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synonymroll648 · 1 year

Note

I mean. if you're willing to share....then yes I am all ears on that sokeefitz angst fic...just saying *eyes*. I put this in a separate ask to give you a space to talk about it, but only if you want! Also no clue what I would want if I was sick, it's genuinely been so long I don't. I don't know what my sick safe foods are? life is so so so hard for people with strong immune systems i'm suffering so much /s

also hi hope you're feeling better! or that if you're still sick that it packs its bags and kicks its own ass to the curb soon <3

i'll answer the other stuff in the og chain; this one's juuuuust gonna be the sokeefitz angst fic lol.

basically: au (that's technically canon compliant, esp since the series isn't over? idk man don't ask) where like the shadowflux echoes in (fanon) fitz's knee, the echoes in his heart end up developing into a chronic condition. but the heart echoes are a significantly bigger threat to his health, like in canon (we don't ever see him get wiped out from the pain in his knee, but we do see him get wiped out from his heart echoes going haywire. there's examples throughout flashback of what i'm talking about). a year or two after canon ends (i'm approximating fitz'll be 18 or 19), livvy and elwin sit him down and tell him that from what they can see, they doubt he'll be able to live past 100.

they tell him that they'll do everything they can to make that statement false, but it falls on ringing ears.

from there, the premise would mainly be exploring how fitz would learn to manage his emotions to keep his heart echoes in check as best as he can - particularly anxiety and anger - plus him learning to accept that he's gone from having a shot at being a famous ancient to bring pride to the vacker family, to an elf that's become the closest to mortality that one can get. and ableism in the lost cities too, because i think realizing that a lot of the people he looked up to when he was younger valued him less as a disabled person would be a good motivator to break away from the golden boy mold and become who he actually wants to be, whoever that is.

and then there's also learning to accept almost-mortality through sophie's unique perspective on it, and helping her accept almost-immortality. slowburn exes to lovers on that front, through the power of - as keefe dubbed it in the books - cognate rawr. i'm also thinking this would be set in level 7 for fitz, so he could be roommates w/ keefe and have an '(unofficial) ex (childhood) best friends to lovers' arc.

sokeefe would be established already in this, but have a conversation fairly early on the fic where they're like 'ummm so i actually haven't moved on from fitz and it's freaking me out-' 'omg SAME' and then help each other figure out they're bi and polyam (that would be a side plot of its own, because, like. you can't do that in one scene lmao). and then once they'd reached that conclusion they'd be like 'hey so you wanna see if we can flirt our way into getting fitz to join our relationship?' 'worth a shot, sounds better than endless pining'.

ofc fitz is super dense though so he doesn't see keefe's advances as flirting until the obliviousness starts getting ridiculous, and he makes up ten million platonic excuses for sophie's actions because we broke up, there's no way she still sees me like that anymore - not when she has keefe the way she does. because as an aro i would do that in his situation and i have decided he's aro-spec <3 but they all get it together eventually. and get a cottage somewhere and fitz gets to be a baker and they just. have their happily ever after.

uuuuuuuuntil fitz is on the cusp of turning 100 and dies. because i'm evil. and i want to explore how much worse keefe's oh my god please don't leave me please please please i'd do anything to make you stay complex would get if he lost a lover and the situation was out of his control. and how much it would differ from sophie's acceptance. and how sophie's acceptance could turn into world-crushing anger and stuff after she stops feeling the need to stay strong for keefe.

and then maybe how much worse the whole please don't leave me alone please i'll do ANYTHING ANYTHING ANYTHING JUST STAY STAY STAY would get if sophie died centuries after fitz from some mission and keefe was truly on his own. just after he started feeling solid about having her in his life for a long time after the present. if i'm feeling particularly cruel by the end.

(there's a lot of scenes that made go OWOWOWOW that my brain conjured up, but. those stay in my brain until i write them. no spoilers :) also ik i'd need to do a lot of research on heart conditions to make fitz's arc more accurate to real life because even if shannon doesn't care about medical accuracy, i do lol.)

#tw death #tw major character death #ask to tag #it's 3:30am #my ear hurts :( for reasons unbeknownst to me :((#ask #bookwyrminspiraton #sokeefitz #if some of these concepts seem like i've talked about them before that's because i have #because the idea i have for a sokeefitz fix it fic is huge and now very cruel depending on what route i take when writing it #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #fitz vacker #sophie foster #keefe sencen #disabled aro-spec fitz vacker my BELOVED. that is all

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hana-no-seiiki · 1 month

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YANDERE BATFAM SECTION

(incomplete. a lot of them are fucken missing and it's 3am ill be back-)

back to the Grand Celestial Archive?

🦇 » [ FOX FORM SHORT STORY ] « ( + prequel )

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM w/ FIVE HARGREEVES! READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM + YANDERE! TODOROKI CLAN w/ DABI's TWIN! READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM + w/ LAST OF US! READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM w/ CSM! DENJI & MAKIMA! READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM w/ VIRGIN! READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM w/ TONY STARK READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM w/ TIGHNARI! READER ] «

🦇 » [ YANDERE! BATFAM w/ CLASS OF '09! NICOLE! READER ] «

🦇 » [ CAT VILLAIN! READER's OTHER RELATIONSHIPS (outside batfam) ] «

🦇 » [ BATFAM AS CATS ] «

🦇 » [ BATFAM x MAKIMA! READER CONCEPT PROPOSAL ] «

🦇 » [ ] «

🦇 » [ WHAT'S UP DANGER - MILES MORALES! READER ] « [ 1 ] , [ 2 ], [ 3 ]

🦇 » [ WHY DON'T YOU GIVE ME A SMILE? - JINX! READER ] « [ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ]

🦇 » [ YANDERE! DAMIAN WAYNE w/ ARTIST! READER ] « - currently missing

🦇 » [ CAT VILLAIN! READER GETS KIDNAPPED BY THE COURT OF OWLS ] «

🦇 » [ (CAT VILLAIN! READER) ROOFTOP TALKS w/ THE BOYS ] «

🦇 » [ THE BETTER DAMIAN ] « [prequel]

BATFAM MOOTS:

@sophiethewitch1 (Sophie || she/her) - currently well known for her What We Want (Yandere! Batfam x Reincarnated! Reader) series. Absolute girlfailure /affectionate. I would kill and/or die for this woman.

@on-leatheredwings - (Ardennes || she/her) Got me rotting over Breeder Damian. Great Batfam Oneshot writer. Deserves way way way more followers!!!

@themeanestgirl - SNOWING PAINS RAHHHHHHHHHHH

@cheriecelestial (Arabelle || she/her) - My wife /p. Her Angel (Yandere! Jason) works are on my mind 24/7

@artemis32 (Art) - yes.

୨ ©️ ୧⸝⸝﹕hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2024﹐⊂☁️⊃ ‹𝟹

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gothhabiba · 1 year

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“poverty we have in favour of abundance we have yet to organise” i fundamentally disagree. Its fundamentally impoverishing to take away child from their carers and give them to a bunch of strangers. if thats not whats going to happen what is exactly? so far all i read is a dystopian nightmare and people saying “but no it will be great i promise”

[regarding this post and broader recent discussion of family abolition]

I'm getting a lot of responses in this same emotional valence (as does anyone who talks about "family abolition," and again, this is the exact emotional response which Sophie Lewis preëmpts and responds to at the beginning of Abolish the Family)—I'm chusing this message to respond to not to pick on you specifically but to try to unravel some of the assumptions that underlie this objection.

I did my best to outline some of the major actionable demands of a programme of family abolition and include links to further readings that laid each of these demands out, including the abolition of parent's property rights over children & freedom to mete out "corporal punishment," the end of social and economic dependence on the family that works to impoverish 'family outcasts' or to force them into abusive situations, &c.

Yet, amongst all of these things, the questioning of the naturalness of the social/economic/legal/political category of "mother" (and investigation of how the category is sexed, gendered, & racialised) is what draws the most ire, and commonly the only thing that is responded to in people's objections to "family abolition"—as though it is the weakest part of the argument, and not the conclusion we necessarily come to through an understanding of the economic and social position of the "wife," the "single mother," the "single woman," &c.

What about the affective / emotional nature of the presumed "naturalness" of the mother relation causes the questioning of it to meet with such a disproportionate amount of resistance? Could we understand this individual emotional attachment to the concept of motherhood and its positioning as "natural" to be part of, or a result of, the naturalizing work that discourses about femininity and labour* do?

Where does this spectre of an infant being "taken away from" its biological parents (actually, and tellingly, "mother" far more often than "parents") come from, and why does it keep being dragged forth? Communal raising of children is indeed part of the speculative programme for (most?) people who advocate for the abolition of the "family," but what part of that entails that a child must not be raised in part by, or anywhere near, their biological parents?

If no family abolitionist is saying that every child ought to be reassigned to some other random communal housing unit immediately upon birth (and, if anyone is, I have yet to come across it!), why is this the image that is brought up repeatedly in response to arguments for family abolition, as though the image is 1. an argument in itself, that 2. meaningfully responds to the programme being put forth? In what inheres the shocking nature, the emotional effectiveness, of this image? What assumptions and attachments does that effectiveness reveal?

You've said that it is "fundamentally impoverishing" to a child for them to be "take[n] away" from "their carers" and "give[n] to a bunch of strangers." You haven't laid out how we can determine who a child's "carers" are—the "carers" fundamentally, properly, 'rightly' belonging to the child in your grammatical construction (in fact, in terms of property law, we ought to say the people the child belongs to—and we can see this arrangement reassert itself in your use of the word "give").

Incredibly, "carer" seems here to mean something other than "the people who are caring for the child"! "Stranger," similarly, must mean something other than "people the child has never had contact with," since in this fantasy these are the people who are raising the child... So if "carer" doesn't mean "person who cares for," and "stranger" doesn't mean "person who is strange," then where do these labels come from? What assumptions are you recreating when you use them in this frankly counter-intuitive sense with the assumption that I will know what you mean? (See also a message I got reading "i am not a mother but i already know i would rather die than have my baby call some strange women mom," emphasis mine.)

I think that probably you've used "carer" because you know that "biological parent" is a weaker proposition—and yet, in regards to the legal structures I'm talking about, it is biological parenthood which confers automatic, presumptive "rights" over a child upon someone (in default of other specific legal arrangements which someone must chuse to enter into in order to renounce those automatic, presumptive rights).

