#kind if related cause fanfic discussion!

[nextinline-if]

I come out of my sin pit (aka my fanfic) to read "I don't like chocolate" with my own two sleep deprived eyes. Like who hurt you anon? Chocolate is the best nectar in this Godforsaken Earth.

PD: I'm sorry to everyone waiting for smut this got more emotional and slow paced than I planned. Everyone hop on the Feels train tonight 😔💔

I live to give my baby trauma and demisexual panic

omg, Nick, I agree about the chocolate even though I don't eat sweets too much anymore cause now im old or whatever (according to the people on TikTok) and the sweets can be too much.

but it is indeed "the best nectar in this Godforsaken Earth."

Also, I'm looking forward to your smutty fanfic but like, please get some rest and maybe some tea and take all the time you need cause that's way more important <3

#gloomcat #i feel like your fanfic is going to send us ALL on an emotional traumatic rollercoaster lmao #kind if related cause fanfic discussion! #smutty fanfic at that lol

[thatacotargirl]

Shadows and Surprises (2)

Part 2 of Azriel x Reader fanfic! Thank you for all the support on the first part, this is my first time writing a fanfiction and I've had this idea in my head for so long - so your kind words have really made me smile!

Summary: Azriel meets y/n at Rita's and spends a single night of passion with you before heading your separate ways. Only, the Mother had different ideas.

Warnings: discussions related to pregnancy, family loss.

Tag list - @mirandasidefics @lilah-asteria @nyxbranwenn @nickishadow139

Azriel POV

"y/n?" Azriel stuttered, eyes not moving from her abdomen. From his peripheral, he saw Madja gently pat y/n on the shoulder and depart back behind the beaded curtains, leaving the pair of you alone. Y/n could barely meet his eyes, but let out a soft "hello", sounding almost winded.

Azriel kept on staring, almost held in a trance by the small swell he saw. He knew - be it by your reaction, your scent, his own instincts - he knew the child growing in there was his. But he had to know for sure.

"Is it mine, y/n?". Her slow nod pulled him away from her abdomen for a moment to meet her eyes, which were still full of fear, panic, and now tears. Azriel was feared by many, he was a Shadowsinger, the Shadowsinger of the Night Court, he was used to seeing fear when eyes met his. But seeing the fear fill your eyes, the mother of his child, was too much to bear. His usually stoic face fell.

"Why didn't you tell me, y/n?" he asked, gently this time, not wanting to cause you undue distress, despite the knot he felt growing in the pit of his own stomach.

"You hardly left a forwarding address, Az", y/n chuckled out lightly, "I tried, but I had no way to reach you. Plus, I didn't think I'd see you again, or that you'd want to be involved if you knew - I thought it was for the best that I couldn't find you".

Azriel's face fell further. Is that the impression that he had left on her that night? That he wouldn't want to be involved if something like this had happened? Or is that just the reputation he has garnered from his years of work at the Night Court?

He panicked, and the knot grew bigger, twisting, taking his breath away, pulling him deeper and deeper into a state of alarm that Azriel couldn't claw his way out from. Y/n saw the swirling fear in Azriel's eyes and her own softened.

"I'll give you some time, Az. Think about it. There is no obligation for you to have any involvement in this. You can pretend this encounter didn't happen and move on, if that's what you'd prefer. I won't hold it against you" she promised, before sliding past Azriel's frozen frame and rushing out the door into the streets of Velaris.

Y/N's POV

Y/n walked through her front door, chucked her bag on the nearby sofa, and thumped her fist into her forehead.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid" she muttered.

She had no regrets about the baby, the sweet little life growing inside her. When she realised she was pregnant with Azriel's baby, she panicked about carrying and birthing a child with wings, but Madja's thorough assessments each week have put her mind to rest. Being half-Illyrian, half-Fae meant she had every risk of having high-Fae anatomy, but the Cauldron seemed to have blessed her with Illyrian hips, so conceiving her child did not mean a sure death sentence. It didn't make it easier, though, to bear the brunt of early pregnancy alone.

Y/n was the proud owner of a bookstore in Velaris, located not far from the Sidra. It was her pride and joy. Having lost her mother at a young age and being raised alongside her brothers in the Illyrian camps meant that y/n was hardened to life's difficulties. Her father certainly made sure of that. So the idea of being a single mother whilst running her bookstore seemed like a walk in the park compared to her past. But, without staff to help, y/n found herself utterly and completely exhausted each day. Her morning sickness had finally let up, but in its place she found her energy drained within the first hour she spent on her feet locating books, tiding the store, and serving customers. She knew it was only going to get harder from here.

She wanted Azriel to be part of her baby's life, of course she did! She wanted her child to grow up knowing their father, having a father who loved them and cared for them, something she could only have wished for as a child herself. But she didn't want Azriel involved out of obligation. She didn't want him to begrudge her or resent her child. His panic-ridden face filled her mind once again as she flopped backwards onto her bed with more force than necessary.

"Stupid" she muttered.

Azriel's POV

Azriel flew at a speed faster than he knew existed. Faster than battle, than when his life depended on it. Because now, another tiny little life just might.

He crash-landed onto the balcony of the House of Window and burst through the doors to the dining room.

"Hey Az! What - where's my chocolate marble slice?" Cassian asked, head tilted slightly as a confused expression settled on his face. He took in Azriel's disheveled hair, wild eyes, and stood from his chair with such force that it flew backwards onto the carpet.

"Hey, hey, it's ok Az, what's happened?" Cassian questioned, stepping closer to Azriel who, in turn, took a bigger step backwards. Cassian paused, desperately calling for Rhys through his mind to come and help. Rhys heard, and winnowed into the dining room mere seconds later.

"Azriel?" Rhys called, concerning lacing his face at his stared at his brother's vacant eyes. He waited, seconds turning to minutes, but Azriel just continued his vacant stare across the room, his skin several shades paler than normal. Rhys made it a point to not go into his family's mind without their permission, to not invade their privacy in that way, but Azriel's behaviour was worrying him more than Azriel's anger at the invasion would. He looked in.

"By the Cauldron, Az" he gasped, a hand flying to his mouth. He shared the memory he saw with an equally concerned and confused Cassian, who shook his head a few times in disbelief.

"It's really yours?" Cassian asked, and watched as Azriel finally responded, his head bobbing slowly.

"Azriel", Rhys said, his tone so commanding it snapped Azriel out of his trance and drew his eyes to meet the violet ones of his High Lord. "What are you going to do?".

Azriel drew his eyes from Rhysand to Cassian, then back to Rhysand, before dropping his gaze to the floor and retreating to his room, his shadows swarming so violently around his shoulders that his face was almost entirely hidden. Had they not been, his brothers would have seen the tears falling silently down Azriel's stricken face.

Y/N's POV

Y/n had spent the best part of the afternoon in bed, Madja's tonic working wonders for the discomfort she had been feeling the last few weeks. She had never experienced indigestion, never even heard of it, but she was now quite convinced it was a curse from the Mother because she had never felt pain like it before. After trying to leaf through the latest instalment of her favourite romance series, and reading the same page at least forty times, she decided to settle down for a nap in an attempt to distract herself from the incident at the Apothecary that morning.

That was, until a knock sounded at the door.

#acotar x y/n #acotar x reader #acotar fanfiction #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #a court of mist and fury #a court of wings and ruin #a court of frost and starlight #a court of silver flames #azriel x y/n #azriel x reader #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #cassian #rhysand

[sincerely-sofie]

Hi! This may come across as a dumb question, but I wanted to write my own PMD:EoS fic, but I’m kind of lost on how I want to organize my thoughts and the plot. Additionally, I get new ideas and then I end up struggling with what I want to do. How did you organize things for your story?

This isn't a dumb question at all! It's something I've struggled with for a long time as a writer, and I'd be happy to share what I've come up with to solve my fight with story organization! I’ll try to speak coherently, but this is something I’m really passionate about, so I might ramble a bit, haha. Keep in mind that this is what works for me, and what will work for you may be very different. Take from this post what serves you well and ditch the rest :> 

Organizational Tools

You can use pretty much anything to organize your story— I’ve used everything from loose printer paper in storage clipboards to expansive Google Docs that are hundreds of pages long in the past. But what I’ve found that really works for me is an app called Notion. You may have heard of it— it’s really popular with productivity enthusiasts and small business owners, but it works like a dream for organizing creative projects! There’s a bit of a learning curve, but you can find a lot of templates out there for free that work really well if you don’t want to set things up yourself.

This is how my Notion page for TPiaG was set up:

The “Cheat Sheets” dropdown list was full of character sheets, links to Bulbapedia articles I’d refer to while outlining or writing, and also my completed outline. “Fun Stuff” was full of memes and jokes about the characters, an empty page that I’d start filling once I received kind comments on my fic, as well as ideas for additional stories relating to the AU— stuff like oneshots and possible sequels or diverging AUs. Fun fact: this is where I first wrote down my idea for The Present is a Gift: Paradox Edition AU!

“Chapters to Write” and “Chapters I’ve Written” were dropdown lists where I divided my outline into little sub-dropdown lists in “Chapters to Write”, and everytime I wrote a chapter, I would move it over to “Chapters I’ve Written”. Nothing is as reassuring when you’re stuck in the middle of writing a nearly 60k word fanfic as seeing the chapters slowly migrate to the right.

Organizing the Story

Outlining is a big part of my organization process, so I’ll be talking a fair bit about it. The first part of any story is your premise / core idea (it sounds like you’ve already got some of your own, so I won’t discuss coming up with those). The next step is brainstorming what you want to revolve around that premise. I already knew the characters fairly well, so what I did for TPiaG is write out a bunch of ideas for scenes on scraps of notebook paper and start arranging them on a table in different ways. I eventually settled on an order of events (many of which ended up cut for clarity in the actual fic), and then I started structuring them into chapters. 

How I structure chapters is inspired by the Kishotenketsu structure that is used fairly often in Asian storytelling. I divide each chapter into 5 parts: an Introduction that provides a starting point for the chapter, Development that builds on and adds context or tension to the introduction, a Twist that causes a new perspective on either the situation, characters, or something else in the story, a Resolution that helps wrap things up in a satisfying way, and then a Hook that leads the reader to want to read the next chapter. This is a structuring method that works way better for me than the Three Acts or the Hero’s Journey— I prefer the stronger focus on character vs. plot— and so I try to use it as often as possible. Here’s an example from my outline (if you’ve read TPiaG, you may notice some differences between it and the actual published chapters of the fic! It’s chapter 4 instead of chapter 3, for one thing!)

Organizing Characters

I’ll be honest— I didn’t fill out character sheets like I should have for this project. I kind of just went with the flow as I wrote them. Twig and Grovyle are the only characters who got sheets at all, and Grovyle still only got a half of one. However, I do have a blank copy of a character sheet I can share as reference!

I think most of this is pretty self-explanatory— but if anyone wants clarification on anything or what goes into the individual note sections, let me know! This is what the topmost part of Twig’s character sheet bio looks like: 

The Torment of the Human Mind, or: How to Deal with Idea Overload

This is an ongoing struggle for me. I’ve mentioned having ADHD in the past, but it really turns idea generation and shiny object syndrome into a purgatory of unspeakable proportions. Before TPiaG, I had never finished a creative project because I would constantly ping-pong back and forth between newer and funner ideas, inevitably abandoning WIPs, come back to them for a few weeks at a time, and then dart off to the next thing. This feels awful because you never finish anything when you’re stuck in this cycle, and having all those ideas as open tabs in your brain is exhausting. 

My greatest advice for figuring out what you want to do and then doing it? Figure out a fun idea— maybe not the funnest idea, but an idea you enjoy and can create with your current skills and a good helping of hard work— and then commit to it with a story priority hierarchy. Every time you want to work on another idea, you have to work on the idea you committed to first for 30 minutes (or a different block of time, whatever works for you!). After that allotted time is up, you’re free to work on whatever other projects you like— but you have to start at the top of the priority hierarchy. That way, you still get work done on your #1 project, but you’re not restricted to it. 

