#(posting on the tags cause it seems relevant idk)

[inkycyanide]

I have such bad imposter syndrome about being alt. I CONSTANTLY feel like a poser bc all of my interests are the exact things posers keep constantly talking about if that makes sense???

like for example I like monster energy drink right?? here in my area we have posers who constantly pose with monster drinks when taking pics or walking around the school with empty monster cans to look cool and I feel so bad bc like I LIKE THAT SHIT OKAY I LIKE HOW IT TASTES AND HOW COOL THE DESIGNS ON THE CANS LOOK

or with taxidermy and bone collecting for example, it's become a trend where they're all like "guys I am such a taxidermist I collect bones live laugh love taxidermy and bones I am so cool"

I just don't get why such random interests have to get tied with subcultures but whatever man idk what's going on in people's heads like I kid u not they made taxidermy/bone collecting a deathcore/black metal thing and I'm like??? why???

my friends are probably so sick of me constantly needing to be reassured that I'm a real fan/member of the subculture but sometimes I feel like the biggest fattest poser on the planet

and it doesn't help that my mom constantly tells me I'm a poser too and that I'm just doing this to seem cool and unique and special 💔

and idk why I'm ranting here about something as weird as this but here we are lololol

if u actually read all the way through this thing, umm I love u (/p)

[the-nerds-in-black]

Pokotho...

Bliklotep...

T'noy Keraxis...

Nibblenephim...

Wiggog Y'rath!!!

...

Huh, nothing happened! Uh oh, seems like something's amiss...

Well, anyway, general information and FAQ down below!

What's The Nerds In Black?

The Nerds In Black is an au written by me, Vert!

The premise follows The Lords in Black going through a new struggle, one more terrifying than any of them could ever be: mortality. A surprise visit from them is Webby's last straw, causing her to cast an ancient curse upon them. As punishment for their persistent bullying and lingering maliciousness, they are cursed to endure the annoyances of a physical human form. Human forms of a particularly nerdish variety. Together, they will have to work to regain their title of "The Lords In Black", and reinstate their powers they all hold dear.

Will they return to be bullies in the Black? Or will they be stuck as nerds forever? Only time will tell!

Where Can I Read The Nerds In Black?

It's on my ao3, eldritchfurby! Supplementary material, like silly oneshots and art, will be posted to this blog.

How Often Is The Fanfic Updated?

Typically, every 1-2 weeks. Though this is kind of reliant on how busy my schedule is. I will communicate when a chapter is taking longer than expected!

Blog Tag Glossary

Anything Else Important to Know?

- The Nerds In Black may contain triggering material! However, there is a content warning in the footnotes before any chapter with possibly triggering content.

- The Nerds In Black is mostly an in character fic, however some characters are either exaggerated for story themes, or are given some elements from my personal headcanons.

- Fanworks (fanart, theories, fanfic, etc) are allowed and very appreciated! If you make anything related to The Nerds In Black, tag this blog! I'd love to see it :3

- HOWEVER, this au is completely sfw, so no nsfw fanworks please!

- This fic is made by only one guy, (me, Vert!!) so please take that into consideration if things get slow!

And that's about it!

I hope you enjoy this eldritch nerds and all the shenanigans they get into!

#the nerds in black - general tag for anything NIB related

#ask answered - asks answered by writer

#character ask - asks answered by character

#lore important - asks or posts that contain relevant lore

#lore crumbs - less important character facts (like idk.. Tinky is allergic to seafood or something)

#nib!(character name) - for the purpose of not clogging up the main tags!

#non canon shenanigans - posts not canon to the story (shitposts, april fools stuff, technically character asks fall into non canon because they dont happen in the story? But whatever Im not going to think about it that hard lol!)

#writing update - progess reports on how the next chapter is going! basically me struggleposting because writing is hard

#vert update - used seldomly. me yapping about something random and probably unimportant

#chapter update - for when a new chapter is out!!

[thecrescentmind]

I have decided to use this blog for general SaSi content along with ocs because reasons, will tag accordingly (TCM au posts will use the tags they’ve been using) so uh sanders sides swap au that’s been rotating in my brain for a while

No one swaps what they represent but they swap roles in the story more or less

Patton swaps with Janus, Roman swaps with Remus, and Logan swaps with an orange side I made up. Virgil is now the protagonist instead of c!Thomas but Thomas doesn’t really take Virgil’s role, I will explain how that works. (Under the cut cause this got very long)

This takes place in a universe where c!Thomas’ life went differently in a variety of ways that led his perception of what parts of him are good and what parts are bad to change very rapidly. I’m not sure how everything ended up the way it did exactly and in case I do end up doing things with this au I’m not going to reveal what I do have decided just yet. (I will say Thomas was unable to pursue his passions here and has a corporate job he hates which is kind of relevant) But whatever happened differently led to the worse parts of the canon light sides being emphasized and the better parts of the canon dark sides being emphasized. Eventually leading them to trade places in terms of how Thomas viewed them.

Sel (Janus. short for self perseverance or selfishness), Ideas (Remus), and Defense (Orange, he’s anger in this au btw) are aware of this, they know they weren’t meant to be in the positions they are, at least not like this. All of them are secretly terrified of losing the positions they’re in. Feelings (Patton), Pride (Roman), and Logic (you know who this is) are also aware of this, and it infuriates them. They were supposed to help Thomas, they want to help Thomas. They just want what’s best for him but for some reason he can’t see that. If they have to push things farther to get things how they should be then so be it.

Caution (Virgil) is a new side, the first they’ve had since Thomas was a kid/teen, he just got here and knows nothing about how things got the way they did. He decides to record his journey to find his place as a part of Thomas, and these vlogs are (for the most part) the pov we would see from.

This au has a bigger emphasis on the mindscape, it’s bigger and more complicated cause I thought it would be cool idk. Specifically it’s part of how Janus keeps the sides he wants repressed hidden. There are parts of the mindscape said to be unsafe that no one’s supposed to go into, Thomas doesn’t know why and when Caution shows up, neither does he. Thomas decides to sneak in one day (he’s more reckless here plus the idea of the supposedly dangerous and scary part of the mindscape always intrigued him) with Caution tagging behind him because if he can’t stop Thomas from acting like a dumb horror movie protagonist he might as well go with him to keep him safe.

What they find is actually a lot calmer than what they expected, maybe even less chaotic than what the rest of the mindscape can be at times. It’s nice but it almost seems fake, too perfect to be real. They look around until they. hear. something. Virgil gets them out of there before either of them can see if the ominous voice in the allegedly unsafe part of the mind is actually dangerous and upon returning get lectured by Janus. Virgil asks wtf that voice might’ve been, Janus says (lying) that he isn’t sure, maybe a monster, an illusion, nothing good that’s for sure. They walk away but Virgil stays by the entrance just a second longer than Thomas and Janus, for a second he sees something try to exit before being forced back inside.

