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lemonhemlock · 1 year

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How would you have written the hotd story or maybe changed it?

GRRM, is that you??

I've had this ask sitting in my inbox since forever!! I'm sorry it took this long, but this question stumped me. 😅

I tried to do a little write-up re-imagining one of the more problematic scenes of the season here.

I will begin by saying that I really did enjoy this first season! Although sometimes it feels like I'm in the minority. :) But there were a lot of things that I loved, like the atmosphere, a lot of the storytelling, the humanized characterizations, the editing, the MUSIC, the costumes, it felt very, very recognisably Game-of-Thrones and such a relief to be going back to Westeros after these accursed last few years!

One of the things I really loved was how each episode gravitated around a specific event and corresponding concept & allowed the narrative to flow in relation to this one shared thread that kept the characters purposeful. Not many completely unrelated or superfluous scenes that I can recall.

I understand the need to keep to the tried-and-tested 10-episode structure, but considering all the time jumps, I would have made them longer. Streamlining is great, but even a few additional scenes would have helped a lot, I think.

The main issue I have relates to framing and audience manipulation. Let's be serious, they HAD to soften the characters up, because they have to captivate the audience moving forward. No one wants to watch a show where people are just irredeemable arseholes, as much as fans love to boast about it declaratively. Book purists are never going to be enough to sustain a big financial investment like GOT/HOTD. Casual viewers are the ones who have to keep coming back to the show, not us nerds dissecting it on tumblr, twitter & reddit.

So, in that sense, girlbossing Rhaenyra up makes complete sense. It's an easy framing that every Tom, Dick & Harry can follow along with. They did a good job with humanizing Alicent & Aemond as well. The problem is with Aegon. He is the only character in the show to have received Mushroom's worst interpretation. As Rhaenyra's direct rival, you cannot do that to him and still expect the audience to side with the greens. Even show!Daemon is sanitized from his book!self. If you're going to whitewash Rhaenyra, you have to present Aegon more indulgently as well. I'm inserting the answer I gave to a disgruntled anon a while ago. It's literally the only way you can play the "both sides have a point" angle to the audience.

I would have made Aegon the village idiot and drunkard and given him comic relief moments. I would have kept him bullying Aemond and taking him to a brothel, but I would have also shown him reaching out to his family members more as an adult. Maybe given him an OK relationship with Helaena, like they had in the books. Make him interact with his children a bit. This doesn't have to take up a lot of screen time, a few extra scenes could do the trick. Keep his characterization as incompetent and irresponsible, but refrain from making him completely reprehensible. Take away the distressing rape scene and the child-fighting rink, because that is just ridiculous when you're also giving RHAENYRA the white hart symbolism. Actually, make it even more ambiguous - Rhaenyra comes back with Ser Criston & the boar at the end of episode 3 and sees how a white hart has approached Alicent holding baby!Aegon. Who's the true heir now??

Secondly, I would have emphasized how the greens actually do have the legal high ground here and the better claim. I'm sorry, but including debates on medieval common law and inheritance rights are a must. The viewers were convinced at the end of the show that Rhaenyra should be Queen just because Viserys said so. And, I'm sorry to say, but that is just not the case. A lot of political elements from the Dance were taken straight from The Anarchy - Matilda's pregnancy, her not being in the country, her father making the lords swear an oath, him "retracting" his decision on his deathbed and naming Stephen instead. I'm begging everybody to go watch a few short primers on this succession crisis because this is just beyond. Just like Rhaenyra, Matilda is not acknowledged as a Queen of England, but as a claimant. Furthermore, Stephen was only Matilda's cousin through Henry I's sister. Aegon is Rhaenyra's brother. GRRM made her claim comically weak. The medievals are laughing at you. Please.

Thirdly, I would have highlighted how Rhaenyra's public perception actually is. I've spoken at length on this topic already, but she oscillates between appearing downright rude to unhinged (middle section of this rant here). There is no reason so many noble houses would support her. You have no way of telling that from the show, though, because there aren't any frames or lines of dialogue given to disgruntled nobles. Even young!Rhaenyra's behaviour in Storm's End as the heir to the throne is downright appalling. Therefore, I would include shots that make it apparent she is not well-regarded, despite her obliviousness.

Fourthly, I would emphasize how placing bastards in the line of succession to the Iron Throne is a crime and that crime actually has the cute name of "high treason". I feel like I've already exhausted this topic in my bastardposting tag. This is an issue of property rights, not of puritanical morals or slut-shaming.

And, lastly, I would make a point of showing dissent within the black faction as a result of the unfair treatment of House Velaryon. I would present Vaemond's murder as the extrajudicial execution it is. I would not have Baela & Rhaena so happy-go-lucky at losing their inheritance and exchanging it for status as Jace's and Luke's wives.

I tried to keep the changes as minimal as possible so as to not disrupt the flow of the show too much. I think you could have fit all of this in quite reasonably with an extra 10-20 minutes per episode. I know that what all of us really crave is full extra episodes, but I'm afraid that's not entirely possible all of the time. Show-runners do have their own constraints that we are not privy to. 🤷‍♀️

#house of the dragon #the anarchy tm #ask #anon #hotd meta #storytelling #most of this rant is just about balancing the two sides really #there's a reason most viewers came away from the show with such a lopsided perspective #succession for the iron throne

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eleventeenratsinaflannelsuit · 9 months

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Could we see prompt 23?

Yeah sure, here you go :)

(it's honestly mainly stuff that would have presumably already happened before any story events I would write)

((also special little appearance from AU 55 which runs in the same universe (55 is basically plot for 23))

tw: death, perma-death, torture, mentions of suicide

also a few dsmp characters are mentioned but it is very much a hermitcraft AU, they're just there because they fit the roles I needed.

also also they're basically formatted in giant text blocks bcs i write on docs on my phone (took me so long to paste it in because tumblr actually has a limit to amount of characters in one big text block)

Perma-deaths. Most people aren't immortal, and even the ones who claim to be actually just have a slower degradation(?) rate than others. degradation, aka how likely someone’s next death is to be permanent, is represented by a number (percentage? work with numbers first then maybe compare to using percentages instead, supposed to be confusing to people who haven’t trained in the system). when an admin reaches a high enough clearance level they learn about such degradation scores and are taught how to access them to see how at risk a player is in an emergency (ie. suicide, long stays on anarchy servers, kidnapping/experimentation, etc.). it is possible to see the past history of when the number changes however that requires the assistance/one-time permission from one of the highest admins, usually an admin can only see the singular number. In order to view the number an admin has to look directly at the player’s code, which makes it a giant privacy violation (thus why only for emergencies). The fact that this is even something that can be done is kept on a very need-to-know basis. if a player is in danger up to three friends can be informed of the danger (how likely they are to experience a perma-death, not the manner in which the admin knows), additionally it is very rare for admins to be taught of it in the first place, usually limited to high-up/trusted, typically natural-born admins (X is natural-born) as well as admins running particularly high-risk servers (ie. hermitcraft’s ‘safe space’ category for many creatures and hybrids). anarchy admins are not allowed to know unless under very dire circumstances. there is currently heavy research as to what causes the score to go up (or down, very very rarely), and the general consensus is that it is higher when one is very young and old (specific age varies by species), it typically mellows out around the young child (no longer infant) stage and is typically very close to 0 by teen years (scale is 0-10, goes into specific decimals, highest number currently recorded is an 8.7, most people perma-die before their number reaches 8.5, typical average without unforeseen complications is 7.9.) preexisting health conditions, gained health conditions, traumatic temp-deaths, random chance, and general unidentified factors all raise the score. additionally, anarchy servers (servers in which the world is set to a mix or hard and hardcore, in which deaths are almost always traumatic but don't typically outright ban/delete your code + kick you from the world) are easily the quickest way of a score increase, typically why many anarchy players die easily despite seeming very strong/healthy. If a player has experienced multiple traumatic deaths before their teens, or an excessive amount in their teens, they can face a drastic increase in number or, in the first case, not have their number decrease as they leave the child stage (typical in players who have grown up/lived on anarchy servers from a young age) (also why all players are given multiple chances to leave anarchy players (if they can make it to the exit, many servers try very hard not to let them, which is technically illegal but hard to enforce)). Hardcore servers aren’t quite as bad as anarchy servers, a players number is automatically set a bit higher than usual while on server but experiences a slower incline while/after playing than an anarchy player would (ie. higher chance of on-server perma-death, lower chance of post-server death).

