#just because i want to distance them from yknow. the real people. & connect them more to the fake dw universe & whatnot

[narcolini]

night//morning

marcus x luca, long distance pining perhaps?, 2k words tw for talking about death, specifically parents a/n: this contains s2 spoilers!!! dont say i didnt warn you!! also im taking an absolute leap of faith with what those missed calls mean so call it divergence from canon, or assumption of canon, or . yknow. enjoying free real estate idk (same with luca backstory hehe) tagging @drabbles-mc because it exists for her <3

Luca’s phone rings, just minutes before his usual alarm gets chance to—sending that weird fucking tune that Instagram uses, pin-balling from his nightstand, straight into his skull—screen lit and blinding. He should keep it on do not disturb, yeah, he knows that, but as disruptive as it is, this is exactly the reason he doesn’t. It’s meant to wake him up, because there aren’t many people that would message him this early in the morning, and there’s only one that’d ring him over Instagram, of all places. Free of charge and desperately reliant on the good of their internet connections.

‘Yo.’ He clears his throat after picking up, rubbing a hand across his sleep-filled eyes. He’s on his back still, phone to his ear, smirk toying the edges of his mouth once they’ve woken up enough. ‘I’m guessing you got the parcel, then?’

The line is silent in response, and stays so for long enough that he pulls the phone away to check the call’s still connected. His eyes are bleary from the brightness of it, but it is, connected and split screened, both profile pictures staring back at him. Clock counting.

‘Marcus?’ he asks, speaking back into the phone. ‘Think we’ve got a bad connection, mate.’

More quiet. The hum of what sounds like an industrial extractor fan, if he really tries to listen for it. 

‘Can you hear me?’ he asks. 

‘Yeah,’ Marcus says eventually, staccato through the phone, ‘yeah, I, um.’ 

So it’s not the wifi. And there’s an edge to his voice that strips all remaining sleep from Luca's, and pulls him upright until he’s sitting, pillows rolling under his back. ‘You alright?’

‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

Marcus sighs. The connection warps it into something robotic. ‘Calling you.’

‘Well, I assume there’s a reason for it.’ He wouldn’t ring for nothing, and he wouldn’t struggle if there wasn’t something forcing him to. ‘What’s up?’

Silence again, then the gulls, waking outside Luca’s window. Loud and begging before the sun’s even finished rising. Marcus isn’t doing anything to try and compete with them, though they must be audible to him too, so for a moment it feels like they’re a part of the conversation. Getting their turn while the both of them wait. 

He shouldn’t yawn, he shouldn’t, even with the pause, and he’s really trying not to. Swallowing nothing. Clenching his jaw, relaxing it again. Fighting it back with every trick he knows.

It happens anyway. Loud and stretching down the line. 

‘You want to talk about something else,’ he asks afterwards, since his eyes are starting to droop, ‘until you can talk about whatever it is that’s happened?’

Marcus coughs, dry and purposeless. Forced maybe. ‘I don’t know. I guess.’

That’s good enough. ‘Alright. Where are you?’

It’s a start. Where are you, Marcus, when you should be at home making something to eat, or at work, scrubbing dried dough from the counters. 

‘Out the back,’ he replies, sounding tired with it. Defeated, even.

‘The back of the restaurant?’

‘Yeah. Sitting on a,’ he laughs weakly, ‘a fucking, upturned bucket.’

‘Right. A bucket. That’s the luxury we aim for, isn’t it? As chefs.’

‘Yeah, something like that.’

Upturned buckets and 4AM alarms—which he’s just shut off, now that it’s finally buzzed into life against his ear. 

‘Tough night?’ he asks, sitting up from the pillows. He doesn’t have to go right away, but he has to at least start the process, one step at a time.

The phone cracks as Marcus coughs again. It’s definitely forced, aimed to dislodge whatever’s catching his words before they make it to Luca's ear. ‘Nah, um, good night actually,’ he says. ‘First run with the new, well, new everything. Friends and family.’ 

‘Really?’ Luca smiles. It carries into his voice. ‘Wow, congrats, man.’

‘I mean, it was all Syd and.’

He never finishes the sentence. 

Luca checks the phone again, not to see the connection, but for the time instead. To know how quick he’s going to have to move, if he lets himself be lazy for a little longer.

‘You get that, what was it…?’ He sighs down the line once it’s back to his cheek, rubbing at his sleep-swollen face. ‘Sorry, that bavarois you made, you get it onto the menu?’  

Marcus smiles, or at least he hopes he does. It sounds like it when he replies. ‘Yeah, you know, big hit. Fire, in Carmy’s words.’

‘Oh, that’s when you know it’s good,’ he agrees, finally standing from the bed. ‘Proud of you, mate.’

‘Thank-you.’ 

Another silence to fill, and now it’s getting hard to. Because it’s early, and he’s trying to get dressed, tugging one leg, then the other, into his trousers, with the phone pinned to his shoulder, and he’s asked all he can think to ask, without espresso fuelling his system. 

‘You, um, you get my gift?’ he tries, hopping as he pulls them up to his hips. 

But it was badly timed, in the end, because Marcus chose exactly then to say, ‘My mom,’ at the same time. ‘It’s my mom.’

‘Oh, shit.’ Luca stills. Lifts the phone from his shoulder. ‘Is she—did she—I’m sorry. Fuck.’

‘I missed the calls,’ he says, ‘all, fucking, twenty of them. While we were in the shit.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’ He doesn’t know what to do either, standing half-dressed in his half-lit bedroom, half-way across the world. ‘What happened?’

‘I mean,’ he can picture Marcus shrugging, ‘exactly what we knew would happen. Just, y’know.’

Yeah, he knows.

‘I was expecting it,’ he says. ‘I mean, it had to happen one day.’

Luca sighs. ‘I’m so, so, sorry, Marcus.’

‘Nah, it’s. I mean. Yeah. Life sucks, huh? Really fucking sucks.’ He laughs and it sounds weaker than before. ‘I don’t even know what I’m feeling right now.’

Yeah, he knows that too.

‘I wish I could be there,’ Luca admits. It’s a weak offer of support. Not comforting, not helpful. True, though, and that’s all he can give him. ‘Can I do anything?’ he asks, picking at the wooden edge of his drawers. ‘Anything you need, just let me know and I’ll, yeah, I’ll make it happen.’

‘Nah,’ he sighs, ‘sorry, I don’t know why I called you, really. I mean, we’re not even in the same country.’ 

'It's alright.'

'Opened my phone and it kind of just... happened.'

Because he knew Luca would pick up. ‘Well, I’m awake,’ he reasons, ‘and here, if you need to talk.’

‘Yeah, thank-you. I know.’

‘Not much to say though, is there?’

There’s a silence that Luca can only assume is signalling a head shake, over there in Chicago, in the alley, on top of the bucket.

‘It’s not the same,’ he continues, running with it now, ‘well, I guess it is—sort of—but, when my dad died, I sat in my room for weeks. Didn’t say anything to anybody. Couldn’t if I tried.’ 

‘Your dad?’

He doesn’t pause to answer. He’s already losing the momentum he started with, gone the second he invited Dad back into his head. The only thing to do, is try and continue like they’ve spoken about it a million times before, like Marcus knows the whole fucked up backstory.

‘Went to the funeral, all that stuff, the wake, still said nothing. Just, really, shut down, you know? Shut it out. And my sister, she, well she hated that, but—I mean, and then I went to Chicago and—’

‘Luca, I…’ He’s trying to be polite about it, interrupting in a sheepish way, but what he really wants to say is, shut up, man, it’s not the time for this. It’s evident enough in his tone. His pauses. ‘I’m really trying to keep up, but—’

‘My point is,’ Luca says, quickly followed by, ‘actually, I don’t know what my point is. But this is the worst, worst thing you can go through, alright, I know that first hand. It’s the worst. And I’m here, even if you want to just sit on the phone for company, or something.’

A beat. The tinny sound of a siren passing Marcus on the other side of the world.

‘I’m very good at chatting copious amounts of shit, obviously.’ Luca laughs. ‘So, you know. Whatever you need.’

‘I think I need to quit my job,’ he says, and for a second it feels like someone else has taken the phone, because it doesn’t sound like Marcus at all.

‘Come on, you don’t mean that.’

‘No, I do. I missed every call, Luca. Every call, for fucking what? For the Michael? Do you realise how dumb that is?’

Luca twitches, flexing his shoulders back to correct the posture that had never really sunk in the first place. A nervous thing. Something he picked up in culinary school. ‘It only feels like that now,’ he says.

Marcus scoffs.

‘Sleep on it.’

‘Don’t think that’s happening anytime soon.’

‘Yeah, cause you’ve gotta get off that bucket first.’ It’s like taking another exam, he realises, trying to balance hazelnut swirls onto set custard while your hands are shaking. The balance is everything, get it wrong and he’ll chase Marcus away, just like he did with Frankie. Jokey, but understanding. Patient, but moving him still. ‘Go home, Marcus, see how you feel about it in the morning.’

‘I can’t,' he stresses.

And, shit, he forgot that detail. Somehow, in a conversation all about it. ‘Your mum.’ He sighs. ‘Sorry, I should’ve.’ Forget it. Recover, adapt, fix it from another angle. ‘Is Syd still around?’

‘Think so.’

‘Have you told her?’

He lets that question sit for a while, lets the street noise creep back through the phone in place of his answer. Which Instagram lovingly turns into static, really, radio noise that makes Luca wince. 

Then Marcus says, blank and tired, with a thick voice that needs to be cleared, ‘I think I’m gonna go actually. I should go.’ 

‘Oh.’ It takes a moment for him to recover. ‘Yeah, course, do what you need to do.’

‘Thank-you, you know, for picking up.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘And the gift. It means a lot.’

‘Sure, yeah. I’m glad you like it.’

‘Night, man.’

It’s four in the morning, but he says it back, slipping it in right before the call ends. With that bitter little tone in his ear. If that was an exam, he'd've failed. Maybe. Dropped the details and put his thumb through the layers. 

‘Idiot,’ he mutters, tossing the phone onto the end of his bed. ‘When my dad died. Fuck me.’

Marcus will never call again. He’ll never call him again, actually, not until the funeral’s done and he’s starting to heal from it. Why would he? Who wants to hear that? This is the worst, mate, good luck! 

Christ.

He should’ve said nothing, should’ve waited for Marcus to take the lead and gone from there. Not everyone wants what Frankie wanted. Talking for the sake of talking. 

But he’s running late now, and the t-shirt he’s dragged from the drawers is still sitting around his biceps, waiting to be pulled on. Work first. Work first, then fix it with Marcus. Send another gift, or something, book a plane if you have to. 

He puts his head through the hole and reaches for a pair of socks as the t-shirt rolls down his stomach. Then it’s cologne. Hairbrush. The watch he wears, just to take off and store in his locker once he gets there. Everything he needs from this room, before moving on to the next. Besides his phone, of course, which is waiting on the bed still.

When he reaches it, the screen’s lit already, awake with messages he hadn’t noticed.

Going home, it reads. Thanks for talking me through it. 

It’s in his hand now, staring us from his palm, and telling him that Marcus is still typing. 

And typing.

And typing.

Then, finally, 

Sorry about your dad. 

His chest deflates, held breath escaping at last. Long time ago, he types back. Shout me if you need anything. 

There’s no hesitation this time. Just, Cool. Keep the couch free for me, yeah?

Yeah, sure. All yours.

>>>part two

#marcus x luca #the bear fanfiction

[jays---wing]

Okk so lifty x splendid are like my favorite pair . This’ll be a lot of unorganized, long, insane rambling so be warned lol. !!! I start one thought and then go after another…

I’m thinking like, I have this idea where splendid saves lifty from a fucking uh, house fire or something and visits him at the hospital and it just progresses from there. Splendid just kinda feels bad Lul

I’m still working on my own like backstories for lifty and shifty (they are my faves okay), but I personally headcanon that they had like a rough home life, grew up in poverty, and cause of his kleptomania lifty unintentionally got himself into trouble as a child and ended up losing a lot of opportunities (some of which because of shifty). he tried real hard to get jobs but his criminal history didn’t exactly help. Shifty eggs him on and he just ends up working with him. Bank robbing and petty theft weren’t what he was expecting to do with his life, but shifty dragged him into it and he can’t get a job, so oh well. And MAYBE he kinda enjoys it..

So I’m thinking, that after they hang out a lot and stuff splendid offers to help lifty get a job since he has some connections cause of his reporter job (also he’s a fucking superhero, so!) lifty is incredibly grateful , nobody has done something this nice for him before.

I’d imagine splendid would be the one to form feelings first, maybe once he starts visiting lifty. Lifty on the other hand takes longer to warm up to splendid, cause yknow, dude beats him up every other week and throws him in jail. Once they get to know each other though he gets more comfortable with him . Splendid specifically starts to sympathize with lifty after learning about him more. And they get these feelings and they’re both like “oh no I’m in love with him” and they’re conflicted cause like … well he’s a superhero and he’s a criminal. But it works out tee hee

I now have this vision, of where like they’re up on a building just looking over the city or stargazing or something, hanging out , i feel like that’d be a common thing where splendid just takes him somewhere high up and private where they can hang out. And they’re already been friends for a while and feelings are there and they confess. Who first…? Idk doesn’t matter rn.

Shifty probably wouldn’t know at first I think. Lifty would just stop coming with him on heists and whatnot. He’d only really get suspicious once lifty gets that job like “that’s weird.” Lifty doesn’t disclose it since he’s just a little ashamed cause, I’ll say it again, bro literally gets them arrested. Which I’ll mention that now, is one of the reasons it takes lifty a while to start liking splendid. Anyways, he feels like shifty is keeping him back, and they do everything together, so he’s trying to try and live the life HE actually wants. Shifty may be fine just scamming and robbing people blind, but he want to do something different. And despite splendid previously being a pain in the ass, he’s a friend, and is genuinely interested in helping him out in getting his life on track.

