of guy who would never want to say goodbye without an 'I love you" thrown in there, even if you'd had a disagreement or you're (somehow) upset with him. Words are so important to him and he's going to make sure to tell you how he feels no matter what

I mean think about it, with all those letter he wrote to Sloane this man is a master at communication and he knows how to do it well

SO good at reassuring you. Ever doubting yourself or your abilities? Worried you’re not being a good enough partner? Nervous about opening up to him about something? He knows exactly what to say to calm you down or make you feel better every single time without fail. He just has such a way with words, and when he speaks to you in that soft "everything's going to be alright" voice there's no way you wouldn't feel at least a bit better

I have no doubt in my mind that he would have the sweetest nicknames for you and know exactly what to say when you need it, he’s just the sweetest thing to grace the continent and you’ll be reminded of that every time he speaks his sweet words that make your heart flutter

Bodhi - Physical Touch

This man... I definitely see him lovinggg physical touch. He needs you like he needs air to breathe and he isn't afraid to let the rest of the world know it

He's a confident guy so naturally he'd love to show off his significant other; walking with an arm slung over your shoulder or around your waist, sitting right next to you during meals so that your arms and legs brush against each other, holding hands or even just loosely linking your fingers together while you study, he loves it all

You two have definitely been told to get a room once or twice during training when your sparring sessions get a little too intense (gods bless the innocent bystanders who have to bear witness to that, especially the poor boys who are practically his brothers)

Obviously he knows how to balance his leadership responsibilities with spending time with you so he knows when he has to take a step back and get serious, but trust me, every chance he gets he's finding a way to be right next to you

When you guys are alone... oh boy get ready to be next to him all night long. Whether you’re laying together on one of your beds just talking before you settle in to sleep for the night, sitting on his lap while you both work on your own assignments, showering together, he’ll find a way to make everything a team effort just to be as close to you as possible

Don’t worry though, he knows when to give you your space so if there’s ever a day where you simply want a little alone time he would never push any boundaries and would respect whatever you wanted. However, if you’re trying to avoid him because you’re upset or anything of that nature he’s going to figure out what’s wrong and make sure you’re alright

Bodhi Durran the man that you are... At the end of the day he would be such a sweet partner to you and all of his actions, from full on cuddling to just brushing past each other briefly in the hallway, proves to you every day that he adores you

Garrick - Quality Time

Garrick is definitely more on the serious side, especially in public, but don't underestimate him as a partner because this man knows how to make you feel loved

Being close to you serves multiple purposes for him; it lets him keep an eye on you to make sure you're safe, and it simply brings him the sense of comfort he always gets from being near you

He’s super secure in himself and you, not doubting either of your abilities or your love for one another but just getting to be around you makes him happy. Whether it be sitting together to study, you talking his ear off about whatever antics you and your squad got up to that day, or even just training at the same time even if you’re on opposite sides of the gym sparring with different partners. Spending time with you or just being near each other is how he shows that he's there for you and that he loves you so he'll take whatever time he can get

With spending so much time with you and the fact that he’s a very observant guy, he would be able to read you like a book. There’s no hiding how you’re feeling because he’ll pick up on all of your little tells and know exactly how to go about making you feel better

Along with how observant he is and how deeply he knows you, I also feel like he would give amazing advice too. Disagreement with a friend? Not able to get the hang of a new weapon you’ve been training with? Stressed about an exam and not sure how to study? He has advice for all of it, and he knows when to step in and help you but also when you’ll want to be left alone to figure things out yourself

Whenever you both get a day off (which wouldn’t be often, I mean you have a war to prepare for) it’s always spent together. When you’re able to get some time together in Aretia, he’d take you to some tucked away corner of Riorson House him and Xaden would hang out in as kids just so you could get a few uninterrupted moments alone together, which you both cherish more and more as you inevitably get busier

He might be one of the most intimidating out of all of his friends and arguably out of most other riders as well, but underneath that sexy muscly exterior, he’s got a crazy soft spot for you; and while it might not be fully apparent to anyone who isn’t looking closely enough, you know just how much he loves you and that’s all that matters to the two of you

#fourth wing #fourth wing x reader #iron flame #iron flame x reader #xaden riorson #liam mairi #bodhi durran #garrick tavis #xaden riorson x reader #liam mairi x reader #bodhi durran x reader #garrick tavis x reader

[mangokabuto]

Proof of Usopp and Nami being Luffy’s vice/co captains? I would (genuinely!) love to see your thoughts and evidence, bc big agree

(Context:)

Hello anonymous tumblr-using friend!

As someone with a lot of knowledge of & a great passion for real-life historical piracy, I have VERY STRONG OPINIONS about how the Strawhat crew would fit into an actual golden age crew structure. When I said "I have proof" I was jokingly referring to my knowledge of historical piracy and how the characters slot into those trends, not any sort of "in-anime/manga proof" of Usopp and Nami being ""co-captains"" with Luffy, so if that's what you're here for then sorry lol.

BUT if you want to learn a little about golden age western-world piracy, (and my "au" of sorts for how each crewmate would be recognized in that context,) stick around! :)

(extremely long explanation under cut LMFAO)

First off, as i said in my heated/j tags, "captain" did not usually mean what Oda makes it mean in OP's world. I am ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN Oda is just as passionate about & did plenty of research about historical piracy, and is clearly pulling a little from wakō history, but mostly from golden-age western piracy (specifically mostly the post-spanish succession period, to my estimation).

That being said. Why he puts so much emphases on Captains and First Mates is BEYOND me, because irl they were not as important.

The captain WAS important, don't get me wrong, but they weren't the sole reigning commander of a ship. They were more like a figurehead, most of the time. This is a sortof flimsy metaphor, but think of Captains like the modern-day king or queen of England; They're hyped up as the #1 leader, they're an important charismatic face for the group, and they technically have last-say on important matters, but they are beholden to two other groups (like the cabinet and the prime minister).

During the golden age of piracy, most crews were commanded by a group of three people. These three people were usually the Captain, the Quartermaster, and the Bosun. Each filled a different role on the ship, and all three were democratically elected by the crew. In all important matters, the three would discuss together how to proceed/solve the current problem, and though the Captain COULD overrule the other two at any time, that typically got him handily shoved overboard via mutiny. By technicality there was a heirarchy of power between the three stations, (with Captain usually being the top dog, then the Quartermaster, then the Bosun just above the rest of the crew,) but in practice they held equal sway in decisions that would effect the entire crew.

HOWEVER, outside of "big crew-wide decision-making moments" where you needed to assemble the three leaders, they didn't always have to coordinate. Depending on what situation the crew was currently in, one of them would be de-facto in charge of the crew, and the other two would step back unless the one currently in charge did something that needed to be challenged, like they made a bad decision or (in a more extreme case) broke the articles.

The Captain was in charge during times of battle. The captain's primary role was as a fighter, performer, and military commander! If the crew was attacked or about to attack someone else, the Captain would immediately take charge. (Now, real pirates weren't actually violent in practice as frequently as pop culture would have you believe, but that's a whole other topic. The reason "performer" is listed in the Captain's "jobs" is that part of their responsibility as a captain worth their salt was to scare enemies into surrendering without a fight through theatrics and reputation.)

The Bosun was in charge when the Boat was damaged or needed upkeep. The Bosun was not always the greatest carpenter or shipwright in their own right (in fact, in larger crews, they usually weren't either of those things), but they would be the one to get together with the shipwright and worksmen and assess damage, organize repair teams, and keep the boat running as well as possible. The crew followed their lead during repairs, and they were the go-to authority on any matters concerning the physical boat.

The Quartermaster was in charge the rest of the time. The way the Bosun is in charge of the physical boat, the Quartermaster was in charge of the crew. They were responsible for enforcing the articles, dealing out discipline, and the crew's general well-being outside of battle. In that same way that a bosun didn't have to be a shipwright, a quartermaster wasn't usually a doctor or cook, but they worked closely with them. Being in charge outside times of battle meant that the Quartermaster was also in charge of headings and navigation, and more often than not they were the ship's navigator, or head navigation/deck officer if their crew was large enough to have more than one nav. They also usually handled the crew's finances/pay and cargo. Is this starting to sound familiar yet.

So. After establishing the roles. I don't think I have to persuade you that while Luffy is most definitely the Strawhat Captain, Nami is our Quartermaster and Usopp is our Bosun. At the VERY LEAST this is true on the Merry Go.

You could possibly persuade me that Franky takes Usopp's place as Bosun once they get the Thousand Sunny, but I would be hard to convince. (I could be persuaded that Usopp loses his position as bosun on the Sunny, but Franky does not behave like a bosun as much as a head carpenter, and Usopp functions like his carpenter's mate. It's almost like, post-timeskip, they don't have a bosun anymore, and Zoro fills the newly empty position on the leadership trio?)

Now, these roles are not concrete, and they didn't always make up the "management trio" on a pirate ship. Some very small crews just didn't have enough people that they needed to single out their three favorite guys; they could just all vote on important decisions together. Sometimes the management trio included the surgeon or the first mate instead of the bosun. There were many crews where the Quartermaster was considered the top-dog highest authority instead of the Captain at all times. Even during the golden age pirate crews varied greatly, but the Captain/Quartermaster/Bosun trio was most common.