Much research is being done into ways to lower the degradation score but not much has been found. Many suspect a higher entity to be involved (Kristen/death is highly tied to it but it's really just natural, not her doing. Phil perma-died on his hardcore world bug had spoken with Kristen while on-server and they’d fallen in live so Kris used gold-privileges (she’s not entirely sure how and doubts she could (or wants to) do it again) to set his number to 0 after his death so he can technically still die he just has an abnormality long lifespan. Similarly Techno’s voices (remnants of the blood god) absorb some of his added score which gives him a lower degradation rate despite being a common anarchy player, this absorbed score does however transfer over into bloodlust in situations of extreme emotion. Nearly all immortals simply have very slow rates or naturally long lifespans. On the topic of stopping the rate, most don't mess with it as it is clearly divinity-related and they don't want to anger gods (a few have tried and they did not meet good ends). however a small group of once-rogue admins now known as the Watchers had ties to Herobrine, who was a god of destruction and, in his bid to cause such, gave the Watchers the knowledge of how to artificially raise the degradation rate (void rot pog) just before a few other gods teamed up to trap him (gods/deities are the only true-immortals, they have no degradation rate). Eventually the Watchers tired of destroying and, realising that they themselves would one day die (the void rot they used on others also slightly sped up their already slowed rates) sought to find ways to stop it. They began to experiment on anarchy players who would not be missed, avoiding the gaze of deities by hiding deep in the void, close enough to the abyss that their trace was masked and washed away. Eventually theys et their eyes on EVO due to Grian being a natural-born admin (they hadn’t been able to get their hands on one before due to high guarding) as well as an anarchy-raised player. (YHS and ‘terra’ aka earth were anarchy servers, so he essentially stayed in anarchy until he left YHS. Pearl was also there at first (siblings yey. Timmy’s adopted), but after Grian was abandoned in Japan her parents took her off-server). Grian had a skill for code and bendable morals as well as a slightly off view of perma-death due to his upbringing so he’d discovered the degradation rate on his own without contact with the main council. The time-jumping was a Grain-intended feature of EVO but the Watchers offered to help and he (like the basically-child he was), agreed due to them claiming to be ‘invested admins’. the Watchers fiddled with the code throughout the updates to see if anything would change the DRs of the players. Eventually they realised that the continuous traumatic deaths Grian had experienced as a child, while raising his rate with each one, basically slowed the natural progression to 0, they took him after the ender dragon fight and used a sigil to make sure the players couldn't talk about what happened with anyone (even people who already knew).

The listeners were a second group of admins that were also trying to find ways to reduce the DR but did so through more scientific and moral ways, Martin and Jimmy were contacted by them while on EVO and were able to tell them some of what was happening before the Watchers implemented the sigil. Anyways the Watchers took Grian and, having a solid way to perma-kill someone by forcing their number up (highly, highly painful + traumatic void rot), decided to force his number up while ensuring he didn't perma-die by pseudo-setting his DR to 0 (they figured out how to do this by essentially freezing the target in a time loop, however everyone they had previously used it on perma-died immediately after leaving the loop). Grian was essentially stuck in an infinite loop of dying to void rot to the point his already high number reached 10 and overode itself back to a permanent technical 0, actual 10 in which every death is experienced as a perma-death (highly painful, leaves scars and pain lasting months afterwards, almost always results in some form of ptsd), but functions as a temp-death, aka he perma-dies but doesn’t stay dead. The Watchers don’t realise this though and think, after he comes out of the loop with his number at 10 and an immediate perma-death that they failed again. Grian meanwhile gets pseudo-yeeted into Kristen’s domain where she starts to treat him like a dead soul (he is relieved, void rot deaths hurt and he’s always cold now) before he is -painfully- torn back to the living. the Watchers though he was perma-dead so they had burned his body, leaving him to respawn at a glitched respawn point in the Watcher library. He panics in general but even more so when a Watcher comes in and self-preservation skills kick in and he writes over his own code in a panic to match that of the Watcher’s, unknowingly marking himself as an apprentice archivist. He ends up being forced yo go along with the pretend role for a long (but unknown amount of time (void/Watcher time shit is yucky)) before he rises high enough in the ranks to gain access to the research on stopping/slowing the DR. He realises that's what they are trying to do with him (he’d been looking into it beforehand but really only came to the ‘torture’ conclusion.) (Watchers go out of their way to avoid any kind of death so he didn’t experience any more temp-perma-deaths while with them) and ends up -after plans and allies (bigB?)- copying the information just in case before escaping in ::sparkles:: dramatic fiery destruction :::sparkles::, some of the Watchers die and ‘Xelqua’ and their allies are marked as traitors and enemies. The Watchers work to regain their progress but Grian had set up an excessively strong sigil to block any knowledge of it from them so they work to break that first. Grian ends up self-sacrificing to get the others out safely (he’s seen his degradation rate and knows any death will be permanent) as well as partly selfish reasons (suicide oof). He has a breakdown when he and Kristen realise exactly what’s happened and that he won’t be able to stay dead despite experiencing such painful deaths. The most Kristen can do is set his spawn point to one of his old friends (Mumbo’s) singleplayer worlds in hope that Mumbo can at least help Grian get away and stay away from the watchers.

As a watcher (Or HC 23) Grian can’t die, the Hermits get captured ((ex-)watchers? (good watchers + anarchists accidentally broke G’s perma-death %?) anarchists?, ex-admins?) and the capturers decide to torture the Hermits to get to X. Eventually they come back with an experimental (hacked in, very illegal) potion that temporarily forces a player to experience any deaths while under its effects as perma-deaths, but still respawn later as if they were normal deaths. They use it on one hermit for a bit before Grian pisses them off enough (and they realise X is the closest with him (platonic love pog)) that they use it on him. X begs them to stop and eventually they stop and leave him to bleed out after they know the potion has worn out. The hermits are chained up and can’t reach him to help, he dies. And then he doesn’t. They forgot to chain him up and while he is too weak to even really stand up, he does manage to send a distress signal (to who? Watchers? admins?) before passing out. People come back and think he barely survived and decide to use the potion again as a ‘reward’. Most of the hermits just think G got lucky and the potion hadn’t worn off, a couple (who?) realise he actually did die but he came back somehow. Eventually they are rescued (probably by the watchers (make the group that first broke G’s % ex-watchers/a rogue group))

enjoy :3 (feel free to ask more questions if you want, I am always happy to brainrot)

#watcher grian #grian #grian au #hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #fanfiction #rat.AUs #tw: death #tw: suicide #tw: torture

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kusanagi-nene-official · 7 months

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I've been through all of hell, what makes you think I can change that?

//doing a reboot for fun wooo. I will not be removing old posts but will tag the one for the start of the reboot

About this Nene: She's been living alone since an apocalyptic event the separated her from those she's known. She hasn't made contact with those of her universe for a long time.

Other info:

The most contact she's been in is with other universes.

She does still have Robo-Nene with her, but she can't perform maintenance but she doesn't know how.

The first person she made contact with was Toya

They resent the others for "abandoning" them.

They don't remember Tsukasa too well.

Nene doesn't think the others are alive.

Enby but doesn't realize.

Nene technically blows up a printer with a flare gun but in their journal, only the flare is mentioned.