It didn’t look like a monster or an illusion or whatever Janus said was in there though, it looked like another side. Of course the embodiment of anxiety overthinks this so eventually he decides to sneak back in there alone.

And then nothing bad happened to any of them ever (lie)

[tteokdoroki]

🌸 - I just want to establish the following isn’t an attack on all shippers of this ship because not all of you are toxic it’s just that some of y’all scare me;

So I have been having a few mental health issues this week and I have the bkdk tag blocked but I can’t figure out how to block tags on yt and instagram so I literally started crying when I was exposed to it. I experienced a lot of toxicity from them on twt so I can’t even look at the ship but kiribaku has been my comfort ship. Unfortunately because the canon material has been focused on deku and bakugo, which makes me deeply uncomfortable. I don’t have the context but the sheer idea of bakugo having feelings for the nerd, even in subtext makes me physically sick. It’s not that I don’t like deku, it’s just that the ship feels like pseudo incest because in my interpretation they act like brothers. Also the fact that kirishima isn’t really relevant as much anymore bothers me. He’s a good character on his own and I’ve accepted the fact that it won’t be canon because it’s shonen. But after kamijiro (which I also have blocked in tags but don’t mind at the moment) had that out of pocket scene that caused me a literal mental breakdown (long story), my mental health can’t handle the fact that bakugo literally sacrificed himself for deku without even a reference to his CANON BEST FRIEND kirishima. I deeply hope that we get a blatant confirmation that bakugo and deku have a BROTHERLY relationship even if we don’t get any on screen kiribaku crumbs. I want reassurance that bkdk would never happen and for the toxic shippers to stop posting bkdk content under the krbk tags and stop trying to force your ship onto others. I already had a crisis about accidentally falling in love with a fictional character (Denki) and feeling heartbroken but now I have to deal with possible subtextual evidence for bkdks and a lack of krbk content in canon. Please tell me I’m just the subtext wrong and that in context I don’t have to worry. I’m freaking out because I’ve seen krbk solos literally get doxxed on twitter and harassed by toxic bkdks.

listen, im only going to answer this ask/topic once im pretty sure i’ve addressed this with you personally already. this is not the first time I’ve warned you about trauma dumping here but im going to set some boundaries. please don’t do this in my inbox — i don’t know you personally and I’m literally just a girl on tumblr writing porn. i am not your best friend, you cannot dump issues on me like this out of the blue, especially without considering how they make me feel myself. you do not know me.

secondly as a person who regularly engages with both bkdk and krbk content i think this is extremely selfish and ridiculous for you to send this to me 😭 just because YOU had a bad experience with bkdk doesnt mean i should have this projected onto me. i am just a person on tumblr, im not a therapist — i can help with day to day issues but this just seems like something you need to figure out for yourself.

im sorry about the issues you have surrounding it and perhaps the toxic people on Twitter but it seems to me that you need to make the conscious decision to leave bnha Twitter or Twitter in general?? like idk what to tell you but the manga is literally about deku 😭 he’s the protagonist. you’re going to see him and bakugou interact. pseudo incest is literally ridiculous as well. they’re childhood friends ??? like what

im not going to reassure you about krbk this or bkdk that because quite frankly i don’t care. they’re lines on a page to me and its literally never that deep. shipping is meant to be for fun and not to be taken that seriously. i severely suggest that you take a break ?? from all thing bnha related because as you’ve stated it’s not been very good for you and im sorry for that.

i literally cannot even fathom how disrespectful this is 😭 coming to my inbox with no warning and venting like this. genuinely don’t mean to be rude but i have no idea what you expected me to respond with. it’s deeply concerning and literally never do this again. please.

[milo-is-rambling]

You ever get drunk and high and read about the trump news while one of your closest friends (one of the two close friends you have) is asleep smiling next to you and you feel like somewhere out there there’s another universe where your father never died and your mother never grew into her own person and you never did x y z thing in x y z order and like idk it’s just very like,,, offputting and healing at the same time to read the news on my own time after seeing one too many posts referencing trump instead of hearing it on Fox News or from my father yelling at the tv about it and like yeah god idk it’s weird grief is weird big feelings watched the last episode of the midnight gospel today (yesterday) and now my brain is like wee ooo wee ooo your dad is dead wee ooo wee ooo it’s June it’s Father’s Day month wee ooo wee ooo your grandfather died yesterday (my fathers dad) weee ooo wee ooo brain on fire weee ooo wee ooo random memories of my first ever therapist have started randomly popping up in my memories and I do not know why they’re there. But they seem relevant. Hmm. also have talked about slash thought about my past relationships much more recently than I ever do and it is technically on par with my cherry tag season vibe to be in my feels about homoerotic friendships from highschool while drunk on brown liquor and root beer (a la root beer float the blackbear song I listened to a LOT in like 2017 maybe. 2018?) but it’s still a bit umm. All encompassing. just overwhelming. On my mind in a very low buzzing type of way. girls when they feel evil for their past actions because they loved too hard every time and then doomed it by wanting what was best for themselves or the other persons mental health at the time and being selfish but like I have to step back and be like oh woah a fourteen or fifteen year old was selfish woooahhh that’s crazyyy!!!! Never heard of That before. A 14/15 year old putting themselves and their own mental health first and then feeling like the worst person on the planet and for sure developing some trauma from the whole situation 🙀🙀🙀 wwahhhhhhh okay maybe that one is a bit more me but im sure im not alone there. Brains are weird. Also kind of Just Now clicking in my brain that I did in fact get weirdly afraid of liking women after I broke up with my first girlfriend and it ended poorly so I fully was like hmm I definitely can’t be a lesbian because I am not Allowed (by myself I guess) to like women bc now I am afraid of fhem (not sexy style) but then recently (ish) I fucked a dude and got traumatized by that (legitimately) (and also just like. Didn’t have fun.) and now I’m like looking back on my life more and going hmmm. Maybe I’m a lesbian and maybe I’ve been afraid to say that for literally years and years and years because of my own past perceptions from hearing my family / the internet talk growing up and maybe I have this realization over and over again and then go wahhh idk tho cause I’m baby I have done nothing been nowhere met no one so I just say whatever I’m queer and it doesn’t fucking matter if I love someone I love them regardless like at the end of the day those are the fuckin facts. Bam mic drop. Idk. It’s only one thirty nine in the morning eek I took an accidental like four hour nap yesterday and then we were drinking and smoking so like I have evergyyyy and I had some sugary stuff so I’m like awake as fuck rn but it’s fine it’s good I’m gonna smoke an indica bowl and pet the dog and fall asleep super comfy like the second I put my head on the pillow I bet

[edalynn]

Do you ever see any "t0h critical" posts that are a bit. Hm.

Cause like if it's something like "huntl0w is mid as hell and shouldn't be here" or "The og hex trio should have had more screentime together" then that's fair, true even.