Shifty is a bit peeved that lifty is spending more time with splendid and distancing himself from him at first but eventually learns to accept it. He’s his little brother after all. Lifty would probably go live on his own/with splendid… he’s little worried since him and shifty have done everything together for the longest time but he’s a big boy now he can do it.

And that’s all for now , maybe some other time I’ll put this more cohesively once I think on it more 😭

#htf #happy tree friends #lifty and shifty #htf lifty #htf splendid #htf shifty #splendid x lifty #lifty x splendid #I have sooo many ideas I want to draw out too #soon. maybe. #I’m sorry this is so all over the place 😭

[nobody-knose--archive]

tell me a fun fact about someone from the cojum who? crew that is unlikely to be realistically mentioned/covered in the actual story?

depends on your standards for “actual story” honestly because if i come up with a thing odds are it’s because there’s Potential in it. but i can be realistic sometimes! things that won’t ever come up unless i lose my mind &/or obtain a time machine of my own to write this stuff out with:

-coral & marcy are both on their 4th regenerations

-i already introduced this in w. xylophone but lucas has synesthesia, of the music & colors (chromesthesia) variety for the most part, with other bits of time-related & word synesthesia as well. if i’m being vague it’s a. i don’t know much about synesthesia & b. if there’s one thing i do know it’s that things are vague with synesthesia

-darius has absolutely braided marcy & coral’s hair before and it’d do it with the others too but they have significantly less conscious control over the growth of their hair than the time lords do.

-out of the entire crew of them, rosa is the one with the least musical experience

-lucas’ nonhuman traits are generally limited to like, internal biology & dna & shit, making hyr separate from humans a la the way snakes can all look almost identical but can’t inbreed. because of this they can eat rocks

-oh also because everyone is nd here: amber stims by like hopping around in place or walking and moving; darius stims by hand flapping & other real dynamic hand motions; rosa stims by shaking eir head and *spoilers but basically ey swing eir legs*; lucas stims by humming and making other noises in hyr mouth (chewlery bay be); the time lords tend to do this stuff on like an ~advanced telepathic or metaphysical sense, but also coral will whistle and kick their feet in the air; marcy likes to run xer hands down xer body and slap shit like bongos; and last but not least jay tends to rock or jog in place!

-marcy & coral do have passing acquaintances with the doctor and probably would go for a meetup of “renegade time lords that do or do not collect companions from time to time” were it not for amber’s (and darius’, honestly) moderate aversion to british people (understandable)

and here i’ve absolutely got to put a cut for spoilers because most of this story is not published! which means from here on out you may find things involving contexts that haven’t been introduced in the main story yet. so either save this for whenever the hell i get the rest of this story out or read on and be spoiled on. minor factoids. minor factoids that mention larger factoids that are connected to major factoids.

to be concise: if you read on you might learn shit that would be built up & played with suspense or as a shock in the chapter it’s meant to be introduced in and nothing a whole lot more deadly than that.

-jay is past their 5th regeneration (though they’d gladly lie about that number on literally any scale). you know i damn near put that above this cut & i’m very glad i didn’t all things considered

-lucas is the only one of the non-time lords to be an only child but they don’t know this for sure & it’s exactly as angsty as you think it can be.

-this one’s less of an interesting fact and more amber’s entire backstory but i genuinely can’t think of a way to integrate it into a story so just imagine this is being told in the T&LDIS library over a cup of 20th century martinellis or something. cw for implied/mentioned death + only other things you’d get in a dw story

he was born an american, of course, you can tell by the accent, but one does not learn a convincing british accent without a good amount of experience- he was sent moved to england shortly before even becoming an adult, and spent pretty much all of his time there learning the ins and outs of capitalism in an almost obviously fascist state. he was a good student, of course, had to get support from his family/the government somehow, but you know, still ended up gravitating towards the types of figures that nobody in the capitalist class ever wanted to see someone gravitate towards. in short, he started attending underground insurrectionist meetings that were dedicated to (in the short term) countering propaganda and spreading awareness/education, and (in the long term) holding an entire revolution. (yes, it was that kind of fascist scifi setting).

considering the whole general state howard was in when the others came across him, it shouldn’t be too hard to guess how that whole thing worked out. still. the details. they were found out, in due time. the whole lot of them. someone caved and ratted them out, of course. well, there was one survivor. one stuck around to tell the tale. one stuck around to personally know exactly what any potential revolutionaries are up against, and provide testimonies if the powers that be ever wanted them, and not do anything to provoke their notice in the slightest, and be nothing more than the best cog in the great capitalist machine the english empire ever saw.

[note from a fog many months later: the following is a bit of lore that is not only inaccurate but irrelevant. i’m only leaving it here, unedited, for posterity’s sake. rosa is transfem and picked out eir own name.]

-rosa is not forrester’s real name! it’s a nickname derived from eir middle name. eir first name is steven. why is this in the spoilers section? because eir twin’s name is also a derivative of hir middle name, with hir first name being steve. their parents though they were being funny.

#hm i might have to clarify a thing or two- a time lord's regeneration is just the number of like. their body #if theyve been through 4 regenerations they're on their 5th body total because they get a new one with each regeneration #that bit about time lords having conscious control over the growth of their hair is mostly fanon but also might as well be canon so eh #oh yeah and ''first initial dot lastname'' is the way i prefer to refer to all these characters outside of the story #just because i want to distance them from yknow. the real people. & connect them more to the fake dw universe & whatnot #tis i #you know it probably doesn't reflect well on me that the main reason this took an entire day to be made is under the cut #eh. i'm slow when it comes to my writing. and this counts as writing because here look at this: #mi wri #personally i hope the story i did tell has a close enough tone to authentic dw stuff because that's absolutely what i was going for #i mean. i don't think many (any) of my actual dw followers are going to look under the cut. i don't expect anyone to look under the cut #but i can hope & i can yine & i can pears from time to time. i deserve it #welcome to questions answered #wait i tag cw? don't i #cojum who? #yep i do. that was a close one #to the world and back again

[fearfylsymmetry]

hi hope ur well! i was j wondering what ur tags meant? 'decay as a commodity' and so on. they all sound very poetic

hello angel, this was sweet of you (ive actually been hoping sum1 would ask lol),, so here we goooo ( and im sorry if i sound overly eager ,, im also doing this for me im not insane dont worry really babe think nothing of it)

decay as a commodity : okay so i envisioned this as a way to just summarize modern living? i think of a whole blueish neon color scheme with this one. my line of thinking was,, with the world slowly rotting away and living becoming so expensive and exhausting, whats the one commodity we all share? wouldn't it be decay? aren't we all slowly fading together etc etc. i use this for images with cooler muted tones and anything with a futuristic vibe,, along with some grimey, monochrome photography

the setting dawn: this is the polar opposite of decay, i think of it as "hope beyond hope" a la Prior Walter's line in Angels in America. i know "the setting sun " might sound more natural but i think of it as,, dawn , when the sun breaks through - in this short period the world starts to wake. qs the dawn sets the day kicks in, with all its routine misery. Dawn i think, is the only time the sun is kind to you, because its still hidden away at least slightly. But the day truly starts and itbeats down on you. And yet we continue to live, past the boredom and the pain, we live past hope, past the quiet comfort of dawn. I use this for pictures with earthy tones and things on the more uplifting side

bodies shifting in narrow spaces: this has some overlap with the decay tag, im not as organized as i need 2 be. i use this for figures & portraits ill want to draw or just really any photography i like that features a human presence. think of it as people so dependent on an outside gaze they constantly try to reinvent themselves, or just, everyday people, getting less and less time to live, having to work and forcing themselves into relationships with any real connection

original sin and other contingencies: im trying to fit this in for more risque photography and maybe things on the more gory side. how do i explain this.. okay so... when there's nothing left to do you'll always have sin to turn to just yo keep yourself occupied, along with other methods/contingencies u get the jist

linen that lingers: my fashion tag nothing more 2 it

the canvas as testimony: for art that is made for the gallery or art that is held in higher regard i guess, more high culture. it includes painting, sculptures,along with architecture,, but maybe i should make an architecture tag. i think of the things here as more personal efforts

motion on a still surface: for art that is energetic and really pops off the page. includes comics, manga, fanart, animation. stuff here may be more low culture but really its not. i just differentiate these art tags as ,,one is stuck to the canvas whatever that canvas may be, while the other leaps off the page

word on a wing let me soar: books, poetry, articles, journals , all words that i adore

a conversation with the self: i wanted this to be for things that are very personal to me but i just use my other tags

angels in descent: my little funny haha tag for yknow ,,, funny haha. yknow the "devil's rejects" the movie? like its a way of saying people so horrible no even the devil would take them. okay so i thought " god's rejects " but that's lame. so i landed on this, like idk...imagine angels falling from grace

arcade shuffle: for my little viddy games lol. sorry for being a #gamergirl but yes it happens sadly ,,moving on

jet jump jive: for songs

at the pictures: for movies,, like imagine im going "cant talk im at the pictures wheee ^_^"

there is such a great distance between now and later: to track my art and writing progress but i barely use it cause it barely draw or write these days i blame the wave of despair that washeth over me

proof of concept: photos i took but there's like almost nothing here

misc that are just funny 2 me like i do it 4 a little chuckle i deserve it:

screw it posting hole - for hole the band

bowies in spaaace - for bowie, after the flight of the concords song cmon its a little funny at least cmon now

twink speaks- for twin peaks lol

and whewwww thats it,, sorry i got carried away im normal i swear but this was so much fun angel thank u 4 dropping by ,, nd ohh wait i have a new tag for asks yipee

#i needto stop typing so much ughhh #so sorry #but i think joan tierney has like the best tag game on here like really #shes the greatest that ever did it truly #again #sending this 2 u with all my love #long post #soft whispers under moonlight

[faelapis]

so. while this was confirmed a year ago, new tweets by ian jq have reawakened the discourse about humans being the first intelligent life gems encountered. note intelligent life, not organic life. alien animals still died from previous invasions, but humans are the first intelligent creatures gems encountered. 

apparently, the party line on twitter (where nuance goes to die) is that it’s too “convenient” that humans are the first other intelligent species gems met.

i take a few issues with that assessment: 

a) “it was pink’s first colony, isn’t it convenient the diamond concerned with organic life owns the first planet populated by intelligent organics? wouldn’t they have died if any other diamond got them? isn’t that super lucky?”

no. we know rose/pink was very interested in organic life from before earth. she always thought aliens were cool, interesting, fun, and liked learning about them and keeping some as pets - such as the rainbow worms. we know she visited the others’ colonies, even if she doesn’t own them. she’s the only diamond who is simultaneously “selfish” enough to visit colonies up-close on a whim because it’s fun AND doesn’t see herself as too good to play with local organics.

so, then, why on earth (hah) wouldn’t she care if there had been intelligent life on any of the other planets? she didn’t fight for earth just because she “owned” it. she cared because she was able to form connections to humans... which she would have done regardless of which diamond’s colony it was. if anything, ownership is a hindrance to her usual romps, because blue & yellow expected her to stay put in her moon base. smile and wave. be a “leader”. 

b) “how is it realistic that humans are the first intelligent life gems have met?”

the SU universe as a whole is not a universe filled with life. it has been framed as cold, animalistic, overall lifeless, purposeless, and one in which you gaze at an empty sky and beg for an authority figure to give your life meaning. this works much, much better if life, especially intelligent life, is incredibly sparse. they are small flickers in a cold void. it adds to the feeling that both humans and gems feel of loneliness and pointlessness, where you create these intricate structures of organized almost-religion to feel devoted to a purpose. this existentialism, which we will explore further below, is a huge part of SU’s themes.

c) another theme - and this one is important - is that gems and humans have been treated as this mirror parallel of life, people, and society (tm) for the entire runtime of the show. hence, steven as the bridge. a bridge, usually, connects two sides, not five. they are more similar than they are different - to the point where you can use gemkind to comment on how humans are like, and see some of the horrors and tragedy of what humanity looks like “from the outside”. not once has there ever been implied to be any other intelligent species to disrupt this elegant, thematic dichotomy. ever. 

d) unlike fanon speculation, the show has always been very careful about never implying there were any previous rebellions. SU is not a star wars-esque universe populated with a million different intelligent species and cyclical rebellions + alliances between them. it is a big, cold, empty void, with tiny pockets of fragile life. which is part of why the connection between two alien species is so remarkable. it is the exception, not the rule.

e) many of us who looked at homeworld in a not-badfaith light already came to the conclusion that humans are probably the only intelligent life they’ve met. (based on what we know about the universe, its logic, the themes, the implications of other colonies, pink diamond’s personality, no other species ever bonded with enough to fight for, etc etc,)... and those of us who did, including myself, have (lovingly!!) compared the crystal gems to hippies or eco-terrorists. this 100% holds up to how homeworld gems generally, and the diamonds specifically, see them. 

this is why blue thinks a “solution” to pink being sad about the invasion is to create the zoo. it’s a petty conflict, from her perspective, of environmentalism vs conservationism. like how, if a capitalist is kinda sad about a rainforest being bulldozed, you might as well just take some pretty toucans and panthers and stick them in a zoo. they’re preserved for humans to enjoy. problem “solved”. it worked with the kyanite colony & rainbow worms, why not here?

this is part of why lapis accuses the CGs of not caring about gemkind. they put this silly little dirtball above gemkind, starting a war that hurt (”real”) people? 

this is also why pink, mocking the other diamonds, says “you wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? ha! don't be absurd!”. gemkind needs resources to create more gems. so, to the diamonds, of course that’s more important than Making The Bees and Monkeys Sad. they’re not even directly killing them, they’re just taking resources. it’s not “””their fault””” they need ‘em too, gems are more important. the same way, to us, humans are always the most important. many of us don’t give a damn about how we hurt animals.

