#also i realize now this sort of doesn't fit what i made the title to be but i always write these in a stream of consciousness manner anyhow

[crucible-memes-4-salem-teens]

i nearly forgot! but something in me made me remember to make this post.

why i really like the "mean teenage girl*" character type: a summary

(*not to be confused with the "mean girl", which i'm not fond of. also "mean" in this context means something closer to tough and also resilient and outspoken)

for starters, i just want to say: in real life, "mean" teenage girls are some of the best people to be around if you want your worldview challenged: they are incredibly opinionated and usually have many reasons for their attitudes towards the world. this also applies to their fictional counterparts.

so. we've all met a mean adolescent girl before, haven't we? and if we don't think we've met them, chances are, we were/are that girl. today i want to give a few reasons why that character type is one of my favorites.

~*~*~*~

let's look at a prime example of the "mean teenage girl" that everyone here is or should be familiar with: abigail williams. or at least the version of her that exists in the crucible.

i think we can all agree: she's pretty mean. she says and does kind of awful things over the course of the play. as a person/character, that makes her pretty unlikable and even (in some people's opinions) downright awful. but as a narrative tool? absolute gold mine.

the fact of the matter is this: based on the storyline she is given (being orphaned at a young age and taken in by her uncaring uncle + being used by an older man while she was vulnerable), it is completely reasonable for her to be as angry and aggressive as she is. her small world is completely shattered and pulled from under her; it's no wonder she acts out in the way she does.

beside that, however, she is bold. she is unapologetically herself, and does not let the confines of her position as parris's niece/ward stop her from making it known that she is displeased with the world she has been thrust into without her consent.

she's clever, too. she may be rash, but what teenager isn't? abby knows what she wants and how to mastermind a plan to get that, even if it means burning bridges and destroying fragile accords. her motivations and methods may seem to be juvenile and a bit unreasonable, but because of who she is, she doesn't see it that way. (also, really, it's more that she lost her metaphorical safety blanket, which is traumatizing for anyone of any age)

so much has already been taken from her; why can't she do the same and take from others?

granted, there is a time when this goes too far and she does devolve into the "mean girl" trope (ex: her aggression toward betty and mary): granted, that is part of the narrative and not her as a character. she does not actually make these decisions. the actions seem in character, though, simply because we have already established her to be a mean teenage girl. therefore, this decision seems somewhat ambiguous.

her vulnerability in combination with this combativeness are weaponized to make other (equally innocent) characters ultimately suffer great loss.

all of that to say, because of the ambiguity in her actions and characterization, i find it hard to completely like abby as a character, though i do like the character type she fits into (in my opinion) and am slowly coming around.

~*~*~*~

moving on though. if you'll allow it, i'd like to discuss a character y'all might be less familiar with who also embodies this archetype fairly well, though she is not from the crucible. i decided to include her in this post mostly because i think her portrayal is a time where this character type is done correctly and i want to emphasize what i like about her/this trope when it's done right.

she is a character i lovingly call my daughter and hold a lot of strong feelings about (if you're familiar with my original posts on my main, i talk about her family a LOT): the lovely franziska von karma (karuma mei) from the ace attorney (gyakuten saiban) series.

so, basically, she is a very different character from abby, but that's not what i'm particularly focused on. what i'm more concerned with is the similar character type.

again, if you're familiar with her actions within the canon of the games, she's very mean and does not hold back when it comes to her opinion of things/people. she can be haughty and even just rude.

however, it is quickly realized that underneath that tough exterior is a young girl who has been hurt and whose world has been flipped upside down. sound familiar?

but the thing about franziska is this: her goal is not retribution for herself (though lord knows she deserves it), it's the desire to avenge a loved one and their honor. so her meanness almost seems more noble in this way, if that makes any sense. it may still seem selfish and immature, but there's this element of selflessness and genuine care underneath.

so why do i like her/this version of the mean teenage girl trope better? because she gets to be multifaceted and not a one-dimensional antagonist in the way that abby is framed by the narrative of the crucible. it's less of a character thing and more of a writing thing. it's a weird decision in my honest opinion. (then again, the play was written in the 50s during a particularly tense part of history.) i guarantee it, had the crucible been from abby's perspective, there would be less demonizing of her.

~*~*~*~

in closing, part of the reason i like this trope is that these mean teenagers are not mean just for the he[ck] of it, they have deeper stories and motivations for their actions*. but, that can be taken and framed in a way that makes them appear flat and just terrible. however, that is not a reflection of the characters, just the writers behind them.

i like this trope because these characters take a world that is not kind to them and say "screw you" right to its face, and they are allowed to do that without changing themselves from being outspoken and strong-willed. i think that we should strive to create more characters like this, who are very vulnerable but tough and know how to defend themselves but may still be misguided in their attempts to do that. i think we should write more mean teenage girls.

(*this is not intended to frame trauma or past hurt as an excuse for hurting others, it's to illustrate that there can be more to these characters' motivations than plain angst and aggression.)

#mod dio #not a meme #not crucible #also. i was listening to moi dix mois while writing this so i was a little distracted #hopefully my point comes through though! i really really like this character type. peace and love to ya ;) <3 - d xoxo #also 'without her consent' - i just mean being born (no one asks for that) and then having her parents killed. nothing else. #me? molding two of my hyperfixations into one post? it's more likely than you think. #also i realize now this sort of doesn't fit what i made the title to be but i always write these in a stream of consciousness manner anyhow #i hope y'all enjoy these mini essays by the way! i don't go for analysis often because i am piss poor at it. #and if you want to talk more about the interesting parallels between these particular characters (+ there are a few) #shoot a message to my main! i'll be glad to yell about it with you. #(or if you just wanna talk about aa with me. that's cool too!) #btw the reason this got a 'not crucible' tag was because i felt it was too general for that (plus i talk about video games halfway through) #anyways. stream the moi dix mois album of your choice (if and only if you like hard rock/metal) #happy sunday guys <3

[castleaudios]

YOUR SHIFTER LORE HAS LEFT ME WITH QUESTIONS (Also thank you so much for the (fan) food, it was delicious. My nerd brain is *thriving*) 1. In regards to seeking the pack approval before using the term "mate" does that only apply to shifters seeking that, or do their human (or otherwise) partners ever do the same for their shifter partners (ie: asking their partner's shifter pack for approval to call them their mate)? 2. Did Evie do this for Knight? They were lovebirds for so long I would lean towards no, but Evie also clearly respects Claire, so I could also see her at least bringing it up with her as their sister. 2a. Would Seer do this for Beth? Or is that up to personal headcanons? (I personally love the idea of them trying so hard to do right by her that they ask the Pack for approval, since they've heard her slip in calling them "Mate" (as well as the vision) and wanna be prepared now that things are more secure with their relationship). ...Oooh, or would Beth have a problem with that, since she doesn't like things chosen for her (ie: would seem likely to rebel the tradition)? 2b. I feel like Ranger would do this just to respect Pack traditions (since they clearly hold the standards for magic and its rules, as well as rules in general, very seriously) and show respect to Claire as the Alpha. 2c. That actually leaves another question: do Alphas take part, or is it assumed they can do what they want, as the Alpha?

3. Were Omegas respected titles, before the "weak link transition? Their main role was being the Alpha's bedmate, not a Mate, but they also had the responsibility of helping produce strong heirs, so that makes me think of honored consorts and such. Sort of like how royals of old had their political marriages, but often had their "true loves" as consorts - not married, but still well respected (only with Shifters, that dynamic is reversed a little, obviously, since they have Mates, not assigned partners.) 4. You realize I'm gonna have to write something about some douche referring to Ranger as Claire's Omega (in the condescending way - ie: they're there for their body, nothing more and are weak) while trying to act like they're a better fit, yeah? The idea of one or both kicking ass over it gives me joy. 5. What made pack adoptions more rare? Has it just been less of an issue as packs adjusted to smaller groups? (Side note: I absolutely love this concept as a whole, shifter packs coming together to give children who need it a loving home and support system. I *adore* the entire concept of community upbringing for children who have lost their parents)

HAPPY TO PROVIDE!!

If both are members of the pack, then they would both look for pack approval. If one is being brought into the pack, it's not necessary, however it does makes for good brownie points if they do.

2. Evie didn't do it for Knight in the official sense, she and Knight didn't really know about the custom to begin with. The pack just automatically accepted that Evie wasn't going anywhere so there as no need to ask. Claire did take the time and invited Evie over to have a heart to heart about and Claire gave her blessing.

2a. I feel like Seer would try to go traditional and ask for the Pack's approval once they and Beth had agreed they wanted to take that step. As much as Beth doesn't want her life chosen for her, the idea of finding her mate and doing things "right" has been something she's looked forward to since she was little. Her mom didn't find her mate until too late in life, so Beth would want to uphold every custom that her mom couldn't.

2b. The second Ranger finds out about this custom, they'll send every pack member a hand written letter to ask to meet in person and ask for their blessing.

2c. Alpha's do participate! When an Alpha takes a mate, they also ask for pack blessing. Their taking of a mate is actually held with more scrutiny than any other member, usually including the mate needing the Beta's specific blessing above all else.

3. The Omega was a well respected title and one that was envied by many. They quite literally carried the future of the pack, so they were protected and revered until the role was no longer necessary. The insult of "weak link" was to undercut the actual importance of the position.

4. I expect this fic on my desk the second it's finished!!

5. Yep! Smaller packs and shifters separating into their own independent units over time made it less popular, but no less necessary for the children who slip through the cracks.

(This aspect of the lore meant a lot to me when establishing it and Claire's adoption makes me so emotional 😭)

#castlereplies #coleblackblood #castleaudios shifters

[noperopesaredope]

My Voltron Self-Insert OC

Recently, I've been choosing to embrace my inner "cringe" and start creating/reviving my more self-indulgent and goofy fan OCs. Specifically, ones that I'd typically feel "embarrassed" for making. I haven't made too many self-insert OCs over the years, however, I have made one or two, and did have a special "can travel between worlds OC" (who turned into a psychosis-induced coping mechanism for depression). Recently, I remembered one of these self-insert OCs of mine, and decided to bring her back to life.

She holds such a special place in my heart, and I can't bring myself to hate her, especially since she was created during a time when I was still discovering a lot of myself. She is actually an early sign of my gender fluidity, as she has a very masculine name with a very feminine appearance and pronouns. But even then, she’ll fuck around with gender. It doesn't matter to her. She was how I first realized that maybe I’m not cis, and I love her for that.

Plus, I lowkey kinda like her as a character? She was just really fun for me to work with. She was also both very similar to me at the time and very different. For example, she used she/her pronouns, as I was still figuring out my pronouns and gender identity at the time, and I prefer making female characters.

Her personality and the way she presents herself is also very different from both how I was then and how I am now. She honestly seems like a completely different person from me, but I still think of her as a self-insert, because that was the intent at the time. She is pretty cringy in some areas and a little bit OP, but even at the time, I tried to tone her down a bit.

So, without further ado, here is my old Voltron self-insert (warning: this is gonna be long):

Daniel Nathaniel!!!

Daniel is the "Orange Paladin". She is a bit complicated in backstory and stuff, so get ready guys, because this is gonna get a bit wild. There were a lot of intentional "holes" in the backstory with a few twists here and there, so I decided to write what I remembered and fill in the blanks with what I thought would be cool and fit.

Plotline:

Daniel Nathaniel was introduced in Season 2 in an episode titled “The Orange Paladin”. It starts where Voltron is battling a fleet of Galra, and is beginning to get overwhelmed. They aren’t completely losing by any means, but in order to win, they just need a tiny bit of backup. Suddenly, out of nowhere, what appears to be another Voltron lion (but a bit smaller and orange) bursts in and starts assisting them. Everyone is shocked, but they continue fighting, and they win the battle. They then manage to contact the person piloting the strange new lion, and tell them to meet up with them on a nearby planet.

The person agrees, and when they all step outside and watch the new lion land, the entrance to the lion opens, and out steps Daniel. She introduces herself and says that she has a lot of explaining to do. They invite her inside the castle, and once they all sit down, Daniel begins telling her “backstory.” 

She was once a cadet at the Garrison, and when she heard about the missing cadets, she decided to do some investigating. She ended up discovering the cave where the Blue Lion was originally hidden, and found a few clues related to Voltron. She managed to do some digging on the little bits and pieces of history that gave clues to what the lions even were. This led her to a different remote location where she discovered a secret "arch" type thing that turned out to be a portal to a different planet.

There, she stumbled across the “Orange Lion”, and was able to connect with it. Due to the link between lions and their paladins and the fact that the Orange Lion has more telepathic abilities, Daniel was able to learn more about what exactly Voltron was and what the deal was with the Orange Lion. Allegedly, the Orange Lion was not one of the original lions, but one that was made later as a sort of “power up.” 

It didn’t need to be present to form Voltron, it would just be able to attach itself to it and give it extra strength. It was made much later than the others, as a new comet was found around the time Zarkon was beginning to act up. Altean scientists turned it into a small, extra “upgrade” lion that could attach to Voltron, a failsafe for backup due to the escalating conflict. Due to it being finished right near the end of the war, there was no time to find a paladin for it, and it was hidden even further away than the other lions.

Allura and Coran are confused, as they don’t remember any of this. Daniel says that her lion said that Haggar probably messed with everyone’s memories of the Orange Lion so that, in case they managed to get Voltron back together, nobody remembers to look for the Orange Lion. Allura and Coran vaguely recall the Orange Lion, but the memories feel fuzzy and off. However, they don’t question it much.