They have no filter, so they unintentionally insult people harshly

They talk about Wandasho lots but doesn't remember the members or name

WARNING: THIS BLOG FEATURES SENSITIVE TOPICS SUCH AS:

ATTEMPTED SU1C1DE

SU1C1DE IMPLICATIONS

LANGUAGE

ETC

I will try to remember to tag these, but I might forget

(Hell's Anarchists is free to join, also beneath the cut) About the mod: (beneath the cut)

Mod is dex, they run this blog alone

About dex: Name will mainly be lowercase, also uppercase at times Trans! Biromantic Asks for it are fine Other names that work:

Mod

KNO-Mod

KNO

Nenemod

Nene

and mod loves akito isnt he so silly

Other socials: discord: ask (also you can send me messages from tumbly, i don't mind)

Tumblr: i don't know, definitely not this one also if you tag this blog, response will come from @kusanagi-nene-official-mod rp blog masterlist

basic dni criteria like no racist, trans/homophobe, etc

special request, no trypophobia, mod is trypophobic and it bothers it.

tags:

#new-beginning - marker i told about at the top

#an-apocalyptic-survivor's-entry - in character posts

#all-hells-loose - Nene having a crisis

#hell's-anarchists - oops. (also the name of the universe)

#journals-through-anarchy - nenepov

#aside-from-the-apocalypse - pre-apocalypse stuff, or just past stuff

About Hell's Anarchists (H'sA): The storyline takes place in the normal PJSK settings. With Nene's perspectives: After an apocalyptic event (referred to by Nene as "some type of Thanos snap thing), Nene finds herself completely alone. As of current, there's no telling of what happened to the others, all of which Nene assumes are dead.

Open: H'sA is free to join fun right? just either tag me, dm me, or send an ask to be added to the masterlist hell's anarchists masterlist

Lore Posts:

#//woosh.

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asirensrage · 6 months

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💞A different type of rec list ask game, to rep your own fics and other authors you enjoy.💞 Spell out your user name with fic recs. If the letter correlates to one of your fics you rec it (no duplicates use a different fic for repeat letters.) If you get to a letter you don’t have a fic title for you rec one you‘ve liked from someone else. 💖Send this to someone who might need a little love on their own fics or just like spreading the love.💖

Oooo this sounds fun! Thanks anon! I'll only use my fics that are posted on ao3 instead of some of my unposted WIPs and the numerous amount of oneshots on this tumblr...

A - A Bet's A Bet - Ao3/Tumblr : Demon Slayer fic. Tengen x Kyojuro x you - Modern!AU. A night at Laser Tag goes from potential disaster to something incredible.

S - Serendipity - Ao3/Tumblr : John Wick fic. First impressions tend to range between mundane and interesting. For John, it's always been on the side of interesting. Fortunately, the same can be said for Toni.

I - It's Always Darkest Before the (Second) Dawn - Ao3 : HP/Shadow & Bone Crossover. Locked away in the Little Palace, attempting to hide her magic from the probing curiosity of the General, Hermione searches for her way home. Circumstances lead her to make a deal with the devil but even the best-laid plans don't always go the way you want... ON HIATUS

R - Roots Run Deep by Vulpecula_et_Anser on Ao3. Naruto fic. [...] Sakura realizes she can live up to her namesake in one of two ways: float through life as a pretty thing, riding whims like the breeze...or become someone mighty and immovable, protecting the weak from the storm. She makes her choice. (Ridea's Note: Sakura is badass and hilarious in this. Highly recommend)

E - Empty Halls to Echo - Ao3 / Tumblr : The Punisher!AU! Billy has to take the stairs. He finds something unexpected.

N - Noise Complaint - Ao3 / Tumblr : Jack Reacher Movies. Charlie at her door is never a good thing...but at least he's effective when it comes to dealing with the noise above her.

S - Snowed In - Ao3 / Tumblr : Sons of Anarchy. It's the last time she does Gemma a favour. Especially now that she's trapped with someone she can't stand.

R - Rebuilding A Home by thatmagickjuju / @thatmagickjuju : Four Brothers fic. After learning about the death of Evelyn Mercer, Detective Olivia Friedman of the NYPD returns to her hometown, hoping to pay her respects. But after events begin to happen and an old flame starts to ignite, can she handle being back home? Secrets unravel, feelings emerge, and the truth is all that can be heard. (Ridea's note: I love this fic. Olivia fits so well and the tension in this is perfect.)

A - A Study in Intimacy - Ao3 : Divergent fic. Eric makes a different choice at his Choosing Ceremony. It changes everything. - An AU to The Art of Seclusion.

G - Gonna Smoke You Out - Ao3 / Tumblr. The Punisher fic: No good deed goes unpunished...

E - Echoes by YanderexBabydoll / @seijorhi - Tokyo Revengers fic. There’s a sadness that hangs thick and heavy in the air around you. Grief and pain etched into the very foundations of this house. But you’re broken, too – hollowed out with emotions still too raw to touch. Maybe that's why you were drawn to it. (Ridea's note: I've reread this fic at least 4 times. It's the best type of spooky.)

Also be sure to check out my tag #other people's stories and #fic rec on my tumblr for more recommendations and some fantastic writing by others!

#fic recs #my fic #other people's stories #go check them out #i have so many fics and so many recommendations #but my username is only so long #asks #anon

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ayamari-no-goshi · 2 years

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Chasing Shadows (4)

AO3 -> ch. 1, last, next

Fandoms: Danny Phantom (DP) / DC universe

Summary: THIS IS A CROSSOVER. As Bruce Wayne begins to slowly recover from the loss of his son, two separate mysteries open up old wounds. Who is the unknown leaving clues hinting at a return to Gotham, and who is the phantom pretending to be his lost son? Is it just a coincidence they’re active in Gotham at the same time? Or are they connected?

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, and questionable mental health

Parings: none

Notes: originally uploaded to AO3. Cross-posted to tumblr

What was the point in having a rich civilian persona when it held no power outside of Gotham? He had tried so hard to get the help Gotham needed from the federal government as Bruce Wayne, but it was not good enough. Those who listened to him believed he was just an airhead who didn’t know right from left. He had failed, and the city was shut off from the outside world.

When he returned to his city, he found nothing but anarchy. His associates where helping the best they could, but they were stretched too thin.

Barbara was doing the best she could to help them gather the needed information, but most of the technology she previously used was down, forcing her to use older and slower methods. While still effective, it slowed how effectively they could act in the city. She also lost her mother to Joker but continued to soldier on. She even weathered the two attacks on the Clock Tower. Bruce secretly thanked the security measures he put in place and Barbara enhanced for such events.

Then there was Huntress. Helena Bettinelli, a child born into the Bertinelli crime family, had entered the scene not long before the destruction of Gotham. There were already tense relations between them due to her willingness to kill, but during Bruce’s absence, she donned the identity of Batgirl and even moonlighted as Batman a few times to keep the illusion he was still in the city. However, she had taken a territory in Gotham, and potentially made the situation worse as other rogues and criminals followed suit.

At one point, she even allied herself with William Pettit in his attempt to do whatever it took to survive the chaos and trapped Dick and Barbara. While she thankfully came to her senses before harm to come to either of them, it proved to Bruce that Helena was too much of a wild card to trust. Allowing her to stay in the city was a difficult decision to make, but they needed the help. He would evaluate her actions again when things began to settle.

He was also introduced to Cassandra Cain, who had become Barbara’s trusted eyes on the street while he was away. At first, he didn’t know what to make of the young woman. She had been trained as an assassin and was unable to speak or read, but her ability to read body language and intention bordered on superhuman. Barbara trusted her and even gifted her the mantle of Batgirl, and that hadn’t been done lightly. So, Bruce decided to give her a chance, and he found himself growing fond of her.

Then there was Phantom. Dick had given a hesitant recap of the conversation he had with the meta as well as his known sightings in the city. How had Phantom known? There had been no known leak of their information, but that didn’t account for information the rogues might have, especially the Joker. There were hints over the years that some of them possibly knew Bruce’s identity, so it was possible with the right incentive one of them shared what they knew.

Bruce wasn’t certain which rouge could have provided that information. Phantom’s information was too specific. Was it possible he’d been around far longer than anyone of them suspected? His skill set could have allowed him to come into the cave without detection. He would have to investigate further, but luckily, the meta continued to be a helpful figure.

Outside the turmoil of the vigilantes of Gotham, the rogues made life a living hell for the citizens who were trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. The territorial wars took their toll on everyone involved and even tore the police force in half. So many more were killed in the crosshairs.

The “famous nobody” was silent through this time. They found no evidence of his brand of clues or manipulation, but there were occasional whispers of a man in a red helmet moving in and around Crime Alley. While the criminals seemed scared of him, the few reports that came from civilians reported him as protecting women and children. It was a strange contrast from his last known sighting.