It is the idea that biological parenthood (or adoption, or "using" a surrogate, or any of the arrangements people may enter into that fall between these categories) ought to give one or two people complete control over another human being, such that that human being has no recourse at all from abuse, coercion, forced isolation, being raised in a cult, being denied transition or other medical care or put through conversion therapy, &c., so long as their caretakers do not in theory fall afoul of the very high standard of legal "child abuse" in a way that someone in practice actually cares to pursue—it is this reality, which is ideologically baked into your assumption of who a child's natural, automatic "carers" are for them to be "taken away from" in the first place, that family abolitionists want to change.

But nothing about biological parents no longer having automatic, presumptive rights to do basically whatever they want with or to their children automatically means that children will be taken away from them in the sense of enforced physical distance!

I think we need to look at what is ideologically entailed in assuming that a) parenthood in which a parent does not have quasi-property rights over their child is not "real, natural" parenthood, such that removing "parental rights" equates to "taking a child away"; b) certain people are just inherently strangers or strange to a child by virtue of the circumstances of their birth in relation to the circumstances of the child's birth, regardless of the actual social relationship they have with that child, and the ways in which this division between "naturally connected" versus "naturally distant," "natural proper and correct" versus "naturally strange," "inside" versus "outside," and the concept of the "stranger" (and the foreigner as the "eternal stranger," the racialised as the "eternally foreign") play into a situation where you can say "a bunch of strangers" and assume that you will be understood, and that this will be understood to be obviously bad.

*E.g., women are naturally caretakers, having a child is naturally the ultimate fulfillment for any woman (thus women who do not or cannot give birth are not fulfilling their function or are not "really" women), women love and are never exhausted by any aspect of gestation, childbirth, or childcare and they certainly don't need any help, &c.

#trying something different with the structure so that I can make something like a bullet-pointed list but include paragraph breaks #that don't indicate a new bullet point #family abolition #nuclear family #questions

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thatdeadaquarius · 1 year

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Omg

Hey

Hey!

HEY!!

WHAT ABOUT GOD READER THAT GOT A CURSE PLACED ON THEM BY SOMEONE THEY DON'T LIKE

That curse makes them turn to random ages like,, one day you wake up and your like 3 and the other you're 29 and the acolytes just have to deal with it for a months (and just for funziz you don't keep your memories as a kid *evil laugh*)

I feel like people who are generally around kids would be great around us and some others .... Less so (*cough cough* ei)

AND EVEN BETTER

WHAT IF ENGLISH ISN'T OUR FIRST LANGUAGE AND IT SUMTGING LIKE FRENCH OR SPANISH, AND THE ACOLYTES ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE TEYING TO TALK TO YOU WHILE 14 YEAR OLD READER IS CURLED UP IN A BALL CUS THEY'RE SCARED LSKFJGJDLSK

let the tennage/ kid reader be neurodivergent/autistic (cuz i am and theres bot enough rep on this god forsaken app .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.)

n E wayss <3

LOVE YA !!!!

Aka. your fave >:D kiss kiss

A KISS KISS??!!! FOR ME?!!! 😊🥰😚 <3

BRO i literally designed a whole original character around that concept lmao (except they remember/just body change/everything else kinda matches ur desc! :0 )

☆

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (they/them only), Neurodivergent!Reader, Child!Reader, Teen!Reader

Planet: Language Shenanigans, Platonic

Orbit: Headcanons-ish, mini scenarios

Stars: Arataki Itto, Kuki Shinobu, ft. Kujou Sara, Ei + Raiden Shogun, Inazumans

Comets & Meteors: No Content Warnings & No Triggers Detected.

no bc gif is me as a kid, bc I didn't experience snow until I was 12 💀 +it stayed for like one day, was 1 inch deep, or like 5 cm (for my non-americans out there), and was gone the next lmao- I was terrified when I moved and got REAL snowy days- jfc Snezhnaya would kill little me-

SO I was kinda stuck on this tbh, i usually default to like, headcanons or scenarios if ppl dont specify/im just adding onto what you already said like when its not even really a request u know?

so, uh tried to do headcanons, but idk how good it is Orah, sorry!

Also ik you mentioned as example, but we sticking to Inazuma, bc i feel like I neglect them lol

also i hope u like Itto 💀

♤

you quickly found out that magic obeys some weird type of logic despite being magic, so you only ever fluctuate in age within the range you’ve already been,

ur kinda glad youre not seeing what you look like at 100 years old and getting stuck that way for weeks- only Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle can be cursed to be old yet has so much rizz that she’s still badass and pulls a wizard boyfriend LMAO

so just bc idk what to make the max,

let’s put you at originally, also bc im not a minor, 20 yrs old

so what I mean by all the above is: you’ve lived 2 decades, 1-20 are the only ages you can be

-that being said,

you’re a menace.

so yeah you could’ve been a quiet kid, a well-behaved kid, a good kid even,

…but not in a magical world full of awesome flora and fauna, and magical creatures,

and gods, and vision users and-

you get the point.

plus, you hadn’t really learned English yet until u were a bit older so (who can blame you i hate this language ur so valid)

and for whatever reason English is the only one these guys speak, besides maybe some mythical creatures like the aranara or something

so its kinda absolute chaos trying to reign u in at times.

so needless to say the entirety of Inazuma is terrified for you.

like, even if you aren’t the “Creator” per say in this, they still know what the warmth of your power feels like

But more importantly-

You know who’s the first to spot a random wandering-non-Inazuman-child? And take you in? Especially one that radiates that same energy of presence they feel sometimes + makes them more powerful???

The Amazing, the All-Powerful, Awe-Inspiring Oni: Arataki Itto!

Not even his gang, or Kuki are the first to see you, nah it’s Itto himself,

he literally finds 12 yr old you just sneaking around in awe in Chinju Forest,

and needless to say ur pretty fascinated with the colors and the vibes, and it’s not like Genshin Impact existed when u were this young, ur poor younger self is just rlly paranoidly looking around

Itto is kinda a lot at first, and he was a little confused by ur constant rubbing your arms, or tapping ur fingers on stuff, (or all the stims u be doing when ur nervous) but he just took it all in stride

so Itto, after like an hour and a few well placed rocks at his face and groin by 12 yr old u who was ready to fight to the death at first, FINALLY convinced you by drawing a little picture of his house and his friends

and all that clear effort, despite the foreign world, foreign non-human guy, etc., made you warm up to him too, afterall, even 12 yr old you knew a himbo when they saw one 💪

at first he just thought you were another person who was getting powered up by that yokai he felt (he was convinced thats what you were when u weren’t physically here before, like some kind of powerful gift giving/deal making yokai)

but after he saw you shapeshift the next morning into 16 yr old you, (he lives with his grandma so ur younger self felt pretty safe staying with a himbo guy and an little grandma lady)

he was now more convinced than ever-

that you were some kind of god that’s been in hiding since the archon war (his granny has a lot of cool stories so what?! hes a very educated oni thank you very much!),

rather than a vision user, and he also thinks u being random ages is deffo a curse, and its to keep ur powerfulness limited!! - Arataki Itto, 202X

(bc younger u doesnt remember that u can upgrade ppl, or at least it takes em a learning curve bc they gotta relearn everytime)

okay but itd be so funny tho if nobody else believes that (esp the non-magical folk), bc to them, ur just like, a bunch of siblings (child, teen, adult you lmao) or a tanuki lol

he eventually gets Kuki to believe, after she also sees how you change/the aura is honestly more powerful too once she’s paying attention, like instead of like a blanket, ur like standing in front of a raging campfire

but she makes him keep it a secret

ur really vulnerable a lot of the time, so they’re both worried abt keeping u happy and safe, aw cuties <3

◇

so yeah, ur literally just chillin with the arataki gang all the time now

the gang become ur besties no matter the age, like they love mild pranks, and general chaos, u wanna explore no matter the age, and also love chaos, esp since it can be magical now (oh child you is having the time of their life when they’re around)

its literally a match made in heaven

plus the more hands on deck, the easier it is to keep ur ass from running off as a kid (and an adult, bc omg a shiny?? a shiny crystal fly???!! lmao neurodivergent 🤝crow/raven = shiny solidarity)

honestly Itto has a blast with all versions of you, and he’s literally the best bc he’s a himbo:

so he’s fine with answering context or “obvious” questions all the time LMAO

and if he makes any conclusions abt ppl’s behavior u dont, he’ll explain pretty quick and simple and he never sees it as awkward or smth

its honestly kinda funny bc ur like 10, and just 🤨🤨🤨??? sometimes at ppl (u got better at reading ppl as u got older obv, and at english too, that doesnt help lol)

he’s super sweet abt it, just really quick which is great too,

“he’s irritated at the guard, not us!”

or “she’s relieved, not upset, don’t worry it’s all good!”

like, u never misunderstand ANYBODY with this Oni around!! <3

(this is mainly bc Itto’s gotta know when to bail, joke, stand his ground, etc. from experience, and messing w/Kujou Sara so he’s actually really good at reading people, only when he’s paying attention tho)

◇

so younger u just feels safe around Itto, and so while u do get taught english (mostly by his grandma/Kuki) u also dont rlly mask,

nor do u know how to mask as well as you do in the future

so ur just running around with the gang, living ur little neurodivergent life, and anytime someone points out smth u do that might be awkward, like repeating something over and over as a stim (esp with learning english phrases/new words at times) the gang and Itto, and Kuki, are all ready to protect 💪

but most of the time what happens is- whether unintentionally or not, Itto manages to make THEM feel awkward or like they’re the ones doing something socially weird all the time 😭

just, a parent is like “this kid can’t speak English, do they even know any other language? Because all I keep hearing is them repeating that sound over and over…”

Itto: “Damn you're right they do that a lot, just like how you peek out your window a lot, but we all got our quirks man, no need to be shy about it, the kid isn’t, so just open those curtains, and that window and look out at the world!”

which announces to the whole neighborhood, bc Itto is only ever not loud when you tap his arm as a signal, that the parent is the nosiest bitch ever, he just puts them on blast for everyone to hear lmao

◇

Itto is actually very respectful about you, and while it would, almost be easy bc of the age switching, for him to infantilize you, he’s really good at treating you like an equal no matter how old you are :0 :D

like a giant teddy bear older brother at times, and the guys and Kuki are all pretty good at it too

(tho dw, Kuki is doing all the emotional distress heavy lifting for all of them over your safety, esp bc when u switch at first u are VERY out of your element/disoriented bc u dont always recognize Teyvat/know less English)

but that being said…

Itto fucking loves your excited/happy stims!!!

