#i think it’s mostly my brain just combining random things

[critrolesideblog]

Essek sat on the floor in the center of the Nein-Sided Tower laboratory. Papers crammed with arcane equations were spread about him in a semicircle, and the slate wall before him contained diagrams and notes copied from the fragile pages of a mostly-destroyed Aeorian spellbook.

"Oh, boy." Caleb had appeared in the doorway, returned from his quest of retrieving possible spell components from his bedroom. He was grinning with the sort of delight most typically seen on the faces of children who'd just received a gift. "Are we shifting into floor mode?"

"It seemed appropriate." Essek grinned back at him as he set the satchel of components down on a nearby table and waved his hands back and forth through the air excitedly. It was a habit Essek found endearing in the extreme. His enjoyment in puzzling over Caleb's subtler body language not-withstanding, his hand-waving was like a brightly-painted sign that said HAPPY and EXCITED.

He turned his focus back to the challenge in front of him as Caleb began carefully tip-toeing his way around the papers. The spell in question sent its target into a maze in a demiplane. Essek supposed it could have practical uses under the correct circumstances, but really it excited them simply because it was, well, fun. The demiplane foundations had been a wonderfully engaging brain teaser to solve, but the randomization of the maze was proving to be a much more complex bit of arcana. And complex arcana simply made more sense on the floor.

He was certain the fragment on the upper right corner of page twelve of the spellbook held the key to the puzzle. He copied it neatly onto a fresh piece of paper and considered it. It took some time before he noticed Caleb was watching him in his periphery rather than examining the equations on the ground, a soft smile on his face.

"What?"

"This thing you do when you're thinking hard," Caleb replied after a moment, tapping his fingers on his chin in demonstration. Essek's own fingers stuttered to a halt. He had long ago trained his hands to find other, less-obtrusive outlets for their energy when not in the comfort of his own home, but this time he had not caught himself. Before he could apologize, however, Caleb continued. "It … It's cute." There was a hint of bashfulness to the way he turned his head back towards the papers on the ground that, combined with the lingering boyish excitement, made him look as young as he was.

"Cute?" Asked Essek, once his senses returned to him. "I do not think I have been called cute in a hundred years, if that."

"I find that hard to believe. We were calling you 'hot boi' within an hour of meeting you."

"Well, 'hot,' certainly. Handsome. Sexy, perhaps." This earned him a grin from Caleb, and he tapped his fingers against his chin as he thought it over. "Hmm, not cute, though, no. At least, not to my face."

"I will have to add being the first to do so to my list of accomplishments."

Both grinning, they turned their focus back to the puzzle at hand. They settled into a comfortable silence broken only by the tapping of fingers and the scratching of quill against paper, until a solution struck Essek like a lightning bolt.

"We need to apply Petjyre's Possibility Theorem!"

Caleb was already in motion reaching for the nearest piece of chalk. "Ja, ja, and we can apply Wysaric's rune to stabilize the containment field."

And off they went.

#might I interest you in a little neurodivergent-nerds-in-love fluff this morning? #WIP wednesday in that I wrote this instead of working on my WIP #shadowgast #essek thelyss #caleb widogast #my writing tag #I hope the wizardly jargon at the end is sufficiently ridiculous 😌

[tarotwithavi]

what effect do have on others?

My Masterlist ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ paid services

Disclaimer : for entertainment purpose only .

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

pile 1 pile 2 pile 3

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

PILE 1

I am hearing the word LOVE~ it's either that you make people feel loved and make them love themselves. You inspire people. Like really there's something about you that makes people feel extremely positive. Wow, I really admire you guys. I'm getting that you might be the therapist friend? You inspire people to do what they love and follow their passion. You follow the motto that nothing is impossible . Idk why but I'm getting that when you do something others go like " If pile 1 can do this, I can too" . Your energy makes people want to change like they want to change for the better . You may have an earth moon.

And I'm also getting that you make people fall in love with you. People fall in love with your personality and how you carry yourself . People may get attracted to you just because of your beauty but they fall in love with your personality. You are the perfect combination of beauty and brains. You're very self disciplined and you pamper yourself. I'm getting that you make people come out of their shell. you might have go through a lot or endings and may get tired around a lot of people . You are a social butterfly on the outside but an sleeping bag at home lol.

If you wonder why you attract only messed up people and the people who are mostly depressed trust me man I don't know too 💀 #webothmessedup . Jk it's because you are healed and you trigger those who are not healed yet . You might attract a lot of energy vampires or toxic people. So please protect yourself and your energy.

And one last thing,

YOU GUYS ARE PRETTY AF. like I was trying to not type it but I couldn't control myself.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

PILE 2

I'm hearing the word Luck for this pile. You bring a lot of luck in other people's life. Like there could be black clouds and thunderstorms everywhere but then you enter the room and BOOM sunshine and rainbows everywhere. Its funny how I'm trying to explain this. But one thing you make people speechless. You might even look different from the people in your area or just that you have a very unique aesthetic that no one in your are has. You might even speak two or more languages and people find that amazing.

T, O, M, R, A I'm getting these initials for some reason. Wait, they make AMOR which mean love in French . Maybe some of you are learning French or just have some sort of connection with France. I'm getting that you might give French artist vibes to people. It also makes RAM which is the name of one hindu God. Let me know if you see more words . You might have a lot of knowledge about different cultures . Also it's random but you look good in blue or shades of blue. Are you a middle child? Just asking.

Okay a lot of tarot readers in this pile , so hello to the tarot readers of this community! Honestly this pile has some abilities with tarot or could become famous in tarot community. Also you're very mysterious to others , they want to know you more and what's going inside your head.All I'm getting is Knowledge, intelligence, brilliance, a lot of intellect. You guys have a lot of unique and weird ideas . Sometimes you brain makes people go like "are you serious rn? " . You are always thinking about new things and you might over think a lot. Pile 1 and 2 are giving siblings vibes.

One last thing

YOU LITTLE WORKAHOLICS AND PERFECTIONISTS PLEASE GIVE YOURSELF SOME REST!!! It's okay to be lazy sometimes.

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

PILE 3

Sjjsjsjs this group is femme fatal , if you don't know what that is, google it up. But yeah people tend to put you on a pedestal. People are ready to worship you like literally, they are ready to bow down to you. Because ya know you focus on yourself and never give other much of your time and keep people wanting for more. And that makes them obsessed with you. But this burdens you because you don't want this. You just want to work, earn, enjoy. Just to let ya know , two boys are extremely obsessed with you.

You make people fall for you at the first glance. I'm hearing " You're one you're two✌" . You are their first and you're their second. There's no one who has the same amount of charm as you. Even the people who look emotionless and reserved will fall for you. You fill their heart with love till it overflows. And they can't control their feelings for you. They feel instant connection with you.

K, L, W, V are the initials I got for you. You embody the Girlboss energy. Like the rich CEO who is also pretty AF. You guys are filled with confidence and know your worth and that's very ahem hot to others. You're also very grounded and don't like to show off. A lot of you could be leo. I just heard Dove, you might like dove or just give their vibes.

One last thing

Stop being so hot all the time Momma 😫💀 . Alright that was weird but I hope you get the point ;)

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

#pick a picture #pick an image #pick a pile #pick a photo #pick a card #tarot pac #pac reading #tarot readers of tumblr #tarotblr #tarot blog #tarotcommunity #tarot and astrology #astro community #pac tarot #tarot witch #tarot reading #witchblr #tarot divination #divination #oracle reading #tarot #tarot cards #tarotoftheday #tarotonline #tarot of the divine #tarot pick a card #tarot pick a pile #free readings #free tarot #taroteverydamnday

[saltymongoose]

With the nose asks I'm surprised no ones brought up nose bleeds. I get them pretty often so I can imagine the first time any grunt sees the Player just randomly throw their head back as they ask for a napkin Probably doesn't matter how severe it is they're gonna freak out. Doc (and or Jeb and Hof depending on where Player is) completely losing it on the inside as it seems to be bleeding from the inside, and then mid way through mentally preparing himself for surgery or something Player's like "yeah it happens when the airs dry" or "Oh I broke my nose one time and now it just happens occasionally."

I love it - yet another distinctly human phenomenon to throw the grunts into absolute pandemonium lmao.