Eventually, it was not the terf wars or Batman’s help that finally brought Gotham back from the brink. No, it was Lex Luthor who pulled the strings to rebuild and reopen the city. The price? His tendrils gripped more of the city than Bruce ever thought possible.

…

Yet, in the wake of Gotham emerging from the ashes, Bruce found contentment he hadn’t known in a long time. While there was still a long way to go in returning his city to how it was prior to the earthquake, he found himself at the head of a growing family. Sure Tim, Cass, and now Stephanie weren’t officially his, they were a welcome addition. And because Dick believed it was his duty to check in and mentor the younger ones, he was coming around more.

There was life surrounding him again, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it. Jason’s death nearly destroyed him and what was left of his family, but these children had slowly put back together the broken pieces of his life without him realizing it.

Strangely, Phantom wasn’t appearing as often as he once had. His appearances and quips had become a part of his life as much as any of the children. The others had been briefed to keep an eye out for him, but the few times he’d been spotted since Gotham reopened had only been when Bruce was alone in the field.

Stephanie complained about never getting a chance to meet him. That was until Phantom appeared behind her during a particularly tense recon mission. It had taken Tim putting a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. Although the meta couldn’t hide his smile at her reaction, he had shown himself to warn them about the trap Firefly was about to spring on them. He had been hired by the Falcones to stop them.

“Phantom! Wait, where have you been?” Tim questioned as the meta’s form flickered strangely as he glanced around. It was the first time Bruce had seen him so unsure of his surroundings. “Are you in danger?”

The teen shook his head, “You haven’t needed me as much as before.” He opened his mouth to say more but stopped mid-word and as his form flickered more intensely. It was an unusual reaction from him as he rarely allowed himself to appear nervous in their presence. “I’ve… I’ve been hearing rumors. B, someone is planning to dismantle you and everything you stand for from the ground up. Be careful.”

“Do you know who it is?” Bruce agreed with Tim’s assessment. The meta’s behavior suggested he came to warn that at great risk to himself.

“No.” He wouldn’t meet Bruce’s gaze and fidgeted as he spoke. There was something about this man that the Phantom knew and was afraid to say. Was it possible this was the person he was working for?

“What about the rumors?”

This time Phantom looked at him. “They call him Hush. I don’t know anything about him other than he’s setting up what he calls a game. A lot of people are interested in getting involved.”

“What about you?” When Phantom stared at Stephanie, she shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, if you’re in trouble, we can help you.”

A bitter chuckle escaped the meta as he began to fade. “Don’t worry about me. If you forgot,” as he appeared to take a step forward, his form vanished entirely, “I’m already dead.”

Bruce was ready to track him this time. Switching to his thermal view before Phantom completely vanished, he caught the meta’s heat signature slide through the walkway they were on before vanishing somewhere below them. That helped explain how he could disappear so thoroughly. They knew he could phase through objects, but this confirmed he used that ability to quickly get away from them.

They still needed to find a way to track him as they had no idea where he hid from them. It was also the first time he’d openly suggested any connections. Was Hush the person he was working for? That didn’t seem right. Phantom hadn’t seemed worried about naming him, so perhaps it was someone else who was in direct contact with this Hush.

It was rare to get such a good tip before a criminal made a move. Once he handled the current situation, he would return to the Cave and begin his research. If he was lucky, he might be able to halt whatever was being planned before anyone got hurt.

…

Tim had gotten careless, and as a result, it let him get captured. The man had wrapped his arm around his throat and was squeezing just enough to make it difficult to breathe and even more difficult to escape. He wanted him docile for some reason.

Was this Hush? Bruce had tried and failed to use the tip Phantom gave him to attempt to find and stop the criminal before anything happened. Now, they were racing against the clock to find the man. Phantom was correct that a lot of people had gotten involved with Hush, and there had been so many false leads.

He needed to pay attention to his surroundings. The man who had him spoke with a gruff voice, but his words were mostly muffled by the bandages on his face. However, he could catch hints of a Gotham accent.

“Stay still, Replacement,” the man hissed as he pulled him towards a certain part of the graveyard where Bruce had just stopped Scarecrow. Tim could see the glint of a blade in his hand. “We wouldn’t want you to get unnecessarily hurt. I just need to talk to the Bat.”

A couple agonizingly slow minutes later, Tim heard the slight sound of Bruce’s boots. He’d arrived.

Although his captor kept an arm around his neck, Tim could feel the man shift. “You care about this imposter… pretender…” the man’s voice was further damped by the rain which started sometime during the altercation with Scarecrow.

“Let the boy go.” There was no room for negotiation in that voice. Bruce wouldn’t take lightly to having another one of his Robins be injured.

“Why?” The man almost sounded amused. Weird. It was like the concept of Batman caring for someone was strange to him. “Why should I give him the chance you never gave me?”

There was a pause before Bruce spoke again. “Who are you?”

“The World’s Greatest Detective and you still haven’t figured it out?” Tim had just enough time to glance up to see the man use his knife to cut the bandages off of his face. Dark hair with a white streak was all he could make out before the man adjusted his grip on him and put the knife to his neck. “Life’s just a game, Batman… and this time, you lose.”

Bruce didn’t move immediately. Although there wasn’t an obvious expression on the man’s face, there were slight tells in how his jaw and shoulders tensed that suggested he was shaken. He recognized this man.

“I know what you’re doing. You’re thinking about when I died.” The man stated as an irritated growl crept into his voice. “How there’s blood on your hands because you couldn’t get there in time to stop the Joker from killing me.”

What did the man say? The Joker killed him? Who…? He couldn’t think about that with the knife putting pressure on his throat.

“Keeping silent. Gathering your thoughts. Hoping to rattle your opponent.” The man almost sounded bored. “I’ll make it simple for you. You’ve got to get to me before I slit this pretender’s throat. Tell me, Batman. You let one Robin die. Want to go for two?”

“I’ve got you.” Tim barely had time to register the echoing whisper before an icy chill washed over him. Moments later, he found himself wheezing on the ground with Phantom protectively standing between him and his previous captor. He could feel the sensation of blood running down his skin. The knife had cut him.

An amused chuckle escaped the man, who Tim could finally get a better look at him. While his eyes were covered with a domino mask, his features seemed unsettlingly familiar. Not sure why, he glanced at the disturbed grave he stood over. “Here lies Jason Todd.”

Icy chills crawled down his back. It… it couldn’t be. Jason was dead. He’d been killed by the Joker years ago. No one had disturbed the grave until now. Bruce would have known. He couldn’t be standing there, years older. Tim heard or maybe sensed his heartbeat when he was trapped. Whoever that was, he was alive.

Jason had been Robin. His Robin. He was a hero. He wouldn’t have tried to hurt him. He wouldn’t try to hurt Bruce.

Phantom shifted uncomfortably in front of him. Was he uncomfortable in the presence of the double? They still hadn’t determined whether or not the meta was Jason’s ghost or not, but compared to the man in front of him, Phantom lined up more with who he knew Jason to be.

“Ah, the little ghost. I’ve heard about you,” the double sneered. “Go ahead, take the replacement bird.” He made a shoeing motion with his hand as his attention returned to Bruce. “You know, I’m almost impressed. You managed to get a dead child to join your crusade. Did you decide that was a better option than letting another one die?”

“W-wait…!” Tim tried to move as Bruce lunged at the man and their battle began.

“Don’t try to move,” Catwoman warned as she approached from his side and placed a compress on his neck. He nearly forgot she was also in the area because she and Bruce were giving a relationship a go. Her presence had been a major distraction recently. “That’s a nasty cut.”

“Didn’t know you cared.”

“I don’t, but he’d be even more difficult to deal with then he is now if something happened to you.” She wasn’t wrong.

After taking the compress from her, Tim turned his attention to the battle raging in front of them. Whoever the man who looked like Jason was well trained, and his movements were a strange conglomeration of Dick’s, Bruce’s, and others he couldn’t quite place. Bruce must have sensed the similarities too as he fought as he was more on the defensive compared to most of his fights.

As the man lured Bruce towards the church, he noticed Selena was about to follow them. That wasn’t a good thing. “You have to let him do this alone,” he warned as he grabbed her arm.