f) it galls me that anything but the darkest possible interpretation, even when it makes perfect sense with what we know, is always seen as “convenient” by people who watched nostalgia critic once and think they’re now great media critics. i saw similar comments to jasper being brought back to life, even though it made perfect sense with what’s implied about the powers of the diamonds. most of that, too, was woven together by paying close attention to implication, not outright stated in a lore dump - but that doesn’t make it “convenient” in the bad way. it makes it the logical outcome of this world, if you paid attention.

like jasper coming back to life, it also told us something thematic about the diamonds’ absolute power over life & death. steven is kinda horrified, even if it’s a good thing, that things can ever be fixed. he still feels like he needs to be “punished”. he holds this toxic mindset that punishment is more important than healing, because of the pit of self-harm he’s fallen into... which is kind of how some people see the diamonds, and the world as a whole. 

even if things can get better, it doesn’t matter. at least not as much as punishing and distancing ourselves from the “bad people”. even though, actually, things CAN get better, and that’s more dependent on systemic change than it is on punishing “bad” individuals... that doesn’t fascinate them. it’s a fucked-up idea of “consequences” that is sadly prevalent in fandoms: they’d rather the world be doomed if they get to kill the bad people for it, than the world being slowly healed in this bittersweet way that includes everyone.

and i’m tired of that. on the whole, fiction is a reflection of this very dour, justice-oriented view of the world where we can only gain satisfaction from punishing the bad guys responsible. SU’s response to that is, that actually, just this once... no! the world gets better, and the “how” doesn’t revolve around individual punishment. it’s trying to heal everyone. 

g) it seems to me that for a substantial amount of people, “convenience” has less to do with the themes and logic of the world than it does with wanting canon to live up to their fanon image of homeworld and the diamonds. even if that means a ton of offscreen intelligent life dying Just for the sake of a 1-v-1 earth-vs-gems conflict, with no agency in the story. i don’t understand how that would make it better. all other life we’ve seen have been animals. pink was around for other colonies - even if she didn’t personally “own” them - yet didn’t care deeply enough to fight for them. because she couldn’t bond with worms the same way as humans. (yknow, unfortunately, for the worms :’<)

also, you don’t NEED other species of intelligent life to have been made extinct to still have a somewhat cynical interpretation of the diamonds’ intentions here. even if it makes the world less grimdark in praxis. it’s not enough to be aware of humans in the abstract, blue and yellow still won’t listen. you need to actually interact with humans in order to learn about / care for organics that don’t serve a purpose in your system. this was just the first chance gemkind had to do so. it makes sense that some would be curious, while others more jaded and dismissive, after encountering a universe mostly made of the lifeless & animals.

to give the other diamonds some credit, they’ve probably encountered plenty organic life, and thus have built up a bias that everyone but gemkind are aimless, animalistic life forms, and its up to them to give themselves purpose. why should humans be any different? oh wow, they live in groups? big whoop. so do ants. they build nests? so do birds. they babble? so do parrots and rainbow worms. they still serve no purpose. they still die if you breathe on them.

it’s only when blue meets greg - thousands of years later - that we see even the tiniest of cracks, in which blue is made aware of some level of emotional intelligence, but is still firmly entrenched in the view that he’s just a Slightly more advanced organic than others. like... puppies comforting you. she was surprised he could even do that much. this was a slow process for rose as well! 

but anyway, at the point of the war, to many gems, they are concerned first and foremost with gemkind. life matters because of your singular, gem-oriented “purpose”... but some gems, like pink, who never saw herself as a justified goddess, take the opposite approach. they don’t see themselves as “above” other life out of either lack of awareness of the capabilities of intelligent life forms or a self-appointed Higher Purpose. they’re curious, and then, willing to fight for life they can bond with, once they learn to love. 

which brings me to...

h) how a big theme of the show as a whole is selflessness vs selfishness. 

here, the crystal gems as a whole have actually been on the side of selfishness, from homeworld’s perspective. the end of gathering resources would mean they would no longer create more gems. which, to HW, is selfish. which... of course it is, if you think you’re the only intelligent life out there. 

the way homeworld gems express themselves is through an elaborate system of self-perpetuation and creation, in which the emergence of more gems is a higher purpose for the collective. the individual doesn’t matter. to them, the random creatures they find on other planets do not matter. they’re just organics.

humans matter to pink because she’s, like i said, curious about alien life, and less convinced about her own purpose... but also more personal, relationship-driven, and cares about what happens the specific individuals she subjectively bonds with, rather than prioritizing the overall “needs” of her species, like a good queen bee is “supposed” to do. 

homeworld thinks that no individual feelings - even a diamond’s - is more important than perpetuating of the system that gives their species meaning. most gems are happy to be shattered for that cause, because they’ve never formed those “selfish” relationships that makes life worth living without purpose. so actually, yes, this works with pink’s motivation, and blue and yellow not being as easily swayed works with theirs.

(all of this is extremely relevant to the arc steven has in “future”, btw. he needs a reason to be needed, purpose. and pearl’s arc, white diamond’s arc, jasper’s arc, etc etc - living for purpose vs living for relationships and selfish exploration of the self is a massive theme of the whole show!! at leaast if you pay attention to anything more subtle than merely “here’s a lore dump!”, which the show has always avoided. it’s more sublime than that. you, too, are supposed to only have a small, subjective understanding of the world, like steven does, which teaches you to value subjective perspectives. your purpose is not higher than the agency of others, and you shouldn’t control the world.)

i) it makes dramatic sense, actually, to center the conflict around the first time gems have met another species that stand a chance of understanding them! hence steven is a bridge. that’s a good basis for mirroring two species, a conflict that raises interesting questions about how we, too, see non-human life, the premium we place on emotional connection vs “purpose”, and how even when we learn to value humans that are different from us, we might still fuck around and bulldoze a rainforest, if it’s convenient and we can justify it internally. 

and again, it’s more logical. as we know it, the story went “long ago, gems took resources all over the universe, until pink found a species intelligent enough some of them learned to bond with on a deeper level than Cool Pet Worm”, NOT “long ago, gems zapped a bunch of intelligent species - which we will not mention ever, or give any agency in the story - and pink just ignored that, until she randomly decided humans were more important than all those, for no reason, even though she’d met countless intelligent species before”. 

the former makes more sense in ~every reading of canon, be it thematic, logical, personal, character-driven, etc~... except the one most favored by SU’s most badfaith of critics, which is that the only “logical” way for the story to go is one in which we can safely label the diamonds as inhumanly, unchangably bad, rather than having base assumptions, motivations and logics that aren’t so different from many non-dictator humans.

i think for some, they protest not because that makes more sense on a thematic, logical or character level, but simply because they want to. they’re USED to being fed that narrative satisfaction has to do with seeing the bad guys face comeuppance, in place of inclusive, welfare-oriented healing. faced with storytelling that rejects their view of justice while also openly being subjective, sublime, and loving of all of its characters, not just the “nice” ones, they see it as a “failure” to be what they’re used to. 

if the world CAN systemically heal in a way that includes people you personally don’t forgive, that must be a “flaw”. if those “bad guys” haven’t actually killed hundreds of intelligent species offscreen who have no chance to heal, that doesn’t fuel your justification for the most cynical interpretation of justice possible, so that, too, “must” be a “flaw”. if it’s framed as possible for them to work towards undoing their harm, that deprives you of the satisfaction of edgy punishment for unhealable hurt, so that, too, is of course a “flaw”. any world where healing is possible for everyone, and the perpetrators can contribute, must be a “flaw”, to a mind only concerned with the validity of vengeance. 

even when the story is perfectly candid that you’re personally allowed to be hurt and traumatized (like steven - and most characters, really), you’re still allowed to feel... you just can’t expect society as a whole to abandon its “inclusive healing” model and function on your logic; that your pain is solved by vengeance. it isn’t.

in short, cry about it. 

#steven universe #homeworld #the diamonds #rose quartz #pink diamond #rose diamond #jasper #su theory #su future #su analysis #and by 'a few issues' i mean 'let me write you a novel about why this was always canon' #i know it must be a big blow if you've decided you're morally superior for hating SU based on fanon assumptions #but that's kinda on you fam. stop listening to bad youtubers. and do indeed cry about it - it's healthy

[bogkeep]

hmmmmmmmmmm maybe i’ll write an Introspective Musing Post about my relationship to religion and their depiction in stories because i’ve pondering about this topic lately

so for those who are reading this and DON’T know what’s been going on...  there’s this webcomic i fell in love with some years ago, about six years actually, that depicts a post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror adventure set in the nordic countries. it had, and has still, some very uncomfortable flaws regarding racial representation, and the creator has historically not dealt very well with criticism towards it. it’s a whole Thing. my relationship with this comic has fluctuated a lot, since there are a lot of elements in it i DO love and i still feel very nostalgic about, and like idk i felt like i trust my skills in critical thinking enough to keep reading. aaand then the creator went a teensy bit off the deep end created a whole minicomic which is like... a lukewarm social media dystopia where christians are oppressed (and also everyone is a cute bunny, including our lord and saviour jesus christ). which is already tonedeaf enough considering there are religious people who DO get prosecuted for their faith, like, that’s an actual reality for a lot of people - but as far as i can tell, usually not christians. and then there’s an afterword that’s like, “anyway i got recently converted and realized i’m a disgusting human being full of sin who doesn’t deserve redemption but jesus loves me so i’ll be fine!! remember to repent for your sins xoxo” and a bunch of other stuff and IT’S KIND OF REALLY CONCERNING i have, uh, been habitually looking at the reactions to and discussions around this, maybe it’s not very self care of me but there’s a lot of overwhelming things rn and it’s fantastically distracting, yknow? like, overall this situation is fairly reminiscent of the whole jkr thing. creator of a series that is Fairly Beloved, does something hurtful, handles backlash in a weird way, a lot of people start taking distance from Beloved Series or find ways to enjoy it on their own terms, creator later reveals to have been fully radicalized and releases a whole manifesto, and any and all criticism gets framed as harassment and proving them right. of course, one of them is a super rich person with a LOT of media power and a topic that is a lot more destructive in our current zeitgeist, and the other is an independent webcomic creator, so it’s  not the same situation. just similar vibez ya feel as a result of this, i have been Thinking. and just this feels like some sort of defeat like god dammit she got me i AM thinking about the topic she wrote about!!! i should dismiss the whole thing!!! but thinking about topics is probably a good thing so hey lets go. me, i’m agnostic. i understand that this is a ‘lazy’ position to take, but it’s what works for me. i simply do not vibe with organized religion, personally. (i had the wikipedia page for ‘chaos magic’ open in a tab for several weeks, if that helps.) i was raised by atheists in a majorly atheist culture. christian atheist, i should specify. norway has been mostly and historically lutheran, and religion has usually been a private and personal thing. it turns out the teacher i had in 7th grade was mormon, but i ONLY found out because he showed up in a tv series discussing religious groups in norway later, and he was honestly one of the best teachers i have ever had - he reignited the whole class’ interest in science, math, and dungeons and dragons. it was a real “wait WHAT” moment for my teenage self. i think i was briefly converted to christianity by my friend when i was like 7, who grew up in a christian family (i visited them a couple times and always forgot they do prayers before dinner. oops!), but like, she ALSO made me believe she was the guardian of a secret magic orb that controls the entire world and if i told anybody the world would burn down in 3 seconds. i only suspected something was off when one day the Orb ran on batteries, and another day the Orb had to be plugged in to charge. in my defense i really wanted to be part of a cool fantasy plot. i had no idea how to be a christian beyond “uuuuh believe in god i guess” so it just faded away on its own. when i met this friend several years later, she was no longer christian. i think every childhood friend of mine who grew up in a christian family, was no longer christian when they grew up. most notably my closest internet friend whose family was catholic - she had several siblings, and each of them took a wildly different path, from hippie treehugger to laveyan satanist or something in that area. (i joined them for a sermon in a church when they visited my town. my phone went off during it because i had forgotten to silence it. oops!) ((i also really liked their mother’s interpretation of purgatory. she explained it as a bath, not fire. i like that.)) i have never had any personal negative experiences with christianity, despite being openly queer/gay/trans. the only time someone has directly told me i’m going to hell was some guy who saw me wearing a hoodie on norway’s constitution day. yeah i still remember that you bastard i’ve sworn to be spiteful about it till the day i die!! i’ve actually had much more insufferable interactions with the obnoxious kind of atheists - like yes yes i agree with you on a lot but that doesn’t diminish your ability to be an absolute hypocrite, it turns out? i remember going to see the movie ‘noah’ with a friend who had recently discovered reddit atheism and it was just really exhausting to discuss it with her. one of these Obnoxious Atheists is my Own Mother. which is a little strange, honestly, because she LOVES visiting churches for the Aesthetic and Architecture. we cannot go anywhere without having to stop by a pretty church to Admire and Explore. I’VE BEEN IN SO MANY CHURCHES FOR AN ATHEIST RAISED NON-CHRISTIAN. i’ve been to the vatican TWICE (i genuinely don’t even know how much of my extended family is christian. up north in the tiny village i come from, i believe my uncle is the churchkeeper, and it’s the only building in the area that did not get burnt down by the the nazis during ww2 - mostly because soldiers needed a place to sleep. still don’t know whether or not said uncle believes or not, because hey, it’s Personal) i think my biggest personal relationship to religion, and christianity specifically, has been academic. yeah, we learned a brief synopsis of world religions at school (and i remember the class used to be called ‘christianity, religion, and ethics’ and got changed to ‘religion, beliefs, and ethics’ which is cool. it was probably a big discourse but i was a teen who didnt care), but also my bachelor degree is in art history, specifically western art history because it’s a vast sprawling topic and they had to distill it as best they could SIGHS. western art history is deeply entangled with the history of the church, and i think the most i’ve ever learnt about christianity is through these classes (one of my professors wrote an article about how jesus can be interpreted as queer which i Deeply Appreciate). i also specifically tried to diversify my academic input by picking classes such as ‘depiction of muslims and jewish people in western medieval art’ and ‘art and religion’ when i was an exchange student in canada, along with 101 classes in anthropology and archaeology. because i think human diversity and culture is very cool and i want to absorb that knowledge as best as i can. i think my exchange semester in canada was the most religiously diverse space have ever been in, to be honest. now as an adult i have more christian friends again, but friends who chose it for themselves, and who practice in ways that sound good and healthy, like a place of solace and community for them. the vast majority of my friends are queer too, yknow?? i’ve known too many people who have seen these identities as fated opposites, but they aren’t, they’re just parts of who people are. it’s like... i genuinely love people having their faiths and beliefs so much. i love people finding that space where they belong and feel safe in. i love people having communities and heritages and connections. i deeply respect and admire opening up that space for faith within any other communities, like... if i’m going to listen to a podcast about scepticism and cults, i am not going to listen to it if it’s just an excuse to bash religion. i think the search for truth needs to be compassionate, always. you can acknowledge that crystals are cool and make people happy AND that multi level marketing schemes are deeply harmful and prey on people in vulnerable situaitons. YOU KNOW???? so now’s when i bring up Apocalypse Comic again. one of the things i really did like about it was, ironically, how it handled religion. in its setting, people have returned to old gods, and their magic drew power from their religion. characters from different regions had different beliefs and sources. in the first arc, they meet the spirit of a lutheran pastor, who ends up helping them with her powers. it was treated as, in the creators own words, ‘just another mythology’. and honestly? i love that. it was one of the nicest depictions i’ve seen of christianity in fiction, and as something that could coexist with other faiths. I Vibe With That. and then, uh, then... bunny dystopia comic. it just... it just straight up tells you christianity is literally the only way to..?? be a good person??? i guess?? i’m still kind of struggling to parse what exactly it wanted to say. the evil social media overlord bird tells you the bible makes you a DANGEROUS FREETHINKER, but the comic also treats rewriting the bible or finding your own way to faith as something,, Bad. The Bible Must Remain Unsullied. Never Criticize The Bible. also, doing good things just for social media clout is bad and selfish. you should do good things so you don’t burn in hell instead. is that the message? it reads a lot like the comic creator already had the idea for the comic, but only got the urge to make it after she was converted and needed to spread the good word. you do you i guess!! i understand that she’s new to this and probably Going Through Something, and this is just a step on her journey. but the absolute self-loathing she described in her afterword... it does not sound good. i’m just some agnostic kid so what do i know, but i do not think that kind of self-flagellating is a kind faith to have for yourself. i might not ever have been properly religious, but you know what i AM familiar with? a brain wired for ocd and intrusive thoughts. for a lot of my life i’ve struggled with my own kind of purity complex. i’ve had this really strange sensitivity for things that felt ‘tainted’. i’ve experienced having to remove more and more words from my vocabulary because they were Bad and i did not want to sully my sentences. it stacked, too - if a word turned out to be an euphemism for something, i could never feel comfortable saying it again. i still struggle a bit with these things, but i have confronted these things within myself. i’ve had to make myself comfortable with imperfection and ‘tainted’ things and accept that these are just, arbitrary categories my mind made up. maybe that’s the reason i can’t do organized religion even if i found one that fit for me - just like diets can trigger disordered eating, i think it would carve some bad brainpaths for me. so yeah i’m worried i guess! i’m worried when people think it’s so good that she finally found the correct faith even if it’s causing all this self-hate. is there really not a better way? or are they just trusting she’ll find it? and yeah it’s none of my concern, it’s like, i worry for jkr too but i do not want her within miles of my trans self thANKS. so like, i DO enjoy media that explores faith and what it means for you. my favourite band is the oh hellos, which DOES draw on faith and the songwriter’s experience with it. because of my religious iliteracy most of it has flown over my head for years and i’m like “oh hey this is gay” and then only later realize it was about god all along Probably. i like what they’ve done with the place. also, stormlight archive - i had NO idea sanderson was mormon, the way he writes his characters, many of whom actively discuss religion and their relationship to it. i love that about the books, honestly. Media That Explores Religion In A Complex And Compassionate Way... we like that i’ve been thinking about my own stories too, and how i might want to explore faith in them. most of my settings are based on magic and it’s like, what role does religion have in a world where gods are real and makes u magic. in sparrow spellcaster’s story, xe creates? summons? an old god - brings them to life out of the idea of them. it’s a story about hubris, mostly. then there’s iphimery, the story where i am actively fleshing out a pantheon. there’s no doubt the gods are real in the fantasy version of iphimery, they are the source of magic and sustain themselves on slivers of humanity in exchange. but in the modern version, where they are mostly forgotten? that’s some room for me to explore, i think. especially the character of timian, who comes from a smaller town and moves to a large and diverse city. in the fantasy story, the guardian deity chooses his sister as a vessel. in the modern setting, that does not happen, and i don’t yet know what does, but i really want timian to be someone who struggles with his identity - his faith, his sexuality, the expectations cast upon him by his hometown... i’m sure it’s a cliché story retold through a million gay characters but i want to do it too okay. i want to see him carve out his own way of existing within the world because i care him and want to see him thrive!!! alrighty i THINK that’s all i wanted to write. thanks if you read all of this, and if you didn’t that’s super cool have a nice day !