But then there are some that are like " the crew hates poc because gus isn't as plot relevant as eda or king" or " lum1ty is awful because Luz lies to amity more and doesn't trust her and here's why lxnter is great" like WHAT lol.

Idk, it feels like there's more posts that are tagged as such that are more about people's personal preferences instead of fairly thought out criticisms against the narrative or character arcs. Either that or bored users who straight up are just like. racist/ableist/transphobic which is purely absurd.

yyyeahhh, i've noticed that. It's really bizarre and something I've seen around for a while now especially about how terrible TOH because Gus and Willow had tended to be sidelined while being POC, but I'm like... Luz is,, the main character and also POC... and I'm lucky enough to have not seen it w/ lum//ity (so it doesnt show up in tags) because I think I would've lost it. Like, yes. The whole point is Luz is being self destructive and needs to listen to her loved ones about how things are not her fault and how she is good and that everything is not her fault like she thinks it is. They must be super mad about the "You're family now" scene. Like imagine the mental gymnastics to make THAT seem romantic out of everything on the show.

I definitely think it's ppl that are problematic and want to make up reasons that they're right actually and not problematic for their opinions and feelings on certain characters and ships. Also, tumblr culture has misconstrued the meaning of the word "critical" since it's SU days lmao.

[mzoyagon]

I got inspired this morning and decided to make some concepts to inspire others with!

Trigger warning for the following: Body horror via mouths. Intentionally trypophobic imagery via eyes. A mention of cannibalism, though no actual portrayal of such. And finally, an ink creature. This art is intended to be a form of horror art, even if it seems mild (and please don’t complain if it’s not scary enough to you).

Yes I know you can put trigger warnings in the tags, but I also like to be upfront if not a little blatant. I’m not one to take risks when it comes to accidentally triggering someone.

With all that out of the way, I created some concept doodles for Vexed (or otherwise Uproar-afflicted) Sackpeople! I love playing around with the idea of them and they are a thing that is (very) relevant to the plot of my AU. I’ve seen a couple others' ideas for Vexed Sackfolk, but I wanted to throw in my own ideas of what they would look like visually. Feel free to save this image and use it as inspiration, reference, or even to show your friends (please don’t remove the credit at the top if you do)! As well as that, please do throw in your own ideas, designs, and additions to what I’ve already made! I would love to see what you all make of this :]

Image description: Six sketches depicting Sackpeople with unusual, uncanny, or downright scary traits. At the top of the image there is writing saying "all of these concepts CAN be combined". The first (top left) one's mouth and zip intersect, causing the zip to function as part of their mouth. It's vaguely reminiscent of a creature from Stranger Things, or an SCP. The writing at the side says "zip extends into/is part of mouth (kinda looks like an scp tbh)", then "probably the spookiest one here", "imagine this thing trying to bite you". The second (top middle) Sackperson has a second mouth between their chest and belly, inspired by the Impostor from Among Us. They have an angry or hungry (hangry?) expression and are slightly hunched over. The writing says "among us impostor (i'm serious the concept goes hard)", "would probably eat another sackling if vex wanted them to", and then "imagine the terror when they succumb to the uproar and their chest/belly opens up into a new mouth". The third (top right) Sackling is a confused looking werewolf. The writing says "uproar induced therianthropy* (the uproar turns them into an animal)" (at the bottom of the page there is "*the mythological condition, not the identity"), "looks cute but will probably rip someone to shreds", and then "doesn't necessarily have to be lycanthropy/werewolves". The fourth (bottom left) Sackperson has 12 eyes, 7 on their face and 5 on their chest. This design is intended to evoke trypophobia, which is defined as the fear of clustered holes, though in my experience it can extend to any cluster of circular shapes. The writing says "eyes.", "you cannot beat them in a staring contest", "yippie trypophobia", and then "they could be spies. the eyes of vex. think about it". The fifth (bottom middle) Sackling looks mostly normal, save for their full set of teeth which is reminiscent of Bob Velseb from Spooky Month. The writing says "teeth.", "idk about you I think sackpeople with full sets of teeth can look really uncanny (not always, but enough to include it here)", and then "I may be a little inspired by spooky month". The sixth and final (bottom right) Sackperson is covered in liquid Uproar, which resembles tar or black ink. It also leaks from their eyes and mouth. The writing says "goop/ink", "I was thinking of flight rising but you could also say bendy and the ink machine", "liquid uproar everywhere. very messy. they have an easy time spreading it though", and then "screw the stereotypes. be edgy. we are cringe but we are free", the latter of which I think sums up this entire post.

[oliver-quick-ens-my-pulse]

Hi, I wanted to ask a question, how does it work to put the tags right so that people can find my posts? I'm starting to publish fanfics about Hogwarts Legacy but it seems that tagging it doesn't work because it doesn't show up for anyone :(

So, something that I've learned from a few other people is that if your blog is newer, it may be somewhat shadowbanned for a period of time because it's probably Tumblr's way of filtering out bots to an extent. I know that can cause some trouble. I have noticed that even if the work isn't showing up on the tagged page for that kind of reason, often times it WILL still end up in the searches for that query. The only OTHER thing that I know, which is how things used to be, and Idk if it's still valid, is you should use the most relevant tags within the first 4-5 tags on your post to be sure it shows up in the tagged/searched page for it. So your FIRST tags should be "character name" "hogwarts legacy" "character oneshot/drabble/hc(whatever the content is)" and "hogwarts legacy oneshot/drabble/hc". Unfortunately, that's the best advice that I have, I haven't done a lot of research on the subject myself and my blog itself is like 10 years old. Just try not to get too discouraged, keep working at it if it's something you're enjoying, and eventually the traffic will show up. <3

[homestuck-vocals]

What’s your opinion on the Broadwaystuck revival?

*I don't follow tags and have been in an "inattentive" phase for a couple months now so I'm not keeping up and idk how much of the following is ACTUALY relevant to this iteration. I do not know annnnything about Broadwaystuck 2023 other than it seems to be another 1:1 casted group. * I've been on record for years as not being a huge fan of the "Broadwaystuck model" where there's an "official cast" where each character is voiced by only one person, other than for a specific project with a deadline such as a musical or planned album. I think that it might result in:

driving away interested parties cause their fave is taken. It's exclusive by design

conflict over casting, which has historically been big drama

lagging collaboration because e.g. everyone wanting a Vriska* number depends on The One Vriska's personal course schedule and workload, not to mention interests and range

similar issues if someone goes inactive without telling anyone, anything regarding that character just comes to a halt and you have to put mod energy into that situation

which is a concern for a project billed as producing things on an *indefinite* basis. there will be turnover, and this model always looks like it struggles with that possibly because of point 1

lots of effort on advertising recasts, auditions, and callbacks, when The One Vriska drops out, *after* you've told all the other Vriska singers that she's taken and they've lost interest

IMO, self-duet like "Past Me, We're Going Down" and the Karkat x Karkat "Loathing" are so much better because there's two voices! I LOVE hearing VAs for the same character together. You don't get that if you've already told all the other VAs for that character to keep walking.

