AU scenario: xue yang survives getting disarmed (hah) by lan wangji after the yi city arc! what happens next 👀
i have actually written two versions of this one! one in novelverse where Su She manages to sweep Xue Yang away (my god, I keep mentioning this one lately, but nurture the tiger) and one in cqlverse where Song Lan makes the deliberately contrary choice to leave Xue Yang alive (Walking Far From Home)
this is a rough one though!! because I want things to end better for Xue Yang but they don't look great for him at this point in time unless somehow you bring Xiao Xingchen back to life. though okay let's see what I've got here. going with novelverse for this one and at least starting with the nurture the tiger premise
so Su She manages to bring a half-dead Xue Yang away from Yi City, half-dead and an absolute wreck having lost his last ditch hope of getting Xiao Xingchen back. somehow (Xue Yang's nearly inhuman endurance) he manages to stick him back together
(since Jin Guangyao is busy, probably this is just a Su She effort; they need all the allies they can get with the way things are going, he thinks, even if this particular ally is not going to be very useful, but still. maybe Su She's a little attached, though I don't think he'd be very inclined to admit it. Xue Yang grows on you. like a fungus.)
howmever, he's got other things to do, so he does have to leave Xue Yang on his own once he's (more or less, barely) stable. and then everything goes to shit, leaving Xue Yang entirely on his own because everyone else is dead.
this becomes clear to Xue Yang (that nobody's coming back for him, anyway, though he may or may not realize that's because they're dead and just assume he's been given up for lost and not worth killing personally. dick) and he reaches out to the only option he has left, which is to say his fierce corpse masterpiece (with whom he still has at least a distant connection, as his former master, even without the nails he can at least try to summon him), figuring that at least he can die with...if not grace then a little faster than of infection, and hey, Song Lan was kind of sort of his fierce corpse best friend for a while there
anyway, Song Lan (who has nothing better to do except be miserable right now) shows up, decides to leave Xue Yang alive because he's too pathetic to kill at this point and also because Song Lan doesn't have any other (living) friends and is incredibly lonely and at least here's the only other person who understands the grief he's feeling, even if that's the last thing that Song Lan wants to admit
eventually once Xue Yang is better (ish) they leave and go off journeying together in the weirdest most miserable duo road trip ever. Song Lan is continually like "good night, I may kill you tomorrow" to which Xue Yang is like "okay, that's chill" but it gets almost comfortable
shared grief bonding!!! Song Lan is just waiting for Xiao Xingchen to heal while trying to maintain the work that they (would have done) were doing together before everything fell apart. Xue Yang is like "saving people is boring but not like I have anything better to do at this point ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"
I have no idea where this goes. but I like the idea of it just kind of continuing until eventually Xue Yang does die and it's bittersweet in the end and it's kind of like. everyone's dead now. including Song Lan. he's just ambulatory about it.
anyway this whole thing would be really fucking angsty and all about grief and mourning and I'd probably cry writing 90% of it
1B on that pose meme (or whatever it's called) has real comedy potential. Not like that person is actually hurt or dying but something melodramatic, you know? I'm picturing Regongar holding Octavia and he's shouting MY GIRL NEEDS A MANICURE STAT! in response to her "I broke a nail!" bark
I'M IN LOVE WITH YOUR VISION
edit. realizing that I read the dialogue provided wrong. forgive me. I got too excited about it.
Faeran would 100% be really obnoxious about Calamari, and would intentionally make others appreciate her boopings haha.
(Secret second boop attack to @starbiology in revenge to the april fools war because even though i didn't know if you had any characters, I think of her as your character by this point and I found this scenario hilarious in my mind)
Louis, mon cœur. Louis, regarde. I have found a young fille et she appears to be a vampire like we are... And she visits une école magique... She has ebony black hair which is how she got her name... C’est très adorable, non? She has icy blue eyes like limpid tears comme mes yeux! Elle s’appelle Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way... Je pense que cette name is very beautiful, don’t you agree? She is a vampire fille, too... She could be a friend pour Claudia! Louis? Louis! Why are you leaving?
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the day my brain was literally rewired and my gender was being changed by the second SO HERES A GAS STATION SPECIAL before this joint was even a gas station in the FIRST PLACE !!!!
ITS CALLED THE FUCKING SUNSHINE COURT AND IT ABOUT JEAN WHOS THE ONLY SUNSHINE BOY IN HIS LIFE ITS JEREMY IM SO IM SO IM BITING CHEWING SCRATHING CLAWING AT THE WALLS INSANE THANK YOU NORA THANK YOU IM SO HNGHHHHHHH
(the sibling Nick deserved-- but he got spaghetti head instead)
I wanted to try this line-less stuff for the first time, but gave up halfway through. Have it anyways so I feel better about spending six hours on it, before screaming loud enough to wake my neighbors and throwing the towel
a womb tattoo of the cambion conception and immaculate conception symbols. more than anything, this is inspired by a tattoo that i want but probably wont get. comes in love, hate, and 2 sorta-yin-yang styles
uses vectors made by cormac illustrated with permission! please dont edit, but you can ask me if you need different configurations. cc used in the image and permission proof under the cut!
since the tumblr veterans have been kind enough to introduce us newbies to their site and culture, i think it is only fair that we explain the culture of our glorious former home to any tumblr users who might be interested in the #196 tag. keep in mind, all these things are based on my perspective of the situation.
first of all, some general information (that you might’ve already heard):
196 (r/196 on reddit) was a subreddit with only one (official) rule; "post before you leave." it was mainly a meme/shitposting sub, but it cultivated a large queer and left-leaning community. in protest of the recent api chances in reddit, 196 has shut down indefinitely until reddit reverts these changes.