As for the ship hierarchy, there was a trend you could rely on no matter who the "three leaders" were. Everyone was generally considered of equal importance on a crew, (hence the elected offices and avenue for mutiny,) but there was a chain of command of sorts? Or at least people who would be shown greater respect and responsibility based on what they provided for the crew:

Captain and/or Quartermaster

Bosun and/or Surgeon/Doctor, and sometimes the First Mate

Everybody else, including captain's other mates.

Speaking of Captain's Mates... On larger crews, every important role on the ship had a "mate," or an apprentice chosen by the person in question to replace them if they should die, or otherwise be out-of-commission. Quartermaster's Mate. Bosun's Mate. Doctor/Surgeon's Mate. Carpenter's Mate. Etc. However, the Captain had MULTIPLE MATES, because his job was front-line combat focused. Ergo, he could easily die and need a replacement. Quickly. And his replacement could need a sudden replacement! So, depending on the size of the crew, the captain could have anywhere from two to eight mates, who were ranked by number. That's why the captain's highest-ranking mate is called the First Mate. Because there was usually a Second Mate. And then some more of em.

The First Mate's job is to be a good ass fighter, and back the Captain up on whatever they're currently doing. They hype the Captain up and enforce the Captain's decisions, no matter what that decision is. This is why they were usually not put in the management trio on most crews, cause you could imagine. The conflict of interest. (There's supposed to be three of them so that no one member has too much sway. Which could be sabotaged if two of the three are captain and captain's favorite soldier LMFAO)

I have no idea why, in the world of One Piece, all of the emphasis seems to be on Captains as the end-all-be-all leaders of their ship and the First Mate as the second in command. Especially when Oda clearly KNOWS about the other roles, since he's written characters that fall into them like perfect puzzle pieces!

...Well, okay, I have some idea. This is a shonen series for teens and being the captain/king/etc is wish fulfillment, and wouldn't be as cool for the projecting readers if you were part of a leading council with two other mooks. But. I can still be salty about it LMFAO <3

#These roles put Usopp's objection over scrapping the Merry in a slightly new light huh? :) /j #i love pirate lore #thank you whoever's here for reading my long ass pirate history rant #i love you for indulging my hyperfixation muah <3

[fucktoyfelix]

Choking Safety

I've been seeing some kind of scare-mongering type posts going around about choking during sex, so I wanted to address how to approach choking in a safe way. Choking is not a 0 risk activity, but it is also not so dangerous that you will just randomly die either. Anyone who does martial arts will confirm that thousands of teenagers are being successfully trained to choke each other safely (for self defense) every day! There's no reason you can't learn to do it too.

First you should be familiar with some basic anatomy of the neck and throat:

The carotid veins on both sides of the neck and the trachea/windpipe in the center are the most important things to be aware of. If you want to enjoy the psychological element of having someone's hands around your neck with relatively little risk, you can do "choking" play that avoids putting any pressure on those arteries or the trachea. As with all choking play, safety is highest when both parties are fully sober. I'm not actually sure if there are people out there who are into having the windpipe or trachea blocked. This tends to hurt like fuck and cause an autonomic choking response. You'll know if you went too far center because generally the bottom will be like "WTH". I don't know if there is a way to do this play safely or not as I don't have experience with it. It probably carries some risk of the trachea collapsing which would be a hospital trip for sure. Most choking play is done with the intention of cutting off the blood supply to the brain by applying pressure to both the left and right carotid arteries. This type of choking is not really "breath play" because of the way it works (though many people refer to it that way.) This creates a pleasant light headed feeling, but is also where the higher risk comes in. It often doesn't take long for a person to lose consciousness once these arteries are blocked, often less than 10 seconds. Sometimes getting completely choked out is the goal, sometimes not. Either way, the top has to pay very very careful attention to every aspect of their bottom's body language. Once you realize that a person has lost consciousness, the choking must stop immediately. Because of this: the most dangerous way to do this kind of play is alone. (hence all the auto-erotic asphyxiation deaths you hear about) It goes without saying that intoxication also dramatically increases the risks. It's not recommended to lose consciousness this way on a regular basis. It's just not good for your brain to repeatedly go through, especially in rapid succession. Generally, the more time spaced out between this type of play: the better. Though some people may have medical conditions that make the risk higher, as long as you stop choking when you reach the desired headspace, this play is approachable. Anyone who's REALLY into the idea but feels unsure or scared, I highly recommend taking a few martial arts classes. MMA guys do this to each other all the time! For sports! The key is just stopping at the right time. There are two main ways to go about blocking the carotid arteries. The main one used in martial arts and self defense is the rear naked choke.

This type of choke is incredible effective at choking someone out quickly and easily. The forearm and the bicep are squeezing each artery until the desired effect is achieved. The risk here is how quickly it works in combination with not being able to have a visual on your bottom's facial response. When someone loses consciousness they will go limp and begin twitching somewhat. This is normal, and you should stop immediately if you notice those signs. The more common method of choking play during sex is what looks more like typical choking. Facing your partner, using both hands.

You want to find the arteries with both hands, and use the meat at the base of your thumbs to apply gradually increasing pressure upwards towards your partner's head. You can keep the thumbs tucked to avoid accidental pressure on the windpipe. (Though this is not required so long as you remember not to apply pressure to the windpipe.) This type of play has a few safety benefits. First, you can see your partner's face so it's more obvious when you can see they've hit a headspace that is desirable. Additionally, it's just a little more difficult to find the arteries and push up on them correctly. If your goal is to get a little light headed without losing consciousness, this is more easily accomplished with this type of choke. However, losing consciousness is still a risk and both partners being fully alert will ensure the lowest risk environment. I know choking play is incredibly popular, even 'vanilla' people participate in this type of play on a regular basis without really knowing the technical details. Most of them don't get seriously hurt...but knowing what you're actually doing with risky play is a base component of risk aware consensual kink. Anyway I hope people find this helpful! Happy choking!!

#choking #kink positive #sex positive

[thydungeongal]

Reminded of this ask and specifically the phrasing "narrative cruft."

Folks, I'm something of a fan of RPGs. I think RPGs are a pretty neat marriage of narrative and gameplay. I think the two are pretty neatly intertwined. If the fiction and mechanics of an RPG are in tune, I would hesitate to call the fiction "narrative cruft." It would do a huge disservice to the game.

So what is being called "narrative cruft" here? I can't say for sure but I believe the source of this ask was the recently resurfaced really smart post by yours truly where I talk about how trying to reframe the action of D&D (killing creatures and taking their stuff either as amoral tomb robbers or basically a posse of vigilantes under the blessing of those in power) as somehow aspirational may be a lost cause and how people would do a lot better to just accept the gameplay of D&D for what it is because the game itself will suffer for attempts to turn it into something it very much isn't.

Here's the thing though: D&D is very much a game about dungeons and also dragons. And I feel a lot of modern D&D players already reject that premise. Simply looking at what D&D, by its rules, says:

All characters will have to take part in some degree of resource management. At the very least they will have to track hit points throughout the day. Depending on edition and class they will have to take part in managing class-based resources. Even equipment is often consumable.

When it comes to resource management during the gameplay these games are the most opinionated about (combat and exploration) depletion of resources is very much the name of the game. You can, throughout the day, recover some resources, but often at the cost of another. Characters will generally not be gaining more resources throughout the day.

Looking at the types of creatures that are represented as adversaries in the game, most of them occupy the fictional space of "the dungeons," a type of nebulous mishmash of underground complexes, often implying some kind of underworld, or the wilderness.

I won't go further than that but these three things are actually pretty harmonious with the traditional gameplay of Town -> Wilderness -> Dungeon that is pretty much part of the game's DNA. Even D&D 5e is at its core still a dungeon game. It is very opinionated about things like "the adventuring day."

This is no coincidence. D&D is very much a resource management game, a "trying to survive in a hostile space while your resources get depleted" game. The interplay of having to make meaningful decisions between when to move out of the dungeon and back into civilization to rest and recuperate is an important part of the game. The game itself tells you this by asking the GM to take the shape of the adventuring day as a whole into account as a consideration in adventure design.

And there's a lot to criticize there: some people don't want to engage with that gameplay loop. Thankfully there are games other than D&D out there! Some people may see the gameplay loop as problematic. True, and I do think that the division of the world into effectively conflict zones and "civilization" is deeply ideological, but it's as txttletale said in that post of hers that my post was a reaction to: you can either take the media at its own word ("for the duration of Return of the King we are monarchists") or twist yourself into a pretzel shape trying to argue that the things that the text itself says about the world and game it is trying to get across aren't actually meaningful and no no the core gameplay of D&D is clearly about a plucky little found family just doing goodness.

Anyway, the way I personally reconcile is by not bringing moralism into it. At least in my opinion, "Amoral tomb robbers" and "sell-swords working for the highest bidder" are infinitely preferable to any of the ways that try to frame the action of D&D as somehow heroic, because now that there is no attempt to sell it as somehow aspirational we can actually have a discussion, during gameplay, about how the way of things in the fictional setting of the game are actually kinda fucked up.

Also if I wanted a queer take on dungeon fantasy I would play a game built with that as part of the text from the ground up, like Dungeon Bitches, and even Dungeon Bitches doesn't try to frame its dungeon-crawling disaster lesbians as somehow aspirational: they are fucked up women in a fucked up situation forced into a lifestyle that is violent and dangerous because they have chosen it over the comforts of a civilization that often doesn't treat women and especially queer women well.