(Important sidenote: Daniel is lying)

Daniel becomes a member of the team and fights as backup in battle. She also becomes close to the others quite quickly. There are hints here and there of Daniel knowing more than she says, and being in on secrets that she shouldn’t know, but it is continuously brushed off. There are also a lot of holes in her story, especially when she talks about her life before Voltron. In general, there is something incredibly suspicious about her, but it’s just subtle enough for the characters not to question it. However, the show draws just enough attention to these inconsistencies for it to be clear that the viewer is supposed to notice that something is wrong here.

She is wary of Lotor and believes that he is lying, and she says that something feels off about Shiro during Seasons 3-6. There are generally a lot of moments where she appears to know more about people than she lets on.

When everyone learns that Shiro is a clone, they all clearly seem to feel betrayed and want the real Shiro back. But Daniel cautiously argues in favor of the clone, saying that he is currently being mind controlled, and that even if he was kinda being the worst, they still spent a while getting to know Clone Shiro. 

For all they know, he himself might not know that he isn’t the real Shiro. Maybe he himself wasn’t real, but the memories were, and she “knows in her heart” that he wasn’t pretending. Every battle they fought together, every memory they made together, every moment of friendship, all of it was genuine. This speech is written to be emotional, but slightly suspicious, as though Daniel is hiding some things.

The other characters begin to suspect that something is up, and it seems like she is speaking for more than just Clone Shiro. They question her a bit, but eventually decide to just leave it be for now. Small side note about the Clone Shiro plotline: we at some point have a scene in the special realm (can’t remember what it’s called) where the souls of OG Shiro and Clone Shiro get to interact. OG Shiro reveals to Clone Shiro that he was a clone. Clone Shiro is clearly distraught by this, and starts having an existential crisis. He understands that OG deserves to come back, but Clone also doesn’t want to disappear.

OG realizes that despite not being the best, Clone still clearly cares about the team, and he is still his own person. OG ends up giving him an offer. They both want to be Shiro. And right now, their team wants OG back, but OG understands that Clone doesn’t deserve to be left behind or erased. So the best solution would be to merge their souls together and become one person. That way, they can both exist and have the best of both worlds. Clone is hesitant at first, but realizes the advantages to this, and he agrees.

They shake hands, and when Shiro wakes up, he reveals to the team that they (evenly, so it isn’t like there is a dominant personality) merged together into one, and he might be a bit different now, but he’s still Shiro. I believe that this allows everything to be mostly the same, but feels less cruel to Clone Shiro and is more sweet. I remember watching it for the first time and being upset by the whole thing, since Clone Shiro clearly wasn’t trying to betray anyone, and he still formed those bonds with the others. So I decided to fix it a bit by explaining it a little further.

Anyways, back to Daniel. During the latter half of the series, it is revealed that Daniel has been lying about everything this whole time. And when I say everything, I mean everything. I might make this occur during the Season 6 finale, soon after Clone Shiro is revealed, making it a bit of a double hit. Partway through the battle at the end of Season 6, during a big and important moment, Daniel is dramatically injured in front of everyone in the fighting.

An important thing to note here is that, despite fighting multiple harsh battles throughout the series, Daniel has never really gotten hurt before, even minor injuries. Things that have hurt the rest of the team don’t hurt her, or she is consistently the quickest to recover, with no notable damage. It’s almost unusual, and may actually be subtly pointed out at some point. It’s often played off as a coincidence, but astute viewers will notice that something is wrong here.

But when Daniel finally gets injured, it’s significant, as she straight up loses an ear, causing her to bleed in excess. It isn’t overly gorey, with her covering that area with her hand, and the injury isn’t focused on, but the blood is clearly there. But instead of red blood, she is bleeding green. She stands there in shock as the other characters present look at the ground to the detached ear, which has turned into what looks like a blue, bat-ear-shaped ear. Daniel looks at the ear, then the others as different areas of her body begin to shift and change into something different, but in a held back way. She is trying to hold it back.

Pidge (who is likely the one standing closest to her, asks “who are you?” Daniel quickly says that she is still Daniel, and that she isn’t a fake version. Pidge then says “well, you clearly aren’t who you pretend you are.” And finally, Daniel admits that the Orange Paladin never really existed, that it was all a lie, and almost everything they knew about her was made up. There is no Fake Daniel, because Daniel was always fake.

She then passes out due to blood loss, and they manage to patch her up while trying to figure out their next steps. When she eventually wakes up, Daniel decides to tell everyone the truth.

She is what’s known as a Mutivesstallus, a member of a species which was nearly wiped out by Zarkon and the Galra. Mutivessallum (the plural for Mutivesstallus) have two primary abilities: shapeshifting and extreme mind powers. They are able to read minds, peer into others’ memories, slightly alter existing memories (though this is harder, and once someone realizes that the memory was false, they will remember the original memory), and generally scan people’s psychies. They can often figure out more about a person than the person knows about themselves. Mutivessallum are often hyper-empathic and very understanding, and have the unfortunate flaw of constantly giving others the benefit of the doubt and being overly forgiving.

Mutivessallum’s shapeshifting is only limited to organic and living species, and they have a harder time shifting into beings that are larger than them. However, with time and practice, a Mutivessallus is able to shift into a large variety of things. Daniel, having lived for a long while (she’s still somewhat young for her species, but has existed for quite a while due to longer lifespans), is relatively experienced enough to shapeshift into something like a human, which is about her size. However, due to me not wanting her to get too OP, she has a harder time shifting into bigger creatures, or can only shift into a select few due to practicing shifting into specific ones with similar biology to her kind.

After many of the Mutivessallum were destroyed, Daniel (who’s real name is something else, but none of the other characters can pronounce it, so she says they can still call her Daniel) was left alone and vengeful. She wished to destroy Zarkon, but didn’t have the means to, and all she could do was wander space and travel to other planets. Then, word spread about Voltron, and Daniel became hopeful. She wanted to help them defeat Zarkon and maybe become a member of their team. For complicated reasons (even before this reveal, she is consistently shown to think in a very different way from everyone else and has an unusual line of logic), she decides to go and find a legendary wish-granting being who is able to create most anything in the universe. Due to already being close to said being, she asks them to help her make a Voltron lion of her own so she can join Voltron and help them.

The being thinks that this is a bad idea, but Daniel manages to convince them to do it, and together, they design something extremely close to a lion that can be semi-compatible with Voltron. The being then grants her wish, and Daniel's beloved ship is transformed into this thing. Daniel believes that the team won’t accept her if she is her real self, so she decides to make a person for herself that will “make them more comfortable around me.” She does some research on humans, and gives herself a unique human form with a false identity. “They will trust another human like them than a random creature like me.” 

Upon meeting the team and them beginning to ask questions, Daniel begins to panic, and worries that they will kick her out if they learn the truth about her and her lion. So she lies. She later works on constructing a more stable and well thought out backstory for herself, and using her powers, she manages to trick everyone into believing her story.

Everyone feels extremely betrayed and conflicted, because she has been a legitimately great friend to them, and she seems legitimately sorry. She’s also done a lot of stuff that has gained their trust, and proven that she genuinely wants to be a part of the team. She cares about them and thinks of them as a second family to her, and she fully believes in their cause. The problem is that she lied to them for a long while, and basically gaslit them. They decide not to kick her out, but they do let her know that she’ll need to earn their trust back, and stop lying. From then on, Daniel mostly remains in her true form, and she changes her lion to be its own thing.

This is good, because the Orange Lion was previously slightly messing up the balance between the lions, and it was already basically its own thing. Daniel begins to let her true self show and separates herself from her human persona. But everyone soon realizes that her persona and her true self weren’t completely separate. Yes, her identity was fake, but her personality was not. Some of her human-specific interests were things she used to seem more human, but once she tried them, she genuinely enjoyed them, and even continued to engage in the same hobbies as she did when she was pretending to be human.

Even elements of her fictional life on Earth are not that different from her real life. She had a younger sibling, and most of the stories she told about her friends and family are slightly true, just altered to fit with Earth customs.

About 5 or so episodes into Season 7, a few of the others catch her hanging out in her human form, and she admits that she feels comfortable in it, and that every form she creates for herself feels like one of her “true forms”. Her human form isn’t just a persona, and she confesses that she feels like her real self in both forms. They all agree that she can still go into her human form, she just shouldn’t pretend that she was born a human, and that this is merely one of her alternate forms.

So for the rest of the series, Daniel switches back and forth between forms, and even shifts into other forms that she has taken on in the past. She also is more open about using her powers, letting the others know when she has sensed something with her powers or found out something. She later admits that she feels incredibly free being every version of herself and not hiding anything. 

Gradually, the others forgive her, and begin to trust her again, especially since she doesn’t use her powers on them. She still senses their emotions and can subtly read what is generally on their mind, but that is because she can’t turn off that part of her powers. They understand this, and she rarely does anything with any knowledge she has on them. Even though her role in the team has somewhat changed, everyone still feels like she is a part of the team, she is just more similar to Coran or Season 1-2 Allura now.

So, that’s most of what I have for Daniel’s storyline in the series! This post is getting pretty long, so I will soon make a part 2 explaining her personality (which is probably more important than her storyline, but whatever) and her relationships with the other characters. But for now, I hope you liked her.

When I first created Daniel in middle school, I realized that there were lots of holes in her backstory, to the point that I even made it so that the others were suspicious of her. It just didn’t make much sense for there to be another lion, and I always wanted her to pick up on more than she should. I early on had given her mind powers that allowed her to know more than she should, but even then that felt out of place. Slightly later on, but still during middle school, I wanted her to secretly be an alien, but it just added a few more holes. Why wasn’t anyone questioning it? 

Then, recently, while coming back to her, I thought, “what if all her odd character traits were the point? What if she was a character who was able to slightly manipulate the world around her so that she could be important to the story? What if she was a slightly meta commentary on how self-inserts will manipulate the entire story and lore in order to make the author feel like they can belong in this fictional world?” I thought that could be pretty fun, so I ran with it. Daniel is not supposed to fit. Her backstory is supposed to not make sense. She is not supposed to be there. That is the point.

However, she doesn’t do all this out of malice. She does it because she wants somewhere to belong. She wants to belong to a specific group of people, she wants to fit in with them and join them on adventures and be cool like them. But she can’t find a way to do that, so she twists the world around her in order to fit into the narrative. I try to be careful about how I present her morality, and how she isn’t a bad person, but she has done something bad by manipulating and lying. It does take some work for the team to forgive her, but they do learn to forgive her, because she changes and grows. And even if her story was fake, the bonds were real. Her personality is real. Even her fake identity has some genuineness to it.

I really loved working on her, especially the meta aspect of her story, and I enjoy writing about her and her interactions with the team. She is a sweetheart who is flawed and messy, and even though she can be a bit of a Mary Sue, I don’t really care. Plus, that is the idea. She is supposed to be a Mary Sue on a narrative level, and even then, she breaks some of the conventions because her actions have consequences and she fails frequently.

So she is generally a fun character to me, and I hope other people think she’s interesting. But at the end of the day, she was born a self-indulgent self insert, and I don’t really care if people think she is cringy. I enjoyed writing about her, and I hope to make more art of her, since she was really fun to draw. I hope some of ya’ll are willing to hear more about her. Stay tuned if you’re curious!

#thing whole thing is about three thousand words long and took hours. god damn #voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron oc #netflix voltron #dreamworks #dreamworks voltron #vld #my oc #voltron fan oc #self insert #vld oc #my self insert #self indulgence at its finest #art #fanart #oc fanart #voltron fanart #voltron fandom #my art #non binary #gender queer #queer characters #queer journey #she was a part of my journey and she was an important part #i need to acknowledge that #fandom #fan creations #fan character #vld fanart

[insanesanitysparks]

Untitled Aizawa Shota x Female Reader

Original prompt here

Plan to do a longer fic on this later, but given the prompt I was given this is the general idea I've got so far. May make a few tweaks here and there. The biggest wall right now is a good, flashy title. Kind of thinking maybe "Pride and Prejudice" because I feel like that would fit but I'm focusing on other fics at the moment so that may change when I have more time to write the longer version.

Also thinking that the reader probably has a cat quirk...for reasons that I don't care to elaborate on but you can feel free to speculate on. She looks primarily human but has cat ears, a tail, retractable nails/claws, and night vision. Despite being employed at UA, she is not a hero. She's basically kind of like a foreign exchange teacher lol.

A young teacher who's always wanted to go to Japan, you jump when then opportunity to teach English at the legendary hero school UA is offered to you. The teachers you'll be working with are all amazing, and mostly friendly...except for one. Aizawa Shota.

Where the other teachers are welcoming and curious, he brushes you off as a pointless distraction. He doesn't bully you, but he's not exactly going out of his way to be nice either. Your opinion of him is rather low, especially since he's incredibly harsh with his students and doesn't put much effort into his appearance. What kind of teacher does that to their students?

The two of you regularly bicker back and forth. Him critiquing you and you judging him. Until you saw him after the USJ. Until you saw recorded footage of the USJ incident. Until you saw him, beaten and bloodied, pushing his quirk far past its limit to protect his students. It was then that you realized that he was hard for a reason. Hero work was hard. He wanted his students to be able to hold their own against villains in the future. He wanted his students to be the ones that never had to worry about a villain taking them down. He wanted his students to survive, to live much, much longer lives than he ever would. He was a better man than you had initially given him credit for.

