#'im immortal im the only constant in this world other than the gods so i must be in the right' bitch. go to therapy

[conspicuous-clown-car]

was asked to share about Bitzy the clown so im gonna!!

excuse anything that doesnt make sense or spelling errors i currently have a migraine lol

this is just surface level stuff that shows who they are as a person

okay so bitzy started off as a clownsona that i could imagine saying what i was really thinking to customers/coworkers whenever i got mad at them when i used worked in customer service lol, it really helped me chill out and control my emotions

they were originally a character that i imagined doing badass stuff to music when i went on 4 hour long car rides every weekend for half a year, it helped pass the time and keep me sane

but yea bitzy very early in development was just the embodiment of what customer service does to a mf

inspiration for them: The Collector from the Owl House, Steve from Big Top Burger, The Ice King from Adventure Time

they go by they/it

VERY gender, will wear anything

but will scratch at their skin if its exposed so they tend to wear clothing that covers their limbs

they have adhd and theyre autistic, they dont/are unable to mask

theyre immortal, they can die (usually it happens in the stupidest and funniest ways), but they keep coming back, because their worlds rules say that theyre supposed to be there, always

they are inorganic (by earth standards), along with everying in their world

theyre a literal creature, able to contort and warp their body into anything, usually unsettling scary shit

they became a god-like entity, accidentally

that gods purpose is to observe and experience

though they are not the leader type, preferring to be lead by someone else

they dont need to eat, sleep, or drink due to being immortal, but they occasionally do if they want

has a personal, wholesome, and wordless relationship with the one deity thats a higher being than them, but they rarely see it, about once every thousand years or so. it shows them the stars

sometimes they forget theyre a god though so they act like a mortal more often than not

they have a really bad memory, like, amnesia type bad. half is from repression, half is from head trauma when they were younger. also has constant headaches, the worse they are the more likely it'll mention them. both of these are partially a result of their powers

they arent as funny as other clowns, and theyre bad at entertaining and improv

as a clown they should enjoy performing for others, but they do not, instead preferring to do so alone and only for themself

hates being percieved and analyzed

it used to be a jester

sometimes works on cartoon-like physics

in their world theyre a wanderer, and though they have a home they dont use it often

their house is like a huge blanket/pillow fort that sort of resembles a circus tent

theyre very childish, and from an outsiders perspective they seem kinda empty headed

even though they are childish and whimsical, they HATE being babied

will get irritated if clothing is asymmetrical

favorite color is red

is fascinated with celestial things, too bad there's no sky in their world....

shorty, especially compared to other clowns, they can change their height but prefer not to (it lets people think theyre harmless)

very unpredictable, quick to irritate, never know what theyre gonna be chill about and what theyre gonna have a meltdown over

they try to refrain from hurting others though, hating the reputation they have due to....'events' that happened when they were younger, events that were not their fault

theyre very impulsive, not thinking before doing, but that doesnt mean theyre an idiot

can be incredibly stupid when it comes to certain things and incredibly smart when it comes to others

they cant navigate a conversation when theyre involved in it but if theyre just observing they can easily figure out intentions of the conversing parties, things those involved in the conversation wouldnt be able to decipher at all

many try to befriend them for selfish purposes and bitzy can tell, they can always tell, theyve always been able to tell

it doesnt have a reflection

theyre vehemently TERRIFIED of bodies of water, especially the ocean....

is also scared of being in a car, but not the car itself.... wonder why....

they find it funny to be chill and silly around people they know are terrified of them

something is clearly wrong with them, like theyre putting up a façade and ignoring how fucked up they are mentally

10,000 years of living in self inflicted isolation can get to a person

stuck in a state of dream-like escapism

escapism is a huge part of their story

loves liminal spaces, because, well, it lives in a world of nothing but that

has daddy and mommy issues, thats why theyre insane /j

very emotionally mature when someone is being vulnerable with them

great with kids surprisingly

has a cult dedicated to them that they do not approve of, but will use that fact to one up people

those who dont know of bitzys reputation are bound to insult and underestimate them, and then... well... they figure out who they are

bitzys overall mentality is "you dont fuck with me, i dont fuck with you"

has an immense appreciation for earth, and by extension humans, wonder why? they arent even supposed to exist in their world....

has a way tortured past

does not like the sound of jingling keys or keychains, it reminds them of some bad people, and stresses them out

they have a high pain tolerance but will fake getting hurt just to be dramatic

they also just tend to overreact as a joke, getting fake mad at little things just to be funny

powers can be emotion based though, and boyyyyy do they have some big emotions

has a gripe with technology

is not aware of peoples personal bubbles

never comforable enough to be vulnerable with anyone (anyone except for daydream)

despite being a chaotic and probably annoying person to be around theyre a good friend, who often puts their friends needs before their own, but they only have one friend that this is applicable to lol

can be unintentionally funny by being painfully truthful/blunt

struggles with reading due to brain damage, is more of a physically active person than a mentally active person anyways

if i havent made it clear enough, they are a complete outcast, but by no fault of their own, even before they lost their marbles they tried everything to get people to like them for them. it never worked...

theres a big 'secret' about bitzy i havent revealed yet but.... maybe this spotify playlist of songs that vaguely tell bitzys story will be a helpful hint ;3

[pinkseas]

[parasocial bestie] going by quaggyday's ask if that's ok to intercept- but tbh i agree with that perspective too!! like gosh if anything it's actually a really nice depiction when it comes to defining how xiao's karmic debt works in a realistic sense. cus like, to me in my dumb poopoo terms, that karma is the residual corrupted power from the dead gods yeah? and this comes from either those that are stronger than him or not. what lumine can or cannot get rid of with her purification abilities depends too, and even for her she doesnt know the extent that this unknown ability provides since the start (since it's pretty sudden but useful trait when treating dvalin)

there's plenty of interpretations and fics that get me a lil pressed that ppl wants his karmic debt to ~~disappear completely~~ for a happy end, when how i personally see things it doesnt need to be the case bc its all about his growth. not that xiao needs to be in constant suffering when he already is, still, but that highlights so much of the importance of his support system, the people who can guide him and help lessen the pain with whatever they can manage. and it doesnt have to center to lumine too, which is another common thing that gets me a lil icky in their stories that she's the only person who can save him (and other ppl with the purification ability, which i dont need to mention who).

putting a difference of whats inside karma, between the gods power and chronic pain as an effect is super good and is what i thought of too!! and true as heck that it's something xiao's body has been accustomed to and even if the corruption chips away bit by bit, it doesnt completely rid of whats already damaged and even then, healing comes so slow for an adeptus. especially if the source being dead gods of higher power. this is something his siblings couldnt overcome long enough in their lifespan, and what xiao is still trying to push back (or accept it, and in turn he suffers more of its effects). so like!!! it just makes sense this way imo

i love pondering of his karmic debt being a metaphor of chronic illness cus man is he fighting so hard for it, and the clock always ticks down for him faster than anyone, even as an immortal. which is sad as hell, and we all copiums together how to at least make it a lil easier for xiao yknow. explodes too

"when it comes to defining how xiao's karmic debt works in a realistic sense" real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! god and with lumine not knowing the extent of her own ability,, and yeah no like. in my perfect world the karmic debt is very under control and no longer agonizing or life threatening but i dont think i could ever believe it going away Completely, and i think that if it DID vanish completely itd be a huge disservice to. everyone involved, xiao included. no he does not deserve to be in pain 24/7 but this is something hes willingly accepted and carried with him for so long, something he probably feels has shaped him, i just. idk itd feel so fucking Weird for it to just magically be completely gone ?? it does something and sends a message i cant figure out how to put into words, as opposed to being able to live with it and in spite of it and show that you dont need to be ""cured"" just to be able to exist and be content and supported and loved.

"the clock always ticks down for him faster than anyone, even as an immortal." IM GOING TO SOB THIS HITS SO HARD AND HURTS SO BAD GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDD what if we exploded Together. what then.

[candyradium]

good morning!!! im eight minutes into the tommy vod and i have decided that i am going to punch c!phil in the face <3

[mirinda03]

A MURDER OF CROWS

@inkytrinket-irii

Or, a fic about Phil’s crows/chat and the resulting effects on his family

Philza Minecraft.

Many tales were known about the man. Some said he was an immortal, nicknamed the Angel of death, who spread death throughout the lands. Others argued that actually served death as the most fateful of angels. Some suggested he was just a really old man, while others knew better. With black wings spanning on his back that carried him across both earth and sea.

People knew a lot about Philza, be it because of legends or tales.

What was not as well known about Phil was his murder.

And no, not as in Phil was secretly a murderer who got away with a crime in the middle of the night by escaping out of the third floor window and taking flight so as to not be seen by any passerby.

… anyways

Murder as in a group of crows, reminiscent of Phil’s crow-like black wings, that followed the Angel in mass.

Not many people knew about the crows, not from a want of secrecy but rather a lack of asking. If you were to ask Phil, he’d simply tell you that’s ‘chat’, but if you were to remain silent and assume Phil just.. had a bunch of domesticated birds then that was what you were left with.

There were only three people who really knew about Phil’s crow.

The second best kept secret of the angel.

His children.

————

Crows were a constant in the Minecraft Household.

Wherever you walked, it was almost a given that you’d come across a crow sitting by the window or on the beds.

Sometimes they brought trinkets of coins (which Tommy was more than happy to try to steal) and even though they couldn't communicate with the three younger members of the family, they all knew they were Phil's.

If they were ever in trouble, they could know their dad was watching by simply spotting one of the crows from the murder flying high.

However, it was almost impossible to discern the difference between Phil’s crows and normal crow’s.

Not only that but most people were unaware of the crows, or even that the angel of death was a father to three kids (two of which he found inside a refrigerator. Don't ask)

As expected, chaos ensued

———-

Tommy was almost outside his window, ready to sneak out of the house. He’d been grounded after he’d tried to claim one of the birds as his own and named it ‘Puss Boy’ (resulting in the bird now being permanently tagged as such.)

The murder, bunch of snitches they were, hadn’t been very happy about it and they snitched to Phil about it which earned Tommy a scolding and a grounding.

Which, fuck that. He’d promised Tubbo the two would go explore the nearby cave to try and find some bats. He wanted to name one Bartholomew, it was a pogchamp name for a bat after all.

How was he supposed to get a bat named Bartholomew if he was fucking grounded huh? It made, in his oh so humble opinion, no fucking sense.

So, he decided on the most obvious choice of course.

Sneaking out of the house.

He waited until his family members were asleep to climb down his window and across the roof of the porch, getting ready to jump and make a run for it when he heard a ruffle from behind him.

Slowly, he turned around to look at the big tree which leaves covered part of the roof.

Crow eyes stared back, a name tag around its neck standing out from its silvery color.

‘Puss boy’

. Ah fuck

He’d ended up getting ANOTHER scolding from Phil for trying to sneak out and even more days grounded. However apparently Puss Boy had spammed hit Phil with small pebbles on his head so it was grounded too, and alongside tommy to top it off.

“You are the most annoying fucking bird in the world” Tommy said, trying to get the crow to stop picking up his stuff from its bookshelves “Fucking DIE already”

The crow squawked, dropping yet another small object on Tommy’s head.

“I fucking hate you you fucking pussy bird i am going to get phil to cook you for dinner” Tommy warned as he tried to swat off the bird by jumping high.

The crow squawked again

“Dont you say that to me you absolute fucking bitchass bird— i dont actually know what you say BUT IM SURE IT WAS FUCKING STUPID”

Puss boy ended up sticking around Tommy even after the grounding was over, for some fucking reason.

Tommy, despite his increasing protests and remarks against it, kept the bird.

——-

The day the spirits appeared, Techno was actually having a pretty normal day. He’d woken up, tried not to step on too many crows and ended up stepping into some anyway, had stolen the last piece of bread right before Tommy could eat it and he’d started up with reading a brand new book from the family library.

Then, the spirits came.

It wasn’t a gradual thing that he realized as hours passed, no.

The voices were loud and sudden and brash

‘BLOODFORTHEBLOODGODBLOODFORTHEBLOODGODBLOODFORTHEBLOODGOD’

Who the fuck was the Blood God?

Techno shrugged, flipping another page on his book

‘EEEEEEEBLOODFORTHEBLOODGODETECHNOTECHNOBLADETECHN—‘

Techno ignored the spirits currently crowding him that demanded blood and focused on his book.

He didn't find this all that weird anyway. After all, Phil had birds that also spoke to him right?

Same thing

—————

Wilbur smiled as people came forward to praise him for his singing. The young 12 year old had just gotten done with his first recital.

His music teacher frowned

“Oh Wilbur, i’m sorry your dad didn't show up” The teacher said, patting him on the shoulder as the other kids excitedly talked to their parents.

Wilbur simply shrugged, a ‘what can you do about it’ gesture. His dad, as the angel of death, was honestly busy.

However, he certainly noticed the almost dozen crows watching the recital from the rooftops.

His dad wasn’t here physically, but he was certainly gonna hear all about it.

—————

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tubbo called out from the ground, staring at the level of altitude Tommy was up on “Are you planning to jump up from the branch? Cause if so, do a backflip!”

“No, you bitch, i’m not” Tommy said like it was the most ridiculous thing before turning back to where he was trying to hold a conversation with a bluebird.

“Call philllllll you stupid pussy” Tommy said “Cmon go fly back to dadza, you little snitch. Ill even give you something to gift him so hell pay attention to you”

Tommy threw a small coin at the bird, watching as it stared at the coin in confusion before ruffling its feathers and flying away coinless.

“OII. YOU FUCKER. ANSWER TO ME, CALL PHILLLL. PHILLLLLLL”

Tubbo stared at his friend in the tree, rolling his eyes and beginning to shake the tree

“Will you get down already, Tommy? Its almost curfew!”

“STOP SHAKING THE TREE IM GOING IM GOING—“

——————

Wilbur was having a staring contest with a crow.

Well, to be exact, Wilbur was planning to win a bet thanks to this crow.

“Wilbur just give up” Techno said boredly from his place on the ground “You’re never gonna guess it, can i go back to reading?”

The twins were sitting in their shared bedroom, sitting on the carpet floor.

One of them was being a ridiculously obstinate bastard wanting to win a stupid bet.

The other just wanted to read his book, thank you very much.

Neither of them were getting what they wanted it seemed.

Wilbur tired his gaze from the crow, glaring at his twin

“I’m telling you techno, I can guess whether it's one of dad’s or not. Just give me a couple of minutes”

He went back to his staring contest.

Techno sighed, putting his hands over his face

“Bruhhhhhhhhh”

————

The crows were a constant in the boy’s lives, following them around and telling them that no matter what their father was there. They just had to look for a crow nearby.

They were also very fucking annoying, in the youngest opinion.

However, he found himself looking for the familiarity of the crows as he walked into the new SMP Land. He found a trio of crows sitting on the branches of the tree and rolled his eyes, keeping eye of the following crows.

“Come on Puss boy” Tommy said to the crow, which was smuggled inside his backpack because of course it fucking was. The annoying bird was so clingy, ender “We’re gonna dominate this fucking Dream Smp Land!”