[markantonys]

wotseries posted an alleged elaida audition script about 1) her telling presumably leane that she's at the tower to look for elayne and also that siuan's in a big mess and she could use elaida's help in cleaning it up, and 2) her discussing prophetic powers with min.

the first scene is pretty standard with what we've been predicting for elaida and the white tower plotline in s3, so i don't have any commentary on that one for now (though it does imply that, indeed, we'll be setting up the coup to be a slowburn season-long event with elaida weaseling around for a while before making her big move, rather than a shock event that happens early in the season, but i think most of us were thinking this already anyway).

the second scene is interesting because a different leak had placed min in tanchico. wotup's leaks have been flagrantly incorrect before (said faile would be in s2) and wotseries' audition scripts have also been flagrantly incorrect before (said gawyn would be in s2), so at this point it's just a question of which source i distrust more, and i can't answer that haha so for the time being i'll treat both Min Locations as equally plausible. (i'm assuming it'll only be one or the other because i find it hard to imagine that she could make an appearance in both locations during the course of the season, but i suppose you never know.)

looking at where s2 left off, both are equally plausible. min is in cairhien, and both siuan & co and liandrin are also in cairhien. i could see siuan snatching min back to the white tower because she knows about her powers and wants to use them, and i could also see liandrin snatching min over to tanchico because she considers her a liability after min betrayed her/didn't follow through on the deal/figured out she's a darkfriend.

looking at min's established story in the show and where her story goes in future in the books (lmao at the statement that min has a story in the books), both are equally plausible. tanchico would put her back into contact with liandrin and mat to follow up on her story with them in s2 and set up for her future seanchan story with mat (and doubly so if there's a seanchan presence or even tuon herself in tanchico in s3). the white tower would return her to her book storyline and, based on this scene with elaida, potentially give her the opportunity to have a storyline exploring the nature of her powers and her relationship with them. either storyline would allow her to go on to cross paths with rand in the next season or two.

(edited to add that tanchico would also have min interacting with elayne to help set up the polycule. i've so thoroughly made the polycule rand/elayne/avi/mat in my mind that i kinda forgot min is the canonical fourth member when i was making this post djkfg)

i will say that in the books, the tower coup has absolutely 0 bearing on min's overall character/story because she has 0 stakes in any of that stuff and 0 connection to aes sedai. it makes for an interesting 1-book storyline for her, but it's never relevant to her again (vs. someone like gawyn who is dealing with the repercussions of the coup in his storyline for pretty much the rest of the series), and so for that reason i wouldn't be sorry to replace her book storyline with an invented tanchico storyline that might have more long-term relevance to her (re: seanchan stuff). however, if the show expands her white tower storyline to include an exploration of her powers, i'd love that because min actively struggling with and trying to navigate and learn more about and figure out how best to use her powers is something that should have been part of her current story rather than her pre-series backstory. and compare/contrasting with elaida and how SHE uses her prophetic abilities would be super interesting!

that being said, i will never again trust any wotseries audition scripts after the utter betrayal that was the gawyn one, so i'm taking this all with a grain of salt! every time they post a new one they're like "disclaimer that scenes could be invented just for auditions and won't appear in the actual show, but most of our past audition scripts have appeared in the show pretty close to the audition version" and i'm like "what about that time you misled me to believe a whole-ass boy would be present in s2 and then he wasn't???? is gawyngate a joke to you???" lmao i wish they'd be a bit more cautious with their audition script disclaimers bc *i* think they've been pretty hit or miss, not Usually Accurate (even the aviendha one, only 1 of 2 scenes made it into the show iirc).

#wot #wot on prime #the wheel of time #wot book spoilers #wot show spoilers

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I was a bit surprised to see that mhj specifically said that newjeans had approved the statement saying that belift had copied newjeans' concept with illit. I'm not the type of person that thinks that you're a bitch for asserting position or your value, so this isn't where I'm coming from, but, especially in an industry where it's so rare to see groups say anything negative about other groups, particular junior groups I would think, it was quite the strong, swift position to take. Do you foresee newjeans continuing to engage publicly with this scandal, and how would you think taking an active part in this would affect their brand?

*

Ask 2:

bp in your opinion is there any chance that in this Hybe/MHJ situation there's a buried kind of double-blind motivation?

Like the kind i've seen attributed to E|on Musk, where he creates a big scandal to provide cover when he's doing something much shadier (and then maybe it gets out of hand, like the TwiX thing lol)

You've said you're pretty familar with the corporate side machinations - could Hybe be purposefully airing all this, sure to stick it to MHJ, but also to temporarily drive down stock prices for idk easy shares-repurchasing? Or even allowing a mess they can blame for having to report lower numbers to shareholders for whatever reason: boycott actually impacting profit, hedging against lower-than-predicted bts returning numbers, etc.

Or is this too convoluted of conspiracy thinking and BPD/HYBE/MHJ, and by extension from your recent posts basically 'corporate kpop' entire, are really just that transparent and petty?

*

Ask 3:

Might be a stupid question because I honestly don't have any clue about corporate businesses and how they work. But in the light of this scandal and how BigHit/Hybe developed over the last years: would you say this is what you get when you become too greedy instead of concentrating on what you were good at?

*

Ask 4:

in your opinion, is mhj truly an indispensable part of newjeans creative output? Also, do you see any way that hybe would let newjeans leave with its name and discography if they try to break their contract to go with mhj like some people are saying?

*

Ask 5:

I’m seeing a lot of discussion about whether newjeans will try to leave with mhj and break their contract with hybe, but I don’t see this as a realistic scenario, and I especially don’t see hybe letting them leave with their name and discography. You mentioned that there are a limited set of options now, but is this even one of them? In my mind, newjeans as a concept either stays at hybe, with or without mhj in whatever capacity, or can’t really exist legally

*

Ask 6:

Also this has given everyone (kpop stans, ARMYs, journalists) the go ahead to drag Newjeans in order to "defend" Illit, BTS, Riize, etc by throwing (again) dozens of plagiarism accusations and trying to discredit everything the group has done and achieved. And it was started by Hybe themselves... I have no words, bpp

***

I think these six asks capture most of the talking points in the asks I've received since yesterday, so I'll use these to answer your questions.

The sheer amount of spin happening in the media right now is ridiculous lmaoo. With the mention of BTS in the "escape files", ARMYs have predictably moved from shady bystanders to actively joining in the negative spin, spreading rumor articles and many are now attacking the girls themselves. But honestly, this is nothing less than what I expected. NewJeans is the most popular group in Korea, the 2nd most valuable IP only behind BTS, and Min Heejin is the brains behind the operation - an achievement she's insisted on taking full credit for since inception. Leaving the only option for whoever is masterminding this from within and outside HYBE, to destroy her reputation as an executive completely to diminish her value to outside investors, and weaken the fan support for NewJeans given how closely they are already associated with MHJ. And that's what is happening. It impacts every group at HYBE and nearly obliterates the viability of NewJeans.

For HYBE, it's a tolerable loss given there's only one year left before BTS returns and closes that earnings gap in mere months. Whoever took this action sees it simply as resulting in a numerical loss that can be soon corrected, but personally, I disagree, for the same reasons I objected to HYBE's acquisition of SM even though on paper it made numerical sense.

Anon in ask 1: I can understand your surprise but sad as it is to say, I expected that response from MHJ. She's a creative, not a PR exec or an MBA-credentialled suit. I'm not sure how familiar you are with ADOR's press releases in general, but anybody who reads them can tell there's almost no corporate doublespeak, no vague allusions, nothing that shows it's written by a typical media-trained PR person. Which is why most people, including you, take that statement to mean NewJeans agrees with MHJ that Illit copied them (it's a possibility), when in reality the language shows it could refer to them agreeing with MHJ's assertion that HYBE hasn't duly responded to her requests about inter-label discrimination, or other related matters. That's the kind of detail a trained PR person would be sure to include, to minimize the fallout to NJ, but just as with the press release on Cookie, the one on Minji's rival sasaeng, the response to Hyein's veneer rumours, and practically every press release ADOR has put out, the language is unsophisticated.

"Do you foresee newjeans continuing to engage publicly with this scandal, and how would you think taking an active part in this would affect their brand?"

NewJeans has so far not engaged publicly with this scandal. MHJ has mentioned them to signal any separation between them will likely be contested. It's leverage. If they do take an active part in this scandal, it will completely destroy their brand. Like, it's already on life support. Anything more and we might as well say their last rites.

*

Anon in ask 2: I'd say that's not a conspiracy exactly but it is kinda pushing it. Anytime there's a stock dip it's a buying opportunity, and HYBE is always guaranteed to be a Buy so long as BTS is slated to return within 12 months of the stock event. But we simply don't have any clear indications that's the case now given the timing doesn't quite line up. If anything, that is more like the 4th order side-effect.

And yeah, people on the corporate side, not just in k-pop, are many times just that petty. But it's also true this case has been sensationalized in particular ways to appeal to k-pop stans specifically.

*

Anons in ask 4 & 5: The options available are:

MHJ leaves HYBE and NewJeans stays in HYBE

MHJ leaves HYBE and NewJeans leaves with her

MHJ stays in HYBE but is demoted from her exec role and NewJeans stays in HYBE

MHJ stays in HYBE and keeps her exec role and NewJeans stays in HYBE

None of these options are good, but the worst of these evils is option 2. If the members attempt to leave with her, there's no pretty way to say this, but they'll be done. I'm not even going to waste time writing all the ways HYBE and k-pop stans as a whole will rip them to shreds, all I'll say is that whoever is attached to these girls should consider taking a 6 months sabbatical away from k-pop entirely once that news breaks. The law is not on their side and public opinion, especially after all the 'leaks' and spin from HYBE in the last 72 hours, certainly isn't on their side either. It would be career suicide.