Any injury that the Player gets becomes the top concern of whoever they're with, and random, causeless ones are the most panic-inducing of them. At least if you trip or get hit by a spray of debris, your grunts can properly assess the situation and use their background knowledge to help you. But if you get a nosebleed, it essentially concerns a body part of yours that they know very little about sustaining a wound that has zero obvious cause to exist.

It's not like you got hit there or anything, which then leads your grunts to fear that you've got internal bleeding or perhaps a bad head injury that's only making itself known now. You know, otherwise lethal things.

Even the most intelligent of grunts (i.e. Christoff and Hofnarr, perhaps even 2BDamned) are stumped on what to do, which of course just pushes them further into a panicked spiral. They're rushing to get medical supplies for you, pushing you to tell them all about your wound while subtly nudging you to lie down on whatever flat surface is closest so they can examine you, and even preparing mentally for surgery on the most important person in their life. You're sitting there with a tissue to your nose and a mostly nonchalant expression while they're trying to come to terms with taking your life in their hands to do urgent brain surgery.

The funny thing is that they're so worried it causes you to be more concerned over them than your own nosebleed. You don't want them to get a heart attack, so you gently try to reassure them that you're okay while trying to stop your blood from dirtying your shirt too badly.

Since we're on the topic of them, I also think that these three grunts in particular are probably the easiest to calm down (at least outwardly) with your explanation of what a common nosebleed is. Their panic comes from it being you who's bleeding combined with their lack of knowledge over what's happening to you. And also what they should do to help treat you, which is actually nothing because you have it handled - but you know they're not going to be content with that, so you may as well assign them to be your "nurses" during this whole mishap. If not only for their peace of mind.

As for the other grunts, their distress is far worse by comparison, because 9/10 times they don't even have any background with medical things at all - nor have most of them had in-depth discussions about your anatomy like Doc. And given how much blood can pour out of your nose when it happens, you're going to have to try a bit harder than you'd like to convince them that no, you're not dying, this is just sort of normal for you. (Cue them freaking out again because wtf, bleeding like this is a usual thing for you? Why??)

Even after your nosebleed passes, your grunts are going to be far more cautious and protective around you than they usually are (which is saying something). They wouldn't want to risk you being hurt again after such a recent injury, especially after losing all of that blood.

#(No one tell them about spontaneous human combustion 😬) #tw: yandere #ask #chat tag #distressedwalnut #mutuals ✨ #samau #self aware m:pn au #other's art #really about time for this one isn't it

[ms-demeanor]

hello! i vaguely recall you doing a new year's resolution bingo thing - first, was that actually you lol? and if so, how'd it go, any adjustments you'd make from the original idea? (i did a resolution bingo this past year, which mostly ended up being a 24 item quest buffet, which did work for me! but i'm curious for more data). happy new year to you and your various sizes of bastard!

Hello! Yes, that was me. It didn't go great!

I did a resolution bingo in 2022 but it ended up feeling like homework and at a certain point in the year I looked at the spaces that I hadn't filled and it just made me feel bad.

In 2023 I did kind of a chore chart; I used a sheet of college-ruled notebook paper and divided it up into columns with things like "guitar" and "draw" and and "quilt square" and "go for a walk by myself" and numbered out 52 lines and I went through and highlighted each thing as I did it each week. That went very well for some things and not very well for others. I had at least a few columns where I did something every other week, and I totally finished the quilt square column, and I drew something for like 40 weeks, but I also had several categories that I did absolutely nothing for and several categories that had very few highlights.

That chart *also* was kind of a problem and there was a week in, like, august where my brain was being weird and was like "you can't do more of X until you've caught up on Y and Z" because I had to flip the paper over and wanted to finish three columns before I flipped it - that was clearly a very silly hangup but I don't make the rules for what my brain will freak out about and it caused a disproportionate amount of stress.

This year I kind of combined the two and I've made three sheets of paper with different tasks on different lines, and in different amounts. (And none of the papers need to be flipped over so I won't get a weird hangup week)

So instead of having 52 blanks each for "pushups" "squats" and "go for a walk by myself" I've got 156 blanks for "workout: lifting, calisthenics, stretching, walking, cardio." I didn't do a single walk by myself last year, and it turns out I'm pretty unlikely do do random squats or pushups, so rather than try to do one exercise fifty two times I'm just going to try to do *some* kind of exercise three times a week and I'm not going to feel bad about it if that's more bench press instead of more cardio.

I did pretty well with quilt squares so i've set a goal to do twice as many this year. I set a goal for 52 drawings and writing seriously 52 times. My yard is a disaster so my goal is to fill my yardwaste bin 52 times this year.

But what I *haven't* done is divide that up by week. Maybe some weeks I'll get four workouts in and other weeks I'll do two. Maybe I won't draw for a month but I'll get into it a lot over the summer.

One of my two other sheets is things that I'd like to do daily. My four daily tasks that I'm aiming for are: clean something at the house, floss, moisturize, and journal. (Journaling was successful in the bingo year but not at all last year)

The other sheet is the one that's more like the bingo, or what I think the spirit of the bingo is supposed to be. I've got it labeled "Bonus" and each thing on it has about twenty circles that I can check off if I do something but that I don't see as a goal. That includes stuff like "friend hangs" and "go someplace" - stuff that I want to do more of but that I can either plan or do spontaneously and that doesn't have a big project end goal (so it's "do something with music like program a music box or play guitar for a while" rather than "write a song" like it was the bingo year, when no song got written).

I may have also just kneecapped myself by making the bingo squares too hard. Maybe I should do a monthly bingo with smaller goals.

The bingo also got harder when I failed at bullet journaling; turns out that's not a great way for me to manage my time and attention and the bingo was in the bullet journal. Having stuff on a wall next to the light switch in my office helped a lot last year, I think, so that's where my sheets are this year too.

IDK, this is all fun to experiment with and I enjoy it but also I'm never sure if any of it "works" in terms of getting me to do more of the things that I'd like myself to do. It did work for quilt squares last year, though, and that's the best progress I've made on my quilt since I started it in 2021. And the daily chart is helping a lot so far.

But maybe I just like making charts (I do).

[stvnszlr]

HI! Here to beg u for Steven adhd headcanons

Pls i promise i'll be good this year.

oh my goodness … so um this is something i am like way too passionate about !! im going to seem like the craziest crazy person EVER by sharing this cuz i wrote .… a lot but u guys gotta stick with me okay you’ll see the vision

THANK YOU for asking this btw ! this is one of the things that makes me relate to steven the most ,,>_<,, and i will literally talk abt it anytime

☆ steven adhd hc’s / reasons why i think it’s possible he has adhd ! ☆ ( coming from someone who has a severe combined type adhd diagnosis )

please note this is all just speculation !! i’ve noticed some connections between his behavior / things he’s spoken about and adhd symptoms , but i am certainly no doctor and the only one who can truly determine any of this is steven himself . these observations are mostly just for my comfort as a neurodivergent person :)

ohhh stevie is a BIG stimmer :) he taps on everything in sight , he also hums a lot and likes to move his body ! bouncing , jumping , flapping , shaking , jiggling , playing with his hair ( i have video evidence sue me >:( )

people often describe him as “twitchy” , randomly making odd movements or sounds that can surprise and confuse those around him

vocal stims , dude . like my man is a parrot he’ll repeat random phrases over and over without thinking about it , just going about his day mumbling the most obscure sentences without even realizing

i’ve also noticed from watching videos he has a big BIG tendency to repeat things other people say !! i think that’s a combo of vocal stimming and also struggling to fit in when making conversation

he has literally confessed to having sensory issues related to taste and texture ??!?!? so i imagine he has them with other things too it’s mostly touch or sound related things that really get to him and can cause overwhelm but honestly anything that catches him at the right time will have him retreating inside himself and blocking everything out , unable to respond cuz he can’t think or listen

also seems to struggle with clothes touching his body ! he is always in loose tank tops and wears a lot of cropped pants / shorts , and has never really worn a lot of accessories unlike his bandmates . this could definitely be attributed to sensory issues , especially hating the feeling of wearing jewelry ( rings especially ) and also makeup on his face

drums !!! poppy loves drumming , it is SUCH a good stimulant for his brain cuz it works muscle memory , gives a dopamine rush , and combines both creative thought with an athletic activity

hyperfixations oh my god he is so bad . so so bad . he’ll pick up something for like a few weeks and dedicate EVERYTHING to it just to never pick it up again

very typical hyperactive type adhd , trouble focusing and sitting still OH MY GOD this man cannot sit normally for the life of him

um hyperfocus also !! drums is prolly his biggest one but if it’s something he’s super tuned into he can just . sit there and mindlessly work on it for HOURS before someone notices and is like hello take a break ??