*just picked vriska cuz she's so popular

I have clicked through a lot of dead group blogs where the last dozen posts are repeat attempts to cast and re-cast, and I remember the drama in 2012 about who got to be e.g. Official Broadway Nepeta. And I remember personally applying for Broadway Kanaya in 2012 and then going o well didn't get cast :/ and never trying again. I mean I could have struck out on my own but there's reasons people like to be in a collaborative network for this sort of thing.

I got the sense that it kept being replicated in group after group not because it was functional (original Broadwaystuck lasted like. four? five months? end of 2011 to april? 2012?) but because of how bright it shone, and glittered with (some preexisting) BNFs, while it briefly worked. One of the most common reactions I see in the chat of a listen party I'm hosting is "we should remake Broadwaystuck!". It's undeniable that the project had huge impact. I'm not sure that means that its successor in *impact* will or should operate the same way.

to be fair we apparently did Not At All solve this with whatever we tried with Universe C# after 2019 SAHcon, i think (hope?) in part because Discord is such a clumsy and dark platform for what we were doing. I think it's great that the current project is back on Tumblr, which being on the clearweb (make sure those blogs are search indexed!) is much more accessible to curious passers by than a locked Discord. It's also better than Twitter because Twitter is outright hostile to audio creators. Anyway the ideeeeeea there was that you would record samples for as many characters as you wanted, creating a bank of actors interested in each character as reference for collaboration, plus whatever the hell you wanted to do as an individual, so theoretically you could @tag all the actors for a given character at once for a highly targeted casting call for the specific song you wanted to make!

But this other way of doing things didn't get going. It may be that one of the upsides to the casted model is that there is a sense of a Job To Do that motivates actually producing things more than a casual free for all. I mean, everything I have actually made was because articulatelyComposed needed one more mezzo for a deadline. save for my Candy!Dave "Edges Of The World" that i Do Not Have The Fucking Range For. Chaotic tenors, call me I think the new project has folks with experience on some of those old casted projects so maybe they will iterate on some of the shortcomings. whether my opinion on organization structure is *relevant*? no, i'm not in the group AND folks actually in the group have more direct experience with similar groups than I do. i'm just someone who does data entry as a hobby.

this does all make me want to brush up some of my old WIPs

edit: firsthand feedback on how BS23 works

"part of my job on staff for the project is to set out the base structure of our albums and when songs are released and how in certain cases. we set like… a skeleton of the album we're going to make with a set end point and certain things at certain points (you cant fight the homestuck being track 100 of volume one and thus the album's closing number, track 50 of the current album being beautiful [the song], stuff like that.)

we haven't had any conflict over casting as of yet, least not that I'm aware of. some people dropped out but people drop in too, and people shuffle around based on interest or might volunteer to do a part thats missing from a group number. we've got handling and rules for inactivity and all that. collaborations arent always quick, especially the bigger the group involved, but its not because anybodys got a line or whatever?

this isnt like an official statement but its all technical details so i think its fine."

[vqlisms]

@pumpkaboomark this ones for u since i couldn’t fit all my thoughts into a reply 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 fair warning i’m only at episode 6 at the time of writing this but i’m loving it so much

ok rq we love implied bi ahiru in this house <3

ok so. there is so much i hate about how most media’s go about romance, regarding of how relevant it is to the plot. one thing that princess tutu avoids super well is just the whole thing (ESPECIALLY in media aimed at children) where one of the characters will literally just stalk the other and the writers will either jump through hoops to justify it or just. write it off as a joke but not actually acknowledge how shitty it is. princess tutu completely ignores that trope. ahiru and mytho go to the same boarding dance school, which seems like a perfect set-up for the whole “oh i’ll just memorise all of his classes and dorm number,” but a good amount of her and mytho’s interactions are caused by her being surprised to find or see him somewhere. the most she’s aware of is that she’ll occasionally see him in windows, but it’s never to the point where she recognises which is his dorm specifically and checks it obsessively. it’s really refreshing!!

another thing that i just have to add rq: i like that the one quote unquote “fanservice-y” thing that feels even somewhat like fanservice is just cat-teacher’s threats to marry the students. like, yeah, hate that, but it’s so great to see the students actually like,, grossed out and dissuaded when the jokes are made toward them, especially when a lot of media’s with romance aspects will have the creepiest people flirting with characters or being love interests or whatever. like,, i tried reading csm a few days before i started watching princess tutu and i barely got three chapters in because i was already just so off-put by the “romance” that was literally just. yucky (that was also what prompted the og post, though i’ve had that opinion for a long time)

i should also say, this is i think the only show where i’ve seen nudity and it hasn’t felt inherently sexual. my best comparison is with madoka magica bc that’s the only other magical girl show i’ve watched (and i saw a really good analysis on the show’s themes/symbolism). like, with madoka, i had a sort-of 50-50 opinion of the nudity. idk if it was the artists’ intent, but the only times they used it were in scenes that were (at least to some degree) supposed to represent/imply innocence or purity or vulnerability, which is a common symbol in media. still, there was too much detail put into drawing the bodies that just,, ew ew ew, even knowing the symbolism and all that. i was genuinely surprised when i didn’t get that same reaction with princess tutu. i think part of it is that the censorship feels natural; it feels like looking at a young kid, and there is so little fanservice or thinly-veiled sexual content that, paired with the in-story reason, it doesn’t feel like these scenes were added just to attract weirdos. the artstyle itself also doesn’t lend itself to anything suggestive (aka literally all of the minor characters have the same frame). it’s nice to also see the transformation-doesn’t-affect-clothes trope done in a way that isn’t blatantly for those tension scenes. in princess tutu, a lot of effort is put into conveying to the watcher that ahiru isn’t fully meant to be human — she’s clumsy, her verbal stim is “quack”, her name is literally “Duck”, she struggles with time and scheduling, not knowing common human knowledge (holidays, socially acceptable responses, etc). somehow, the writers managed to make that trope feel,, clean? i don’t really know how else to explain it. it feels natural when considering the rest of ahiru’s transformation situation, if that makes sense.