"in your opinion, is mhj truly an indispensable part of newjeans creative output?"

Personally, I think yes. Every label at HYBE had similar initial monetary investment as NewJeans and ADOR had, and other groups from the Big 3 have had even bigger investments and resources at their disposal. There isn't a single group, both within HYBE and outside HYBE, that has yielded the same results as NewJeans in the same period of time. Illit comes close, but even with their achievements they haven't reached the same (positive) notoriety as NewJeans did at debut. All HYBE groups have access to HYBE's youtube channel, connections and resources, and yet the achievements of BOYNEXTDOOR, LE SSERAFIM, ENHYPEN, and even ILLIT, are nowhere near comparable to that of NewJeans. And I agree with MHJ that she's the primary reason why. Having access to resources is only one part of the equation. How you allocate those resources and what you do with it is far more important, and this is where MHJ and ADOR excels relative to other sub-labels.

NewJeans without MHJ will not be nearly as threatening to everyone else in k-pop, and I suspect this is one reason there have been calls for her to be removed from managing the group since their debut.

*

Anons in ask 3 & 6: Yeah there's a fair bit of greed on show here. Generally, for a lot of people in this industry, greed is good... unless the greedy person is a woman. Because the only thing more central to nasty corporate tussles like this, more than greed, is ego.

I'm not trying to play the gender card, but sometimes I do wonder why there are no articles like this about people like Jaden Jeong and Simon Jakob given the reputation those men have in corporate circles, where top officials (in this case, within HYBE) are saying they cannot possibly work with MHJ because she is "overly and excessively opinionated". I'm highlighting this article because despite the initial paragraphs of spin, that bit is the only thing consistent with MHJ's claim that this attack from HYBE started because she'd filed a whistleblowing report on toxic inter-label competition and followed up an email that said quote:

"..is this deliberate obtuseness and unapologetic behaviour consistent with HYBE's founding philosophy of rebelling against unfair practices in the entertainment industry?"

I mean... in corporate Korea, I can see how they were sick of her shit and it was only a matter of time before she got the boot.

The insidious thing about spin is that it mixes the truth with lies, making it easy for people to accept it wholly. It's entirely possible that MHJ wants more compensation, more autonomy and independence, feels that Belift and other companies borrowed her ideas without full credit, and that she was unsupported by HYBE HQ. It's entirely possible that she took actions such as monitoring fan feedback of the group(s) she suspects and filing a whistleblowing report to build a case - according to both MHJ and others at HYBE, these are complaints she's apparently had since last year, but none of those things would justify HYBE's response nor is it enough to turn people against her.

What I find particularly interesting about this case, is that everything that decisively incriminates her of the more sensational and sinister allegations, comes from the person of VP L or CEO A - a person who only joined ADOR in January 2024, shortly after which HYBE received their first tip-off that MHJ was planning to escape. It's VP L who titles documents with the equivalent of "TOP SECRET DO NOT TOUCH" on company computers... the same guy that's supposedly a double agent working in favour of MHJ and ADOR but is situated within ADOR, not HYBE, where simple logic shows he'd be most useful. Unless he's situated right where he's supposed to be.

Anyway...

HYBE has requested for a shareholder meeting on April 30th where they'll likely table the motion for MHJ to resign regardless of what's found in the audit. Far as I know, she's completed the audit questionnaire but not surrendered her laptop as HYBE has requested. Given the play is for HYBE to kick her out while continuing to manage NJ, I can see how she'd rather die than surrender her laptop and hand over her ideas (and potentially incriminating info) to HYBE on a silver platter for them to use in her wake.

Every way this shakes out is bad news for HYBE groups IMO. So long as NewJeans keeps quiet and sides with HYBE, they'll be somewhat okay. But regardless of the fallout from HYBE cannibalizing itself, all HYBE groups have no choice but to take it on the chin and bide their time until BTS comes back to capture the attention back to them.

I hope I answered all your questions. IMO there's really no point talking more about this until there's a firm conclusion.

#min heejin #newjeans #ador #hybe #bang pd #kpop #kpop industry #kpop business #belift

[tohwitchesduels]

GO WITCHES DUELS!

Lore: It's been a minute since the Collector visited Boiling Isles (a few months after defeating Belos), however now they're back and willing to play a new game with the Demon Realm. After some talk with King, they both decided to host a tournament known as WITCHES BATTLES/BATTLE WITCHES (the name is still to be chosen). The 16 most powerful teen witches in Boiling Isles will participate (willingly) in a tournament to decide who is the most powerful teen witch in the Boiling Isles!

Information about the tournament: The tournament will feature 16 characters of my choosing competing with one another based on their strength and skill. This by no means is a popularity contest, so I don't care if you know or like the characters featured in battles, as ultimately the battle shall decide who would win a witches duel. The tournament rather than a simple bracket will also feature side battles that would decide the position in the rankings, so get ready as there will be a lot of duels.

The first round is composed of 8 1v1 witches duels between characters that were paired randomly (except for one case but I will explain it later once I introduce the bracket). After this, the winning eight will catch a break so all the losers can face each other in a grand battle royale against one another to decide their positions in the tournament (occasionally if some people tie they will also get their own battle). Once the battles of losers are over we shall advance to the second round which shall decide who gets to semi-finals. The elite 4 themselves will catch a break as I will feature a minor bracket featuring the losers of the second round. The winner of this bracket might have a chance to battle the elite 4 once the semi-finals are sealed, in which there will be 5 battles: 2 official semi-final battles; 2 winner vs losers battles; the battle between the losers of the semi-finals. Then a champion of the second round bracket can yet challenge the elite 4, which can change their placement in the ranking and finally, there will be the last battle between the champions of the semi-finals.

The Format will naturally be polls, however, under each poll, there will be an explanation of what participants can and can't do during the duel: what spells they know and can use depending on the battle format; whether or not they can utilise specific tools like palismen for example; what is their mindset going into the battle. Now keep in mind those are not Death Matches, so no need for calculations on how much raw power the characters have and only a brief summary of what they can and can't do, and the battles are decided in imaginary scenarios by either stadium out or losing consciousness (under the Collector's supervision no one shall die).

There will be no "See results" options as I don't want them to mess up the voting so you will have to make some tough choices, but that's why I feature explanations so you can have a better idea of how strong featured characters are, even if you don't know them or their capabilities. I also would appreciate it if you could provide your own propaganda and agendas regarding what characters are capable of.

If there is a situation in which participants tie, they will either be featured in a battle royale in which the person with the least votes shall be out, or they get their match-ups switched if there are more ties (though only even numbers of battles). There are no repetition if matches unless there were issues with voting or the post. However all battles are final and characters won't meet twice unless it's a battle royale.

Who will not participate in the tournament:

All adult characters are off-limits for this tournament as they shall have their own league. This is strictly a teen championship. I decided to do such separation as adult characters just outclass the teen characters, meaning hardly it would be a fair match for young rising stars.

Only characters with importance and established capabilities shall participate so no background characters that have only 5 seconds of screen time

Vee shall not participate in the tournament. Vee is in this awkward position where she either gets so stomped she shouldn't have considered participating in the first place or is just too OP to give anyone else a chance. As a Basilisk Vee only possesses two abilities: magic absorption and shape-shifting. Because of the nature of magic absorption which can render the opponent powerless if used correctly, Vee simply has an unfair advantage towards most of the competitors. However, Vee herself possesses next to no experience when it comes to battling. Vee doesn't utilise her shape-shifting powers creatively and only limits herself to taking forms of other people which is effectively useless as she does not gain their powers (and even if she did it's either unfair since she will transform into someone who naturally counters her opponent; it would be near impossible to see which form could she actually take at this point, and technically speaking it would be another character battling and not Vee herself) but such deception is effectively useless in 1v1 duels. Vee's absorption powers are also pretty slow and can be easily interrupted as Helos demonstrated (and are not as final as the Greater's Basilisk) and as I said, Vee has no experience in battles so she can't really fight with her personality, nor doesn't know any spells to use to help her.

Masha shall not participate as they have yet to discover magic. So Veesha is only cheering on others

The Collector shall not participate since he's OP, so he rather organizes the entire tournament and arranges the game specifically so no one could get hurt while the kids go all out.

King shall not participate as much as Vee, he's either too strong or too weak to participate. King is not yet fully realized Titan so he does not possess the prowess that Titans possess, only being capable of basic light spells (weaker than average ones), squeak of rage, and barrier (which while strong, can also be easily countered). King instead becomes the announcer and the host of the tournament, along with the Collector.

Hooty shall not participate as he is both too strong and too memorable to give it a fair fight (as Hooty isn't OP, but he might as well end up as such due to the voting). He also becomes the host and announcer of the tournament, but rather the adult league.

Adult league: The characters of the past like previous Grimwalkers, Caleb and Evelyn, etc. shall not participate since we literally don't know how strong and capable they actually are.

Adult league: Camila shall not participate as she barely has any battling experience. She's the best mom and she is willing to throw hands, but she simply lacks experience with magic and her battling style can be easily countered. There's also memeable potential of her swiping everyone with La Chancla, which is hilarious, but not realistic. It would be satisfying to see her try to hit Odalia with a sandal, but Odalia can unleash the phantom that would steal such a sandal and then straight-up knockout Camila if we're being serious and no fun regarding this (but in our hearts Camila is the true winner we all know that)

Adult league: Dell Clawthorne shall not participate as he never used any magic within the show and now he's disabled.