[swimfuel]

okay humanstuck thoughts under the cut

i owe a lot of this to @/rhythmic-idealist's kankri/vantasposting bc holy shit theyve got such a big brain (ill link to their individual posts when im on desktop since im using this to keep all my thoughts straight and i agree with most of what they say wholeheartedly)

general status quo stuff:

signless works in an extremely demanding career involving helping others (i'm leaning towards an attorney who works with organizations and does pro bono work), and is also extensively involved in social justice work outside of his job... he is very rarely home

he loves and cares for his children deeply and tries to express it whenever they're face to face, but the couch in his cramped and messy office has seen far too much use over the years for him to have been able to say it enough

his habits of working himself to the point of exhaustion are handily passed down to his kids btw

the kids had to grow up quickly because signless was out of the house so often and so consistently—kankri, who was already pretty high-strung, has to learn to take care of himself and karkat

they grow up near ms firuzeh maryam, who's their pseudoaunt/grandma (she took in a nine year old kavana vantas when she was about twenty), but they just call her ms rosa

they spent a lot of time in the maryam house growing up, with miss rosa's two nieces. porrim is a year older than kankri, while kanaya and karkat are the same age

kankri grows kinda sensitive to people trying to mother him since it rubs against the notion that he's the "adult of the house" and that he can take care of himself and karkat just fine

(and it also kinda underlines the fact that kankri has no idea what he's doing at the best of times)

and ironically enough, kankri becomes overbearing and naggy towards karkat in his own right, which forestalls them becoming close in any brotherly sort of way

they grow up really just... unable to communicate with one another clearly

karkat develops his ornery exterior in response to kankri's constant stream of opinions and frantic attempts at making up for the presence of a guardian in the house

i think there would actually be some really interesting parallels with rose in this au.. maybe i'm drawing from my own experiences as well but i think he'd begin to assume that every time his brother opens his mouth, he's going to criticize karkat

but instead of reacting like rose with the "making yourself more of a puzzle"/passive aggressive stuff, he gets a more defensive/hackles raised/"argue with you before you can argue with me" approach

and the thing is that they do love each other and would take a bullet for the other etc etc etc.. but they don't know how to express it because they've fallen into these shitty patterns

and it really doesn't help that kankri has grown somewhat resentful of signless over the years... that mix of resentment and fear and love gets more extreme and more polar every time signless gets injured during a political demonstration

i think kankri and signless would also be slightly closer than karkat and signless, as signless' job really only started to ramp up when karkat was less than years old and kankri was in his early double digits

kankri autistic btw its word of god (i am god)

karkat has a pet crab. its name is also karkat. he vents his frustrations to it.

i feel like the vantases exemplify both the best and worst parts of their aspects with one another as well... the strength of their bonds keeps them together and grounded, but TOO grounded. [insert Blood rant here]

the Blood rant:

i define Blood as bonds, responsibility, and the "core". if Life is the fertile soil and everything living on a planet's surface, then Blood is the gravitational core of the planet keeping everything together

i also think Blood, Heart, & Mind work in tandem to define a person just as blood serves to connect the pieces of the human body... Heart is the soul and the self, Mind is the application of one's self through active choices (agency), while Blood defines both the self and the choices one makes in greater detail [and, as an aside, Life provides the physical spark of life needed to keep the heart pumping blood]

OKAY wow that got tangential anyways

SO BASICALLY! too much Blood makes you stagnate, so for example:

kankri is split between staying home with karkat or going to college across the country and being truly unbound for the first time in years

another crisis of Blood: signless is caught between his empathy and responsibility to the whole world and his responsibility to his own children

okay so here's more status quo stuff:

the maryam and vantas kids grow up together and its hilarious because you'll see them all together and its just like (girlboss) (girlboss) (physical manlet) (emotional manlet)

the maryam girls are actually miss rosa's nieces but she took them in when they were both pretty young

the pyropes know the vantases well enough considering pyrope senior and sign have known one another from their respective legal practices for years, but they live on the other side of town

the leijons lived in town when kankri and meulin were very young, but they moved and travelled for a long time before coming back and reestablishing their roots

the captors (psii being one of sign's oldest and closest friends) move into town with the peixes family pretty early on though

the condesce is.. a horrible spouse and guardian, to put it plainly. she's very emotionally manipulative and isn't averse to smacking people around, including her own family. she moves herself and her perfect little family into town so she can properly oversee a new business venture close by

feferi is one of the best young swimmers in the country and has a pretty good shot of getting onto the olympic team.. a lot of this drive to be perfect and to be better results from the condesce's unrelenting pressure and thinly veiled resentment throughout her whole life

so yeah psii, )(ic, feferi, and sollux all live together and it's really not great for anyone involved. (meenah ran away years ago, and crashed on aranea's couch for a pretty long while—mituna moved out with latula for college before psii and the condesce got married)

it gets bad to the point of sollux staying with the maryams for two months while the adults try to sort out that absolute clusterfuck and get the divorce proceedings going (meenah finally convinces feferi to get out and come stay with her and aranea for the duration as well)

in terms of relationships i think latula and porrim were really really close in high school, and probably had some kind of unacknowledged thing going on for a while that never actually turned into anything because latula and mituna were going steady

kankri has had a crush on latula for years but never acted on it for similar reasons

meenah still carries a lot of that give no fucks attitude (it's developed moreso as a defense mechanism here) and can't understand why feferi refuses to leave the condesce with her

okay back to VANTAS MANPAIN i also think that karkat feels the weight of a lot of expectations on his shoulders as well

he feels responsible to live up to the example his dad and his brother set, even if it's to his own detriment—and kankri's oblivious rambling about his grades and his teachers and all his clubs certainly aren't helping the matter

kankri is one of those overinvolved kids taking a million AP's while simultaneously shitting on the collegeboard at every single step

hes this super overachiever anal retentive perfectionist type dude and (just as karkat preemptively criticizes others to forestall their criticisms of him only to harshly criticize himself) kankri subconsciously holds the people around him to the same expectations he holds for himself

so karkat also develops this sense of lacking which, in combination with everything else, culminates in self loathing and thinking he has to solve everyone else's problems and getting horribly mad at himself for every little mistake

GOD i have a lot more but lemme post this before i accidentally close out of the app and lose it all

more little details:

vriska's mom and terezi's mom HATE each other like HATE HATE HATE one another it's so bad

karkat wrote a ten page review of my immortal in middle school

jade is one of nepeta's best online friends

sollux can't raise one eyebrow at a time.. karkat gives him so much grief about it

the vantases eat a lot of shitty renditions of persian dishes until karkat learns to cook because literally the only person in the world with a CHANCE of getting KANKRI VANTAS to make an EDIBLE DISH is miss rosa

kanaya is really good at persian dance too but is VERY VERY embarassed to perform in front of people.. however porrim definitely is not

karkat has insomnia while kankri just stays up stupidly late for assignments that really shouldnt be taken that seriously.. but they both have the same rumination/sleep anxiety thing where your brain goes insane with horrible and depressing scenarios as you try to sleep

and more ideas that i thought were interesting but idk how to fit in the context of this au:

signless and disciple getting married pretty late in life after having been in love for years, the vantases move in with the leijons and karkat suddenly has two sisters

nepeta and karkat are both juniors at this point, meulin is probably in her third year at a local college nearby while kankri is about to start his second year at a university pretty far away

the kids in general honestly but ill figure it out

more random hcs this time with kids:

kanaya and rose get into a flame war online that gradually settles into elaborate courtship rituals

also nepeta + jade online besties

also bec can inexplicably still teleport

the first sbahj movie comes out and the next six months of dave strider junior's high school career are absolute hell

actually hc that dave senior goes by d strider professionally. the d stands for a lot of things

aradia and dave frequent a lot of the same forums but never end up really interacting

meanwhile karkat and john frequent a lot of the same forums and DEFINITELY end up interacting. this turns into grudging (at least on karkat's part) friendship after they find themselves fighting for their lives defending an objectively shitty movie together on the same thread

[randomoranges]

good god almighty. here is part 4. somehow longer than the other parts. somehow with more Emotions. i decided to not be vague and call the spades spades. this one is more nsfw because of things étienne mentions. 

again, minor character death and lots of introspection ha ha .

ive been working on the beast for like almost a month now. part 5 aint even done. im so glad i hacked it up in the end. 

PART IV

“The 60s were good with that – for forgetting and moving on. There was – or seemed to be this renewed sense of freedom, as if the people were finding their true purpose in the city. A great big curtain was being pulled back and we were given the opportunity to redefine ourselves. It felt like hope, in a way and with the distance put with the church, I felt I could breathe a little more and I was able to find myself. By the time Expo rolled around, it gave me purpose – something to do. The energy in the city was astounding. The projects people were coming up with – the possibilities they were unveiling – I had never felt something like that. I thought for sure this energy would see us through the next one hundred years; we’d be feeding off of it and returning to it for years to come. It would be our source of creation. Everyone seemed to be excited; the world was literally in our backyard and it felt good to bask in the attention.”

 It made sense for Étienne to have Expo, considering how good he was at catering to others – at giving them the good time they wanted. He thrived in giant crowds and lived for the attention. Plus, at the time, Montreal really did feel as though it was the center of Canada. It still felt like an other-worldly experience and there were still times when Edward wasn’t convinced Expo hadn’t been one massive hallucination. And he’d only been a small part of it, unlike Étienne who had lived every stage of it.

 “With the change of decade, going into the 70s, I expected much of the same – moving forward, the endless possibilities of the future and such. For the first time in a long time, I was actually looking forward to having more time – to being immortal and being able to experience every change. To make new connections. Expand and broaden the horizons and such.”

 “And then it all went to shit, starting with the October crisis. There was a lot that happened in the 70’s and not everything was bad, but for me, personally, it was a series of euphoric highs and devastating lows. In the same breath of the Crisis there would be a Cup win, then there was the Exodus, the language debacles and it never seemed to end. Up and down and up and down. One giant roller coaster that never gave me a chance to catch my breath. It was hard to feel anything let alone make it constant. It took a toll – added up and left me reeling in ways I had never thought possible. I couldn’t finish celebrating the Cup that I would get notified that something terrible had just happened. I would be relishing in disco and there’d be a murder. It was too fucking much. I couldn’t take it anymore. Everything I had worked so hard to build was slowly being torn from my hands and what was left didn’t seem to matter enough. The proverbial carpet had been yanked from under my feet and no matter how many times I tried to get up, I just kept falling and falling and falling... there was no end in sight.”

 Their correspondence at that time had petered off, somewhat. They’d both ended up in unpleasant situations and the last thing Edward had wanted to do was to take a pen and write to his friend to let him know how miserable he was. There’d been times when he’d wondered if his friend hadn’t found out about his fate and had left him for dead as well and it had only been later – much later – that he’d found out through Étienne exactly why he hadn’t written as often, if at all, for a few years.

 “I’m not exactly proud of what I ended up doing, but it seemed like the right solution at the time. I was a mess. I needed help but I didn’t realise it and I wasn’t sure there even was such help for such a lost cause. Working the streets and the clubs were as much self-punishment as they were the only place I felt I could succeed. It was easy to spread my legs to let some random guy fuck me in an alley. It was easy to pretend to be someone else. It was easy to get down on my knees and suck them off. It was easy to let others use me as they wanted and write it off as being unworthy of anything else. This was where I belonged – with the outcasts and the has beens.”

 There’s a shuddering breath that’s released and Edward has no idea if it’s his or Étienne’s. He’s astounded his boyfriend is willingly talking of this chapter of his life. It had taken years for Étienne to even speak of it to him and the confession had been a quiet halting thing that had taken him a while to piece together.

 Yet, despite finding out, it hadn’t changed Edward’s opinion of him. If anything, he had found Étienne brave and courageous for telling him about it and his heart had ached for him even more. Étienne was worthy. Étienne wasn’t a failure and he succeeded at so many other wonderful things. In his opinion, he was still as relevant as before and had never been an outcast or a has been. He was still a leader and trail blazer in his own right, even if Étienne himself didn’t always realise it.

 “When they gave me the Olympics,” Étienne goes on, once more showing that he is brave and more than the terrible things that he had gone through, “I hoped this would be the shot I needed – that it would be as wonderful as Expo had. If anything, it would be on a smaller scale than Expo. It would be a piece of cake, I figured. At least, they’d given me the Olympics in a timely way and not last minute. Therefore, there would be no excuses to fail. but for as much as Expo felt like a fever dream doused with magic, the Olympics were harder to get going. There were so many things that went wrong. So many strikes. So much corruption. The magic was gone. It was the opposite of what I needed and it just drove me further down my own spiral.

 “So I went for the drugs and the sex. One made me feel when I was numb, one numbed everything when I felt too much. And the sex was as much a means to an end as what seemed to be the only thing I could properly deliver. So I stuck to it. Went in and out of these phases. Went on the biggest of benders, woke up in places I had no recollection of going to and such. Drove Élyse nuts. But it didn’t matter to me; I’d still be alive, so who cared what I put myself through?”

 Edward wants to say that there were many who cared, but he knows that it would fall on deaf ears. He gets what Étienne means by it, but it still hurts him that his boyfriend had had to go through all of this. He gives his hand another squeeze and if anything, Étienne offers him a small smile, acknowledging the gesture.

 “I was all over the place and when I finally met Koffey, shortly after the Olympics, it was quite by accident and he took me by surprise.”

 “Everything about our relationship was different than the others I’d been in up until then. For starters, it didn’t happen the way the others had. It wasn’t the usual meet, sex and eventually develop feelings. He’d been living in the city for a few years when we met. He’d immigrated here, in search for a new adventure – ahead of the wave that would come later on. He’d decided to open up a restaurant, bringing us the local flavors of his own country. I stumbled there, quite by accident and I was most likely high and not even fully coherent. To be honest, I can’t even say I remember that day; he’s the one who told me later on.”

 “I ended up returning. Later. On a better day.  I think I was convinced it was my first time here, but Koffey was a little wary of seeing me again. Apparently, I had been a little rowdy on my first visit... Yet, he still gave me a chance and was still very polite while he served me, if a little guarded. I felt bad, so I returned and the more I went back, the more I was drawn – by him, his cuisine, and his quiet sense of humour and intelligence.”

 “He eventually realised I wasn’t a complete asshole and he’d start coming to talk to me when the restaurant was quiet. He was – a breath of fresh air, really and at the time the one good thing I had going on. It felt like being thrown a lifeboat – something to hang on to while I tried not to drown – by my thoughts, my life, the shit-show burning around me. A beacon of hope and light I clung to desperately.”

 “I honestly didn’t even think Koffey was interested in men. It surprised me, when one day, I hung around until the restaurant closed. I waited for him out in the back, not wanting to go home just yet. I also didn’t think going home just yet would be wise. I was still all over the place and I knew that if I went home I’d end up using or doing something even stupider. Having a friend helped keeping my thoughts on track. Koffey, without knowing what was going on in my head, helped keep my mind quiet. I wanted to know more about him and his life, so I focused on that. Anyways, it’d been a quiet night and we’d been having a grand old time chatting. I thought maybe we could walk around and bum out in a park. Summer was starting to settle in for good and it was a perfect night out. Warm and this side of humid, with a gentle breeze to make it pleasant.”

 Edward has his own thoughts and ideas about the description of the weather, but he schools his face in a neutral expression and listens on.

 “He was surprised to see me out back, but pleased and we picked up our conversation from where we’d left off. We ended up taking the long way back to his. I didn’t mind having to walk back to mine after and the extra detour would do me some good. However, he invited me in for a beer and I obviously said yes. He was my friend, after all and the thought of a cold beer to end the night sounded great.”

 “We must have spent a few more hours drinking beer and talking and somewhere along the line, he leaned in and kissed me. Completely unprompted. I was shocked and surprised and at first he thought I wasn’t interested, since I hadn’t kissed him back. He must have apologised at least a dozen times. It was quite funny, really. I’d keep trying to tell him that it was fine, but he wouldn’t listen. And the more he went on, the more afraid he was that I’d do something to him – which was quite sobering, let me tell you. I finally took matters in my own hands and kissed him myself. We’d been hanging around together for months, by then and had I known, I would have put a move on him sooner, maybe. The kiss finally got him to stop apologising and for a moment after that all we did was make-out on his couch like all the terrible clichés in movies.” He laughs at that, fond, as he twiddles with an unlit cigarette. “It was so different, though – soft and tender. Nicholas had been very forward with his kissing that first time. I knew we would end up in his bed the moment he kissed me, whereas with Koffey – it almost felt hesitant and cautious and I thought that was lovely.”