also, princess tutu completely avoided my usual hatred for the whole this-love-is-forbidden-for-made-up-reason-x trope. as i said in the tags, at least from what i’ve seen the trope usually boils down to one of two situations: we are bad at communication and that is literally the entire reason this media even has a plot, or have some made up arbitrary oppression that is somehow preventing the main character from getting with their love interest. princess tutu has brought in an unforeseen third option: want to communicate and would probably be good at it but has several good reasons not to. one: ahiru is literally a duck. not even anthropomorphic. just duck. even outside of a romantic context, literally how are you supposed to explain that to someone, ESPECIALLY when that is technically your default form. she’s not even supposed to be human in the first place. how the fuck is anyone supposed to explain that, even with evidence, and then segue into “hey wanna maybe go out next friday?” reason two: the whole “hey we are both from a tragedy where if i confess my love i will literally fucking die” thing. idk if princess tutu and the duck are the same character in the storybook, but ahiru is both of them, so it’s completely logical for her to assume she’d take both of their roles. she is working under the assumption that the storybook is real, and her evidence is that the prince is alive and she has tasked herself with gathering metaphysical pieces of his heart that then give him the capacity to feel certain emotions again. in that type of situation, especially since she hasn’t read the stories the prince, duck, and tutu are from, she’s working purely off of what she’s heard from fakir, mytho, and rue. rue said that princess tutu turned into sparkles and flew away after confessing her love to her love interest, and rue didn’t know anyone besides fakir was listening, so she didn’t have a reason to lie about that being tutu’s end in the book. ahiru has also shown that, even if mytho doesn’t want to get with her at any point, she was still willing to put together his heart just to give him the opportunity to feel again. it’s not out of character for her to decide that she just wouldn’t confess to him so that she could keep living and maybe try and be his friend instead. also, because she is literally a child, it also makes sense that she isn’t thinking about if that curse could also affect anyone she may like outside of mytho!! because she is a child! with such a small amount of life experience! because she was also literally a duck several days ago!!!

also bc i ended up getting to episode 8: GOD IM SO GLAD THAT THE SHOW DOESNT SHY AWAY FROM THE REPERCUSSIONS OF A CHARATER HETTIGN THEIR EMOTIONS BACK!!!! mytho getting fucking terrified of princess tutu and literally everything else makes sense!!! he doesn’t know how emotions work!!!! and there’s a good chance that the fear was legit anyways because he is in an inherently confusing and terrifying situation of feeling for the first time in (insert however long he’s been alive)!!!!! that shit should be terrifying!!!!!! especially when you can’t recall what it is like to have these emotions in the first place!!!!!!! it’s natural that he would assume immediately that his fear was for the person giving him back his emotions!!!!!!!!!

also, and i have no fucking clue how to back this up, but somehow princess tutu doesn’t feel like that “falls in love with their saviour” trope. it might just be the fact that i’m not that far in yet, and it might be that mytho literally doesn’t have the capacity for love yet, but even with ahiru herself, i love that she isn’t collecting his heart pieces for the sole purpose of trying to make him fall in love. there’s two parts to this ofc; one is that she literally can’t confess to him because she will turn into sparkles and fly away. the second one is that she also just,, genuinely wants to see him thrive again. she wants to see that loneliness disappear from his eyes, even if she isn’t the one to cause it. it’s sweet, and i love that while she is motivated by love, that seems to almost take a back seat to her sense of justice and care for him!!

one last thing rq, speaking of ahiru being a literal duck, i love that they don’t make that seem manipulative even in the romance aspect! i’m tired of shows that are just,, “caretaker of person who has no human experience falls in love with person and they fall in love back” because a good 70% of the time it just comes off weird. love that princess tutu completely avoided that by not only making the person with no human experience the main character, but also giving her completely regular besties who fill her in whenever necessary instead of falling into that weird way-too-dependent relationship trope.

okie that’s it for right now!!! if i have more thoughts i will send them to uu 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩💙

i need more authors to understand that. adding romance and making it fucking creepy as hell for no reason just turns potential enjoyers away, even if it is in every other way well-written and interesting.

[olderthannetfic]

I've written several fics for a "bad ship" in my current fandom, along with fics for other ships/topics often derided by anti's, and likewise have written a lot of gen, and a lot of the "good" ships. The "bad" fics have done WELL. If you search the bad ships via comments/hits/kudos, multiple are on page one, and if you search the fandom in general, those fics come up fairly quickly, while my gen fics and ones with the more accepted pairing come up even sooner.

I'm not saying that to be like "look how amazing I am" (it's a smaller fandom I was just lucky in) but in a "I show up on AO3 for 'dark' content AND the "good' content".

I have fics that use nearly all of the archive warnings, and have several additional tags in a fandom that has a ton of anti's. But..... get no hate. Ever. Not on fics, not on the tumblr I link, not on discord, nothing. I keep expecting it--especially as a WIP I'm working on has become more popular than I expected, and does have the "bad" ship.

The one person I asked (a proclaimed former anti) said it was because people liked my other fics too much to call me out, or apparently I write with enough nuance..... but WHAT does that even mean? Anti's refuse to read the fics, from what I'm aware, how do they know who is writing with nuance? and who even cares, it's a fic some stranger is writing in their free time for their own enjoyment. Though, that part seems to fly over people's heads. There is something.... not really amusing, but something.... about anti's hating half of what I write, but ignoring it because they want me to write more of what they like.

Basically this mess of a message was to say that anti's seem to go after "small" authors so damn often. yeah yeah not always, I know that, but I've seen something like this in too many fandoms. An author with a "bigger" fic (and I do hate that term--I just got lucky by posting at the right time and having someone rec me ages back in this fandom, and how popular a fic is has no bearing on how good it is, but for the purposes of this, it's relevant) seems untouchable, while the new person jut getting started is an easy target for harassment.

I keep anon on on tumblr cause I am messy and curious about if I ever will get hate. It's been a couple years, and there's been nothing. Idk the real point of this--I haven't had coffee yet and it's too early for my liking--but there's something here I don't like. I don't want people going after me, but it would make sense given the fandom atmosphere and the fics I've written. And yet? Nothing. People seem to treat me as untouchable, whereas some new kid writing? a target to shit on.

--

Correct. This is not about morality: it's about perceived vulnerability and feelings of power.

[scandalsavagefanfic]

Hello! I am a huge fan of ur writing. I've loved everything I've read of yours. I've read alot of what you've posted, except for a couple of the tags that are squicky for me (so I'm very thankful you tag very thoroughly). No judgement for the squick, it's just not for me. & when I'm having a bad day, I usually just go thru ur ao3 and find something to reread. I think about Therapy's Bruce & Jason every damn day. While I obvs appreciate ur darker more "problematic" content (I really vibe with some of the themes you write about bc of my own trauma, & so it's very cathartic to read about in a fictional setting), I am truly a sucker for ur more happy content. The Happily Ever After verse also lives in my head rent free. Idk more wholesome stuff just seems more special when you write it. Anyways. I would die for you. But the point of this ask is cause I'm curious as to why you don't like Urban Legends? I'm sorry if you already talked about it here or on twitter and I missed it. I was just wondering because I really enjoy your take on things and would love to hear why you dislike it. I've been enjoying it so far personally, but I am always open to DC comics criticism.