You flap your hands? Ittos flapping his arms!

You jump up and down, Itto jumps!,

…with his full grown man self with MUSCLES, and causes a mini earthquake wherever you guys are- yknow a shop, the center of town, somebody’s house, near one of the guards 💀 (which always manages to knock them flat on their ass LMFAOO)

Or best of all, you do little stompy stomps??

ITTO DOES HIS STOMPS WITH YOU, like his idle animation does??? :D !!

DUDE- (/gen.n.)

u were like 8 at the time, and saw Kujou Sara for the first time, she’s looking all badass, mostly bc Itto pranked her and she’s power-walking toward u guys pissed as hell ready to arrest him, but u love it anyway bc shes so cool, and right as Sara gets to u two-

u start doing stompy stomps! And Itto joins!!

…and she’s shocked at first, but realizing how giggly and happy u two are, and then Itto explains its bc of her???

Kujou Sara lets Arataki Itto go, for the first time, ever.

she doesnt explain, but she literally was so melted by cuteness, and a warm familiarity??, by u two she couldnt be mad anymore lmao

Itto is now legally obligated to bring you to any and all matters involving the government, regardless of age, according to Kuki Shinobu, his grandma, and himself

all for different reasons tho, Itto’s like, “My lucky charm! My bestie goes everywhere with me!”

meanwhile Kuki/grandma: “A foreign non-Teyvatian speaking child/teen at times is more adept at keeping Itto in line than anyone else, or at least getting him out of the consequences 💀”

♧

Bonus:

The first time you see the Raiden Shogun,

She scares the shit out of 6 yr old you 😭

And she recognizes that familiar aura immediately, so shes just like:

😶😦😰

(You warm up to her after she offers to show you how she can summon lightning, Itto helped her lmao, and Ei also came out to keep u safe bc Raiden is a little… unaware… at times, of mortal limits, and now that ur in a mortal body-)

Also both of them unanimously agree to be the sugar mother to all ur hyperfixation foods/safe foods ever, SCOREEEE

◇

Bonus 2:

*KUKI WOULD LIKE THE COLLECTIVE CITY OF INAZUMA TO KNOW SHE DOES NOT APPROVE OF ITTO TEACHING U ENGLISH CUSSWORDS

☆

I hope somebody likes Itto enough to enjoy this, sorry if u arent a huge fan of him Orah! I just think he's annoying and neat, and havent written abt Inazuma enough lmao

I finally graduated college/uni by the way guys!!!

Ill actually have a life now that wont be hogged by homework! Like writing! Like drawing! Like anything but school!

Anyway, love u guys, another post coming soon,

Safe Travels Orah,

💀♒️

♡my beloved♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk

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butchsophiewalten · 10 months

Text

Findjackwalten 07/14/23 Update Walkthrough

Last night Findjackwalten updated! We've got one page update and two new pages. Let's start:

Findjackwalten.com

Our main page has updated! Jack and Rose's pictures are gone, and the whole page is greyed out now as opposed to being red. The shutdown text has changed to read "You just couldn't stay home, could you?". The play button here still works, with all new audio. It's a car radio, first it's an afternoon weather report, then just some talk radio intermission, and then it's music. There's also car noise, tires on asphalt, chair squeaks, turn signal, and general Car Creaking.

I've already seen some people theorize that this is audio from Felix's drive home after the crash, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me since that's already what Guilty is. Feels redundant, as much as I love the idea of Felix driving home listening to Yummy Yummy Yummy by Ohio Express.

Findjackwalten.com/martinguaridasecretanoentrar

This page's URL and title is in Spanish. It just means "Martin secret lair do not enter" and the title "q pasa tia" in this context is like, "whats up, girl?". Kinda gossipy. Meant to invoke a vibe that you're being let in on a secret.

The top of this page reads "92%", referring probably to the percentage of TWF4 that is completed. The rest of the page contains "3 funny walten facts" Which are:

"Bon the rabbit was originally called Bon the Dancing Hare by Jack, ultimately Felix vouched against that because Rabbit sounds friendlier."

This is so fun to me! I did always think Bon was pretty hare-like. Funny that Jack wanted Bon to be a Jackrabbit. Also I can't believe "Bon The Dancing Rabbit" is still real. It's been so long since I've heard anybody call him that I kinda figured it was retconned.

"During the late 70s, BSI expanded further than restaurant chains, the showstoppers became famous for way different products such as random merch, plushies, furniture, toys, watches, bed sheets, lanterns, masks, lamps, toilet seats. BSI most succesful product was "Showstopper's Comedy Extravaganza", a 1977 animated TV show that ran for 3 seasons and was cancelled in the 1979's to make room for a "bigger project". it is unknown what was the cause for BSI to milk the showstopper franchise to that extent, what was the money for?"

This is something we sorta already knew? Relocate Project implied this sort of thing But I guess we didn't really know how successful their merch ventures were until now. Turns out, they were pretty successful! The "Showstopper's Comedy Extravaganza" thing is crazy to me though, three seasons? That 'what was the money for?' comment is also very ominous. It makes me think of the planned relaunch of Bon's Burgers but considering how vague the comment is and how the Bon's Burgers relaunch was something we already knew about, I'm wondering if it's something else.

"Sophie lived on the back of a meat store for the better part of 3 years, she managed."

How do I even comment on this. This is just so fucked. It makes me sick to my stomach. She was homeless for three years? Homeless? For three years? As a teenager? I feel like i'm undergoing hitherto unexperienced Sophie Emotions. What the hell do I even say.

Findjackwalten.com/btscene

Just a whole page of behind the scenes stuff! This is also hard to comment on, really. It'd be easiest if you just went and looked at everything yourself.

There's a little play button here with Anything Goes by Cole Porter, but I think it's been edited to sound more echo-y. Like it's being played in a big empty room, but also like the next room over? I've listened to a few versions of this song before but none that sound quite like this. This is also the song that's referenced lyrically in the new years 2022 version of /investigation1, with this bit of writing:

A decent bit of the stuff on this page is from the old Patreon, but not all of it, or even like, half of it. And some stuff (like the blue and purple Felix drawing) is old concept art that had been shared in the Discord server before.

#the walten files #sorry this is written like. more casually than a lot of my update walkthroughs #it's just really difficult to talk about this update very matter-of-factly because it's so self-explanatory. lol

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vierrel41n · 3 months

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Sketch dump!!!!

Primrose(Prim)! Ben and Holly’s scene daughter!!

My ocs Olive and Fern! They’re adoptive siblings :3

They’re from outside the little kingdom so Fern really grew up with only elf culture and influence. Fern can’t fly since he never learned to but since moving to the Little Kingdom he did learn a bit of magic.

It’s Gardenia and Aethel again!!! This is very obviously inspired by Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. That painting makes me feel things 😞😞😞

I won’t spoil much to their story and what this scene is about but I will say this is where Gardenia goofed too hard

I kind of gave up drawing this after like 5 minutes I could’ve done more with it but for a 5 minute sketch it’s not that bad

Sum art I did of King Thisle and his progression to Kinghood in my mlp au.

Oh and there’s a concept sketch I did of Mr Elf. Him with sunglasses is just based off of a loose headcanon that I had about what he was like before he had children lol.

Some more oc!!!

1. There’s Myopsida- an octopus princess pretending to be a human so she doesn’t get turned into sashimi

2. Maple- a teenage fairy who is an unnaturally fast flier. Just not a very careful one. Though her speed makes her great at her job. She’s basically the Little Kingdom’s postal service.

3. Sophie- a teenage elf who doesn’t talk much unless during competitions in which she will win at all costs. She is not a very nice competitor

#bahlk #bahlk oc #bahlk fanart #mlp #mlp au #bahlk au #my art #myopsida #mr elf #king thistle #Sophie elf #Maple elf #gardenia #aethel #olive elf #Fern fairy #primrose

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wetcatspellcaster · 2 days

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Hi, me again. I hope you enjoy being appreciated because a few days back I’ve commented on ao3 under Honest Lie how I’m not sure about reading Pieces (fear of angst) and now I have reached act 3 of it and I have no words for how it kept me on my toes all this time. I love the vampire soul concept and I am also a Spuffy preacher through and through so it makes me even more happy that I can read about it somewhere. Generally, Buffy is one of my favorite fandoms and I believe it to be a pop cultural gem of its times. (also - Angel is such a boring person in Buffy, though he does do way better in his own spin-off. And he has a very high voice? Or is it just me?) I fell in love with Spike when he asked if he can bum a fag, lol. But also - Giles, omg. Rewatched recently and Giles is hnnggg.

I wanted to ask if the general soul-shape was inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle concept? The way Rose held on to it you know when reminded me of Sophie so much. And I loved it of course, I even cried a little!

Second thing I wanted to ask - have you ever seen ‘The Magicians’? It has this amazing plotting that reminds me of someone’s campaign where everything goes wrong and whatever you do you have to fix it afterwards and it of course causes other things to go wrong. I have a feeling you would love it. Also - it’s fucking heartbreaking at times and has amazing characters and archs.

So - again, thank you for all your work, as a fellow ‘I’m sorry that I exist person’ I wanted to tell you that you are precious and must be protected at all cost!

hahaha, thank you so much lovely! I'm sorry that An Honest Lie is currently in a place where Pieces becomes the better option to read in terms of angst (the next chapter of HL is so close, but um... Chapter 26 of Pieces is still my priority) but I'm glad that you liked it!! When I put an 'eventual happy ending' tag on a fic, I do mean it!! I promise!!

So... I did not realise Pieces was Howl's Moving Castle until so late in the game. Truly embarrassing of me. Fake fan behaviour. Picture me at 2am, staring at my ceiling at around the point Chapter 10 came out, shouting "FUCK." But i didn't deliberately lean into the imagery, in the way you think - I'm not saying that parallel is not there (it is and it jumpscared me).