 “He still asked afterwards if I was that way, which I thought was both endearing and silly – considering I had just kissed him and wouldn’t have minded him kissing him some more. I assured him that I was and to prove my point, I kissed him again. I recall teasing him about it later, asking him if he needed another kiss to be sure I was into men. He thought I was being ridiculous, which was saying something.”

 There’s a gentle, soft smile that graces Étienne’s features, not for the first time during their talk, and Edward wonders what memories his boyfriend is reliving – what images his brain has conjured for him to revisit. He’s glad, though, that despite the heartache that Étienne still has fond memories of Koffey to go back to.

 “I wasn’t in love with him – not at that point, but I was certainly drawn to him. He was – beautiful. On the outside as much as on the inside; a gentle soul, really. I would have willingly gone to bed with him that night, but he insisted we wait a little and take things slow. This had never really happened and even though I was a little annoyed, I didn’t push the issue and floated back home after one last kiss.”

 “He actually – I swear, the next time I went to see him, he actually asked me out on a proper date. He was too much! And I couldn’t believe that a man like Koffey, sweet and gentle and kind, would want to date me who felt broken and used and soiled in so many ways. But he saw beyond that and insisted we go on a proper date before we went to bed together and so I said yes; because I did really want him and I loved his company.”

 “Our first date was nothing extraordinary, but it was nice – to be taken out – to feel as though I was worthy of someone’s attention and affection again. It was almost as good as a high. He took me out to dinner and then insisted we go to a movie and he was so gallant about the whole thing. He paid for the meal and for the ticket and don’t ask me how the movie ended, because halfway through we started making-out in the back and before the movie ended we left to go back to his.”

 “Koffey was – so very sweet to me. Our first time together felt like something out of a romance movie. There was no frenetic urgency to it. It wasn’t just sex because he wanted a fast way to get to his release. He made love to me. Me! It boggled my mind. He kissed and caressed every bit of me that felt broken and used. It was – wonderful and too much and I tried changing the pace to something that felt less consuming ‘cause I couldn’t handle so much love being given to me, but he kept on finding ways to make it less about the sex and more about us and I couldn’t take it. I eventually broke down in tears.”

 “And get this – he thought he, of all people, had done something wrong to me – that he’d hurt me in some way. I came clean to him. Told him everything. As much as I could. The drugs, the streets – the fall from grace. Every last ugly truth came out as he held me in his arms and made sure I understood I was someone worthy of love again. I felt stupid for breaking down and felt even worse for needing him to comfort me. And despite that, there were still things I couldn’t tell him. He tried asking about what was bothering me – because he could tell. Even when I lied – he could always tell when there was more – when everything in my head was too loud, but it was hard to explain. I couldn’t just say oh by the way, I’m semi-immortal and I represent a city. Yeah, fucked up I know, but I swear that’s not the acid talking.”

 “It wasn’t stupid,” Edward breaks. He knows Étienne is in a better place now, but he also knows his boyfriend is still prone to great bouts of self-doubt that do more harm than good to him. He’d hate to think that Étienne still feels that way.

 “I know,” Étienne responds quickly. Edward wonders if he isn’t deflecting, but he figures Étienne’s heart has been scorched raw enough for the day that he can let it slide for this time.

 “You’ve always been worthy of love,” He adds softly and Étienne stills for a moment.

 “I know.” He says again, but it sounds different this time around; a little more vulnerable and fragile. Edward wants to gather him in his own arms and hold him tightly, but instead he keeps hold of his hand and lets Étienne carry on with his story.

 “I made it up to him, later, once the storm had passed. I didn’t want him to think that I would be some emotional weight to him. He’d wanted sex so I made sure to deliver. He was still very sweet and loving with me and I tried to ignore it. I focused on making it good for him so that he wouldn’t toss me to the side and in my mind it worked. Yet, thinking back, there were still times when I felt like he was onto me. Like he knew when I was faking it for both our benefits, but he let me be.”

 “Still, for as much as Koffey was good for me and to me, he wasn’t a cure to all my problems. It would’ve been too easy. He helped – more than he probably ever realised, but I was still reckless and I still fluctuated. Bad days and worse days. On those, he’d simply hold me in his arms and let me cry in them.

Sometimes there’d be an okay day. He made it tolerable. To be alive. Made the sharp edges rounder. Made me feel like I could hang on another day. And there were those times when I felt like I genuinely wanted to be around – for him. I wanted to take him somewhere or kiss him again. I wanted to tell him some funny story I had heard or simply go to bed with him one more time. So I stuck it out and tried to survive.”

 “He was so kind and patient with me. He loved me, despite what I was and how I was. He loved me even when I couldn’t love myself. God, I never deserved him. He was too good for me and to me. And somehow, I repaid his kindness by making him sick and killing him!”

 “You don’t know that for sure.” Edward replies quickly, without thinking.

 He remembers the visit. Remembers finding out about the real significance of Koffey. Of going over to visit Étienne and finding him distraught and broken hearted. Of Étienne bringing him to the cemetery. The breakdown and the tears. The trembling murmured admissions of guilt. The dawning connection he’d made.

 Edward had been in his own headspace at the time and their correspondence had petered out, hence his grasp of Koffey’s role in Étienne’s life had been lacking in some regards. But standing by that grave, with his friend opening up about him and telling him what had happened had marked Edward.

 “I may as well have, Edward.” Étienne snaps. He lights up the cigarette he’d been previously playing with and takes a long drag from it. “He died and it was all my fault. I couldn’t even – I wasn’t even there when he died. I was too afraid. And ashamed. I was a coward. He’d chosen me and I may as well have tossed him out.” He flicks the ash with more force than necessary and when Edward spares him a glance, he sees the storm of hate and shame fight in Étienne’s eyes through his unshed tears. “He deserved better – after everything he did for me and I repaid his kindness by being a coward.”

 Edward knows that there’s no sense in telling Étienne that it’s not his fault. His boyfriend will keep berating himself until he runs out of steam and he supposes that it’s best to let him be and wait it out. Yet, it doesn’t sit well with him to have Étienne react this way. Sure, he could have been responsible for Koffey getting sick, but at the same time, there was no actual proof. He hates that it still eats Étienne alive and part of him wants to take him by the shoulders, shake him, and tell him to convince himself otherwise. Especially if it’ll help him move on. But – he’s known Étienne for too long and knows that such actions will do him no good.

 Instead, he waits and starts to itch for a cigarette of his own. He settles instead for a deep breath and then another. He thinks back to his own response to the crises. To the way he’d taken action. The misery and heartache he’d seen and lived. The friends he’d lost. The ones he’d buried. He thinks of running to Montreal to get away from it all and leaning on Étienne for a chance to forget and leave it all behind. There’s an irony here he still hasn’t fully grasped but it’s a reflection for a different day. There’s already enough that’s been looked over for one day.

 “I don’t think he would have wanted you to beat yourself over it,” He offers instead. Étienne sniffs loudly and doesn’t give him an answer. Instead, he remains quiet, fighting with his own demons.

 “You never did tell me why you called him Koffey,” Edward tries again, minutes later, when he feels that the mood has shifted once more and that Étienne has calmed down some. Perhaps this approach will work better, he thinks.

 Étienne sniffles and rubs at his eyes, “Oh,” He starts and a small smile deigns to make an appearance on his face, which Edward is thankful for. “Apparently, his regular customers used to call him that. He thought it was hysterical and he never really liked his own name. I never questioned it beyond that and it stuck.”

 Étienne grows silent after that and turns reflective. Even Mercury seems to sense the shift in mood and nuzzles her way up to his arms for cuddles. The distraction serves its purpose and Étienne focuses on her for a while, caressing her fur and scratching her behind the ears, which she seems to enjoy, if Edward is to judge by the wagging of her tail. He watches and lets them be for a while, glad the dog can help where he can’t.

 “You would’ve liked him,” Étienne quietly says after a while. He’s not looking at him, hands still buried deep in Mercury’s dark coat, but Edward doesn’t mind.

 “I’m sure I would have – he sounds like a great guy.”

 “The greatest.”

 Not for the first time, Edward wonders if Étienne’s feelings hadn’t become tainted with guilt over the years. He doesn’t question Étienne’s love for Koffey, but he wonders if the circumstances of his death haven’t left a lasting grip on him that wouldn’t have otherwise been there if the man had died of natural causes at a ripe old age. The wounds are still too raw and fresh to ask, so he lets the matter rest and figures that there will be other occasions to ask.

 They fall silent after that, both lost again in their own thoughts. He hears the occasional snuffle from Mercury and sends out a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher power there might be out there for her presence in Étienne’s life. In the few years Étienne has had her, he already sees the difference and impact she’s made in his life.

 Eventually, Mercury settles back on Étienne’s side and his friend leaves a hand around her neck, absent-mindedly stroking her dark coat, while he reaches out for Edward’s own hand with his other. Edward is a little surprised, but he doesn’t mind and let’s Étienne play with his fingers. He traces the lines on his hand with the edge of a nail and draws loops with it afterwards. Edward watches the movement carefully with his eyes and finds it oddly grounding in a way. He hadn’t realised he’d felt a little unmoored by these tales and he wonders, not for the first time, just how attuned to him Étienne really is.

 They settle around each other, the breeze gently ruffling their hair and Edward takes a deep breath to process some of what he’s just heard.

 “And shortly after Koffey died, while I was still mourning him and hating myself for everything I had done, you came along at both the best and worst moment of my life.”

--

Part III Part V

[jasontoddiefor]

Sunday Batfam Fanfic Recs!

Today I got some painful fanfics for you! 27 ones to be precise! Have fun! Cry a lot and leave these authors many tearful comments!

I’m a little busy right now, which is why I didn’t do any fanfic rec lists in the last weeks, but I’m trying to get back on schedule!

Title: (re)incarnation Summary: "Shut up," one of the men hissed. "Do you want a beating, brat?" "No," Dick said. "But maybe I deserve one. I mean, you did just shoot a kid like he deserved it. How should I know what I deserve?" "Shut up, or you might just end up deserving one," the other guy snapped. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16044062

Title: Anathema Summary: When a new crime lord in Gotham gets the upper hand, Red Hood and Batman are dealt crippling blows. When faced with near death and an inability to hide behind their masks in the weeks after, Jason and Bruce have to deal with some old haunts between them. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604273

Title: An Act of Mercy Summary: "You're gonna be okay," Tim keeps saying. "I'm here. We're almost home. You're gonna be okay." Or, that time Bruce gets hit with Fear Toxin. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036840

Title: Break Summary: In which Jason is dead and Dick has reached his breaking point. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496762

Title: Frightening but not afraid Summary: When the family is hit by a new strain of fear toxin, safety is in numbers. Unfortunately, three members of the flock are still out there, afraid and alone. Bruce may not be the best at comforting his children, but apparently, he can let his wings do the talking Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20120557

Title: goodnight, gotham Summary: In the wake of shooting penguin, Jason Todd's world is torn to shreds. And perhaps found again. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16572116

Title: I survived (but I paid for it) Summary: sometimes, the only way to survive is to go numb. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20418752

Title: I’m in paradise with Dad Summary: Jason dies in Bruce's arms rather than before he gets there. It messes some things (and people) up Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/711570

Title: I’m just fine Summary: After rescuing a group of children (including himself) from being kidnapped and sustaining injuries in the process, Tim has difficulty thinking about anything except his guilt over what he could have done better. Based on a story from the comics. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18935299

Title: Like Any Other Kid Summary: Damian's had nightmares every night since he was resurrected and has refused to tell anyone about them until now. Tired of dealing with them, he does what any other kid would do and joins his father in bed. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7588219

Title: Liminal Spaces Summary: Bruce's habit of collecting strays is not limited by dimension. Or: When Young Justice Batman comes across an angsty, seemingly abandoned by his Batman Tim Drake, he decides to step up to the plate and parent the crap out of him Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1414078

Title: little misunderstandings Summary: Bruce has heard that line hundreds of times, mostly in his own thoughts, when he sets his eyes on the clown. Clark was the one to tell him first. He would have done it. He's known for years that those words were the only thing that kept his one rule intact. Unfortunately, they are a lie. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1506059

Title: More Like a Nightmare Summary: The criminals in Gotham are gross. Stephanie knows this. Stephanie had a bad childhood. Bruce knows this. One patrol, these two facts come together. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19374331

Title: No Silver Bullet Summary: Everyone knows Batman's origin story. Everyone has heard about Bruce Wayne's tragic past, and his orphaning. It's also common knowledge that Batman doesn't like guns. However, Bruce's PTSD and triggering because of guns isn't often explored... Here are five times that Bruce was triggered, and one time something was different. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633273

Title: Of Gunshots and being Enough Summary: Stephanie Brown is Robin, but no one seems to believe it. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18056402

Title: Papercuts Summary: They've always said that lies hurt the ones you love the most. None of Bruce's children had any idea how important it was for him to know the truth. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895134

Title: Tell-tale Summary: " 'Hey,' Jason calls, and Tim turns around with a start. Looks surprised he’s been addressed at all. And Jason says, 'You tell ‘im, Babybird. He feels guilty he doesn’t love you.' " Or, the kids compete to see who should give Bruce bad news. But Jason doesn't take Tim and Bruce's fractured relationship into account. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/697095

Title: This distance between us Summary: He wondered where Jason was right now, what he was doing. Probably sleeping, he hoped. Yes, that was it. Fast asleep in his apartment, probably wrapped up like a turtle in the covers. Drooling on his pillow. Blissfully dreaming of muscle cars and guns, or whatever it was teenagers dreamed of. Even though he was twenty now, and not a teenager anymore. Or, Bruce deals with some late-night drasticizing and reacts like a traumatized father of a dead son would. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17749808

Title: the blood stuck beneath his fingernails Summary: Jason is alive- he knows he's alive- but the dreams of the damned, of the dead, drive him near insanity. Luckily, he has people who care for him and motivate him to move forward from the deep melancholy he so often gravitates towards. Features talks with his annoying older brother, his awkward dad, a few mental breakdowns, and the constant wonderings of which gods set Jason up on this path. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1441537

Title: the bridge to nowhere Summary: Jason and Bruce take care of an injured Damian. It forces Jason to reflect on some... unpleasant things. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18239213

Title: The Jason Project Summary: Jason had just wanted to see his autopsy report, he had only wanted to know what information Bruce had about his death. And when Bruce hadn't given it to him, he had stolen it. He hadn’t meant to stumble upon the bucket list of a dead child and the footage of a grieving father crossing one item after another off the list. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19899613

Title: Ugly memories in third person Summary: “Cover your drink.”[Damian's words have consequences and Bruce's mind is not the bomb-proofed system of boxes and compartments he forces himself to believe it is.] Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20301352

Title: Unravel Summary: He doesn’t notice it at first. He’s too happy. He’s back. For good, now. Damian’s alive, and talking to him. Jason and Tim are mad at him for a little while, but they both start talking to him soon enough, too. Cass gives him smiles and hugs, and she lets him kiss her cheek occasionally. So, yeah. He’s too caught up in his family to notice what’s happening at first. In which Dick's trauma catches up to him before he's ready. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/822048

Title: Used to the Darkness Summary: “I’m not there,” he said, trying not to sob. “I’m not in my grave, I’m not in the ground.” “I know,” Bruce whispered, bringing Jason’s hand to his lips. “I’m not Icarus or Ophelia.” Jason’s voice grew louder in an attempt to reach that hidden part of Bruce. “I’m not my death. I’m not a tragedy.” ~ Wherein death is haunting and love is painful. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20921330

Title: What Possesses You Summary: He knew Bruce was eyeing him, surely assessing what his son’s young, unchanging face implied. Jason wanted, desperately, to look back and see that stony face. He wanted to know what lied behind those eyes when Bruce realized that he hadn’t aged a day.~ Immortality is a curse that few can bear Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17852552

Title: when you coming home Summary: Dick speaks to his father after five long years. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307529

Title: whip-poor-will she sings Summary: What if Jack's emotional abuse of Tim took a more physical turn? Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536047

[iliveinaconstantstateoffire]

Alright, y'all so I know im not here a lot and there are still a lot of things I need to do (I still have moodboards buried in my laptop for quite a few states so sorry :/ to everyone thats asked for those)

Let me know what you think!