Alternatively: Write until that priority project is done. You can make notes on ideas, you can make Pinterest boards for them, and you can make playlists— but you can only write for your priority project. I’d recommend doing this with a deadline in mind. Something like Camp NaNoWriMo or a similar month-long challenge. Novelty is an important part of my workflow! I get it. But for some people, bouncing back and forth between ideas is detrimental to their ability to focus / write, and committing to a single project at a time is extremely beneficial. I thought that I was someone who needed total freedom to work on any of my projects, but it turns out that being handcuffed to a project and a word count goal for a month was exactly what I needed to finish my first ever complete manuscript.

Yikes, this was a lot. I hope I answered your question well enough. If not, ask again and give me another shot! I love talking about creativity, and I would be overjoyed to help you create however I can.

#stuff by sofie #sofie says stuff #creativity tips with sofie #writing #writing advice #writing tips #writing motivation #writer advice #writer tips #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writers of tumblr #fanfiction writer #fanfic writing #the present is a gift au

[lovelytayforce]

@playful-level4366 Hey sorry I didn't reply like normal but I knew this wouldn't fit down there, considering how long I thought about this question and how to word it. It's kind of a weird dynamic to explain because it's not just about Tai Lung because he's intrically linked to Shifu and Tigress as an abuser, and in a sense I don't think the fandom wants to go over that with him at all. They believe him to be a victim and nothing else. It's true he's a victim, trust me I agree with a lot of Tai fans on that aspect (Hell, I relate to his need to prove himself and also hating who he is, hoping some magical spell will change all our imperfections but I know it won't...) but also he's a terrible abuser to his own Father and Tigress. And that ruins a lot of their fluffy hcs of a soft family learning to come together because that's too realistic for the fandom perspective and view on him. God, I don't wanna be mean but it always seems like when I see discussions on the character its as if we see two very different sides of a burnt piece of toast and see two different types of images, one skewed more by the lighting than anything. Listen, this isn't me telling other Tai fans they can't have their soft hcs for him go ahead but remember you need to stop blaming other characters for who he is, he choose his path. A person even said I was "too harsh" on Tai Lung after explaining all the horrible things HE DECIDED TO DO, that's not harsh. That's the truth and no one wants to go over it because its uncomfortable and I get it to a point but you all also picked the most uncomfortable characters who mirror our very dreary reality when we close our laptops and see the imperfections of our loved ones and ourselves. Tai Lung is a personification of the favored son in many Kung Fu flicks of the past and even the present, how the Father uplifts them to the light of heaven themselves before they ultimately go too far and let them down whilst ignoring the daughter. aka Sexism in the fam. Neat. You latched onto the man that was not only neglected by his own father but the man who abused his father back, both physically and emotionally TWICE to gain what he wanted because he knew Shifu would never hurt him.

Like I had a whole Tai stan block me for daring to remember this scene of a father with a broken hip crawling to his son and mourning what he allowed him to become. Shifu could have died but he still loved that boy despite everything he did to him and what he would continue to do to him. Like if we wanted real redemption arcs of Tai Lung we would go over how he haunted Shifu's consciousness and led him to close himself off to his next child, Tigress, whom is always left out of the conversation cause no one wants to talk about the woman neglected and abused by her father and older brother. A popular fic even admitted to not even wanting to touch Shifu and Tigress' dynamic, do you see the problem here???? I know many of you may not know or even care but I write fanfic for this fandom focusing on that aspect of Tigress' character along with Shifu, its not always fun and I've probably stumbled and made mistakes but its a story worth telling. Because in the end, Tigress is still alive and so is Shifu! Tai Lung isn't he had his chance and ruined it. Most Tai redemption fics are easily consumable because they don't want to go over the unsavory aspects of Tai Lung's character; The fraud, the continued abuse of his own father because everything he does is to hurt Shifu personally so he can get what he wanted in the end. Po was just another piece to hurt him (Shifu) as stated on the bridge. No, in the end, they want to go over how Shifu hurt him as a child and try to lure Tigress to his side, despite the fact he belittled her when they first met. But you know, how else are we supposed to get hehe bickering siblings. Cause that's easier to consume than realizing she'd want nothing to do with him after hurting her friends and her father. There's just an overall lack of autonomy given to the characters that the movies relish in. The fandom is too scared to allow them to be themselves because pointing the finger at Oogway who allows people to grow at their own pace is easier than realizing; Tai lung and Shifu never listened to him. Like think of a person this week who did exactly what you told em to do? and did they do it? Probably not, people are fucking stubborn. Me, included. People love learning the hard way, that's just the truth! Even toddlers take a min to listen to one task! So, I wouldn't even call it whitewashing, it's this desire to ignore canon to support their own hcs because if they told his actual story all of their concepts would fall apart to the wayside to see, the only true victim in the end, was a woman. Tigress. No one wants to go over that, that's a lot of work, that's a touchy subject but it's why I love these characters, there so raw and horrible which makes their stories compelling enough to stand beside the likes of Seven Samurai. It's that good!! So, to end this all, no they don't. Even Traces of Spring which I still follow because I love the art falls into this safe way of going about telling his story and sidelining the character who mirrors who he could have been, Tigress. Because she's not that cool to them despite the fact she controls herself better than he does. And had the opportunity to be a hero as great as she was if he set aside his selfish, obsession, and toxic views. But you know he's hot to some people, so he's a good boy deep down.

Yup. Uh huh.

#god i need to stop thinking so much about fandom portrayals but its so interesting #taylor talks #replies #kung fu panda #tai lung #hope this answered your question #i was this close to writing like a black perspective on this cause I relate too much to these characters #their body language is so telling #but we cant have nuance #imma get shit on for this aint I?

[izzysillyhandsy]

Izzy's Gravy Basket

While discussing Izzy's looming end of season extravaganza (apparently Con's acting is so good we're all gonna lose our minds) on this poll, and maybe in connection with my episode 8 speculations here, @nicelimegreen put the thought of Izzy's own personal gravy basket in my mind - and I love it so much I have to write about it.

While Ed and Stede already let us see into their minds (and it was fascinating!), we haven't had anything like that from Izzy. And true to my firm belief that OMFD is a story about three central fuckups, an Izzy dream scene/hallucination would be absolutely perfect for the season finale to bring everything together.

Also, the unhinged enthusiasm of people who have seen all the episodes, specifically relating to Con's performance in episode 8, leads me to believe that there's something dramatic coming.

And why not Izzy's own purgatory?

I know, this makes it 3 death scenes in one season (plus 2 toe snips, an amputation and possibly torture?) which I would find a bit much even in hurt/no comfort fanfic, but it kinda is that kind of show, isn't it? (and I love it)

The fascinating question is, of course, what would Izzy's purgatory look like? (Please reblog and discuss, I'm going crazy with anticipation in general and about Izzy's conclusion specifically)

Let's look at our blueprint: Ed's gravy basket

Central conflict: self-hatred, fear of being a bad person, lack of self control, unloveable, no one cares if you live or die Location: beach, hut, cliffs Representation of self: Captain Hornigold, retired Pulling him out of it: Mermaid Stede <3 (I messed all of this up. I'll never leave you. You're safe.)

For Izzy, in my opinion, the central conflict is "What am I?" (from initially, "What am I to you?"). His arc this season is becoming a well-rounded person who can stand alone (first step: get a unicorn leg) and isn't (co-)dependent on his captain.

But that might not be all there is. Ed's death was directly connected to his conflict. I can't see how Izzy's death is caused by him becoming a more realized person.

Except... maybe this is a conflict between self-actualization and self-sacrifice. I've said it before, I sense a lot of guilt about something in his (and Ed's) past. Something about others paying the price for your ambitions (Letting someone die or driving them to suicide? Killing someone you love?).

Izzy spent a lifetime in the shadow of another man, propping him up (as best he could). Maybe there's a reason for this level of self-abandonment?

The location could be many places really - we know nothing of Izzy's past. It has to be quiet and introspective though, so I suggest a lake in some lonely place (Edward Teach born on a beach, Israel Hands born in the Midlands). Or a ship - because, at his core, Izzy is first and foremost a sailor.

Much more interesting is the person who'll be there with him. Keeping in line with our blueprint, it could be someone from Izzy's past.

For Ed, it was his feared captain who traumatized him deeply but also influenced large parts of his outwards persona, his conception of piracy and appropriate pirate behaviour. These are parts Ed hates about himself and that make him unhappy, and it ties in with his central conflict of course.

But for Izzy it could be the exact opposite. If it truly is a person from Izzy's past, it's very difficult to speculate who (that's why we need a scene like this - we know nothing about the fucker!).

I all comes down to how Izzy sees himself. Contrary to Ed, I don't think Izzy's conflict is self-hatred, so the person representing his self won't be someone Izzy hates.

I also don't see someone threatening - it is more likely someone in need of guidance, someone vulnerable and "weak". Maybe someone who wasn't strong and able enough to do their fucking job (and Izzy should have done it for him, then).

So who could that person be? It could be someone who was dependent on Izzy a long time ago, maybe someone he let down because he didn't protect/guide them properly. The person could be connected to the spade (traitor's?) tattoo or the ring on his cravat. It could also be a young Ed, who Izzy tried to take under his wing (for the record, I do firmly believe that Izzy taught Ed quite a few things, maybe not all he knows though).

He could also be alone 😢

I don't think Izzy wants to die like Ed did (he's doing quite well right now), but we've got 3 episodes left - who knows what'll happen. The guilt could play into it, or a feeling of this is how it was supposed to happen, I've paid my debts.

In any case, right at the end, someone will come and pull him out.

In spite of the crew being Izzy's love now, they've already saved him in Ep4. I think this time it should be Ed who comes for Izzy. I can also see Ed and Stede both being explicitly needed (Izzy has two hands).

I think there's a possibility Izzy won't drown though - maybe he'll burn in a wood/house/ship fire. A self-imposed fiery death in hell seems fitting with the guilt-theme somehow. But that's just me probably. Water works perfectly well too.

For the rescue, I am struggling to come up with something even half as perfect as a mermaid, I mean Ed and Stede can always ride in on a unicorn (bit of a double meaning there, but whatever), but that doesn't feel quite right - maybe Ed with a shark's tail? Someone else will have a brilliant idea I hope!

Going with Izzy's assumed conflict of self-actualization vs. self-sacrifice (and protection of others), the thing he needs to hear to bring him back would be something like "it wasn't your fault", "be happy" and "I/we want you in our lives but be your own person" (just a little more poetic maybe).

Conclusion: Izzy's purgatory will tell us something (harrowing I'm sure) about his past. Con's acting will be off the charts. We will want to thank him face-to-face (I've wanted to do that from the start, so...)

But Ed or Ed and Stede both will bring Izzy back - he'll thank them in his usual charming way and they'll live happily ever after <3.

Hope this wasn't too scrambled! Thoughts?

#ofmd #izzy hands #edward teach #stede bonnet #ofmd s2 spoilers #Izzy's gravy basket > Izzy's revenge #if this doesn't happen now I'll be disappointed #I need to look into Iz's mind! #whatever happens we will cry in any case #con o'neill's eyes haven't been dry for weeks

[sinisterexaggerator]

Headcanon...?

Spoilers for a fic I will write eventually?

Do not read if you do not like made-up, author-indulgent backstories for characters who exist in the GFFA. This one is almost hard to post because it's kind of personal. Like, a story so plot driven that I am nervous people will hate my interpretation and my ships. Oh well, I guess, it's happening.

A discussion in the Duros hoes chat, and then between me and @allsystemsblue, got me thinking about what is Cad Bane's real name? It sure as hell ain't Cad Bane. A lot of the fandom seems to agree on that. "Cad" and "bane" are both words in the dictionary that can be defined.

Cad: a man who behaves dishonorably, especially toward a woman. / scoundrel / rogue / rascal.

Bane: a cause of great distress or annoyance. / scourge / ruin / death.

We shall come back to this.

