#pen rambles

Thank you

to all of the dnfers in this slowly dying fandom. Artists, editors, writers and everyone who supports us with comments and likes, kudos and reblogs.

I know it's not easy, but you are appreciated and so so loved 🫶🏻 If not for all of you, this fandom would be a very lonely place.

gnf hugs for all of you 💙💙💙

Got tagged, if you can call it that, by radioactive-yuri, so why not.

what's the origin of your blog name?

I had a dream at age 10 that I was a Youtuber by the name of Penthepoet. I took this username and, when crafting my actual Youtube channel, made it real. This ended up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I began to get into poetry and got into a big arts school program as a result, started going by Pen irl, etc.

The more you know!

what's your "i will always order this" food?

I might be autistic, but a good ribeye is unbeatable at many a restaurant. Likewise with chicken and broccoli at a Chinese food joint.

what's your overused emoji?

👀 and the singular eye emoji, because I'm always wanting to know what's going on in some capacity or another lmfaoooo

My DM search results with my good friends are often FULL of eyes emojis because of this. Ceaseless watcher turn your gaze on my unfiction posting.

what's your current comfort show/movie/book?

Professional wrestling (specifically matches from a variety of wrestlers like CM Punk, Bray Wyatt, Eddie Kingston, the Golden Lovers Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi, Swerve Strickland, MJF, Hangman Adam Page, Wheeler Yuta, Bull Nakano, Minoru Suzuki and more) has me in a fucking chokehold unfathomable to even the gods. I'm writing a whole essay on it purely for fun, and the last time I did that was for my Final Fantasy hyperfixation. I really like the theatricality of wrestling, the pageantry of its hating, the love within the blood, the RICH real-time immersive stories told within its medium, the ways its longform format can come around to create beautiful things, the beautiful views of hot muscled men covered in blood enacting violence on each other. Ough. i think i hauve Covid.

My other big one is the series my good friend Micha works on with me and our other friends, the Records of the Other Side Mythos (The Recollection Cycle/Recollect, Eulacram/Soursalt, Empire of Solstice/Welcome to Solstice.) They're all INCREDIBLE youtube horror series about the nature of how trauma haunts, about selfhood and how alternate selves can differ so drastically, about dressing up really fruity and running away from fucked-up monsters, and more. The link to a playlist of all the series is right here, and I love it more than I have ever loved myself in my life. Please please please please please please please try it, it takes horror webseries tropes like reiteration cycles and the cooler alternate self and sews them into its longform narrative so fucking well.

And if you do try it, PLEASE tell me your reactions, I am so excited to witness people go through this series and share my (as of this year) decade-long wealth of knowledge about this multiverse. I act in it (in Recollect + Solstice + Records of the Other Side), I helped write and direct parts of Recollect, it's so fucking cool.

what song have you had on repeat for the past week?

I went to see Marty Supreme in theatres and holy fuck, some of the songs on the soundtrack performed by Oneiotrix Point Never are INCREDIBLE. This one particularly is so hypnotic. I would make sweet, tender love to this soundtrack if I could, it's truly so good.

what was your last hyperfixation?

Final Fantasy! It's still around, just a little bit quieter now. I tell a lot of stories about my crossover Final Fantasy 14 OC on Archive of our Own and Bluesky. I like weaving my love of Final Fantasy into that fully.

what's an oddly specific thing that brings you joy?

Getting Chinese food every Saturday is a cherished tradition of mine that dates back to a very young age. It's a calming, almost Zen maneuver that balances my humors and grounds me. It is the touchstone when my life is thrown into chaos and I have many little tricks in my head to please my mind if I am somehow unable to get Chinese food on a Saturday. It's wacky.

what's a smell that never fails to make you happy?

That like, Christmas tree smell? Balsam fir? Y'know what I mean? It elicits joy.

what's your current phone wallpaper?

The one on my app background is a picture of two characters from Final Fantasy 14 (Hades and Hythlodaeus).

The one on my lock screen, however?

An edit of my favorite character of all time from the Records of the Other Side Mythos, the fucking MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND known as Ellpagg Xeth'i'stral, who will always have my heart beyond anything I can ever convey in words, who I love with the force of ten thousand rotting suns, who is forever and always a blorbo I cradle to my chest and cherish.

are you a morning person, night owl, or something else entirely?

Night owl as hell, I tend to go to sleep around 2:30am.

if you work, what is your work profession?

UNEMPLOYED, UNFORTUNATELY.

That might change getting back from winter break! Knock on wood.

So the big hook for the adventure is that Ame and Suvi have found out at the bedside of Grandmother Wren's deathbed that she was a very powerful witch possibly the last of a group of powerful witches and responsible for protecting/overseeing the heart of the world.

A curse was placed on Grandmother Wren as well as Ame and Suvi that means she was unable to pass on important information to Ame about who she can trust and that getting Wave Breaker back will allow them to find these stolen secrets.

Ame has given The Stanger a year before he returns and i feel that recovering these lost secrets will be paramount to learning whether this spirit means harm or not.

The easiest explanation for The Stranger is that he is the crossroads devil and that Grandmother Wren made a deal with him that he is coming to collect on.

However i think we should not over look that Grandmother Wren was a "Witch of the World" and seemed to be an intergral piece in maintaining the world, and that The Stranger mentions having been around since at least the dawn of the world holding his breath.

Me: no

Brain: come on!

Me: NO!

Brain:...Philza for comfort?