I just want to throw out a personal hc for me.

So, for Washington DC, one of my absolute favorite hcs for them is a) its alfred. Like, I hope I've made that clear in some of the text posts, but for me there is no way that our alfred (aph/hws America) is older than any of the states. He/they are in fact a child in the midst of ancient immortals, in my head. That dynamic alone is hilarious to me (both state wise and other capitals and countries). Also, tho, with being a child, DC is a gen-xer/gen-zer. Like, not age-wise, but definitely personality wise. Like this small person/being/individual was raised in a period of unprecedented technological/social/innovative evolutions from war tactics and strategies to technology and social patterns. Like, DC was born at the dawning of a new era and had to live with this dual consciousness (don't even get me started with this like this is a post all its own h~☆~o~☆~l~☆~y s~☆~h~☆~*~☆~t) of what was considered the 'norm' versus what they were growing into and what they believed. Lets also not forget that their entire childhood/adolescents was defined by having to acknowledge unprecedented exploitation and cruelty found in slavery, immigrants who weren't the ''''right'''' immigrants, the atrocious treatment and genocide of the nation's Indigenous peoples, and having to constantly live between his siblings, half of whom saw nothing wrong with any of this, while the other half saw only partial problems with the living conditions of its most vulnerable peoples. Also, the wars, battles, and constantly changing boundary lines, alliances (i wouldn't even call them friendships at this point), and the constant knowledge that your allies now could be your enemies later, would leave a helluva mark on a small individual coming to age in a period where being enlightened was a good thing, but only enlightened to a point.

Like imagine this 13/14 y/o staring up at his big sister (va), one of the states that had the largest hand in raising him and whom wash wanted to grow to be like, and trying to argue that, "if the south must rely so heavily on the exploitation of the enslaved, despite the founding principles that this nation sought to encapsulate, then maybe the south should not exist" and then being told (like that (tm)) that he was too young to fully understand the complicated web of social, economic, religious and every other possible narrative taught strands. How many gen-xers and gen-zers hear that line now? That line of, 'youre too young to understand' despite having stared down these historical evils and conscious choices their entire lives? How exhausted are they by continuously having to relive the same movements over and over again, about having to study the same movements, only to find out that the people they care about most and want to look up to the most have yet to fully learn and grasp the full consequences of ignoring their own history? Like hell if Wash is anything but a gen-z/gen-x personality trait. Imagine tho, this 17 y/o looking dumb@ss with a tiktok, filming some of the most dynamic videos like,

Wash, while filming his siblings' reactions, "i guess yall could say that on December 25, 1814, we pretty much told the Brits to 'Ghent thee hence'" and then cackling when all of his siblings let out monuments groans in perfect unison

Or Wash, being heavily sarcastic and bitingly cynical about, "how funny is it that indigenous peoples and people of color are fighting and protesting for their rights to survive and live peaceably in a nation that, in some cases, they had no wish to be a part of; while Karen and John over there are fighting for their right to not wear a mask, thereby endangering those around them. If that ain't america in a nutshell that idfk what even is"

Or even one of his siblings being like, "you know, Wash, I just don't understand you at all. One second youre saying that God hates you and the next youre saying that God created the world in 7 days and then you on the 8th so they could get you infinitely perfect. How do you bounce between the two opposite trains of thoughts?"

And Wash just being like, "its the ~☆~d~☆~e~☆~p~☆~r~☆~e~☆~s~☆~s~☆~i~☆~o~☆~n~☆~"

Also, aph/hws Washington DC and Washington state are bffs, solely based on the fact that both their names are Washington and both complain about being named after a slave owning white man every chance they get.

[vasiliassuns]

thistle gimme the tea on ruby

♥ oh gods, you really just love getting me on the analysis trains, hm ?

♥ ( note ; do not read this post if you absolutely love ruby with all of your heart and believe she is 100% innocent , to each their own , these are just my own personal opinions and im not trying to offend anybody ) 

♥ warning ! this post is very long, and essentially turned into a character analysis of specific moments and nearly an entire volume largely based off of how i see the show. it is multiple paragraphs long, standing at exactly 3444 words exactly. there will be a tl;dr at the end for anybody who doesnt want to read the full post, or has trouble focusing ! thank you for understanding. 

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♥ where do i start ? personally, ruby’s character really got it’s worst in volume 7. i really enjoyed her character pre - fall of beacon, and a decent amount in volumes 4 - 6 as well. there is a moment in volume 4 that make me let out a long sigh, as well as a singular moment in volume 5 that greatly confuses me on her character, so i will touch up on that as well.

♥ volume 7 is what kills my love for her character, in all honest, as well as some moments in volume 6 that i feel could have been written better. i’ll go in chronological order for this, starting with my “:///” towards a part in volume 4, then confusion of a scene in volume 5, then the slight issues that developed with her in volume 6, then moving on to volume 7 and how im no longer really enjoying her character

♥ so, in volume 4, its very common knowledge that tyrian was sent to attack and retrieve ruby to bring back to salem, due to her having silver eyes and the damage she cause salems fall maiden. when qrow shows up to save ruby at the perfect last second, he adamantly tells her and the rest of team rnjr to stay out of the fight. at first, ren and nora dont listen, but then do, which is fair. but ruby continued to push her helping qrow. as we all know now, qrow was telling her to stay back due to his semblance. while, yes, ruby did help qrow against tyrian with a couple of the blows, the fight would have gone much different should she have not interfered (personally, i feel like qrow would have had a shot at beating tyrian, especially because their auras were both flickering and they seemed very evenly matched). but due to her constant interference, she nearly got knocked out by a large wooden beam, had qrow not sliced it in half. she wound up (even if it was accidentally) distracting qrow, giving tyrian the opportunity to nearly poison him. i dont hate her for wanting to help in this scene, because its her uncle who she cares about, but i feel like she also should have trusted qrow and stayed out of the fight. the line “this is my fight too” also gets me. maam, this isnt your fight, the fight is about you, but doesnt need to physically involve you.

♥ with volume 5. its a very well known scene, at least in my opinion. when weiss got impaled by none other than cinder fucking fall. within the few episode long battle for haven, we did see ruby’s eyes activate once when jaune and cinder were running / flying at each other to fight. i do understand why her eyes activated there, because jaune is her first friend from beacon that wasn’t her sister, arguably one of her closest. what i dont understand is why ruby’s eyes didnt activate when she saw that cinder had impaled weiss with the spear, weiss sitting in the same position ruby last saw pyrrha in, weiss an inch from death. it just doesnt add up to me how her teammate and partner, somebody who’s saved her multiple times and shes saved multiple times. it may be that she was too stressed in the moment for them to properly activate, which we’ve seen ( in volume 7 ), but i still feel like something should have happened with her eyes. 

♥ continuing on with volume 6, i really didnt have many issues with her character here either, but a few of her lines / moments kinda made me go “:/ bruh why tho” closer to the end of this volume. it’s really only two quotes of her’s that get me, which is “Just because you don't have an idea, doesn't mean we're out of options! Oz hasn't been here to tell us what to do, but we still managed to get this far anyway. We've been in bad situations before, and we don't need an adult to come save us or tell us what to do. We just did it our way! And I say we do it our way. And if you think you can keep up with us "kids"... we'd be happy to have you.” from the episode ‘lost’. i partially understand what she’s saying here, but at the same time, she says this to qrow, who saved her life on multiple occasions, and who wanted to get to atlas without breaking any laws. the way she said it (nothing against lindsay, she is an amazing and very talented voice actress, and she delivers nearly all of rubys lines perfectly, but imagine as if this was a real person we knew), kind of seemed decently rude to me. i understand that she knows they need to get to atlas, because james can help them (ill bring this back up later, trust me), and shes clearly not afraid to break the law that involves james’ military to get to him. 

♥ the second thing in volume 6 about ruby that semi-upsets me / makes me go “:/” is in the episode seeing red, when she was talking to cordovin, she said “ We're going to Atlas. Bigger people than you have tried to stop us and failed, but we're supposed to be on the same side! We're supposed to use our power to protect people, but you just use yours to look down on everyone! We didn't want to steal from you. We did it because you gave us no other choice! Now I'm giving you one last chance to stand down and hear us out.” this semi-upsets me mostly because of the line “bigger people than you have tried to stop us and failed”, as well as “we did it because you gave us no other choice.”. the “bigger people than you” gets me because while, yes, in the grand scheme of things within the war against salem, cordovin is a small footnote within it, the only other people who physically tried to stop team rwby was roman (who sadly was eaten by grimm due to his negative emotions with flocks of grimm around, not because of ruby), cinder’s miniature faction (who only partially failed. as much as i hate cinders character, she didnt fully fail in stopping rwby, she just was forced to step back for a while...multiple times.), and tyrian with rnjr. roman didnt inherently fail, he just chose to walk away from the fights hed been having with team rwby in order to devise a new plan to beat them the next time. cinder’s faction only partially failed because ruby managed to get on top of beacon tower in volume 3 with weiss’ help, watching pyrrha pass away thus activating her silver eyes for the first time. the only reason tyrian failed to stop rnjr was because qrow was there to help, and ruby managed to get an opening to slice his tail in half (which. ew that shot looked disgusting). yes, bigger people have tried to stop her and her friends, but they didnt inherently fail, at least not yet. with the line “we did it because you gave no other choice!” mostly just confuses me. while yes, technically cordovin didnt really give any options for the group, it didnt automatically mean that they had to instantly resort to stealing from the military. 

♥ now ! onto volume 7, where my salt really starts. because i have a growing icky feeling about her character in volume 7, im going to split this next bit up into three parts. the first part being the first 4 episodes, the second being episodes 5-9 and the third and final being episodes 10-13. buckle up!

♥ episode 1, i really have nothing against ruby. she has the same attitude she did in volume 6 and before, which is a mixture of pure but also wanting to stop salem.

♥ its episode 2 that starts to get me. as i mentioned earlier, ruby knows they have to get to atlas because they know james can help them, and that the lamp is safer if its locked away in the vault, but then she suddenly doesnt trust james. i dont know if this is because the ace-operatives arresting them, but in that situation, james also couldnt have known who the unlicensed huntsmen were. as seen by his and winter’s reactions to the soliders bringing rwby+jnr+oscar & qrow in, they instantly tell them to let the 9 go, because james and winter personally know them and know they would never attack people. so, i dont really know why ruby would stop trusting the idea that james could help them because of that. it may also be the fact that ruby doesnt like the idea that james was planning on telling the people of atlas and mantle about salem (which, honestly? to me? this decision seems fully rash and makes a lot of sense.), but even then, if the students at the vytal festival knew about salem, or the world did, it may have proven to be more beneficial to them, because the more people that knew she existed, the more people who can fight her or the more people that can support those who are fighting her on the front lines, so ruby no longer trusting him over that doesnt make sense to me either. ruby’s sudden distrust of james upsets me quite a bit, because she and the team shed been traveling with had learned ozpin was hiding things from them (my feelings on this is a whole different post, but not necessarily a negative one), and was very upset about that. really, her openly lying to james about not knowing why ozpin had disappeared / locked himself away in oscars mind, as well as the amount of questions jinn has left, really ticks me off. they spent the entirety of volume 6 trying to get to atlas and to james because they needed his help, and once they finally got there, in front of the man himself, she lied. she became the exact same thing that she and her group had openly not liked what so ever, which was a blatant liar. id understand if ruby said that jinn had one more question left, to see how james would react, and tell him of salem’s immortality at a slightly later date, when they got into the rhythm of being around each other and working as a team against salem, but just blatantly lying, without consulting her team prior, to the man who could in all honesty make or break how they fought this war, was plain wrong.

♥ in episode 3, ruby was mostly back to who she had been prior to this entire mess. she explains why theyre hiding stuff from james, albeit in the vaguest way possible (weiss and blake explain the thinking behind it more than she does, honestly). we also see the beginning of a conversation between ruby and oscar about them lying to james. though, with the lying situation and who she was turning into, this is really all for this episode.

♥ in episode 4, the largest scene we see with ruby openly talking about her distrust for james is her conversation with qrow. she says “I'm trying to do what I think is best, but I really can't tell if what's best is what's right. Or if I'm no different from Oz.“, which at this point, shes nothing like ozpin. shes worse. ozpin was hiding the truth about salem due to the trauma connected to her and the fact of her immortality that the ozma line of reincarnations had, which isnt entirely a bad thing. should he have tried to find a way to tell them she was immortal without disclosing his own personal traumas? absolutely, i dont disagree that he hadnt made brash decisions, that should have been made differently, but the sad truth is, is that ozpin chose to hide what he hid, but that one mistake (albeit, a large one) doesnt entirely make him a terrible person. ruby, however? her choice on telling james wasnt brash, it was blatantly impetuous. she barely thought and decided to lie on the spot, unless shed purposefully been internally planning for a long while to lie to him, and had a lie stored up to use should he have asked. that isnt okay, what so ever. the conversation ruby had with qrow eventually delvs into talking about summer, which isnt really important.

♥ when thinking about episodes 5 through 8, nothing particularly stands out to me as ruby blatantly lying. those episodes are mostly team rwby and jnr doing huntsman work, yang making a terrible decision and making blake talk for her, and r/enora turning into something i honestly really hate. episode 9 however, gets me thinking.

♥ in episode 9, the finally tell james that salem cant be killed, but ruby doesnt tell james, oscar does. a quick side note, i really like the fact that crwby had oscar tell james and not ruby, because oscar is the current (and hopefully final) reincarnation of ozma, and its a secret his past lives kept for a millennia. but! back to ruby. within this episode, before she decides they can finally tell james about salem (which, as you can tell, i believe they should have done instantly), ruby is preaching to james about how they can figure it out and that how they should all work together. this pisses me off because shes standing there, hiding one of the largest, if not the largest secret in the show, to a man who has done everything for her and her team. james trusted rwby, especially ruby, with everything he knew, gave them new weapons, clothes, a place to stay, food, etc. all for free because he trusted they wouldnt hide anything from them. another thing that gets me about ruby saying it was finally time to tell james, was that it seemed solely up to her to tell him or to chose when to tell him. it was up to the technically youngest in the group to chose when to tell james about salems immortality (i say technically, because oscar is the current reincarnation of a millennia old line, and i personally have seen him be wiser than ruby in this, weather hes more mature than her or not. physically, yes, oscar is the youngest. mentally? i really dont think hes the youngest in that regard). it doesnt make sense to me as to why everybody was trusting ruby with when to tell james. why wouldnt qrow tell him? qrows known james for years, weather they were close friends (that hug and sincerity tells me that they arent the bickering work partners v3 shaped them up to be) or not. qrow knows he can trust james because simply of how long theyve known each other. weiss knows she can trust james, hes been seen multiple times in the show defending her against jacques, even offering her a place at atlas academy (that bit to me seemed like james offering weiss a way to get away from jacques, because she would need to live at atlas to properly be a student, not the manor), he even said “shes the only one making any sense around here” after weiss got rightfully upset at the woman talking beacon down in volume 4. oscar knows he can trust james, simply because of his connection to ozpin. seeing as ozpin can access oscars memories, and its cannon that their memories merge, its safe to say that oscar was able to see who james used to be pre-fall of beacon, and to see the kind of man he was, as well as making his own judgement based on their first introduction together. so, why would these three, and the rest of the team traveling with ruby not tell james the truth? hell, qrow is a mother fucking spy. im pretty sure he would be able to tear james apart and figure out his intentions pretty easily. why couldnt qrow have just had a one on one conversation with james to make his own final call, as the fully fledged adult of the group? it doesnt make sense to me why they would trust ruby with this extremely important decision what so ever. 