#rambles #i wrote this for me and theres no obligation to read it

[khangi]

so I don’t have exact answers for you about the “why do white Americans go ‘I’m from (European country), this is my culture” and the following is just a theory that I’ve put together from having to interact with a bunch of these people (I used to live in a city with a lot of white Americans of Irish and German descent) and also from studying U.S. history (also sorry this is really long but my ADHD gremlin brain likes history, my US history teacher was really good, and I was actually thinking about this recently):

I think it comes from many white Americans not really having a culture and desperately wanting to connect to something. People joke about white Americans not having a culture, but there’s some truth to it. In America, there’s no consistent experience, no real ~thing~ that connects white people beyond skin color.

I think this is at least partially due to the pressure to assimilate that comes with immigrating. When massive waves of immigrants from Europe (from Ireland after the Famine, from other states in Western Europe (Italy, for example) due to the growing unrest in those states (the American revolution triggered a number of revolutions in Europe)) started coming to America in the 1830s/1840s, they were met with backlash and discrimination. Anti-Irish sentiments, Anti-Italianism, and Anti-Catholic sentiment (among other forms of discrimination) were actual things that immigrants were denied housing for, beat up/robbed for, and in some cases, even killed for. So, in order to get away from this pressure, many people started assimilating and distancing themselves from their heritage; and unlike other groups of immigrants (who may not be white or may have different features that make them visually distinct from white folks, like many Jewish immigrants), they can get away with it, because White.

.....Which means that over time, as assimilated white people marry assimilated white people, any culture one’s ancestors may have brought with them disappears, along with knowledge of your heritage. You don’t have anything anymore, just White (and if you glorify whiteness— yknow, a construct created entirely for oppressing PoC— you’re a bigot). And since the culture that America has managed to develop is a) only 200 years old (so nothing when compared with the width and breadth of any more established civilization or culture) and is b) is based of flags, war, and stealing from and killing native people, there’s... not a lot to go on there, even if you wanted to glorify that.

So, when you don’t have that sort of broader connection, it kind of leaves a hole in you, and you kinda want to know where you came from and to be connected to something bigger than just your immediate family. So you learn about where your ancestors came from, and you try to be connected with that. ...Which, depending on how you go about it, can be really fetishizing and obnoxious and Not Good!

Anyway, that’s one theory on why. I hope that helped???

Imma be earnest with you, Anon.

I know why white people do this. They rarely use their “culture” as anything but a Gotcha to non-white people. Because they’re just engaging in “white” culture, but slapping a country label on it and pretending like they actually are engaging instead of being racist lil shits. 

When they earnestly go “I’m from this culture!” it’s less likely that they haven’t tried to engage in something. But I do beg of y’all-- ENGAGE WITH THOSE CULTURES. Because just using it as a lil label over your white head to cover up that you’re still a being of no culture to speak of does no one any good, and you could enrich yourself so much just by vaguely engaging with something. 

But also most people I know engaging with European cultures like that are fantastic people and very amazing. So. Like. Please. You’ll love it. 

(Rambly as well, idc to organize my thoughts anymore.)

[sloppy-butcher]

Jealous David king and jake park headcannons I demand of you (in the least demanding way possible uwu) 🥺❤️

haha don’t you worry anon. i got you owo. thank you for the ask and thank you for waiting for so long <3 hope these are good enough for you <333

its kinda nsfw? its only kissing but like.. yknow..

Headcanons for Jealous! David King and Jake Park

David King

Don’t let this guy's tough exterior fool you, deep down inside he is really a sensitive fellow. You can tell when his mood shifts merely, by the way, he looks at you or by the way his hands flexes on your knee. He has a keen sense of all others around you, watching like a hawk for any signs of trouble or danger even if you were only surrounded by friends. He acts broody and unbothered - he has to when considering what labels life has put on his because of the masculine physique, but truly, he is smart and knows when your graze lingers on another for a suspicious amount of time.

David is naturally friends with all other survivors - he’s the dedicated bodyguard. An intrinsic desire to protect those weaker than him (which happens to include almost every other survivor) drives David to befriend all other survivors and instinctively they flock to him. He is safety, he is light and all things good. So when David notices that you start to hang around another person more than you would with him, laughing more and touching their shoulder as you talked, it takes a lot for him to get angry. Sure, his chest puffs out and he marches over to you, draping his beefy arm over your body and leaning into your conversation, but he never actively pushes the other person away or even throws them a glare. He hopes that through these simple gestures you will understand what he is so upset about.

If by some miracle, you do not pick up on his souring mood, David would shift his tactics into overdrive. He’s a big guy and he knows it and he certainly knows how to use it. When next you are in a trial with him and the other survivor in question, David arrives shirtless. You lose blood at the sight alone, feeling weak in the knees and light-headed. He was heavenly, glowing in pride, and god-like beauty. He was foolishly brave for exposing himself in such an indecent (but not unappreciated) manner, and you made sure to scold him every chance you got. “Why are you doing this?” You whisper-shout at him from the other side of a gen. David shrugs, passing a cool eye over the third party member who shuddered under his gaze. He stretched his chest and tensed his arms accentuating the glorious muscle. “No reason.”

He would become overly-protective of you to the point that it was self-damaging. He’d throw himself recklessly between you and the killer, going in for risky hook saves without a care for the killer's whereabouts. It was you he only cared about - only you. He had just unhooked you from your second stage and had led you to the corner of the area to heal. Though your clothes grew red with blood, you bit back the whimpers of pain and instead looked up at the man you loved. You knew something was wrong. “David,” You called, a small hand reaching up and cupping his bruised face gently. At your touch, he softened and hummed, leaning into your palm, seeking your comfort and warmth. “Why are you acting like this?” For a moment he debated where to ignore your question or not. But at the look in your eye, the desperately sweet and tender embrace of compassion, he relented and sighed, feeling horrid guilt crawl up his spine like sickening spiders. “You do love me, right?” He asked, attention downcast. Had you not trying to be quiet you would have gasped in disbelief. “David, of course! A thousand times, of course! How could I ever love anyone else when you exist?” You lift your other hand to his face and careful brush back stray strands of brown hair. Still, he refuses to look at you. Of course, you loved him. Yet he still allowed himself to doubt you - he felt ashamed. You lean forward and press your forehead to his, trying with all your might to radiate your love for the stupid man. After a moment he smiles and finally brings his eyes up to yours - they were filled with tears.

“Oh, my love.” You coo closing the distance and kissing him tenderly. He gives in to you, pushing back with force restricted, he had much more to give you but restrained himself and allowed you to lead. A large hand finds its way up to your back and offers you structure as the embrace deepens, tongues flickering about and dancing in each other's mouths. David feels heat replace shame and love replace jealousy. There was no way this was not real love for if it was then you were the greatest actor in all the world. After a few minutes, you break apart, a trail of saliva connecting your two lips. He's panting hard, trying to remain aware enough to hear you speak. At this point, he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in you, bleed into your love like how the sun breaks the evening sky. “I should get you jealous more often,” You hum, feeling him chuckle in response.

Jake Park  

Jake is a most peculiar case. He acts aloof, floating above all other humans and their mortal troubles in an untouchable manner. To be jealous of another person is a complete waste of energy and time for him. He looks down at melodrama and scoffs at things so simple. But if you can get Jake to open up, to get him to take you in and love you, then his whole previous attitude changes.

Jake is never overly clingy, never the first to initiate any form of physical affection - in front of other people that is. In the quiet woods when the only eyes are yours and his, he reaches for you like a child with fingers twitching and expression desperate. Do not shun him away and he will bloom under your light. He is a thirsty man, always in need of your watering embrace. While you are in the presence of other people, however, Jake is more reversed, only ever standing near you and only occasionally holding your hand. He watches you constantly and notices immediately when your gaze shifts to another survivor and stays there for much longer than his liking.

He wouldn’t call it being jealous - it’s more like he’s being overprotective. If you are found sitting alone at the campfire, he practically sprints over and sits beside you without a word or a look. If you are on-hook, he will drop all previous activities to travel across the realm to save you before anyone else has the chance. It is sweet and enduring, to be doted upon so totally and devotedly, but you start to realize his true intentions when one day you catch the look he gives the other survivors.

Never had you seen such a dark expression on your man before, the lines around his gentle hazel eyes growing incredibly heavy and dirty. He glares pure poison at anyone near you, spitting at them with nothing but a mere downward twitch on his mouth. The others would react violently, hands raising up in a defenseless gesture as they backed away from you and your fuming partner. You’d feel pressure on your shoulder and looking over you’d see Jake pushing himself into you, his attention following the retreating survivor. Jake was digging a trench between himself and the others, isolating himself in the saddest and heartbreaking manner.