“I don’t ‘have’ to do anything. Particularly when it comes from you.” Yeah, she wasn’t happy with him. Good, the feeling was mutual.

“Just listen to me, please. The entire time I’ve been Robin, every lesson, every move that Batman has taught me, is intended to keep what happened to Jason from happening to me.” When she didn’t try pulling way, he continued. “No matter what he says, Jason’s death still haunts him. Why else would he keep Jason’s costume so prominently in the cave?”

Selena pulled her arm out of his grasp. “Then you should know better than anyone, kid, what he’s like when he’s angry. And what about you,” her attention turned to Phantom, who seemed focused on the church, “do you plan on interfering even more than you have? Your presence is tearing him apart!”

He turned slightly and studied her for a moment before speaking. “I came because he,” Phantom gestured towards him, “was in danger.” His form began to intensely flicker as his gaze moved to the disturbed grave.

Crap. He was going to disappear again. If there was any chance at tracking him, he needed to attempt to put a tracker on him now. “Phantom, wait!” he took a chance and reached in an attempt to grab his cape. Instead of passing through it, his hand found solid material similar to his own cape.

Both he and Phantom momentarily shared a look of shock as his form seemed to solidify before Phantom’s gaze turned back to the grave. “No one's in it.”

“Empty? What… what do you mean?” He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. He needed to get this tracker on the cape. Seconds. That’s all he had to do this, but he still momentarily froze in place as dread creeped into the pit of his stomach.

The meta’s cape slipped, not out of his hand, but through it, as he turned to look him in the eyes. His form began to fade. “The grave. The body's gone.”

“And just what would you know about that?” Selena hissed as she rushed forward to take a swipe at him. Instead of making contact, she harmless passed through him right before he faded entirely. Shivering, she turned back to where the meta had stood. “I feel like I was doused in a bucket of ice water. What is that thing?”

“You mean Phantom?” Tim moved passed her to stand in front of the grave. He hadn’t known this was here. Jason’s official grave was in a different cemetery. Was this the correct one? Bruce was paranoid enough to move a grave to a secret location. “We don’t know.”

The grave had been disturbed, that much was obvious. However, with the rain, any physical trace evidence would have long since been washed away. Not wanting to risk disturbing it any longer, he followed Bruce to the top of the church while Selena checked the area for anyone else.

…

The mystery of Hush was finally resolved. Phantom had been correct in that many people had both willingly and unwillingly helped Hush and by proxy, the Riddler, attempt to take him down. While he had his troubles with Thomas Elliot when they were growing up, Bruce never suspected that he’d end up being one of Batman’s many enemies. He had questions for the man, but none of them could be answered. Harvey Dent had shot him when he attempted to kill James Gordon. During the altercation, Elliot fell into the bay, and, as of now, they hadn’t found his body.

On top of losing a childhood friend, Selena decided to end their relationship. He couldn’t blame her. Until Gotham didn’t need him anymore, he would never be able to put her first. Even though he understood, he still mourned her loss.

Then there Clayface who attempted to take on the appearance of an adult version of his son. He hated the reminder of the pain that his son never would be an adult, but Hush and, the true mastermind, the Riddler tried to make it seem like Jason had risen from the grave. They even managed to get a hold of Lazarus Pit ash to strengthen the idea, but while that stunt was unforgivable, they did something worse. They took Jason’s body.

His son was no longer resting peacefully. He was gone, and he had no idea where he could be. And to make things worse, the various sensors were never triggered making it difficult to determine when they made off with him. Strangely, Nygma acted as if he had no idea anyone had touched that grave, even after being threatened. Why would he continue to deny it? Who was he protecting? Or was it possible he hadn’t known? More trips were needed to be able to confirm the truth of the situation.

In the meantime, he was reeling from the press conference that afternoon. Somehow the tabloids got wind the grave was disturbed which set off a police investigation. Bruce had to act as if the call he received from the GCPD was how he found out and answer the questions those vultures posed to him about what happened. He hated dealing with them, but it was necessary to keep up his civilian persona.

But he knew there was more to it. There was a man who asked if he just moved the grave to forget about Jason, and then referred to Tim as a replacement. The wording was too specific. When it got a rise out of Bruce, the man removed his hat to reveal someone who looked exactly the same as Clayface had when he was impersonating Jason. And the smile he gave told Bruce he was well aware of the similarity.

Due to the crowd, Bruce couldn’t risk going after him, and he managed to vanish from sight sometime during the conference. He asked Barbra to check the security footage of the surrounding area for the man. While they weren’t able to find when he entered the area, she was able to find one camera who caught him as he walked away from the conference. It was clear from two fingered salute he gave the camera, he allowed himself to be caught on film. Whoever he was, he knew Bruce would check the camera and had knowledge on how to avoid the others in the area.

He needed to talk to Phantom as it was likely whomever he worked for is how he found out about Hush. However, they still didn’t know where he went. Tim’s attempt to place a tracker on Phantom failed. It never left the area around Jason’s grave, putting them back at square one. Since he was going to check the area for any clue as to where his son might have gone before he returned to Arkham to question the Riddler, he was going to check for it. He didn’t particularly like Bat-tech being in an area where people would be snooping around.

…

Shortly after nightfall, Bruce entered the cemetery as it began raining again. He needed to get in search for what he needed and leave, but as soon as he reached his son’s grave, he paused in his steps. The gnawing pain of regret and the hollow ache of grief rooted him in place as he stared at the still exposed lid of the casket. At least that hadn’t been damaged. There was no sign of sun bleaching either meaning it had only been uncovered recently.

After reminding himself why he was there, he went to work. While it had been raining the previous night, the rain had continued on and off throughout the day which prevented him from gaining any information from footprints which had been left. So, he turned his attention to anything that might have been left behind, including marks on the sides of the casket. Either the rain washed everything away, or nothing had ever been there. He didn’t know which was more frustrating.

“Don’t worry, Jason,” he said softly as he touched the tombstone after placing the clue in his belt. “I’ll get you back.”

“Are you sure returning him will make him or you happy?”

If it hadn’t been for his training, Bruce would have jumped at the echoed voice. Instead, he spun around to find Phantom sitting on a nearby headstone apparently unaffected by the rain. His head was tilted in curiosity, but his tense shoulders suggested unease.

“And what would you know of it?” Bruce snapped as he took a step towards the meta. He tried to stay civil with the boy and owed him for helping Tim, but he was not going to tolerate this brand of taunting, not right now.

The teen didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, his gaze wandered over the graveyard. “There are a lot of restless souls here. The constant fights keep disturbing them.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“In the past, people used to do a lot of elaborate things to try to keep the dead, either in body or soul, from returning,” he explained as he brought his left knee up and rested his chin on it. “That was especially true for people who died unexpectedly, especially murder victims. And sometimes, even those weren’t enough. Is that better?”

His voice was almost expectant. Was he trying to imply that Jason’s spirit hadn’t been at rest since… since before all of this started? No, he refused to allow himself to consider that. The spiritual world was something he had no part in. He was grounded in the material world and what could be properly measured and recorded. Phantom could interact with them, and unless magic was involved, other ghosts like Deadman couldn’t without possession. Therefore, he couldn't be a ghost.

“Enough stalling,” he warned as he took a step towards the meta. “Do you know where my son, where Jason, is?”

The meta straightened as he let his leg drop. “I don’t.” His voice was even, and he seemed sure of his answer.

“Do you know who took him?” He moved closer.

“No.” There was no wavering in his tone, and he didn’t look away.

Bruce stopped moving when he was a couple yards away from the meta. “Do you know how long ago it happened?”

There was a slight hum as he glanced skyward for a moment before returning his attention to Bruce. “Exactly? No, but it has been at least two years.”

“Two years?” That was impossible. His son couldn’t have been missing for that long without him knowing. Whomever took him would have sent him some sort of evidence. Unless… unless that’s why the “famous nobody” was sending him clues. He took Jason and had been displeased at how long it took him to find out. But why? Was he someone who knew Jason personally and knew what happened?