I have a scene mapped out for Stars Above in which I want Cad to run into his sister. I have a plan for his backstory that does not include this particular fanfic, but another, a series I am working on that will be entitled "Annuals of an Outlaw," and is essentially a collection of works I have outlined that will contain my version of Cad Bane's "story" from his beginnings on Duro in the Descent Ghetto, to after the Clone Wars and beyond.

Yes, it will have smut. And angst. Lots and lots of angst. Many character will appear, including Jango, Hondo, Aurra, Bossk, Embo, Zam, Dengar, Todo 360, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and even Boba at some point. Oh, and let us not forget Shriv Suurgav. :)

Yes, Shriv.

You cannot stop me. Don't even try. This is my magnum opus, and by God it will make sense narratively. Just you wait. Or don't. I don't care. I am still going to write this thing if it's the last thing I ever do.

First of all, I enjoy playing around with Star Wars name generators. That is how I came up with the name of my OC, Zulara. I started sifting through them, piecing last names together with other first names, and voilà, a new name appeared to me that caught my attention.

Originally, I was looking for Durese words that maybe meant something in relation to his occupation or personality, but none of them called out. It appears others had that same idea in the past, so it makes sense to go with something new.

Anyway, my name for Cad Bane is Lumoon Troks.

Here are the outpouring of thoughts I had on the matter before I could stop myself. I came up with this over the last hour or two, and I am digging it so far. Who knows, maybe I will change my mind. It's helping me to fill in a lot of gaps, anyway, that I had in the plot, and I am happy about that.

So, I am giving Bane siblings. Two much older sisters, two brothers who are 1-2 years apart, and a younger sister who is four or five at the time Lumoon finally leaves home.

His siblings call him Lu, or Moon for short. When they want to be annoying, they call him Moody Moon, or "Lemon" because of his sour outlook ( lemons are "canon" in SW, I checked).

To sum things up briefly, Bane's mother was a kindhearted woman and his father was a gruff workaholic. They both were employed in the factories and rarely had time to spend with their family, but had too many mouths to feed.

Cad gets into trouble quite often. He runs wild in the streets from a young age. Maybe he hooks up with the wrong crowd. Nothing too menacing; some petty theft, vandalism, etc, etc.

His father's angry about it. He refuses to take on work in the factories with him. He wants more for himself. He's not about that grind day in, day out life. Things get so toxic between them that he leaves to make his own way, stops coming home, worries his mother sick, and his little sister to boot.

So much so, his little sister ( talking maybe preschool / kindergartener age ) decides she has to "bring Moon home" and takes it upon herself to find him. She loves her big brother and sorely misses him.

This does not end well. At all. The worst possible scenario unfolds. The first of many tragedies in Cad Bane's life. It deeply affects him. He tries to go to his mother; she isn't the same Duros any longer. She coldshoulders him, ignores him, and she suffers from a broken heart.

Cad blames himself. "She went out to find you and never came home." This time, he really does leave and never returns. I am sure there is a final fight between him and his father that maybe seals the deal. He takes up random jobs, anything that pays, from sex work, to being hired muscle, to thieving, to murder, you name it, as long as the pay is good and it keeps his mind off his own problems.

He learns skills along the way, and he also learns from his mistakes. Things start being a little too easy. He's tired of being bossed around. He wants to be his own boss. So, that's exactly what he becomes.

He decides to try his hand at bounty hunting. He begins to make a name for himself, except, he hasn't. He needs a new one, something intimidating, striking, and rememberable. Plus, he doesn't want his birthname floating around; that makes him vulnerable, as well as the rest of his surviving kin.

Bane's mother, in the early days of his youth, used to scold him for misbehaving. She called him the equivalent of a cad in Durese, and it translated that way from basic, something along the lines of "Lumoon! Quit being such a cad, you naughty boy!"

It means something to him. He feels it embodies what he has become. It is also a tribute to his mother as well as a punishment; something he has to live with and that he brought upon himself.

The next thing you know, one of his many enemies makes a snarky comment, saying to him, "you are the bane of my existence," or simply, "you are a bane!" From there, his new name takes shape in his mind. He thinks if you put two and two together, it sounds kind of nice. It sticks. He starts to introduce himself like that, when before he had only referred to himself as Cad.

Another misfortune befalls him, which I mentioned I wanted him to run into his sister. This would happen off-world somewhere, years later, and during the reign of the Galactic Empire. She would say something to the likes of: "Mom died. She never gave up on you. She waited for you to come home, everyday. I didn't have the heart to tell her I had seen your wanted posters."

It tears him apart for awhile. His second great tragedy. Never getting to reconcile with the Duros who raised him and whom he loved. He harbors this for the rest of his life.

Of course, running in the streets, he learns not to trust people. He's jaded. He gets fucked over a time or two, badly, and by people he thinks he can trust. He develops a shell; a way of looking at the world that allows him to keep his guard up for his own protection.

In that same vein, I believe Bane can love and that he can love hard given the right circumstances. One of the many reasons he's kept from saying it, is because every person he has ever cared about has either turned on him or dies. The galaxy is a harsh mistress. He's afraid of a repeat scenario; he doesn't let himself get close. He tells himself he's better off alone, doesn't need anybody; he prefers to run without a pack.

That is, until he meets Jango.

And, that, my friends, is a whole other story, but I want to add that Cad Bane has bad dreams. Nightmares, even. Visions. Terrible things happen, old memories replay, he is haunted by his past. The sister he couldn't save; the mother he thought had stopped loving him; the father he was never good enough to please.

Hondo compares himself to a sun, and Bane is the moon. This would fuck with him psychologically, and cause him to react unexpectantly should the nickname stick - one that is reminiscent of his childhood. It is Hondo Ohnaka in my story that saves Bane from himself after Fett meets his untimely end.

Jango, Hondo, and Shriv may call him moody from time-to-time, or grumpy, but that also does not sit well, either, considering his past.

Once Jango dies, and once he fails at training Boba, Cad is even more a wreck than before. In my story, he also does not get to reconcile with his old partner and mentor after their falling out. He drinks himself stupid in the presence of Boba to the point the boy gets fed-up and they have their duel.

Bane, in my mind, can't accept Boba as Fett's son; he is a clone; he could never accept the clone contract from the get go - it put a rift in their relationship. This adds more fuel to the "look out for yourself" fire that is his quote in the Book of Boba Fett.

Sorry this got so long-winded, but, I had to get that out as it came to me. Now, to actually write the story all these ideas are for!

#Star Wars #Cad Bane #Hondo Ohnaka #Shriv Suurgav #fictional backstories #headcanon #self-indulgent af

[judgmentofcorruption39]

One of the first gallerian x reader fic is out. What am I doing with my life idk too there's a lot of build up after saying this was going to be short bear with me lovelies. Also this takes place in just like evillous no au. Also this is like my first ever ever fanfic so I'll just use [name] I also cringed a lot making this. I'm going to clarify some more things. A little ooc btw. I also have no rizz. Dont judge i hate this. My friend asked me to do this too err :P its also not proof read. Ill get better with time i swear

[English honorififc] = sir, ms., ma'am, madame, Mr. and Etc etc

You were the representing lawyer for your friend, and honestly it's hard to find evidence that he's well. Innocent. You were surprised how he got into this mess. He murdered some powerful politician. The head judge for this case is lo and behold. Gallerian Marlon. Known to take bribes more like rumored to take bribes. You were lucky enough to well have relations with him, you're friend doesn't have enough money to probably bribe him. He lives an average life besides from this big "accusation". This was your second time having Gallerian Marlon as a head judge of a case you were working on. You've always gotten a weird feeling from him, you've seen him outside sometimes and you and him would wave at eachother. Awkward but yes. So you made your way to your telephone and put in his number. Surprisingly a few seconds later someone picked up the phone. It was Gallerian and honestly this was going to be really awkward. You have no clue how to word this without sounding like a dumbass.

"Hello? Who is this." Gallerian asked in a serious tone. Hope you didn't call his home phone or something. "I'm assuming this is Gallerian Marlon?" You spoke, honestly this is really awkward. It took a second for him to respond. "I feel like I've spoken to you before. If you don't mind me assuming and you [Name]." You were surprised on how he knew with just your voice, he sounded a little amused or happy too. "Yes, well I wanted to discuss about my client who'll be having trial in your court in a few days. I'm wondering if we could talk about that face to face?" You were a little nervous cause well this guy is kinda intimidating. Though honestly kinda good looking. "Hm. I don't mind. Where'd you like to see eachother?" Where should they even meet honestly this is getting awkward for you. "It's your pick, I just need to discuss something." The top thing on her mind was like at his office in the Dark Star Bureau, but that's still kind of far from your home. "I know there's a restaurant nearby my office. It's called Court of Knights. Would you like to talk there?" He suggested, a weird one too. Why a restaurant of all places to be honest, it's starting to sound like more of a date.. though you did says it's his choice so you can't be picky.

"Sure then, what time are you available?" You were slightly confused and a little flustered, honestly as a lawyer the only thing you've been doing is paperwork and files for cases. You don't have time for things like this, more or less you've been stuck to your desk for months. You got too caught up in your thoughts Gallerian was speaking. "Ah. Sorry can you repeat what you said?" You asked. "I mean I'm okay 6PM this evening or tomorrow. Since the trial will be in a few days. Though may I ask why you want to discuss about it with me?" Gallerian asked, and from his voice he sounded suspicious of you. "That's something to discuss later. I think 6PM today will be better. It gives me time. Thank you and bye" You said in a hurry and put the phone down as fast as you can. You wondered if he actually heard you say bye. You shouldn't have agreed to meeting today. You live maybe a 20 or 30 minute walk away from the Dark Star Bureau, it's also 4PM now...

A while later after getting ready you were wearing a black suit and some shoes (whatever shoes you want since its gn reader) This was going to be awkward. It's 5:03PM, if you're lucky you'll get there before 5:50. You went out the door and sped walked to the restaurant. You arrived there the restaurant at 5:37PM. You've never really went to things like this. Does he even have a reservation the place kind of looked packed with people. Nor do you go out often to eat in restaurants, and don't you have many friends either. You decided to just sit down on a near by bench, and wait for Gallerian.

A few minutes later, you were startled to have someone tap your shoulder. You quickly turned to see who it was, it was Gallerian obviously, he seemed to be wearing the same clothes he wears when he's at court hearings and etc. Just except for that judge coat. A bluish-black vest and a white collared shirt with black pants and shoes. Gallerian chuckled and greeted. "Did I startle you? Forgive me so. [English honorific] [Name]." You shook your head and stood up. "It's fine. How about we head inside and let's talk there." There doesn't seem to be too many people, thank God. What seemed odd for you, Gallerian, seems oddly happy? Or giddy. He wasn't smiling all the time, but there's this feeling that gives off a happy mood front him. You two had a table for two facing eachother, it was a silent from them until Gallerian spoke up. "Anyways. What's the business you plan to bring up." Gallerian then put his elbow on the table and his head leaning on his hand. Honestly, a little rude, putting your elbows on a table is a little disrespectful... you thought he was bored, but he smiled at her. Not with a boring look, more like he's staring or admiring something? Or someone.

"I know this seems bad, but I heard that you take bribes. No way will my friend will even have a chance to have a innocent verdict. This is the only thing I can think of winning this case even by a little." You tried saying in a hushed tone, but you seemed completely serious. Gallerian sat up properly and covered his mouth with one hand. From his eyes you could tell her was grinning, this honestly was a little weird. He put his hand down and there was evil grin. "I see. Well, by tomorrow or the day after, 1 million Ev will be deposited to me and after the Innocent verdict another 1 million Ev." You was surprised he agreed and she seemed really surprised and glad. "It'll be done by tomorrow. Thank you so much." You we're glad he accepted. "I think what I'm supposed to do here is done.. so." You tried to stand up until Gallerian said something. "Oh? You're leaving already? Honestly, I thought were going to have dinner too." When he said that your face can't help but turn a little red and you stayed in place. "Sure? I don't mind." You spoke, okay this looks too much like a date now.