“Why are you so angry, Jake? What has happened to you?” You ask him one evening while the two of you sit alone in a forest clearing, earning nothing but a soft ‘hmm’ from the man as his hands worked masterfully on repairing his toolbox. You sigh and shuffle closer, knowing full well that he could not deny you if he felt you so near him. He visibly stiffens as your hand overlaps his, fingers snaking into his own. “I have never seen you so angry before. Has anyone hurt you? Want me to go beat them up?” He laughs at your suggestion, finally relenting to your advances and passing you a soft side-eye. At the comfort of your furrowed brow, Jake felt his jealous boil and seethe and eventually soothe - you were so calm and understanding and he felt terrible for harboring such negative emotions.

“I have seen how you look at the other survivor. How you... long for them.” Jake falls despondent and quiet, retreating back into himself where nothing could hurt him, sinking down to a place where would he be safe. Just as the total blackness would threaten to take him all, you grabbed his hand and pulled his head out of the murky water.

“Jake. You are the only one for me. The others come and go but you,” You cup his cheek in your hand, “, are forever.” All the world leaves his body at your words and he leans into you. “You must stop shutting yourself away from everyone else,” You scolding tone failed as it barely had the strength to stand on its own as he distracted you with his expression and Jake closes his eyes and covers your hand with his gloved one. He moves it over his mouth and you feel him start to kiss your palm. You shiver at his butterfly touches. “I’m sorry.” He breathes in between kisses, talking directly into your skin. His other hand moves towards your head and suddenly he’s pulling you towards him, facing you completely. Gaining confidence he glides up your arm and to your eagerly offered neck. His lips are cold and there is hard stumble on his chin that tickles your sensitive neck wonderfully. You gasp as he bites down, teething you until he left a red, sore spot. He grins at your reaction. Jake then spends the next few minutes branding you with his mark, awarding your skin with the sign of his presence there. You were his alone and though you may wonder and gaze out the window at passers-by, you would always return to him.

#its himbo and feral hours #dbd imagine #dbd headcanons #dbd x reader #dbd david king #dbd david king x reader #dbd jake park #dbd jake park x reader

[reachfolk]

1-5 for the character development questions for Alexandria!

💛 from @korvanjund

this took forever to write cause of course i had waY too much to say omfl, but it was super fun!! tysm for the ask darlin <3

what (or who) would your character die for? live for?

family, family, family!! literally everything for alexi goes back to family. she may be on bad terms with her father's side (understatement of the century, but that's for question 3 lmao), but she would do literally anything for her siblings. protecting them is the main reason she's willing to overcome every fear in her fight against alduin. of course, she's also just as close with her aunt ursula. and she may have... a complicated relationship with her mother and father, she loves them and would do anything to keep them safe.

as for what she'd die for, she's just as dedicated to the cause of freeing the reach from nord control as most reachfolk. it's largely because she sees the reachfolk as an extension of her family. the reach is her home and she's so unabashedly proud of that. granted, she isn't as extreme in her views as the forsworn, but we're not gonna get into the highkey racism in the way bethesda wrote that whole faction lmao.

who (or what) does your character love most in the world? why?

this is such a hard question to answer cause like *slaps roof of alexi* this sweet girl can fit so much love in her. if she like, absolutely HAD to pick a handful of people, it would be her siblings (no, she couldn't pick between them even with a gun to her head, and tbh neither could they). i could literally go on for HOURS about her siblings and why they're all so close, but the tldr is that they're really the only people in the world that Get her. their social standing has always been in a really precarious place given how drastically different their mother and father's backgrounds are, and so they never particularly fit in with most kids from their social class. but they also didn't get very much of a chance to connect with their reachfolk heritage. i won't go so far as to call them outcasts, but they were definitely seen as... different, and there weren't many opportunities for them to feel like normal kids except for when they were with each other. but the other people alexandria is closest to are her aunt ursula, bothela (vanilla npc, the lady who runs the hag's cure), and ophelia from her coven.

that covers it for people, but the thing she loves most in the world is easily alchemy! it literally shows in every part of her mannerisms and shapes the whole way she looks at the world. a huge part of why she's so connected to namira is because she's so drawn to even the most grotesque things in the world, because there's opportunity in all of them to create something new and helpful. it's why she got so close to bothela, bc she's the one that trained alexi in alchemy since she was a kid.

who (or what) does your character hate most in the world? why?

this is ironic considering the first question but literally it's her uncles, thonar and thongvor silver-blood lol. i'm sure anyone who's been in markarth knows that they aren't exactly stand up dudes, but after the whole issue with the forsworn conspiracy came out, she probably had to be physically restrained by her companions to keep her from killing them then and there. she spent a huge part of her childhood knowing there was a target on her back and the backs of her parents and siblings, because there's nothing thonar and thongvor want more than to get rid of them entirely. despite the fact that she had such a fancy upbringing, her uncles were the reason none of them were ever given a real chance to rest. and then there's sooo much to say about how that exacerbated isobel's anxiety issues, which all of her kids including alexi later inherited. alexi literally carries that pain in her genes and she's never been able to get away from it no matter how hard she's tried.

again, this is one of those things i could talk about for ages, so if u wanna hear about one of the many times her uncles actively made an attempt on the lives of her parents and siblings, feel free to send me an ask abt it i'll happily tell u everything. there's like a 30k fic idea there but i have the gist of it all written in my drafts lol.

on top of all of that, she definitely has a LOT of issues with everything they do in the reach. like, ulfric stormcloak gets an honorary mention for this question, and the fact that they support him sure as fuck doesn't help. and considering the fact that she's been sent to cidhna mine and often helped out in the warrens, she's seen the worst of what the silver-bloods did to her people.

what is your character's main goal? does this goal change, or does it remain consistent throughout the story?

tbh this one is also hard to answer bc the game devs of bethesda are COWARDS and they didn't give us this option in the game even though all the pieces were there, but i feel like alexi would almost inevitably join the rebellion to liberate the reach. when she left home, she was still trying to make sense of things, and she just needed to put some distance between herself and all the things tearing her in different directions. she'd spent so much of her life trying to placate everyone that she couldn't figure out what her goal is until she was in a place where she didn't have to think about everyone else.

but no matter what, i think all roads lead to home for her. she may have had a strained relationship with the forsworn (esp when madanach was in prison and working for her uncles in secret), but she'd join when madanach is given free reign to control the rebellion as he sees fit rather than have to bend backwards to satisfy thonar. i personally hc that after that, the forsworn's actions are more controlled and they start to operate less like a disjointed faction of bandits and more like, yknow, people fighting for an actual cause. once she rebuilds her faith in the rebellion, she'd definitely join up.

does your character achieve their main goal? if so, does achieving this goal satisfy them?

again, hard to say since there's no in-game way for this to happen bc the devs were weak, BUT in my heart of hearts i like to pretend that there was a proper questline where u join up with madanach and retake the reach. after everything they've been through, i really hope it'll be canon that they finally are able to liberate themselves. i do think alexandria and her siblings would all do their part to help the rebellion, and their auntie was probably a proponent of the forsworn's rule during the great war, so they're in the clear. i'd imagine the situation is more complicated with their parents.

regardless of whether or not the forsworn are ever able to retake the reach, alexi definitely spends most of her life running around skyrim with the hope of fighting against people's prejudices against the reachfolk. (in the verse where she's the ldb) she kind of understands her role as an essential figurehead to the movement and how she's key to earning the nord's respect. i mean, it'd be hard to argue that they're evil savages when one of their own literally saved every single mortal soul on nirn. so, yeah, i think she feels pretty satisfied with that lol

#tes #tesblr #cozy answers #oc: alexandria silver blood #can u tell i get overly excited to talk about lexi?? #skyrim oc #reachfolk

[dyketectivecomics]

Can’t help but remember what BULLSHIT it was that Cass was so insanely isolated even during her batgirl run.

She was barely living with Babs for a year (both in real time and in comic time). Bruce COULD have easily adopted/fostered her & forged the papers to do so but he didn’t. And we’re never really given reason as to why. But it can Kinda be inferred that its bc even in his vehement denial of Cass’ previous killing, he still wanted to distance himself from her (which.... like thats a WHOLE thing i’ll get into when im talking parallels with them later but anyways-)

These are two people who are the MOST formative to her and who have taken different approaches in mentoring her and looking after her, and DC has neither of them really step up to encourage her to step outside of the cowl.

Not to say that Babs DIDNT do that, but it really is just.... so lackluster & frustrating? And it’s understandable when it all comes to a boiling point later in the series. When Cass faces off the first (well, second if we’re counting their initial encounter) time against Shiva, she’s been avoiding Engaging with life up until that point BECAUSE of her deathwish.

And granted I’m only back up to that point right now, so I’m sure I’ll have more to harp on as I continue rereading but FUCK, yknow?

Cass saved the city. Cass helped with finding Gordon’s would-be killer. Cass helped exonerate Bruce from MURDER. And DC REALLY expects me to believe that neither Babs nor Bruce would fully, legally, take her in after all those things???

Its Bullshit is what it is. They really couldnt stand the idea of letting this girl have an actual meaningful family beyond the hints and the hums throughout her series. HEAVEN forbid they gave her further influence and connection with the REST of the batfam.

#randywrites #cassandra cain #randy reads batgirl #(well rereads and rants mostly fdjkal;) #meta #just jotting some stuff before work since i got my Adulting Stuff done for today ooooof #i am just.... really angry on cass' behalf rn fdjklas; at least fanon opts to ignore that and just... has bruce adopt her outright but ahhhh #also thinking how INTERESTING it would be if Babs actually contested bruce for custody of cass tho like..... the LAYERS that could have OOOF #ok time for work again *thumbs up* #randywritesmeta

[mychemicalaromanticism]

things ive already established r on this post

besties this got so fucking long but heres a giant ramble about cherri

okay so. there are huge differences betwn cherri as a hyperviolent drac hunter and cherri as a friend of the four and cherri as the girls mentor. with the first one he was 17 and desperate to distance himself from his upbringing so he went all in on Being A Killjoy. he was always one of the first ppl to rush into a fight and he fought hard. he blew up his fuckin hand with that attitude. and all the while he was just racking up more unaddressed trauma and eventually he ran away from that, too. giving himself radiation poisoning was more appealing than facing his problems.

so as a teenager/young adult hes kind of constantly in a panicked state. hes scared the people from his past are going to find him and drag him back with them. so he lashes out and he runs away over and over again.

i said in another post that he has some past life shit goin on which usually would give him a connection to the witch that manifests early in life, but with all the stuff hes gone through he has been Preoccupied. he can become oblivious to almost anything that doesnt apply to whatever hes focused on. not in a hyperfocus way its likeeeeee. when u live on survival mode during prolonged periods of stress. hes immune to magic bullshit bc hes too tired and scared.

anyways around his mid-20s he finally has a little more stability (as much as the average person living in the zones can have, that is) and he finally notices that Weird Stuff happens around him. basically: out of my list of Powers People Connected To The Witch Have he has the prophetic dreams/enhanced intuition as well as a form of sensing ghosts where he can see auras and kind of like, echoes of past events in ppls lives. that look like auras. itz complicated and not of utmost importance so im leaving it at that.

anyways thats what makes him start writing poetry. just 4 funsies he'll describe his weird experiences and embellish them to make em pretty. just as a casual hobby n all that.

he would forget fun ghoul in between the times they ran into each other but its pretty easy to be reminded of who fun ghoul is. the most insane 10 year old cherri has ever met. cherri isnt a brother figure to ghoul. hes just. his friend that happens to be more than twice his age. its whatever lmao

to cherri, ghoul is kinda like a stray animal he keeps seeing. which is hilarious. ghoul actually goes and finds him to introduce him to jet when they start running together, and cherri meets party and kobra (spark and birdie at the time) when he drives the four of them to a party. because he has a truck hell yeah. so now instead of one stray animal he has, like, a feral cat colony that he drives around occasionally. i have no real-life human relationship equivalent to them because irl if some guy that is not related to any of you and isnt even a childhood or family friend and theyre hanging out with you? they are usually not a safe person lmao. but this is my fantasy land and im too stubborn to change anyones birth years even though ghoul being born in 2004 makes everything really hard to make not creepy.

so yeah hes a casual somewhat friend of the fab four. hed probably get more and more concerned as they got famous. the beginnings of any sort of protective feelings, awww :) that sets him up for becoming the girls mentor.