While it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility, part of the theory rested on whether Phantom told him the truth. He hadn’t given any tells suggesting a lie, but they were certain Phantom was working for this individual. As a result, it was likely information he received from him was either misleading or completely incorrect.

There were too many factors at play, and Phantom’s presence in this entire thing muddled things further. Why did he continue to both help and taunt them?

“What do you want from us, from me?” The anger that was steadily building gave way into what suspiciously sounded like desperation as Phantom’s form began to flicker. “If I can find my son and lay him to rest, will you finally stop haunting me?”

“It’ll depend on what you do when you find him.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Instead of answering him, the teen tossed a small object at him. Instinctively catching it, Bruce realized it was the tracker. “Thought you wanted that back.” A small, pitying smile appeared as he glanced towards Jason’s grave. His form vanished.

As Bruce switched to his thermal imaging, Phantom’s voice seemed to come right next to his left ear. “I’ll give you a hint.” He spun around and caught sight of the meta pulling back. Smart. He knew he’d gotten too close. “You should check the inside of the coffin.” The teen then, for lack of a better word, dove into the ground.

Bruce tapped the ground gently. Solid with no signs of a concealed door. He wouldn’t be able to follow the teen. Should the try the tracker again later? Or would they need to get more creative? Trapping him would probably be the best option, but he was becoming more and more reluctant to try it again.

Deciding to follow the lead for now, Bruce made the painful decision to open the casket. Radioing Alfred to silence the alarms when the sounded, he lifted the lid to find a wax-coated pomegranate. What in the world was it doing there?

Examining it again, he nearly dropped it as realization hit him. It was another clue. Pomegranates were considered one of the foods of the dead, and the next stop in "The Odyssey" was a place where men were lured to their deaths by songs promising to fulfill their greatest desires. The only way to safely bypass the island of the Sirens was to place wax or another similar substance in the ears to block out the sound.

What was Bruce’s greatest want right now? It was to get his son back. He had heard the Siren’s call.

===========

Notes:

Tim and Selena are extremely antagonistic towards each other in Hush (comic version). Tim doesn't trust her, and she doesn't seem to like his presence. I almost forgot about that until I re-read it for this fic. It could be possessiveness. I don't think Tim and Selena knew each other well at that time, but I could be wrong. That's a rabbit hole I don't want to go down right now. I've already spent too much time trying to figure out DC's timeline.

I just have this idea that Jason could have antagonized Bruce more in Hush by calling in a tip that someone took his body and that causes police investigation plus press conference. Then, if he wants to be extra spiteful, pretend to be a reporter to ask Bruce uncomfortable questions. It is also accompanied by Jason wearing the traditional reporter jacket and fedora. You don't understand how badly I need this in my life.

So, the next stop, the island of the Sirens. Wax is the most obvious part of the clue, but there's a little more to it. That'll be explained next chapter. This one started getting too long

#Danny Phantom #dp #dp x dc #danny phantom crossover #Chasing Shadows #DP au #Odyssey AU

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cozza-frenzy · 2 months

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For some reason tumblr isn't letting us reply to this ask "properly", so fuck it, text post time. Hope you see this, anon. Oh boy. Well, we often end up telling this story because a lot of systems tell us they've never seen anything like it before, but if you guys do have something similar you have my sympathy. Dealing with it wasn't easy, it wasn't fun, and we were very lucky that someone (Vimes) showed up to stop it from causing further harm. This story may be disturbing; it also talks about events in our inner world. For any non-systems reading this, the Inner World is a visual reference tool that out system gives us in order to better understand the mood and mental state of parts. It gives us unique appearances "in our head", and gives us ways to work through our trauma by creating memories of places and each other within it. This isn't a hallucination or a delusion; it's our subconscious adapting to dissociative parts that act like separate people, and sometimes it can do just as much harm as good. (Continued under the cut)

So here's the thing - when you have DID/OSDD (at this point we're not sure which one) and your brain has been suppressing almost everything about this for a long time, often it has a lot of catching up to do. Alters can start to emerge very quickly, either coming out of dormancy or spontaneously forming from specific types of trauma. What happened in our case, though, was every single trauma "category" that hadn't formed an alter yet got stuck together. And this didn't form one alter with a lot of trauma; instead it formed a kind of huge "pseudo-alter", one that manifested not with an in-system body, but as an entire place within our inner world. That was The Red Forest. Initially, we thought it was just another place. A forest full of birch trees with bright red leaves, with a thick carpet of red leaves covering the floor - it was completely silent, and even the sounds of footsteps and voices sounded odd, like something was stopping the sound from traveling. Needless to say, it gave us all the creeps. But then we saw someone new come out of the Red Forest - and we figured okay, sure, I guess this is how our brain handles this now. Alters have to come from somewhere, so this is where alters come from. I even went in there once myself, riding on the back of Rakugaki (now a part of Anarchy) because I could sense there was someone in there who was lost, and that was how we found Holiday. Oh boy, was that a mistake. Turned out The Red Forest didn't just feel hostile; it was hostile, in the sense that a wild animal whose territory you just invaded is hostile. All that unresolved trauma hadn't formed something intelligent; it'd formed a huge pile of hurt, anger, fear and pain, that was now aware of where the pieces that kept breaking off it kept going. Within a few days we started to hear horrible noises in the front, like tearing metal or animals being slaughtered, and then the entire thing - the entire Red Forest in itself - attempted to front. It over-wrote our fronting room and dropped all of us right in the middle of it, only withdrawing when it realized it couldn't actually control the body in the state it was in. But nonetheless it took out its rage on Chaos; unlucky enough to get trapped inside of it, it ended up being injured in the Inner World, something that can't normally happen unless someone really wants someone else to be hurt. The first thing it said upon finally getting out - after me and Rakugaki went in there again and spent three real-world hours trying to find it - was "don't go in there, it hates us". We're only lucky that the very next alter I spotted emerging from the forest - from a safe distance, on our in-system "cameras" - was Vimes. He's a specific type of gatekeeper we call a Jailer, who can lock down areas of the Inner World, and he was able to keep the Red Forest contained where it was. He was able stop it from fronting (though it certainly didn't stop trying) and was able to go in there with his lantern - back then, our Inner World's only representation of hope - and lead other alters to join the rest of us. We put a contingency plan ("Operation Kaiju") in place in case it ever escaped containment. But even at its worst we only ever enacted the first half of that; I realized it could be reasoned with, and attempted basic communication through Vimes' barrier. It only ever said one thing with words, and it was "thank you". After the emergence of Jenova, The Red Forest "died" on July 31st 2023, and no longer exists in our system. Our remaining alters found their way to us of their own accord. Chaos still has a special bond with Vimes, and has made him part of its ever-growing adopted family. And we've marked the date on our calendar as our system's Collective Birthday, because it marked the beginning of the end of our system discovery. Whatever you have in your system, anon, I hope our story inspires yours to handle it however you can. Trust in each other, put your unique abilities and skills to good use, and work together. It's the only way to move forward. - Terry, Martin & Leaf

#Shit Terry Says #Tea And Sympathy #(Leaf doesn't have a personal tag but it says it might add one later)#Adventures in OSDD

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askanaroace · 10 months

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July Carnival of Aros: Loneliness

The Carnival of Aros is a monthly blogging event where any and every aro (including questioning aros) is welcome to respond to the month's prompt. Last month's prompt was "being aromantic in an allonormative world" if you want to check out some other topics/responses.

This month's prompt is Loneliness. Here's some ideas of how you might talk about loneliness as an aro:

Are you in a relationship but feel lonely/isolated due to your unique experience of dating as an aromantic? What triggers this? How do you cope?

Are you an aro who does atypical relationship type/s (queerplatonic, relationship anarchy, solo polyam, polyam) who finds yourself feeling lonely due to a lack of people who understand or respect these relationship types? How did you find community? How do you cope?

Does being nonpartnering trigger any loneliness for you? What brings up these feelings? How do you cope?

Is loneliness a feeling that's brought up by not wanting or not pursuing typical "adult milestones" like marriage? How do you manage this? Have you found other milestones to celebrate?

Does being a closeted aro bring up specific feelings of loneliness? How do you cope?

Does any loneliness related to your aromanticism feel different from other situations you experience loneliness in?