You visited him in the hospital and you hated to admit that you were worried for him. But Recovery Girl assured you that he would be fine. Still, you stayed by his side for a long while. Apparently, under those baggy clothes he always wore were finely sculpted muscles. Behind that messy head of hair was a hard looking face made soft when asleep. He twitched in his sleep and you reluctantly took his hand. You wondered what sort of nightmare could scare a strong man like him.

Eventually you had to leave him. You needed to prepare for your classes. That didn't stop you from finding the time to swing by the store and pick up a few things for him though. Top quality eye drops, some little liquid sweets and snacks that he could eat even in his rough shape, and a few coupons to your favorite cat cafe. You weren't sure that he would like it but the way he was jumping around like a cat at the USJ made you have a hunch about him and cats. Besides, most people felt better petting soft, fuzzy fluffies.

To your surprise, the scruffy man actually thanked you the next time you saw him. Back to teaching even though his body wasn't fully recovered! You admired his dedication to his students. But now you were confronted with a new problem...you were clearly crushing on the man but after all the back and forth bickering there was no way he would be interested in you too, right?

#mha #bnha #shota aizawa #eraserhead #teachers #enemies to lovers #fluff #eventual smut #female reader #comfort #ao3 #future fic idea #cats #kitties #strangers to lovers

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Hi again! Still not a request for mini-prompts lol, but more songs. This time it’s specifically about Julian :)

I was listening to Will Wood while working on some art, and I didn’t realize how many songs remind me of him! I found some new favorites, so I thought I’d share them. Excuse the titles on these, some of them are really long ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ || CW for mentions of alcoholism, pills, sickness, death, and angst!!!

- Suburbia Overture / Greetings from Mary Bell Township! (Vampire) Culture / Love Me, Normally

The instrumental is so jaunty and jazzy that he’s the first character I thought of. The lyrics, not so much, but It’ll do. Will Wood has a pretty versatile voice, so I think it fits Julian!

- Love Me, Normally

The instrumental also fits that jazzy, dramatic vibe of his- and this time, the lyrics do too. These are ones that stuck out to me:

“Won't follow my dreams/ No, they've all got me waking up screaming / I drank myself to death to be the afterlife of the party/ When the afterparty came, I was rolling in my grave”

- Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave

This one makes me think about how it must have felt being locked in the dungeons during the plague. Valdemar mentioned in Julian’s route that he was a jokester (even though they have the worst sense of humor) who tried to keep the mood high as a way to cope with the situation. If anyone told me he didn’t lose a bit (a LOT) of himself down there I’d probably just laugh, because that was literally traumatic. These are the lyrics i’d quote to envision that:

“Cause back in my day we didn't need no feel-good pills and no psychiatrists / No, we just drank ourselves to death, and god damn it, we liked it”

“Who makes the call? What's a symptom, what's a flaw? / Can it be both? Well I suppose that's an answer / Would you give up your humanity for just a touch of sanity / Cause God knows it's not like it's cancer”

“And a little conformity never hurt nobody / But lately I've been worried that you're losing yourself / So how many milligrams of you are still left in there/ Cause back in my day we didn't need no feel-good pills and no psychiatrists”

- Laplace’s Angel (Hurt People? Hurt People!)

This makes me think about his anxiety and depression concerning his supposed murder of Count Lucio. He’s made it clear that he really believes he’s guilty, awful, filthy and however else you would describe a murderer. He took the “truth” of his past and made it his identity.

“Have you ever died in a nightmare / Woke up surprised you hadn't earned your fate /Could you take a look at me / Am I bad, am I bad, am I bad, am I really that bad?”

“It doesn't take a killer to murder / It only takes a reason to kill / We've all got evidence of innocence, it's 'everything's coincidence' the / Difference twixt fate and free will is whether you're singing”

“So if you wash your hands of where you've been until you flood the second floor /Neatly fold your skeletons but still can't shut the closet door”

- Euthanasia

I can’t lie, this one made me cry a little bit. He definitely took the blame for MC catching the plague and dying from it under his watch. I started to feel second hand guilt. He knew there was nothing he could do to help us once we got really sick, and it hurt so bad. People say he would have a sort of sassy voice (picture Tulio from Road to El Dorado), and I agree! But imagining him singing this song just breaks me.

“Say you're not scared / That you know it's because I cared and / Say you know I love you, and that hope was just not there”

“And I know, I know that I'm wrong / That when you're gone, you're gone / And I can't bring you home/ But I want, I want to believe / That you'll remember me / When you're just memory”

“And every, everybody dies / Fighting for their lives / Just trying to survive / Well, now I know, I know why we say / That there's a better place /That waits beyond the grave”

That’s all I’ve got for now, and I’d like to hear other opinions on these songs too! This is just my personal analysis, and obviously I really love Julian enough to spend 2 hours doing this. I hope you like these as much as I do ^_^ Thanks for all you do, Brainrot!

@vegaspng you are not alone in thinking Will Wood songs fit Julian at all, I can't count the amount of songs that have been recommended for him by that artist and at this point it's halfway canon in my head XD

Thanks for breaking them down lyrics wise too! It's so cool to listen to songs the way other people do and share that common experience ^.^

I'm putting these on the playlist and the tag, thank you friend! :D

#ask arcana brainrot #arcana brainrot playlist #the arcana #the arcana headcanons #the arcana hc #julian devorak #julian the arcana #the arcana game

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #314: "Along Came A Spider..."

February, 1990

Guest-Starring the Amazing SPIDER-MAN! INTO THE VOID!

The world has apparently been replaced by a void but yet the headline is "Spider-Man hangs out with Avengers"?

Weird priorities, cover text and also title of issue.

Jarvis is on the cover but doesn't get a "guest-starring Edwin Jarvis" caption? That's BS!

Anyway.

Last times in Avengers: just a whole bunch of stuff. Atlantis Attacks and Acts of Vengeance back to back. Avengers Island sank and the grounds of Avengers Park suffered significant damage.

The Avengers have given up on the whole island headquarters thing, despite having only just moved into it. They're moving back to Avengers Park where the old Avengers Mansion was located. And they're gonna make it bigger this time!

(It was already variably big so whatever.)

Iron Man lands and invites himself into the conversation that Cap is having with I guess the construction foreman.

The guy, Mr. Withers, thinks they'll need blasting permits to expand the sub-structure like the Avengers want. But Iron Man ironsplains that the additions fit pretty closely to what's already there.

Despite abandoning the original Avengers Mansion site and moving the whole mansion to Avengers Island, all the original sub-basements were maintained, including plumbing and electrical. So that part of the new HQ construction job is already done.

He knows because Tony Stark told him, wink.

Captain America has a similar reaction that "New" Iron Man got with the West Coast Avengers.

Gosh, he certainly knows everything Tony Stark knows. And Cap knows that Iron Man was Tony Stark. But the original Iron Man supposedly died after Armor Wars. But Tony Stark is still around. And now there's a supposedly new Iron Man.

But if "new" Iron Man is Tony, why won't he admit it to his good pals?

Anyway, Thor takes a giant ball of debris from the site to deposit in a government land-fill in New Jersey.

There might be proprietary technology mixed in so they'll have to sort through it all but the land-fill will let them keep it out of the way but still under guard.

Mr. Withers: "Wow! Y'know, I've read about Thor, even seen him onna TV..." Iron Man: "But up close he does kind of take your breath away. I know. And you know something, Withers? You just never get used to it!"

Cap, overhearing this exchange: HM BUT IF YOU WERE A NEW IRON MAN, YOU'D HAVE BARELY BEEN AROUND THOR AT ALL.

Tony, just confide in your damn friends so they don't stand around =_= at you all day.

Since Iron Man somehow knows everything about the sub-basements, Captain America decides to head off on a mission of his own.

With his pilot, John Jameson and the newly fixed Quinjet. Yes, the one that crashed during Acts of Vengeance has been made like new.

I suppose if Quinjets get destroyed as often as they have been, it saves money to repair what can be.

Cap's mission?

Recruitment!

Cap has John hover outside Sersi's apartment so he can go inside and proposition her.

No, not like that.

Sersi is decorating for Christmas. While Eternals aren't really down with Buddy Christ, Sersi also doesn't let a good excuse to party pass her by.

She also wants to bang Cap probably but he's here on business. Between the Negative Zone trip and her help in Atlantis Attacks and y'know, there is an Eternal vacancy since that Gilgamesh guy went on medical leave... Sersi, will you join the Avengers?

Meanwhile, Thor is carrying the large garbage ball New Jerseyward when suddenly the world goes photo-negative and he drops the dang thing.

And as unluck would have it? He dropped it right over a school!

Dangit, Thor!

Thor yells at the mortals to scatter but realizes that when the ball drops, its going to shotgun razor sharp shrapnel everywhere.

His only other thought is to hit the ball with Mjolnir, which solves a lot of problems but wouldn't this time. It'd just knock it down faster.

But then a wonderful sound: thwiiippt!

And then vvrrooosh!

Tethered by something, instead of hitting the playground, the ball of garbage swings like a pendulum.

This gives Thor the opportunity to throw Mjolnir from a lower vantage point. Throw it so hard it embeds in the ball. Then he hops the fence, books it to a big, clear area, and summons Mjolnir (and the garbage ball) back to himself.

He catches it, pulls out Mjolnir, and sets the garbage sphere down.

A guy: "Wow! Thor... That was somethin' else!!" Thor: "Verily? What was it then, I wonder?"

Thor is down with modern slang.

Thor calls Spider-Man to come out, since he recognized his webbing tethering the trash orb.

He asks if the wall-crawler also felt the world go photo-negative.

And not in the exact same way, no. But something made his spider-sense scream at him.

Thor realizes that this is bigger than a giant ball of garbage so he abandons that where he set it down. And tells Spider-Man they need to get to Avengers HQ like now!

Spider-Man: "But... But I'm not an Avenger...?? Thor...?"

Oh, Spider-Man! You act like you've never been dragged into a crossover or guest star spot before!

And I know you have.

Meanwhile, at Sersi's apartment, both Sersi and Captain America felt the photo-negativity too.

Cap describes it as feeling like "my whole head had turned inside out" and it is very alarming that Sersi felt the same. If it floored too strong people like them, what are normal peeps feeling?

No, really, what are normal peeps feeling? In the Thor drops garage scene, we only see people reacting in fear to the giant garbage drop, not being floored by photo-negativity.

But over with Cap and Sersi, pilot John Jameson is so affected he can't fly the Quinjet and Cap has to budge him over to take the controls.

John Jameson: "Awful. As if... something had got inside me and turned every cell in my body upside down. I haven't felt anything like it since I was freed of the curse that used to transform me into the Man-Wolf!"

Okay, so, John is/was a super-powered weirdo too. Maybe its only affected superheroes and adjacent people.

(Also, Sersi decided to join the Avengers, at least in regards to this newest crisis. And she molecularly shifts her duds into a fur-lined version of her green swimsuit costume.)

The scene shift proves me wrong. All the construction crew have been knocked a loop by the whatsit. Which Vision (oh, hi, Vision) calls "some kind of flux, an atomic inversion."

And Vision's robot ears can hear thousands of people around the park moaning in pain. So the effect is widespread.

Iron Man himself is about as weak as the normal construction dudes but his armor is keeping him upright and moving.

Captain America and co arrive, reporting that the inversion effect was as widespread as Sersi's apartment.

Iron Man: "That's bad. As an Eternal, she's in complete mental control of every atom of her body at all times. For her to be hit..." Sersi: "... The effect must have been most powerful and insidious."

A good reason to have a super-powerful character on a superhero team is not just for how good they can beat people up. But so they can feel disturbances in the Force and go 'guys, shit is BAD.'

Meanwhile, the PolyDyne Lab with Professor Harker and Nebula.

Nebula in her generic blonde lady disguise and the professor are also woozied by the photo-negativity. The professor calls it an unexpected glitch but can't explain why it happened.

Nebula: "Old fool! Your so-called compressor holds the key to vast power, and you tell me now there are things about it you cannot predict?"

She calls her Rigellian henchman, Gunthar, who is in a spaceship orbiting Earth and wow, geez, he was knocked out by the effect too.

It's widespread enough to affect orbit!

Damn, Professor Harker!

Scratch that, Gunthar checked the sub-space communications grid and the effect actually covered AT LEAST the entire galaxy!

Damn, Professor Harker! You've moved up from blowing up your own house.

Nebula changes gears from yelling at Harker to being impressed how powerful the compressor is. She has Gunthar (that is such a penguin name) calculate the full extent of the effect.

Gunthar: "I have already done so, my lady... But I cannot believe my findings! According to the automatic scanners, at the precise moment the Earthling Harker's compressor reached within .0000000000000000001 percent of its maximum efficiency... the entire universe flashed out of existence!"

Holy shit!

Nebula is surprised that she stumbled assbackwards into such a source of power. So is Starfox, who is lurking in secret on Gunthar's ship.

He had no idea Nebula would come so close to becoming as powerful as Thanos or that Starfox would find it so difficult to stop her.

(Hey, Eros, a thought? Just blow up the PolyDyne facility. Duh.)

Gunthar cautions Nebula that while blinking the universe out of existence IS neat and it seems safe to continue testing, some undefined, mysterious "he" might be aggroed by all this and then bad things.

Back at Avengers Subbasement Serving As Headquarters Until The Mansion Gets Rebuilt, Captain America and Vision contact the West Coast Avengers.