The image of the soul/Jarstarion came during the outlining stage from the fact that everyone at the time was talking about Astarion's name meaning Star (we were that early into the discourse around his character, this is months ago now) and so it left me with this image of the soul looking like starlight, in reference to that. Obviously that means it's also calcifer coded. bc calcifer is also... a star. (HOW DID I NOT SEE THE HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE PARALLELS. HOW? HOW????)

I haven't seen the Magicians! I know the books have a bit of a reputation for being edgelord fodder so it put me off the tv show, but I'll be sure to check it out :)

#asks #wip: pieces still stuck in your teeth

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squish36-writes-and-draws · 6 months

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It's Easier if I'm to Blame, Yeah, It's Easier to Numb the Pain

Word count: 2919

TW: Near-death experience

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @did-i-say-you-could-get-up @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @xanadaus @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @arson-anarchy-death @dizzeners @thefoxysnake @olivedumdum @loveution @notyourlegacygirl

On Ao3 or below the cut!

Once again, this was a thing for my creative writing class, but this one was actually supposed to be a fanfic, not just a barely-concealed fanfic like the other two. Essentially this is that one scene in Neverseen where Fitz and Dex become friends. Yes, I know it's been done before. I've done it before. This is the most hinged fanfic I could write and to be fair I wrote kotlp chapter 3 like two years ago and this is from Fitz's pov. It's completely different

“Can I…um…talk to you for a sec?” Dex asks, his voice sharper and brighter than it has any right to be, ripping a spiraling Fitz out of his daze.

For Physic to admit so plainly that he just nearly died that’s—that’s terrifying.

Sophie might go through that on a far too regular basis, but for Fitz to get that close to his own demise makes him feel things he’s never felt before. It’s a kind of fear and a lack of control he’s never had before, even while he was watching Sophie drag herself back from the edge of fading away.

It’s an even deeper affront to his being than that. Elves are supposed to have an indefinite life span; they aren’t built to process the concept of their own mortality.

“Uh…sure,” Fitz replies slowly, glancing up to find Dex studying the floor.

Fitz’s Mom herds Keefe and Sophie out of the room, and Physic follows suit, her bejeweled half-mask glittering in the sterile lights as she goes. Keefe, ever insufferable, proclaims that he’s going to be eavesdropping. Fitz throws a pillow at him for his impunity.

It is very quickly made obvious that this was a bad decision as Fitz’s chest screams with pain.

The inky veins of arthropleura venom may have been drawn out of his skin, but he still has a long way to go before he’s fully healed. Physic’s scolding tells him as much.

The look Physic gives Keefe as she warns him to not throw it back is unexpectedly familiar, but Fitz can’t quite figure out why. At least the pillow isn’t allowed to make a return. Keefe is sure to remember this, though. Fitz will regret it one day very soon.

Dex waits for several seconds, head turned to the door, watching for the slightest sign that Keefe might be making good on his promise. Eventually he gives in and turns his attention back to the floor, gaze occasionally flicking up at Fitz.

Fitz smiles reassuringly, to no effect.

“I’m so sorry,” Dex whispers, voice ragged. He’s so quiet, Fitz wonders if Dex actually said anything or if his thoughts were just so loud that Fitz’s Telepathy picked up on them.

The next time Dex dares to look at Fitz, a tear streaks down Dex’s cheek. He quickly swipes it away.

More than that, though, is the guilt etched into every single line, every single freckle.

Guilt is the most dangerous emotion an elf can have. Fitz has seen its effects. His father’s mind broke from the weight of Prentice’s conviction.

The ironic part is that Prentice’s sentence was to spend the rest of his indefinite lifespan with his mind broken for assisting the Black Swan and, now, Fitz, Biana, and their Mom have joined that exact same organization.

And, yes, Sophie was able to heal his Dad, but what if she couldn’t this time? What if Dex shattered and Fitz was the reason why?

I’ve already had to go through losing someone because of Prentice’s exile. I can’t let it happen again.

“Dex, listen to me.” Fitz waits until Dex’s eye contact lasts for a whole second. “I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you in the slightest—”

“It was my gadget! It’s why you’re like—like this!” Dex’s voice cracks as he gestures to the bed Fitz is going to be trapped in for the next week.

Fitz’s hackles rise, meeting Dex’s anger head on. Anger is a safe emotion, at least until he starts saying things he’s going to regret. But he doesn’t care if he regrets what he’s saying so long as Dex understands.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but last I checked, you aren’t a Charger. So unless you’ve suddenly manifested another ability and then didn’t spend a week proclaiming it to anyone who would listen, that was not your fault.”

Dex’s voice takes on a dark edge. “Zarina wouldn’t have been able to do this.”

Memories of Councillor Zarina, lightning crackling in her palms and the faint whiff of ozone it caused as the air electrified, rush through Fitz’s mind. “She would’ve happily electrocuted any one of us if she thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Since when has the Council acted upon ‘the right thing?’”

Fitz’s mouth opens to argue that the Council isn’t malicious, just overly cautious with a tendency to cover up every possible controversy, no matter how small, but he thinks better of it. The memories of Sophie’s Ability Restriction surface, too fresh in both of their minds to ignore.

Dex probably blames himself for that, too. But that isn’t his fault, either. He set out to build an Ability Enhancer. It was the Council that twisted it into what it became. He was just following orders to not get his family banished.

“Since when have you not blamed them for every inconvenience you’ve ever experienced?” Fitz smiles amusedly, a recent event coming to the forefront of his mind. “I think one day I heard you probably working on your gadgets around five in the morning cursing them out. I don’t think they gave you that paper cut.”

“Okay, most importantly, why were you awake that early? And how could you hear me? We are quite literally in separate treehouses. And, also, it was a splinter, not a paper cut, thank you very much.”

Dex’s petulant smile doesn’t quite reach his dimples.

“I’m surprised Biana hasn’t told you about the horror stories of living with me. I’m apparently what’s called a ‘morning person’ and I should be placed in the Sanctuary to prevent the extinction of my species because it’s critically endangered.”

Dex’s smile widens, becoming more sincere. He looks like he almost wants to laugh, but his lips stay pressed together. That’s when Fitz makes it his personal mission to make Dex laugh before he’s allowed to leave this room, even if humor as a coping mechanism is Keefe’s specialty.

Fitz’s grand plans are suddenly impeded by a coughing fit, every muscle in his chest protesting with every single movement. A metallic taste tinges the back of his tongue and the skin of his chest feels impossibly tight. Between coughs, he can see the guilt flashing across Dex’s face, and it makes his chest ache in more ways than one.

Fitz doesn’t even get the chance to catch his breath before Dex begins a rambling apology. “I’m sorry I did this to you, and I’m sorry about the Ability Restrictor, and I know it wasn’t used on you but I’m still sorry about how it turned out, and I’m sorry for that day you came to the store and I acted like a buffoon, and I’m sorry for—”

Fitz interrupts him before he can work himself into even more of a mess. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t blame you for what happened with the arthropleura?”

“But you should.”

“There was absolutely no malicious intent behind anything that went down. You need to stop blaming yourself.”

Dex shakes his head. “Intent doesn’t absolve me of responsibility.”

“Fine, then. Why don’t you blame the Council? You can do that. It’s very easy to get pissed at Councillor Zarina for short circuiting your gadget. It’s even easier to blame Councillor Clarette for calling the arthropleura there in the first place. Who’s to say no one would’ve gotten hurt if your mini smoke machine gadget thing hadn’t decided to be extra explosive?”

Dex looks…thoroughly unconvinced.

“Or, if you want to think about it this way, I share responsibility too. If I hadn’t thrown your gadget down the hallway, things could’ve gone very differently. Worse differently, but still differently. You can blame me for everything, you’ve done it before.”

Dex has returned to studying the floor, the uneven lines of light gray grout separating the slightly darker gray tiles. It’s the only room Fitz has seen in the entirety of Alluveterre that doesn’t feel like it’s a treehouse. It’s empty, cold, and smells faintly of hand sanitizer. “I used to hate you, you know,” he whispers.

His inflection on the word ‘hate’ seems to imply that those feelings might not entirely be in the past, but they certainly aren’t what they used to be. He wouldn’t be getting this worked up if someone else—like Stina—was the one impaled by the antennae of an oversized millipede.

“Yeah, I do,” Fitz replies simply, not breaking eye contact.

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“I mean, I don’t entirely understand what I did to merit that kind of response, but, like, you’ve been more than willing to tolerate me in recent months. Why should I let that bother me? The past is in the past and it’s not like it’s going to reemerge.”

Dex turns away from Fitz, now studying the window that looks out onto the treehouses that make up Alluveterre.

Fitz can’t really see outside that well with the whole staying-horizontal thing, but Alluveterre itself has taken on a new atmosphere after going to Exile.

It should feel more open, but they’re both just as underground, just as claustrophobic.

The feeling of being trapped in that place, struggling for every breath as the venom coursed through his veins, is going to haunt him for a long time.

Maybe that’s the real Vacker legacy…nearly dying in the middle of Exile going to visit Prentice.

The surrounding circumstances around the visit couldn’t be much more different. His Dad went down there with Sophie to break Fintan’s mind. He went there to break Prentice out.

So much has changed in so few months, there’s no saying where it might go here. All Fitz knows is that Dex is an incredibly skilled Technopath and that he would rather have Dex on his side than against him.

Dex has the capacity to be scary when he wants to be, but he can also be incredibly stuck in his own head, like right now, as he continues to stare out the window.

“What if the past does reemerge?” he whispers.

Fitz looks at him, but he doesn’t turn to make eye contact. “Nothing is going to be a linear process. If you end up deciding that your initial opinion of me was correct, I might get a little mad. That’s just how I react to things sometimes. And I also have an intense desire to be liked by everyone—holy Exile, what was in those painkillers?”

Dex’s response is almost automatic. “It was actually the Oremideae leaves. I think your Great-times-a-gadjillion-uncle-cousin-whatever discovered them. They’re really good at preventing infection, but they also inhibit a little bit of the blood-brain barrier, both physiologically and psychologically. I didn’t realize they’d kick in this quickly…but, I mean, they were crushed...which would increase absorption rate. I can go if this is weird for you.”