Teen League: As the name suggests, only teenagers will participate, toddlers will not

Adult league: Only a few established Covenheads will participate since the others don't have fully-realised potential

Adult league: Titan Trappers shall not appear as they barely have any champion showcasing the true extent of their magical skill.

Adult league: Jacob Hopkins shall not appear as he lost to Camila who herself can't participate for not having enough skill (I did consider Camila to participate but I ultimately decided that she won't)

Invitations - to those who showed interest in the tournament or TOH in general, but no pressure or need for you to participate in the voting. Just wanted to invite you and ensure there will be some audience to the tournament. Oh, and I also don't mind if you use more than one account to vote as long as those are established blogs and not some spam blogs (like try to not rigg the game too much):

@lilcactusboi @wren-writes-things @the-god-of-chaos-himself @violet-prism-creatively @watery-melon-baller

@thescarletdaffodil @akmonasyrk @lapluieellepleut @damianwaynelives @crushpunchh

@impact801 @evermorecatra @rosetyler42 @memory-overload @cwolfnerakagnome

@branmuffins22 @zyrafowe-sny @metalinjector95 @michaela-artist @goingtohellwithyou

@iheartleopards @thatwierdquietkidthatdraws @sophiesophsofia @tbonner2 @amity297

@itslilacmoon @lucascii @fabseg-reader

Anyone can vote in this tournament of course, but I'm not sure if everyone will see it so I hope at least you can spread the popularity of the tournament or decide on your own who wins and who loses

#the owl house #witches duels #witches battles #battle witches #my polls #polls #toh tournament #first post and historic moment

[impostorsshow]

Gaze upon my ask Goldie anything au drawings

The main basis of this au is that I'm fucking obsessed with ghosts and so I threw Evan/Crying Child in here - when the bite of whatever happens, Evan goes to the hospital and dies, and instead of like haunting his family or haunting the hospital he died in, he haunts the cause of his death, which happens to be a certain Goldie locked in the backrooms. And possessing said Goldie and causing alot of panic in between the two of them.

This *singular* au is actually 14 distinct daydreams with their own plotlines and stuff that I've been slowly working out to smash into one au - right now I've managed to combine most of them together, leaving 5 or so scenarios that aren't "canon", but as of right now anything is subject to change, so I'll just. Make more Tumblr posts as I get things nailed down I guess.

Either ill l try to make this into a comic?? Or anyone who wants to can just, leave asks? The plot I have down right now is that Goldie and Evan are basically best buds after 10 years since they had to get over the "I killed you/you are the reason I'm stuck in a rotting pizzeria and not able to leave", but as mentioned they have not been able to leave the old location of Freddy's Diner, even if they eventually found a way out of the backroom. Well, they have been able to leave, but both of them decided Goldie would probably get found and used for spare parts if they left [not that they were exactly safe from anyone who was brave enough to set foot into the abandoned place.]

And because I don't want this to get super long whoop de doo Goldie was taken from the old location to the new Freddy Fazbears yippee. Except y'know, the teleportation and general psychic powers Goldie has was distinctly Not There Before, and Freddy is incredibly suspicious, though he has no clue what could even be causing it. He asks his friends about it, and T-Bee [working nickname] and T-Chi pull a bit of a prank on the nightguard [Micheal, y'know Evans brother that Certainly Won't Be an Issue] to get access to his phone and look up how to deal with Goldie, and eventually land on a page telling the two about a classic "put a circle of salt around the ghost and hope it works" or whatever and put a line of salt infront of Goldie's door. And wait.

And then Goldie tries walking out of his room and Goldie and Evan both get kicked out of their body, leaving it to fall down on the floor lifelessly. Why? Simple answer because I'm tired is that since Evan is a ghost Goldie is a ghost I'm gonna go take a nap

#aga #ask goldie anything #ask goldie #fnaf #art #goldie ranch dip #<- the tag where you'll find anything relating to this au in specific #i want to write a few fanfics for this bit i am Always low on energy so we'll see #plus this daydream is like 5+ years old so its. i have alot of information and dont quite know how to organize it #talk talks #i only explained so much of the au in this post to explain the bare minimum of the memes i made

[waltwhitmansbeard]

so i just read a post explaining why the op (and, according to the op, a lot of other people, even tho the post in question only had 32 notes, some of which were from people who disagreed with them) didn't like the cut to the crown keepers in last week's episode. while i'm totally on board with people not jibing with stuff that just doesn't work for them, i wanted offer some reasons why this seemingly hard pivot to people who are not the main characters of the story being told was a good decision to make (note good decision, not inherently the best decision, which i believe no one, including the dm, at a ttrpg table should ever be expected to make).

matt had an extremely powerful, extremely unexpected character decision dropped in his lap in the final moments of the previous episode. we don't know exactly how much time matt has between recordings, maybe a full week, maybe not, but either way, there's a very real chance that matt just did not have enough time to fully prepare a session to deal with fcg's death and what comes next.

sam now has to create a new character that a) is of a level with the rest of the party and b) makes narrative sense for him to be there. that takes time for both him and matt, and they might just need some space to work on that. when laudna died, marisha was willing to sit away from the table for several weeks because she knew that she wanted laudna to be resurrected, but sam may not want the same thing, and that's okay!

matt may want to fold the crown keepers into his main story, some or all of them—particularly dorian, whom both liam and the fans have been asking to return for a while now. dorian is clearly important to orym and the story that liam is trying to tell, and bringing the crown keepers in may be matt's way to do that.

matt—and dms generally—has always had to straddle a very fine line of making sure that his players are the main characters of their story who feel like their actions have real consequences and effects on the world, while also understanding that in reality, it doesn't make sense for half a dozen chucklefucks to have such an outsized effect on major cosmological goings-on like *checks notes* the potential release of a god-eater. this becomes especially true when you're on your third campaign set in the same world, and your players' previous ultra-powerful pcs are still around and definitely more adept and connected than their current pcs are. i, personally, think matt does a great job at walking that line, and one of the things he does that i appreciate is that he doesn't shy away from the fact that a) his players are powerful but not the most powerful and b) his players aren't the only one who care about what's going on in the world and who are taking actions to effect change. the current plotline re: ruidus is absolutely world-shaking and is causing all the divine girlies to cower in their demiplanes, so of course even the evil ones are going to be calling on their champions to help out. it makes more sense for opal to be involved (which, btw, matt has been hinting at for a while now) than not.

matt might need a fucking break! he's been doing this consistently for nine years now, and shit is complicated! handing over the reins to aabria for a week or two or three may be what he needs to not get burnt out.

dnd is an emotional game, and the entire cast might have been rocked hard by fcg's death. some space away for a week or two could help them process and regroup to get back into a story that is otherwise very stressful and action-packed.

or it's none of these! what do i know! i'm a random idiot on the internet! matt doesn't consult me on these matters! (though my dms are open if he wants to chat, i do have ideas)

i think it's tempting to think of the decisions made in and around critical role (or any ttrpg show) like those made for a television series, because the episodes are serialized and we love them so much. but this show is, first and foremost, a group of friends playing a game together, and not a carefully constructed narrative with the primary goal of entertaining an audience. the audience always has been and, frankly, always should be second to the wishes and fun of the people around that table. matt would not have asked aabria to step in and dm a crown keepers side arc if he didn't think it was a good decision for him and his players, and that priority is the correct one. we are being invited in to watch these friends have fun together, and that's a privilege that we're super lucky to have. as long as the cr story isn't doing things that are outright abusive or harmful to the cast or the audience, i don't think we should begrudge them the choices they make in the name of their own game.

again, it's okay if you're not vibing with the crown keepers! i didn't love the aeor arc of c2! not everything is for everyone! but i think accusing matt and the cast of narrative malfeasance is a bit much when, tbqh, they don't answer to us. they answer to each other.

#me #critical role #cr meta

[alcalystrasz]

Stranger Things 5 spoilers:

We're discussing theories.

So we knew that the first episode was called "The Crawl" because The Duffers posted a tweet with the script title. However, for the other ones... that's crazy.

So remember there are 8 episodes in total, and we possibly only have 6 of their titles. Let's try to understand them together.

EP1 - So, for The Crawl I personally don't have theories for it. I just thought maybe it was going to be about escaping from someplace, or to get to a place.

EP2 - The Episode 2 is the most intriguing, "The Vanishing of ***** Wheeler." It reminds me a lot of the first episode of season 1: "The Vanishing of Will Byers" so it may have a sort of link. So we know it's a Wheeler, but who. If we count the starts there are 5 of them, maybe it's a random number or maybe they did this on purpose so we can know the number of letters in the name. So, Karen has five letters, Holly has five letters too, Nancy also and Mike and Ted are excluded. So only the women could vanish. Between these 3 characters, we know one has been recast: Holly. So maybe, Holly will be the one to disappear, because in a previous spoiler/leak it has been said that Holly was going to be a target of Vecna, so far we thought it was fake but it could turn out to be true actually. So if it's indeed Holly who disappears, and it could make sense because Will vanished when he was 11 and she's going to be around 8, I have a question, will she also get some sort of powers just like Will in the end when we find her?

And now that I think about it, maybe "The Crawl" is Holly's to try to escape from Vecna but she ends up in the Upside Down anyway?