Hank Pym confirms that the photo-negativity atomic inversion effect was even felt as far as California.

Hm. I think this scene contacting the West Coast Avengers should have gone before we learned the effect went as far as THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Learning that it affected California is a bit of a 'no shit' situation. The Avengers are behind the audience.

(Also, I wonder when this is happening in conjunction with the Evil Scarlet Witch stuff. That arc happens right after Acts of Vengeance and nobody fell over shouting 'OW, MY ATOMS!' so I have to assume this is after all of that.)

Sersi finishes her psychic scan and reports that everyone on Earth felt the same effect.

Vision extrapolates that such a widespread effect MUST be outside the four fundamental forces.

I don't follow his logic but it's leading him in the right direction.

Vision: "In effect, something which cancelled out those forces." Wasp: "Canceled as in...?" Dr Pym: "That's impossible, Vision. if the four forces binding our universe together were to be cancelled..." Vision: "... The universe would cease to exist. Which is precisely what seems to have happened, Dr. Pym."

Wow, Vision. You really logiced your way into exactly what is happening.

Now the Avengers aren't behind the audience so much.

Hank guesses "the only thing that could really pack enough power to achieve the effect would be another universe encroaching on our plane of existence!"

Huh. He predicted Secret Wars (2015) way before it happened.

Captain America recalls that the Fantastic Four encountered the Beyonder or someone similar recently and wonders if the photo-negativity is a prelude to another Beyonder invasion.

Hank doesn't want to think about that. And unfortunately, there isn't enough data to make a good theory on the cause. They have no choice but to wait for it to happen again and hope that it doesn't.

Back at the PolyDyne lab, Nebula starts shouting at the lab people, telling them to start up the compressor again.

Nebula: "That was nearly it! That was the ultimate power I seek!!"

A goggled lab man protests the flux was a totally unanticipated effect and Professor Harker backs him up. BECAUSE. His calculations indicated something like this could happen... he just didn't tell anyone because it would have gotten in the way of him getting funding.

You dipshit!

YOU CALCULATED THE UNIVERSE MIGHT BLINK OUT OF EXISTENCE AND YOU BUILT THE MACHINE ANYWAY?

Go to your room!

Nebula is equally angry in the opposite direction.

Nebula: "You dare speak so to the granddaughter of Thanos? I have crossed and recrossed the universe seeking a source of energy that would elevate me to the position of power and fear he once commanded! I shall not be frustrated now!"

Two of the lab workers briefly discuss what the hell Nebula's deal is. She wasn't part of the deal between PolyDyne and Professor Harker. So either she was Harker's secret benefactor all along... or she's nuts.

GUYS. SHE'S NUTS. She's talking about ultimate power and Thanos! Someone pull the plug!

Starfox shows himself to Gunthar and knocks the Rigellian out with a judicious application of his PLEASURE POWER.

You're not beating the creepy powers allegation yet, Starfox.

He takes over the radio and tries to contact the Avengers but gets choked out by another of Nebula's minions before he can get further than "Starfox calling the Avengers!"

Jarvis does report to the Avengers that Starfox tried to contact them.

Sersi: "Eros? Of the Eternals of Titan? What's wrong...?" Captain America: "Easy, Sersi. I know your own race of Eternals is distantly related to the dwellers of the Saturnian moon, but there may not be anything to get upset about here..."

Jesus, Cap.

She's thousands of years older than you. Give her some credit for controlling her emotions. Reflexive sexism isn't a good look on you.

Jarvis backs up Sersi's worry because Starfox was unable to complete the transmission before it was cut off. And because of the way it was cut off, Jarvis guesses Eros didn't cut the connection but was stopped.

Captain America checks and sees that the Subbasement's communications equipment managed to track the signal to beyond the orbit of the Moon.

Iron Man suspects that it must have something to do with the current crisis. He interfaces with the Subbasement's computers to run the data through his armor systems.

Cap once again =_= at Iron Man and thinks he's AWFULLY familiar with all the Avengers equipment. Could Tony REALLY have briefed a completely new guy so thoroughly?

Tony, just TELL them. God.

Iron Man finishes tracking the signal and takes Vision to go check it out.

As those two tear out, Thor and Spider-Man tear in.

Spider-Man wonders if they should go with Iron Man and Vision, wherever they're going. But Thor says nay because they didn't come all the way to Avengers Subbasement to NOT find out what's going on.

They arrive just in time to get hit by back to back photo-negativity.

I don't know why but the idea that briefly not existing hurts like hell is kind of funny to me.

The Avengers are blinking in and out of existence and fuck ow. Their atoms don't like it!

I don't know what effect that would have realistically because what here is realistic? But if I had to guess an effect, I'd guess... mostly mental effects. Confusion, dread, stuff like that. But, no. It hurrrrrrts.

Even though the Avengers were waiting for another flux, now that they've gotten three in a row, the Subbasement's instruments can't tell them anything substantive.

Cap asks Sersi if she can do anything about this barrage of not existing.

She grants that hypothetically it is something she can do.

As an Eternal, she controls every atom in her body by force of will. And of the Eternals, she is the most skilled at molecular transmutation.

Hypothetically, she should be able to protect all the atoms in this room from the effect.

Even though another flux comes while she's preparing, Sersi holds strong and successfully protects the room.

Sersi: "Whatever force this is, I shall not let it master me! I am Sersi! I am an Eternal born! I... WILL... NOT... FAIL!"

But... even though she succeeded, Spider-Man notices something very odd on the external security feed.

As in, there is no outside anymore.

Universe gone.

What a place to end an issue!

Gotta laugh at Spider-Man seeing a blank monitor and (correctly) leaping to the conclusion that the universe broke rather than that the monitor did.

Also, gotta laugh at Sersi choosing now to still keep being horny for Cap. I have no idea how she ended up with Black Knight instead. No offense to Dane but some offense to Dane.

Next week, more Evil Scarlet Witch.

I'm getting excited about Avengers (East Coast) again. It's been kind of spinning its wheels during Byrne's run and then back to back events. But I'm looking forward to seeing where this one is going. And the other book has Evil Scarlet Witch so at least I have one book that I'm excited to read.

Follow @essential-avengers because I'll never flick the universe off and on like a light switch. I'm courteous. Like and reblog and comment and applaud as the mood moves you.

#essential avengers #avengers #Nebula #and her pirate crew #Captain America #Sersi #Iron Man #Thor #the Vision #Spider Man #Edwin Jarvis #John Jameson #Starfox #Hank Pym #Dr Pym #the Wasp #Professor Harker #the universe keeps turning off and on like a malfunctioning appliance

[coffinsister]

Eeee so I can't pick a favorite between Ashley and Andrew but when I was playing it I definitely saw Ashley as sorta yandere vibes? Like yknow with the girl dying in the box was the primary example, Andrew going along with it too was like 👀 because why would he go along with killing someone unless he was either The Biggest Doormat (which i definitely understand seeing the creator's notes) or he was also vaguely yandere but not acknowledging it. There's a lot of toxicity between them obviously and a lot of trauma (not sure where from aside from whole being locked in the apartment for Hecc knows how long and maybe neglectful parents) but they seem to be reading the same book but they're not the same page if that makes sense. Andrew probably also has some Older Sibling syndrome going on there because he cares about Ashley if reluctantly sometimes and takes responsibility for things, while Ashley makes sense as the younger sibling (as an older sister myself it at least was recognizable with how Andrew was telling Ashley she had to realize what they'd done at the end of the chapter) and with the whole demon thing it made me wonder what the talisman will show Ashley or if there will be more complicated horror with the two of them encountering more cultists or if their parents had something to do with the issue because I definitely agree on the whole sus mom thing

All in all I love how the game gives us enough information to see kind of where it could go but doesn't spoil the plot and the Coffin part of the title definitely gave me 4th wall thoughts similar to Homestuck. The apartment/demon occult based horror is similar to Sally Face too so it just took the gremlins and made me super interested in the story. If i ever write anything i'll definitely send it to you!! I work as a writer off of tumblr for a larp company currently though so my brain is a bit fried but I love this game a lot and it was super interesting to see what was going on in the story 👀

Thank you !!! Don't overheat your brain anymore than necessary to survive in the techno capitalist hellscape singularity we are currently in but if you do find the time to write anything that would be amazing :D

And now to answer everything else:

I love both siblings for their own reasons I really do but I fell in love with Andrew the moment I saw him because brocon tendencies defeat all sorts of common sense immediately for me

Yeah Ashley totally fits into the yandere archetype except she's more real I would say and she's definitely more western than full on anime like

I say she's more real because she's actually shown to struggle a lot with socialization and with her parents and just seems to be rejected by the world around her because of her personality instead of just being a random girl who somehow exists with that behavior and it's okay

Yeah I actually don't really understand Andrew's motivations for going along with stuff all that deeply I always feel like there's something I'm missing with him but mostly I just see it as well he genuinely really cares for his sister and doesn't want to see her in distress and he's super codependent as well and cannot lose and he's a pushover too and finds it easier to go along and blame her for everything instead of standing up to her and risk losing her and then having to confront himself

As Ashley did say she's the only person he can be real with so he can't stand to lose her

I also totally think he's yandere on his own right like maybe yandere wouldn't be the right term for him because he definitely doesn't present himself at first as more approachable like Ashley does but he's still super overprotective of her

Like straight up one of the like 7 times the Rage sprite is used twice are just for the time where Ashley makes the comment about getting pregnant from their neighbor

So yeah they are both yanderes for each other and we love that for them

Personally I see the trauma from them steming from yeah killing that girl that's definitely not something you can just walk off but also from their parents seeming to be very detached and neglectful of them and also from Ashley specifically I see her as somebody who's never managed to have a long lasting relationship of any type with anybody other than Andrew

She expresses that just who she is and her personality makes people turn away from her and that over so much time and starting up from so young can really mess a person up

And then she starts isolating Andrew too and they wind up becoming dependant on each other and no matter what forcing one person to carry the weight that a whole entire social circle should is always going to end up turning toxic ah~ which is what I so love about them I'm just a natural sucker for toxic siblings dynamics

Actually your perspective saying that Ashley fits as a little sister is really interesting to me because I am a little sister I can't really understand how older siblings look at their younger siblings but I can see a lot of how me and my older sister are like in just how they banter and stuff

Like that bit where Andrew is like nope you go get the batteries It was like a Deja Vu for me swear to God

I definitely think the whole prophetic dreams stuff is gonna play a big role in the full game and I'm really looking forwards to the horror potential of it all

I also really enjoy the idea of Ashley being super paranoic all the time about everything she dreams because what if she interprets it wrong what if she doesn't see the right thing what if it ends up getting Andrew hurt and as much as he doesn't want him to be able to live on without her that stems from the fact that she definitely cannot live on without him

One thing I really enjoy about dystopian stories is that they tell you just enough they make you feel like the world was already here before you and you are just watching it at the moment and this game does that so well

I know nothing about Homestuck but everyday I learn something new about it as it seems

And sorry, as you can probably tell, I can talk a whole lot about my special interests jejeje (☍﹏⁰).

#the coffin of andy and leyley #personally i headcanon Ashley as ASPD and Andrew as autistic and they are my favorite codependent cannibal siblings ever #soleil asks #andrew graves #ashley graves #nemlei #this is so clogging up somebody's dash right now

[cooki3face]

"Tips For Navigating Men That Aren't The One": Part 2

this is the second part of a blog post I made some time ago with the same title. If you haven't read that one please go read that here. The first post was both a satirical and basic set of rules that you can apply to help separate good men or potential partners from the rest. I fully intend to make this second one a more in-depth version of the first. Adding on to make a more complete and secure set of rules to follow.

Disclaimer: As stated in the first post, you don't have to follow these rules if you don't want to, these are what I believe helped/helps me. Thank you. <3

I hope that you're doing and feeling well and that all of your desires come to you effortlessly. 🤍

Rule #1: Please be aware that men will choose for their ideal life/ or dream.

As a woman, at least once in our lives, we may discover a man who cares for us or maybe even loves us but will choose someone over us who is completely different, looks different, behaves different, thinks different, or simply does not even fit into the same category we separate ourselves into. And this is okay, this is okay because we have to understand that men will always choose someone who fits better into the lifestyle they desire to live or the lifestyle they feel they want to live.

for example, a man who is wealthy and is looking for someone high maintenance or interested in the life that he is living is going to seek out someone who fits the criteria for what he feels is ideal. A man who is religious or has a pretty saturated cultural background and fully intends to remain that way may seek out someone of that same religious or cultural background.

Now, remember, stray away from subjecting yourself to a critical and harmful mindset that pushes you to believe that you are below someone or the issue. You are not. People will simply chase after what they think is ideal. But also, if you are a high-value woman yourself and believe that you are a prize, have a lot to offer, and anyone would be lucky to be with you in the first place, do not dwell on a man choosing someone who you may perceive to be not as well sorted out then you are or someone who lives a completely different lifestyle than you do. We often find that men will go to who they feel understands and reflects them. Whether he's a drug addict or a model for Ambicrombi and Fitch.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ ˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Rule #2: Beware of men who do not truly respect you.

If a man can cuss you out, belittle you, refuse to validate your emotions, ignore your boundaries, apologize without change occurring afterward, lie to you, make fun of your appearance (physically or even your fashion), not prioritize your time together or communicating with you by choosing to put things above that, etc. He does not respect you. It is your responsibility as your own woman and your own person to immediately remove him from your space as soon as you notice that he doesn't respect you. Not only as a woman but as a person.