Fitz can barely focus on the details of what Dex is saying. He goes off on alchemy-adjacent tangents quite often during the limited instances they’ve interacted and as much as Fitz wants to learn new things, there’s something so inherently distracting about Dex.

“You don’t have to go. Just don’t get mad if and when I say something stupid.”

“I’m sure you won’t say anything stupid.” Dex’s attention lands on Fitz once again, and he takes a few steps toward Fitz’s bed-prison.

“You never know. I am very untrustworthy in that regard.”

Dex is only a large step away from the foot of Fitz’s bed. He sighs. “I really am sorry for everything and a half.”

“I thought you were supposed to be good at maths. Infinity plus half an infinity is still infinity. It won’t change. There’s no reason to operate on an infinitely large quantity.”

Dex’s tone is flat as he says, “It was hyperbole.”

“Oh.” That would make a touch more sense. I’ll just blame it on my brain not functioning, that’s completely plausible.

Dex lowers himself onto the farthest corner of Fitz’s bed. It’s way larger than the ones that Elwin has in the Healing Center at Foxfire, it’s still really close compared to Dex’s normal trend of staying as far away from Fitz as physically possible.

But it’s not a level of closeness that’s anything significant in any other case.

Dex’s words are low, almost to the point where Fitz thinks his filter has slipped to the point of accidentally reading Dex’s thoughts, but it doesn’t have that familiar echoey quality and Dex is avoiding eye contact once again.

“I just want you to know—really know—I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I’d like to promise that it’ll never happen again, but that’s just not something I can guarantee with any level of certainty. That terrifies me to no end, but I guess it just comes with being a Technopath. Hurting everyone around me is just…inevitable.”

“Maybe,” Fitz concedes, “but you’ve also saved us so many times with your Panic Switches and even those first two gadgets today that didn’t malfunction. I don’t remember if you heard about me when my Dad’s mind was broken, but, well, I was a bit of an absolute mess and I lashed out at Sophie. Maybe hurting everyone around me is just an inevitable part of my personality.”

They sit in silence together for a long moment.

Fitz breaks the silence first. “I guess that means that we should be friends. Mutually assured destruction and all that.”

“Even despite the fact that I used to hate you?”

“Yeah. A little animosity will keep things interesting. It’s an integral part of why I’ve tolerated Keefe for so long.”

Dex’s laugh isn’t as light as it used to be, back when they didn’t know each other. They’ve both been through so much, and there’s still so much unknown ahead of them in the future.

“‘Interesting’ is certainly an interesting word choice. But I guess I’ll try. That’s the biggest commitment I can make. Don’t be mad when I start acting like a blockhead again.”

Fitz smiles, struggling to keep his chest muscles from throwing another fit, this time induced by laughter.

Dex has been subjected to the worst of the prejudice it can offer, he’s still here fighting for change. He can be bitter at times, but it’s well deserved. Justified, even. Acting like a blockhead would be the least of Fitz’s concerns if he was in Dex’s situation.

The idea that the worst Dex could do is act like a blockhead is just so far outside of what he should be allowed, it’s almost comical.

Or maybe it’s those Oremideae leaves.

Fitz is enveloped by a strong urge to give Dex a hug, but he can’t tell whether it’s from pity, admiration, the realization that he’s truly broken through Dex’s shell for the first time, or something else he can’t quite describe.

And that’s the same time that the playful grin drops from Dex’s face.

“I should probably leave you to rest and heal. Let me know if there’s anything I can do or get you or—”

“Actually, I do have one small request, if you don’t mind.”

Fitz immediately regrets saying that, but there’s nothing he owns that’s more important to the healing process.

“I don’t mind at all. What can I get you?” Dex’s face is lit up, even if he doesn’t want to show it, with the rush of being helpful. It’s the one thing Fitz remembers from that day at the store—Dex’s absolute delight when he knows where something is.

“Under my bed, there’s a stuffed dragon. He should be pretty obvious. Please try to keep him away from discovery by others.”

“By ‘others’ do you mean Biana or Keefe?” Dex asks as he stands, leaving behind an empty, warm corner of the bed.

“Yes,” Fitz answers, realizing he’s been smiling like a complete and total doofus long enough to make his face muscles hurt.

Dex is gone for a long minute before he returns, brandishing a ruby red dragon, its eyes and sparkles twinkling in the fluorescent lighting as its wings slowly flap from the movement.

Elwin may have given Mr. Snuggles to Fitz when Fitz’s Dad’s mind shattered, but it’s hard to remember a time before it was in his life.

Fitz hadn’t noticed the emptiness settling into his chest after Dex left, but now that he’s back, Fitz is filled with the kind of longing that doesn’t want him to leave again.

“Thank you,” Fitz mumbles as he squeezes Mr. Snuggles so hard it takes a few seconds to return to its original shape.

Dex smiles. “Like I said, let me know if you need anything.”

“Likewise,” Fitz replies. “Although my capabilities might be a touch more limited at the moment.”

Well, that’s an understatement of the century.

Dex leaves without further comment, and Fitz settles himself down into his pillows, clutching Mr. Snuggles close to his chest, the familiar soft fabric a comfort to his otherwise aching muscles.

He’s almost drifted off into sleep when Keefe saunters into his room, apparently brought in by the power vacuum left in Dex’s absence.

And then his gaze lands on Mr. Snuggles sticking out from under the covers. The unrestrained joy as he wrestles Mr. Snuggles from Fitz’s dazed grasp is refreshing to see after knowing there’s been so many weeks that Keefe has been in such a dismal state.

Less refreshing is him parading Mr. Snuggles around and yelling through the entirety of the tree houses of Alluveterre. “You guys have to see this!”

Unmapped stars, have mercy on me.

#kotlc #fedex week 2023 #kotlc fedex #fedex #detz #kotlc detz #dex dizznee #kotlc dex #fitz vacker #kotlc fitz

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mvsicinthedvrk · 3 months

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valentines minievent masquerade ball starter call!

i'm limiting each to only a few starters but may add more slots later. i tried to include some baisc information about what everyone is doing, though this is not technically a ~plotting~ call. but if you want to plot beforehand, just send me a dm-- otherwise, if you request a starter, i'll take a look at your plotting/starter call and just come up with something that seems like it'd make sense. please only request 3-4 total starters, since i have limited characters and want to make sure i can write with everyone! thanks for your consideration!

wei wuxian-- going with lan wangji! he's going to be dragging his husband lan zhan around the museum to see absolutely everything, and he'll spend a good deal of the night on the dance floor, too. last valentines day was a disaster, so he's looking forward to having a nice time for once, without worrying. he's very naturally chatty, so if your muse needs someone to talk with, he's right there. wei wuxian starters for wen qing (kasey), jiang yanli (aria), ??-- (2/3)

xie lian-- going with hua cheng! not only does he get to spend valentines day with his memories finally intact, but the ball also falls during spring festival, which xie lian cares very much about. so he's looking forward to having a wonderful time with all the people he loves. if he separates from hua cheng at all during the evening, he'll try to find his friends, and he'll share a dance or a snack with anyone. shoutout to mu qing, who helped him choose his outfit. xie lian starters for feng xin (kasey), kieran hunter (atlas), shen qiao (june), sophie hatter (maig), ?? -- (4/5)

he xuan-- going with shi qingxuan! he xuan imagines he'll likely be here until the very end of the ball, given how enthusiastic his date is about these sorts of things. he'll basically just be going along with whatever qingxuan wants to do, and won't try to draw much attention to himself. he'll also be found near the snack table for a good portion of the evening. he xuan starters for shi qingxuan (sunny), patch (atlas), ??-- (2/3)

sha hualing-- she's neither going with a planned date nor a blind date, though she's keeping an eye out for hunter lance-sharpe at the ball. sha hualing will mostly be finding interesting places to take photos, and see if she can be a nuisance to her friends on dates. she's never opposed to causing a little trouble either. sha hualing starters for doom (atlas), zoe rivas (hali), ?? - (2/3)

liu qingge-- on a blind date with tadashi hamada (atlas's muse)! so qingge has no charisma. he has no romantic experience. he has no real understanding of what valentines day is, and his mask will barely count as a mask. but he should get points for being here at all, truly. he will do his best to stick it out for a few hours. liu qingge starters for ?? - (0/3)

dongfang qingcang-- going with xiao lanhua, with extraordinary reluctance. he will immediately look for reasons why they should head home before chaos strikes. in fact, chaos is just another name for xiao lanhua left unsupervised so it's not looking like the night will be in his favor. dongfang qingcang starters for xiao lanhua (kasey), rory gilmore (atlas), ?? -- (2/3)

chu wanning-- going with mo ran. chu wanning is very excited about this, but he'll be equally stressed about overthinking everything about the evening. he won't risk doing anything that would lead to him embarrassing himself so he'll be staying away from both the dance floor and the bar. chu wanning starters for ?? -- (0/3)

filippa kosta-- going with their girlfriend, amara! she didn't feel much like wearing a ball gown, so she'll be in a blazer of sorts. the concept of valentine's day is 'sweet,' in theory, so they'll be socializing as well as trying to show amara a good time. keeping things very chill and if your muse needs someone to vibe with in a corner of the room, they can go find filippa. filippa starters for mei nianqing (sunny), ?? -- (1/3)

qi yan-- qi yan's going with her wife, nangong jingnu! she'll also be dressed in a blazer and trousers. honestly, catch her taking in the museum sights (because she never has time to come see it otherwise) and making sure her wife doesn't get too drunk. qi yan starters for yin yu (sunny), ?? -- (1/3)

kaz brekker-- kaz is not actively anti-valentines day but he is the most apathetic about this holiday that a person could possibly be. i will send him to the ball because i think he'd use it as an opportunity to talk to business connections while they're all masked, or maybe pick some pockets, but he is not too excited about the ~valentine's~ aspect of it at all. kaz starters for zoya nazyalensky (moon), will herondale (siri), jesper fahey (june) -- (3/3. SLOTS CLOSED)

mo xi-- going solo, though he'll be keeping an eye out for gu mang. this is his first valentine's day in the city, and he doesn't really know what the day is all about, though he's slowly picking up on it the more decorations he sees. someone please take pity on him and come talk to him even though he doesn't look super welcoming. mo xi starters for bryce quinlan (kasey), ?? -- (1/3)

pei ming-- on a blind date with rebecca barnes (kow's muse)! let's just say that valentine's day is the busiest time of pei ming's year. 💀 he sees opportunities for short-lived romantic entanglements everywhere, and he thinks there's plenty of him to go around. but he's going to try to be a gentleman like rebecca seems to want, at least for now. pei ming starters for xuan ji (moon ?), shi wudu (kasey), ling wen (june), rebecca barnes (kow) -- (4/4. SLOTS CLOSED)

xiao chiye-- going solo. he's only here to make an appearance and see if he can catch sight of some of his friends. despite recently having some direct dance instruction, he probably won't be dancing. instead, he'll be taking full advantage of the open bar. xiao chiye starters for nie huaisang (sunny), shen zechuan (june), ?? -- (2/3)

lu junyi-- on a blind date with aluma ruairi (megan's muse)! junyi loves love and will be leaning fully into the valentines aesthetic, heart eyes all the way. if your muses need encouragement to get into the spirit, just look for her and she'll try to gently prod them into the holiday spirit. lu junyi starters for aluma ruairi (megan), ?? -- (1/3)

feng yu-- on a blind date with celeste kipper (sammy's muse)! he is here for just a nice, very regular time. his expectations are respectably neither high nor low, but you'll likely find him around the snack table making very mediocre small talk. or caught up reading every single plaque on every one of the smithsonian exhibitions. feng yu starters for ?? -- (0/3)