OH FUCK. THE GIRL..... i think if i was in my late 20s and i heard that the gang of 13-17 year olds had adopted a 5 year old kid i would go bananas. what the fuck. it is a LONG while before cherri meets her. but he has the strongest affection for ghoul (if you could even call it that) and ghoul absolutely adores the girl and swings her around under her arms like a cat to show her off to cherri and its very endearing and the girl is sweet and funny so its easy to be around her. and (unfortunately) she is somewhat used to interacting with weird easily agitated people so she kinda gives him space. cherri isnt quite the uncle figure the fandom usually makes him (i luv uncle cherri sm but he simply cannot exist in the universe ive created, f), but hes a little similar.

and then the four had to go and pretend to die. lol.

when the girl was kidnapped, fucking everyone who knew her was ready to storm the city then and there. like regardless of how little you knew her, if you had ever met her you would fucking die for her. she is pure childish charisma and shes precious. i love the girl. so cherris immediately on board with whatever plan the four make to get her back. ive already talked abt how it fucked up the girl tho; there was no way to tell her that the four werent actually dead, she sees the building collapse and she shuts down. and cherri has to fight against his instinct to leave the radio station and never come back when he sees an eight year old girl sitting dissociated on the couch. that fucks everyone up.

i just realized i havent talked about literally anyone else at the radio station. i think cherri started lingering around the station bc it was safe and sheltered while also not being a popular spot. there are less kids there (people pass through but its not a hangout spot). he was kind of just hanging around to get away from the heat and noise and dr d took notice. because that man can see ur soul and no one knows if thats literal or not. so theyd chat a few times a day and show pony was the one 2 get him out of his shell a little and also was the first one he mentioned his poetry hobby to. im making this all up right now as im writing bc i dont know anything about LITERALLY any of the ppl associated w the radio like im not even going 2 try with chimp n newsie i do not have the willpower to tackle all that. justttt. cherri pony n D become bros and live 2gether there.

back 2 the regular timeline. the rescue mission happens in 2019. the girl lives at the station until 2023. during that time she is very much depressed and withdrawn and is only happy when the four come to visit. none of the Adults know how to help her so they just keep her safe and cared for and hope she'll open up to them.

she does not. she takes the weird cat thats been hanging around and she runs away.

cherri does not see her for three years. shes still worse for wear in the mental health department and he can see all kinds of visions of what shes been through since the last time he saw her and he fucking hates the ultra vs bc they remind him of his past. he does not want her going down that path but its obvious that she isnt crazy abt the ultraviolence thing either so thats a relief.

they have a kind of tense relationship throughout the comics. he feels like he failed her and that spirals into feeling like he failed the four for not being a good adult to them and fun ghoul for not helping enough when his commune was bombed and all kinds of shit and that irrational thinking mixed with plain old, yknow, caring about the girl, is what makes him take a bullet (laser. whatever) for her.

i was trying to figure out the timing of each of their ghost experiences, but i want both of them to talk to the witch and im just gonna make it like dreams where a whole buncha stuff happens but irl its been like seconds. so its like barely a second while the girl has her Witch Convo and cherri FINALLY gets a straight answer, yes there is weird shit going on with him having powers. he doesnt have any story-significant past lives because im lazy, hes just an old soul. like really fuckin old. the amount of latent life experience and stuff his soul/energy/whatever has picked up along the way makes him VERY noticeable to gods n stuff. he fuckin lights up all the alarms like what the FUCK is that over there. she wasnt rly able to get to him or even properly notice him while he was a kid and a young adult so shes happy to finally see him again. he has a STRONG sense of familiarity with her. they know each other on a wild ass level that he cant really comprehend.

welp thats some more lore I'll have 2 think abt. anywayz

post canon is when he and val get to have the most awkward spiderman meme moment of realizing that they have the same trauma SOOOOO thatz fun lol /s sorry kings i thought it would be fun to give u something fucked up to bond over <3

not much changes in his personality. he has a better understanding of Weird Magic and delights in freaking out the ultra vs but for the most part he returns to his life at the radio station. i love him

THIS GOT SO CRAZY LONG I DID NOT MEAN 2 GO THROUGH EVERY PART OF HIS LIFE LIKE SOME WEIRD CHARACTER STUDY but here we are. this is basically a first draft like almost all of this is subject to change but u gotta start somewhere. so heres my start i love this guy. its probably obvious but i have not read ANY twitterverse killjoys stuff </3 maybe i will someday idk

#cat talks #lore #ok2rb but what a mess this post is

[transcendence-au]

r!Pacifica tricks Dipper into running a booth at a TwinCon. He comes across an r!Mabel and an r!Henry who meet at his booth. (Also, brownie points if it’s a Mizcor booth)They both talk about how much they love Alcor and want to date him, and Dipper helps them realize that the traits they’re projecting onto ‘Alcor’ are actually traits they can find in each other. SO WOODZAR HAS BLOSSOMED IN THE PLACE OF MIZCOR

Mod F got really excited about this and ended up writing a thing! (Here it is on AO3 too)

===

Dipper looked toward the entrance of the convention center, at the large banner proudly proclaiming “WELCOME TO TWINCON 2896″, and slammed his head face-first onto the table.

Damn Aubrey. Damn her to the deepest pits of the Nightmare Realm for making him run a booth at TwinCon. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself get taken in by her evil tricks and wily ways; couldn’t believe he made a bet with her and lost. That was the last time he trusted Pacifica’s soul. And he totally meant it this time! Way more than the last eight times Aubrey had tricked him. He definitely wasn’t going to immediately go back to being friends with her. This was the last straw.

A loud creak announced the opening of the main con doors, and the room was quickly filled with a flurry of excitement. Dipper picked his head off the table with a sigh and prepared himself for a long day of peddling garbage. He considered how he must look – a sad demon sitting under a sign reading “MICOR MEMORABILIA” and surrounded by perverse figurines, body pillows, and graphic novels.

And then his curiosity got the better of him. He conjured a mirror in his hand and immediately noticed his top hat was askew, so he reached up to straighten it out. Perfect. He actually looked pretty good that day if he did say so himself. His hair was fluffy, his suit was pressed, his teeth looked sharp. Nice and presentable. He was so busy making faces in the mirror that he almost forgot he was at a convention, until -

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Ack!” Dipper yelped in surprise, his hat shooting high into the air. Despite this, he didn’t take his eyes off the mirror. “What do you want?”

“I hope I didn’t frighten you! You’ve got some lovely merch here. I was just wondering how much this comic would cost.”

“Check the price tag,” he responded gruffly.

“I- I tried, but it doesn’t look like there is one.”

Groaning, Dipper flicked his eyes away from his own beautiful reflection so he could see exactly what depraved nonsense the voice wanted to purchase, and -

Mizar smiled sweetly back at him.

The mirror shattered in his hand. Oh no. Oh no no no no no. This wasn’t happening. Why was she here? What was going on?

“I’ve heard about this series before,” he suddenly realized Mizar was saying, “but I never had the chance to check it out before. It’s a coffee shop AU, right? It’s so inspiring that fans can take the framework of Twin Souls and make even more beautiful stories based off of it.”

Dipper’s head was too filled with buzzing to really make much sense of what she was saying. All he could think about was how his sister’s soul was apparently a fan of the worst book series in the universe. It didn’t even seem like she was doing it as a gag like Mabel did – the girl in front of him was radiating nothing but enthusiasm and sincerity in her aura.

“Oh, I’ve read that!” another voice piped in. “It’s dope as fuck, although the first volume’s got a bit of a Woodzar focus. But if you can power through that, it’s high key Micor there on out.”

Okay okay okay. He could do something about this. Maybe he’d take Mizar aside and have a talk with her about why being a Twin Souls fan was a sin of the highest calibre. Dipper tore his eyes away from her for a moment to tell the newcomer to go away, but no sooner did he get a good look at them than he felt all the air kicked out of his imaginary lungs.

“Don’t get me wrong, man,” Henry’s soul continued, a sly look on her face. “Woodzar is a fine ship. There’s a lot of good Woodzar fic out there and I don’t fault anyone for writing it. But if we’re gonna be honest with ourselves, it’s pretty obvious that Alcor and Mizar belong together. Their romantic chemistry is off the goddamn charts. Remember when they finally kissed in the first novel? Oh, fuckin’ heart palpitations, man.”

The blood drained from Dipper’s face. What in the world was happening? Why were Mizar and Henry both Twinners? What was the universe punishing him for this time??

“I know, right?” Mizar replied with a giggle. “My name’s Minty, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

Henry’s soul grinned back. “Halley. Nice to meet you too. I knew coming to this con would be a good idea – it’s the perfect place to find like minded people.”

“What about you?” Minty asked, and it took Dipper a minute – so embroidered was he in querying his omniscience to see exactly what traumatizing thing had happened to Minty and Halley that made them turn out this way – to realize that she was talking to him.

“I, uh, I’m… not a… Micor is bad,” he said finally.

Halley frowned. “What, don’t you love Alcor too? You’re running a booth at TwinCon and your cosplay is on-point! That suit must’ve been expensive, and the wings look almost real!”

Puffs of steam shot out from Dipper’s ears and he flared his wings. “It’s not a cosplay, I just look like this! And I’ll have you know that I would’ve never in a million years gone to a TwinCon if my friend Aubrey hadn’t pretended to be really bad at hula hooping and then made a bet with me that she could beat me in a hula hoop contest and then absolutely kicked my ass into the stratosphere with her nutty good hooping! Graggh!” He slammed his forehead into the table again.

“Awwww,” Minty cooed. “Stage fright is the worst. I know I sure was nervous the first time I went to a con in full cosplay. That was awful nice of your friend to convince you to go anyway!”

Dipper’s head shot up and he stared slack-jawed at the two of them just as Halley nodded. “You’ve got this man, you know? Like I said, your outfit kicks ass. And hey, thanks for opening up to us. That can’t have been easy.”

“B- but I- you WHAT-” Dipper stammered.

Minty squeaked and clapped her hands together. “Yeah! I feel like I’ve made some great friends at this con already.”

“I’m- n- no you’re WILDLY mistaken- this isn’t-”

Both Halley and Minty turned their backs to the increasingly flustered demon and leaned against the stall, looking off into the rest of the hall with pensive expressions. “Friends are nice,” Halley murmured, “but what I wouldn’t give to meet Alcor at this convention. He’s everything I want in a partner. And then I wouldn’t be so lonely anymore.”

Minty put her hand on Halley’s shoulder. “I know what you mean! He’s so confident and protective. Loyal to a fault. If Alcor was here, I’d ask him on a date!”

“What makes you think Alcor wants to date any of you humans?” Dipper grumbled. “Or anyone at all?”

“Don’t be such a pessimist, man!” Halley responded. She patted Dipper on the back, surprising him into coughing out a little cloud of yellow sparkles. “Alcor is real and he’s out there. As long as there’s the smallest spark of hope that he might love me back, I’ll follow him to the ends of the Earth!”

Minty slapped her forehead, startling Dipper out of the silent terror written all over his face. “Oh, duh! He’s cosplaying as Alcor because he’s here to find his Miiiizar! That’s why he’s not interested in Alcor’s love! I connected the dots!”

“No, you haven’t connected anything!” Dipper tried to cut in, terror returning in full force because the situation was spiralling rapidly out of control, but Minty kept going.

“Ah, if only I was Mizar,” she trilled as Dipper watched her soul dance traitorously in her chest. “Then it’d only be a matter of time before Alcor came to ask me out. We’d go to the coffee shop he works at and someone would cover his shift. I’d get a hot chocolate; he, an iced latte.” She sat on the table, sending a set of Mizar action figures toppling over onto Dipper’s lap. “I’d tell him all about how art school’s going and he’d confide in me some dark secrets about how the 2801 moon landing was faked because giant aliens were playing golf with the planets and accidentally knocked the moon into a black hole. And then, finally, he’d give me a dainty kiss on the cheek, and I’d make a little squeaky noise, yknow, and he’d blush and ask me if it was alright for him to do that, and then I’d say I’d rather you kiss me on the lips instead. And then -”

“Okay, I think I’ve heard enough of your fanfiction!” Dipper shouted, cheeks going completely scarlet, claws making deep gashes in the table from how tightly he was gripping it. “I didn’t- I’ve never- No one needed to hear that, it’s- I feel lightheaded.”

“I know what you mean, man,” Halley spoke up, an obvious wobble to her tone. Dipper and Minty looked up to see her staring off into the distance, eyes red and puffy, hands crossed over her heart. “I’m feeling it too. That was so beautiful, Minty, you sure as hell have got a way with words. And yknow, I- I work in a coffee shop, actually. I’d totally take Alcor there. We’d talk and laugh – damn, he’s gotta just have the most heartwarming laugh in the world – and I’d straight up offer right there on the spot to be his Mizar. I wanna protect the world, but I also wanna protect him, I know he’s got a sensitive side, I just know it. I’d chew steel for him.”

No no no no. This had to stop. Mind racing, Dipper struggled to find something they’d said to latch onto. “Hey, uh, Minty!” he interrupted. “You like coffee shops, right? Halley… works in one! You should go there with her. Instead of being here.”

“That’s a great idea!” Minty squealed. “We should all meet up for coffee after the convention!”

“No!” Dipper blurted. “I meant, you two should go. Together. Without me.” All he got in return was blank stares. He ran his hand through his bangs nervously. “Listen, Minty, Alcor doesn’t work at a coffee shop, because no one in the country will hire him. His claws make awful screeching noises on the mugs, and also he’s a demon. But Halley does work at a coffee shop. Maybe… there’s something there?”

Minty and Halley traded glances. “I don’t understand,” the former finally said.

Dipper facepalmed. “Okay. How about… Halley, you want to protect Alcor. That’s ridiculous, he doesn’t need protecting, he has so much magic. But Minty goes to art school, she probably needs someone to, I dunno, support her during tight deadlines. That’s like… mental health protection.”

Minty shrugged. “I guess that sounds nice…”

“And, uh, Minty, you want someone who’s loyal, which sounds to me like what you really need is a dog, not a romantic partner, and I’m not- Alcor is not a dog. Also, again, he’s a demon, he’s only loyal to himself. But if you’re really set on getting that kind of loyalty and trust from a sentient creature, well, Halley’s offered to chew steel for love.”

“Hey man, don’t put words in my mouth, I said I’d chew steel for Alcor,” Halley countered, putting her hands on her hips and staring Dipper down. After a moment, though, she looked back at Minty, who had a starstruck look on her face, and drew back. “I- I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like you Minty. I just don’t want to be alone anymore. How can I trust someone other than Alcor not to get tired of me?”

“Kinda toxic, but also big mood,” Dipper muttered. “Trust isn’t something you can or even should have for people you don’t know. Not just for romance – in any kind of relationship, trust is something you build up through getting to know someone. I should know; there’ve been so many times when I made the mistake of trusting someone – say, not to snuggle body pillows with half naked pictures of me on them – without even knowing them, just because of my preconceived notions about who those people are. Relationships are always a risk, but they’re worth it when they work out. You’ll miss out if you’re too afraid to take that risk.”

He beamed at them, extremely proud of his little speech he’d managed to pull together. Minty and Halley stared back, mouths agape, probably blown away by his emotional maturity.

Then they launched themselves at each other and started furiously making out.

“Oh my stars!” Dipper yelled, recoiling from the mass of flailing limbs. “You literally just met each other! Go get a coffee or something first, holy shit!”

They broke apart, faces red but grinning. “Wow,” Minty breathed.

“Yeah. Wow,” Halley echoed. “Um, would you maybe want to walk around the convention with me? And maybe go get some coffee together afterward? I do work at a coffee shop nearby.”

Minty squealed again and grabbed Halley’s hands. “That sounds wonderful!”