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Rule #3: If he can disappear or leave he doesn't deserve to be there.

A man who loves, respects, and honors his woman would never willingly disappear or leave his woman to be alone and all by herself or face the world alone. This could be as simple as him leaving you alone at a function or a party or in life by ghosting or disappearing.

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Rule #4: It's your responsibility to identify your triggers and your trauma.

The art of seeking out, attracting, and choosing a good and worthy partner if that's what you're looking for needs to start with healing and identifying patterns in your own life. You undermine the work of your spirit guides and ignore your own self-value by continuing to choose men or participate in bad habits because of your trauma. You have an unhealthy attachment style? Work on yourself and do what's necessary to change that so that you can securely be in a relationship. Have you forgotten to realize that your past relationships and partners may be a reflection of your parental relationship and parents? It's time to heal that trauma so that you can be attracted to better and choose better rather than being attracted to and loving a narcissist or someone who exudes narcissist behavior just like your mother or your father.

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Rule #5: See men for their actions and not for their words or their beauty.

Sometimes, and more often than not, we miss out on the crucial step of seeing people for who they truly are, the types of things that they do in comparison to what they say, and their behaviors. You have to do a better job at identifying red flags. Sometimes when we love people or are infatuated with people we become blind to the truth. Repeat after me, "It is my responsibility to identify red flags of people who come into my space." Remember this for later. We get caught up, confused, played, and mistreated when we don't do a good job at holding people to their actions and behavior and we just listen to the dream they're selling us instead. We must hold people accountable even if we love them or want to be with them. Because nobody else will do this for you.

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Rule #6: Remind yourself of the truth when recovering from breakups.

When you get out of a relationship with a narcissistic partner or someone who hurt you and didn't care, someone who didn't turn out to be the person you thought they were. Remember that it was your love that made them so special, so kind, so gentle. That they were none of those things at least not to you. Remember, "It was my love that made this person so special, not them." and "It is my responsibility to hold them accountable for them not being very kind or good to me." If that person loved you or cared for you the way you thought they had, they would not have done what they did to you.

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Rule #7: Activate your "dark-feminine" energy and preserve your "light-feminine" energy.

Your dark feminine energy is the part of you that protects you against anyone who tries to come in and do wrong to you, especially men. strengthen your intuition, be able to identify when someone has good intentions and when they don't, and do what's necessary to step into your dark feminine energy so that she can build boundaries that bad men and bad people cannot cross. Save your light feminine energy for those who truly deserve it, your compassion, your nurturing, and your soft interior for those who earn your love, and deserve your love. Repeat after me, "It is my responsibility to harness my power and look out for my heart and my peace."

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Rule #8: No more wasting your energy or your time on men who can't give you what you want, don't give you want, and don't offer anything for what you offer.

this one is quite self explanitory. Again, cannot. do not. and don't offer anything that you want. is a no go. Those types of people are a waste of time and space in your life. If you are manifesting marriage, a divine connection, true love, or a long-term partnership why are we sitting around wasting our time, energy, and love on someone non-committal and unhealed? Ladies, why? Do better.

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Rule #9: No more "but.. he changed." excuses or sympathizing.

I've just told you that it is your responsibility to identify red flags and bad behavior. Hold yourself to that, and hold the women in your life to that standard as well. "bUt He WaS dIfFereNt aNd hAd EveRyThINg BefORE I sAcRifICEd EvEryThInG aND nOW hES cRAzy, MeAN, aNd iNcApAbLE oF beHavInG LIkE aN adUlT!" Listen to how that sounds. We know that it is very difficult to unlearn bad and old behaviors so how do we come to the conclusion that after someone was "perfect" they suddenly began to behave differently or display outrageous expressions of behavior. It just doesn't make any sense.

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Rule #10: Be careful what you wish for.

This one can be kept short and sweet, don't manifest a partner, don't tell the universe you would like love...without being specific about what you're asking for. Set your intentions and desires straight.

"I'd like a partner." ✗ WRONG!

"I'd like a healed partner." "A balanced partner." "I'd like the right partner." ✓ WELL DONE.

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These are my ten rules, I hope these inspired you, or you found something useful here. Remember, what you put out into the world is what you get back, look out for yourself, and uphold accountability above all. I love you. <3!

#manifestation #self love #self expression #note to self #self discovery #self improvement #self worth #love yourself #self healing #standards #raiseyourstandards #boundaries #dreamgirljourney #dream girl #self care #pink

[pan-magi]

My Magi LGBTQIA+ Headcanons

Ok, I've been working on this list since January. I still probably forgot some. I haven't worked out all my SnB ones yet and about half the Rens. It takes me an inordinate amount of time to sort them out. The only ones I'm really set on are the aspec ones because I'm biased (that's me, I'm AA and proud).

All that to say I may update this list or do a second part. Most likely won't be for a while since I'd want to to add a good chunk before I commit more to the wild.

Also, if you disagree, that's cool. My list though~ I love hearing other people's hcs but I am not up to arguing over mine. I know you guys are chill but to ensure we are on the same page :)

(It's a reasonably long list so all of it is under the read more)

Leila and Sahsa: You can't tell me the manga didn't start off with a lesbian love story with a little shit child playing mediator.

Judar: He very gay.

Aladdin: Genderfluid. I just like the idea of him having everyone constantly guessing as a child of chaos. They're also vying to take that title from Judar. I also can't place who the kid will be interested in but none of his friends are around the same age.

Titus: Trans gay guy.

Yunan: Doesn't really have much attachment to gender. He wouldn't really describe it as a lack of gender yet won't turn down using agender. Gender neutrois also works. Uses any pronouns.

Scheherazade: Cupiosexual. She yearns for being able to have sexual attraction but it just never has occurred for her. After a few decades she had accepted it about herself. The most common form of attraction she feels is alterous attraction (often explained as the space between romantic and platonic attraction).

Hakuryuu: He has messy chemistry with everyone. Bi disaster through and through.

Morgiana: Ace and questioning. She hasn't figured it all out yet but her friends are there to support her. (hi, yes, this is me projecting weeee)

Alibaba: Bisexual and clueless. So if you ask, he won't be able to answer but he also picked up on Sinbad's natural ability to flirt with anybody without trying too hard.

Hakuei: Lesbian

Koumei: Bisexual. I mentioned with the art I made on my own blog that I designed Koumei around the bi colors without realizing it. Nothing in my mind has changed to refute that so that's what I'm still going with. I do think it fits him.

Sphintus: Gay. I can see him being biromantic as well, but mostly into guys.

Sinbad: Pansexual and greyromantic. I won't go into it again more here. He's the best most clueless and suave person ever.

Jafar: Homoromantic demisexual. He likes guys but also without any strong connection to go off of he doesn't really register how people can be attractive.

Drakon: Omnisexual. There's attraction to guys, women, and enbies, all slightly different to each other. Preference for women.

Mystras: Also very gay.

Pisti: Aegoromantic. She gets invested in other people's (mainly her friends') love lives, and loves love stories, but whenever she tries getting into a relationship it never sits right for her. She won't mind an intimate relationship though knows it won't be romantic (after a bit of denial). After my brain came up with this I started projecting like hell and I don't give a fuck XD.

Mu: Mspec of some variety. I don't think he will be bothered by either bi or pan. Queer will work just as well. He will be down for anyone, you know? Going off queer history circles I've seen conversations and jokes that no one in Ancient Rome is monosexual. Mu feels like the person it will apply to the most. I'm going with it.

I joked to myself that the majority on Alma Toran are mspec or aspec. With longer lifespans for humans, a good handful are aspec because of the lack of incentive to have kids or families quickly. I would have posted about it last year during my Alma Toran posting in October and during ace week, but alas. I'm now posting it here lol.

Anyway, my Alma Toran hcs:

Solomon: Demisexual. Hasn't spent time thinking about it because he didn't expect to marry so young. It doesn't bother him though, not that he could explain his sexuality well.

Setta: Aroace. All ice mages are aroace because I said so. (except Judar, dude can have as many guys as he wants)

Isnan: Gay

Falan: Bi. Growing up she didn't have the chance to explore her sexuality. She won't deny it if asked though is perfectly happy in her relationship.

Ugo: Bi and aceflux.

Paimon: Also bi. She flirts too much with Ugo not to be (though I do know some lesbians and non-interested in men peeps who flirt with guys for shits and giggles without much feeling. Poison Ivy being the main lesbian I think of for this).

Arba: Non-sam aro. I tried to figure out her sexuality and I know it's not ace, but it's still too wrapped up in being aromantic. Non-sam is the closest I could figure.

Tess: Demiboy. The idea just burrowed into my head and hasn't left so I'm going with it. He is fine with he/they pronouns, yet the only people allowed to get away with calling him little boy are his parents.

That's all I got. For the moment, at least. If I try to figure everyone out I won't get around to finishing this till pride next year. If ever >>. As I said, I may update the list or post a second part.

Remember to stay chill peeps! & Happy Pride!

#magi #magi labyrinth of magic #magi: the labyrinth of magic #magi headcanons #lgbtq+ headcanons #queer headcanons #hahahaha I'm not listing all the characters #i've been wanting to get this up the last few days shit #disagreements idc you can hc whatever you want #be nice though! :) my anxiety is being unfair per usual #help me prove it wrong! #i finally finished this yayy #legit why is a list so hard to make #and yes i may have overexplained but whatevs

[astralartefact]

i can hear a voice... of cards Divine 063y Analysis Post

This post is a part 2, you can find part 1 here Voice of Cards: Forsaken Maiden spoilers under the cut (including the final boss)

Alternate Title: Mommy, but make it Daddy

But first, the unhinged conspiracy board continues!

(I will keep expanding the original one with each new costume because I think that makes it more fun)

This time our divine costume seems to be based on the Ivory Spirit (who I speculate to be the OG grotesquerie queen)

I have absolutely no concept of how many people have actually played forsaken maiden, so I will include the card of the final boss, which is made up of all the spirits/gods in the game so you have some concept of what's probably coming next

Divine Akeha was likely based on Lac, who became the big monster at the top, Divine 063y is likely the Ivory Spirit (the hanging lady to the upper left). what remains are the red one on the lower left, the black one (with green) on the lower right and the blue kraken

(btw, if you are in any way interested in voice of cards but you don't want to buy all three (bc honestly they're a little pricey for what they are), i recommend forsaken maiden. it's a little bit harder than the other two but it's imo the best one and as far as i know the only 'lore relevant' one (for now))

Anyways. Back to 063y.

The two things I immediately noticed were the hidden eyes (the Ivory Spirit's eyes are hidden behind her hair) and the collar thing which looks very similar to the pin Lac has on his belly but interpreted as some sort of shackle. A lot of the details on the costume seem to be designed like shackles, but I guess that's a given since 063y's title is Prisoner.

Another thing is that the outfit is primarily white but it has some black accents mainly on the inside lining (it seems like if you turn the outfit inside out, all of the white fabric would 'turn' black) - which also mirrors the Ivory Spirits design with its black straps contrasting the uniformly white design. Since the Ivory Spirit is likely designed as an extension of Furiae's design from DoD 1 where the black straps kind of resembled some sort of mild bondage-thing to on one hand contrast her mostly pure white facade and on the other to represent her being 'caged' into her role as goddess, I think it's very fitting to take that to 063y's role as "Prisoner" too for example with the straps on his torso.

While he doesn't wear a crown on his head like Akeha (one of the common features all the gods have in VoC) there is one on the handle of his sword. I don't necessarily think it's intentional and/or means anything, but I did realize when spotting the one on the sword that flowers and crowns kind of have similar shapes...

And speaking of his weapon, it also seems to glow (if you look at the lighting of his hand) similar to how Lanca's weapon 'glows' (Lanca is the Ivory Spirit's Maiden and her weapon is bestowed with the spirit's power)

It's a little bit hard to see, but notice the yellow 'halo' lines, which can also be found on some of the other maiden's weapons (especially their ultimate weapons)

Finally - and this is really a stretch, which is why it is a blue string on the board - 063y wears shackles on his wrists (which imo also mimic the straps on the Ivory Spirit's gloves) and it looks to me like the right shackle has a different color from the one on the left. This could very well just be from the weapon's glow effect and it's actually supposed to be the same color, the artist just decided to represent the light in this way.

However. It does line up with the fact that that's the arm the Ivory Spirit uses to move Lac and because of that it's also the arm she loses when she merges into the final boss form.

And if it actually is on purpose, then it's probably also on purpose that that's the arm Zero has a prosthesis with the Ivory Spirit's symbol on which also inhabits something that looks very much like Lac.

(For more info see my post on the Ivory Spirit here)

As for the stories:

Character Story

O, God And our dear son, who now rests at God's side Watch over us in this endless war ────────────────────────────────── WE THROW OURSELVES INTO THIS FIGHT PLACING ALL WE LOVE IN PERIL BUT IS WHAT COMES AFTER WORTH IT? IF ONLY WE COULD BECOME FLOWERS EMPTY OUR MINDS BLOOM TOGETHER FOREVER

Weapon Story

I love you I love you I love you The many years I spent with you keep me ruthless and cruel I love you I love you I love you The whole of your life nourishes my newly blossoming heart I love you I love you I love you Your warmth soothes the grief I carry for the child I lost I love you I love you I love you The trembling of my body instantly stops when you fight by my side

(nierrein.guide you are a gift sent from the heavens i still need to donate to your kofi)

Flowers. *standing ovation*

(i think 063y and FF6x's hidden stories reference the flower religion too, but i haven't looked into it enough to make any meaningful connection between them and the drakengard flower/the ivory spirit. i guess this could potentially be some hint that the god of the flower religion is the ivory spirit too)

I kind of talked about it in my reincarnation theme analysis post (i think it was a mistake to put a tier list as the picture now people ignore it more q.q please read it i was relatively proud of it and don't worry the tierlist barely comes up) but i think it's really interesting just how much 063y is reduced to his son and his wife. it's just to such an extent that i'm kind of wondering if the writers actually realize what they're doing and don't just fuel it on accident...