#hw: starter call #hwminievent6 #long post tw

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tamsong · 9 months

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the homestuck quadrant system & relationships in KotLC

i am fully aware no one asked for this. WAIT that’s a lie three of you asked for this. @orionhong @the-way-astray @soryasongsaa this post is for you <3 it’s been simmering in my drafts since november and i finally had an excuse to finish, and i hope u guys find it interesting!

so. what exactly is the quadrant system, you may ask? and why is it relevant to kotlc? well, we’ll start with the webcomic homestuck. (oh boy) this comic features an alien species called trolls (based off internet trolls) that have some very fun cultural distinctions, such as a caste system based on blood color and the quadrant system, which is a fun variation of romance that i think could be very fun if we applied it to elves, which don’t have enough cultural differences in my opinion.

homestuck trolls have four type of romance as opposed to one and each has its own specific purpose. 2 of them are necessary for reproduction, and 2 of them are necessary for peace and harmony in society. it’s considered desirable to partake in all four kinds of romance, and there are certain rules around this that i’ll get to later. while KOTLC elves only use the one traditional form of romance, it’s considered desirable to be in a socially-acceptable relationship, an approved match, to help grow the elven species, and have a similar sense of Regulation around romance. telepaths also have cognatedom, a special kind of relationship that adds potential for romantic drama into the mix.

i thought it would be interesting if in an alternate universe, the elves recognized more than one form of romance to distinguish their society even more from that of humans. it’s also just fun to ship characters but with extra nuance and spice. so without further ado, let me explain the four quadrants and speculate which relationships in KOTLC, both canon and otherwise, would be in which quadrant! enjoy this silly little time with me

so!! there are two categories: red romance and black romance. red is associated with positive feelings and black with negative, although it’s a bit more nuanced than that. they’re also divided into Concupiscent (associated but not exclusively linked with sexual attraction and reproduction) and Conciliatory (not associated with reproduction). each of the quadrants is assigned one of the four suits in a deck of cards, hence red and black. here's a convenient chart:

a relationship might not just fall into one quadrant, too. relationships are only meant to use one label at a time (more on this later) but often shift across quadrants or be called one quadrant but have some traits of another.

below, i’ve written descriptions of each romance type and also given suggestions for KOTLC ships that would fall into these categories. feel free to fight with me on my choices if you like.

FLUSHED QUADRANT: MATESPRITSHIP/HEARTS <3 (red, concupiscent)

this quadrant is most similar to regular human romance, and already features in kotlc. there's not a whole lot much more to say here, so let's get into examples.

a good canonical example of this in KOTLC is edaline and grady ruewen being matesprits (the name for this kind of partner). an example of flushed feelings that were mutual but never became a relationship is kenric and oralie. sophie and fitz also had flushed feelings for each other canonically, as do sophie and keefe right now, but i would say in both cases the feelings aren't purely <3. i'll talk more about that soon, though.

other noncanon relationships i would describe as matesprits/flushed crushes are tiergan/prentice and marella/linh.

PALE QUADRANT: MOIRALLEGIANCE/DIAMONDS <> (red, concilliatory)

moirails could be best described in our terms as platonic soulmates/queerplatonic partners. that being said, while it doesn't involve kissing or sexual attraction, it IS a type of romance and is distinct from an average friendship. moirallegiance is actually WILDLY similar to the concept of Cognatedom in KOTLC, which is what inspired this behemoth of a post in the first place.

(furthermore, this is why posts implying that cognates are always romantic rub me the wrong way. there are plenty of forms of closeness that aren't traditional romance/flushed).

like cognates, moirails aren't just soul besties, but they're balancing forces that complement each other and keep each other grounded. these relationships hinge on sharing feelings, mutual acceptance, giving advice, and bringing the other person down to earth.

this makes alden and quinlin a good canonical example of ex-moirails. a non-cognate relationship in KOTLC that resembles moirallegiance is that between keefe and dex: they have similar personalities, share secrets, and are able to help each other even when their other relationships are on the rocks.

while sophie and fitz obviously had flushed feelings for each other, their cognate relationship most closely resembles a moirallegiance. they're a pretty good representation of quadrant vacillation, going from close friends and cognates to dating to back to close friends (although their friendship is still recovering from that).

also, while sophie and keefe have flushed feelings for each other, they would actually make really good moirails. they repeatedly have "feelings jams" where they share their worries and trauma with each other (not to say that matesprits can't do this, it's just specifically associated with moirallegiance) like the sleepover scene in neverseen. they're able to see who each other are under their own individual masks, and have well-complementing personalities that bring each other back down to earth. sophie is impulsive but good at connecting with others while keefe thinks things through but makes decisions without consulting other people.

PITCH QUADRANT: KISMESISSITUDE/SPADES <3< (black, concupiscent)

this is where we start to get a bit confusing. pitch relationships are based on hatred, frustration, and annoyance, but just like moirallegiance isn't just an average friendship, kismesissitude isn't your average hatred. there is also an element of attraction and in homestuck is one of the two reproduction-based quadrants.

a kismesis, one's pitch partner, must be someone that not only annoys and angers you but also indirectly challenges you to grow and recognize your own flaws. a kismesis is someone you hate, but grudgingly respect, but also find attractive. basically, it's a very strong arch-rivalry. and while a kismesis is intrinsically hate-based, they’re supposed to cause more or less equal trouble for each other and not actually wish to kill or permanently disable the other. if one or both wants this, or there is a power dynamic where one is harming the other much more, then it’s not a healthy kismesis.

obviously, these feelings aren't really recognized in human or canonical elf society, but if they were i think keefe and tam would make a good kismesis pair. they have outwardly clashing personalities and abilities, but are actually very similar people with a lot of chemistry who just present in different ways. they are at odds for most of their interactions but do show trust and care.

some even better kismesis pairs could be sophie/stina, marella/stina, or even dex/stina. tbh this is just telling me that stina is really good as kismesissitude. home girl just loves hatred i guess. maruca/biana is also a plausible one. you could even do vespera/fintan. go crazy lol

a good example of unrequited pitch feelings is dex’s hate obsession with fitz in the first couple books. in recent material, keefe/fitz could be on their way to a pitch relationship after spending most of their lives in an either pale or platonic situation, but i digress.

ASHEN QUADRANT: AUSPITICISM/CLUBS c3< (black, conciliatory)

this is definitely the weirdest one and is the least defined within the text of homestuck itself, but it means we can also have some fun with it. in homestuck, the ashen quadrant is mostly used for the purpose of mediating two opposing people so they don’t fall into the pitch quadrant. it’s a weird three-way situation involving the conflicting pair and the auspistice, who would be the one having ashen feelings. these feelings might be expressed through an attitude of “god these two are idiots but they’re My idiots damn it and i need to make sure they don’t cause problems.”

two important things to note here: 1) you are only meant to have one person in each of your four quadrants at any given time. 2) while you can shift quadrants, your relationship with someone is only meant to have one of these labels at a time. homestuck trolls are very aggressive and develop feelings of dislike quite easily, so auspistices are needed to prevent people from cheating / getting into romantic fights with people who aren’t their kismesis. while elves aren’t as aggressive, this still could be a problem. for example, if tam and keefe were an established kismesis pair, but keefe and fitz started fighting in a way that could turn into hatred, sophie might be called to be an auspistice for them and make sure their fighting doesn’t turn pitch (in which case keefe would be cheating).

assuming keefe and sophie are matesprits, this also poses a problem for their relationship since sophie is acting as keefe’s auspistice and not his matesprit. It’s a lot.

auspisticism can also be a generalized way of describing relationship mediation. sophie, fitz, and keefe probably need some auspisticizing for all the quadrant shifting they’re doing.

this kind of feeling may be hard to recognize as romantic because of all the utilitarianism surrounding it. think of it as being a very dedicated therapist friend, or part of a very stressful polycule. it requires a Hell of a lot of devotion for two people for their friend to get involved in all that conflict, a devotion which can very much be romantic. I imagine sophie having a high capacity/desire to be an auspistice, as would biana.

that’s the main chunk of the explanation, and there’s a lot to play with here. beyond what i described, you can also get things like two people rapid-firing between flushed and pitch and back to flushed, to people who have feelings for each other but not the same kind, to messy groups of 3, 4, or even more people where relationship types are constantly shifting. conflict in one quadrant can also impact your relationships with all other partners. for example, when alden and quinlin’s cognatedom/moirallegiance fell apart, it could have put stress on quinlin’s matespritship with livvy to the point where the flushed feelings between them are either gone or turned into unhealthy kismesissitude depending on how you look at it.

still confused? that’s okay, you’re kind of meant to be. andrew hussie is a fucking mad lad who doesn’t even take their own story seriously. that being said he did give us the bare ideas for some cool and complex relationship dynamics and a new way of seeing romance, so i’ll give them that.

but anyways, have fun with this!! i would LOVE to see your homestuck-based HCs if you happen to come up with any. a couple more kotlc/homestuck related notes before you go:

- sophie foster is a valid troll name (6 letter first and last name) as is gisela sencen. i couldn’t find any others, which is weird considering the amount of characters.