After you both ordered, you and Gallerian talked but more or less his voice went through one ear and came out the other. You were honestly just thinking about two things, is this a date? Or is this a date. Yea, same thing. The food soon arrived, lord was it awkward. You didn't talk that much. Until the dinner was over, really awkward talk. The server came over and handed the check, which also was awkward. "Ah, I'll pay for the bill." You tried reaching out for the bill until Gallerian already placed the money on it, before you could grab it. "Hm? Isn't it a little rude if I let you pay?" Gallerian smiled, and you just nodded your head a little hesitantly. Gallerian lowkey seemed hesitant paying himself. What were you even supposed to say to that. "Oh! Thank you either way. See you in the court, sir?" You didn't know what to call him, sooo... "You can just call me, Gallerian outside of court only though." He patted your shoulder, and the two ot you left the restaurant together. "Thank you, once again. I'll be going now, Gallerian." Once again awkward, you were about to walk off until someone grabbed your wrist. "I'm aware this seems out of place... May I walk you home [English Honorific] [Name]?" He looked a little embarrased asking, his cheeks pink. You couldn't help but laugh a little at it, you nodded and you two started walking together back to your house. You two engaged in normal chatting more casual, though what was a different you two were awfully close your hands would accidentally touch eachother often.

"Well.. I've been a lawyer for quite some time, I wou-" You were talking about how long you've been a lawyer and how long Gallerian's been a judge. You were cut off by something sliding into your hand. You stopped walking and so did Gallerian, looking down Gallerian's hands were interlocked with yours. You could feel your cheeks turn red, and you were left speechless. Gallerian's cheeks were red too but he was pretending like nothing was happening. "I think we should hurry to your home, before it gets too dark. Don't you think so?" He gave a small smile, you just nodded and continued walking with him. When you both arrived at the front of your home, he finally let go of your hand as you pulled your house keys from your pocket. "See you in court, Gallerian." You said, for Gallerian instead of responding he took your hand again and brought it up to his lips. "See you in court." He then kissed your hand, Gallerian let your hand go gently and smiled. You were surprised at that, really surprised. You saw him walk away, while you were processing what happended. Gallerian doesn't seem like the gentleman type, the bribery, corruption. Though its as if you didn't bribe him. You unlocked the door and plopped onto the couch, you could just feel your face burning up until now. The whole scenario is burnt into your brain right now. The court session is in two days! How are you going to face him in court like this..

#evillous chronicles #kaito #kaito vocaloid #vocaloid #gallerian marlon #gallerian marlon x reader

[neonscandal]

So excited to know that you also love Link Click...! I watched it first before JJK (I know, still kinda new in thw fandom), so Cheng Xiaoshi/ Lu Guang are special to me. And after 2nd season with that finale, wow, for me it feels like came out of a fanfic. So when I got to know Gojo/ Geto somehow they remind me of Cheng Xiaoshi/ Lu Guang, cause both couples are doomed by the narative....

And what do you think after you finished TGCF? Have you read the novels? Just so you know, it is worth it to collect the books. Their story is that good. Also when you finished it, most likely you'll also have some non-canon fav couples (I have 4 non canon fav couples from TGCF)....And have you watch MDZS or SVSSS?

Sorry for my rambling, MXTX is one of my favorite author ever and I like to talk about their works. (And now I'm still depressed with the latest JJK update and nervous with the BNHA update)......

OMG SEASON TWO FINALE OF LINK CLICK ABSOLUTELY SLAYED ME. Lu Guang, the enigma that you are. This whole time!? What a damn reveal! Just thinking about it, tbh, I'm gagged. I like to guess at things, obviously, but just never even fathomed.

I don't know if I'd mentioned that before RE: Gojo and Geto but same. It might be on an anime recommendation draft 😅 Like, sure, their character design is an obvious indication but it's really all the anguish bubbling just beneath the surface. And now I need to read all the source material because I'm not sure I can wait for them to animate (even though the animation is just 😘👌🏾

For background on my experience while watching TGCF, there are a lot of cultural/religious things that were completely out of my current realm of understanding re: ascension, conditions/relation of the supernatural beings discussed, etc. but I was still able to really enjoy it without and prompted curiosity to learn more before jumping into the novels. Like, having watched and read media informed by Japanese culture (and growing up on Inuyasha), you understand the idea of youkai, general types and their dispositions, even some religious aspects to practices by priestesses and even everyday people, etc. so it's a little easier to navigate. So getting into Chinese media of a certain time period where those beliefs and practices inform the story was a challenge but it also just kind of opens your eyes to how much you don't know which is exciting. I absolutely want to check out the books because I need to know Xie Lian's whole origin (including his 17th birthday and his parents backstory) and what transpired to have created the delicate soft spot San Lung has for him. I hadn't heard of SVSSS yet but MDZS is on my TBW and I'm wondering if watching it will help clarify my confusion from TGCF or if I should do some research ahead of time so I'm not as lost.

Never apologize, I love when people are inspired and passionate! Lol and makes the conversation I have with you guys feel less one sided (with my disproportionate essay responses haha). 💛 I'm sure I'll post when I start watching/reading any of the above so we can reconvene! I'm currently finishing up Stars Align and, from what I've gathered might need to add this to my TBR to get a satisfactory end to things, too. 😭

I've been running on an empty battery lately so Tumblr's really the only social media platform I've been consistently perusing and posting on (RIP to twitter, insta and tiktok, ig). The upside of this being that I see JJK and BNHA leaks less frequently so I'm out here living in ignorant bliss ✨ So if you're out in these virtual streets, be safe out there, anon!

#neon asks #anon asks #anime #manga #donghua #manhua #danmei #tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven officials blessing #hob #link click

[h3artf3ltint3nt]

☮♦♣☀

Get to know the rper - RP related

-Send me a ☮ for me to describe an amazing rp experience: I don't think any rp experience can beat the one I discussed here

-Send me a ♦ for me to describe a plot that I’ve been wanting to do: oh jeez. There's so many. For Kexin specifically I do have two kind of specific ones. So the first has to do with A-Yao. So I couldn't decide if I wanted her to find out the truth or not before Huaisang revealed it at first but I finally decided that I didn't. Instead I figured it would be interesting for doubts to somewhat creep in but her desperately push those thoughts away because she didn't want to believe it and then everything coming to light and seeing that those doubts were valid. It's painful lol. The other is romance plot with JC (because she's a self insert and I love him lol). In my mind and the fanfic I'm writing they become close friends during the Gusu lectures and discuss the possibility of courting but then Sunshot happens and the rebuilding of Lotus Pier. Once things finally settle and the idea comes up again the stuff with WWX happens and she has a hard time accepting that everyone thinks it's best to get rid of him, which causes strife but eventually they come back around and finally get to lol. This one I know is very very specific xD

-Send me a ♣ for me to describe a favorite rp ship of someone else’s: Hmm. Well I don't focus a lot of other peoples' ships aside from "oh that's cute!" or huh interesting. But I am very invested in my friend's ship of her oc with Billy Hargrove from Stranger Things. Billy becomes a better person because of her and I really enjoy when that's a thing in ships. I also think that @adversitybloomed 's ship with Sizhui is super cute!

Send me a ☀ for me to talk about someone I’ve met through rp: Once again, SO MANY. The majority of my online friends are my friends because of role play. But it would be a disservice to not discuss my first ever online friend for this. In around 2009-2010 I got into the book series Vampire Academy. A year or so before that was when I started role-playing on the internet. My website of choice at the time was something called bebo that no longer exists. Well, one of my rl best friends and I loved Vampire Academy so much that we not only role played two main characters: Rose & Lissa but we also made ocs that were their children and shipped them together. We decided to make bebo accounts for them and one day I found an account that was a daughter of Rose, which would make her my oc's sibling. We started talking and decided to make them twins and my friend also became friends with her. We started talking more and more and eventually my irl friend and I video chatted with her. We had already become friends at the time and that just cemented it. We continued role playing together, coming up with new storylines for our original ocs, as well as role playing in different fandoms together such as Star Wars, Supernatural, Yu-Gi-Oh, Descendants, etc. And I'm talking almost a decade. At one point she and I got into a bit of a disagreement and stopped talking for a little while and I regret it a lot because shortly after we started talking again she unfortunately passed away, in 2019, before I got to meet her in person. I miss her a lot and haven't been able to write in the Vampire Academy verse since.

#pctaldrunk #ooc #long post #rp experience

[sleeplesslionheart]

Although I am wary of wading into Edelgard Discourse, I feel compelled to make a few simple comments that have been on my mind for a while. I’m not going to write a big essay on this right now, though—just a few quick observations.

I’ve noticed that some Edelgard fans have a tendency to dismiss—if not outright eliminate—Edelgard’s character flaws as part of efforts to justify and account for her actions. It appears that this often occurs as a result of ongoing arguments with the so-called “Edelcrits” (i.e. Edelgard’s detractors, from what I have gleaned). There seems to be some habits among these kinds of commentators, then, to respond to criticisms (which, let’s be clear, are very often in bad faith and, therefore…don’t really need to be honored with responses at all) of Edelgard by interpreting and asserting all of her actions as altruistic, caring, or selfless.

However, the effects of these rhetorical maneuvers are not as supportive of Edelgard as their proponents seem to think.

Sadly, they all too frequently whitewash and sanitize her characterization…and not uncommonly in ways that function to recuperate her into conventional, expected, mandated (according to cisheteronormativity) understandings of femininity and of how women are supposed to think and behave. The result is that these defenses of Edelgard portray her (perhaps we could say even tame her) according to safer, more typical understandings of femininity. (And, in fact, my observation is that these kinds of interpretations of Edelgard have been most strongly propagated by male fans…Although the uptake of these analyses certainly exists among her women fans as well).

Even more disappointingly, these kinds of defenses of Edelgard can leave little space for or tolerance of actual, open, nuanced discussions or representations (e.g. in the form of fanfic) of her faults. By which I mean: as someone who adores Edelgard and for whom Edelgard means a great deal, sometimes I feel like I can’t even just…acknowledge that she’s a flawed, complicated human being (or that there are also ways that the game's writing genuinely does her a disservice), because I risk running up against this corner of the fandom’s popular, “canonized” understandings of her as being Always Right, Never Wrong. And that bums me out!

However…Edelgard is rad, but she’s also flawed. And we could have plenty of discussions about those flaws from numerous angles—whether blunders and shortcomings in the game’s writing, or as faults that add roundness and nuance to Edelgard as a messy human being (and both of those things are possible). The potency of Edelgard as a character and, importantly, as a representation of femininity is that she IS flawed, and in ways that can subvert traditional media portrayals of women. That is, in essence, why I have Feelings about this, and why I want to raise concerns about these trends. I think it’s a bummer that we can’t seem to just embrace Edelgard as an imperfect woman (often, it seems, ‘cause we gotta worry too much about what “the Edelcrits” are saying). Edelgard doesn’t need a redemption narrative—whether in the game or from her fans (especially the male ones).

In short: y’all, please let Edelgard be a flawed human being. And don’t let your arguing with “the Edelcrits” lead you to over-determine who she is as a perpetual response to bad faith claims…Especially when that over-determination leads to justifications that just wind up “safely” feminizing her.

(I’ll conclude by pointing out one other thing, though I’m not gonna unpack it right now: I believe that these trends are also related to reductive, oversimplified understandings of trauma that are rampant in the fandom, with attendant issues pertaining to the whitewashing of trauma as well. Maybe I’ll comment on this more sometime, but not right now.)

#edelgard von hresvelg #fire emblem three houses

[iamafanofcartoons]

Adam Taurus is a classic example of 

"I hate this character who's kind of an ***hole way more than I hate the actually evil villain" 

 Except this time both characters are the same guy.

Most people have probably not met a terrorist freedom fighter irl, so those crimes are like completely detached from reality for them.

On the flip side tho, almost everyone knows some possessive creepy dude who feels entitled to the women he dates, so it's a much more relatable level of evil.

Also?

Sienna was very clear about not liking the whole plan with Beacon, dividing the world, and all that bad stuff. 

Not to mention the whole "making faunus look like violent murderers" deal he had going on, which he tried to pass off as being inspired by Sienna's "Mess with one faunus, and you mess with all of us" approach.