didn’t like school cuz he always felt like he wasn’t smart , he was actually really interested by some subjects but just couldn’t keep up as a student :/ he also started getting into skating and music which were much better dopamine activities than school so he kinda just . quit ?

part of why his mom kicked him out so young , he was impulsive and reckless and very VERY high energy , easily irritated and his emotions had no filter / couldn’t control them or his actions based on them

this poor kid is so forgetful . he really cannot remember shit and it gets him in trouble a lot ! he’s gotta be reminded by the guys about EVERYTHING and it annoys them to no end , and steven always feels bad cause he wishes he could remember , but for some reason he forgets every time !

it’s where his irritability comes from too , he sometimes flips like a switch and can get really defensive and aggressive . he’ll lash out and turn really angry — not in a super serious way , but it’s the reason he gets in so many little fights with all the other guys , especially axl .

this is also tied in with the rlly strong sense of justice that neurodivergent people feel !! the reason he’d stand up and talk back when everyone else could just let it go

easier to fall into addiction and harder to get out of it . places a vice on his brain , trapping him in dependency on the drugs and making it so much more difficult to quit — why it took him so much longer to get sober than any of the others , even after all his health scares

drugs are also a coping mechanism for sensory issues and that awful , isolating feeling of being built just slightly different than everyone else

UM ???? LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT STEVEN POST GNR + LEAVING THE BAND IS JUST SCREAMING RSD ??? like the abandonment issues built up from his childhood ON TOP of being insanely sensitive to disappointing others / feeling unwanted ?? yeah i fucking understand why he couldn’t let go of it for almost twenty years of his life that’s like the worst possible thing to go through as someone hypersensitive to feelings of rejection bro . oh my god .

rsd also attributes to him being really eager to please especially with friends , and trying to talk himself up and seem cool and on their level and worth keeping around :(

i do also think it is likely that he learned to mask a LOT of his symptoms , of course not all of them ( as we can pretty obviously see in like . any video ever taken of him ) but a lot of the less socially acceptable ones he naturally forced himself to hide :( 

#thanks for listening to my yapping #i am begging this man to take the brown scales test he would be off the charts #steven adler #saz speaks #saz requests ! #guns n roses #gnr #steven gnr #steven adler adhd #guns n roses headcannons #steven adler imagine #adhd #neurodivergent

[blood-orange-juice]

Pushing my "Childe is inspired by Uther Doul" agenda.

I wrote about how everything that he does contains a contradiction and we discussed with Cricket how Canotila's quest implies that the Abyss might not be just a place with monsters and dead forgotten gods, but rather a place where things randomly flicker in and out of existence or change to random other things.

And a huge part of my fascination with Childe is how three years after the start of the story I still can't figure him out. Human psyche doesn't bend at this angles, his combination of traits is not supposed to exist in one person (nor it can be imitated).

Yet, somehow it doesn't feel like ooc or bad writing, I have a very clear sense of what would be childelike and unchildelike, it just doesn't feel like anything that can exist inside a human brain, unless I resort to a very weird theory.

*

The theory.

China Mieville's "The Scar" has a concept called "possibility mining", certain places and certain magic/technology being able to conjure all the possible versions of a person or an object at once. It can be navigated to some extent.

There's a character called Uther Doul, a warrior-scholar, the pirate city rulers' bodyguard and overall a charming fellow. He's consistently described as someone changing the direction of his actions too quickly and unpredictably or having traits that shouldn't coexist in one person.

(he also wears grey, is proficient in most kinds of weapons and is generally polite and soft spoken. do you see my vision?)

First meeting:

  “Surrender,” he said quietly to the man before him, who looked up in terror and sobbed, fumbled idiotically for his knife.    The grey-clad man spun instantly in the air, his arms and legs bent. He twirled as if he were dancing and stamped out quickly, the bottom of his foot slamming into the fallen man’s face and smashing him back. The sailor sprawled, bleeding, unconscious or dead. As the man in grey landed he was instantly still. It was as if he had not moved.

A fight at a city arena (mostly quoting this for the reaction of other people to him):

It was only when the frenzy spread to her own boat that she realized it was a word. “Doul.” It came from all around her. “Doul, Doul, Doul.” A name. “What are they saying?” she hissed to Silas. “They’re calling for someone,” he said, his eyes scanning the surrounds. “They want a display. They’re demanding a fight from Uther Doul.” He gave her a quick, cold smile. “You’ll recognize him,” he said. “You’ll know him when you see him.” [...] Uther Doul did not seem to live in the same time as anyone else. He seemed like some visitor to a world much more gross and sluggish than his own. Despite the bulk of his body, he moved with such speed that even gravity seemed to operate more quickly for him.

The heroine contemplating after (I don't think need to comment):

They left and walked the winding nightlit pathways of Thee-And-Thine toward Shaddler, and Garwater and the Chromolith. Neither spoke. At the end of Doul’s fight, Bellis had seen something that had brought her up short and made her afraid. As he had turned, his hands clawed, his chest taut and heaving, she had seen his face. It was stretched tight, every muscle straining, into a glare of feral savagery unlike anything she had ever seen on a human being. Then a second later, with his bout won, he had turned to acknowledge the crowd and had looked once more like a contemplative priest. Bellis could imagine some fatuous warrior code, some mysticism that abstracted the violence of combat and allowed one to fight like a holy man. And equally she could imagine tapping into savagery, letting atavistic viciousness take over in a berserker fugue. But Doul’s combination stunned her. She thought of it later, as she lay in her bed, listening to light rain. He had readied and recovered himself like a monk, fought like a machine, and seemed to feel it like a predatory beast. That tension frightened her, much more than the combat skills he had shown. Those could be learned.

Uther explaining lore:

   Uther quoted something like a singer. “ ‘We have scarred this mild world with prospects, wounded it massively, broken it, made our mark on its most remote land and stretching for thousands of leagues across its sea. And what we break we may reshape, and that which fails might still succeed. We have found rich deposits of chance, and we will dig them out.’    “They meant all that literally,” he said. “It wasn’t an abstract crow of triumph. They had scarred, they had broken the world. And, in doing so, they set free forces that they were able to tap. Forces that allowed them to reshape things, to fail and succeed simultaneously-because they mined for possibilities. A cataclysm like that, shattering a world, the rupture left behind: it opens up a rich seam of potentialities.    “And they knew how to pick at the might-have-beens and pull out the best of them, use them to shape the world. For every action, there’s an infinity of outcomes. Countless trillions are possible, many milliards are likely, millions might be considered probable, several occur as possibilities to us as observers-and one comes true.    “But the Ghosthead knew how to tap some of those that might have been. To give them a kind of life. To use them, to push them into the reality that in its very existence denied theirs, which is defined by what happened and by the denial of what did not. Tapped by possibility machines, outcomes that didn’t quite make it to actuality were boosted, and made real.

Fun detail: he also wields what's called a "possible sword", it takes the shape currently preferred by the owner.

If I recall that correctly, it's never actually stated explicitly or explained why does Uther have such a weird combination of traits and fans argue a lot about which side was real.

I think all of them were. He just switched constantly between all the different versions of himself. And I think so does Childe. Not just in "he compartmentalizes" way (although that probably too) but in reality-shifting way.

I also think that's the real reason why Childe wasn't in Sumeru. His thought process itself is probably a massive spoiler. Also Nahida would have probably speedrun a corruption arc with a pace inconceivable both to King Deshret and Rukkhadevata if she tried to peek into his head.

*

It gets weirder and even more fun when you see the drops from the 4.2 boss, but I'll wait for the patch to drop to draw parallels. For now I'll just say that it involves a whale and a music instrument.

#childe #tartaglia #genshin lore #if abyss be thy name I pledge to you my loyalty #all of the above #<- this is my childe/uther tag #the power I represent cares not at all about new crobuzon #I don't think there's a 1:1 comparison #rather hoyo authors read the book and were captivated by the concept just like I was #and then used it as inspiration #so I doubt they'll even follow the same plot points #but the similarities are uncanny

[nattikay]

That Hands Full piece has me feeling all kinds of things, but I was wondering if you had any HCs about the kinds of babies/toddlers that the kiddos were. I have my own extensive HCs but I would love to hear yours!