♥ episode 10, there really isnt anything i have against ruby. shes fighting to protect mantle and is doing her current job, which is one of the few details i can appreciate, but thats about it. 

♥ episode 11 and 12 specifically piss me off, and not just about ruby, about nearly everybody involved. i understand rubys standing in this, saying that they need to stand their ground and fight salem head on, unlike they had in the past, i honestly probably would have said the same thing if i were her too. james had emotionally shut down at this point, i think that this is very clearly evident, especially seeing as the white sparkles in his eyes have dissipated, something we commonly see in the eyes of rwby characters to represent their humanity or emotional status. james is emotionally shut down, the ace-operatives have their own opinions on this situation which is entirely okay and valid, and they happen to be siding with james. blake is trying to take the calmer approach, most likely having noticed that if they lashed out like yang began to, it would go very bad very quick. weiss was in a state of semi-shock, her mind most likely naturally connecting their current situation with trauma and abuse she endured as a child (most prominently ; isolation). but how ruby handled going against james and the fight against the ace-operatives / specifically harriet, was down right wrong. she should not have jumped past james with her semblance to reveal james’ plan, which automatically escalated the situation from bad to even fucking worse. she yet again made a decision for herself and a group of people that can cost them their lives if things dont go their way (which, knowing how this show can be written sometimes? it will always go their way in the end), without thinking. i really dont feel i have to explain how spontaneous her choice on this is, especially because i know multiple people have covered it in better written posts. it essentially boils down to rubys blatantly reckless actions and absolutely moronic choices to do what they did. do not get me started on her line of “then you trained us” or the fact that all the ace-operatives walked into that fight with less aura than team rwby, which already gave them an unfair advantage. i really do not have the patience to fully type out and explain why i hate these two episodes with my entire being, but it mostly boils down to: nobody in this situation is right. not ream rwby, not james, not the ace-ops, very clearly not salem and her lackeys, not qrow choosing to fight 1v1v1, or cinder for a multitude of reasons. the only characters in these episodes i dont have a burning hatred for, be it temporarily or a fire i have a feeling will be burning for a while, is team jnr and oscar. they were trying their best in regards of what was best for everybody, oscar wanting to help james to the best of his ability. 

♥  tl;dr : basically? ruby rose in volumes 1 - 6 was actually a really enjoyable character and only had a few moments of “okay but why?” but everybody also has those moments. ruby rose in volume 7 turned into a hypocritical, blatantly rude and whiny little girl who i honestly cant really see as a good character at the moment at all, because of how she acted the entire volume. 

[takerfoxx]

An entirely too long ramble about how much Imperfect Metamorphosis means to me

(Tumblr please actually show that submissions are not just text posts please)

So. It’s almost the last day of the decade. I usually get weirdly sad and nostalgic in the last 30 minutes of New Year’s Eve, but this time it’s been like, a whole week, and I’ve been reflecting on this decade as a whole as well as like, my path in life.

The 1990’s were the decade of my birth and early life.

The 2000’s were the decade of being REALLY into Harry Potter.

And my 2010’s were, wholly and singularly, defined and shaped by Touhou. 

I got into Touhou sometime around Easter 2010 when McRoll’d came into my YouTube feed, and something about the music was just so god damned catchy I just had to know where it came from. So I discovered Flandre’s fight and from there, I learned just how great the music of this weird bullet hell game made by some rando in Japan. It quickly became my Thing. When I wasn’t playing sucking at the games, I was listening to the music, and if I wasn’t listening to the music, I was at school (where I’d probably not be paying attention let’s be real here).

So there I was, happily consuming fanart and fansongs and fangames and doing that little smile in appreciation when you see a reference to a thing you like (shoutout to raocow for also playing a few Touhou fangames way back when). It expanded my gaming interests into the sphere of “modding games to make them harder can be fun and cool”, which then lead to a general interest in playing modded and moddable games. It even made me interested in visiting Japan (on my bucket list), not in that stereotypical “weeb” way of visiting all the anime and manga stores, but more in the “something I like put a country on my radar and holy shit some of those restaurants, l want to eat at ALL of these places because they’re gorgeous” way.

You’ll notice that I specifically withheld from mentioning Fanfiction. See, as a teenager who did have the “try something once and if I don’t like it I’ll probably hate it forever because it’s always like that” mentality, I had the unfortunate experience of coming across My Immortal. 

That, and the fact that one of my close friends in High School had taken to reading Twilight Fanfic (and complaining at almost every story she read and their bad use of tropes) kinda solidified fanfiction as “something dumb and stupid written by people who solely want to roleplay fucking the protagonist”. And on that pedestal sat the entire concept of fanfiction for a long-ass time (actually it was about a year and a bit).

Fast forward a while. Patchouli had cemented herself as All Time Favourite Character, I’d begun to grow out of my Harry Potter phase in search of new stories, and I’d made some new friends, one of whom said they read fanfiction all the time and some of it was actually better than original, published books because they had the freedom to explore ideas that weren’t entirely publishable. But also to roleplay fuck their waifus.

At some point in Summer 2011, not too long after it came out, I decided to replay Portal 2, and something about the story left me feeling… incomplete. Empty. I sought people discussing what they thought of the story and hidden nuggets of info peppered throughout the game, and at some long buried comment section on YouTube, someone mentioned how some fanfiction went into a headcanon and took it further. I read it, considered it for a moment, deemed it worthy of being called “not trash”, and immediately set to looking at the Touhou section on FF.net.

The first fanfics I read of Touhou were… Well, they were. There were some good ones and not so good ones. But they were all, in some way, at least interesting. I quickly discovered the frustration that New Friend had brought up once, of when you discover something great but it’s over all too soon. Setting FF.net’s search to include only 100k and up fanfics, I was delighted to discover that there was a fanfiction called “Imperfect Metamorphosis” that was over 350,000 words long. And then my carefully crafted plan of going to bed at a sensible time to maximise Summer Gaming Time was devoured by staying up until 4:30am, reading fanfiction on a shitty laptop that could barely run UFO. Thank fuck it was the summer holidays.

There was something special about Imperfect Metamorphosis. The characters all had their own personality, their own history, their own implied history beyond what was written, they had goals, thoughts, feelings, and different takes towards other people working to further their own goals. And it was all wrapped up in a package that started with a simple premise, grew to encompass a world more broad than mere canon or fanon, and then billowed into an eldritch monster of ungodly size (hi, Yuuka!)((kind of like this post huh)). 

I was so fucking hooked on IM. I went back to school with theories buzzing about my brain as to what was going to end up happening, my mind wandering to the latest chapter and the bits I thought were cool, actually having the drive to focus and actually learn something about story structure in English Literature. I suddenly had the tiniest flame of interest in creating. Maybe one day I could write fanfic, and do my tiny part in expanding the universe of fan-content.

Regardless of the fact that my own attempts at conjuring stories weren’t successful (for a while), IM was there to be read throughout my last years of Normal Schooling, and it served as both a rock and an escape from the stress of school. I laughed with the jokes, I took Marisa’s death harder than the sum total of Harry Potter’s entire bodycount, and I could never hear Soulja Boi without thinking of Mima trolling Satori.

Just like how Touhou expanded my gaming and cultural horizons, Imperfect Metamorphosis expanded my horizon with Literature. I got into reading Neil Gaiman’s work, I read some Lovecraft, I consumed all kinds of works of fiction, across a multitude of genres, which all felt, in some way, like I was reading them because of IM. I mean I only started watching Madoka, and any anime beyond that, because of Resonance Days. Interesting way of coming across a show filled to the brim with spoilers.

It’s been three years since you put Imperfect Metamorphosis onto hiatus, and I have never read anything that has filled me with such emotion to the same extent. Other things have come close, some of them were even written by other people! (the most recent mega-update of Walpurgis Nights hit me particularly hard). And Swiftly Descending Darkness has been such a great read thus far, the slowly ramping tension is so. god. damned. good.

And as I think I mentioned a while back, I finally managed to start grinding out a touhou fic at my own, absolutely glacial, pace. I always find myself asking “is this canon to Touhou, or is it just canon to IM?”. The line has forever blurred in my mind.

I’m not asking anyone to read my work. This isn’t a plea for you to return to the original IM at any speed, I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you for writing Imperfect Metamorphosis. For the work that’s been a steady constant throughout the vast, vast majority of this decade. For inspiring a wealth of emotions and ideas in the mind of a British guy who you’ll never meet. For just, plain writing a good story.

And for making Marisa the biggest badass to grace the land.

Here’s to the 2020’s not sucking, and to the ever expanding list of stories written by Internet user Takerfoxx. Here’s hoping you find great success.

Thank you.

P.S. Oh, and The Friend Who Said Fanfic Was Good Actually? They’re now my Fiancée, as of last month. Funny how the world works like that.

@diggertron, dude, you honestly have me feeling pretty humbled right now. I have to admit, it’s getting harder and harder not to see anything but the flaws when I look back on IM or RD, to the point when anyone compliments me about my writing my reflexive response is to be self-deprecating about my weaknesses, but this has helped me gain some more perspective about my older work, and for that I thank you, and am glad you have stuck around for so many years. 

And congratulations on your engagement as well!

[haikyuu-imagines-and-others]

To help with my lack of motivation!!!

I’ve decided to start writing for my OC characters here! I did have a side blog, BUT it’s just... a LOT of work to try to write for both blogs when I can just merge the two together!

So! I will be posting snippets of my OCs and their lives! If y’all are interested, please feel free to IM or even send in an ask! I’ll answer any questions if there are any!

The reason I’ll be doing this: Because this blog is mainly Haikyuu, yeah? Which is great! I love Haikyuu! And so do you all! BUT I also like other things! I like my OCs (which are not Haikyuu related at all)!!! 

I think this addition will make me much happier... and even help my writing skill grow! 

Obviously, this doesn’t mean I’m going to STOP writing for HQ altogether! I still have a GREAT number of requests in the box! And I’m working on them a little everyday! But I also like writing for my OCs! So I’ll be just adding that onto the content you all.... rarely see on this blog anyway lmao

Anyway! My OCs and general info about them is below!

Kiara: Goddess of War (Fuck Athena lmao) Mayan Native, generally an even attitude, though a short temper/little time for nonsense, doesn’t like the gods/doesn’t trust them. Rough Childhood - like traumatic - Thousands of years old, looks about 28 at most. Hispanic Hottie ;d - dark hair that she grows and cuts at random - dark red eyes - tribal/fire tattoos that fade almost completely into her already tanned skin - pretty short? About 5′4″-5′5″ - Curvy figure! By curves I mean moderate bust and butt, but she’s got a tone body from her constant training! She can control fire/lava and can pretty much make herself a super nova in desperate situations.

Ikal/Joshua: Kiara’s son! God of Mischief (Fuck Loki lmao) Mayan Native, Happy go lucky! Super optimistic! Can befriend literally anyone! Very patient and kind, gentle but able. He’s got his mama’s temper tho! Pretty rough childhood... not as bad as his mothers, but still bad. Thousands of years old, looks 26 at most. Hispanic Cutie :3 - dark short hair - wide dark brown eyes - tribal/runic tattoos that fade almost completely into his already tanned skin - P tol! About 5′10-5′11! Lean and tone, a hunter’s body! Really good with bow and arrow attacks, he can create illusions of himself/what people see - really good at mind games!

Aidan: God of Darkness. Caucasian American, born and raised in NY as a trust fund baby! Womanizer/dickhead - Arrogant and Rude/Demanding - Had traveled the World a dozen times and slept with women from every single country/state/region within! A new God - Cocky about his powers, though he genuinely doesn’t like them, can control shadows. About 29 years old when he was made into an immortal. Black short hair - hard gray eyes that always seem to be judging/analyzing - white boi! - V tol! About 6′0-6′1! Takes care of his body to impress the ladies ;D In between Built and Lean! Works as CEO of a huge company his parents made from the ground up after they pass in a tragic accident.

Markus: God of Destruction. Tanned Spaniard. Very distant in anything he does due to his power - with a single touch he can completely crumble anything regardless of it’s makeup. Gets pretty defensive pretty easily - but very vindictive when pushed too far. Dislikes Kiara bc she pushed him into the immortal life, though he wouldn’t give it up if he was asked. Loves Joshua like his own son/brother! Pretty even childhood, horribly disrupted when he turned 25 and almost died from an attack in his city. Thousands of years old - younger than both Kiara and Joshua - looks about 24. Spanish hottie ;d - slightly shaggy dark brown hair, doesn’t go past the tips of his ears, likes to push his hair back from his face in a slicked back style - green/blue eyes - P tol! About 5′11-6′0! a bit more built than Joshua but less so than Aidan. He’s a drifter, only finding fixed homes when he’s located Kiara to mess up her living in that area.

- Different Universe w/o Gods -

Caine: Asshole. Twin brother of Sam. Caucasian American, born and raised in San Francisco, CA. Hot-headed, Cruel, Aggressive and Rude - doesn’t give a single fuck about anything, very abrasive/harsh. Distrusting of everyone - due to how he was ‘raised’. A thief for a living - steals from the rich for him and his brother to live comfortable. A complete criminal, always carries a gun/knife on him somewhere. Moved to Los Angeles, CA with his brother for College - Getting a degree in (literally can not remember... I’ll insert it when I’m reminded of it!). Dirty Blond, slightly messy, hair - Emerald/Jade green eyes that change shade with his moods - White Boi! With a Californian Tan - P tol! About 5′11-6′0! In between lean and built. Has tons of scars on his body from a horribly traumatic childhood. Surfer boi! Ocean helps clear his head. Great at hand to hand combat, but a nasty drunk when he hits his super lows. Hates Sam in the worst of times, tolerates him in the best.

Samuel “Sam”: Sweetheart! Twin brother of Caine. Caucasian American, born and raised in San Francisco, CA. Kind and sweet - gives a lot of fucks for everyone around him, even if they’re complete strangers. Very gentle/generous. Not gullible, but very trusting of other people. Compassionate for his brother’s upbringing. The tech of the ‘team’ - disables the cameras and security systems for Caine when they go on their ‘runs’. Doesn’t like to carry around weapons, but knows not only how to use one, but also how to disarm and disassemble weapons of any kind in a split second. Moved to Los Angeles, CA with his brother for college - Getting a degree in Law - in case he and Caine ever get caught. Dirty Blond, slightly messy, hair - Sky/Ocean blue eyes that change shade with his moods - White Boi! With a Californian Tan - P tol! About 5′11-6′0! In between lean and built! Only has 1-2 scars from childhood accidents/defending his brother. Good at defending himself in any combat, usually has to hold back his brother from going and killing a bitch. Adores his brother and will do anything to protect him from further neglect.

Annnnnddd that’s about it! Like I said above, if you wanna know more (or even ask them questions) just shoot something into the ask box! 

And please expect some pieces from their lives to be posted on here every now and then!