You should see how some people tried to “fix” sienna khan.

Yeah, This is why I do not like fixit fanfics. They don’t get that edgelord = ***hole AND villain.

The fact that people were talking about him getting a redemption arc back when he was a mass murder who killed innocent people but said he deserved to die when he became an angry incel stalker…

I don’t get people.

A misguided Freedom Fighter wouldn't go out of their way to get civilians killed and that is exactly what Adam did in his introduction. We've got to remember that the only reason given for him not wanting to remove the civilians off of the train, is that he didn't want to.

This is even worse when we consider real life terrorist groups like the IRA who in the past had tremendous public support because they went out of their way to minimize civilian casualties! 

This means that not only did Adam not have a reason to not rescue those civilians, he actually had an incentive to do so but he just decided that he didn't want to!

But for the sake of discussion let's assume that the crew is made up of humans and this is something that Adam knows... why should that matter? These are civilian non-combatants and there is nothing to suggest that they couldn't rescue these people.  Adam simply chooses not to despite how doing so could only help the cause.

How then can Adam be a freedom fighter if he allows innocent civilians to die for no reason other than personal satisfaction?

Let's imagine for a second that the day Adam first joined the White Fang he walked up to Ghira (a pacifist) and declared that he has no interest in equality, what he really wants is enslave Humanity and kill a bunch of them along the way to Supremacy... what do you think would happen?

The obvious answer is that they would immediately kick him out of the group, Adam has to lie and hide who he really is if he wants to advance his goal. That doesn't mean that his character is contradictory, it just means that there's a layer of deception to how he presents himself. He is wearing a metaphorical mask and the show uses the introduction to lift up that mask and gives us a very quick peek of the Man underneath it.

“But Adam said in V3 about revolution?”

Think about it, if he really didn't want his men dying for a human cause then why didn't he run away? He had the perfect opportunity to do so after Cinder showed up as a student since she and her crew can't be at Beacon and Mt Glenn at the same time. And then of course we cannot forget the chaos following The Breach which would have also provided him the perfect exit but what did he do instead?

“Will your men still be willing to work with us? A lot of the White Fang died in the tunnels”-Cinder

“No, but they’ll listen to me”-Adam

Instead of fleeing when he had the chance, he approached Cinder and offered to continue the partnership. If she was someone who truly cared about equality then this would make absolutely no sense since attacking innocent civilians with the Grimm would have not helped with that goal, it would have actually made things worse between the two races. But if his actual goal is a race war... then it all makes sense.

It wasn’t about the cause, it was about getting back at those who wronged him. And Blake’s been “wronging” him the most lately, hence the obsessive stalking.

“But what about Cinder forcing Adam to cooperate?”

There's a lot of people under the impression that the Huntsman way of life is different from a civilian's. Sure, the nature of the mindsets are different but the basic principles are close to identical.

If a mugger points a gun at a civilian's face, the dude does what he's told if he doesn't want to be shot. If a Huntsman is borne down on by a Huntress who has an insurmountable amount of killing power available in comparison to them?

Adam was playing along 'cause he don't want to be smoked, sure, but it does help that what he's asked to do makes humans wake the frick up in fear...

True he didn’t want to do mostly because it was a human idea. He doesn’t mind attacking humans but he wasn’t really aiming for beacon until cinder pointed him that way.

Tbf, one is Adam being an edgy terrorist, the other is Adam being an edgy incel.

It's like edgy icing on edgy cake.

#adam taurus #rwby fnki #fnki #rwby memes #rwby character analysis #celtic phoenix #fix it fanfics #rwby #rwby adam #rwby v2 #rwby volume 2 #rwby volume 3 #rwby v3 #iamafanofcartoons

[thiscomicruinedmylife]

Question: Who would be a character you like/love the most or most identify with? appreciate all you do for this tiny fandom! :>

First of all, thanks!!! Just humbly reposting stuff and discuss whatever people want to discuss :) Second of all, that’s a good question!

Can’t say I wholly identify with anyone, but I do relate to a deadpan look and kind of please-leave-me-alone attitude both Gretchen and Aton are giving, since irl I have a severe case of resting bitch face and on top of that I’m introverted as shit.

As of the character I like/love… wooo boy, where do I even start… I'm gonna ramble for a bit, so please bear with me here. My absolute faves are Tim and Astaroth Matauzier and let me explain why.

Short and simple, I always like funny pathetic losers who get their asses kicked (just look at some of my other faves).

And wow does Astaroth get his ass (nose) kicked a lot.

Doesn’t help that his human counterpart Tim is poor little meow meow, who’s also getting his ass kicked, but in this instance I just feel sympathy for him, cause here it’s absolutely undeserved.

And for the long reason why I like them… I like the creative potential they have. Not in a sense of development, but the whole concept.

So Tim was supposed to be only that – Tim. But he’s been literally split into two characters since his birth and I kinda can’t treat them like a single one. At least not fully. They were two different people for 14 ass years, how can you unify that and not have some bumps in the road so to speak. Just this fraction is already fascinating enough, how can a person grapple with being two? Two set of beliefs, two set of memories, two behavioral patterns. Top notch angst/psychology fanfic material amirite or amirite.

But it doesn’t stop there! They were presented like two separate characters and then Francis dumps this infobomb on us that Tim and Astaroth's been one person all along, which is… fine, I could run with that, but his explanation doesn’t make sense?

He claims you can’t see Tim and Astaroth at the same place at once, which implies he’s been switching between two of his personalities and teleporting between the human/park world. And then in literally a few panels he says there were two bodies he jumped between. Huh???

Also this weird line.

So which one is it? Was there a single body or was there two? I'd say it's an important difference. Either you have a teleporting dude with split personality disorder or you have one brain shared between twins.

I know this could be a translational issue, but some of native French speakers can’t understand Francis’ explanation either??? HUH?????

Yeah, I also can't for the life of me understand how no one noticed a child constantly disappearing out of thin air for 14 years straight. This weird discrepancy is what makes it so interesting though. My friends and I spent hours discussing, guessing and straight up headcanoning how this child works.

Obviously headcanon territory here, but we came up with “there were two bodies with shared but split consciousness; when one body was active, the second one was sleeping or dissociating or being awake but severely absentminded”. That way he won't disappear randomly and school bullies will have reasons to pick on him. And we headcanoned that when they've become one they were having conversations in their unified head and fought for the driver's seat, which could potentially be either funny or tragic, your choice.

If you survived this long ass ramble/rant congratulations and sorry it took so long :D But I do love this stupid child-who-became-office-rat and he absolutely lives rent free in my head.

fanart by @martapreliy 

#zombillenium #zombillénium #ask response #text post #headcanons #comic panels #fanart #tim matauzier #astaroth matauzier #gretchen webb #aton noudjemet

[boethiah]

Sotha sil for the character ask thing to complete the trio (Also your mortal!ayem fic sounds so cool! And would you mind sharing some of those Almalexia themed writing prompts? I love the way you characterise her and the whole tribunal)

plugging this first bc i'm planning to post the first new chapter in several years this week: gratuitous almalexia backstory fanfic. almalexia-themed writing prompts will be at the end but first let's discuss sotha sil

First impression

he was actually my favorite tribunal member at first when i was 18 and new to the fandom :')

Impression now

eso sotha sil isn't real. eso sotha sil isn't canon and eso sotha sil can[t hurt me

Favorite moment

the only canonical eso sotha sil moment i'll acknowledge which is the one where he got kicked out of almalexia's basement and had to move into a nearby cave

Idea for a story

if i ever finish rolecall (a fic about the tribunal post-nerevar's death and pre-ascension) i plan to write out the conversation sotha sil had with almalexia and vivec when he returned and revealed he'd learned how to use kagrenac's tools. which-- hang on this is actually an unpopular opinion let me move onto the next question

Unpopular opinion

most of the fandom seems to have this idea that sotha sil is somehow less guilty than almalexia and vivec in the betrayal of nerevar, when in reality i actually see him as MORE guilty. sotha sil was the only one who knew how to use the tools of kagrenac. almalexia and vivec may have murdered nerevar or agreed to break their oath but they never could have achieved godhood without sotha sil. so it seems like there's this weird belief that sotha sil is the only remorseful tribune or the only one not to blame, but-- he is the ONLY one of them who actually knew how to use the tools. he had the EXCLUSIVE power to make that happen. including almalexia and vivec was mere kindness on his part. the only canonical part of the betrayal we're certain of, the breaking of the oath, is entirely on him.

Favorite relationship

once again it has got to be the tribunal here. but specifically i'm obsessed with his relationship with almalexia-- the fact that they were apparently childhood friends, the fact that he was apparently scared of her, the fact that he remained so close to her throughout his entire life and godhood. i think they were very codependent; they both went through so much shit as mortals i think they just latched onto each other in a bad way, and sotha sil at least knew it would end with one of them dead at the other's hands.

also, fa-nuit-hen seems to have a crush on him? good for sotha sil with whatever hijinks precipitated THAT

Favorite headcanon

that he was disabled and had prosthetic legs as a mortal. in my mind his being disabled influenced both his interest in technology and his extreme desire to make things better for people. related; that his chief character flaw is that he cares too much about people and is driven by empathy to the point where it can overwhelm him and shut him down, hence his repeated chronic retreating from the world

free almalexia story ideas under the cut:

okay so here's just a random list of stuff i've been meaning to write about almalexia that i'll probably never get around to so consider it free game. in no particular order:

the story of almalexia's involvement in resurrecting wulfharth during the akaviri war, and whatever the hell her involvement was there

a conversation between almalexia and heita-meen negotiating the end to argonian slavery, and almalexia's subsequent personal involvement in making that happen

just. almalexia being a war-leader. almalexia showing up in battles to just destroy things. almalexia planning out wars. almalexia scaring the shit out of people who might cause trouble for the dunmer.

relatedly-- mortal almalexia serving as nerevar's general, offering her expertise on the nords to plan battles

the world could always use more nerevar/almalexia stuff ngl. big fan of fics where almalexia gets to scold nerevar for being stupid about something.

a fic about almalexia and nerevar just being like, way too comptitive over a chess game or something. to the point of probable violence

a fic about almalexia talking to nerevar's shrine/grave during the time of the nerevarine prophecy, while getting ready to try and murder his supposed reincarnation

and of course

the conversation in which almalexia kicked sotha sil out of her basement, forcing him to relocate to a nearby cave

[flock-of-cassowaries]

I’m having a deep think right now about the overlaps and the differences between the appeal of fascism, and that of libertarianism.

On one level, this is because I am writing a Sucession fanfic, and trying to get into Roman’s head.

But on another level only reason I’m even writing Succession fanfiction is that I identify with Roman, and that is in large part because he is a queer person who is philosophically in the thrall of his terrifying conservative father, whose love he desperately craves.

And once upon a time, that used to be me. And I feel deep and abiding shame about that.

(Not the sexy kind of shame. The devastating kind.)

But as I delve into philosophical discussions of fascism and conservatism (and honestly, I have not yet delved the deeply), I’m starting to realize that maybe I have less in common with Roman, and more with Connor (if we leave out his weird S3 white-nationalism dog whistles about the evils of onanism).

I’m basing a lot of this on the first chapter – which is all I have read so far - of “The Reactionary Mind” by Corey Robin; which I came upon via the source list for the linked YouTube video.

[link to “Endnote 2: White Fascism” by Innuendo Studios, on YouTube.]

Robin (if I’m understanding him correctly) posits that the end goal of conservatism is fundamentally Fishstick fascistic, and that the real animus driving political conservative movements is always the desire of the privileged to remain above those the existing social order oppresses.

I have certainly voted for, and carried water for, conservatives (a fact of which I am, again, deeply ashamed), but I don’t think that was ever the real appeal for me.