Hmm...I don't know that I necessarily have anything extensive or super specific tbh, but I do have some broad strokes:

Neteyam is just a little angel, the goodest boy, super easy baby (y'know, relatively speaking lol). Absolute sweetheart; the whole clan just adores him. That said, as he gets a little older (see: able to talk) he does develop a propensity for bossing his siblings around, and getting a little frustrated when they don't listen (had a few screaming matches with Lo'ak ngl). Random fact, but he also started walking pretty early, and picked up motor skills pretty fast.

Kiri is generally well-behaved, but has the attention span of a sparrow and will randomly wander off if not kept under constant surveillance (practically needs a balloon tied around her waist so her parents can keep track of her lol). A little more finicky than Neteyam, but nothing too extreme. Opposite Neteyam, she started walking late; despite being less than a month younger, Kiri was still on all fours for several months longer than her brother. She did get quite adept at crawling though, and could get around a lot faster than you'd think. She's also a bit more shy than her brother--while baby Neteyam is a social butterfly who loves soaking up the attention his cooing clanmates are all too happy to give him, Kiri is quieter and prefers to stick to herself and her immediate family; doesn't like talking to or being held by strangers.

The fact that both Neteyam and Kiri were relatively easy wound up making Jake and Neytiri a tad overconfident for #3, because....

Lo'ak is, and I say this with all the love in the world, a menace to society lol. He's stubborn, he's willful, has a hot temper, gets into everything and wants to argue with everyone. His first word was kehe ("no"). I don't want to call him a bad kid per se, but he's, ah....definitely the difficult one hrh. He feels things very strongly and just doesn't know what to do with it all. Lo'ak often left his parents more exhausted and exasperated than both his older siblings combined, and that's probably part of the reason there's such a significantly wider age gap between him and Tuk.

...I say only part of the reason because let's be real, none of the Sully kids were planned lol. Neteyam most likely happened on The First Time™ (he's shown to be born before Kiri, Kiri most likely happened at Grace's attempted consciousness transfer, and Jake and Neytiri becoming mates happened just days prior to said attempted transfer). Lo'ak is only a year younger than Neteyam, so he would've had to happen when both Neteyam and Kiri were still infants themselves, only a few months old. And Tuk just kinda came outta nowhere 6-7 years later lol. yyyyyeah, Jake and Neytiri ain't plan squat here hrh, they just take whatever Eywa gives them with open arms ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Speaking of Tuk, I don't really have any super solid headcanons for her at the moment, partly because I don't feel like we know her all that well as a character just yet, and partly because at the moment my brain is mostly still a bit caught in the early days, when the first three were younger, before Tuk was born (I am admittedly still working though some ouch feels concerning Neteyam's fate, so the older he is and therefore the closer to--well, yeah :| among other personal reasons).

I will say, though, that I don't really consider Tuk quite as "chaotic" as I know some people headcanon her. Yes she of course does her share of crazy kid stuff, but not to any particularly unusual degree, I think.

soooo yeah. Like I said, nothing super specific, but there's my broad strokes impressions hrh

#avatar #avatar 2 #sully family #neteyam #kiri #lo'ak #tuktirey #i will answer your other ask another time i need to go to sleep now ^^;

[crayolacolor]

simon infinitytrain?

send me a character and i'll list the below things about them | accepting!

HELLO ANON. i do not know if you'll ever see this because it took me ten years, but here i am, answering you.

FAVORITE THING ABOUT THEM:

fun fact: simon infinity train is the reason i have a disclaimer about me getting attached to tragic antagonists in my pinned post. so you can probably make an educated guess what i like about him.

he's just. such a well written character. i love how his negative character development was contrasted against grace's positive character development. i love how the writers did a really good job of making him infuriating and sympathetic at the same time.

i'll go more into my thoughts on him in a later section, but yeah, the tl:dr is he really just is my character type hahaha.

he's just a really complex character and imo the writers nailed that.

LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT THEM:

okay well, this answer changes depending on if you mean from a writing perspective or a 'him as a person' perspective. from a writing perspective, 100/10, no notes. i can't think of anything i disliked.

from a PERSON perspective. episode 6 makes me want to murder this man <3 i want to put tape over his mouth every time he speaks in that episode. it's somehow WAY worse than when he's just straightup being an over-dramatic anime villain at the end of the season.

FAVORITE LINE:

oh there are many. i need to rewatch again. but the ones that live in my brain rent free are ALL after his downward spiral begins:

"teamwork begins with two people trusting eachother. but you? you're no person." dramatic effect. extremely traumatizing for everybody who's ever watched this show. 10/10

"i liked what we had, but you made me do it! you betrayed the apex. and you betrayed me." again, dramatic effect. really gives you a feel for what's going on in his head, i think. 10/10

"why would i ever want to change if i'm always right!?" iconic. i think this is the one people remember the most from him, along with the one from ep 5.

BROTP & OTP (combining because my answer is the same for both):

grace. lol. full stop. hopefully i don't have to explain that i am VERY AWARE that their relationship was unhealthy in many, MANY ways. that is what i like about it. i'm a huge fan of messy relationships in fiction. i am a self proclaimed angst fiend.

the tragedy of it all is 100% the appeal of it for me, from either a platonic OR romantic standpoint. i love that. and yes, i do ship them to an extent- but NOT in the "i think they should have gotten together in canon" way. again, the angst is the appeal!!

i admit i do also enjoy aus where they fix their relationship, but not INSTEAD of the canon, more so in ADDITION to the canon. i think it's a fun alternate route to explore, but i deeply adore what the infinity train writers did with them in the show and that will not be changing.

NOTP:

literally any of the protags from the previous seasons. y'all, simon and grace are 18. you can't be shipping them with the 13-14 year olds. please stop. (nobody here! i mostly see this on ao3, honestly.)

RANDOM HEADCANON:

i think simon has been back to the cat multiple times in secret.

i really like the theory that he got some of the apex's tech from her. the main thing i have to support this is this line from the episode where he returns to her cabin in book 3:

"i knew you'd have something. you always do."

particularly i think there's a good chance he got the unmodified gravity boots from her (and likely modified them himself) and possibly also the number tracker.

UNPOPULAR OPINION:

oh i'm sure a lot of what i've already said has been an unpopular opinion, haha. i'm one of those people that's so in the middle in a debate that both sides of it have reasons to disagree with me.

i really like simon. he and grace are my favorite characters in the show. there are parts where i feel really bad for him, and parts where i want to yell at him and hit him over the head with a very large stick.

i see his death as a tragedy in universe, but also a really good writing choice on the part of the infinity train crew.

i don't think they secretly had a scheme to make us dislike him. i think it was written in such a way that it makes sense that some people would have a viscerally negative reaction to him, and others wouldn't. he's a very complex character and that's good writing!!!

i think the tragedy was the point, which is something both people who like him and people who hate him seem to completely overlook in a lot of cases. it's either "woohoo! simon died!" or "killing simon was bad writing he should have been redeemed >:/" not "oh this is really sad but i love it from a story perspective."

i don't think he was "irredeemable", per-say. the fact is, he was faced with a pivotal choice in episode five, and he picked the wrong one. he chose to double-down. i love that. i really do. i love the downward spiral. it's painful in the best way. i would not change the canon show for the world. again, 100/10, no notes.

but i can also see a universe where he made the right choice. i was writing a fic about that, once. (which admittedly has some characterization issues which i would fix if i tried it again.) i think it was possible. and i think that's a fun route to explore too. not a better route from a writing standpoint, but a good one.

i have so many more thoughts but this has already gotten really long, and i have two more questions to go, lol. but if you want to hear anymore you're free to send me another ask about it!

but, for now, moving on.

SONG I ASSOCIATE WITH THEM:

someone else on tumblr pointed out that "the moon will sing" by the crane wives is a good fit for simon @ grace and now i can't unhear it.

and, finally, FAVORITE PICTURE OF THEM:

anime villain simon my beloved.

#color's ever-revolving interests | fandom stuff #mailbox arcade | ask games #anonymous #infinity train #simon laurent #long post #HOOO boy can you tell i have a lot of thoughts about simon infinity train???? LOL #i have a lot of thoughts about b3 in general tbh #this is not even the HALF of them #i love it so much.

[mad-madam-m]

Hi.....Do you mind if I ask you some random thing? I used to love shounen and shoujo manga equally....But ever since I found BL manga 3 years ago, my interest in shoujosei (especially het romance) decrese a lot, and what I search for is just the dynamic between mc (male) and male lead...I don't want to read mc (female) and male lead or mc (male) and female lead...And what I want to read mostly are just mlm or wlw stories....