-Admin Satori <3

[blodaue]

how does he feel about the other season gods?

ask me questions because i’m pathetic (accepting)

oof. oof.

okay so i need to explain a little bit about…the other deities and also how the world works for these guys. so essentially, in gerwyn’s world, gods, goddesses, mythological creatures and beings from fables, nursery rhymes and urban legends all exist. it’s a little similar to how the characters in joyce’s ‘guardians of childhood’ works; that the existence of these figures operates on belief. but it isn’t a temporary thing. once the god or mythos is “believed in” they are there to stay. there is not really a greater power for those who are believed in more or less, that’s something they just have to work out. 

so naturally, there are multiple gods of spring, multiple goddesses of love etc etc. they take “regions” quite literally, unless its a more widespread faith then it works kind of more…mechanically, involving “shift-like” work. clock in clock out. there’s an order to it, assigned by the lot of them together. it’s like united nations but everyone’s wearing togas and is a divine creation. it’s a mess as you can imagine, as they can never get along ever. 

anyway, gerwyn’s from brythonic, specifically WELSH, mythology, a branch of mythology than even in terms of european fame isn’t really..that popular. certainly not as popular as gaelic mythos is right now ( im looking at you fate/ it’s time to put some welsh mythos in there that isnt just kotr related okay ). so this is my adaptation of welsh mythology, based on what does exist and also my own wants in fiction and especially in villains. 

okay so now that’s answered; the seasons. 

so we dont get them confused, i’ll refer to them by the season so the list is as followed for the welsh seasonal deities, who only “control” seasons in wales and sometimes other parts of the united kingdom:

gerwyn = spring

bleddyn = winter

rhiannon = autumn/fall 

gwawr = summer

as i mentioned before, the gods rarely get along. the same can be said for the welsh deities. they are not related so they don’t even have a reason to get along, and of course, there were times they were reasonably alright with one another, but immortals such as these can hold onto grudges for too long, as evidenced by spring’s entire being. 

SPRING & WINTER

oh they have a long history of hating each other. winter is crueller than spring in some respects; often being deliberately colder just to ensure people suffer a bit longer. due to ~global warming~ the winters have lasted much longer than usual, meaning even in march (which is when spring is due to start) it is still incredibly cold. they absolutely did fuck. a few times. there’s not a lot of options and winter is just constantly teasing spring for this fact. winter is just a huge bully. he’s arrogant, overly confident, never shuts up and generally is just everything spring hates in a god. 

SPRING & SUMMER

their relationship is probably the best one spring has. summer is soft-spoken, deliberately so. she hides her true identity as a hideous water spirit ( this is my take on gwragedd annwn, where she was born as a result of a water spirit mating with a human thus she didn’t turn out too beautiful looking ) by masquerading as a “human” looking creature. as the deity of summer, she is the only one who isn’t technically classed as a goddess, despite her mother being a goddess and her blood being very much divine, but that’s due to… cruel family life. anyway she is patient with spring, very quiet so he can speak when he likes. she’s kind but in a… “i have to be kind or if i get too mad i could just drag you into the ocean” kind of way. she minds her temper pretty well around spring. meanwhile spring tolerates summer because she’s very… not invasive. 

SPRING & AUTUMN

they…do not get along either. autumn is incredibly outspoken and whilst she isn’t a bully like winter, she does enjoy making fun of how uptight spring can be. she thinks his fascination with dying is the only cool thing about him, pretty much hating everything else about him. as for him, he finds her clothing stupid and her presence generally very bothersome. he’s glad they hardly every see one another, especially since her type of magic is typically incredibly “witchy” and involves nature a bit too much for his taste. 

OTHER SEASON GODS

he hates them. case closed. dfghjksd NO BUT FOR REAL. he doesn’t like them because he hates any kind of reminder of who he is. gods are a constant reminder of the fact he is immortal. 

[blooming-cecilia]

they'll end when you want me to shut up bc bestie when i tell u i have too many thoughts,

I AM SO SORRY ,,, THATS SO PAINFUL

ngl i am in constant fear that tumblr would crash on me when i do these ramble essays bc one time i was rambling in the tags (as usual) and the app froze and crashed on me 😭😭

i need the good memory too ngl ,, albedo mind sharing some

ykw. i would actually not mind doing the venti abyss every single phase if it meant i could see more sides of venti, get a lil bit of crumb with every floor cleared

and yes! apart from the irodori festival, it's just. written all over him and you can see it in all his lines and the way he carries himself. he's wise, and while i believe that his age certainly helps with that, i personally think that him being a listener also contributes to it!

he has a good moral compass, and his beliefs and values allow him to be open minded and empathetic towards others. he understands that every individual has depths in them, their own abyss, similar to his own and he's just. generally such a good guy. such a wonderful character with so many complexities

im trying my best to explain how i see venti and even then it's so hard LOL

and yes he definitely, definitely, worries a lot about opening up. it's not even just about the archon/immortal status anymore—though that by itself has A LOT of issues that he worries about when it comes to you.

my guy knows that he's fucked up in the head, the long years tend to do that to someone after all, and he worries about his own traumas affecting you and scaring you away,,

he wants, more than anything, to fully give himself to you. i think it's what he'll crave the most out of a relationship (romantic/platonic). to have you know him as well as he knows you. wants you to be able to trust him with everything, because he wants to be there for you in any way that he can.

and he knows that you would do so too, for venti the bard, in a heartbeat.

but can the same be said for barbatos, god of freedom, wind and song?

and even if you did know of his identity, should you find something unpleasant about him that changes how you thought of everything you've ever known... will you still stay by his side then? would you still dare to stand beside him, head held up high towards the rest of the world, and hold his hand in yours, just as you always have?

and uhhhh i'm not quite sure i have him 100% down either,, ms luna definitely helped fuel my own thoughts of venti too, but theres still times when i just go ???? over what he would maybe do JEJDJJA

i just try my best to stick to his character when i think about him in romantic situations, but i'll be glad to share my own two cents with you on whatever venti loving topic hehe

YES YES YESSS the domesticity in that audio is so gooood,, but im fond of that one for the dancing part of it. im weak for scenes like that in general, but it makes me melt everytime because it's the theme for the windblume festival,,

windblume is a special festival for me for many reasons but the top reason is bc i came back to playing genshin in that patch and also got venti (at a very low price too, i was surprised to see 32 pity when i checked with the wish counter :0)!!

okay see the thing is i listened to that reverse comfort first on the playlist when i was going to bed last night but now that im trying to remember it again all of it evaporated from my brain 🤡??

(our galaxy brains connecting for that trio of audios 🤝)

and dw that's a mood 😭,, idk how im still playing genshin daily 2 years in but sometimes i rlly do just wanna put it down sometimes bc nothing is happening anyway!!! so why do i keep playing.

AND AAAH IM GLAD!!! that you have fellow friends who understand the joys of self shipping AND you're all into genshin <33

my own yume friends only really have genshin as side interests or isnt as stupidly obsessed as i am so thats why i turned to tumblr 😭

u are so correct hes a walking green flag, literally don't under anyone who hates him when HES SO GOOD

(and uh in case u are genuinely confused, my friend only thought i was into like a character w questionable morals bc i made kind of a huge deal, hiding who i liked by redacting their name when id talk about it on the tl, but no im just shy about ppl knowing literally anything i like wjhdjsn,, the whole thing was really silly when i think about it 😭)

playful affectionate fights are a staple in your daily life with venti, you hardly go a single day without lightheartedly "fighting" over something silly!!

i just think that venti would always make sure to have one fun thing you two do today, even if its you two "fighting" over who gets the last slice of cake when you both know you'll end up sharing and maybe even feeding each other anyway. he just adores playing around like this, to have you both just be carefree even for that moment. it's just his favorite way to bond with you <3

YEAH IT DOES, but i cant remember if he just kisses you and you can just magically breathe underwater or he kisses you and makes some sort of bubble around your head so u can still breathe. either way mermaid venti kisses you, what more could u want in life /j

maybe this is also a good time to mention that he's a mermaid prince in it~?

pleaaase, he'd pop his foot everytime he kisses you, it's like he just can't contain himself from feeling so tingly that his body reacts to it

and uhh maybe a cute lil hc i just thought of is that he would literally float off the ground when you two kiss. the first couple times you two ever kiss, it'd be really unexpected. you're here kissing him, eyes closed and you feel him moving and you try to follow but can't—so you open your eyes to question why he keeps moving away only to find him floating off the ground in front of you and a bashful look on his face. it took him a minute to calm down and get his feet back on the ground.

and so you end up having to hold onto him better, maybe your arms around his waist, to keep him from floating. he's gotten better at it, but it just never stops no matter how long you two have been dating. especially if you take him by surprise. he's still very much in love with you and your kisses will always make him feel like he's high up in the clouds!

literally he's snow white PLSSS

that boy wants a disney worthy happily ever after and who am i to deny him that! if he wants me to come save him because he choked on an apple, id come to him in a prince outfit, riding the prettiest white horse mondstadt does Not have. i would do it, watch me /j

THAT ANGST VISION. YOU HAVE SUCH A BIG BRAIN

he would. everytime. he just cant ever stay seriously mad at you. i kind of think that he doesnt really like being mad or feeling any negative emotions anyway (or i might just be projecting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

so instead, he'll wrap it up quick and he'll promise himself to watch out for you better. he'll try his best to wake up earlier than you to prepare breakfast, give massages more to soothe those tense muscles after a long day.

if you're in his city, he'll have the winds take care of you—he likely has given you some sort of blessing at this point— and have them immediately tell him if something's wrong. he's always listening, so a single pained yelp coming from you and you'll immediately find him materializing by your side, ready to take down whatever it is that dared to hurt you—

.....only to find out you stubbed your toe.

so true. miss luna is just a genius. she throws a feast in every audio release honestly.

OH YEAH HE DOES!!! i think venti in general tends to memorize things easily in addition to him being flexible, so he definitely has it all in the bag. meanwhile you'll be standing there with your nerves eating you alive as you clutch the small piece of paper (even now at your own wedding, he still bests you, confidence—and affection, you reluctantly admit— rolling off of him in waves. on your own wedding day! the audacity).

(the priest is there going ?!?!?!!?! but everyone else, most especially your family and friends, are no longer surprised. they should've expected this actually.)

all the req ideas on luna’s livestream is driving me insane

[vakariansmonocle]

To my friends

Tl;dr: im a big gay and i love all my friends so much and they have and do help me daily. I am richer for having known you.

This is an extremely long post to my friends tho. It’s pretty heavy at the beginning & end, discussing some more existential things and loss of loved ones. & how i’ve been dealing ( poorly ) with that. But, this is extremely important to me and I would tell them all these things privately, but I want this sort of immortalized on the internet, so everyone knows and can refer to this if they ever doubt themselves, or the love i have for them. if you wanna skip the heavier shit, just look for the divider & the big ol ‘so.’ <3

  The past few weeks have been something of a blur ngl. Its been emotionally taxing and its sorted of sucked. But within the last week, i sort started thinking heavily about my friendships and how much they matter. In the past month i have seen multiple posts from people who recently lost their friends and loved ones. I have seen lives taken at a young age and friendships that’ll be cherished as long as those left behind remember. Multiple times within the last month the explicit message of “Tell the people you love how much they matter to you because you don’t know when you won’t be able to again” has come around. Its a message i know well. I’ve seen my fair share of death; Countless family members passing on from old age. Other students i wanted to see grow. Friends i never got to talk to again. But that last ones always gets me the most.  

  So the past month, I have been dealing with this weight of watching people lose their loved ones left and right and always, always, taken too soon. And i watched how heavily it hung on the shoulders of those left behind. The ever present weight of a void where once there was the bright light of a person whom you loved. And it sort of tugged on my own weight in my chest. It hit that nerve that reminded me of those I’ve lost. And it, in the simplest of terms, scared me. 

Because the truth is, we don’t know when we’ll go. Or when those we love will leave us. We don’t know if one day they’ll have the courage to leave us behind, or whether they’ll leave us naturally. We don’t know who we’ll lose or when. But god i hope its never too soon. I hope to every single god and goddess and being of power that you all get to live long and joyous lives that, with or without me, are the best adventures you have. Preferably with me though, really. Being boring without each other, lets be honest.

So

 its been a month of me wanting to desperately say how much i love you all. Its been me debating if i should liam O'Brien it and make a heartfelt but weird as heck one shot for us to run just so i can tell you all you mean so very much to me, and that i am, and always will be, richer for knowing you. Though that’s still on the table really. But for now I’m writing this. To my friends. To all my friends that i have lost. To all my friends that i will make; I love you.

  To  Neah ( @therifaerie ) a constant source of good. Who has made me laugh, unknowingly, in some of my worst of times. Whom i have only known a short time, but have loved every moment of it. Who i am constantly proud of, and whose parents i would gladly fight in a dennys parking lot any day. Trust me when i say this: you’re gonna be great. You’re art is wonderful and it honestly makes me wanna draw every time i see it, and i can’t wait to see how it looks years from now. You’re gonna do great, and be great, honey. So don’t give up on that, alright? It can only get better, I promise. You deserve so much good, and you’re always a light in our lives, i love you.

 To Lucas ( @scriptuurient ) who has somehow become my other half in most things i do & just in general, really. Who means so much to me, its honestly overwhelming most days. Who i want to live with and see the world with, so we can avoid bad vibe places and count the stars together and talk about rocks when we’re tired or always.  i never thought you would stick to my lame nonsense self, because you met me in a pretty shitty place in the last year, but you’ve proven to me every day you are a light and a hand to hold when things get bad. Who i owe so many laughs to, and so much of my ability to hope to. I am so happy i know you, and I am so excited how far you go, whether it’s on earth or looking up at the sky and knowing you’re up there, literally in space on mars. You’re gonna do wonderful. Never forget to believe in yourself, or at the least, we all believe in you. I love you so much and i am so very proud of you, every day.

  To Dom ( @queerquarian ), my little brother. My best friend. The hand that has clasped my wrist to drag me back so many a time I’ve lost count. The one who has given me love and shown me kindness when i needed most. The one who i think of always as my friend, but more importantly, my family. Who has given me so much, given the world so much, and remains so bright and ever burning light to many even when they themselves are fighting off their own darkness. A constant in my life that I am so happy for, because you always bring this level of comfort i can’t explain. you are my little brother, through and through, and maybe its that love & trust i have for you that makes it so easy and comfortable to talk with you about everything and anything. I unno what it is, but god, it’s great. I’m so excited for you to grow and learn everything you want. I’m so happy i’ve gotten to see you come so far, but it’s not over yet, yea? I love you so much.

  To Michaela ( @myopicmickey​ ), the one who i fucked up with and yet still loves me, even if its just as a friend now. Who has gone through their own journey, and doesn’t know how proud i am of them every day. Who doesn’t know how grateful i am that they let me back in. Who is absolutely one of the only people allowed to punch me directly in the face because im an asshole. The one that’s been there for me multiple times, and the one who knows me probably the best. But the one i wish the most gets to see me grow and live, & that i get to see grow. In a different life, we worked out better. But I don’t regret anything with you, except fucking up of course. I hope there’s forgiveness in your heart for me, hon. You deserve better than me, deserve the world and so much more than I could ever hope to explain.  To the one i love greatly,  who is forever and always my best friend.   

And, To Rachel ( @inuyasha-amv ) the cornerstone of my day to day. Who i CONSTANTLY give shit because what else are friends for than to fuck with each other. Who has been there for me so many times when i needed someone most. Who has shown me so much kindness and love that its hard to comprehend how she does it. One of the few people who have heard me crack and crumble and fall to pieces and stayed by my side through the worst of it. The one who i owe the most to. Because without rachel, i wouldn’t know three of my best friends and i wouldn’t have more budding friendships I’m grateful for. And who i am so excited to watch grow up and finish school so she can make a difference in the world, one day at a time. The one who is constantly giving, and teaching us all to be kind ( and in general random things. ) You’re going to be great, and you know that’s what I believe. & I am so grateful to have you in my life. Just remember, I  hate you, you’re the absolute worst you dingus. Nah, i care about you a lot and don’t you ever forget it ya fucker.