I’m not saying I didn’t internalize beliefs that were (I now realize) racist, classist, ableist, and elitist; but I don’t think that was ever the main draw, so much as a side effect of reading the goddamn National Post every fucking day

But for me, I think the main appeal of conservatism was the illusory promise of total self-sufficiency, and of being impossible to further hurt. It was the libertarian lie, bound up in the same nihilistic appeal as the Nine Inch Nails song whose hook is “Nothing can stop me now, cause I don’t care anymore.” (‘Piggy’ is the song.)

In this respect, I think I had more in common with Connor; I was also the discarded child who grew up to think of themself as “a flower that grows on rocks and feeds on the insect that land inside of it.”

Honestly, that soliloquy (from S4E2) could’ve been me at thirteen.

I felt rejected and shunned by the world, but I was also rapidly becoming aware that I could use my looks and intelligence as currency (just a Connor uses his literal currency as currency).

It was only when I was 21, and ended a long relationship, and found myself with no one to turn to, and no idea who I was, that my father swooped in to be my new best friend; and that’s when I became more Roman-like in my fawning attempts to appeal to him.

But I think Roman truly believes that his father is better than him, whereas a much more significant part of me always knew my own dad was a false prophet.

I think the world reaffirmed this belief in Roman, because his father has been so successful, and I think his father, concerned with legacy, has been much more active in fostering this mythology than my own father was.

(My dad would tend to just willfully ignore that l existed for several years at a stretch, if I was acting too cringe [i.e. not stereotypically conservative-lady feminine enough] for his conservative sensibilities; something I am assuming that Shiv could probably relate to.

The scene where Logan tells her he wants her back in the fold was very similar to what my father did with me when I was 21, and I glowed just the same way she did.)

But yeah, I think an internalized belief on Roman’s part that his father truly is better than him, and a desire to “be as good” as his father in order to redeem himself and overcome this inadequacy in his person, really feeds into Roman’s affinity for fascism / conservatism.

And I think that belief structure is with him in that bathroom with Mencken, unacknowledged and subconscious, and even more insidious than his conscious priorities of wanting to win points with Logan, and maaaaaybe wanting to be pushed to his knees and have a fascist phallus (a fascllus? I’m going to hell) thrust upon him.

Anyway, if anyone ever reads this, feel free to suggest some books / essays / videos to my reading list.

So far, in addition to the above-mentioned Cory Robbins tome, I am planning to actually finish “The Ur-Fascist” by Umberto Ecco, and to at least dip into “The Dialectic of Enlightenment” by Horkheimer and Adorno, and “The Authoritarian Personality” by Adorno.

#succession #succession fanfic #succession fanfiction #roman roy #connor roy #roman roy character analysis #connor roy character analysis #succession themes #politics in succession #libertarianism in succession #fascism in succession #libertarianism vs fascism #the reactionary mind #corey robin #overthinking succession #long rambling essay #jeryd mencken #logan roy #Youtube

[harl3quinharl0t]

The Cavalcadium Update

Hello, sorry that this is not any nsfw works, but, I want to say something and this is the account I choose to do it on since out of all my accounts, it gains the most attention from SPG fans.

TW: M*ke and St*ve, you know which ones under that alias..and of course, spg related issues I have seen and discussed with mutuals enough to make my own post.

You may disagree with me, and that is fine. This is my own voice and opinion based on Mr. Bennett's attitude with this.

Please note, this is just a rant, if you happen to catch this and are underage, just read the rant and do not interact with my blog!!

In my opinion, the new rule update could have been fine on its own, I know it's their server so they can discuss whatever they want however they want, but I found the ramble that was included after to be unnecessary.

"Well I mean, I guess it's not like it's the end of the world to see these two peoples names or faces or something." Sure, maybe for not most people, but I am glad people still censor their persons so people who actually get anxious about them, let's say I don't know, the victims, they can let out a sigh of relief not seeing them.

The reason people may be bothered is because fans probably still enjoy them and are willing to post them without giving regards to their problematic stage of their career. Hopefully they spoil them. The reason I bring this up is because the "Favorite SPG photos thread." People post their favorite photos, and they tend to include the unnamed two and Rabbit/Isabella pre-transition, which can feel gross or 'icky' as to how I put it, basically saying "I liked the moments where possibly these people were in it, or where this woman before she discovered herself."

This is just how I see it, and how possibly others see it, my apologies if I am not wording it correctly.

"I literally have to write their names on checks every month for royalties and stuff."

A mutual of mine pointed out that David is trying to sound like a victim in some way here, and I agree. "I see their faces in past albums and whatnot." I'm sure you do, but I bet you the victims have to see/hear their names as well, maybe less or more than you. I don't know how to describe the words I wish to say next, but I will state it as this.

You are not the one they have damaged. You were not the fan they had decided to abuse. You worked with them, and if I am not mistaken, have let their behavior slide just because you mistook the hatred towards St*ve as racism.

"This ain't about giving in to overly sensitive people."

What if it was one of the victims who had brought up their grievances with you about fellow fans posting about St*ve and M*ke? Would you still call them 'overly sensitive'?

"Those two members did some pretty shitty stuff," You don't say? my, of course they did, the lovely account @bannedtogether explains what they have done (sorry to tag you guys by the way, but you explain well and make the voices of the victims heard). I wouldn't in simple terms say "pretty shitty." I would say disgusting, vile maybe, but you place it in a half-wrapped present, with a bow ontop of that sentence that kind of brushes off what they did in that tone. You phrase it as if they just stole money from fans, but they had indeed done more.

This pretty much speaks for itself, don't you agree? What do/must I say about this part that already doesn't speak for itself? You treat this like a joke, Mr. Bennett. Why do I say this? As you say, 'cause I am also petty'. Thank you for listening to this rant. Your regularly schedules fanfics shall be back up on Wednesday, April 26th.

#M*chael R*ed #St*ve N*grete #Michael David Bennett #treated this request like a joke #i see why people have hate blogs about spg now #please read @/bannedtogether's posts to learn ab the victims and get educated #spg should be renamed to sick petty garbage/j #if people get mad at me slash making this post known to the band #i do not care anymore #the cav has had problems with moderation anyway #like david admitting he didnt bother moderating the health channel and deleted it because he just didnt bother with it at all #come at me with torches and pitchforks people #i dont care anYMORE #steam powered rant

[fenmere]

Sunspot Coffee and Tea

Against our promise to avoid writing for a bit while recovering from a minor burnout, I wrote something here tonight. It might have been therapeutic to do so, honestly.

It's a coffee shop AU self insert crossover fanfic of Wildow's Otherverse and the Sunspot Chronicles, titled "Sunspot Coffee and Tea". It takes place on this Earth, though. Descriptions of Others, Practicioners, Aware, and the Seal are from the work of Wildbow, A.K.A. John C. McCrae, and belong to him. We reference them here with love, and no intentions to make any profit from them, even if we stretch their intended canonical possibilities a bit. References to everything else not of this Earth, including Ktletaccete, beshakete, and `etekeyerrinwuf, are of the Sunspot Chronicles and belong to us, the Inmara. All the characters are headmates and therefore real people.

The Black Drop was a real coffee shop that was really like that, and we miss it. A lot.

We'll probably put this up on AO3 later. No warnings are necessary for this fic. It's 6093 words, light, hopefully cute, and totally self indulgent:

In Tanasbourne, Hillsboro, Oregon, in one of the strip malls there, there used to be an Insomnia Cafe next to a brewpub.

It’s still a cafe. Of a sorts. It was bought out a couple years ago, however, and has a new name. It’s called Sunspot Coffee and Tea.

There are some interesting things about this cafe, not the least of which is that they don’t accept money. How they manage to stay functioning without actually doing business is a total mystery to all of their neighbors and patrons, but if you want any sort of drink or pastry there, all you have to do is walk up to the counter and ask for it. Of course, the pastries have to be available, and it’s first come first serve for them. But they produce them quickly enough that if they’re out of something, you just have to wait thirty minutes or so. At most.

Before it became the Sunspot, it was like most cafes of its sort, especially in that neighborhood, attracting working class people who had at least some decent income. And that part of Tanasbourne wasn’t really known for being accessible to the less fortunate.

However, after it became known what their new mode of “business” was, people in need would take the MAX and the bus from all around to get a free meal, and they were quite welcome.

The clientele changed quite quickly, and this created something of a controversy in the neighborhood. Theories sprang up and circulated when efforts to bring the law down on them failed utterly. Stories about the mafia, or even more unbelievable things. One of the stories is true.

Eventually, things settled down, and everyone got used to the new culture and routines that the Sunspot brought to Tanasbourne.

I happen to know exactly how that all played out and why, but I’m not telling. I’ve taken oaths. I’ll give you hints in this story, though, because I think I can get away with it, and it’s kinda fun.

In any case, it was under these circumstances in that cafe that I got to watch a connection made that I had never expected to see. One that may well lead to the kind of quiet, sweet partnership that causes the world to glow just a little brighter at the ambient level, without most people quite knowing the source.

Of course, it started during a day when Eh, our boss and Senior Captain, was working the counter.

I was sitting at a table with Gesedege and Gnargrim, enjoying a round of Brekken’s tea while slowly discussing the intersections of public relations and security for the shop. Which is to say that we mostly sat, quiet, watching steam rise from our drinks, looking around at the guests and just soaking up the joy of seeing people rest who might not otherwise get to. And then, occasionally, one of us would take a sip or say a word or two, and the other two would nod or take sips as well.

And a new person walked in. Someone we’d never seen before. And I could tell by the way they entered the shop, they hadn’t yet heard about who and what we were. They hadn’t got the story yet. They probably thought this was a typical coffee shop.

They put on a double layer of masks before entering, which was good. Largely unnecessary in the Sunspot, but with covid still running rampant in the rest of the world, despite all the propaganda suggesting otherwise, their N95 disposable under a metallic hot pink mermaid print etsy number was a really wise idea. And it certainly put most of our guests at ease, even though they weren’t wearing masks anymore themselves.

But there were some smirks as this person reached into the pocket of their navy blue sleeveless cloak to pull out their card purse as they navigated through the tables and easy chairs to the counter. The long, black feather in their wide brimmed black wool hat bobbed as they went, boots squeaking on the wood floor.

Eh smiled as they looked up from a drink they were preparing for someone else.

And it was at that eye contact that the person realized they’d walked into something different.

They probably hadn’t noticed the lack of a cash register or POS yet. They’d obviously missed the appearance of me and my compatriots, since they’d been absorbed in arranging their garments and fishing out their method of payment, and had glanced at the other guests. They’d just happened to look the other way as they passed our corner, which was right near the door.

If they’d seen us, they might have had the same reaction they were having at the sight of Eh.

Eh is tall. They tend to keep their height low enough that they don’t have to crouch while in the building, but their antlers will just miss scratching the ceiling when they straighten up from a task like decorating a mocha. Their tail has a tendency to fill the walkway from the kitchen to the front counter, and their wings will block the view of the front from the rest of the staff who are in the back. And through clever programming, they’ve managed to turn the outer skin of their body into a satiny dark purple that seems to be full of stars and nebulae and is somehow constantly rim lit, regardless of the actual lighting of their surroundings.

Most human beings, upon seeing that vision, will later describe it as having been like walking right into VRChat. Only, I’ve logged into VRChat, and nobody has yet been able to create an avatar of that detail and refinement.

“How may I help you?” Eh asked.

The newcomer looked around, clearly startled and worried, and caught the vision of Gnargrim, Gesedege, and myself holding our tea cups up in greeting.

If you look at my tumblr icon, you’ll know what I look like. I’m slightly smaller than Eh, and like to sit in my easy chair backward, resting arms and chin on the back. 

Gnargrim, built like a cross between Eh and myself, also uses chairs in a similar way. 

Gesedege, however, has taken to dressing like a human, and will stow their tail away in order to sit in a chair. But their muzzle, parabolic ears, and pair of horns tend to give away their origins as easily as Eh’s countenance.

Most new people at this point tend to freeze and gape, and it takes a certain amount of talking and coaching from the other guests to get them to relax and start to feel at home.

This person, however, scowled, brows knitting together above their mask, eyes squinting. They reached into their cloak to where a metal handled antique cane was hooked into an inside pocket and pulled it out with their right hand, clapping its point to the floor.