What do you think is happening to me? Is it really weird?

I don't think it's weird (or at least not any weirder than everything else that happens in this life)! Something similar happened to me when I first got into fandom Lo All These Years Ago, and I suddenly found myself utterly uninterested in het romances of virtually any stripe. Queer? YES. Het? Meh.

As someone whose favorite genre to read is romance, this was somewhat Distressing, because 90% of romance is het. I was worried I wouldn't be able to read the books I'd used to enjoy ever again.

I think it was a combination of a few different things that caused it:

I hadn't read (or watched) many queer romances up until that point, so it was something new and shiny! And my brain was SUPER excited about all the happy chemicals it was getting from these shiny new stories and new dynamics.

There's a Tumblr post from years ago that talks about how with queer romances, you have to put all this effort in to build the relationship and show how the characters belong together, whereas "a man and a woman share a pencil, and suddenly the romance is alive." And while the post itself is a little tongue-in-cheek, there's truth to it. Het romance is so pervasive in our society---in movies, in books, in commercials, in video games, in so many thousands of ways small and large---that people who are writing het romance don't always put in the same effort to build a relationship that someone writing queer romance does. They assume that because they stick a conventionally attractive man and a conventionally attractive woman on the screen (or the page), those characters should end up together because That's The Way Things Are. And I think when you branch out and read romances where the writers have actually put Effort into building the relationship, then going back to what you've always read can feel a little unfulfilling.

There was something weirdly freeing (for me) about reading mlm. I've seen others talk around here about how they liked reading the stories because it meant they didn't have to deal with the baggage of being female (however unconsciously) while reading. The real world has a lot of uncomfortable male/female dynamics and sometimes it can be hard to shut that off when you're reading stories. And with mlm or wlw, it's much easier to.

For me, I cruised the "queer stories only" thing for several months until I watched Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and holy shit Jack and Phryne just did it for me. Because it was a very, very well-written and well-acted het relationship, and that's when I realized that my bar for good romance had been raised, and I wasn't going to settle for subpar relationships ever again, no matter the dynamic.

Anyway, it may be the same for you or it may be something completely different. You may eventually find a het romance that works for you again, or you just may stick with mlm and wlw as long as it's sparking joy. And there's nothing weird about reading what sparks joy for you! <3

#m answers #Anonymous

[faejilly]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @shadoedseptmbr ages and ages ago

tagging uh... i have no fucking clue. anyone who writes! no pressure! please blame me! @fancytrinkets @la-muerta @leahazel @jadesabre301 & ?!?!?

1: How many works do you have on AO3?

178 fics, since this is a fic writer meme.

2: What's your total AO3 wordcount?

1,193,590, with the caveat that that includes a collab fic of 190,409 words of which I was primarily writing only one of three POV characters. (And also one other shorter collab and the minimal amount of words required to describe the podfic/fanmixes.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Shadowhunters (TV) atm, a lot of BioWare Games (especially Dragon Age 2) and then a truly random smattering of smaller games and tiny!fandom prompts back when askbox games were more common here plus Yuletide/Fic Exchange Matches On Unexpected Things. (I think I've broken 20 fandoms on AO3, depending on how one counts the various DA sub-fandoms.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

These are all Shadowhunters and Malec fics. The first three are complete, the last two are WIPs.

two are halves of one

My only posted 5+1 fic, a series of outsider perspectives on Alec & Magnus & their very long day of denied cuddles/alone time. 😅

i cannot touch because they are too near

Parabatai Feels & Magic Lore! I wrote this for a Season 3B countdown event, and it's Magnus Being A Nerd and trying to figure out how this parabatai thing works. I snuck Jace and Michael Wayland feels in there kind of sideways too. I do think it's one of the most self-indulgent things I've ever written (epistolary! melancholy comfort! No Plot!) with many thanks to @rutherinahobbit because she helped me land the ending.

with an if in its soul

So I killed Alec off-screen right before the fic starts, and proceeded to keep poor Magnus very upset about it for the following 22k words. (It gets better! I promise! No one stays dead!) I got many angry and wailing comments, I have never been so proud. (This one suffered from very dramatic scope creep while I was trying to write it, which amused tumblr a lot, and this time I have to thank @poemsfromthealley for helping to make it work. And also the blurb, because I just could not figure out how to post it for ages.)

i am for you

Epistolary!Fluff Fic that was supposed to be a bit of a missed connection thing for @pameluke but Alec instead proposed to Magnus on first sight and I just kind of went with that instead. /I am not in charge of the voices in my head

It is the first fic I ever had really break containment and get a lot of engagement/comments/subs/etc. It has been out-kudosed now, obviously as it's #4 on this list, but that's only because I killed the momentum and never finished it. 😅😅😅 ISTFG I am going to finish it some day though!

if broken hearts were whole

From a soulmates/massage combined prompt meme thing ALSO for @pameluke. I got stuck on this one largely because I had three different prequel/s1 retellings in my head at the same time and I kind of tangled them all up too much to get any of them done. I will eventually figure this one out too, but I may have to finish one of the other things to sort of clean my brain out, and I haven't managed that either.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

In theory? I got hung up on a comment from an FTH bidder the year I failed to finish my FTH fic, and didn't want to reply to their comment 'til I wrote their fic?

which doesn't make much sense, but brains are weird, so there we are

someday I'll answer the backlong. it's only like two or three years at this point? 😅😭🤣

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

so about uh... five years ago? there was a really popular gifset format from an Elizabeth Hewer poem called in one timeline and I haven't the faintest idea how to gifset so I wrote a fic for Malec instead. [ao3]

I have written other things which Have Angst, but for me I tend to ease the ending... this is one of the few where I didn't.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Everything Else! (Almost)

I think, as an exercise in the true form of Happily Ever After, I'd have to go with Fine Feathers, which is an epilogue to a Georgette Heyer Regency Romance novel I did for Yuletide 2016.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Not usually. I don't even get people yelling at me to update on my WIPs, which may be hateful but isn't the same thing 😅

/and I'm certainly not complaining about either of these things, but I wish I knew how I avoided The Discourse™️so I could do it on purpose

9. Do you write smut?

I used to pretty regularly. I was even known as a smut!fic writer when Dragon Age Fandom and I were mutually more active together. Not so much (on either the writing quantity or the requests for more smut) for Shadowhunters.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Mostly no? I did two very short ficlets for Bingo Squares. I do still believe that Leverage is the Fix-It Fandom that fits everywhere and thus only kind-of counts as a crossover, plus I wrote a Shadowhunters / Inception bit with Ariadne as a Warlock.

I do also enjoy a good fusion fic, aka using a different canon as an AU setting, rather than combining characters from two settings.

For example: Shadowhunters Characters as BAU Agents from Criminal Minds!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of? I've seen it happen to co-authors though, and other friends

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I am still stunned and amazed and delighted by this!

Batty_Blue translated several of my Shadowhunters fics into Russian:

a flower of always i cannot touch because they are too near trust your heart ashes of angels / ashes of roses

And Pomyluna translated 'First Choice' into Polish

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes!

Only once successfully (aka one and done and finished and posted), and that was entirely thanks to my co-author Raph. 😅 (Against All Odds for @galedekarios back when I knew her as Chignon on an actual forum prior to tumblr. She's who got me onto tumblr, so if you met me here? That's her fault. 🥰)

I have started things with people a few times that never got posted, and there's a massive Mass Effect retelling on potentially permanent hiatus, though all three of us do hold out hope that someday our lives will align again. (Persephone Rising)

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Me & Sleep

(Sorry, can't do it, can't choose. Beware My Armada. With a couple ancient ship leviathans which can raise themselves from the deep with the slightest provocation.)

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Every thing I have ever posted (except for 12 Moons) is something that I do in fact hold out hope I will eventually finish.

Things I have not started posting are too numerous to count and/or list. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they are fertilizer for other things that will be written later.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Dialogue and hopeful melancholy? I get a lot of compliments on emotion/mood, and I do feel like I am usually pleased with the, idk, vibes of most of what I write.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Plot & structure! What is? How do? What do you mean I have to have things happen rather than just reacting all the time?!?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have done it with mixed success and there are definitely ways to do it more accessibly than I did. It can add a lot, but you do have to think about the execution.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Uh. I think Lois & Clark back when I was a teen!jilly. Either that or Sailormoon when I was a slightly older teen!jilly?