“Yo, dude,” Halley said to Dipper, who was clutching his chest and hyperventilating. “Thanks for the advice. You’ve got some dope emotional maturity. Your friends are lucky to know you.”

Dipper, still trying to calm down, opened his mouth to make some words and only managed to emit a weak gurgle. He settled for giving them a nod.

The two of them started to walk away, but Minty paused and turned back. “Oh wait. We never got your name.”

“I’m Alcor the Dreambender,” Dipper grunted without a second’s pause. “Go away.”

Halley laughed. “Sure you are. You’re really committed to the character, I love it! Maybe we’ll see you around.”

Dipper gave them a strangled half-smile and waved them off, to which they finally made their departure. Finally alone, he collapsed onto the table out of exhaustion. He was relieved that he’d managed to turn Mabel and Henry’s souls away from being Micor shippers, but after a few minutes of lying there the reality of what he’d just done started to sink in.

“Oh stars, I just shipped my sister and her husband,” he moaned. “What is my life. Please, universe, let me get through the rest of the day without anything else happening. Please.”

Naturally, someone immediately started talking to him. “Yo, sleeping guy, wake up.”

“Whatever it is, please just use the credit card swiper and move on,” he responded.

“Dude, what swiper. Help me out.”

With a groan, Dipper picked his head up, and then he froze, his every hair standing on end like a terrified cat.

“This body pillow rocks,” Soos’s soul said, hugging one of the models that had both Alcor and Mizar on it, half naked and blushing. “You gotta hook me up.”

“Ohhhh, I have that pillow! You won’t regret it!” came another voice, and Dipper looked over to see Melody’s soul walking up to the table. “You’ve got good taste. Micor forever, am I right? Bro, there’s some really good smutfic I could recommend you if you’re interested.”

Dipper slid out of his chair and curled up into a ball under the table. “Damn you Aubrey,” he whispered. “I’ll fucking get you back for making me do this.”

(As it turned out, giving Aubrey a dream about being stuck at a convention where everyone was attracted to her did not adequately “get back” at her, and it was a full week before she stopped laughing about it.)

#fic #dipper #mabel #henry #pacifica #soos #melody #reincarnation #twin souls #mod f #Anonymous

[codeyewwow]

can we talk about ryan?? can we talk about andrew motherfucking ryan and how well that character was written? because holy fuck

i don't know man. there's just something i find incredibly interesting about him. i know that a lot of people dislike the bioshock novel ( which is valid, no hate here ) but i think it gives us plenty of insights into what the characters were like before actual game events and it does this the most for probably ryan and fontaine, but we aren't going to talk about the bastard here. no okay we're focusing on ryan

dude was fucking PASSIONATE. you get that little glimpse of trauma in his childhood, and from then on he's this sort of excited businessman who absolutely cannot contain his excitement about his little project. it's almost childlike and i love it so much. like the scene in the plane with bill?? god. he's so fucking happy! this is his dream! come to life!! he was so convicted about this, so convinced that this would be humanity's peak and it makes his fall that much sadder ......

god bless the people on soundcloud who made the book into an audio drama because... oh my god. ohhhh my god. it goes from :] to a tired, wire-tight voice as the small problems arise, and then there's a specific shift in ryan's voice between part one and two, where he just. oh man i hardly know how to describe it but that's when the anger and ruthlessness start to seep in and he starts to REALLY tunnel vision on this dream of his, to the point where he's destroying it without even knowing

and you get these insights into his relationships, not just with jasmine but with diane as well ( what's the one tape in bioshock 2?? the one where he talks about how diane was mentioning " bearing his heir " or something ) and i just. sit down. because heaven knows he wasn't going to be a good father but he did want kids and i can almost picture the type of dad he would be, probably would've kept that kid and raised them to be just like him. strict but a bit neglectful yknow.

obviously he wanted kids enough to murder jasmine after she sold jack. and then regretted that decision ( there's another audio diary babes! ).... you ever actually LISTEN to that? the very first line just that " i ... visited eve's garden today. " there so much fucking sadness and thinly veiled anger just in that line ALONE

and by then he's made so many mistakes but still believes that the city can thrive. and then it's bioshock and of course you have the in-game events where he comes off as this distant, ruthless dictator ruling from a distance and controlling the entire population ( and this lack of information serves to make atlas look like a better person as well ) BUT as you progress you learn little bits and pieces about him, these little snippets of the past, and he starts crumbling as he realizes who jack is, that he can't be stopped

i have to wonder what triggered him to start constructing that massive theory board in rapture central control. like. did he come across one of those diaries just by chance, and connect it to either what jasmine had done or to atlas' constant use of wyk, or maybe it's just that jack looks enough like either one of his parents to make it. maybe he did it while jack was up in fort frolic

but either way within only a little bit of time he's basically figured it out, and then leaves these little clues just..in his speech. and they seem really out of place at first. but rapture central control is just chocked FULL of clues that nothing is as it seems to be

and then you meet him. and he gifts you ( or curses you ) with the knowledge of what jack is and his past and chooses to die on his own terms ( even if jack's still the one that does the deed ) rather than fall in a meaningless fight. he sets an example with his death, that almost nothing you do has been your choice, and relinquishes the city to his heir

i think the worst. part of this. is later when you're gathering the big daddy suit parts. and you come across the audio diary mistakes

which is, in essence, ryan reflecting on all he's done, and acknowledging full well that he's partially the cause of this, and continuing on anyway, for the sake of a dream that's practically already in shambles. dude was basically broken, a shadow of his former self

he turns out more of an antihero than a real villain and i think it suits him better. he's just so fucking complex and i absolutely love the way he was handled and developed...... probably one of my favourite characters in this entire damn franchise

#i dont know man. hes just #hes something! and i love him #but i do need to shut up #shut up bonnie #bioshock #bioshock rambles #txt #andrew ryan #diane mcclintock #jasmine jolene #jack ryan #audio diaries #bioshock: rapture

[smartzelda]

Hey, so I'm gonna elaborate on this quote by Hashimoto. Turns out every game from bbs to the end of kh3 limit cut has to do with exactly what he says right there about Sora an Riku. Stay with me on this

Yeah, @xionshadow @minwuwhite @salted-coffee-beans @lovingthatgayshit and everyone else, I essayed again. Keep in mind there aren't quotes in this, it's more of a ramble of events and such

BBS: Riku and Sora are together being best friends and have a focus due to the keyblade, light, Terra and Aqua. Kairi is by her self and meets aqua. Yeah Aqua puts a spell on her necklace that ultimately leads her to Riku and Sora, but at this point in time it's unknown to them who the person to protect Kairi would be. Also, evidence is always thrown in here that Aqua doing that is so//*ai cause it leads Kairi to Sora, but really the hope is she leads to the keyblade weilder (yknow, on xehanort's end) who is technically Riku before kh1 events, and Aqua makes no romantic mention. It's just supposed to be someone with a strong enough light to protect her, not HER protector as in love or something or as in Sora or Riku being her prince.

Kh1: Sora and Riku have friendship problems and Riku has some jealousy. At the end they close the door, Riku's sad over realizing bad stuff he did, Sora has flashbacks to him and Riku spending time together and promises to go get him and come back with him so the 3 friends can spend time together. Kairi has only a few moments, including her joint saving Sora as of kh3 knowledge, her wanting to share a paopu too, and just her giving Sora the lucky charm and knowing that he'll return it. There's also Riku trying to find Kairi. Arguably, this game is the most we get of 3 friends, they're a trio, even on Sora's end. Sora goes through the worlds searching for both of his friends. But even then, Kairi isn't there 80% of the game. The friendship end is covered, but besides those moments where Sora has Kairi visions of her talking to him, he doesn't reference her. On the other hand, he meets Riku more than once, and we get to see Riku's fears evolve and his fear of replacement. We get Sora accepting him almost the whole time and Riku siding with darkness. We get moments like the moment where Sora is falling and he literally remembers Riku going "Giving up already? Sora, I thought you were stronger than that" and he believes after that and is able to fly with that pixie dust. He's the only one Sora has those flashbacks of the past with in the game like that. Sora and Riku get a scene with working together on the door while Sora and Kairi get separated and only Sora's work goes into everything, namely that he's gonna go get Riku while Kairi waits (not like she has a choice, but it stands). Even when it's about Sora and Kairi it's about just friendship or Riku. That kh1 scene where they get separated is an attributed so//*ai scene that people see as romantic, but it contains Sora's desire for them all to be friends and to find Riku. On the other hand with Riku, it's about Riku. Riku and Sora close the door? Flashbacks specifically about him and Riku till the last flashback, but even then it's Sora and Riku running together while Kairi's in the back running behind them. Sora and Riku's interactions and what's going on with their friendship are definitely focused on while Kairi is a doll most the game and doesn't get that kind of focus

CoM: About going to find Riku and Mickey. Evidence at the beginning that Sora really wishes to find Riku. He's distracted by Naminé, but whenever he finally gets to see "Riku" it's interraction that causes Sora to think afterwards about his relationship with Riku and what he could've done (more seen in the novel). If that huge analysis is correct, a lot leads to Riku, including parallels, but it's covered up by Kairi. Even when all Sora's memories of Kairi are replaced with Naminé, Sora's not in love with her until she uses the meteor shower scene, which would be a Sora and Riku memory. Before she uses it, Naminé is essentially at Kairi's current level of "I need to save her cause she's my friend". He only forgets Riku because of Naminé's memory meddling detracting from his purpose and making him forget everything he came to do and everyone except her. Kairi is merely mentioned by Naminé and Sora and everyone else. Even afer Sora knows about the Naminé and the repliku truth of him being not exactly Riku, he still does his actions for Naminé cause his heart still feels the impact of the fake memories, and even though Repliku's fake, Sora treats him similarly as Naminé, probably because of what's true in his heart. In the novels, Sora thinks about Kairi momentarily if she's brought up and when he looks at the lucky charm. Even in the lucky charm case, in the novel, it reminds him of Kairi cause she gave it to him, but also his promise to bring Riku back and of all his friends. It's only in Naminé's case with all the meddling that Sora looks at it and thinks of Naminé and his promise to protect her. Kairi isn't present and the game has no development with Sora and her or real reference to their relationship. On Riku's side, the novels have him mostly think about Sora out of the two, only really mentioning Kairi at the beginning when he decides he wants to say sorry to Sora and Kairi and when he meets Naminé. In the novel, for example, Riku goes to destiny islands of his memories and thinks about times with Sora when they rolled around on the sand. There's a focus on how Riku feels about the darkness and how that translates with his fears relating to Sora and his friends. He makes a promise with Naminé that she'll watch over Sora, and he walks the road to dawn for his redemption and to be able to face Sora and everyone.

Days: Similar to BBS, this one has main character focus on a different cast, but again Sora, Riku, and their relationship is still involved. Riku gets involved with Xion. In the novel, he states that he's willing to help her and not lie to her mostly because she's a part of Sora and is similar in personality, while Kairi factors in as appearance familiarity. In the novel, Riku has clear monologues about how he wanted to reign in his darkness before Sora woke up, and before going to fight Roxas how he's prepared to use his darkness to win at all costs, all for Sora. There's Xion and Roxas having memory visions. Xion awakes from one yelling "Sora". Roxas has a bunch of visions including Riku and Riku lines where he confuses Riku with Xion and wakes up yelling "Riku". There's the focus on how Riku gives up his body to win against Roxas and get Sora back. Then he has Mickey promise not to tell Sora what happened to him. Again, Kairi only is involved in mere mention and memories, and while Sora is too, he's more consistently mentioned. Riku also gets his focus on his motivations relating to Sora and shows up. Riku is there amd we are presented what's going on with him and Sora

Kh2: This one has a lot of obvious. One of Sora's main goals and focuses is to find Riku and bring him back. Along the journey, we also have Riku alienating himself from Sora to protect him while also stalking/leading him to make sure he's okay. There's the big reunion scene moment, and at the end Sora and Riku fight multiple battles together. In the RoD they have a heart to heart, and even though Sora's motivation was to bring Riku back so they and Kairi could be together again no matter what, he resolves to stay in the RoD with Riku for eternity instead without fight or protest, even in the novel deciding that if he was stuck here with anyone, he's glad it's Riku. Again, we see their relationship, how they work together, how they feel about each other. As for Kairi, as usual she is barely present. She is mostly left up to the few times she is mentioned and Sora rarely talks about her. Even with the begging scene and his feelings, we can get that it's a product of Naminé's meddling and not anything to do with him actually developing those feelings. Even Kairi herself only resolves to find Sora, and during the reunion scene, we learn their relationship is iffy due to time, change, and no interaction. After the reunion, Kairi's only Sora relationship moments are when they talk to Naminé and Roxas, which has nothing to do with how Sora and Kairi feel about each other, and when Sora returns the lucky charm. Except the lucky charm thing was just symbolic of Sora's promise to bring Riku back and them all be together again. It didn't have much to do with his relationship with Kairi other than she gave it to him and he remembers that when looking at it too. So again, we don't get much or really anything with Kairi and Sora's development, but we get plenty with Riku and Sora and how their motivations and interactions and everything relate to each other and their motivations and relationship

Recoded: Do I even need to say much? Kairi is again only in mention. There's a whole section where data Riku's about to be overtaken by bugs and Sora resolves to go alone, dive into him, and save him. He travels with Riku and they have a lot of moments and we again get to see (even before when Riku's in disguise and just out of it) about how they feel about their relationship and how they must act with the other in their mind. There's even that flashback of a Riku memory where Kairi is there, but Riku instead focuses on the moon and reaches for it, the moon believed to symbolize Sora.