- trolls have varying powers depending on their blood color, not unlike special abilities.

that’s all folks! have a spectacular day and i hope you learned something cool!

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baeshijima · 1 month

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imagine an au where you wake up to a chill seeping through the comfort of your duvet. it's a little unusual. the mornings shouldn't be so cold anymore; did you maybe leave the window open?

a headache blooms along your conscience, and you think that maybe you had one too many drinks out of frustration last night. but, then again, it's not your fault that prickly bastard got on your nerves and made you drink till you passed out. he just has it out for you!

bare arms are draped over your equally bare midriff, its hold around you tightening and— wait. you're NAKED?!

by the speed at which you flipped to your other side, you wouldn't be surprised if you got whiplash. actually, scrap that. maybe the familiar face lying beside you, alongside the marks you barely caught a glimpse of amidst your turn, is more than enough to wish you actually did get it.

"mmh, what's wrong?" he mumbles in all his sleepy glory, clearly disoriented from your sudden movement. a hand rubs against his heavy lids in a feeble attempt to clear out the bleary fog which clings to his vision, one in which blocks the sight of you by default. "you're never up before me in these mornings."

...how did you end up in the bed of your arch-nemesis (self-proclaimed), naked, and— why is he staring at you so affectionately? weren't you just at each other's throats a few hours ago? (figuratively or literally, it doesn't matter. you were at each other's throats all the same.)

(or, you somehow find yourself three years into the future, married to the very same prickly bastard who made you black-out drunk (self-inflicted). and naked (not self-inflicted. probably).)

#sophie talks : concepts <3 #mmm e/r2l time travel into married future-esque aus my beloved #this for jing yuan... or blade... or ratio... or aventurine... or sunday... or boothill... or haitham... or childe... or scara... or ayato.#bites fist sophie stop making more wips when ur already drowning in them 🧍‍♀️

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foxes-that-run · 6 months

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Midnights is the break up album

youtube

In the above interview with Zane Lowe Taylor talks about Happiness and how it is about ending a long term life changing relationship. Taylor said it was the last song for Evermore, and started relating to friendship. Toward the end she switches to speak in the first person. That was in December 2020, 1.5 years before Midnights. After that we saw Joe very little.

The concept of the album was a series of midnight thoughts throughout Taylor’s life, which many tracks are, however there is an element of viewing the downfall of this relationship through them. I think Taylor didn't want to make the announcement through a publicist but through her lyrics on Midnights.

Question, Glitch and SOTB are plain wishing she was with an ex

Bejeweled is remembering when CH didn’t value her love, reflecting that she also also bored and under appreciated in her current relationship

Midnight rain is possibly the toughest, it’s reflecting on a relationship she let go for fame

Dear reader is a statement that she is not who her fans think because the happy in love narrative is not her experience

Taylor stopped liking Joe's IG posts 11 May 2022, he didn’t attend her NYU doctorate ceremony on the 18th May 2022, midnights was released in October and the break up announced the following April after the Eras tour had started.

A relationship having ended would not have been announced in real time ahead of a world tour and new album. Us knowing is a secondary challenge to actually going through the break up. What I wonder about is why was Invisible String ever on the setlist, was it there to be removed when it went public?

Taylor stopped liking his IG posts 11 May 2022

Taylor also went from always liking Joe’s IG posts to stopping between 27 April and 11 May 2022, she hasn’t liked one since:

So when?

Taylor may share one day. But to me this lyric in Stop you're losing me hints at the point she realised it was over:

Fighting in only your army Frontlines, don't you ignore me I'm the best thing at this party (You're losin' me)

Taylor is the best thing at most parties, but after showing up at the Golden Globes and wrap parties for a not great TV series for Joe he made some not great (or not at all) showings at big events for her:

2020

25 November - In the Long Pond Session Taylor said Joe was William Bowery

16 December - Taylor said to Zane Lowe that Happiness is about ending a long term relationship, she switched to first person

2021

15 March - Grammy's Joe had never come & it was COVID limited, but he won a Grammy for *Album of the year* & I'd say she has the pull for a ticket for a producer of it

April - Folklore credits update to add Joe as producer on 6 songs, including 3 William Bowery wrote, Grammy eligible. No credits for midnights and evermore.

12 May - Taylor was honored with a Global Icon award but Joe left to film in Belfast the week before. Harry also at Brits and won.

21 August - Joe actually seen with Taylor

14 September - Taylor seen in ireland, seen at conversations with friends cast party

14 November - Blake, Ryan, Sophie & Selena join Taylor at the SNL All to Well launch party. Joe A was filming in Panama.

2022

27 March - They went to the Vanity Fair Oscars pre-party, but Taylor skipped the 2022 Grammy's, Brit Awards and Oscars. It's interesting that the only photos of Taylor are of getting out of the car with Joe squinting, they bypassed the press line.

11 May Taylor stopped liking Joes IG posts

15 May conversation with friends airs, Joe says his costars real name, then F*** (character name) in a sex scene in the Final Cut of episode 3 at 11:55 and 12:10.

18 May - Taylor receives an honorary doctorate from NYU, while not a party it is a massive deal. In her speech she smiled at a particular part of the audience when she referenced friends and family, but Joe was at a Rising Hollywood party in LA.

19 May - Joe on Kelly Clarkson talking about William Bowery

31 August - VMAs afterparty - Joe & Taylor's unglamourous run to a car. VMAs have been important to Taylor since 2009. She was on the cusp of winning the most VMAs ever, announced Midnights and All to Well won. I wonder if Midnights was already done though.

20 October - Midnights pap walk where Joe uses a coffee table book to shield his hand from being held.

2023

9 February - Grammy afterparty- Joe came to afterparty

31 March - The 1 replaces Invisible String.

8 April - break up announced said it occured 'weeks earlier'

#midnights #Youtube #taylor swift #it's joever

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ronon-dex · 4 months

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really not sure how I feel about the ending to travelers, or the show as a whole. it has such a fascinating concept and builds an incredibly rich world off of that, but there are so many pitfalls to how it's constructed. I've never seen such a rollercoaster of quality that's SO rapid. i'm talking 10 to 1 in the space of a minute and back again, over three entire seasons. insane. LONG POST INCOMING

good stuff:

the direction is amazing. visually, the show is beautiful, and sets up shots that are consistently creative and designed to depict the emotion the scene is supposed to evoke, which I've never seen done so artistically. we'll see half of marcy's face when she's lying. we'll see kathryn filtered through soft light when maclaren looks at her. blood and sunlight is shown in stark contrast. action scenes have moments of intense stillness in the middle, which make the violence so much more shocking. philip's addictive eye-drop medication is always shown dripping down his face like tears. standout eps for stuff like this are '17 Minutes', and 'Protocol 3'.

fairly anti-copaganda for the most part. it's rare to see.

the acting is wonderful. jared abrahamson (trevor), reilly dolman (philip) and jennifer spence (grace) especially blew me away. trevor's dual energy of sprightly teenager and wise old man had to be very difficult to get right, but it was done perfectly. when he stares down his host's abuser in 'Update' his eyes were nearly black; you could imagine a 400 year old man and the rage he must have accumulated through centuries of hardened existence. philip was a character who wasn't allowed to live up to his potential, and I will be repeating this, but the scenes he had were devoured. he had an addiction to multiple substances, he was mostly ignored by his team despite being the most crucial member, and he had not a single friend outside of his fellow travelers. the agony of all of this was portrayed to perfection. grace fulfilled a role that is normally given to a paunchy white guy, an annoying genius who gets away with inappropriate behaviour because they're clever. [the rodney mckay effect, one of many stargate echoes in this show, thank you brad wright.] she was absolutely hilarious and brought light to a very grim show at times.

the traveler missions were excellent. the pacing in these scenes was great, the plots were generally airtight, and the awareness of the audience's intelligence was thrilling to witness. i figured out mysteries exactly when I was supposed to, a few minutes before the fallout - so you see how the dominoes will fall, and you see how nobody could have caught them. SO on theme for this show. the one moment that did catch me off guard was maclaren's birthday party in s1. oh my god I was so mad at the gotcha jumpscare, it annoyed the hell out of me lmao

bad stuff:

my main gripe. this show is called travelers. this show spends only about 50% of its runtime with solely travelers. the rest of the time is spent with david (marcy's boyfriend who doesn't know she is from the future and possessing the real marcy's body), kathryn (who also doesn't know her husband, maclaren, is not her husband) and jeff (an abusive alcoholic who consistently tries to beat up his ex girlfriend, who is also now a traveler.) these people completely take over the show. they have multi-season arcs and entire episodes revolving around their problems with marcy/maclaren/carly, often domestic. attempts to give philip and trevor stories outside traveler missions are abandoned sometime around s2. when these civilian characters were abducted together in s2 I literally started calling them the Avengers of Being Annoying. I've said it before but imagine how awful the show leverage would've been if 20 minutes out of every episode sophie, nate and eliot left to talk to their individual spouses about their relationship problems.

there wasn't even a serious confrontation about the consent issues surrounding the takeover of someone's life - especially assuming a sexual or emotional relationship with that person's loved ones. like that should have been a huge ethical dilemma removed from simply possessing a previously dying body. like why are you now fucking your host's wife like it's ok??? you're not him and she doesn't know you????

it was grim. it was also very clear that david was a favourite, some writer had a crush on marcy's actress, and some other writer was apologising to his wife through the maclaren/kathryn storyline. or maybe I'm just a hater. idk

this show had an amazingly compelling narrative, but it sacrificed a great deal when it comes to character stories. these characters were established very well, and built up over season 1 to have great depth and rich histories... and then we never explored most of it. we don't know the original genders of philip, maclaren or marcy. we don't know about the families of philip or maclaren. we don't know if the main 5 knew each other well or just trained before coming to the past. the future is almost a complete mystery and that was what made it cool in season 1; by the finale? fucking annoying.

these characters' most emotional moments and deepest relationships happened with the 21st century people they emotionally abducted. idk why. maclaren had no reason to stay with his host's wife. trevor could have freed himself from high school sooner. carly (with philip's help) could have gotten rid of jeff very quickly. I don't know why they insisted on this aspect of the show when the main cast were so underdeveloped and remained so for 3 seasons. this, more than anything, made the finale seem very hollow. the main 5 were coworkers, and apart from philip, and occasionally trevor, marcy and carly, they weren't that invested in each other's wellbeing outside of their efficiency as agents. this was not the found family I signed up for.

basically:

7/10 show for me. very visually gorgeous, as mentioned, and besides the kathryn and david of it all, very tightly written. thanks for saving the world, I suppose. I'm going to go look at the sky.