In terms of posting in public, it was Bioware something, either Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins back around when Thing 2 was born. And he's 14 now, so... 😅

Orion's Belt, I think? I didn't originally post it on AO3, and then I deleted myself off the internet for awhile, and then I re-uploaded everything, and I'm bad at time in the best of circumstances, which that clearly was not, so it might not have been that one specifically but it was close.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I CAN'T CHOSE JUST ONE WTF

As a formative event/process, I have a certain enduring fondness for Lost for Words, which was like the first fic I really wrote while in fandom... I was social about it and posted while I was writing and finished (eventually) and it is still the longest single story I have ever written. (Tho I am for you will beat it out when I finish that.)

It's not particuarly good from the perspective of who I am as a writer some dozen years later, but it's sincerely meant cotton candy, at least. 🤣

#jilly spam #on writing #writing memery

[koukaaa-descent]

ALSO TELL ME ABOUT LAMP PLEASE

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!! HI HOLLIE HI ROSE

lamp isn’t technically an oc I was just thinking Damn… wouldnt it be funny if a jester had a mask and it glowed when it was popped and it was like a fucked up desk lamp… and then things Happened in my brain.

Lamp is roughly 26 years old and will probably reach the age of 45, contrary to normal jester lifetimes (up to 150). this is definitely because of the mask latched onto its right eyesocket, slowly devouring it!

It has not ever met Indigo or Monsoon, and it’s sort of debatable whether or not it exists in the same universe.

Together, the jester and mask create a gestalt :] (in simpler meanings. think of the relationship parasitic fungi have with ants, minus the immediate death of the host!)

The jester half of the relationship is mostly conscious and deeply murderous. The mask half is significantly more docile in behaviors, relating to a regular masked’s habitual stalking and whatnot. It’s not exactly used to possessing a body that’s not explicitly human shaped, so there’s been some complications.

As time progresses, Lamp (as a singular entity) will decay as any usual host will. At one point, the jester half will be subsumed by the mask and entirely absorbed and overtaken.

The reason there’s a mask latched onto its skull is because some random employee majorly panicked and threw a comedy mask at it, which actually helped them escape.

Lamp is constantly bleeding. Normally, a jester doesn’t explicitly bleed; it’s just a mushy mass of preserved flesh that’s nowhere near as fragile as it seems. Because of the mask’s slow consumption and the depth that the mask’s roots have dug into as well as its small amount of experience regarding non-humanoid hosts, Lamp is basically dealing with over a dozen open wounds at all times! Existing is agonizing!

Since the jester wasn’t fully possessed during the first initial attempt, the mask is only able to influence its behaviors and subtly direct it to do other things. For example, if lamp were to chase down a crew mate and the mask didn’t want said crew mate to die yet, it would be able to slow its movements and redirect it briefly in order to give that individual a little more time. It’s not able to stop Lamp from killing them, however.

Lamp does not need to eat. It’s actually unable to because of the mask’s roots. It’s… not a pretty sight, inside of the box. It’s really not.

Collectively they combined create ‘lamp’. Otherwise, they’re both just regular individuals of both species.

Lamp cannot wind very quickly, and the song is very broken up. Leave it to a mask to mangle all of the careful things going on in the box (the jester is very pissed about this but cannot do anything about it)

The jester is effectively blind. The mask is not. The jester has an amazing sense of hearing and senses vibrations very well. Combined, you’ve got every crew’s worst nightmare—if Lamp can actually wind itself. It takes longer than two minutes, that I can assure you.

There was one single occasion when Lamp fell down a flight of stairs. It was embarrassing, because there was another masked at the bottom. Lamp mauled it out of embarrassment and generally murderous instinct. (The mask itself was not happy about this.)

The relationship it has with other Masked is very very complicated. Over time, as the jester half is consumed, affectionate interactions come easier. Currently, about two months into being stuck together, Lamp has a greater tendency to avoid masked or otherwise murder them. The instinct to grab them and shake like a rabid dog is so prevalent that the Mask cannot even begin to attempt to suppress it.

It Can vomit blood as a regular masked would. It’s kind of like a firehose, though. Like, yknow how a pressure washer can remove flesh from bone? Short range with a very long ‘recharge’. Mainly because there’s not as much blood in its body as you’d expect.

They are two individual beings shoved into one body, one of which is significantly ’fainter’ than the other. There has been more than one occasion where the jester half has attempted to claw the mask off with its singular hand. It has not worked.

Yes, the blood boils. It’s steadily eroding Lamp’s ‘skull’ away, and eating through the box. The skull will eventually have enough grooves and wedges that it just falls apart. The box will experience this as well.

It’s not outright hate; the jester dislikes the mask as one would dislike a spider trapped in their closet. Annoying. Not really bothered by death, just sort of begrudgingly wandering around with it. It doesn’t have the real capability to remove it nor does it retain enough of itself to hate it.

i barely think about lamp im ngl … I made all of this up on the spot thankyou 2 for askign..

#oc lamp #lethal company #lethal company jester #lethal company oc #asks

[itsbenedict]

Just finished this game, which I played because my brain has been fried by work problems and I needed something to chill with, but mainly because @konec0 did the soundtrack and I wanna support what he's doing. Still appreciate you pitching in on Nepetaquest 2011 back in the day, dude!

Cuisineer is an arcadey restaurant manager game, and also an isometric hack-and-slash dungeon-crawler roguelike. You delve dungeons to get ingredients, you cook and serve those ingredients in your restaurant, you get money with which to upgrade things and get more ingredients and serve more food. Solid concept!

Does it work? Well... It's very cute, and very polished, but it's held back by some very strange design decisions.

In short... its primary and secondary gameplay loops clearly had a lot of love put into them, but the tertiary loop- the progression systems- are very weirdly balanced to the point of being almost broken.

Bad thing 1

The main problem: everything costs wood and stone. Everything costs wood and stone, and costs more wood and stone the further you upgrade things. But you don't get more wood and stone the further you get in the game, at least once your inventory space maxes out. Wood and stone give way to Magic Wood and Super-Stone of various sorts, which are required for stronger upgrades, but you still need big piles of the basic stuff and can't substitute the advanced stuff, and it's the limiting factor on every single purchase in the game except health potions and rugs for some reason. Combine that with sharply limited inventory space, and money from running the restaurant very swiftly stops mattering compared to how many times you've farmed the starting level for crafting materials. It functionally locks you out of what might be fun systems, like the decoration and furniture stuff- since doing anything cosmetic trades off against progression.

Bad thing 2

Also- in the dungeon-crawler half, there's not much advancement to speak of. You might think these resources could be spent to make you stronger, but... upgrading weapons is expensive and time-consuming and has extremely marginal rewards. Like, the starting weapon does 10 damage, and a fully-upgraded endgame weapon might do 15. The game seems to be trying really hard to avoid being an RPG and letting the player get stronger over time- the various mechanics for upgrading your combat capabilities are just not worth it, and the random weapon drops are mostly identical and do nothing but clutter your inventory.

(It feels like it's trying to limit progression so it can bill itself as a roguelike, even though that's not really what the game is on any meaningful level? Not a choice that really works for it as its own game, imo.)

Bad thing(?) 3

The game's combat is an odd duck. It's... very polished, and very compelling, if you use the one approach that actually works. There's nine weapons, but only a handful are viable with the way combat is designed.

Enemies have very short windows where it's safe to attack them, and are quick to punish you for bad timing or wrong positioning. Reminds me of a soulslike, almost. Healing is sharply limited, so you really need to be careful not to get hit by stuff- and there's so much stuff. Walk into a room, or too close to a room, and everything in it will instantly aggro you, including artillery enemies with long-distance ranged attacks. Problems appear quickly and overwhelmingly, so combat ends up being a case of... dodging massive walls of tomato danmaku and miscellaneous enemy projectiles as you charge into rooms full of enemies and hazards, trying to find one safe place to stand for one second while you hit one enemy for chip damage, over and over again until you gradually thin the enemy numbers and win yourself room to breathe. It's very intense and very fun once you get the rhythm...