I guess - as a gay guy who isn't particularly invested in becoming father - it's just fascinating to see this (almost glorified) relationship ideal be depicted this dystopic? like this is "what a father should be", the one true thing society has decided is the most good for a man to be and it results in one of reincarnation's ultimate losses of agency (and this means a lot since as i explored in my other post reincarnation is almost only loss of agency)

is it really agency to choose and fight if you're stuck in an eternal war against flowers is that subtext on masculinity i sense there? that is literally built on abusing your faithful duty to your wife and child to keep fighting forever. there is simply no other option - he has to protect the ones he loves. why? because he's a good father. and if he doesn't do it for his kid he does it for his wife and if his wife wasn't there - then what?

he is literally the perfect husband, the perfect father and yet all of this comes to the conclusion that without his family 063y has no other purpose - and that's why he can be abused into fighting an eternal war with no hope in sight. and that's just sad. and i hope that the writers are aware of that - mostly because if they're not careful it can easily skew into an incel-like "F66y is just an evil wife that exploits 063x's good nature - just like all women" sort of thing

I will end it here since I have way too many thoughts on this and it's already kind of out of place in this post... I might read up on his stories and write a post, but don't count on it.

Edit: I did the bad thing and pulled much more often than I should but hey, I got him. Twice. (don't worry, i don't spend money on gacha games, i just have a lot of free currency saved up)

First of all, as always, the pull screen is far too cool so I'll include it. Totally unrelated I would love to point your attention to "robes of speech."

Because to speak you need a voice. A Voice. of. CAR---

(Same thing with Forsaken)

I was right about the weapon glow, it's much more noticeable in-game. Sadly I was also right about being wrong about the wrist rings, they are the same color so that whole point is moot i guess

The markings on the sword vaguely reminds me of the ivory spirit sigil? But it's not enough that i would say it's on purpose.

He also has this glowy piece of fabric on his back (which I will just delusionally state to look similar to the ivory spirit's long hair)

His character skill is called THREE RINGS (All Caps), but I'm pretty sure that's not particularly voc related.

All in all seeing the design in 3D I will say that I might actually for once have read a little bit too much into it (but hey, it's much more fun this way)

I wouldn't completely rule it out, they might just have interpreted the ivory spirit design more loosely than they did with Akeha, but I'm certainly a bit more shakey about it than I was with her (who I stand by, that one can't be a coincidence). We'll see what happens with upcoming Divine designs and who knows, maybe only some of them are based on the Forsaken Maiden spirits while some of them are not.

#nier reincarnation #nier #voice of cards #forsaken maiden #yoko taro #i still need people to know just how savage lanca is #it's been a while so i don't know how much of that i'm retroactively making up about her but #when i say lanca is mini zero i do mean that #she is literally just zero but without the sex talk #if zero and lanca had a screaming match zero would lose

[longitudinalwaveme]

So I Wrote A 2-Act, 15-Scene, 33,883-Word-Long Play....

Several months ago, I posted an early draft of the first half of a play I call "Before the Storm", and now I have completed it! The play is a prequel of sorts to Shakespeare's King Lear, a play that I've always really enjoyed. I have no delusions about being able to match the original in terms of characterization, theme, tone, or writing style, as I am certainly not Shakespeare, but I hope that my exploration of a potential backstory to the events of the play is at least entertaining and enjoyable to other fans of the play.

The play is written in what is my best attempt at convincing Early Modern English. I've tried hard to match the grammar and word choice that would fit the period, but I'm sure I've made some slip-ups here and there. Feel free to correct any errors in the comments!

There will however be no blank verse in the play. I briefly attempted to write it, realized that I would be unable to balance plot, characterization, reasonably convincing Early Modern English, AND blank verse with any success, and chose to just write the dialogue in prose.

Most of the anachronisms seen here are the result of the fact that King Lear is set in what is supposed to be, based on his sources, a very ancient pre-Roman-Conquest England, but also has Dukes of Albany and Cornwall (Dukes, from what I understand, came to England during the Norman invasion, long after the Romans), apparently a St. Bethlehem hospital (Edgar mentions "Bedlam beggars" and the mental hospital in question wasn't established until the 1400s), Greek and Roman gods that obviously would not have been part of the pre-Roman conquest religious system of England, and one very medieval-to-Renaissance era court jester. The point is, I don't have the foggiest idea of when King Lear is actually supposed to be taking place beyond "probably sometime before the then-present of 1605-1607", and so just ended up setting my play in the same weird pagan-but-medieval-but-also-some-Renaissance time abyss we see in the original play. Feel free to call me out on any inappropriate post-Renaissance references or word choices though.

And, as the title says, it's got 15 scenes and around 33,000 words (not different words, just words total), which is apparently close to or longer than the word count for most actual Shakespeare plays (though considerably shorter than most novels). So it's entirely possible that I may have written a nightmarishly long play that would be impossible for anyone to reasonably perform. Or maybe AAO3's word counter is full of crap. (I almost hope it's the latter, because to write a play that was too long to perform would be kind of embarrassing even if the script is good.) On the other hand, the script doesn't call for any battles or big sword fights that might eat up stage time, and there aren't any musical-style songs, so that's good.

EDIT: Just checked. 33,000 words is less than what The Crucible has. Since my whole script is more-or-less in prose, I guess I'm probably safe from having accidentally written a 4-hour play.

If you're interested and check the play out (it's an AAO3 link post titled "Before The Storm"), I hope you enjoy it!

#shakespeare #king lear #fanfic #I guess technically I could say it was just fiction if I wanted to since any copyrights expired centuries ago #creative process #me rambling #sorry everyone

[bg-sparrow]

7,8,15,18 for fanfiction writer ask!

The wonderful @mangotortoise always indulges me on these FanFiction Writer Asks 🥰 Thank you for being an enabler (and curious about my process lol)!

7. When is your preferred time to write?

I don't really have one! Because I'm so scatterbrained, I write the moment an idea strikes if I can, even if it's just texting myself a few lines of dialogue I don't want to forget. Being a working mom doesn't leave much time aside from evenings/ late nights/ weekends, but when I get those Saturdays that I can wake up, park myself at my computer, and just go all day between switching laundry and loading the dishwasher, I love those days. I'm also really excited to write after I write loose scenes/ notes in my notebook because I end up expanding on them so much in the Word document effortlessly!

8. Where do you take your inspiration from?

Obviously, as fanfic writers, we're inspired by the source material, but my motivations beyond that vary by story. I'll stick to my BttF ones here.

For the Time Circuits Series, it wasn't born out of "I want to make a quality MartyOC across the trilogy" (even though that was ultimately my goal). I watched these films growing up with my dad a lot, and the idea of giving Doc a daughter and exploring that father-daughter relationship was my initial motivation before I even realized I wanted to rewrite the series years later.

Once Upon a Time in the West was at first a "stuck in 1885" AU for Cowboyvember, but after years of working on the T-rated trilogy rewrite, I wanted to try my hand at branching out into topics I'd never written about (depression, sexuality, etc). I was motivated to get a little grittier, and as someone who you could easily call modest, I wanted to see what I was capable of beyond the T rating. And I feel like I finally have enough life experience to give an accurate voice to these topics.

15. If you write OCs, how do you decide on their names?

Well, that depends! I enjoy the repetition and echoing in the BttF trilogy a lot, so it made sense that Doc's daughter is Emma (since he's Emmett). She just never had another name to me. Her middle name is "Jean", and at the time I decided that, I think I'd just reread Harry Potter, and "Jean" is Hermione's middle name. It's also an 80s nod to "Billie Jean".

Emma's mother is Dolores - because "DeLorean". And I think that plays a bit of a personal role in Doc choosing the DeLorean aside from all the science hoo-ha.

Clarence Livingston in There Are No Roads was the son of the cabinet maker in 1885. The cabinet maker's sign says "T. Livingston", and as Clarence was sort of the love interest in that story for Emma, his name became the male version of "Clara." So we have "Emmett and Clara" and "Emma and Clarence", and it makes me happy lol.

Other OCs I've created, it's a matter of making sure they're period-appropriate and a lot of "screen testing" -- saying the name out loud in dialogue, seeing how it fits against the canon names, etc. It's just like naming a child, honestly! It has to sound right and feel right. How do the canon characters feel meeting someone with this name? What nicknames/ pet names come out of it? Does the OC LIKE their name?

18. Do you have any abandoned WIPs? What made you abandon them?

Boy, I'm glad I'm being asked this now as opposed to two years ago! For the last ten years, I always wanted to come back and finish my stories, and I'm happy to say that I've completed two since I returned to writing in 2021: Principles of Compromise I left hanging for eight years, and Where You're Going (Time Circuits #1) I left hanging for three years.

I still have one I know I want to finish for the National Treasure fandom. I wrote a successful RileyOC story there in high school titled Another Clue, and I burned out halfway through writing the sequel to it titled One More Clue (but I still have all the notes to continue and finish it)! Perhaps now, with the new National Treasure TV show coming out on Disney+, it's a good time to hunker down and finish One More Clue (even though I'm totally going to have to spruce up Another Clue first because I've grown too much as a writer to leave it as-is before posting it to AO3).

I loathe getting so invested in an unfinished story, so I've tried to make it my mission to have the story finished/ an ending decided when I commit to posting a story. I don't want to make people disappointed like that. It's frustrating. So I'm trying to make good on it by finishing all my WIPs now!

Thanks again for the ask! I'm always open to more!! Have a great day!

#fanfiction writer asks #fanfic writer ask #ask game #answered asks

[starship-imzadi]

S6 E5 Schims

I think Riker always looks better in royal or dark blue

It's so rare to see something as normal as a sink.

The last two episodes Marina's wig has either been styled differently or is a different wig all together. I think it looks terrible.

It's sweet that everyone is so supportive of Data. But if no one showed up Data's feelingd wouldn't be hurt; He would just lose out on an experience that humans get when their friends support them.

Troi nudging Riker because he's falling asleep never fails to crack me up. (I had a dear friend in college who struggled to stay awake when the lights were low. He told me to punch him if he started snoring. In my mind there are similar vibes.)

For a second I wondered if a hot toddy was the best choice, because alcohol disrupts REM sleep, but then I remembered they don't do real alcohol so that wouldn't be a problem anyway. But it's odd that given his tight neck she doesn't offer him a muscle relaxer (which would also help with sleep.) What kind of training does Start Fleet give their doctors?...

It's weird that they walk around the ship in an emergency. Why not beam everywhere?

It's interesting that Riker asks a personal favor, for Geordi to make sure he's awaken in the morning, to which Geordi replies "sure, comander" in such a formal retention of title.

It's crazy Riker's bed looks like and actual bed with sheets and a soft pillow! Weird.

Poor Riker. Sleep deprivation is the worst.

So much about Worf's hair cut scene is terrible. The cape didn't clasp properly. The barber just free hands cutting his hair (and his scissors are much to high to even be just trimming the ends).

Is the device on board there just for Geordi? (Do we ever see it again?) It seems so specific and no one else has a device like his.

It's weird but in that intercut clip of Riker's hands across the helm control: I'm quite positive those are not Frakes' hands; they don't match him (but do I know what his hands look like?). It's weird because Riker is having an odd experience looking at his own hands at the console but it's for a completely different reason than why it feels like an odd experience to me.

Who is this other random crew member? Why is she the only non commanding officer? (If aliens picked on the lower decks more often instead of the people in charge they'd get away with a lot more.)

(This lower shot angle in the holodeck is weird. Why are they doing that?)

Long and rectangular 😂 that really narrows it down right? (Of course it's long. It has to fit Rikers 6' 3" self). Also 25% reduction which way?

The first metal table.....is definitely not a table. I read a reddit post discussing this scene comparing it to a Google search which made me realize: this really gives the impression that the Computer is pulling from a stock data base trying to find a single predefined object that fits the highest number of given filtered criteria as possible. I was thinking if it more like than how AI works now, where information is collected and sorted by characteristics and then those data points are fed into a generator to manufacture something new. It is funny that sometimes the computer needs more specifics, and other times it put up with the most vague instructions.

Riker's and Troi's hair look so poofy under that top light.

That's a tiny control panel. I figured it would be bigger, like the helm control, so it would make sense that it triggered the memory.

It's ridiculous to realize the computer knew random people were disappearing of the Enterprise but didn't say anything before now simply because no-one thought to ask.

Man that's crazy. Now, bone will actually naturally shave down and add material where it needs to for year after a break if it doesn't heal exactly line up. But think how traumatic it would be to know your arm has been amputated and reattached without you knowing.

All in all this is the makings of PTSD. They've all been kidnapped and operated on, without their knowledge or consent, but they all have some memories much like IOA (inter operation awareness) in surgery under general anesthetic.

I'd like to point out that these tables are not, in fact, at an angle.