Gnargrim raised an eyebrow my direction.

We hadn’t seen this reaction before at all.

They whirled to speak to Eh, and asked, “Are we in the presence of Aware?” They lightly gestured at the other guests.

Eh opened their mouth for a moment, tongue and teeth glowing, pausing to think, before speaking, “Everyone here is aware of who we are, yes.”

The newcomer relaxed and bowed their head, then looked up and spoke more softly, “I’m sorry. My name is Anne. She/her. I’ve just moved down here from Washington, and didn’t realize a place like this was here. The Lord of Portland made no mention of the Sunspot, of course, but nobody else did either. I would have thought it would be recommended or warned about. Am I welcome here?”

Eh tilted their head, “Lord of Portland?”

Anne took a step back, and said, “Asterix. Right?”

Eh shook their head lightly, “I have never heard of them.”

“Him. How?” Anne corrected, then asked, tense. Then she shook herself out and stammered, “Sorry! Sorry. Please pardon my rudeness and short language. This feels like a very unusual situation and I’m finding it hard to mask.”

“You are wearing one,” Eh pointed out.

Anne looked around, then back at Eh and said, “I’m the only one here wearing one. Do you have a ward of protection up against pathogens?”

“You… could put it that way,” Eh said. “The air is heavily filtered and everyone here is personally protected with our technology. It should be safe for you to remove your mask here. If you wish to have your own personal protection, you’ll have to give us your consent to give it to you. It comes with side effects, however. You are also very welcome here. I am assured that this is considered a safe place to be, even though I have never heard of Asterix or a Lord of Portland.”

Anne hesitated midway through taking her hat off to remove her masks, then decided to proceed. Her long brown hair had a freshly trimmed sidecut, and her face was covered with a fine layer of stubble. Like many people in the Pacific Northwest, she didn’t wear any makeup, but she had earrings and an eyebrow piercing. Her glasses had little dragons sculpted into the sides of the rims. 

She smiled hopefully as she put her masks into her pockets, cane hooked into the crook of her arm as she worked.

“Can I order a coffee?” Anne asked.

“You may have one,” Eh said. “I’d be more than happy to make it for you.”

Anne paused again, blinking, then asked, “How much is it?”

Eh smiled, “It is free to anyone who asks.”

“Even a twelve ounce decaf mocha?” Anne asked, gesturing at the drink that Eh had just finished up.

Eh nodded and said, “Yes. Even that.” Then they looked across the cafe and called the name, “Maxwell?”

A man in an orange knit skull cap and a blue puffy jacket got up from his seat and wandered over to get his drink, thanking Eh and nodding to Anne before sitting down again. Anne’s eye followed the checkered handkerchief that hung from Maxwell’s left back pocket. She didn’t seem to have any strong emotional reaction. It seemed like a reflexive look followed but a decision to be satisfied with it.

Then she looked at the line of big pride flags along the wall, and smiled back at Maxwell, nodding.

“OK. Please let me know if anything is expected from me. I’d like to be a good guest,” Anne said. “I would very much like to have a decaff twelve ounce mocha, with no whip cream. And, do you have pastries?”

Eh nodded, then gestured to the case to Anne’s left, which held all the available pastries.

Anne bent to look, leaning on her cane.

“Are those cheese danishes?” she asked.

“They are!” Eh replied.

“I’d like one of those.”

“Certainly!” As Eh began to work on Anne’s mocha, they reached over with a foot and slid the back door of the case open. And then they did one of our little tricks, turning their extended hind limb into a tendril with a hand on the end of it and used it to select one of the danishes and pull it out of the case to put on a plate.

Anne watched this with an intense curiosity, completely unalarmed.

It was obvious that the other guests who were still watching were impressed with her reactions, but they also largely started to turn their attention away. To them, she might as well have been a regular at that point.

Not to us, though. She was behaving somewhat strangely. She was speaking of things that were established to her, such as the Lord of Portland, that we knew nothing about. I could see in Eh’s eyes that they were avidly intent on learning more. And I made a note to ask Morde to look into it if Eh did not.

It looked like Anne was about to ask another question when Eh beat her to the punch, “So, what brings you to Tannasbourne?”

“Ah, my girlfriend,” Anne said. “I’ve moved in with her.”

“Oh! Wonderful!” Eh said.

“Of course, what with Practice and the Seal, now I’ve got business here, too,” Anne said, a little less brightly, in a humorously onerous tone as if Eh should know what that meant.

Eh nodded absently but didn’t say anything, letting Anne think what she might think for the moment.

“How long have you been here?” Anne asked. There wasn’t anyone behind her, so she felt like she could stand and chat.

Which suited Eh just fine. Eh replied, “We arrived about eight years ago, and set up shop two years ago, after the pandemic hit the cafe that was here particularly hard.”

“And, if you don’t mind me asking again, you don’t know the Lord of Portland?” Anne asked. “How is that?”

“Well,” Eh said amiably. “We didn’t know that there was one, to begin with, if you’re really not talking about the Mayor.”

“I’m really not,” Anne said. “That’s kind of amazing.”

“Is he kind of like Emperor Norton?” Eh asked, referring to Joshua Abraham Norton of San Francisco, who had declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859. We knew about him from one of our regulars.

Anne turned her head sideways slowly and drawled out, “nooooo? Not really. Though, I think Emperor Norton might have been a Practitioner.” She said that with an emphasis that gave me visions of both italics and a capital letter. “Asterix is an Animus,” she explained. “A surprisingly strong one, too, for his origins.”

“An Animus?” Eh asked, clearly dawdling on Anne’s drink to maintain the excuse to do something while talking.

Anne didn’t seem to mind, but she did sway side to side on her feet a bit, still leaning on her cane. I had to admit, even though her back was turned to me I was still watching her expressions via our surveillance channel. Really Gnargrim’s job, but I was very curious about her. As were we all. She looked like she was trying to concentrate. Not frustrated, but maybe confused.

I’ve been studying human expression pretty avidly, so I’m fairly confident about that. But I could have been wrong.

“An Animus,” Anne confirmed. “You know. An Other that is a manifestation of an idea or common emotion?”

“Oh!” Eh exclaimed, stirring chocolate into the shot before pouring the foamed milk into the cup. “We do know one of those, but it didn’t follow us here. It was afraid there might be others like it, and it didn’t want to encroach.”

“OK, so you do know what a Lord is?”

“No,” Eh said. “We really don’t.”

“But, you’re Other and you know what an Animus is, and you’re here.”

Eh held up a claw with one hand, and the milk pitcher in the other, “I am friends with a thing that can be described by your definition of Animus, yes. But that’s not our word for it, though. And I’m not sure what you mean by ‘Other’. That sounded like it had a weight to it and a context that I don’t know about.”

“But you’re not human,” Anne said.

Eh shook their head, then began to pour the milk into Anne’s cup.

“So you must be Other,” she concluded.

“So,” Eh carefully waved the pitcher to create a rosette on the top of mocha. “Other, in this context, means not human? Such as an alien, yes? I’m assuming you wouldn’t call a cat or a bird an Other.” Eh was managing to verbally put that capital letter on that word, just like Anne had been doing.

“No?” Anne said cautiously, putting a question to it in uncertainty. Then she asked more firmly, “What do you mean by ‘alien’?”

Eh glanced at Maxwell with a bit of a smirk, and said, “You know, like in 3rd Rock from the Sun.” We’d all watched that show on recommendation from our eldest regular.

Anne straightened up and did the backward step again, blinking.

Eh offered her her drink.

She squinted at them long and hard, then turned to my trio and did the same to us. I noticed that her pupils glowed a bright pink. Which is not something I’ve seen outside of our own Network before.

“You’re not Other,” she muttered.

“We’re not?” Eh asked.

“You don’t look like Others through my sight,” she replied.

“Interesting.”

“So, you’re aliens? Is that what you meant by ‘arrive’?” she asked.

“Ktletaccete,” Eh said. “Our word for aliens is ‘beshakete’, or Outsiders. And to you, we are Outsiders, yes. But we call ourselves Ktletaccete. It’s fascinating that you don’t detect us as Other, though. What does that mean, exactly?”

“You all have strong Selves like humans typically do. The spirits react to you as if you do, and you might be able to Practice, if you’re not doing it already,” Anne said. “You absolutely don’t resemble any of the Others I know about. My sight is particularly attuned to that kind of thing.”

Several of the guests were paying attention again.

“I think I need to sit down,” Anne said. “But, can we keep talking?”

Eh nodded, saying “Certainly.” And then commanded a chair to form from one of the bins, graphene colored clay crawling out of what people often took for a trash receptacle and slithering across the floor to shape itself into a seat particularly suited to Anne’s height and shape. Eh gestured at it.

Anne watched this and then pointed at the chair, stating, “That’s not Practice.”

“Ninite clay,” Eh said. “It’s part of how we got here.”

Anne experimentally sat down in the chair, and then looked surprised at how comfortable it was. It molded itself to her body and adjusted itself to her needs as best it could without the neural link.

Watching, Eh said, “The nanites are also how we provide protection against pathogens for those who consent.”

“Can they replicate?” she asked, with a tone of nervousness in her voice, moving as if considering standing up again.

“Yes,” Eh said. “But not without explicit command.”

“I thought that wasn’t possible!” Anne exclaimed. “I remember reading on Wikipedia…”

“The prevailing theory is that our Animus helped us make them,” Eh said. “If it is an Animus.”

“Oh.”

“Can you tell me what you mean by ‘Practice’?”

Anne took a sip of her mocha and raised her eyebrows in appreciation, “Magic. Through vows to keep true to one's word and uphold the old pacts, humanity can command the spirits to do work. Move energies. Alter reality a bit. Summon Others. Travel places. That sort of thing. Magic.” Then she looked startled with herself, and looked back fearfully at the other guests.

Maxwell grinned and waved back at her.

“Wait,” she hissed, turning back to Eh. “If you’re aliens and you don’t know about Others and the Practice and all that, then, what about everyone else here? Are they all aliens too? In disguise? Please tell me they are.”

“No, sorry. We cater to humans,” Eh said.

“Oh, shit,” Anne said, looking up at the corners of the room.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I just said a whole lot of too much,” she shrank into her seat with dread.

Eh settled onto their haunches and leaned on the counter with their elbows, lowering their head with deference and concern, “That sounds bad. What are the consequences? Can we help somehow?”

Anne glanced at the other guests again, most of whom were now watching with various looks of surprise, concern, and enlightenment. Some of them were clearly putting two and two together for the first time regarding things we still had no clue about. Others seemed to be familiar with what Anne was saying, and maybe displaying concern for her. And the rest might have been hearing about this all for the first time.

Anne slumped and looked down at the floor, “I’m gonna take a big hit. I don’t know that there is anything you can do. I’m responsible for what everyone knows now.”

“Don’t sweat it, Anne,” Maxwell called from his seat. “We all know they’re aliens, right?” He looked around at the rest of the room, and was met with nods. “I don’t think anything you’ve said has really changed any lives here. Except maybe theirs, you know?” He gestured at Eh and the rest of us. “But, I bet you the Kletachitay don’t fall under the protection of the Seal, right?” He pronounced our people’s name with a distinctly West Coast accent. Most people around here did.

She rose slightly out of her seat to turn and look at him.

He nodded solemnly, with an inclination of encouragement, gesturing with his drink. Then, when he was sure she took that sentiment, he turned to relax back down into his own chair.

“It’s probably true,” someone else said.

Anne visibly relaxed and grinned nervously at Eh.

“Tell you what,” Eh said. “If you want to keep having this conversation in private, we can arrange that. If it would be better for you. We have our own secrets. We understand. But I would also like to learn more about this Lord of Portland, and maybe I should meet him at some point?”

Anne nodded.

Eh smiled, “There are a couple of ways we could do this. We do have a back office, which we could use, if you like. Or – well – we don’t really have hours, but it’s usually super quiet around 4 am. Sometimes we don’t have guests here at that time. But that’s not guaranteed. Or, you could consent to a neural terminal, and we could meet over the Network, if that’s not likely to mess with your, uh… You do Practice, right? Would your spirits reject the nanites?”