...but some weapons just plain don't fit into that rhythm. Many enemies need to be consistently stunlocked to deal damage to them safely, and the reloading projectile weapons and slow hard-hitting weapons just can't do that, forcing you to take hits, which you can't afford to do. Narrow-hitbox spear-type weapons fare poorly against crowds of small enemies who can slip past your guard, which are Everywhere. There's a fun kebab weapon that lets you charge and dash around the stage, but levels are claustrophobic and full of hazards that punish you for doing that. As Chiyo Kumasawa foretold: the only thing you can rely on is your trusty mackerel.

There's also a weird and kind of funny tradeoff where... you can't meaningfully upgrade your damage, but you can roll elemental status effects that can give you some multipliers and useful passive AoE damage as you're dashing around trying not to die. But... these huge AoE elemental effects have very wide, obtrusive visuals that hide the enemies on the screen, and you really need to be paying attention to enemy animations so you don't get hit. It's a sort of unintentional tradeoff of defense for strength, which weirdly works.

Bad thing 4

The writing's kinda flat. You've been hoodwinked into taking on your parents' debt and running their restaurant, you have to pay it off- it's established pretty hastily and mainly ignored. The townspeople have very cute designs, but they're all kind of nothingburger characters whose lives revolve around the urgent need for you to deliver them lots of random food items for contrived reasons in exchange for recipes and stuff. Cast kind of comes off like some softcore smut artist's stable of OCs whose personalities were afterthoughts. Doesn't really go anywhere, the localization's pretty stiff, most jokes don't land... doesn't seem like there was a lot of effort put in there.

Good thing 1

I spill way more words nitpicking flaws than I do praising stuff, but I did enjoy this game enough to finish it, and it's not for no reason.

Firstly- the restaurant section. I have no complaints about the restaurant mode! It's polished to a mirror sheen, honestly. I'm given to understand the restaurant sim is a genre, mainly native to phones, and maybe this all works because it's cribbing mechanics from some more successful inspiration I've never heard of, but... it's just very enjoyable, void of potentially annoying cooking mechanics and letting you focus on queuing up dishes, keeping track of orders, and dashing around making sure everything is running smoothly. The balance job is very nice- the difficulty during lunch and dinner rushes is just enough to make you sweat a little as things ramp up, and they last just long enough to get the most out of the pressure without totally overwhelming you. Chef's kiss, no notes.

Good thing 2

konec0's soundtrack is real good! I mostly know him for his electroswing and HS fanmusic, but he can clearly pull off a wide range of styles. It matches the overall sound design really well and it's enjoyable to listen to. Excellent job there!

Good thing 3

The "final dungeon" segment does this very cool and fun thing where it combines the dungeon-crawling combat and the restaurant management into one challenging final exam where you have to survive combat arenas to scrounge up ingredients as you cook them up and serve them, which would maybe get exhausting in core gameplay but works really well as a challenge for the end of the game. Liiiiittle bit too easy in the first two rounds, but it's fine.

Good thing 4

I already mentioned this alongside the nitpicks, but: when the combat works, it works- the feel of it is satisfying, the challenge is well-calibrated, and the animations look great and convey what's happening well.

Good thing 5

Also the character art is very cute. Lot of fun designs there, even if as mentioned the characters they're attached to are pretty flat. The game's just gorgeous in general- the artists knocked it out of the park.

OH WAIT BAD THING 5

The game's cover/key art prominently features a squid that throws ninja stars! But there's no squid that throws ninja stars in the game! How the heck did that happen!!! Give me the ninja squid!!!!!

#cuisineer #game rec #idk if it's a rec since my opinions are pretty mixed but it should go in the tag #maybe i should go through and add a game review tag

[basicallyahedgehog]

20 questions for fic writers!

Thanks for the tag @maesterchill, I loved reading your answers!

Here are mine! (under the cut)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 30!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

64,491, which is higher than I expected actually. My one 13k fic is doing the hard work in pulling up the average words 😂

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Harry Potter!! Various ships but mostly Drarry

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Love You Find - The one with the road trip My Heart Was Unprepared - The one with Draco's diary All The Time In The World - The one with gender euphoria The Strings That Weave Us - The one where Draco has pink hair The Evolution of Soup (Or How Harry Learned to be Loved) - The one with too much soup and a lot of feelings

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

No, but not by choice per se. But I have truly terrible object permanence and by the time I remember them I feel bad that I haven't responded yet and then I never do...

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Til The End of The Night - I don't really write fics that don't have happy endings, but this is just 700 words of angst. Sorry Harry. I do have a kind-of sequel planned for this but who knows if it will ever get finished!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

As I said, I don't really write not happy endings. But maybe The Love You Find.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've had a couple of odd comments, but none that I would class as hate.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I have written exactly two fics that have smut, one drarry and one poly golden trio. So I'm not sure if I have a kind? Probably soft and sweet, or at least that's what I aim for.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No I haven't, and I don't think I ever will. I don't really know any other universe in the same way as I know HP - both the canon and then the world I've built for it in my head - to be able to confidently combine them.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of...

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I'd be open to it if anyone ever wanted to.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven't! @phoebe-delia and I keep talking about it though...

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Drarry, always

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

As mentioned above, I have twoish chapters written of a "sequel" (maybe more a companion?) to Til The End Of The Night. It's the first Drarry fic I started writing and it got abandoned in favour of fest fics and I've never gotten back to it. I would like to think I will, but at this point my faith is low!

I also have the first four books written of a Hermione-POV canon, which was my first ever fanfic. It has been long abandoned and will never be returned to. If you manage to track down my old ffn account and find it, godspeed to you

16. What are your writing strengths?

Ummm. People tell me I make them feel things, so maybe that? I also can't turn my SPAG brain off, so as long as I slow down enough to edit my own writing, that's usually pretty strong.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am not good at writing plotty things, and when I do try I find it really hard to not just info-dump it - to actually describe what is happening instead of just narrating it to the reader. I can do vibes, but not plot 🤷

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I love it in other people's fics, but I do not have more than a couple of random words in any language other than English. I know that translation sites exist, but I feel that I don't have enough knowledge of other languages to do it justice.

The only time I'd break this self-imposed rule would be if I was making new spells - eg using Latin.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter. First and only!

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Oh boy. Either All The Time in the World or (They) Keep Me Warm. Because both of them are full of all my trans feels and are probably the two fics that I have put the most of myself into.

Thanks again for the tag, this was fun! No-pressure tagging @phoebe-delia @otpcutie @geesenoises @citrusses @makeitp1nk and anyone who wants to!!

#tag games #writing things #my writing

[ramblingoak]

Hi Oak, thank you for being a wonderful person and just the highlight of everyone’s day. I hope you know how amazing and appreciated you are, and that your birthday was as excellent as you

Hello Anon! Thank you so much, I had an amazing birthday. Honestly the best birthday I've had in a very long time and that was mostly because of so many great people here and on Discord. I definitely felt the love yesterday (except from one salty Anon XD).

~putting the rest under a read more because I started rambling (there's a reason that's part of my name)~

It's...odd for me to get messages like this? I appreciate them very much, like I can't even describe how much, but for someone that has always had an unhealthy combination of imposter syndrome and self-hatred it's weird to see these in my inbox. The random anon hate makes more sense to me because I can read that and go "yeah, yeah I agree I AM annoying" (and then obviously block and delete them). When I read a kind comment the first thing my brain thinks of is "well so and so would disagree with you". Although sometimes it's just ME disagreeing because I have a difficult time being kind to myself.

I really don't know where I'm going with this 😅 I've been happier than I've been in a long time since I started writing for Ghost and making friends on here. But it's also come with extreme levels of anxiety and stress. In the last week I found myself remembering WHY I stopped writing when I was younger. On the other hand I was also thinking about what I would be doing right now if I hadn't of found the Ghost community and been inspired by so many artists and writers on here...and I honestly don't know. Whatever it is I would be probably far less happier than I am right now.

So anyway...if you've read all this I apologize for rambling. I guess the point is being on here means a lot to me. So many people here mean a lot to me. Hopefully this doesn't come across as too weird but Ghost means a lot to me. (I won't make the obvious joke here but I want to) SO ANYWAY!

I love you, I like you. Have an amazing day 💙✨

~~Oakie

#IF YOU GHOST YOU HAVE EVERYTHING #fuck sorry I couldn't stop myself #ughhhhhh lame i'm lame #love you guys though #personal stuff and things #message box #thank youuuu

[jazz-bazz]

OKAY ITS YOUR TURN FOR QUESTIONS NOW

What are the ghouls' hobbies outside of music?