#travelers netflix #netflix travelers #philip pearson #trevor holden #grant maclaren #marcy warton #carly shannon #traveler 3468 if I ever see you it's on sight. you should have stayed with carly. it's insane that you didn't #philip was originally a 50 year old lesbian. to me. marcy was a 37 year old bi man.#maclaren was originally a straight guy but he was also 25. this explains a lot when you think about it. THINK about it #the fact that they never explored the mess that would come from changing genders or having a sexuality that does not align with your host's #utterly tedious. white man writer's syndrome. they can't imagine the world not catering to them.#the way philip talks about his host 'this young man'............. like...........#i know the number sequence makes it so marcy's the youngest but i need it to be maclaren. he is very much a little shit #imagine exploring the differences between yours and your host's bodies.......... hall could've been an 18 year old girl.#boyd could've been a 45 year old man with a wife and kids. WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING COOL WITH THAT.#imagine marcy and david's relationship but marcy tells him she's a gay guy from the future. a conversation for the ages. and we missed that #going to travel to the past and tell brad wright to do this or there will be a plague outbreak in 2020. back in a sec #(meant to say this show REEKED of stargate universe. even the close up shots like I WAS THERE. I WAS IN THE TRENCHES)

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sophieinwonderland · 5 months

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An Autopsy of the Syscourse Brackets

Oh, hey! I saved this draft back in April! I figured with a round two coming, I might as post it now!

...

It was about a month ago when the Syscourse Brackets were announced (Future Sophie here: It's obviously been way more than a month now), hoping to bring about a new era of intercommunity connection. It... didn't do that, shockingly. So, let's talk about where it went wrong, and what someone could learn from their mistakes.

Have actual brackets and communicate: Part of the confusion that occurred later was a result of nobody really knowing what going on at any given point. Having actual brackets you can look at is a big part of what makes brackets fun. You can look at the brackets and predict who will be facing who in the next round. These syscourse "brackets" lacked that, which led to confusion, and just a worse feeling overall. Real brackets also assures that the brackets after the initial matchup are fixed and isn't just the creator choosing the matchups each round. And, I mean, I'm pretty sure they did change the brackets as I doubt a 3-way poll was how they intended to end them. And there was some weirdness where they demanded @/traumascumathena write an essay to be included in round 2 which I would normally brush off as a joke between friends but that essay wasn't written and they weren't put into the next round, so... yeah...🤷‍♀️

Do a better job reaching out to both communities: In the end, there was a sea of anti-endos, only a few pro-endos, only one actual endogenic system, and zero mixed origin systems represented in the brackets. Even if not intentional, this gives the appearance of bias.

If your goal is making a safe space, do a better job of that too: Publicly attacking your participants and accusing them of spreading misinformation after already accepting them isn't helping create a safe space or communication between the communities. Especially when combined with the fact that, as mentioned in the last point, the only person you attack this way is the only endogenic systems in your brackets.

These are real people and consent is integral: Two different systems sent confessions to the syscourse confessions blog stating that they didn't want to be included in the brackets. Being included was harmful to both of these systems. Congratulations for the ones who were okay with their inclusion, but not everyone was. And I would like to remind people that this popularity contest did include some systems who were minors. Reaching out to confirm that they were comfortable with this should have been a top priority. At best, this was negligence and they never considered that people might not want to be entered into this popularity contest against their will. At worst, they were too lazy or just knew their brackets would be smaller if people were given the opportunity to not be included. None of these possibilities are very good.

People should feel safe criticizing the brackets: I think the initial framing of the brackets as a fun game to heal syscourse was itself harmful. For myself, I didn't want to criticize the brackets up until the callout post because I felt like doing so might harm the community. But we also see this in the blogs who were included in the brackets against their will. They turned to the confessions blog and didn't make these posts on their actual blogs because they didn't feel safe doing so. And this, to me, is a huge problem. People shouldn't feel unsafe in communicating displeasure towards being involuntarily included in a popularity contest.

Don't. Just don't: If you made it this far, you might be thinking that you can fix their mistakes and still salvage the concept. But none of this addresses the central problem. You can't heal a divide by pitting people against each other in a popularity contest. This was always a bad idea. It never was going to be a friendly competition between people who hate each other. The cheating that happened during the brackets was a direct result of this hostile environment. The results of the brackets made somebody so depressed that their partner felt like they needed to make over 50 accounts to cheer them up. And while I certainly don't condone cheating, I truly feel like this is a situation where we need to hate the game, not the player. Because the brackets themselves created the environment that harmed the system in question to this extent.

The brackets were a terrible idea that were executed even worse with arbitrary made-up rules, attacks against participants, and it wasn't even a real bracket.

For those who do want to make actual brackets, it's not hard to find generators to make it super easy. I found a generator with just a quick Google. Imagine how satisfying the brackets could have been if they looked more like this from the beginning:

Future Sophie:

That's the end of the draft I made in April.

Overall, I feel the original syscourse brackets, despite being billed as something to unite syscoursers, were a poorly handled mess that only served to create more drama.

The nature of the brackets as a popularity contest between real people who hate each other meant that being a drama generator was always all they were going to amount to. But the poor handling of it made that so much worse than it could have been

#syscourse #pro endo #pro endogenic #sysblr #multiplicity

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nobodysdaydreams · 8 months

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😭/😍/🎁/🤔!! The author question is "Which character is the most natural/easiest to write for you?"

I hope you are having a good day, my dear friend!!

Why hello my friend! Indeed I am having a good day, and thank you for this wonderful ask! 🥰 I hope you're having a good day as well. 💕

😭 angst or sad WIP snippet

“Sadness isn’t something to be ashamed of. We’ve all experienced it. Me, perhaps, more than others. I learned at a very young age that abandonment and betrayal can come from anywhere, even from what seems like sacred ground. From family.”

Curtain finished his sentence and looked earnestly at Nicholas. Throughout his broadcast his brother hadn’t show a single sign of giving in. In fact, he seemed disgusted and annoyed. But perhaps if Curtain were to carefully show a tiny bit of real emotion, that might reel him in. It was a risk, but a calculated one.

A risk that paid off. Nicholas, upon seeing the sudden genuine emotion on his brother’s face, looked down at his hands, suddenly ashamed. Nicholas could roll his eyes and mock his brother’s ridiculous need for approval all he wanted, but at the end of the day, he had to face the reality that he was the one who had turned his brother into this.

😍 published lines or a section of a fic that you loved writing?

Well, I know you have SOS memorized by now /j /I love you Sophie, but two things I love doing with that fic are 1) narrative symmetry and 2) taking things from the books and show and giving them new levels of meaning. I do this in chapters 3 and 7 with the whole "No one at the wheel" phrase that is used to discuss the feeling behind the Emergency, where I give it a deeper meaning rather then just having it be a random phrase Curtain made up. There's just something about revealing a deeper meanings behind words or objects and having a concept in a narrative show up again in a different format that just makes my brain go brrrrrr :).

For those that don't know what I'm talking about, here are the snippets. Spoilers for Chapters 1-7 of SOS.

Snippet from SOS Chapter 3 "No One at the Wheel":

Now that he was finally alone, Curtain finally allowed himself a moment to grieve the families he had lost. The tears flowed freely now. He couldn’t stop them. For once he couldn’t wipe them away and deny them, given the infant in his arms.

He felt like he was watching a bus full of children, with no one at the wheel, roll steadily but swiftly down a steep hill towards a cliff. And as much as he desperately wanted to stop it, to do anything to stop it, all he could do is stand there and witness the inevitable. Watch as innocent people died before his eyes. Watch as everyone he loved left in one way or another.

He wanted to tell himself that this was the way life was: people died, people left, and there was nothing you could do but accept it. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take it anymore.

Snippet from SOS Chapter 7 "Taking the Wheel":

“You abandoned me,” he finished, his voice straining as he held back tears and walked around his desk to confront Wetherall, “I had to experience all of that alone, do you know how that felt? How it feels to watch your friends die slow, painful, agonizing deaths, right in front of your eyes and not be able to do a thing to stop it? It feels like being trapped in a runaway car, racing towards a cliff, with no one at the wheel, no one in control! And you want to take control, you want to stop the car, but you can’t. You can’t save anyone; you can’t even save yourself. But not anymore. I’m taking the wheel and taking control. And you’re not going to stand in my way.”

🎁name a published gift fic someone has given you that you love and can't recommend enough

I'll list the two that I've been gifted because they are both fantastic, and I cannot recommend them enough (I've linked them here everyone please read them!).

The first is "Don't you ever wonder if I'm okay (after all you put me through) by @myfairkatiecat. Based on Milk's ask game prompts, and oh boy is it amazing. If you're looking for great Benedict twins content, look no further (that's about all I'll say without spoiling).

The second is "The Best Decision" by @heyitsthatonesmolgay. Again, based on Milk's ask game prompts, and this one is especially impressive, because I gave not one but three possible prompts, which Connie was somehow able to weave into one amazing fic.

I cannot recommend these two fics enough, but are criminally underrated and if you have not read them, do yourself a favor and go do so now.

🤔 ____________? [ask the author a question about any of their published works, such as what the writing process was like, what their favorite fic is, or what character they like writing about].

I think the easiest characters for me to write are probably the Benedict brothers and Garrison. Because those are the characters with the most unanswered questions related to their backstories, so they are the ones I hyperfixated on (hence SOS). I talk about it a little bit in this post.

#Thank you for the ask!#Bods Answers #sos #mbs fanfic #tmbs fanfic #mysterious benedict society #the mysterious benedict society #tmbs #mbs #mbs disney #tmbs disney #nathaniel benedict #ledroptha curtain #nicholas benedict #ld curtain

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