I think Holly is the most possible Wheeler to vanish. And it has been said many times that Holly can be linked to Vecna in some ways. Lots of fans said that Karen could be Henry's sister and Holly is his nephew. Maybe? He would kidnap her to put pressure on Karen, because we know the parents and especially Karen will play a bigger role this season...

EP3 - "The Turbow Trap" is probably something against Vecna, I don't have anything, except maybe it could be made by Dustin because he's a genius at making stuff (He made Cerebro).

EP4 - "Sorcerer." I don't know why but I feel like it's either Vecna, because he's a sort of sorcerer, or maybe it's Will. Remember that in DnD, Will plays a sort of wizard/cleric. I don't know what could happen but... maybe it's also something else. It is probably in this episode that Holly comes back because they could all try to confront this Sorcerer, so Vecna.

EP5 - "Shock Jock" makes me think of "Trick or Treat, freak" an episode of season 2. The episode's name is kinda similar, I don't know how to explain that. But it's a goofy title to something dramatic like in the Halloween one. Jock could be Joyce. It's a shock to Joyce? Maybe something could happen to Will?

EP6 - This episode has probably the weirdest title of them all. "Escape from Camazotz." So... Camazotz is a Bat, more precisely a God who's form is a bat. He's a creature with the head of a bat and the body of a human, really weird to put this in the show. It's from the religion of the Maya, he's associated to night, death and sacrifice. But that's in real life. In DnD, Camazotz is the "Demon Lord of Bats and Fire." He literally likes hunting the mortals in the darkness. Just like Vecna. And in the Upside Down we saw there are in fact Bats, demobats, but is Vecna controlling them? He can't be both Vecna and Camazotz at the same time. Maybe Vecna is just a puppet of this unknown dimension?

The second edition of DnD was introduced in 1974, and Vecna was introduced in this edition. Which explains why they used this name for Henry. But Camazotz wasn't

Who are we gonna see? Camazotz, from the Maya or Camazotz from DnD? I mean in like his capacities or look a like.

I have some theories.

The first one is, somebody's going to sacrifice themselves to save everyone else. As I said in my previous theories, I had the idea of Robin and/or Jonathan that sacrifices themselves. In this context, I don't think Robin's sacrifice would happen for this sort of thing. However Jonathan's could be. It could be a big twist for Will because I have this idea where he's going to be either stuck, or he's going to stay in the Upside Down in some ways, along with Mike. So this could be one of their conversations later, it could ruin Will so Mike would be there to comfort him.

The second one is, someone's going to get killed by Camazotz, which explains the word "escape" in the title. Maybe Robin, Jonathan, Max (if she isn't already dead) or one parent like Karen or Ted.

The actor of Ted answered a question in an interview. Someone asked something about him not being mentioned by Vecna when he showed Nancy that her whole family is going to die, and the actor simply answered: "Oh. You noticed?" With a wink.

So maybe Ted knows about Karen's link to Vecna. Maybe it isn't their story isn't like what Nancy said to Jonathan in season 1. The whole "Perfect" family is probably a lie.

This could actually explain why Vecna showed what's gonna happen to the Wheeler family, to Nancy. Because she's the one who got this "Perfect family" idea. We never saw Mike talk about it to anyone. So.... this is all a little blurry...

But I think, in this episode, there has to be 1 death. Most likely Robin, because she was only introduced in season 3 and she's a recent character, compared to the other ones who were here since season 1.

I have this theory, what if the end of ST5 is the beginning of ST1. What I mean is that, we go back to the beginning like how it was before everything happened even though it actually happened. It's like, everything ended and now we're back to how it was. So it means, only the 4 boys, Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Hopper and Joyce. Eleven wouldn't be, because she's one of the reasons it all started, and it would be such a good ending if she dies saving Hawkins. Barb doesn't count cause she'd dead. And every characters introduced later died so far: Billy, Max (half dead), Bob... Only Murray and Robin are left. Murray will def die that's for sure and Robin, for me, has to die too.

Now, I want to talk about BYLER.

Remember the episode 3 of season 3, with Will and Mike's fight under the rain? Guess who it was directed by:

Shawn Levy.

And who's going to direct episode 6 of ST5?

Shawn Levy.

He didn't only direct that, but he also directed the sauna episode. And what happens in the sauna episode?

Will: I can feel him....

Mike, looking at Will's lips: Max get away from the door...

So, if Shawn Levy direct the episode 6, we'll get byler. And was I thinking? Byler kiss episode 6, that was my theory. With 3 or 4 intimate moments between them before episode 6 and the kiss during this episode.

There is one director I didn't talk about, it's Frank Darabont. He's a director who made a lot of horror movies, and we know how Stanger Things can be disgusting sometimes. Right?

So if Frank directs 3 episodes, they're going to be very scary or atleast be special in a disgusting way, maybe? But it's definitely going to be horror for these episodes.

I think he'll probably direct episode 7, that'd make sense, maybe 8 too.

Anyway, that was it. Tell me what you guys think about these two spoilers/leaks. I hope the directing one is true. And the titles are still possibly to change in the future, but the episode 2 really caught me off guard. I bet it's gonna be Holly.

And by the way, I hope they can bring back Sarah, Hopper's daughter. The fact that her and Holly look alike, isn't a coincidence for me. Maybe Sarah is more important than we think she is.

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #will byers #stranger things theory #stranger things 5 #stranger things spoilers #st spoilers #st5 leaks #st5 spoilers #shawn levy #stranger things speculation #byler nation #byler is endgame #byler is canon #byler tumblr #finn wolfhard #noah schnapp #stranger things bts #st bts

[my-insanity-is-an-artform]

Woe, Crack Baby Shitten au be upon thee.

(@bamsara 's little doodle of Nari being dubbed Cult Babysitter and holding a little lamb irrevocably changed my brain chemistry. So of course, I'm now making it everyone else's problem with the headcanon that Narinder is good with children of all ages.)

A couple of months before Lamb gets captured, they meet another lamb or a very small flock that have to split up very quickly after meeting since there's more chance of the lamb species surviving if they aren't all together. In the meeting, Lamb agrees to try continue the lamb species and gets pregnant via *magic* or afab.

Of course, all of the lambs are captured and killed with Lamb being the last, still a few months away from giving birth.

But then they are chosen and resurrected by The One Who Waits.

Fun fact: a fetus can survive for a few minutes after the death of the carrier. (Also this is a world with magic and gods in it. Logic means nothing to me.)

Lamb starts their cult, crusades across the lands and meets all sorts of allies and enemies. All while quietly mourning their entire species and the child that never would be.

Right up until they go into labour.

The baby is lamb through and through with soft wool, wide eyes, tiny cloven hooves and floppy ears.

But the influence of the crown is blazingly obvious since the baby's wool is jet black and they have three red eyes.

I can't tell which would be funnier. Lamb giving birth in The Lonely Shack or while they are physically in The Gateway just post-beating Leshy. Like they were in active labour right throughout fighting Leshy and had no idea. Either way, it's Shocked Pikachu .jpeg all around. (My fucking KINGDOM for a doodle of this.)

Various dot point shenanigans under the cut

There are two ways to go about this. But either way, Baby is not staying in the Cult. Too dangerous, especially if word gets to the Bishops about there being another lamb. So Lamb can and will speed-run this shit. So it takes them about 4-6 years to fully defeat the Bishops.

Baby stays with Ratau:

Lamb goes and yells at TOWW. They are panicking because they have no idea how to raise a probably-half-god baby.

Narinder has no idea what happened right up until Lamb comes in screaming about him being a Baby Daddy and child support.

Ratau is Grandpa now. This is his fate. He embraces the Grandpa life.

Baby learns how to play knucklebones before they can speak.

Shrumy tries to wager with Lamb/Ratau for the whole Baby. Once and only Once.

Baby's first word is dice. Or die.

Baby worships TOWW, but they are a Baby and don't really comprehend worship so the small shrine gets a lot of flowers, neat rocks and some drawings. Narinder always gives a lot of gold for them. And No, it's not favouritism. Shut up.

Baby knows curses. This is concerning for everyone except Baby.

Baby gets a little TOWW doll. It's their favourite, it goes everywhere with them and washing it is a nightmare for everyone involved.

Baby is jokingly referred to as TOWW's most Devoted Follower because of the doll.

↑ this action will have consequences.

When Baby is not so baby, they make stuff out of their wool for TOWW and for his disciples. Or asks their parent to help them make stuff.

Cue Lamb awkwardly giving the three some very wonky scarves or hats.

Baal loves it.

Aym refuses to take his off. Ever.

Narinder is actually upset cause his doesn't fit. He's too big. He had to wear it like a little ring.

Or Baby stays/is brought to the Gateway ala Aym and Baal situation:

If Lamb gives birth in the Gateway, everyone is getting a free midwifery education and free trauma. The cats want a refund.

Ya know when a baby instinctively clasps their little hand around a finger and it's like a crime to pull away? That but with Narinder's big ass claw that Baby can only barely cling to.

Aym cries the first time he holds Baby.

Baal straight-up refuses to give Baby back for a good hour.

Lamb visits at least once a day.

Lamb also brings baby things since a baby will do what a baby will do.

Depending on how old Aym and Baal were when they were gifted, Narinder is either learning all of this for the first time or is reminded of how challenging baby care can be.

Narinder purrs = a zonked Baby.

Baby's first word is Vessel.

Baby is taught to fight. Lamb doesn't like it but accepts it.