Aw thank you so much! I'm so flattered by everything you just said. You're so sweet ❤❤❤❤❤

I haven't talked about Urban Legends here or twitter (I haven't been very active in either place lately. Just a lot going on and no energy 😔) but I'm happy to do it here.

Before I start though, I just want to add a standard disclaimer and make it clear that if you like it, there's nothing wrong with that and you don't have to let me ruin it for you lol. Like what you like.

That said, since you asked...

I said this when I was talking about it on discord, that there is a difference between hope and expectation. I always hope that a new story centered on Jason (or anyone really, but things have been especially egregious for Jay for 15 years) will be good or at least treat the character with a minimal level of respect (to be honest, the bar is super fucking low). But my expectations always temper my hope, to keep it from getting unrealistic. Because my expectations are based on experience.

The long history of Jason Todd, since even before his resurrection, has been one of retroactively trying to make him "a bad seed" in order to absolve Bruce of any responsibility in his death.

I don't even expect DC or their writers to start honoring the fact that Jason was not an angry, reckless Robin (and less of the later than Dick or Tim and definitely Damian). There plenty of ways that retcon can be folded into his history and be compelling and sympathetic. And if they're going to stick with that retcon, I'm only asking that they do it in one of those compelling and sympathetic ways because Jason was 15 when he died, heroically, in one of the most selfless acts in comics, to save a woman who literally handed him over to be brutally murdered. He was 12 when Bruce plucked him off the streets, he'd been homeless and fending for himself for at least two years. I personally think that Jason's story hits harder for him and Bruce if their original, canon relationship, of Jason as starry-eyed and eager to learn and absolutely devoted to Bruce and Bruce to Jason, is preserved. But Jason's origins does leave room for a meaningful interpretation of him as angry and frustrated at the lack of meaningful results of Bruce's methods.

And that's really where my irritation at stories like Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer and Batman The Adventure Continues has it's roots.

Every time one of these stories comes out, I think (or hope, rather) that this will be the one that remembers and respects the origins of the Jason and the Red Hood, that takes into account the changed sensibilities of comics readers in the 30 years since Jason's death and the subtle, 20 year, retroactive campaign to make him the "bad Robin". The "born bad" trope is played out and literally no one likes the message it implies. That some kids are just bad eggs and there's nothing parents or the adults around them can do. Especially when it's played as the kid's fault. If Jason's time as Robin is going to be characterized by anger, then it should be rooted in anger at the social injustices he witnessed as he grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden, area and the horrors he faced raising himself when every day was a battle for survival. There are topical, meaningful, stories to tell with that backdrop.

But those are never the stories we get.

⚠⚠ Spoilers for Batman: Urban Legends, Cheer ⚠⚠

I'm particularly disappointed in Urban Legends because for the first issue, it looked like that was the kind of story we were going to get. I was put off by the first flashback of Jason being mesmerized by Bruce's guns, and I got that feeling in my gut that it was a bad sign. Jason depicted as impatient and overconfident and the scene with the guns is heavy-handed foreshadowing that got my spidey-sense tingling. I had a inkling then (in the first three pages) of how this story was going to play out, but it was early and I could still see many narrative paths that could lead to a satisfying story. My concerns were soothed somewhat and the little flame of my hope fanned, with the flashback of Alfred scolding Bruce, with Barbara's concern for Jason. A bit of worry returned with the way Jason ruthlessly pursued an addict who didn't appear to be a dealer and with the ending of the issue. The stuff with the addict sat wrong with me but the ending was tempered some by how despicable Tyler's dad was written. The scene was clearly set so that the reader could sympathize with Jason's decision and the scene with the addict could be brushed aside as a side-effect of comics over-the-top need for constant action, so I still held hope.

Issue 2 made me uncomfortable and it's where my hope starts to take a backseat to my expectations. I can dismiss Jason's self-deprecating internal monologue as unreliable narration, except that the flashback reinforces his thought process to explicitly show that it's not unreliable narration, and should be taken at face value. Jason faces physical abuse at the hands of his mother's drug dealer and when the flashback continues later, Jason kills the drug dealer. To be clear, this is a pre-Bruce Jason. His mom is still alive. He's like... 10. He kills this guy for shoving his head into a wall and implying Jason's mother paid for her drugs with sex. This is a scene that serves a single purpose. To show that Jason has always been prone to violence.

In the spirit of full disclosure, there is the small chance the drug dealer might not be dead. But the story obviously wants the reader to think he is, and it hasn't done anything to change that yet.

Starlin already did this story with The Diplomat’s Son in 1988 and he did it infinitely better. AND that’s still technically canon. So now I’m supposed to believe that Jason lost his cool bad enough to kill two douche bags before his sweet 16? Like it’s totally normal for abused kids raised in poverty, who’ve led hard and heartbreaking lives to just... haul off and kill people? That’s bullshit, and when taken with the Jason in the third issue, who is little more than an idiot thug, this story is really doubling down on some fucked up stereotypes.

Which brings us to the most recent issue. I went into this installment with very low expectations. I thought this story was going to be about Jason, through this experience with Tyler, a young boy with a similar background to Jason's, coming to the realization that Bruce's way is the best way and that Bruce did his best by Jason.

That would be annoying (in no small part because it takes increasingly absurd levels of plot armor to keep Bruce's no kill rule relevant, let alone irrefutably right). But I can probably live with that, if only because maybe if Jason officially falls back into line with the Bats crusade, maybe I'll get stories that treat him with respect, stories that don't relegate him to comic relief, dumb brute, or a background body with no lines in a story about the Joker burning Gotham (like Jason would just fucking stand there quietly for that).

And that may still be where the story is going, Jason realizing Bruce is right.

But holy shit do I not have the right words to describe how fucking insulting and gross issue three is.

From start to finish--including the flashback--Jason is written as cruel and fucking stupid. Like straight up dumb.

The entire issue is Bruce explaining the fucking basics to Jason like it's his first day. And Jason flies off the fucking handle and terrorizes a doctor he knows isn't a part of making the Cheerdrops, beats the shit out of some random addicts, and finally, when he can't accomplish anything on his own because he's a dumb brute he calls Barbara for help and rushes in with no information where he's promptly incapacitated and must now wait to be rescued by Batman.

This panel is the least of the issues sins but I can’t screenshot the entire story but it’s representative of the tone for the whole issue (and retroactively tainted the prior two issues).

This is beyond insulting. The only conclusions Jason comes to in this issue are the ones Bruce leads him to by talking to him like he can’t make the simplest connections. And like... in this story Jason can’t make the simplest connections.

This (and the Jason throughout the entirety of this issue) is a far cry from the Jason we fell in love with in Under the Red Hood, who was competent and strategic and intelligent enough to seize control of Gotham’s underworld from Black Mask (who’s no fucking slouch, he’s the first and only person to unify organized crime in Gotham) AND elude and manipulate Bruce until the time and place of his choosing.