Well.... that was intense. So many dangerous unknowns.

[alchemania]

God I am thinking so hard, y'all. Sit down with me I'm going to articulate my thoughts.

I'm thinking about names and like...the weight behind them and the parallels we see in Genshin. For example, Diluc and Jean are held in high respects due to their lineage (Diluc in part to Crepus owning the winery but also due to the Ragnvindrs being part of the people who led the revolution), while Eula is ostracized for hers. Through no acts of their own, the way they are treated is already decided in part by who came behind them.

Jean Gunnhildr

Jean feels she has to bring honor not just to Mondstat but to her family as well. It's a heavy burden, but it's one she's willing to bear and she has a wonderful support system through the knights. Still though, she overworks herself because of this sense of duty and isn't good at setting personal boundaries and telling people no because she doesn't want to disappoint anyone. Ever since she was a kid, she was trained and while other kids got to be kids, Jean had to study and other stuff and a lot of her childhood was lost. (That's not to say that Frederica was a bad mother tho, just that she made Jean grow up too fast, her daughter became Dandelion Knight at 15!!) To a degree; Jean exuded toxic positivity: she felt she had to be strong for Mondstat, for her family, and for Lady Vennessa, who she looked up to; and she couldn't really let herself relax or be vulnerable due to this sense of duty engrained in her. Thankfully in her story quest she realized that she didn't have to live up to Vennessa to a T, and just be the best knight that SHE could be and that would still be bringing honor to the title of Dandelion Knight. It's like she said herself: "I'm definitely more of a dandelion than a lionfang". Jean is a good fighter, sure, but that's not how she deals with her issues for the most part. She is a peacemaker and often seeks the most gentle solutions; Jean is a nurturer at heart (and how fitting then, for her to be a healer); and a symbol of hope. Despite that, she needs to learn to put herself first and take care of herself too.

Diluc Ragnvindr

In Diluc's case, he is attempting to carry a legacy on his shoulders alone. Something I always found interesting is that Diluc's name literally translates to "dawn" from Latin while Crepus means "dusk", his father's death and passing on the torch is symbolic in more ways than one. Literally, the dusk disappeared to leave behind the dawn. And yet, Diluc is dubbed the Darknight Hero and most of his time exacting justice is done at night. Funny, that. I honestly believe that while Crepus was a good father, he projected a lot of himself onto Diluc and Diluc joining the Knights was in part, due to that. That's not to say him joining was bad, but merely that Diluc may have yet to actually figure out what HE wants to do for himself because a lot of things he did to earn his father's approval (and even now he takes care of his dad's winery and he doesn't even like alcohol). In his endeavors to ensure Crepus' legacy never died, I dare to say Diluc began to lose himself in his anger and bitterness; and became an Atlas of sorts in his own mind: tasked to hold the world on his shoulders and endure, and endure, and endure, because he feels he HAS to. Unlike Jean, Diluc does not really have anyone he can personally confide in. Sure his staff support him, but that's not really the same thing. Kaeya used to be his right hand man, but after they fell out Diluc probably felt he had nobody to turn to. As far as he's concerned, he's the only Ragnvindr left (while he and Kaeya do seem on better terms lately, they haven't officially reconciled) and so it's up to him to make sure Crepus is remembered positively.

Thankfully though in the game as Diluc warms up to you he seems to trust you and realize that he doesn't have to do everything alone and it's okay to have friends help you; and that you don't have to be self-reliant to an unhealthy degree. He's still got a ways to go, but he's definitely growing and that brings me joy.

Eula Lawerence

In Eula's case, her name is also a burden but unlike Jean and Diluc, it's one she wants to get rid of as soon as possible. She's essentially their negative foil; and shares a few similarities such as attempting to shoulder most things herself (her only friends canonically thus far are Amber and Yanfei) and having a strong sense of duty, but she's doing it because of personal drive; not to honor anyone else. Eula is also at a bit of a crossroads: her family hates her for joining the Knights, and the people of Mondstat hate her because she's a Lawerence: it's a lose-lose situation either way; and so Eula doesn't try to prove any suspicions wrong because it wouldn't matter: her right doings are viewed with hostility and suspicion and her wrong doings would just be used as proof that nothing good comes from the Lawrences; so she plays the part and allows people to think what they will.

HOWEVER.

Eula's sarcasm is a bit of a turn off for many people (and understandably so); and while I acknowledge that it is most likely a defense and coping mechanism, it is not a HEALTHY coping mechanism. Humor is subjective and folks have the right to be weirded out or even uncomfortable with her jokes of vengeance and reclaiming her family's former glory (she jokes about that in her greeting voiceline); especially considering that her folks well..kept slaves. As you get closer to Eula it becomes more and more apparent that she doesn't mean a lot of what she says but that doesn't negate the fact that her family has done a lot of damage and while Eula herself should not be held accountable for that in particular; it IS her responsibility to be mindful of the harm that has been done and act accordingly. It's not right for people to treat her like trash just because of her lineage; but on the flip side it's also not acceptable to make jokes about restoring the honor of slave owners around the people they used to hold in captivity. Just because she's been a victim of her family and the people around her does not make it okay. Her trauma is valid, but her trauma does not validate her behavior. (Does that make sense? I hope it does.) And hopefully somebody calls her out on it, sooner rather than later; and she can learn to cope in a healthier way and actually start healing.

If things come down to it, Eula is willing to destroy her family completely; and I think about that a lot: hating your family so much that to nip them in the bud would only bring relief and peace. That's an awful existence and honestly?? I wouldn't wish it on anyone; and I hope that Eula can find people who she actually feels safe with. Again though, she needs to acknowledge that her behavior can be potentially harmful in her quest to rid herself of the burden of her family name and find better ways to protect herself emotionally.

Anyways, that's my thoughts for today; if you read all the way to the end, thank you. :]

#genshin impact #diluc ragnvindr #jean gunnhildr #eula lawrence #i just have a lot of thoughts #these 3 are really interesting to me and i want to analyze them more down the road so stay tuned for that. #holy jesus i wrote so much i did not mean to but oop! it be like that!! #eula is a pretty divisive character and she's not one of my favorites personally but i hope i articulated my thoughts about her okay #i actually did not realize i wrote a whole essay for her lol. #she's a victim of trauma but she's not coping well; at all #and i want her to be called out for it #i also want diluc to be called out for always bad talking the knights because while his anger is valid #he's directing it towards the wrong people and that's not okay #i might do a post about barbara; bennett and jean and toxic positivity soon lemme know if y'all wanna read that #📝; jazzy drabbles #i decided to put all my analysis under a tag!! that why i can find it easier.

[clavis-baby]

Songs that You would listen to After a Breakup with The Brothers

(Lucifer,Mammon,Satan,Asmo)

I’m so sorry I was listening to reckless and it made me feel something (also I’ve never dated anyone sooo shhh)

Also I tried to add at least 3/4 to every brother but I realized they all had a Olivia Rodrigo song so sorry about that also I tried not cross over the same songs 😅

Also Spotify Playlist!!!

————-

Lucifer

enough for you - Olivia Rodrigo

Okay so first Olivia track honestly I know we all cried to her whole album don’t deny it but essentially I felt that with the lyrics I wore makeup when we dated“'Cause I thought you'd like me more If I looked like the other prom queens” and “Tried so hard to be everything that you liked” I feel like Lucifer would expect that his lover to be perfect honestly this song really would work well with both of Satan and Lucifer so deciding between them was pretty hard but the pushing point for me to put this with Lucifer was the lyric “But I don't think anything could ever be enough”

Without me - Halsey

(Ugh I love Halsey so much and her baby soon!!!) Anyway!! For Lucifer I really think that his pride would’ve gotten in the way of all of his relationships he’s ever had but “Feeling so high but too far away to hold me You know I'm the one who put you up there Name in the sky Does it ever get lonely?” Just screams Lucifer and how the chorus keeps on saying “I said I'd catch you if you fall” ahh perfect (could also work for Asmo)

I knew you were trouble - Taylor Swift

Won’t lie but embarrassed that I choose this song but it works for Lucifer sooo whatever but the chorus really is a fairly good start I feel like anyone who has a brain (even tho MC really doesn’t) dating Lucifer wouldn’t be particularly 100% safe but whatever he’s most people’s favorites again I used to love this song but don’t anymore so when I looked up songs about break ups (yes I did that) and Trouble came up I relistened and with these lyrics I had to include it No apologies “He'll never see you cry Pretends he doesn't know That he's the reason why”

Let Me down Slowly - Alec Benjamin

Now if this was a cheating thing and he did cheat this would be like the absolute BEST SONG!! But tbh this is a pretty good song for any breakup I feel like…OH WELL! :) the first lyric FIRST LYRIC “This night is cold in the kingdom” I felt represented his pride idk how to explain but idk T-T I can explain the rest tho >~< “I once was a man with dignity and grace Now I'm slippin' through the cracks of your cold embrace” once again pride but with “Could you find a way to let me down slowly? A little sympathy, I hope you can show me” I really hc that almost with all the boys but especially with Lucifer they just would not care about cheating after they maybe got a rush would leave you instantly once that “rush” is/was gone

Mammon

(I’m a sucker for him im sorry I put all the most emotional songs with him)

Reckless - Madison Beer

This was the song that inspired this whole post!! (Sadly, it made me feel things) But this song really could be used for Belphie and maybe a hint of Asmo but Mammon was the first person I thought about when listening to this song so it’s mammon. Mammon I just feel like behind all the tunsdere act he really promises us so much like obviously the protection but Reckless just show us within the lyrics “I still have the letter you wrote When you told me that I was the only girl You'd ever want in your life” and even this lyric with his whole first man thing and even him asking us to come to him for protection “You might love her now, but you loved me first Said you'd never hurt me, but here we are” it just is so good 😭

Love me or leave me - little mix

So if you even skim through these Mammon songs and know about my posts I love him so much so even though what I said in Lucifers part about them not caring about cheating and stuff I feel like Mammon might care just because of how much he promises things also I read a lot of fanfics with what I just said “And you're turning away like you hate me Do you hate me? Do you hate me? Oh” tbh because of this lyric I did think for a moment to use this song for Satan but Uhhh this is really emotional song and I love my bby “Do you remember when you loved me once What happened? What happened? And you'd hold me here just because” LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME HERE!!!

Be Alright - Dean Lewis

This song I feel like was a bit more for me sooo yeah also remember what I said about how I hc that almost with all the boys that they just would not care about cheating after they maybe got a rush with you they would leave you instantly once that “rush” is/was gone wel I sort of want to believe mammon wouldn’t and his greed gets in the way (who am I kidding I’m just making excuses for my baby) but I’m going to continue on what I just said because Umm well I can do uh “You start to tremble and your voice begins to break You say the cigarettes on the counter weren't your friend's They were my mate's”

(I couldn’t find anymore songs that I felt that would fit him 😭)

Asmo

Ex best friend - Machine gun Kelly

When I was writing this originally there was going to be like 4 parts of all the characters but then once I realized how many songs and I couldn’t think of any for others and how I wanted to add an explanation I gave up on that but originally it was going to also be cheating songs, fall outs, then just aftermaths of breakup songs which to be honest this song really could fit with the after math and cheating songs I feel like Asmo and his SO are more likely a not able to quit each other sort of thing “We're both drunk on the elevator When I kissed you for the first time in New York City, uh” and even near the end of the first season the only little part we sort of get from character development from Asmo when we was drunk explains what he was sort of saying “I swear to God, I never fall in love Then you showed up, and I can't get enough of it I swear to God, I never fall in love I never fall in love, but I can't get enough of it First off, I'm not sorry I won't apologize to nobody You play like I'm invisible Girl, don't act like you ain't saw me” personally I do think that inside Asmo might be insecure and a bit sensitive on the inside but I could be wrong

When the party’s over - Billie Eilish

Wow I have the lyrics up and I just realized this 3 minute song has barley lyrics but the song still fits Asmo so.

traitor - Olivia Rodrio

Even tho that all these songs were on cheating I tend to hc that Asmo isn’t a huge fan of solo partnership because of the title avatar of lust so I feel like in maybe the beginning of a relationship he would promise to you that he would be there for you but would maybe end up not staying true to his words I forgot who but someone else explained why they don’t believe that Asmo wouldn’t be able to go with out having a Polly relationship

——-

I’ve had this in my drafts for so long and wanted to post this but at this point I’ve just can’t add anymore so this is my lazy part

Boys like you - Anna Clendening

Satan

Again I’m lazy rn but I wanted Satans part to show just pure madness and anger but also as time progress just sadness for Satans pure side also anything that had to do with books or a story I added for u know Satan loving books

I’m not mad - Halsey

Moral of the story - Ashe

Blue - Madison Beer

#obey me #obey me shitpost #shall we date #shall we date lucifer #leviathan #obey me shall we date #lucifer #obey me beelzebub #shall we date mammon #obey me asmo #shall we date asmodeus #shall we date satan #Spotify

[m-aster-of-spinjitzu]

orange and gold

...I just need more Cole and Vania content, they seem like they'd be great friends.

Basically it's just 'Cole goes to visit her there, they almost burn down the kitchen, and make way too many puns', lol.

Set a few months after Master of the Mountain, but before Seabound or The Island.