now for some culture/references that you might come across
spronkus kronkus:
spronkus is this yellow, rabbit-like creature.
they were the mascot of our subreddit. their appearance can vary from images to image, but as far as i’m aware, their full outfit consists of a bandanna in the colours of the trans flag around their neck, a gun labelled as such (other wise you obviously wouldn’t know what you’re looking at), and an axe also coloured like the trans flag.
r/place:
this is a rare event on reddit where the entire website gets a huge white canvas and can start creating pixel art on it. 196 participated by collaboratively creating our mascot, spronkus with "196!" written next to them.
this version of the pixel art was recreated by me as i couldn't find a nice image of it. there were some changes between the first version and the end result, so this might not be exactly how it looked in the end
post titles/"rule":
reddit forces it's users to title every post they make. as most of the posts on 196 spoke for themselves, many user instead titled their posts "rule", to indicate that they followed the subreddit's only rule. some people also tried to make puns with the word or tried to include it in words that shared some letters (example: wor(ule)d).
anarcho-stripperism:
as the amount of cropped porn jokingly posted to the subreddit increased, the moderators decided that porn would be banned from the sub, with one exception: anarcho-stripperism. she made food fucking videos, in which she jokingly tested the fuckability of different food items (fruits, pasta, etc.)
bigotry showcase:
bigotry showcase was a post flair (basically the reddit equivalent of tags) on the subreddit and was later restricted to only be used on saturdays. under this flair people posted instances of different forms of bigotry to make fun it.
eating babies/hungryposting:
at some point, the subreddit started to pretend to like eating babies, which started a variety of memes regarding the subject. even a post flair called "hungrypost" was added because of this
goblinhog:
goblinhog is the most prominent and well-known member of the 196 moderation team. besides this, on 196 he was mostly known for changing people’s flair if you enjoyed him enough about it.
flairs:
flairs are little tags that are displayed under your name in posts or comments, they are also subreddit specific. most subreddits give their users a palette of preset flairs and the option to make your own custom flair. however, in 196 you only had the option to customize your flair during special events. if you wanted to customize your flair outside of those events (which was basically the entire time), you had to ask a mod to do it for you.
punching nazis:
from time to time, the same gif of a person with a nazi armband getting punched in the face, and promptly falling to the ground, was reposted to the subreddit. this became a sort of tradition.
discourse/drama
wasp discourse:
the wasp discourse was a one to two weeks long heated discussion that generally divided the subreddit into two factions. one side said that they were justified in killing wasps if they were attacked by them, while the other claimed that since wasps are just animals, they aren't aware of what they're doing in the same way humans are, and therefore should be spared.
drama about the british:
there was a time when jokes along the lines of "ew, british" became pretty frequent on the subreddit. as a response, some user claimed that this was akin to racism and tried to get others to stop with the jokes. a debate over whether or not it was important or necessary to stop followed afterwards.
pillar discourse:
this was a debate over which type of pillar should be considered the best (ionic; doric; corinthian). i have seen the question "which pillar is the best?" being used as a sort of greeting between 196 refugees on here.
related subreddits
195:
195 was the predecessor to 196, and also was a social experiment with the same premise as 196 (one rule, post before you leave). as the creators of 195 ended the experiment, the community wanted something with the same vibe to continue posting, and thus 196 was born.
197:
197 is another part of the 196 ecosystem and is commonly understood to be the more politically right-leaning and bigoted as 196, as some people who were banned from 196 continued posting there. besides that, the subreddits were essentially the same in terms of how they functioned.
19684:
this subreddit adds a second rule which banned all mentions of sex (that’s why it’s name is a pun on 1984). some people took this as banning all discussion of sexuality, which resulted in a community that was slightly less accepting of queer people. it is currently still up and running as the 196 moderation team wants a way to stay in contact with the community.
amendments to the posts:
u/femboy_expert:
another well-known 196 user. as the name suggests they're an expert on the subject of femboys, with their flair on 196 reading "phd in feminine boys". as the subreddit was somewhat obsessed with femboys, it's no wonder that they became popular.
u/shitcum_backup:
this was the main account of a pretty popular shitposter on the subreddit. although i didn't see them as much in the last few months, i remember them sometimes having a unique speaking pattern, in which they referred to themself in the third person.
u/monko74:
this user commented "Every day I thank god for not making me a r/196 celebrity," which led to many users of the subreddit treating them like a micro celebrity. there are even a few subreddits solely dedicated to u/monko74.
691:
a sister subreddit that inverts the rule of 196, here you would be (temporarily) banned for posting. some time ago the members of this sub initiated a rebellion/revolution against the bot who performed all the bans (roomba).
u/Smart_Calendar1874:
this wasn’t necessarily part of the subreddit, but it was a pretty popular meme. and since it’s getting posted on here again, and i know enough about it, i’ll add it to the post. this user made a post to r/AskReddit titled "How would you get a small cylinder (5.1in length, ~4.5in girth) unstuck from a mini M&Ms tube filled with butter and microwaved mashed banana? [sic]" it was pretty clear that they were referring to their penis, yet they continued to claim "it’s a cylinder," in the comment section. this lead to comments like "it is imperative that the cylinder […] remains unharmed," in response to people’s advice of cutting the m&m tube.
it's going to be very interesting to see which aspects of 196 culture are going to survive the tumblr migration, and which aspects won't be applicable on this site.
i'm obviously not the ultimate scholar on 196 lore. if i’ve missed or left out anything, or said something wrong, please comment it.