What are your tips for dealing with loneliness?

Have you managed to overcome feelings of loneliness? How?

What's your understanding or definition of loneliness? Does this seem to differ from an alloromantic's description of loneliness?

Anything else you're inspired to write about regarding loneliness.

To enter, write about your response on any platform (tumblr, reddit, medium, mastodon, wordpress, etc.) and submit it to me here on tumblr. You do not need a tumblr account to submit your post to me.

Submit your posts by August 1st, 2023. No strict timezone rules. At that time, I'll post a roundup with all the submissions to make them easy to read and find.

We desperately need hosts, so please reach out and volunteer if you have a topic you'd be interested in hearing other aro thoughts on. It's super easy and a great way to connect to the community.

#carnival of aros #aromantic #aro #aro spectrum #queer #boost #loneliness

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i-love-to-draw1 · 10 months

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I found tonight's really fun and interesting

Even if I feel like shaking some of the characters for not talking with eachother. Because they misinterpreted their ideas or them bout all this.

I got a more clear idea of everyone. Like I watch everyone n I mean it. But I only speak n understand English n Spanish. So I get like 20% the conversation in Portuguese if I put my full focus [can't always do tht bc I'm usually busy so I rely on updates on twitter, so I'm like partly listening n trust the people here on tublr]. N like no French so I rely on body language n the translater [also the update n here on tumblr]

I wish they all could talk and pick one person but I also understand due to the characters trauma or worry. Bc this is very a rp VS meta. N the cc gotta choose how their characters should walk on tht line. It also doesn't help tht the cc won't speak their native language to help with explaining their intentions better. I was really hoping for tht this time [hopefully the 3rd debate thyd do so].

That aside. I found really cool!! I like where insaimduo is going, but not all cc join in mostly bc thy arent into rp n bc Twitter fans n chat can get to intense. Their ideas are super cool!! N i feel like itll help those who DO want to come back. but I know tht despite tht the federation are also very powerful group. Bc I feel like they forgot tht they CAN deny request and rule n other stuff bc it must all go through them.

Same with bag, bad n gegg. Bc they all want to destroy it n do diff forms of anarchy. N I tots understand why their characters don't want to fully use the word bc many don't understand that anarchy isn't the typical chaos shit lmao. N i hope they joined together tho bc they are pretty similar on the goal on destroying a single power. But what I hope more from baghera is maybe talk about the council especially the main leader for each language, especially bc the Spanish community which is so small qwq [PLZ MARIANA AND MISSA COME BACK/lh]. But I also understand why insane duo worry bc thy have stuff plan n theirs is a bit uncertain but theirs is tht of relying on the community but also in hopes to be granted on being able to do the council/destroy the pres position n while insane duo also talks for the people. I understand theirs a chance tht feds might take control like they did to celbit on those days.

I love Mike's idea in establish a more aid than just people giving what they can [obviously etoiles is gathering materials for the next group, bad doing community teleports n Brazilians doing the roads, n forevers many projects] bc it can help. Like it did with the French but afterwards they all had to work hard to get most of their materials by themself. N it makes sense bc I feel like thy might make the server even more difficult as times goes by! But I also know tht certain events can be done with or without the feds aid. Like the admins (meta talk) want the players to have fun. But like rp the Feds want the resident to BE HAPPY!!! for some reason. So if this does make them happy they'll do it. Which I get the others view bc u don't need to run as pres to do this fun events.

I just want all of them to talk, to work things out like. Pick someone n I hate to say this, tht can trust and are willing to sacrifice themselfs, to 1st establish a council incase something happens to who gets elected. Start planning things n project n ect. Continue the communication, help with organizing projects ect. Bc it's very obv tht everyone cares for eachother n want to help but it's difficult if everyone trying to see their view bc of their struggles n worries. Bc the feds are powerful, they can n are willing to do anything for wutever fuk up experiment thy wnat to do. They can take control of forever, bad baghera, ect. N do wutever to them to take control.

It's anxiety inducing bc the feds can do something to everyone. N I want ALL of then to talk it out n do back up plans incase something happens. N I want them to work against the feds n Elquackity bc omg he is so sus n thy all want to make sure someone like him won't become the president, which is why thy are running in the 1st place, bc thy DON'T want someone they barely know or the feds in charge. They lost when the feds decided to do this. So now thy must fight for control. So the feds don't get more power than they already have.

Also reminder that the characters maybe fighting in the campaign but it's obvious they still care. Tht the feds failed in trying to do discourse bc the love this characters have for eachother is strong. Sure it'sbumby rn but thts how it is sometimes. Nothing is smooth. They all communicate eventually. It'll just take some time.

They all have their worries n trauma n ideas. They'll talk hopefully soon. Bc rn it's like 3 diff groups [4th bc of foolish lmao KELP]

N for now I'm divided bc now I'm uncertain. I might wait till the voting day to see who's left running so I can make a vote.

But man I super excited n nervous. :0c

I still belive in the communication in qsmp n tht might be my naive self but idc. I'm still giving hope!!!

#qsmp #qsmp rant

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just-write-studios · 4 months

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2023 Celebration and Recap

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It is so good to round out the end of 2023 by looking back on the overwhelming amount of progress that has been made. I've been gathering up devlogs and progress reports over the last week and am sincerely shocked by (and very emotional about) just how much was accomplished!

Thank you all so much for joining me on this insane journey. I have so many plans for 2024 and could not be more motivated to press on with the development of Catalyst: Blind Faith! I'd love to recap all of this progress with you today. I'm going to break this into categories to help with navigation.

Without further ado! The recap is under the cut.

JUST WRITE STUDIOS 2023 RECAP

ART - BACKGROUNDS

Pictured: The second background for Catalyst: Blind Faith.

Pontos: A ramshackle fishing village, and the first location in the game.

Enchanted Stairs: A mysterious and unlockable location in the demo.

ART - CHARACTERS

Pictured: An early concept for Celegwen, a main character/party member/potential love interest for the full game of Catalyst: Blind Faith.

Father Richard Anscham: A polytheistic human priest—our young, troubled, and compassionate antihero.

Malimos: An easily-amused, spider-like mass murderer, and the first demon seen in the game.

Offala: A treacherously beautiful and unbearably violent monstrosity; the second demon encountered in the game's demo.

Orgoth: A gregarious orc warchief, one of the main characters in the demo.

The Goddess of Time: All of space and reality.

Celegwen: A venerable elvish sorceress, who loves knowledge and anarchy almost as much as her immense Magical power.

ART - GRAPHIC DESIGN

Pictured: An audition lines card I made for our upcoming, live performance of Catalyst: Blind Faith.

Logo for Just Write Studios created!

Logo for Catalyst: Blind Faith created!

Made the audition line cards for a vtuber live performance casting event! If you are interested in keeping up to date with this event, check out our Catalyst Discord or MiMoMedia's official server!

Placeholder, animated credits screen!

Redesigned all 8 holy symbols for the Gods and Goddesses in the pantheon!

Concepts done for all 32 achievements!!

Revamped all of my social media!!

COMMUNITY

Pictured: Sweet mousepads!!

Hosted the 4 Year anniversary stream in the Catalyst Discord server in September!

Featured in the PARANOIA festival in October!

Partnered with mimomedia for a live vtuber performance of Catalyst: Blind Faith (this will take place on January 20th)!

Selected as a speaker for the upcoming VN Conf on January 27th, you can get tickets and more info here!

Monthly updates for our incredible Patrons.

Over a dozen Tumblr posts.

120+ new Twitter followers!

50+ new Discord members!!

8000+ new views on Catalyst: Blind Faiths' game page on itch.io!

800+ new downloads!!!

7 new glowing reviews on the game's page! (This is a great way to support the game, feel free to leave us a nice review if you have played the demo!)

Got the opportunity to make some merch from Vograce, a lucky Patron and we now have matching mousepads featuring Richard and Orgoth!!

DIRECTING

Pictured: The logo for Just Write Studios!

Founded Just Write Studios. <3

Brought together 7 of my strongest warriors (our art director, background artist, lead editor, quality assurance team, and composer)!

Created a studio compendium for Catalyst: Blind Faith!