  So. To my friends, my family. Who have given me so much hope and love and laughter and joy. Even if i haven’t known two of you very long, it has felt like ages. I love you all so much. And i am so proud of each and every one of you. I know for a fact i wouldn’t be here without each of you because no matter how little you think you help, you all are the foundation of why i keep going why i hold on so dearly. Because of you, i am alive and living. Maybe its not some peoples definition of living, but it is for me. You all have given me bits of hope and love and kindness that have undeniably helped with healing wounds, old and new. You all are the hands i hold, mentally of course, when i need to grab on. Every i love you and every bit of kindness you have shown me is a very loud, and very bright, double bird fuck you to the depressive thoughts that ever make me doubt it. Because i know that without this wonderful and loving family i have with you all, life would be boring, and really, not worth it. Maybe it would be just to meet another family. But i doubt i would have gotten that far or enjoy that other one nearly as much. Because you all made me realize my own worth, and gave me the support system I needed to feel like it’s worth seeing through.

  To my friends. My misfit family, found in some of my hardest years. The loves of my life. Never forget or doubt that i love you more than you can possibly ever imagine. Never forget that i am proud of you for how far you’ve all made it. Nor how excited i am to fill in chapters of my life with you all in them, how excited i am to watch your stories grow. Never forget that you all are important and mean the world to me, even in the darkest of times, i love you and i care about you. I will always be there for you, & i’ll never stray too far. Because you are never alone, for i am always with you.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

instead of me making a post where i briefly rate btvs characters im gonna do a post im sure ive already made abt how in the first book alone its shown that narnia is an unreasonable twilight zone to deal with and the lore is wild and aslan is sort of a jerk and bad with dealing with children / dealing with the world he created; or: the battle of the reader vs cs lewis

ok first of all. this book completely wrongs edmund. cs lewis is determined to have us believe that he is a Bad Sort but? not so much that when he's "redeemed" we have to doubt for even a moment that he's now Good Forever. and the reasons the reader keeps being given about why we should be disgusted with edmund are incredibly weak and often bemusing

to start with, cs lewis hates boarding schools which is probably because they could be awful and so he throws out the reason that edmund used to be as nice and purehearted as his siblings until boarding school spoilt his immortal soul? were peter and susan taught at home or in public school then? if lewis was making a comment on how terrible boarding school is, why isnt edmund given any sympathy for this by the narrator or his siblings who just seem largely annoyed by him?

and since at the start the kids are being sent off from home in the middle of a world war their dad is off in and have to go to a boring house with an uncle? who for some reason never like, bothers to speak to them or see them ever. tf, dude. and theyre in england in the first place. anyhow, the fact that edmund being in a bad mood over this is supposed to be evidence of his crappiness is a touch unreasonable. he's like what, 8-11? so much of this book hinges on his character needing to be saved from his own badness that its sort of unforgivable that said badness really doesnt exist. hates his terrible school? hates his terrible situation? difficult? fights with siblings? how is this meant to be fit for A Just and Divine Damnation. why is there such a complete lack of sympathy. does lewis understand anything about children.

the answer is that "adults assuming these young as hell children have the same emotional maturity and logical processes and understanding of the world as adults" is a constant theme. these random schoolchildren become the supreme rulers of an entire country in a world theyve never been in after like, a week. the whole series runs on a fair number of other English Brand notions abt classism, racism, divine right to rule, etc. but even if it wasnt "only humans can lead", why would any children be allowed? children who had never been there? for gods sake

moving on to the plot: lucy finds narnia, etc. i guess on account of being Young and A Girl, which here means spiritual purity? and also as a character trope means Innocence. ok. meeting an exposition-providing faun, getting back, nobody believes her because why would they. their great(but not good) uncle bothers showing up upon coincidence. why hasnt he ever even said "hello, im not evil" to the kids staying at his house?for gods sake. he then explains to the kids a version of one of lewis's apologistic things that supposedly logically proves that christianity is valid and here proves that narnia is real, which it actually does neither of. shove it, clive staple lewis. your argument is crap

oh but edmund went to narnia along with lucy before that had happened. this is supposed to be a crucial point where he meets the white witch and is supposed to be like, dont be like edmund kids!! but frankly he behaves perfectly reasonably during that encounter and also when they all get to narnia. coz, ok, he's in an alternate universe alone which is disorienting for anyone. then the witch just happens to stumble across him. was he supposed to have prevented that somehow? lucy just stumbled across mr tumnus and trusted him inherently and it happened to go well. the first person edmund meets is someone else and he talks with her for a minute because she is a grown ass woman, probably gonna kill him otherwise, and also he's in an alternate universe alone with no idea where anyone is or if he can get back? here is a quick tangent:

a moral throughout the series is that you can sense somethings inherent goodness or truthfulness through how much it gives you a nice gut feeling. yet frankly this is not the only way to go about making choices. and not everything bad sets off alarms and not everything that sets off alarms is bad, so i dont know how much of a lesson that is. but for example, here the witch doesnt give edmund the warm fuzzies, and it is supposed to be a mistake or moral weakness on his part to not have.....what? gone running aimlessly through the arctic landscape in his jammies from a self-proclaimed queen with a sledge? he didnt really have any options here. how is he meant to know she's not really the ruler of this crap place that, so far as he knows, he lives in now? and ok, then somehow his big ol mistake is eating some damn candy and having some hot cider or whatever. it is eternal winter, why is this child a sinner for getting up out of the snow and humoring this lady by taking some offered snackaroos. also, everyone says turkish delight isnt even good. ask for some m&m's, ed!!! love yourself!! and even if he is supposed to know never to eat magical food or be bound to the fairy queen, lucy went and had tea with a fuckin faun so again, they basically did the same thing but edmund met the wrong person by sheer luck of it, so he has to die. LEWIS!!!!!!!

another big Edmund Must Die moment is when he and lucy get back from narnia and edmund lies that narnias fake, because he's evil. first of all, the fact that lucy tells him that some stranger she's buddies with says the white witch is evil and a liar. how is her stranger meant to be more reliable than the witch? this is just the word of two randos pitted together. how is edmund meant to understand this as Proof that the queen is evil and an imposter to the throne. frankly, she's functionally the actual queen, so its not even really a lie? narnia is impossible. secondly, it is 10000% understandable that edmund would realize that if he backs up lucy's claims then everyone is going to go looking for narnia, and in the experience he's just had, its a hellhole. and lucy has just told him that he possibly met an evil witch that is interested in also meeting his siblings? wouldnt be too thrilled about going back there then. and thirdly, if as lewis says he just lies because he is evil? does this man again not understand that Impulsive Pettiness is a bit different coming from a 9 yr old than a grown adult. the narrator is just so aghast at edmund constantly when its like dude he's.....not really doing anything, and also theyre all babies. let him be a bit of a little shit without the devil herself coming to claim his spilled blood for it, mayhaps

also, there is a bit of confusion about the fairy food! it is implied to be actually kind of magically binding, like to a degree he has to cooperate with the witch now because he took food he was offered? or at least it is somehow "corrupting." so how is this meant to be a sin if also it is not even his own choices here! how was he meant to have avoided this? dont take candy from strangers, sure. BUT IF YOU DO, YOU DESERVE WHAT YOU GET!!!

all the pevensies are in narnia, lucy lets it for everyone else remarkably fast, but i guess she is like 6 and having a nice time with her family in a magical land. although you'd think she'd be more concerned about all that witch stuff, and the fact that mr tumnus was about to straight up childnap her and deliver her to childmurder. like, good on you for not doing that. but how many people has he been selling out all this time! its literally been his job for however long. he's had to have had something to show for it. is morally greyness just arbitrarily sorted into black and white Good/Evil characters and these kids are supposed to sniff out which way these things fall? for gods sake. see, my point is that this adult faun who was going to turn a kindergartener in to be killed until he decided nah, and previously definitely probably narced on people in the past, is way crapper than a kid who has been grumpy and ran into the wrong person? what is edmunds Betrayal. was it the food eating

anyways, then peter is a total dick, but in like a noble way. in that he's mad at edmund for ages but like...again, ok, he's like 12-14 or whatever, who knows. the point is that if he can hold a grudge against his siblings for being annoying, why is that trait evil in edmund? it is because narrator lewis says so, damn him. but if peter is the Natural Born Leader of A Country here, you'd think he could at least manage not to keep giving a hard time to the one of their group who is going to be any trouble keeping in line at all, since lucy is Pure and susan gets the literature role of the Mini Mom. theyre not going anywhere. you basically had one job, pete.

fun fact: this is where they find out mr tumnus is taken by the queens evil forces, referred to as the police. this is basically the only book i can think of where the evil enforcement agency is called a police force. Interesting Stuff

even though im not sure what any of them think they can accomplish by wandering around, they end up following a random bird and following some random beavers. they know this is ok because of those warm fuzzies, and the fact edmund isnt feeling those good vibes is because he's evil, but honestly its a shit plan following some random bird and assuming some beavers are gonna be good guys. the only people edmund knows of in this country are an imposing queen and her kidnapper who's totally nice. also if tumnus told lucy that the queen has loads of spies, why are they crashing around inherently trusting the first things they see? lucy trusts a faun who was going to sell her to satan, edmund sort of has to trust an ominous lady who turns out to possibly be evil? why would he not find it a questionable idea to wander into this beaver dam

in further supposed evidence of edmund being all devil-corrupted by d&d, he doesnt get the warm fuzzies when these random beavers start talking abt a magic lion who's great and wandering around somewhere, you should totally go to him. but they have like, actually zero knowledge about this world beyond the differing accounts of those theyve happened to bump into? how would they know some lion who isnt even around ever is the rightful ruler of narnia, vs some lady who is actually around? she's got one up on aslan for that. where've you been, buddy. what took you an entire century. aslan SHOULD TOTALLY sound kind of crap because, uh, HE IS?

edmund goes off somehow without anyone noticing and the beavers are like oh yeah saw that one coming, that'll be the magic food. like??? you couldve said. or at least not let him sidle off out the door half an hour ago? for gods sake. and again: if this is magic food rules, why isnt the magical kit-kats the Great Traitor of All Of Narnia! how is the concept of sin fitting into all of this. again, edmund just ran into the wrong person. and lewis is just like no, see, but he deserves this because he is irritable and childish and mean. CHILDREN LEWIS!!! HAVE YOU HEARD OF THAT!!!

apparently edmund meanders all the way to the white witches place b/c all the time the entirety of narnia seems to be a couple of miles across or a few hundred miles, depending on whats convenient to the story. the moral of narnia's weird lore is that its only as consistent as cs lewis feels like making it, which is sometimes Completely Bewildering when he just sort of throws stuff out there but moves the narration right along. presumably he wasnt expecting this to operate on the rules that any of this would be regarded with any level of analysis, since tolkien was a contemporary and not a predecessor. but still, dude, get your story straight? especially within the same book.

and anyways also, again! the magic food rules come up. because that is meant to be edmunds motivation, besides just being petty. he is magically bound to the fig newtons. which is i guess meant to explain away him literally going the extra mile for this witch shit, but also still letting him be blamed for that, since he is being SUCH a jerk, see kids? dont act less than chipper at your terrible life unless you want to take your soul's rightful place as the devils property, moreso than literally anyone else in all of narnia? alright. this books plot points are just a bit like.......ok

the other kids definitely have no option but to trust their choice in "trust the first people we bump into." luckily its uh...its fine. but wtf

who is narnia santa!!!!! how can there be a dude based on a saint? does narnia have the concept of saints? is he a dead guy???? i can slightly accept that narnia has a christmas in that maybe that comes from the dude who was made king at its birth being a random english cabbie, i suppose maybe this guy was like "fuck it, its christmas and you're going to like it." but do narnians know what xmas is about at all??? canonly aslan is actually just also jesus in the england-world, but did the cabbie king know that? did he explain the concept of jesus? does monotheistic narnia also accept the concept of a separate god existing in another universe, or are they all also assuming aslan=jesus? but this isnt as confusing as the santa guy. is he like how there's wizards running around? this is so weird. what magic shit would edmund have got. wouldnt it have been nice or at least useful for santa to have given the other pevensies whatever he was going to have given edmund. does that boy also not get xmas presents because he is on the naughty list. bad month for edmund

speaking of edmund, he honestly sort of disappears from the book as soon as he has the realization that the witch is mean :( despite the plot of rest of the book being essentially centered around him? and him finally being in a position for the narration to stop talking about what a cruel cruel monster he is? ok

aslan is just a dick not only for leaving narnia on its own for ages but also just personality wise. rude to the children. they are all like "aslan our brother" and aslan is like "shut up about your brother already, i'll do something about it if i want to but if i dont want to he deserves whatever's coming to him." like? have a little patience for the reasonable questions and uncertainties of these kids, ffs

how is this massive climate shift not fucking shit up like, ecologically. does anyone own shorts at this point? how are plants alive. its magic

oh yeah, forgot that there was that bit in the white witches statue garden of death where edmund straight up thought this one lion he saw must be aslan. wasnt he also getting figurative cold feet until he saw that, also? again, in these circumstances, how was he meant to know that WASN'T aslan and that the witch wasnt the one who was right. shrug! but now another total coincidence is whats driving edmund to go say hey to the witch again instead of backing out of her creepy house. see you in hell ed

back to aslan........uhhh when a wolf attacks susan, who is like, dangling precariously from a branch in fear of her life, aslan orders the skilled warriors not to save susan asap, but instead to let this 13 yr old holding a sword for the first time mosey on over and have a one on one fight with this talking wolf. sure, aslan knows the situation is under control. but the people who dont know?? are these kids in mortal peril? aslan is such a dick. he shouldnt be putting these children in these positions of Leader Of My Army Now, Go Into Actual Combat. but thats just how he rolls. trial by fire, dweebs

oh yeah and since the chance happens to arrive he sends some people to go get edmund back. thanks for bothering to rescue a child! gods sake

then he has a nice long talk with edmund about never being annoyed with your siblings or theres literal hell to pay, i guess! whatever. at least he's paying attention to him for a moment instead of just handing him a sword and telling him not to complain. thanks? telling his siblings not to be dicks about it all is also very mature of him. and apparently necessary since again, cough, peter? getting mad at edmund for being petty and immature maybe shouldnt have involved sniping at him a ton and ignoring him to the point he just left for an hour before anyone was like, wasnt there more of you. lord. im just saying, maybe everyone needs to mature a bit before they are monarchs

psych!! these kids are ready for anything now

except for the bit where the witch comes and demand edmund's head, since...........................i guess she was trying to play the long con? by hoping aslan would do the ol switcheroo? or maybe she was just mad and wanting a good ritualistic murder. but despite the whole damn book being about this explanation of the crucifixion of jesus, it.........doesnt really make sense within the god damn Lore. she has claim to edmunds life because he is a Traitor? to whom? the witch straight up lied to him abt what she wanted to do with his siblings, so how was he meant to have betrayed them if he hadnt known what she intended to do? how can he betray someone if it was the fault of the Law Of The Magic Almond Joy? sure, he lied and snuck around and was pissy and all, but how is that on a level above any other number of stunts other narnians are sure to have pulled. she has narnian spies? arent they traitors? does she have to formally make the claim for the "i get to kill the traitor or narnia is destroyed b/c The Lore, Fuck You" for it to come into effect? is edmund just called a traitor for the strategy of it all, since the humans have to be alive to defeat her. but on what grounds

also, who agreed to give her that authority of traitor-killer? why does that role exist. what. whomst. lewis, explain this?