Dream Drop Distance: Again, need I say anything? This game is about them relationship wise. They think about each other, they believe in each other and have talks with other characters about how they're always connected. There's a whole scene about how their hearts are in tune. In the novel, Riku has a monologue about how light and darkness they compliment each other. We get to see sorta how they feel about the other and trust each other. We again get Riku's motivation to protect Sora and his evolution to finding out that their rivalry is not darkness, but what pushed them to be stronger together and still does. There's so much of them and their relationship. On the other hand, Kairi shows up 4 times in the whole game, only 3 referring to Sora. She isn't even really mentioned. 1 of those 3 is a flashback to Kairi flying through him in kh1, another is just Kairi appearing behind Sora with all the rest of the guardians of light, and a 3rd is just Sora's dream with Riku and Kairi walking away from him. There is really nothing with Kairi and her relationship with anyone here

0.2: There's not much, but even with Riku and Kairi standing there, the only mention between them and Sora is basically how Sora's rubbed off on Riku and how Riku's more like Sora, then Riku talking about how he wants to be more like Sora. So again, more of their relationship focus

Kh3: During Sora's journey section, there is like no mention of Kairi, but he thinks about Riku and mentions Riku and talks to Riku on the gummiphone. We see them meet in the tower and Riku reassures him that he can do it. We see this little of their relationship and the little development. There's the RoD thing where Sora arguably uses the power of waking to get to Riku without having KKD and the gayblade. There's these looks they give where they understand each other without speaking. Even with the paopu scene, it starts out with Sora focusing on Riku. This is also the first point we see Sora trying to do a relationship fix with Kairi. Sora sheilding Kairi doesn't amount to or develop anything. But we get Riku's sacrifice, where by now he's realized that he loves Sora and he tells Sora he believes in him as he goes to sacrifice. It has a bigger focus than Sora's shield of Kairi and is more dramatic. Riku tries to prove to Sora that he is strong on his own. There's Riku comforting Sora and them being the only one left. There's the deliberation of animation in Riku reaching out to Sora and dropping it, only to get up, tell Sora he believes in him and sacrifice. In the Riku keyblade graveyard battle, we get moments of Sora swooping in to protect Riku and them going to fight together, where as in the rest Sora popped in to help or like in Mickey's case where he just gets captured. We get to see their teamwork once again. There's Riku's reaction of being angry after Kairi being "killed" only after Sora gets smad. Riku's heart is the first to reach Sora in kingdom hearts, and Riku supports his end decision and believes in him. All the Sora with Kairi stuff is mention, him fixing his relationship with her, or him going to bring him back and have all his friends safe. I didn't even recognize the evidence of Riku being the light and saving Riku first, even the section of saving Riku having more cutscenes and Sora talk/analysis than the rest of the scenes Sora saves his friends

Remind: All of the Sora and Kairi stuff again is just Sora trying to find her and have all his friends safe and fix his relationship with her. This one is more about Kairi and Sora's relationship, and even then there's a focus on Sora and Riku's relationship. There's still a bunch of the same things as base kh3, but we get more moments of Riku saying to trust or believe in Sora, there's Riku recognizing Sora there when Sora hits him with light when no one else does, even softly saying Sora's name aloud. There's their heartstations side by side and Sora being able to connect to him from inside kingdom hearts. There's another shot when Sora gets Kairi's last heart piece where Riku's heart is the brightest and again reaches Sora first. We still get their relationship and how they feel about each other despite this section not being directly about them, just like bbs, days, and 0.2.

Limit cut: We get big focus here. We see Riku sad over Sora. We learn that he is at least a key to saving him. Riku's dreaming about looking for Sora exactly where he is. We learn Riku is gonna be important. On Kairi's side, she's mentioned again and relegates herself to doll status for a whole year. She can see the final world, but neither she nor the scientists looking in her heart or anyone else looking found Sora or something related, while Riku's dreams hold the or a key and possibly a clue. Also, Yozora, the kh3 Riku lookalike (described by even Sora, Donald, and Goofy) looking for Sora who may just be Sora, but may also refer to him looking for the nameless star who may be his Sora (it's kinda hard to know for now).

In every game, consistently, Sora and Riku's relationship and development is a focus, even if it's not the center or the most important thing

Thanks for dealing with my essay ramble

#sora #riku #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts remind #kh remind spoilers #remind spoilers #remind #another kh essay

[whocalledhimannux]

TBATD Chapter 10 note

Most of the differences between the mythology in this chapter and the mythology in canon are deliberate. As a general note, I think the show, for the most part, tried to avoid portraying “religion” in favor of a milder, more secular philosophy, with the Spirit World being seen more as nature/magic than something sacred. Which is, yknow, not surprising for a Nickelodeon show. But I did want to take a bit of a closer look at religion in this fic, which is one reason why the idea of dragons and blackfish (and wolves and badger moles and air bison, for that matter) as sacred is more prominent in my writing than in canon.

Also, it seems as though the true origins of bending in the series are not actually that widespread. Not only does Roku have no idea that the koi in the spirit oasis are Tui and La, but he directs Aang to the oldest spirit he can think of rather than one connected to the Water Tribe, which suggests to me that knowledge of Tui and La has likewise been erased from their cultural memory. The Fire Nation strayed a lot from the original Sun Warrior culture. Knowledge of the lionturtles and energybending was lost.

So while the viewers know a lot about the origins of FN and WT culture (and about bending/the Avatar in general--although I haven’t seen LoK, so I personally don’t know as much about that), there’s a vacuum for the ordinary people, and it’s only natural for the vacuum to be filled with things that are not quite... well, right, for lack of a better term.

Side note: I think my feelings on this are influenced by my own Jewish background: Judaism distinguishes between halacha (law, which is mandated by the Torah and the Talmud) and minhag (custom, which develops out of other practices). There is a tremendous respect for minhag, to the point where sometimes a minhag becomes so respect that it has the force of halacha even if there is no “real” biblical basis for it. For example, wearing a kippah or a yarmulke was once minhag, but is now considered almost a universal rule for Jewish men. So that’s why I’m hesitant distinguishing between “real” and “fake”--I think cultural practices developed by people over time are just as true, in a way, as things handed directly to them by a higher power. So... the spirit stuff we get in canon is halacha, but in-universe for my fic, much of what plays out in this story is minhag that is just as important.

Anyway. I think this Fire Nation myth is pretty compliant with what comes out in canon, with one exception: the “Sunset Cliffs” in the current capital city are seen as the location of the first fire, rather than the Sun Warrior ruins. Zuko straight-up had no idea that the first fire was still burning, and the current Fire Nation doesn’t seem to see itself as direct descendants of the Sun Warriors--Zuko talks about them with some distance, their ruins aren’t a common pilgrimage spot or anything, and they’re said to have “died out” rather than just being subsumed into Fire Nation history, so I see this as being an old, old shift in the legend. If the Sun Warrior culture has been “gone” for a thousand years, it makes perfect sense for the legend to just naturally drift from their home to the current cultural center.

The dragon antagonism, on the other hand, I see as being relatively recent--added by Sozin as a way to justify the hunting of dragons. I mean damn, the dragons gave the Fire Nation their fire and show up a LOT as a cultural motif, so imo it would take some pretty strong propaganda to overcome that. The “prove you’re a strong firebender by fighting a dragon” argument is the secular propaganda, and the “btw dragons have always been pretty dangerous so we don’t owe them gratitude” is the religious propaganda.

As for the Southern Water Tribe, I really think they’re just begging for a better spiritual tradition. I can accept that the North would make the oasis their spiritual center and be content with that, because they can actually feel the peaceful aura or whatever, but I don’t think the SWT, on the other end of the world, would be emotionally sustained by “there’s this one place that’s really holy, but we can’t explain why, there are no stories about it, there are no rituals for you to participate in, and that’s literally all you get.” It’s just way too abstract.

And yes, I recognize the irony of saying this as a Jew, but diaspora Judaism was/is HEAVILY ritual-based for a reason. Plus, historically it was very common for Jews with strong attachments to their diasporic homeland to bestow with spiritual significance by calling it a “New Promised Land” or the “Garden of Eden,” which both reaffirmed the religious importance of the Land of Israel and allowed them to find holiness in whatever land they happened to be living. So the myth that Katara tells does something similar--it starts at the spirit oasis, acknowledges its significance, provides a strong basis for the link between the two Water Tribes, and then gives the South its own culture, equally as important.

Related: I think it’s a little odd to have the moon as the only “teacher” of waterbending, when the other sources are all animals that actually bend and the moon just kind of hangs out there? Learning to push the tides, sure, fine. But it also seems like the South uses animal motifs more than the North--Sokka’s war paint, the wolf helmets, Bato’s ceremonial headdress. Those things don’t show up in the North, so again, I think it’s fitting to have the North be more content with their abstract, place-based religion and the South turn more towards the natural world and storytelling. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I was inspired by a different fic for the choice of orcas as waterbending teachers/sacred animals, but their distinctive coloring was also a big reason I settled on them. I sort of imagine that, in an earlier time when the identity of the koi fish was known, some waterbenders looked at some orcas and thought “clearly these giant fish are the messengers/students/what-have-you of our two patron spirits.”

So those are my thoughts on Avatar/The Blackfish and the Dragon mythology. And for the record, all of the parallels to Judaism were 100% subconscious, and I didn’t notice them/mean to talk about them until I was writing this note and couldn’t find an easier way to explain what I meant. This post isn’t meant to be some kind of proselytizing/my beliefs are better than anyone else’s deal, and the actual content of the myths is inspired more by a variety of Indigenous American and Polynesian origin stories that I read for research... just filtered through a Jewish lens cuz that’s how my brain works.

Oof, this is a long note. If you made it to the end, you have my warmest thanks.

#tbatd

[volarentarchived]

fox + semblance trigger.

this is something i’ve been meaning to jot down for a while. the main headcanon is under the disco conversation, i just needed to throw it in here for extra clarity.

∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ 04/04/2020 [21:51] there's this one scene in atf where fox is using a compass in order to track someone through the desert right [21:53] even though it was on his scroll, it reminded me of this factoid i'd learned where foxes actually use gravitational pull of true north or earth's magnetic waves in order to hunt their prey right [21:54] wait, lemme find it [21:54] https://earthsky.org/earth/foxes-use-earths-magnetic-field-to-jump-on-prey-earthsky.org foxes are the first animals thought to use earth's magnetic field to judge distance, not just direction. [21:55] and i was thinking, if real foxes can do that, why not just make fox a fox faunus so he can do that without a scroll ? [21:56] and i know that is to some degree compensating for his disability, but i don't think it really changes much in regard to making his life 100 percent easier / it just gives him a sixth sense of where due north is [21:57] and it's not like his own semblance doesn't make up for the fact that he can still track people with remarkable ease, or that he doesn't face difficult challenges when he can't use it either [21:58] if one of his teammate's breaks their aura, or if fox runs out of it he's at a significant disadvantage [21:58] he almost died in atf because there was someone who could block semblances nearby [21:59] plus fox has significant trauma surrounding feeling a teammate or loved one break their aura which he needs to get over [22:00] he is so used to being able to talk to someone mentally, and feeling that mind connection snap because that person's died, whether it be by grimm, or the desert, or an assailant [22:01] i mean, he's not used to it, it still sends him into panic [22:02] it's actually worse when that person is anticipating their death, because fox can't find it in himself to break that connection so he can't hear anymore / because he doesn't want that person to be alone [22:03] holy shit i need to write this down — [22:23] i think that might be one of the only times to see fox truly vulnerable? because when someone doesn't have any aura, it's hard for him to "see" them with his sense, it's hard for him to find them, and it's one of the only times he feels truly helpless, when he can't aid the people he loves? [22:24] fox is so resilient, and he's a magnificent survivor with an iron will / but the thing is that that he left vacuo so he could find something to survive for and nothing matters to fox more than the connections he makes [22:24] so when they snap, he goes into panic mode [22:25] sometimes, when fox wakes up and he's disoriented from a nightmare, he'll murmur something like "i can't see, i can't see" but he's not actually talking about his sight [22:25] he's talking about losing a loved one, because he can't sense their aura anymore — [22:37] like, fox knows he’s is capable and he is the last one to underestimate someone's abilities but that mind connection forcibly snapping is his only trigger [22:38] it has a different physical effect on him rather than if a person just decided to close their mind off [22:40] it's like ??? i guess, shutting something down before an update, or pulling out a memory stick before data is finished transferring / you have the capability to fuck up whatever data was being sent across and fox can feel that corruption in his bones [22:41]god this like, really helped with me solidifying his semblance stuff and looking at it in new ways — [23:02] fghj this is hurting my heart [23:03] i think i might've said it before, but this really is one of the only times that fox can be seen vulnerable ?? normally he's so solid and mellow and in a good mood / bad stuff is sometimes water off a duck's back yknow, but it's so rare to see him shaken ??

tl;dr — fox is one of the characters in the show who has been canonically written to be able to sense and monitor how much aura someone has left without looking at someone’s scroll. his ability to sense someone else’s aura, and through that connection their mind, has become essential to how he navigates the world.

fox’s capabilities when it comes to connecting to people through the mind is a lot more than simple telepathy. in atf, when he was rid of his assistive dialogue program on his scroll he had to use his semblance to metaphorically “see through someone else’s [edward’s] eyes” / it’s more than a mind link! in my headcanons, fox will eventually come to feel what other people are feeling too as they are very closely associated with someone’s thought process. the more familiarity fox has with someone, the more he might even be able to feel physical sensations.

so what happens when someone that fox is familiar with dies? in the middle of having their minds telepathically linked? fox feels their agony and fear. he has felt the last words and thoughts and feelings of someone who has perished. the mental link snaps and it feels almost physical as if fox has died alongside them. and so —

when someone is linked to fox telepathically, and their aura shatters? it can be triggering for fox. depending on his stress level, how much aura he has, how many people are around to gather intel from? it can send him into the kind of panic that not many people have witnessed before. if fox can’t find that person physically and hear their voice or touch them, and basically confirm they aren’t dead then his panic will steadily rise.

the only reason that fox left vacuo was to establish long lasting bonds, and for a mental snap to hurt that much that fox goes into a panic ( which he never does because fox tends to stay calm in high stress situations ), he has to have cared about that person very very much.

#fa / gen. #fa / hc. #long post /