Also yeah, I couldn't think of a better title, sue me- I just know that they wear one of the colours at some point, so... 🤦‍♀️😂

Trigger warnings: none I think? Huh-

Also, bingo!! I really need to learn better time management, dear freaking gosh- I hope I'm not too late though? I know it's like half a day late, eek- and I was supposed to post this earlier, but I ended up literally falling asleep while writing it😂

Thank you so much Fabro, for hosting such a cool event!:D Your comments on my fics literally never fail to make my day<3. And I'm so glad that I met so many awesome, really skilled people through this event too - it's been a lot of fun working alongside y'all:D, I wish I'd had more time to interact instead of posting stuff and vanishing lol, but exams be like:////

Prompt: cooking (does baking count as cooking? I realized too late lol-) from @ninjago-bingo 's warm board.

Word Count: 2497

---

Trying to escape from killer dire-bats hadn't been on Cole's to do list today - although the mountains were kind of beautiful.

It was a bit difficult to see them while he was being dragged to his death, but hey, didn't Jay always tell them to be more positive?

That was, until he made the mistake of looking down.

Miles of snowcapped mountains touched the pastel blue sky, but he was more focused on exactly how high he was from the ground.

Great.

Trying to swing back onto the Bounty, he didn't notice a golden-winged blur shoot past the bat, almost dropping their spear in haste.

"Let my friend go, or I'll-"

"Vania?"

She throws the spear at the bird, successfully knocking one of its wings.

Huh. She must've been practicing - throwing with accuracy while flying seemed kinda difficult.

"I'm so sorry!" she replies, grabbing his arm before he fell down too. She winces at the strain on her wings, almost dropping him onto the deck. "I was supposed to come earlier, but there was an issue with one of the mines, and it took forever to-"

"There ain't anything in this world that's managed to kill me yet," he replies jokingly, checking that the autopilot hadn't been damaged. "I doubt an angry bird is going to be the first."

"Didn't you mention that you became a ghost once? Pretty sure that means you were dead-"

"Shh, that's not an important detail," he jokes.

"If you say so," she replies with a grin. "Did I mention that Chompy's been tearing down the palace flower arrangements again?"

"Send my regards to the gardener-"

"Did you just make a pun?"

"Remind me why I decided to visit you again?"

"Because you love me?" she asks stepping onto the ground as the Bounty landed gently.

"I hereby crown you as my platonic soulmate," Cole deadpans, taking her hand. "Vania and Cole-"

"Destined to annoy each other for eternity," she giggles, swinging their hands up and down. "But seriously - thanks. I don't think I realized how much work being a queen was."

"What's it like?"

"I mean - I'm glad that people trust me, and they come to me if they have a problem, but the paperwork is a nightmare. I never get to go outside anymore, I swear."

"Paperwork? Also, you just invited me here for a week. I don't wanna disturb you?"

"Nah, I cleared my schedule, don't worry. And trust me, you don't want to know. Everything requires some sort of official written thing, and it's so boring-"

"Official? But you're the queen?"

"Well, yeah, but I don't really want to change something unless it benefits the people. Not after..."

Her smile dims, eyes straying to the palace walls.

Oh- oh.

"You're nothing like him," Cole says firmly, squeezing her hand. "I mean, if you need to take a break, or you can make your job a bit easier by cutting out something unnecessary, that's just gonna help you become a better queen. You've definitely got the interests of your people at heart, and that's the most important thing, you know? And well, uh, everything seems to be going great so far - you don't have to beat yourself up over someone else's mistakes."

"Thanks," she replies softly, her smile slowly returning. "Speaking of breaks, what do you think we should do this time?"

"You could show me around the city again?"

"You've already seen everything cool," Vania giggles, skipping ahead of him. "We don't renovate much - unlike you guys-"

"Hey, it's not our fault that our city gets destroyed every few months-"

"More like every few days," she teases, tying back her golden hair. "How about we find some dragons to adopt?"

"Tempting, but where would you keep them?"

"They could sleep in my room-"

She breaks off when she notices him laughing. "What?"

"N- nothing," Cole replies, in between laughs. "Jay and I just made a bet."

"On what?"

"How many dragons you've adopted. I bet at least six, he bet fifteen."

"Well, jokes on both of you - I'm pretty sure my advisor's going to throw a fit if I show up with another one," she starts, giggling. "We've got twenty living in the palace right now."

"Twenty dragons?"

"They're so cute! You just look into their adorable little eyes," Vania pauses for breath, continuing her animated gesturing, "and you can't help but wanna hug them!"

"Oh, Jay's going to be so mad."

"Aww, I'm sorry guys. They're just too adorable!"

"...Wanna hear a funny story?"

"Yeah, sure!"

"I actually used to be terrified of dragons-"

"No way!" Vania exclaims. "Y'all have been on a lot of adventures though, so-"

"Nah, we used to have our own dragons at first. They were pretty cool! I just- I'm a simple guy! Huge animals with wings are scary up close when you're barely a teenager."

"Or when you're really short-"

"We're the same height!" Cole exclaims, facepalming in a bit of a fondly exasperated way.

"I'm two years younger than you-"

---

"Ugh, whose idea was this?"

"Yours," Vania grins, sitting down on the kitchen counter.

"You were supposed to help me, not leave me high and dry!" Cole accuses jokingly, staring at all the appliances they'd found in the cupboards.

"'One must always be prepared for new adventures,'" she quotes seamlessly, waving one of- what was his name again? Mulch something? Oh! Clutch! Some explorer he was, leaving them to die in the pyramid - Clutch Powers' books in the air.

"Fine," he sighs, staring at the old recipe book she'd found in one of their back cupboards. "But you've gotta help me? I almost burned down-" "Woah, what? If you finish that sentence with 'kitchen'-" "In my defense, Kai was playing a prank on me-" "In my defense, I wouldn't like to explain how the queen of Shintaro burnt down the palace by teaching one of her friends to cook," she grins, flipping through the pages. "What do you wanna start with?" "Something simple?" "Have you ever tried baking bread before? It's a lot of fun!" "I haven't really had the time, but that sounds kinda interesting."

He skims the recipe, raising his eyebrows. "Wait, why does this take hours? I thought you said it was simple?"

"Trust me, it is," she laughs, adding, "besides, I still wanna hear about all your adventures!" "Uh... okay," Cole replies hesitantly, "but if this fails, I'm so sorry." "Give yourself some credit, you guys literally saved the world! Multiple times!" "Bold of y'all to assume we know how we did it," he laughs, only half-kidding. "Besides. I botched soup once."

"I've botched toast," she mock-sighs, smiling. "Pretty sure that makes us even."

"Lemme get this straight. You've messed up toasting bread, but you can bake it from scratch?"

"Trust me, I don't know either," she giggles, trying to open a brightly coloured packet of... something? Did flour come in packets that small?

"Uh, why are you opening something called 'feast'?" he asks, eyebrows creased in confusion.

"Feast," she echoes, trying to stifle her laughter. "Off to a... rocky start, aren't we?"

It took him a second.

"I already regret this," he jokes, facepalming. "But I'd say that your puns are, uh, gold."

"I've un- unleashed-" breaking off, she half-falls off the counter, laughing so hard her face starts to go red, "a monster."

---

"Uh, is it supposed to look like that?" Cole asks, frowning.

The mixture looked less like the dough he'd been expecting - more like one of Jay's inventions gone wrong.

Badly wrong, he thought, eyes widening at the goopy mess of foam that threatened to spill over the jug.

"The yeast?" Vania echoes, poking her head out of one of the cupboards. "Yeah, all good! It always looks a little gross, and you're gonna doubt ever eating bread again, but at least it doesn't taste like it's fermented-"

"It's what?"

"Yeah," she grimaces, exaggerating her disgust a bit. "If aliens ever fell from the sky, they'd think we were crazy for eating bread-"

"Aliens? I think we're a bit crazy!" Cole exclaims, trying not to laugh.

Vania smiles, then sighs, lugging a huge bag of flour onto the counter. "I can never open these bags properly," she starts, eyeing the the bag a bit warily, "and it always makes such a huge mess all over the kitchen. You'd think they'd make it easier for people to use, right? I swear-"

He jokingly puts his hands over his ears. "I can't hear you!" "But you know that I've sworn off swearing-" she replies, breaking off with a laugh. "Pun not intended - that actually made sense in my head. I swear!"

"No," Cole interjects with a grin, shaking his head. "You don't, remember?"

"See, this is why we're friends-"

"Friends? Is that all I am to you?"

"Oh, be quiet," she shoots back, exaggeratedly dragging a hand down her face. "I mean, sure, just because everyone thinks that we're dating doesn't mean that we-"

Wait. What?

"People think that we're dating?" he asks, clamping a hand over his mouth in a poor attempt to muffle his laughter. "I- I- really?"

"I know, right?"

"Even my friends thought so at first," he confesses, dragging a hand down his face. "I mean, as much as I love you-"

"I love you too," Vania replies, completely seriously. "Even if you'll always be more like an annoying-"

"Hey-"

"Sibling to me than anything else," she finishes, grabbing a pair of scissors. Cole watches, a little alarmed, as she stabs them into the flour bag over and over.

"Is it... supposed to be this difficult to just open the bag? Seems kinda stupid-"

"Well, er, they have this piece of paper with glue that you're supposed to pull away from the rest of the bag, but it never works properly and I-"

"Well, we could always make our own flour," Cole interjects, laughing. "I mean, I've got a scythe? Let's go!"

"Uh, but we don't have wheat growing here. I don't think it'd suit the climate very well?"

"Wheat a shame," Cole sighs jokingly, measuring out the flour (which had, finally, escaped the bag).

"Oh my gosh," Vania deadpans, "you did not just-"

"Yep, I did."

"You're horrible," she giggles, "then again, I was the one who started this whole debacle, so I think we'll share the blame."

"Debacle? Where'd you pick that one up from? Sounds kinda cool-"

"Oh, it's from a book someone wrote about you guys," Vania says casually, pouring a cup of water into the bowl.

"Hey, uh-" Cole starts hesitantly, twisting his fingers back and forth, then breaks off. "Why'd you read all that stuff about us, anyways? Adventure books don't really seem like something you read a lot, since we have similar favorite books. I mean..."

"Well, um..." Vania trails off, clearly uncomfortable. "Uh- I guess, well, it sounds kinda stupid, but I'd never really met anyone my age who wasn't a royal or something. I... er, I didn't want to be left out, you know?"

Cole thinks back to a scroll; a quest, a sacrifice. One that his friends never seemed to really notice, unless it was with horror or flinches. Not that he blamed them, but - joking about how he was much more useful to the team when he was freaking dead than he was before he'd stumbled and fell in the temple?

That had been a bit far, even for his best friend. Locks could always be picked or something, he didn't need to be a ghost to provide some sort of value-

Well, that's not completely true, is it? a small voice questions, and he can't keep his hands from shaking a little.

"Jay here thinks you're the least valuable ninja."

Not enough to be a performer. Now, not good enough to even be a ninja, apparently.

Well, he reminds himself firmly, you don't have to be the best - just stand up to those who are cruel and unjust.

Nothing but a scar that glowed warm orange occasionally left of the whole Cursed Realm ordeal, sometimes it was all too easy to forget - or pretend - that it had never even happened in the first place.

Other times, like when he'd dropped a glass of water on the floor and his hands hadn't stopped shaking for hours, or when he woke up screaming, expecting to fall through his bed again, it still felt like he was trapped as a ghost. Literally - and maybe a little figuratively as well.

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

"Thanks for trusting me with that," he replies softly. "And I'm sorry. That sounds... horrible, but, honestly, you're a pretty cool person, and I ain't just saying that because we're friends. People can be awful, and they can- they can leave, but you don't need to pretend to be someone you're not for people to accept you. I kinda know what it's like, and it's... just, uh, not great."

"No, thank you," Vania says, rubbing her eyes. "You're pretty cool, too. And I'm glad that we become friends, even if wasn't in the- the, er, greatest circumstances."

"Right back at ya. The fall was pretty terrifying, though," Cole says casually, as if memories of that nightmarish plunge into the depths of earth don't still send shivers down his spine.

"No, definitely! I was so sure we were gonna splat onto the ground or something, thank gosh we didn't."

"Yeah..." Cole trails off, reading the recipe they'd been following. "Oh- do we just leave the bowl somewhere for a few hours now?"

"Oh, yeah," Vania answers. "Other than clean up the kitchen, what else do you wanna do?"

"That's kind of you, but, ah, I don't mind. You can choose something."

"I don't mind either," she replies, covering the bowl with a dishcloth. "Seriously, I don't."

"Same here though."

"Really, I don't mind-" Vania breaks off with a laugh, adding, "Well, actually, there is something."

She doesn't elaborate, thoughtfully gazing out the window.

"Well, what is it? Don't keep me in the dark."

"Ugh, it's kinda stupid-"

"I'm sure that it's not- well, unless you want to try to jump off a flying ship with a homemade parachute to prove a bet to someone-"

"Do I even wanna know?"

"...uh, probably not. We're way too crazy sometimes, our Master has a hard time keeping us in check. Your thing, though?"

"Can I give you a hug?"

Cole blinks for a second, expecting some sort of punchline.

"That's your thing?"

"Well, yeah- I mean, I said it was kinda stupid-"

"No no, that's not what I meant. You're so sweet - that's all."

"Well, not more than you-"

"Nah, you're sweeter-"

"Let's just call it a tie," Vania says with a smile, reaching over to give her friend a hug. "Thank you so much, I swear- well, no, I don't, but you know, anyways-"

"Yeah," Cole replies, laughing softly. "I know."