Baby has a little lamb doll. It is only due to the fact the afterlife doesn't have dirt that they avoid the nightmare of trying to wash it.

Baby is jokingly referred to as TOWW's most Devoted Follower since they refuse to be parted with him for long.

↑ this action will have consequences.

Lamb teaches Baby about being a lamb and if Aym and Baal join in, well who are they to deny their child's only friends/guardians this?

Narinder and Lamb figure out how to get Baby to teleport to the Living World and Baby gets to visit Grandpa Ratau.

Post-game shenanigans.

Narinder: Give me back my crown. Lamb: Ok. Sure. Narinder: I will now sacrifice my most devoted follower (the Lamb) for my freedom. Lamb: *Kill Bill sirens*

Lamb somehow doesn't kill Aym and Baal and instead kidnaps them via Indoctrination Circle out of spite/ reluctance to hurt them.

Narinder feels betrayed that the Lamb would refuse like this and kidnap his acolytes. He was going to resurrect them! He can't fully commit to raising a child while being the God of Death.

Lamb feels betrayed that Narinder would want to kill their child. After all they've been through together! After the way they saw him treat Baby with such gentleness and now he wants to kill them?!

This comes out in the very final moments right before Lamb goes to give the final blow.

Narinder: You are a vengeful false idol and a traitor! Lamb: At least I'm not a monster who wanted to kill my own child! Narinder: Wait. What.

This devolves into a massive argument with divorced-couple vibes.

Narinder is insulted and a bit hurt they thought he would kill his own child.

Lamb is hurt that Narinder would just demand their sacrifice without even talking to them about the whole situation.

Either way the lesson learned is Narinder needs to be more blunt and Lamb needs to not jump to conclusions.

So they are left with a newly usurped Narinder and a newly crowned Lamb. Oops.

Baby is with Ratau when all of this is going down.

Baby is happy their family is all together properly. Baby is Not Happy about this whole cult thing demanding attention from Their Baba.

The Cult is baffled by the sight of their leader with both a baby and a Spouse? Bitterly Divorced Ex? Estranged Co-parent?! What ever it is, most of them have elected not to touch the whole situation with a 10ft barge pole.

Baby learns what the word Father is and how that word refers to Narinder.

Baby calls Narinder Father/Papa/Daddy. Instant KO.

Narinder somehow gains a small hoard of children that like to follow him. Baby Does Not Approve.

Baby also Does Not Approve of this newly formed rift between their parents.

Cue Parent Trap level of Shenanigans.

Aym and Baal are recruited.

The Hoard of Children are recruited. Baby now Slightly Approves.

Narinder and Lamb have an Actual Conversation after the 18th time they get locked in the confessional together.

This of course evolves into Narilamb.

Bishops are saved from purgatory.

Despite all attempts otherwise, Baby is introduced to them.

Shocked Pikachu .jpeg x4

Maybe after a few more years, not-so-baby Baby wants a sibling.

This got so much longer than I thought but yes. Shitten Shenanigans: Accidental Child Acquisition flavoured.

#cult of the lamb #cotl #Shitten Shenanigans Au #cotl lamb #cotl narinder #narilamb #true devotion #Cotl Aym #Cotl Baal #Cotl Ratau #accidental child acquisition #at least on Narinder's part #long post #I once again do not go here #this got longer than I thought it would #Bam's brain is SO wrinkled and I want to lick it

[waywardmillennial]

watchergate & where we go from here...

To start at the end, I purchased my annual Watcher TV subscription on April 20th because I wanted to support them when it felt like so many others were not. I'm cancelling another subscription to make this work with my budget, and I'm very happy with this!

Watcher has always made high quality, entertaining content that I love, and I'm happy to support them as they try to grow like they've always wanted to so they can bring on more creators and give us more diverse art.

So, moving forward, I'm going to be posting about Watcher TV when it comes out - spoiler parties with the sexy moots! - and I'll be blocking any and all haters I see. 💜💜💜

(read more bc ofc this got long)

To walk this back and give a little history/context, *ahem* [sotto Byron voice]

April 12, 2024: Watcher announced they had a surprise coming for us in a week's time. The news came in the form of a very spirited ad-read in the Mystery Files s2 finale. And afterwards there were a few blogs posting about it, but I commented to a friend that my dash had been devoid of Watcher posts (oh, how that sweet summer child would grow to long for a day such as that).

There were some corkboard theories, and I broke down the new logo design, but nothing big happened until the following Thursday.

April 18, 2024: I saw the leak for the announcement. It was on reddit and a sock tumblr blog was made sending the link out to people. I didn't post it or share it because it wasn't my news to share. I wanted to wait to see how they were going to explain it.

Maybe I should have said at the time (but it's fine if you don't believe me now I guess) but I was hoping Watcher TV would become like their enhanced Patreon replacement, where the new shows like "Puppet History Karaoke" and "Road Files" would be exclusive, and some other perks like early access. [note: if Apollo is laughing at him right now, I'd kindly request he stuff that red ball somewhere Helios doesn't shine]

I imagined some people would be mad at the streaming news but it didn't prepare me for how bad it would get...

April 19, 2024: Most of us know what happened. The announcement was not well received. Watcher's silence right after wasn't helping, but I don't think many people were willing to give them any grace for their pre-planned trip to the UK and instead demanded answers immediately.

Do I think maybe their announcement could have been timed better? Or maybe given a different tone? Perhaps. But either way what they were trying to communicate was not what people chose to hear, and the response from many viewers was, to choose a very formal phrase here, absolute bonker banana balls insane.

The main anti-streamer "arguments" I saw basically boiled down into these categories:

"high production tv quality content is what they want to make, but we don't want that - we only want them to sit in a blank room and talk to each other with blue and yellow text like the bfu days!!"

"Steven's the one behind all this bc he's rich and greedy and only eats gold"

"they already make enough money off their patreon why are they doing this?? they should have consulted [insert other yt-er here]"

"they've become the capitalist elite that we swore to destroy! so we have to tear them down from their thrones!!"

Even now, feeling better than I have in days, I don't have the energy to say why each of those takes completely misses the point of who they are as a company, as creators, and as human beings. But there are some eloquent posts in my #watchergate tag, or my other post, if you're interested.

April 22, 2024: We got the Watcher update - giving people access to all videos after a month on the new streamer - and that seemed to placate a lot of viewers and those on the fence. But it was also the day I learned about that horrible petition against Steven, and I'd been following all this drama for several days (foregoing some self-care) and so I had a little meltdown...

Even though the new setup is closer to what I'd hoped for like 10 days ago, I hate how we arrived at it. It's shown people that they can bully creators to get them to compromise on their company. In fact, I've seen accounts celebrating this.

Opinions like this have given me trust issues when it comes to the Watcher fandom at large now. As many of my beloved mutuals have said, I'm going to be wary of accounts that follow me and be applying that blocking feature liberally.

I can also only imagine how things like this must have broken some of the trust that the Watcher crew feels for us - fightingfuries really said it best. If they do start distancing themselves on socials and things, I wouldn't really blame them.

I don't have more to say, other than I'm going to support them as much as I can, for as long as they continue to make content. I'm going to send the team a care package. And I hope in time we'll earn back their trust.

Now I'll let Ryan Bergara play me out...

As for the question of why we decided to launch our own platform, when we started Watcher in 2020, we wanted to create shows that we were proud of, that we had ownership over, and that would provide you the caliber of content that we felt you deserved. However, we were finding it harder and harder to stay relevant to advertisers and the constantly changing YouTube landscape. We faced some incredibly challenging decisions. We didn't want to compromise our content to ensure they met advertising requirements. And we definitely did not want to lay people off that have brought Watcher to life behind the scenes. And we didn't want to bring Watcher to a close, which would have happened if we stayed solely on YouTube. - An Update, April 22, 2024

#watchergate #I needed to wrap up some feelings #but closing the tag now #onto posting about happier things! #and I have a little idea/project I want to work on next for any of you who are watcher tv members #vi rants #we now return to my normally scheduled queue

[akitasimblr]

📩 Simblr question of the day: You can answer one or both parts of this question! 1️⃣ Part one: If you make Story posts, what do you do for scenes? Do you build them yourself, do you download lots from the gallery or do you download them from someone online? 2️⃣ Part two: If you make Gameplay/Legacy posts, what do you do for a house? Do you build it yourself, download a home from the gallery or do you download them from someone online? Additionally, do you build onto that home or demolish it and rebuild the house when needed? (E.G When another child enters the picture or someone moves in) ❎ If you do none of those for either half, what do you do? Do you use someone else's save file? (WIndbrook by Folking, Willow Creek + Magnolia Promenade by Theneighborhoodsave, Silent Pines by Silentpinessave... etc)

( freely share this SQOTD around, anon or not, and use the hashtag " SQOTD " ~ 💛 )

hello squatty! oooh i'm gonna answer all!!

1️⃣ Part one: i don't build. i'm a terrible builder. like, very baaaaaaad. instead, i download lots from simblrs and only cc-free lots.

2️⃣ Part two: again, i don't build, i play savefiles, download from the gallery or from tumblrs. but i have found out during my gameplay that i don't like to have a fully decorated house from the start. i like to add personal touches myself that feel more in tune with the character i'm playing with. so it's usual for me to download a house and sell most of the furniture inside. i don't demolish, i rebuild, but i basically work with the 'house shell' i have because i have - trouble - with ceilings and rooftops... 😶i have also noticed i don't like big bedrooms, i prefer to have a big open space with kithcen-living room and that being the center of the life in the house, rather than bedrooms. and i can't play with big houses either... it feels too overwhelming.