Managed our 4 year community anniversary event!

Coordinated streams for PARANOIA and throughout the year!!

Partnered with mimomedia!!

Oversaw and picked from auditions from 146 vtubers for the live performance!!!

Participated in a research discussion regarding choices in interactive fiction!!

PROGRAMMING

Pictured: Our robust save and load system!

Timelapse animation with a pause and play button!

Scrolling credits screen

Toggle for any SFX

Toggle for quick menu

Slider for textbox opacity

Revamped inventory system!

Unlockable save system

Robust save and load screen

All splash screens and ending screens for the demo

Pimped out History menu

Sleek functionality for the entire players Journal

Functional gallery (will be finished in 2024)

Learned how to use the action editor in Ren'Py and incorporated tons of camera movement into the demo!!

TIME TRAVEL

SOUND

Pictured: A short sample of the MANY sound effects used in Catalyst: Blind Faith!

Harvested over 160GB of SFX and music.

Laboriously picked out placeholder music for the entire demo

Mixed many sound effects, including custom noises for gore

Unique SFX provided by Amidst None and Addigale Stewart for the JWS logo, choice menus, and more!!

Balanced EVERYTHING

WRITING

Pictured: The completed flowchart for the demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith. The full game's flowchart is way too long for here lol

Beat NaNo twice

Outlined, wrote and edited 545k+ words

Which completed almost three full passes through the script of Catalyst: Blind Faith (70 chapters, 66 chapters, and 49 chapters respectively)!

Mapped every single choice and variable across the script so far in a flowchart in Twine

Finalized choices for two more routes (the remainder of the script will be written in 2024)

Finished the 45k word script for the demo

Brought onboard 16 beta readers, editors, quality assurance leads, and reviewed a cumulative 185 chapters together.

Began a critique group and have reviewed 27 chapters together.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Pictured: Our new logo.

Made it through an awful health scare that had me in and out of the hospital (as a result of medication and many misdiagnoses). Luckily I am totally recovered!

Also made it through COVID for the first time (due to aforementioned health issues this was particularly difficult)

Got outstanding support for my long-term sleep issues

Fully upgraded my motherboard, CPU, and graphics card!

Lined up for a nice raise at my day job (I'm working 45-50 hours a week at a day job, on top of all of this, to fund the demo).

Celebrated my nine year anniversary with my partner. Without her support I could not have done any of this.

We made it! That's the entire recap. I can hardly believe that this year was so remarkably productive, despite everything.

Thank you so much for reading this far and joining me in 2023! This coming year I have BIG plans for development. All of us at Just Write Studios are working incredibly hard to complete the demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith. My goal is to complete the script for the full game, and to get as many art assets commissioned as possible. We still have a lot of work to do, but I am more motivated and determined than ever to get it all done!

Patrons will be getting sneak previews at art assets as they are made, script excerpts, and a whole lot more. Keep an eye out on our socials for updates! You can find us on Discord, Twitter, Tumblr, Itch.io, Ko-Fi, and here on Patreon.

I hope you have a fantastic new year. Here's to a bright and productive 2024! See you soon!

#2023 art #indiegamedev #vndev #gamedev #vn development #character art #background art #uidesign #programming #sound effects #music #omg there is so much here this year was insane #glad you're still here with me in the tags #also #catalyst: blind faith #tons of links #I give up these tags are basically an entire devlog lol

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its-elvie-innit · 1 year

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Gives you a plate of bread and some soup to share! Tell me about what the mcytblr elections were like! I only saw posts in passing back in the day, it’d be cool to hear from a veteran!! :D

OKAY it is one am but you know what yeah let's get into the HORRORS that were honestly really fun. Let's share

I joined the fandom the same day I properly watched a tommyvod, the drista one on October 11th/12th 2020 at like 3 pm after school. If you look at that, lina, you will recognize that A. It is four days before the sixteenth, and B. It was TWO DAYS before I joined the election discord. The discord started the same day i joined practically. This event was so big and so good for meeting friends that it immediately ballooned the conversation.

The mcytblr election was started by one tumblr user called ADHDdream who posted this real neat tumblr post where they essentially went "lol man at this point I should be the president of mcytblr." And then EVERY OTHER PERSON on this site said yeah lol. Or what if I was. And within four hours every single person on mcytblr (at this point mcytblr was extremely small- and since the dsmp portion of it was the majority no one thought to differentiate between smps) had made parties and alliances and an actual coalition, although that might have taken more like five hours. It was like penismp if penis smp managed 53,000 discord messages in one month. I was the one to start the original mcytblr brochure blog (@mcytblr-elections ) and I started it literally before I even joined the election discord. It was THE event and it started about three months of dedicated roleplay. I met victoy maybe three days in and they brought me under their wing like an artistic baby bird.

Basically, there was a re-enactment of the dsmp elections but in real time. There was campaigning, posters, I made a minx-niki flag for fvck2020- that's how all of them were organized too, name2020, and you registered 9 policies with the mods (you also had to have a front runner and a second. They actually banned coalitions initially but like LOL no) in at which time you would have an official channel on the discord. Preliminaries were where we all set up original parties, and there was TONS of voter fraud because it was literally just a Google doc voting booth which was HILARIOUS but thats beside the point. The policies are a mirror of the culture atp, like inniter oppression (where I met uncertain!!) And making sure everyone got free stuff

There was a whole lot of hype, and roleplays were starting up immediately. Silverfish2020 turned into a 100 person strong cult almost immediately and as tumblr tends to do, many MANY inside jokes were formed. I recently annoyed my friend with a sc of the #mpreg-rp channel which had someone role-playing jschlatt as a pisswife. It became the biggest hub for watching streams, too. I vividly remember organizing with a few main character staples who would watch who in the election discord so we could all let each other know what was going on in the festival stream (btw little known fact but even with two backups my stream crashed on Nov and Oct 16th during the TNT parts. I have still to this day never watched lmanburg actually blow up properly.

IGNORING ALL THAT though the mcytblr election absolutely SUCKDD. For one main reason okay and I'm okay saying this now b/c all the old mods have moved on

Tldr the mods were SO CONTROLLING

I am not kidding I was literally fighting with a mod on day three (when the fundy community was big, this was a mainstay blig for the fundy followers) because of a party called Anarchy 2020- Anarchy2020 was essentially the fun happy-go-lucky dudes that were like "we should all topple this government! Not my president! Revolution!". There were lots of tnt jokes n essentially it was a party dedicated to everyone who didn't want to have a president or just wanted to roleplay a revolution, but since it didn't technically have party runners it couldn't be voted for. And also one of the mods was A. An anarchist and B. A total weirdo. They literally said "THEYRE USING IT WRONG AND IT MAKES ME ANGY CUZ IM AN ACTUAL ANARCHIST FKFBFKFJ" that's quoted. It was basically a response to people not voting and wanting to overthrow. Freaking weird bro they made it such a big deal ANYWAY

There was a whole multi-chara roleplay!! Soul (,wow I knew them!!!) won the election, there was a whole countdown and everything- quotes2020 beat silverfish2020 by FOUR votes. There was uproar!!!! Revolution!!!! ANARCHY!!!!

The election basically created that community. There were a few tumblr events to happen after it (by the way, funny phenomenon, but mcytwt actually copied every event we did with WAY less success like a few days after each. Wonder how that went) like friend or host (I joined it. I was the first contestant out of the ONLY round if friend or host ever I think. Imagine being the first person eliminated after holding a bird mask 2 ur face for ten minutes. Girl that shit was so awkward) the mcytblr prom (I did NO roleplay but I did dress up) and mcytblr highschool??? I think. There were two more elections after it that i consider canonical, but really only the very first two (out of like five) had anything really stick around. But bro it was so good and I didn't even get to half of it. I'll leave you with a screenshot of jpiss from the mcytblr got talent mpreg-rp chat

Edit: @the-royal-bat-snake

I'm editing this post because GOL-LEE I Forgot. How fucking obnoxious that was. Anyways hands up for the only remaining quotes member. This makes u better than everyone else <3

#this took me 40 min to type #everyone was so iconic i miss them #mcyt #dream smp #dsmp #lina!!#ask!!#save

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