again like.....how are the children on their own for this bit, either. there is no sympathy for being children in lewisverse

ok and uhhhh? aslan leaving on the night before a battle w/o like....telling anyone? they wouldnt even have known he'd died if a dryad hadnt have been like "you'll never guess this shit." i guess omniscience or whatever. but for fucks sake, peter outranks everyone else in the army just because he's human? he doesn't know shit! you made him fight a wolf! whatever. why even put the humans in battle if you need them to live. whatever

susan and lucy of course have to witness this aslancide until they also witness this resurrection. cool. but the thing is that like? sure aslan couldve just flat out let edmund die, but besides the fact that theres the whole prophecy thing to mean that the kids need to live, but also, he was sort of backed into a corner re: having to die himself because of some technicality in narnia's rulebook? i get that this wasnt meant to be completely an allegory so much as just "gateway christianity drug" but wasnt the jesus bit supposed to be done just totally as a favor or whatever. aslan was sort of just strategizing as far as we know. like, is edmund representing The Sins Of All Humanity, or is he out here like "if jesus dying wouldve saved just one person it wouldve happened all the same"? either way, it makes it seem like aslan HAS to do this whole dying thing out of "so the world doesnt end" vs choosing to out of being cool abt it. i mean......not that uh jesus was supposed to have been psyched up abt his death. but you know what im getting at here. whatever, the Lore

again, the battle seems to be happening like, five miles from the witches house? coz everyone from the statues just makes the journey with aslan in one go. what are the scales here, lewis!!

aslan shows up in time to just kill the white witch himself, with his god lion teeth? how gross must that have been. also! he couldve done that at any time!!! but prophecy whatever sighhhhhhhh

its funny that lucy gets impatient with aslan for interrupting her moment of "can i make sure my brother isnt dead" and he gets impatient with her about that? shes in like preschool. also, you have healing powers!!!! so says uhhh.....the next book? or the one after. and anyone can use that magic elixer. and can you stop being so damn testy abt these childrens concerns for each other's lives!!!

theyre monarchs now, and aslan just fucks off. he couldve bothered to say goodbye, if people dont happen to see him meander off, how do they even know if he left or is just hanging around somewhere? seeing as he just snuck off overnight and died without letting anyone know. but more importantly he's again left this country entirely on its own save for these kids who know nothing except that they better be nice to each other or some random magical law might come into effect where someone gets to knock on their door and demand their kidneys or the world ends.

for real though! this is like, a country coming out of a crappy period and now in a wild transitional period and the only leaders are these kids who just showed up who have never been here before in their lives. how are they meant to manage a natl economy? its not mentioned here (is it) but theres an entire other racist-caricature-mashup of a country to the south already? how are they at diplomacy between two countries they know nothing abt. how will they form policies! they are 11! what tf is narnias infrastructure, beyond "sparse." where did the line to the throne go? was there always direct descendants to the first king in archenland, which by the way also exists with people in it b/c fuck you. i guess so...i forget where caspian comes from.

fun fact, when my sister and her friend went to disney world some yrs ago, they took a pic with a dude playing caspian a la the films, whom looked a lot like the actual actor, aka a total babe. its a great photo

anyways ummm. see the entire narnian govt just disappears? which i suppose they figure out when the four of them just leave and never come back. i suppose its lucky the narnians assumed it was magic and not regicide. because, if you live in narnia? fuck you. honestly what did they do in the aftermath. nobody nonhuman is even allowed to be a ruler. do they have like, other elevated positions? was there no regulation. coz thats alright but the series implies that narnia is always supposed to have a king around in order for things to go well. ok

so uh its govtless i guess until what, these people accidentally stumble upon a portal to narnia and become the telmarines who take over narnia? but not rightfully i guess, because even though theyre humans, they were probably insufficiently noble about it. or just not aslan-approved. honestly ok where tf did the calormenes come from? another portal? why did they restrict themselves to a certain region? why did narnia not encompass the entire world? why did you need to be white and english to be christian. i know this is a case of just introducing things that dont make sense but moving the story along before anyone asks questions but uh..........louie

Also How Tf Are These Kids Going From Grown Adult Monarchs To 10 Yr Old Schoolchildren In 1940s England Again over the course of like 10 seconds. before they left this clowns didnt even recognize the damn lantern! how do you forget that ever. ridiculous

where the "put in what you want and dont bother explaining it unles you feel like it" strategy is really fun is with that lantern, imo. on account of he just put it in as a Fuck You Buddy to tolkien, which is funny. good job

but really how are you not even going to devote a single sentence to that fucked up transition these kids? adults in kids bodies? kids with the memories of what it is like to have become and been adults until just a second ago? are going through. like...............ok. do they have to larp being normal children for a while. It's Magic, Fuck You

aslan is just.....kind of a jerk!

this book teaches you nothing

The Lore

the end

[ttransthirteen]

okay here we go! for sol: 8, 35, 19; for hernandez: 45, 5, 13; for jericho: 3,17, 24; for nikola: 40, 43, 50; for nix, 9, 22, 29, for scott: 3, 36, 27; for hero: 34, 18, 6; for lynx: 10, 26, 44!! sorry if that's too many!!

anon i have no idea how you know all these characters enough to send me specific ones for their names, but i want you to know this is the best thing that has happened to me in weeks and you are the absolute light of my life. if you believe in a higher power i wish you blessings and happiness for years to come. 

here we go!! (also this is so long im sorry, I tried to sort them if anybody is actually curious about any of them)

Sol- 

8. did they have pets as a child? as an adult? do they like animals?

Dani Solis, or just Sol to her coworkers, is a mechanic who never quite understood living things. she grew up in outer space and never really had the opportunity to have a pet, although the constant traveling meant she got to see a ridiculous variety of life. When she was a little girl, she would sometimes find a cockroach or other bug on the ship and catch it, keeping it and feeding it until it died. it was never a very satisfying experience, probably adding to her obsession with immortal machines. 

35. whats their guilty pleasure? what is their totally unguilty pleasure?

I’d call Eric her guilty pleasure. they would have ended up together if I hadn’t killed him off mid-breakdown. Most people live on a planet, but she doesn’t have one, so to her any sort of truly meaningful human connection is dangerous and off-limits. but she loves him deeply, although it scares her. Unguilty, I’d say shes kind of a hoarder. her bunk is full of knick-knacks from every corner of the explored universe. she spends pretty much her entire salary on it tbh

19. whats their least favorite genres? 

if this is about literature, she thinks fantasy is stupid. if it’s music, she loves rap and techno but has never really been able to tolerate slow guitar pieces about how beautiful planet life is. think space-age country. 

Hernandez-

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves?

this is a big one for him. Captain Eric Hernandez is a trans man, so for a lot of his life yeah there was a massive difference. but after he transitioned, I would say the main difference would be that the people around him see him as cold, kind of scary. he’s not scary, he’s scared. he sees himself as small and weak, even after he straight up murdered his abuser and took his place as captain. His friends would say he is the strongest, bravest man they’ve ever known. They would be right.

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

He has two sisters and two brothers, I don’t know any of their names. He was very close with all of them and misses them every day. Since he ran away to avoid having to pretend to be a woman his whole life, and then murdered a guy, contacting any of them would have been massively dangerous. He couldn’t even tell any of them he was leaving because he wasn’t out to them. In the version of his story where he’s executed, they all get letters from Sol explaining everything. In the version where he lives, he sends the letters himself.

13. What is their least favorite food?

fish was never available to him as a kid, and he never acquired the taste. 

Jericho-

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? 

this isnt something i get to say about my ocs a lot, but he did. he had a lovely childhood. he grew up with a loving father in a huge, beautiful city where he was free to explore and learn to his hearts content. he has especially fond memories of wandering around the actual ground of the city where basically nobody ever goes, looking at bugs and mold and plants with his little junior scientist magnifying glass, looking them up on his computer-band. the worst ones were probably nights where his dad had to work and he was lonely in their apartment, bc those were the nights he wondered about his mom. 

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

He’ll take photographs of cool specimen, but mostly he carries a journal and prefers to take notes. he takes notes on absolutely everything and has boxes and boxes of old notebooks in his closet at home. 

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

my boy jericho has very little trouble sleeping and is fine with the govt issues firm mattress. he is quiet and still and sleeps deeply. 

Ok! switching universes! these characters are completely disconnected from those three.

Nikola Tchaikova- 

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

I’m not sure she’s ever even tried it. Nikola is a full blown alcoholic and anything that makes her feel more alert is probably not something she’s gonna enjoy. Her natural senses and awareness are absolutely through the roof, so it’s not something she really needs at all. She does like sweets though. Back when she had her family, her and her close companions use to sneak away sometimes and go out to the city for milkshakes and music, and those are probably her fondest memories. 

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people?

When she was a very young girl she might have worshipped the christian/jewish/muslim god, or at least attempted to. For a young shifter where she grew up, life was rough, and she would have had a hard time finding the meaning in it all. but later in life, after the war, the major religion worshipped shifters and obviously that was ridiculous to her, so she kind of looks down on the whole thing. She might still be a little envious of the purpose and comfort that the worshippers get and that is missing so much from her life, but one of the main gods in their pantheon is based on her kid brother’s best friend. its hard to take that seriously. (the idea is that there were 5 original all powerful shifters who made the real world ones. this is wrong. shifters were a science experiment gotten out of control, and Nikola knows that.)

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

She would pack her knife, which her long dead brother gave her about 1500 years ago. she would take the pendant she wears, which was symbolic of the leadership position she used to hold before the people she was leading were all killed. She has a photo collection that she says never looks at out of fear of the light ruining them. Her best friend made her some copies, but she doesn’t look at those either. I think it hurts her to see the faces of the people she misses. She has a small bag of things tucked into the back of her closet that she never, ever touches or looks at. After the massacre that took her family, Angelo (the only survivor, her best friend) went through the carnage and collected the possessions of their friends. Nikola helped him bury them, but she couldn’t stand to take their things. he gave them to her afterwards, and she’s only every managed to take them out and look at them when she’s so drunk she knows she won’t remember the next day. But she would never leave them behind.

Nix- 

9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals?

Domenico “Nix” Tchaikova is Nikola’s son, so half-shifter. Shifters are, by necessity, a bit closer to nature than the rest of us, and even though he has almost no actual form changing abilities animals have always seemed to like him a bit more than his friends. He’s always assumed that it’s because of his prosthetic leg, that they realize he couldn’t chase them if he wanted to, but animals know things, and they can sense that he’s not quite the same as the other humans. 

22. What are their favorite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

Nix would never insult someone behind their back- he has a temper, and if you piss him off he’s gonna confront you on the spot. His insults tend not to be physical. he might call you ugly if hes real mad, but hes much more likely to call you a coward or an idiot. He gets hit a lot for this. 

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective? 

No, he’d never tease someone for being genuinely afraid. He knows fear too well to try and use it against people. If somebody he cared about was afraid of something, he would plant his tiny self between them and whatever it was no matter what. hes used to being seen as small and weak and incapable, and its resulted in a stupidly brave boy who gets himself into trouble a lot because he doesnt know when to back down.

Scott-

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? 

My boy!!! This is another one of Nikola’s children, one of the triplets. if you just read her thing, you can probably guess that she wouldn’t be a very good mother. Angelo, his father, was always loving and supportive, but both of his parents were just sad people who weren’t really prepared to raise three children. They grew up in the century before the war broke out, in a political climate that feared and hated them, among countless news stories of people like them being murdered and hunted. but Nikola still managed to give them a reasonably normal childhood. She found a place to settle down, near enough to a city that they could socialize and explore but far enough away they they grew up in the woods and could explore their natural abilities without being hunted down by hate groups. 

He has a lot of good memories! pretty much all of them are him doing dumb shit with his siblings. they used to use their shifting to break into concerts or fly up to the roofs of tall buildings. 

As for bad ones. definitely most of his bad memories are on Nikola’s head. He was the shifter equivalent of about eight years old when he saw her kill somebody for the first time. she didn’t know he was there, but im not sure if knowing would have changed anything. she’s been on a very long, very complicated vengeance quest since before he was born. She had tracked somebody down, and he watched while she slowly cornered him. You could practically smell the terror coming off the man as she drew her blade, moving towards him as she spoke. He had never heard her talk about the deaths of her family before, and as she told her prey all about how she had come home to find her kid brother on the floor with his throat slit open, there was something in her voice that he would never forget for the rest of his life. then he watched his mother put a knife through the bottom of the man’s jaw into his brain. he saw the light go out of his eyes, and he saw the absolute emptiness in his mother’s when she turned around. He ran as fast as he could back to his siblings and cried, but never told them what he saw. 

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

He can sing!!! he has a voice like an angel and he loves to use it. he plays about twenty instruments- hes had a long time to learn- and he always carries at least one on him. he can use weaponry and is good at it, but doesnt enjoy it. 

27. What makes them sad? Do they cry regularly? Do they cry openly or hide it? What are they like they are sad?

He doesn’t cry often. He doesn’t care if his siblings see him cry- theyre all so close its like crying in private- but with other people he doesnt like it. He just gets quiet when he’s sad. He’s not the moodiest of his siblings(that title goes to Lynx) but they all inherited something from their parents that makes them quiet, serious people on the whole. He feels deeply and thinks about things. Hes bisexual. I know that doesn’t go here but its important. He cried after he slept with a man for the first time, not because he was upset with himself about the gay thing but because he’d let himself fall for a human. The boy’s name was Jacob, and he didn’t understand but tried to comfort him anyways because he cared about Scott. They dated for a while, but Scott couldn’t handle knowing he would age and die so quickly and broke it off. Jacob was 43 when he was killed in a bombing during the war. Funerals had stopped happening at that time, people unable to keep up with all the dead. But there were still graves, and Scott visited Jacob’s for years afterwards. 

Hero-

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body?

She looks a lot like her mom. about 5′7, muscular, strong features. She got her dads eyes though, the only one of her siblings to have them. Scott and Lynx and Nix all have Nikki’s distinctive golden-ringed brown. She likes her body fine, its a good and strong body. she likes that shes not the shortest of her siblings(lynx is tied and nix is smaller) but other than that she doesnt really care. 

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

She was never much of a reader, and the only tv she ever got to see was when there was one on in a restaurant. She did enjoy films though, and her favorites were action. She got a certain something from Nikola that neither Scott or Lynx has, something kind of cold and fierce. Whatever it was that Scott saw in his mom’s eyes when she killed that man, exists in Hero too. Nix too, but less so. She would have liked video games a lot if she’d ever had the chance to really get into them.

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

She never went to school. Her father taught her to read and write, as well as everything he thought she needed to know about the world. She spent her childhood wandering with her siblings, and most things she needed to know she got from that. All three of them had been planning on going to college, but the war came before they got the chance. But I think if she’d gotten the chance she would have had an interest in something technical. Engineering or architecture maybe. 

Lynx-

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

God I love Lynx. He would never, ever become a parent, but I think he would be a good one. Out of all of her children, Lynx inherited the most of Nikola’s sadness. In non dramatic terms she gave him her tendencies towards mental illness and its something hes struggled with his whole life. His siblings are a wonderful support system but he knows that any child of his would struggle like he has, and he has so many unhappy memories of Nikola’s misery that he would be too afraid. But children do like him, and he likes them. He’s a fun, playful person when he’s feeling good, and is absolutely delighted to discover he has a little brother. obviously hes got the same terror of losing him, but he has pushed those feelings tf down. he just wants to enjoy their relationship while he can. hes a wonderful, sweet, caring boy whos full of love and good times, but too scared of himself to ever be a parent.

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions? 

When he’s happy, everybody knows it. He is an absolute delight. he does dance, actually. when hes happy he does it more but also its just a thing hes good at and loves to do. humans who see it know theres something not quite natural about the way he moves, and hes beautiful to watch when hes using it to express joy. He has bright eyes and a smile that makes you feel like you are safe and loved and that everything in the entire world is gonna be ok. 

44. What is their favorite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most? 

He loves any time of the year where it’s warm enough to wear skirts and loose, light shirts. The wintertime makes his depression worse, and a lot of years he and his siblings will head south to avoid it. but he loves warm breezes and cool nights by a fire, loves seeing the flowers in the spring and all the new baby animals. he isn’t at all a complainer, but when the weather is affecting him badly it’s easy to tell. he gets quiet, which is not something he is a lot.