Also hi I hope your day was wonderful 💙

thank you google for this 😂 bcs my brain cannot think of normal people hobbies… i totally forgot about crochet or reading or gardening until i had to type this… sorry not sorry 😬

Rain loves working with leather! Someone got a new leather wallet? That ghoul would carve your name and whatever you want on it. Want a custom leather bound book? Rain‘s the ghoul for the job.

Dew makes jewelries, he has the advantage of his fire to help him and he makes pretty things. Not just with metal, he also collabs with Rain to make leather jewelries.

Mountain is a big guy, but he can be delicate with his hands, which is why he likes to make sculptures out of clay, each ghoul has a mini sculptures of themselves with their instrument, and Papa has one of him and the ghouls.

Swiss loves painting, but using things other than paint. He has used coffee, juice, dirt, sand, cotton balls, and anything that inspires him. His creations has been used to stim by the other ghouls.

Aether, boy likes to “ghosthunt”, he needs a break from being the common sense of the ghouls and needs some silly in his life. He finds random ghost hunting groups and bullshit his way in. Thing is, he can see the ghosts, and sometimes pranks the humans by knocking things over, or shouting that he found something.

Phantom does origami, though he mostly make little stars as a way to stim. But he can make little birds and other things too, he’s always browsing youtube for new tutorials. Also he’s the designated napkin folder for dinners.

Cirrus has several scrapbooks, pictures from tour, trinkets the others gave her, random leaves, old clothes, and even people‘s kiss marks or thumb prints have become the centerpiece of her creations. Don’t bring this ghoul into a stationery store unless you’re prepared to pay a lot of money.

Cumulus does paper quilling. She has the patience and the eyes to do it. She almost always can be found fiddling with strips of paper at any time, and has a small tub of glue to secure them, and also a pouch she uses to store them until she can combine them into one big picture.

Sunshine makes parkour videos because this ghoul just can not stay still. And she figures being an immortal demon is enough safety measure to do extreme parkour. Her videos have gone viral in the internet even though nobody knows who she is.

Aurora loves making clothes and quilts for her pack. Not only that she also makes mini clothes for their plushies, so now Copia‘s plushia has several different outfits for different occasions. She secretly sells her plushy clothes too. Also she likes stone skipping in the lake and has several times hit Rain‘s head.

#ghost hc #my hcs #rain ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #aether ghoul #swiss ghoul #phantom ghoul #mountain ghoul #cirrus ghoulette #cumulus ghoulette #sunshine ghoulette #aurora ghoulette #mac

[legolasghosty]

Alex drags his feet as Willie tugs him down the sidewalk. His long, blond hair started falling out of its bun around lunchtime and strands are stuck to the back of his neck. The first day of school is always the worst. No one ever knows where they're going and there's new locker combinations and a stupidly loud assembly and way too much chaos.

And Alex would be lying if it wasn't a little bit worse this year sitting through class attendance eight times in a row. Somehow, now that he's out to his friends and they call him Alex, hearing his deadname feels even worse.

Summer break had been amazing! He'd had to spend a week at church camp, which had been exhausting, but for the rest of it he had been free to spend all his time in Julie's garage practicing with the band, or hanging out in the living room playing board games, or going on random outings and walks with Willie.

Going on dates with Willie. Cause they're together now. The giddy butterflies that appear in his stomach whenever he remembers that fact is probably the only reason he's still following his partner down the sidewalk.

Cause after a mostly blissful summer, coming back to school and everything that comes with is exhausting. Alex just wants to go home and crash in bed and pretend today didn't happen. He wishes he could tell his brain to stop replaying every single awkward moment of the day on repeat.

But as soon as they got out of the building, Willie had grabbed Alex by the hand and asked if he wanted to try something. And Alex is very bad at saying no to Willie.

So here they are, probably about a twenty-minute walk away from LFHS, stopping in front of a small coffee shop.

"Umm, what are we doing?" Alex asks finally, turning to stare at his boyfriend in confusion. Not that he couldn't use a nice iced drink at the moment, but he doesn't recognize the name of the store or anything.

Willie bites his lower lip and grins. "So I know first days of school suck," they starts, moving closer to grab ahold of Alex's other hand as well, "and getting deadnamed all day sucks."

Alex winces at the reminder, but the acknowledgment is nice honestly. Willie actually gets it. They came out as transmasc back in 6th grade and had their dad's full support, but the feeling of being called the wrong name doesn't go away with time like some things do. And it had been another year or two before Willie started actively correcting teachers and adults on his name.

"So," Willie continues, his smile growing with every passing second, "I was wondering if you wanted to get a drink. As Alex."

It takes Alex a second to understand what Willie is implying: giving a stranger his chosen name. As if it's his name. His real name. Which... it is.

"We're far enough away from the school that we probably won't see anyone we know," Willie rushes on. "And I've been here a couple times and they're super queer friendly. So if you don't want to, that's totally fine, but it should be totally safe if you want to go for it."

"You're amazing," Alex breathes after a long moment. Then he nods. "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it."

Willie grins and pushes open the door. "After you, m'lord," they chuckle, ushering Alex inside.

Alex laughs as they head for the counter of the small, cozy coffee shop. It's very homey, he thinks. Lots of plants and wooden tables and comfy-looking chairs. And there's a large, rainbow pride flag hanging on one wall alongside a bunch of photos.

Willie stops just before they reach the counter and pulls out his wallet. "Also, this is my treat and you're not gonna win that fight," they state, nudging Alex's shoulder. "I think dad has started sneaking 'spoil your boyfriend' money in with my normal allowance."

Alex blushes but nods in agreement. Usually they have a good-natured argument about who pays for stuff when they go out, but he knows that tone. He's not gonna beat Willie this time.

Instead, he leads Willie up to the counter, where a middle-aged Asian woman is wiping it down.

"Hello, what can I get for you two?" she asks, smiling up at them.

Alex glances over at Willie, who takes the hint and goes first. "Can I get a medium iced decaf caramel latte?" they tell her.

She nods, then raises her brows in question at Alex. "Ummm, can I get a medium iced decaf mocha?" he responds.

"Of course, is that going to be all for you two?"

Willie nods and pulls out his card.

"And can I get a name for the order?"

Alex bites his lip, suddenly nervous. Willie squeezes his hand and moves a bit closer so their shoulders are pressed together. Alex uses their warmth to ground himself.

"Um, Alex," he says hesitantly.

He half expects the woman to challenge him on it, to laugh and ask him for his real name, but she just nods and tells them that the drinks will be out shortly. Willie pulls him away to a small table to wait. Then they pull another chair around so they can sit right beside him.

"You okay?" Willie asks softly once they're both seated.

Alex takes a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm okay," he answers, laughing a bit under his breath. "Dang, that's a bit of a rush," he comments, trying to stop his whole body from shaking in the wave of adrenaline running through his system.

"Right?" Willie agrees, shifting to take place their right hand in Alex's lap so he can play with their rings. "Dad took me out to do this back when I first came out," he adds. Then he laughs. "Well, not exactly, we got smoothies, not coffee. But he took me out somewhere no one we knew would be and let me put my name on the order."

Alex squeezes Willie's hand. "That's awesome," he murmurs. "Thank you, Willie, for sharing this with me."

Willie nods, his smile soft, and for a moment, their gaze seems to drift down toward Alex's lips. Alex licks them instinctively, glancing down at Willie's mouth. Almost without thinking, he leans forward just a bit...

"Alex?"

They both move back suddenly as the barista's voice echoes through the little shop. Alex glances over Willie's shoulder to see her setting a pair of to-go cups on the counter. Then he looks back at Willie and they both burst out laughing.

Alex gets up and grabs their drinks, calling a "Thank you," over his shoulder to the woman behind the counter. He hands Willie their drink and they head out the door.

Once they're outside, Alex takes a long sip of his drink. A little spark of joy forms in his chest when he catches sight of his name written in black sharpie on the side of the cup. When he looks back at Willie, they're giving him a wide, knowing smile.

"Feels good, right?" they say, taking his free hand.

Alex lets his gaze wander from the cup to his partner's smiling face to their hands tangled together between them. "Yeah, it does," he responds, squeezing his hand.

#legolas tag #jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex #jatp fanfic #willie jatp #alex mercer #look I don't know what happened here either #I just wanted it so I did it and now it's y'all's problem #will probably take this down later #any typos are my fault and mine alone #my impulse control is apparently broken so y'all have to suffer the consequences #sorry..... #but also kinda not