❎ yes, i also use savefiles, i actually have a couple of favourite ones! like fleuralia, ladychaos, dizzy isy, better together, maybe emily's save, haledela, sweetiewright, uberhood save :)

#asks #SQOTD

[skunkox]

Country Lovin Darlin and Rambles.

Is this gonna be self indulging? Very much so. I'm starting to realize no one can stop me, but hear me out real quick. Forgive me if you do decide to read all the way through. It's a lot. 🥲

Before moving to Dahlia, Darlin' used to spend half their summers with their grandparents in Texas. Sorta old money/ retired folk. Big land, but not too much on it. Plenty of room for the shiftsr grandchildgren to play. Passively still making money via whool sales. Yeah, there's other animals, but it's not a giant operation. They do have other empowereds working as ranch hands for them, though.

Anyways, a good moth or so out of each summer as a child, Darlin would help around the ranch, learn to cook and bake, and even participate in town events. (I'm telling you the fucker can cook. Just not for one person.)

Lazy Sunday mornings were spent in front of the TV with their grandfather watching old westerns or things like "The Andy Grifith Show," "Little House on the Prarie," and "Tales of Wells Fargo".

Not even halfway into they stay, they'll have developed a country accent. They still struggled to get be friends with most of the kids their age. Was it because they picked up a garden snake like it was just a piece of rope? Was it because they alegedly chased a kid girl with it that had been giving them hell? Who knows.

I wholeheartedly believe that Darlin was a pageant kid at some point in their life. Regardless of how ruff and tough they are, they were a cute kid. Don't pay the bandaid brand character bandaid any mind.

This is where I say this is really just my version of Darlin and a little bit of Sweetheart. It's Redunk Time.

Specifically for my version of Darlin (fem), "Southern Bell" like fair competitions are what her grandmother would enter the kids in. The one day out of the year she's happy to put on a frilly dress and bows. Not a whole lot of confidence for themselves on stage for the most part, though.

Diving more into the idea that Darlin and Sweetheart used to be friends before the move idea. Sweetheart has gone with them once or twice. Especially when the older cousins were visiting for less time, if at all. The old wolves like a full house, so they had no problem hosting another empowered child.

Sweetheart loved taking pictures and video of their adventures. Still currently holding footage to a misshap of sorts that they swore to never tell anyone about. They also have footage of competitions from the fairs. Including the pageants. Do they plan on telling the pack? Yes. (That's a post for another day)

The duo thought it was weird that the they would be leaving at separate times. They noticed the soured moods of the grandparents but the older wolves couldn't bring themselves to say anything on it in the days leading to their departures. Sweetheart took the flight home alone. Darlin was under the impression that the family was taking a short trip to California before summer ended.

Much to their distraught, their parents had either been moved and or found new jobs in Dahlia. The move was in the works for nearly half a year and they had no idea. Their older siblings knew, but they did everything their parents told them. They got no warning that they wouldn't see their friends anymore. That they wouldn't be attending school that fall with the same kids. That they wouldn't even get to say goodbye to their old house. No proper goodbye to Sweetheart.

Summer visits to Texas were just about haulted. Their parents wanted Darlin to better acquaint themselves with the other pack children. This was a struggle for years.

Sweetheart moving to work for the department and finding themselves with Milo was one thing. But the first time they happened to see each other in a pack meeting was rough. They knew almost instantly who each other were.

Sweetheart had seen a photo in Milo's living room. It was framed next to a lamp. The picture was of Christian and Amanda who awkwardly sat side by side. Hands just nearly touching. On one end of a log. David sat facing forward while Asher sat crooked with an arm thrown over David's shoulder. Both had been laughing. Milo and Darlin had been on the ground and back to back. Darlin had thrown up a rock sign with a small smile, attempting to no ruin the picture with their resting pitch face. Milo sat leaning on one knee, trying his best to look cool and composed.

To make a long story short. Both played dumb as to knowing each other for one reason or another. It wasn't till the Quinn situation, and Darlin coming back to the pack did the two start to speak. It took it all being over for them to finally become close again.

Back to the country thing

Hearing Sam speak for the first time really took them back especially at the end of their conversation with "Didn't your mama teach you not to talk to strange men in the dark, all alone?"

It felt familiar. It disarmed them and put then at ease. Sam's voice is something Darlin couldn't and still can't get enough of. They slip into an accent every once in a while. To them it feels right. Some slips happen in front of the pack and they've been teased for it. Sweetheart knows thr truth and is waiting eagerly to spill the beans on their country loving friend.

So... didn't mean for this to be as long as it is. Really putting a lot into Darlin's character cause it feels right. I like old TV. I mean sorta staticky box tv vibes. My grandfather was into a lot of it. My mom started me on LHOTP and I recently discovered a live channel for it and only it.

I really do apologize for how messy this all looks. It was an accident. Anyways, some bits and pieces of this will eventually be drawn out. Got weeks worth of stuff to do for this Fandom alone 😭

#redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #redacted headcanons #redacted darlin #redacted tank #redacted sam #sam collins #redacted sweetheart #redacted milo #redunk universe

[curioushabitforarivergod]

Pre wwii what would conditions in the orphanage Tom grew up in hsve been like? (Ie in the 1926-37 period)

Honestly, conditions would've been pretty shit. Firstly disease was rife, especially as the East End (where Wool's presumably is) was a slum throughout the Industrial Revolution and into the 20th century (with it only really changing post WWII). Tom would be familiar with stuff like mumps and whooping cough, even if he never got sick himself due to magic protecting him (as we see with Harry). But they'd also be other diseases like tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, rickets, polio and even the flu. It's likely multiple children at the orphanage would have physical disabilities due to polio maybe even with callipers (a permanent kind of splint to help people who'd suffered from polio walk). While children would often be isolated with most illnesses, it would be incredibly difficult for an orphanage to do so, and it's probable that children died as bouts of sickness and disease spread through the orphanage. Kids who were one day at dinner are gone the next.

The first legal precedent for adopting children occurs with the Adoption of Children Act in 1926, so legal adoption how we understand it today, was fairly new. Children were lined up on Sundays, washed and in their best clothes (after attending church!) for rich people to adopt, but it tended to be a way for getting free labour rather than out of an actual desire to have children to love and care for.

I'm not sure what JKR was basing her orphanage off (likely something modern), but Tom probably wouldn't have gotten his own room, even if he was considered 'insane'. There simply wasn't enough room. Children shared a dormitory, one that could be overstuffed and cramped, sometimes even with several children to a bed. Food was similar — it was a cramped long hall (almost like a smaller, horrible version of the great hall) with rows of tables and children waiting their turn for a meal. They were probably only given one or two a day; likely gruel in the morning and bread with a stew in the evening. Tom's diet would've been vegetarian because meat was insanely expensive, although he may have had meat on Christmas and potentially Sundays if the orphanage could afford it.

On that note, Tom and the other orphans would've been Christian, most likely CoE. Although Catholic orphanages did exist, Wool's is not named after a Saint and so was more likely Protestant. Tom would've gone to church every Sunday, perhaps in a chapel on Wool's grounds, although if not, it would've been at the local church. He also would've been expected to pray. He'd go to Sunday School alongside normal school (which would've been at the local public school or perhaps, if Wool's was especially large, which I don't think it was, there would've been one of the staff who could teach or they'd bring someone in). For Christmas itself, Tom would likely get an orange which was incredibly special due to his diet likely not including fruit.

Tom would've shared everything, including clothes. He probably didn't even have underwear, and may sometimes have had to wear dresses/frocks, especially when he was younger, due to a lack of clothes. These clothes would've been stiff and itchy, potentially with lice. They would've been washed once a week, as with the orphans themselves (in large buckets!), and been hung out to dry on huge lines. Depending on how many clothes there were to go round, Tom would've spent this time in underwear (although sometimes orphans didn't even have this) or in another pair of clothes that had been worn by other children hundreds of times before. It's no wonder Tom stole — he literally had nothing, not even his own clothes (and perhaps not even underwear either).

Tom would've been expected to care for children younger than him, including babies, from a very young age. Even if he didn't enjoy it, Tom would've been good with young children and it's no wonder he was able to make Head Boy at Hogwarts because of it.

The Great Depression would've made these conditions worse. Although some of the conditions would've improved over the years, the Great Depression meant that everything was more expensive. Meals were probably downsized, if not cut entirely to one a day. The amount of kids at the orphanage probably rose during this time due to parents having to abandon children, which would've been especially prevalent in the East End which, as I've mentioned previously, was just slums and dockyard. Meat probably disappeared completely from Tom's diet, even at Christmas.

All in all, Tom's early life and conditions at the orphanage were grim. Kids died around him, conditions were cramped with diseases, illness and lice, he'd not even have his own clothes, meals would be limited, he'd spend his free time looking after kids younger than him and he'd fear being adopted. The roaring twenties were shit and the thirties shitter still. Hogwarts would've been the best thing that ever happened to Tom — it's no wonder he called it his home.

#tom riddle #tom marvolo riddle #tom riddle meta #harry potter meta #hp historical context #hp meta #idk what research jkr did but she was wrong #I found parts of this with just a quick google search and other stuff I already knew #but jkr failed in the research department #tom would NOT have had his own room #also this makes dumbles treatment of tom so much worse #ask #anon ask