Anne’s eyes went wide as she took in a breath and held it, looking up at a corner of the room in thought. She looked fearfully back at Eh and said, “I don’t know. I’m kind of afraid to try. Um. Yes, I Practice. Yes. Um.” She glanced around the room again. “Through a bit of a loophole I can tell you about later.”

“A loophole?”

“Later.”

“OK.”

While they were having this part of the discussion, I witnessed yet another thing that was unprecedented to us.

Maxwell gave several of his fellow guests meaningful looks and exchanged nods. Then, some of them got up and spoke very quietly to other guests. And as Anne and Eh negotiated how they might talk in private, the presumably human guests of the Sunspot cafe began to gather their things and file out of the shop. Some of them waved to Eh or to me, Gnargrim, and Gesedege.

Eh looked just as surprised and bewildered as I did, and Anne noticed, so she looked back at the rest of the cafe to see what was happening.

“Don’t worry, Anne,” Maxwell said. “We’ve got your back. We’ll keep as much Innocence as we have left for you. Might come in handy, right?”

Anne looked utterly flabberghasted.

“After all,” he explained. “You’re family.” Then he gestured at the trans pride flag with his paper cup, and smirked.

He tugged the fold of his hat as he passed me, uttering my honorific, “m’Drah.” 

Maxwell’s one of my favorites, but he surprised the hell out of me that day.

Anne stared at the flag for a few seconds then looked at the door closing behind Maxwell’s back, eyes brimming with tears.

“I never thought I’d find a replacement for the Black Drop,” Anne said in the now emptied shop. “I thought that was an era that was gone forever.” She heaved out a couple of silent laughs, shaking her head. “But this place. How do you – ?” She trailed off, apparently unable to complete the question.

Eh brought themself back from their own bewilderment and replied, “We have some secrets we’re not going to divulge to even you. At least, not until our Council can agree to it. It looks like we could convene one right now, though.”

“Let’s go a bit more slowly than that,” Anne said, shakily.

“Sure.”

“Um,” Anne said. “I’m not exactly human, myself. I mean, I’m human enough now that I can Practice. Gaining a human enough Self was… a neat trick. I’m not sure I can explain it without giving you a whole education on the different kinds of Others and how Practice under the Seal works, though. Let’s just say that I’m old enough and experienced enough that I’m absolutely mortified that I was that careless. Bewildered, in fact.”

“Was the Black Drop -” Eh started to ask.

“A coffee shop where I came from,” Anne replied. “They weren’t like this. I knew only a few Others and Practitioners from there, but you couldn’t talk about that stuff in their lobby. You could talk about everything else, though. You could talk openly and loudly about your weirdest special interests, about being plural, or what it meant to you to be queer, and no one would bat an eye. And they called me family the first day I walked in the door, too. We had to chase the occasional bigot out a few times, but it was home in a way that no home ever was, you know?”

“I’ve heard Maxwell say something like that about the Sunspot,” Eh said. “But I don’t really know? I can’t. I can approximate from my own experiences, but I’m not human or Other, as you describe it. I didn’t grow up in this world.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Anne said, finally trying her danish. She gestured with it, “This is phenomenal!”

“Thank you.”

“You really should meet with the Lord of Portland, though,” Anne said. “I think I can arrange that. I’m really surprised he hasn’t reached out to you. Maybe he doesn’t know you’re here for some reason? But he should. By virtue of his station, a place like this should be known to him. Your presence should be felt.”

“Could it be possible that someone we’ve done business with covered that without telling us how it all works?” Eh asked. “Kind of like how we operate here legally?”

“Maybe,” Anne said. “Also, you’re not Others and you’re not Practitioners, so you technically don’t fall under his rule. It’s just that you don’t really belong here, either. How did you get here?”

“Oh, that’s a long story,” Eh said. “But I think I can summarize it intelligibly.”

“I’ll try to understand it,“ Anne said. 

They were both so much more relaxed now, and my Crew mates and I fell still to let them continue talking as if we weren’t even there. Eh never gave any indication we should leave, though, so we did stay and watch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Eh so at ease with anyone before, honestly. I’ve known them through… so many lifetimes. I wondered what was different about Anne. Something was obviously clicking between them now. The speed with which they responded to each other picked up.

“One of our people, with help from `efeje`e, our Animus or whatever it is, figured out how to warp space/time and transport a vessel over hundreds of thousands of lightyears without aging significantly inside it,” Eh said, as if this was nothing more than discovering and developing a new Art. “We let her leave the original Sunspot on her own journey, with a Tunnel aboard so we could keep communication. And she’s been jumping around from star to star, exploring the galaxy since. And she’s been collecting a bit of a crew for herself in the process. But, um… That’s several novels worth of story. Anyway, she’s gotten pretty good at sneaking onto and off of inhabited planets without being noticed.”

Anne dropped her jaw and squinted, shaking her head, and said, “This sounds just like any science fiction story.”

“It feels like one, yeah,” Eh agreed. “The idea that we can bend space/time like that is phenomenal. After hundreds of millennia of evolution and development, you’d have thought we’d have discovered it sooner, if it was that possible. But, it did take help from `efeje`e, you know. And our agreement with it was also unprecedented.”

“So, maybe your warp drive was a kind of Practice?” Anne asked.

Eh shrugged, “Maybe.”

“But, wait,” Anne tore her danish in half and gestured with part of it. The chair had a cup holder when she needed it. “How did you get here, if you didn’t go with your explorer?”

“The Tunnel,” Eh said. “We can send consciousnesses through it. Everyone here is what we call Crew. We ascended long ago, our original bodies dying, and now live in the Network created by our nanites. When Molly told us about this planet, a few of us decided to transfer over and stay here. She dropped off a bin of nanites and we started making a new home here, as quietly as we could. But it became apparent humanity could use a little help, and our local Council decided to start being a bit more overt.” Eh gestured at the cafe in demonstration.

“And you’re doing this,” Anne gestured at the cafe herself, “without the help of Practice? I don’t even see Glamour at work.”

“As far as I know, yes,” Eh said. “Though, it seems Maxwell is aware of Practice, at least.”

“You’ve definitely cultivated a clientele full of Aware,” Anne remarked. “Which I supposed shouldn’t be at all surprising. You’re a bunch of extraterrestrials giving away food for free. Of course you’re going to attract the Aware. They need people like you. And they have a tendency to take weirdness like this in a certain kind of stride, because weirdness is part of what made them Aware. And if you haven’t even been visited by witch hunters, then someone’s gotta be covering for you.”

“Kinda figures, I guess,” Eh said.

Anne looked at Eh for a while, danish in one hand, drink in the other, then asked, “You look a lot like someone’s idea of a dragon.”

“I’ve been told that, yes,” Eh said. “We think this is what Ktletaccete looked like before we took to the stars and started tinkering with our genetics and life itself. Our oldest language hints at a shape like this, and it’s what felt right to me when I decided to stop being how I was born.”

“That sounds a little like something I’m familiar with,” Anne said, before taking a bite of the last of her danish.

Eh inclined their head, twitching it in the direction of that particular flag, “we’re family?”

Anne swallowed and looked at the flag, “You have trans people in your culture, too? Assigned gender?”

“Ah,” I couldn’t help myself from vocalizing, and Anne glanced at me. I grinned back, and nodded at Eh.

“Not the Sunspot. Or, the `etekeyerrinwuf,” Eh said. “We made sure our new world, our own Exodus Ship, didn’t have assigned gender. But Fenmere, Gesedege, Gnargrim, and I were all born on a ship that did. Or something close enough to it that it’s basically the same thing. We didn’t have the word ‘trans’, obviously. But, again, close enough. We weren’t able to end dysphoria by ending gender, though. Even with technological interventions before birth, eugenics even, as abhorrent as it is, we can’t stop some people from being born with the need for physical change. Sometimes it develops later in life, too. It’s better to accommodate it when it becomes known. Anyway, I digress. We have an understanding with your transgender people. We get it. It’s ultimately why we’re here.”

Anne, apparently, was stuck on the first few words of Eh’s explanation, “Can - can I ask? How old are you?”

Eh smirked, but I wondered if Anne would read it as a smirk. Anne was too focused on the subject of her question to be bewildered by Ktletaccete expressions like a lot of other Earthly people often are, though.

“Do you want to know my age by my own personal years experienced? Or from your perspective, taking into account relativity?” Eh asked back.

Anne grimaced, “Let’s go with years you’ve experienced.”

Eh titled their head and looked at the ceiling as if to calculate. I knew this was a hard thing to answer for a Ktletaccete of our age. I don’t like thinking about my own age, myself. It kind of defies memory. Causes a kind of dysphoria itself. I could see Eh’s face twitch as they settled on an answer.

 “I’m going to give you an estimate,” Eh said. “Calculated in your years, but for my experience. And really rounded off. At a certain point, the thousands digit means as much as the ones digit.”

Anne looked what I’ve come to discern as incredulous.

“Two hundred and some millennia,” Eh said. “Maybe thirty? Maybe fifty? It gets squidgy.”

Anne blinked and deflected internalizing that with an observation, “You use English vernacular like you were born here.”

“We’ve been here eight years, and we live in trillions of tiny machines that can house the consciousnesses of millions of us,” Eh said. “Our ability to translate and learn your language is… enhanced.”

“Two hundred thousand years?” Anne asked, back on the topic.

“Yes,” Eh said. “More or less. Mostly more.”

“Well,” she said. “At least you’re not embarrassingly older than me. Just a smidge, though. A bit of a smidge. Like a civilization or two. Well, technically, it’s off the other end, and there weren’t civilizations back then, so…”

Eh drew their head back and raised their lure in surprise, asking, “How does that work? If you’ll excuse me for asking. How does a human live that long? I thought your civilizations were less than a few thousand years old at this point. You only had your industrial revolution two hundred years ago or so. Your computer technology is less than a century old.”

Anne grinned, licked the icing off her fingers one at a time, and then rubbed her hand dry on her cloak as she stood up. She held out her hand as if to offer a handshake to Eh, and said, “Former Primordial Goddess of Hospitality and present trans girl, Anne Other Problem, at your service. Welcome to Earth, I guess!”

Eh straightened up and sloughed off a considerable amount of nanite clay, reconfiguring their body to be about the same size of a human, but otherwise the same shape as before. The excess clay oozed toward the large bin in the back, reverting to its graphene color almost immediately. Then they stepped around the counter to stand before Anne and took her hand to shake it.

“My name is Eh.Though, that’s really a title. My name is Yenfiri. My pronouns are they/them. Former Senior Captain and Founding Crew of the `etekeyerrinwuf, revolutionary, trans enby as you’d say, and co-Artisan of Sunspot Tea and Coffee,” Eh said. “And it is a real pleasure to meet you. Thank you.”

“I don’t have anywhere near the power I used to have,” Anne said. “But I’ll do my best to step back into my old role for you. Your customers… Or, I guess they’re your guests? Their actions speak very well for you and what you’ve done for them. We need places like this. But let’s try not to make too many waves. I think you’re in a more fragile position than you realize.”

“You’re our hostess,” Eh said, glancing at me. 

I nodded. The Council would accept this. We had a habit of still treating Eh like Captain, anyway. 

Eh concluded, “We’ll follow your lead.”

“Asterix might want you to pretend to be human from now on,” Anne said. “It might be for the best if you did, honestly. But that might also depend on what kind of protections you don’t know you have.”

Eh grimaced, “If it comes to that, we can comply. But it will hurt. Some of us will have to front more than others. Whatever it takes to do what’s safe, though.”

Anne nodded, “Let’s go see the Lord and find out what he has to say.”

“Sounds good.”

And nodding and waving to us, they walked out the door, just like that. Though, before they took their third step beyond the threshold, Eh had changed shape to their human disguise, which looked remarkably like Yenfiri had before their body had died. Just a different species, obviously.

#Sunspot Chronicles #Otherverse #crossover fanfiction #self insert #coffee shop au #selves insert really