This is a far cry from even the Red Hood and the Outlaws Jason who is competent enough to fight the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul (among very dangerous and skilled others) and smart enough to create antidotes for mind control nanotech viruses.

As he should be, by the way. Jason Todd is one of the best, most comprehensively trained fighters in DC’s stable of non powered vigilantes. He’s not irrational or hot headed. He’s pragmatic, tactically minded, and patient. He’s a detective. Right now. Has been since he was 12. Bruce doesn’t have to make him one because he already is. 

Jason is not a stupid thug who uses his fists because his brain doesn’t work. And I can’t tell you how so very exhausted I am by this narrative. 

This is actually the most egregious example of Jason’s skills and intelligence being not just undermined but dismissed entirely. Even Morrison’s Jason had some degree of competency. 

The one, single redeeming factor of this story is the art. It’s beautiful. And Marcus To is a godsend he seems to be one of only a couple of artists who remember that Jason was a child when he was Robin and I’m literally only buying this book because of him. 

Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t want that to come out so... um... passionately lol. I’m just very very tired. My intention with this isn’t to ruin it for you, if you like it, that’s fine. 

But this issue shot this story to the top of my "Vehemently Despise” list. 1) Batman: Urban Legends (Cheer), 2) Battle for the Cowl/Morrison’s Batman and Robin, 3) Batman The Adventure Continues.

I hope the next issues somehow salvage this dumpster fire. But I’m not expecting it.

(Damnit. That sounded harsh again. To reiterate, I’m not trying to judge anyone who enjoys it, I just personally hate it and you asked me why lol 😅)

[kae-karo]

Kaeya and/or Diluc with the banter prompt "don't tempt me" or "you didn't answer my question"

thank u eternally dear anon for giving me the always-appreciated opportunity to write some kaeluc >:} (send me one of these prompts and a genshin character!)

make me melt again - T - 2k

tags: stranded on a desert island, no i haven’t done the event stuff yet, idk if we even get to that part by the time i post this, but i was inspired, kaeluc reconciliation, canon divergence

[read on ao3]

--

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one? You’ve asked an incessant number of them over the past-” Diluc cuts his words off there. Past how long? The sun has set, of course, so he can be relatively certain that some hours have passed, but the exact number is as yet undeterminable.

And Kaeya is doing his best to make it feel eons longer.

“Have you even been paying attention?” Kaeya chides, coughs out a laugh. How he’s finding this amusing, Diluc isn’t entirely certain. This is very far from enjoyable, though he supposes it isn’t the worst situation he’s ever ended up in.

“I tend to tune out when you speak,” Diluc says as he glances over the fire to where Kaeya watches him, brow quirked.

“Hardly an afternoon on a deserted island, and you’re already rather feisty,” Kaeya says with a laugh. “How long until you raise a sword against me again?”

It’s the again that does it, that snaps Diluc’s neutral, unbothered composure. His jaw tics with irritation - of all the people to end up stuck on an island with, it had to be Kaeya, didn’t it? The one person among an entire world who happens to be particularly adept at pushing his buttons.

“You’re welcome to reminisce to your heart’s content,” he grits out, “but I have little interest in rehashing the past.” There is a reason he put all of that behind him, sequestered all his hurt behind an iron wall and locked it away. He does not need it rearing its ugly head now, when they’ve-

Perhaps not reconciled, but they are at an understanding of sorts. They are able to be in each others’ presence without causing problems, though he supposes such a tenuous alliance might crumble under the weight of hours spent on a deserted island.

With nobody to talk to but Kaeya, and nobody to intervene should things turn any less civil.

Not that Diluc will be the one to raise a hand against Kaeya. Never again - he has long passed that place, that dark well of heartache and betrayal. Teyvat moved on, and so Diluc moved on with it. He presumes that Kaeya has moved on as well.

“It was not a particularly pleasant evening,” Kaeya says, his words accented with the crack of a splitting log. Sparks fly up between them, and Diluc catches Kaeya’s eye. Immediately drops his gaze to the dark pit of the burning logs.

“I don’t care to reminisce over it either,” Kaeya adds once the fire has settled. His voice sounds...different. Quieter, less...gods, he can’t believe he’s dredging this word up in relation to Kaeya, but it’s less seductive. So very unlike Kaeya, or at least, the Kaeya that Diluc knows now.

He wasn’t always like that, so inclined to charm every person he meets. So flippant with his flirting that it sets Diluc’s nerves on edge just to be near him.

“We never really talked about it, did we?” Kaeya’s voice carries a hint of humor, and an outright invitation to talk about it now, in spite of his words just a moment ago. Diluc clenches his jaw, fights back the hundred-and-one questions that had burned in his chest after that night. It has taken a very long time to quiet them, and he does not particularly think that they bear any relevance now.

“What is there to discuss,” Diluc says, and means it rhetorically. Kaeya shifts, sticks a leg out and toes his boot off.

“A lot of things, I think.” His other boot joins the first a safe distance from the fire along with his socks, and Kaeya pulls his knees up and leans back on his hands as his toes dig into the sand. “You kissed me the night before that.”

Diluc’s gaze flicks to the side, to the ocean, and he stares hard at the soft flicker of the moon’s reflection on distant waves.

‘And what if I want to?’ Kaeya’d asked. What if he did want to kiss Diluc, then what?

‘Well...I wouldn’t stop you…’ The bravest Diluc could get, even with Kaeya. Far less terrifying to face a horde of hilichurls than to admit how desperately, in that moment, he’d wanted Kaeya to kiss him.

‘But you don’t want me to, do you?’ Bait, he knew it even then, but it didn’t stop him from riding that spark of defiance as far as it would take him. Far enough to lean into Kaeya, push him against the nearest wall and press his lips to Kaeya’s.

“So you do remember,” Kaeya says quietly - this Kaeya, in the present. On a deserted island across a dying fire from Diluc, after so very many years of careful avoidance.

“Of course I do.” How could he forget the rush of heat flooding his veins, the spark in his chest flaring to life at the taste of Kaeya’s lips? The desperate hands at his waist, slipping beneath the hem of his shirt. His own hands searching, too, clinging to Kaeya like he’d dreamed about doing for ages.

No, he might bury it deep in his chest, but moments like those do not disappear entirely.

“But you think that’s not something we need to discuss, is that it?” Kaeya quips easily, and Diluc glances back to find his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, now, his scarf and cape discarded. He looks...lighter, this way. Unburdened, but not by the weight of his excessive accessorizing. More that he seems unburdened by the weight of the persona, the facade.

And out here, who would he have to pretend for? Diluc has certainly never believed the performance.

“I think it happened a very long time ago.” And…

And what? He hears it in his tone, the unfinished nature of his statement. And Diluc fears to even discuss that night, for the fact that it might dredge up feelings he has never quite managed to destroy? He can hardly say that to Kaeya, he’d never hear the end of it.

To Diluc’s surprise, though, Kaeya only hums. Stares into the distance beyond Diluc for a long moment, his gaze unfocused. How does he remember that night? Fondly?

“It must’ve been easy, then.” A pause, intentional, and Diluc refuses to rise to the bait. He waits, and Kaeya continues after another beat of silence. “To cast me out if you never truly felt anything for me.”

The meaning of his words processes slowly, leisurely, a perfect match for the faint breeze that twists through Kaeya’s hair, carries on to brush against Diluc’s cheeks. The soft moment splits in two at the sound of another cracking log, and Diluc grits his teeth.

“Is that what you believe?” His words come out on a harsh breath, low and quiet. Kaeya leans forward, wraps his arms around his knees.

“Is it not true?” Bait, Diluc’s mind supplies unhelpfully, but he will not let Kaeya sit here and tell him that it was easy, that Kaeya meant nothing to him.

That it did not break his heart when Kaeya told the truth of his past.

“It is not,” Diluc says shortly, and he dares to level a stare at Kaeya. Kaeya meets his gaze in turn, and by all accounts, it should be flippant. Should be easy and light, and Kaeya should scoff and dismiss Diluc’s words.

The stare he gives is not any of those things, though. Kaeya watches intensely, with sharp focus and tensed muscles, and Diluc is not entirely prepared to handle the sudden weight of his gaze.

A subtle, faint smile flickers to the edge of Kaeya’s lips, a daring thing for how rigid he looks right now.

“Tell me it hurt,” he says then, quiet. Voice laced with a years-old ache that Diluc feels in his chest, and he’s seventeen again - eighteen, almost, just about. Tomorrow. But right now, he and Kaeya find a hidden alcove in the back of the library, and Kaeya kisses him until he can’t catch his breath.

“It hurt.” The words hurt, too, but he says them. Speaks them to the fire and knows that they pass through the flames to reach Kaeya.

“Did you regret it?” Cautious, probing. Diluc blows out a breath.

“For a very long time, I did not.” His gaze flicks up, just enough to meet Kaeya’s for a brief moment before he turns toward the ocean again. “I feel...differently now.”

The closest he can bear to admitting that he lost not one, but two irreplaceable people in his life that night. And that one loss was entirely his own fault, even if he’s learned to forgive himself for his father’s death.

“Time changes things,” Kaeya agrees, and Diluc watches from the corner of his eye as Kaeya shifts, climbs to his feet. “Care to see if it’s changed anything else?”

Diluc’s heart catches up to the words a moment too late, then redoubles its efforts at the idea of what Kaeya could be implying. He swallows, inhales dying fire smoke and grasps within his mind for anything to steady him.

A hand appears before him, then, the lifeline doomed to drag him under, and Diluc’s gaze drifts up to find Kaeya standing over him, a gentle smile on his lips. Not teasing, not put-upon or overly seductive.

Just Kaeya.

And oh, Diluc’s heart aches, begs him to reach out and take Kaeya’s hand.

“There’s nobody here,” Kaeya says softly. “Just us.”

Diluc lets his gaze fall again, back to Kaeya’s outstretched hand. He shifts carefully, lets his heart guide his hand to take Kaeya’s. And oh, the way his heart races when Kaeya’s smile widens.

He pulls Diluc to his feet, then huffs out an amused breath that puts Diluc immediately on guard.

“Are you not sweltering?” Kaeya’s free hand tugs gently at the lapel of his jacket, though, and Diluc’s brows furrow.

“Trying to undress me?” he asks, entirely deadpan, but it pulls such a sweet laugh from Kaeya’s lips that Diluc has to fight a grin of his own.

“I’m trying to prevent heatstroke, but don’t tempt me.” An amused warning, and Diluc sucks in a sharp breath at the hand that skates across his chest, the thumb that hooks around the inside of his jacket. “May I?”

Diluc holds his breath, finds it impossible to do anything but nod.

He will admit - though not to Kaeya - that he’s grateful for the cool night breeze that his jacket had kept at bay. Kaeya sets it alongside his own discarded accessories, then glances down at Diluc’s feet.

“Fine,” Diluc grumbles as he sets about removing his boots as well. At this rate, Kaeya won’t be satisfied til he’s-

A flush crawls up Diluc’s cheeks, and he rushes to discard his boots and socks alongside Kaeya’s. And, to his relief, Kaeya seems to find Diluc’s state of partial undress satisfactory. Again, he extends a hand, and Diluc does not hesitate to take it this time.

He leads Diluc across the sand, vaguely in the direction of the water, and Diluc takes a moment to- to miss this. The comfort of Kaeya’s presence, when it’s so often been little more than an irritation. He lets his steps waver closer to Kaeya, until they walk with their shoulders brushing. Kaeya does not pull away.

The water is cold when they reach it - or, rather, when it reaches them. It curls its way up the shore to meet them, and Kaeya draws to a stop as it swallows his feet for a moment. Diluc turns to watch him, to watch the sea breeze whip at his hair and pull it back from his face.

His eye remains closed for a long moment, a subtle smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and his hand tightens in Diluc’s in the short second before he opens his eye again, catches Diluc staring. His smile widens.

��What do you think, Luc?” Diluc’s heart stops beating for a breath. “Has anything changed?”

He steps closer, hears his blood rushing in time with the waves, and lifts his hand to Kaeya’s cheek. Thinks that he missed this, that he did not expect to ever have it again. To ever want it again, but here it is. Here he is, and here Kaeya is.

And once again, he does not answer Kaeya’s question. Just leans in, lets his lips brush Kaeya’s, and melts into the feeling of Kaeya pressed against him.

No, he might’ve said. Everything has changed, but not this. Never this.

[fastcarsgovroom]

Don’t really know what to make of still it but here goes (the Lando Norris issue) Pt 3

This is about the Lando Norris and Max Fewtrell (and other involved streamers) issue so you don't need to read it if it's not in your best interest to. I don’t know if this thing is supposed to have blown over or anything, but I’m posting because heck this is my blog and I want to post about things I think are in line with my personal philosophy (and maybe in-group).    

The entire rant is in five parts:  

Part 1 is where I describe very basically the entire situation, essentially what I saw happening through posts on the tumblr, twitter, and reddit Lando Norris tags  

Part 2 is me trying to describe why some fans felt what they felt and reacted the way they did  

Part 3 is the videos and what was said of them and how I interpreted them  

Part 4 the ‘misinformation’ idk

Part 5 is like, a rant.

Part 3: What was actually said?

The clips of Lando and Max F saying things that were, for the lack of better words, questionable. Clip urls taken from one of the OPs who brought the issue to our attention (hope it’s all right I didn’t credit).

TW for talks about sex, sexism, and misogyny

If anything, listen to the clips for yourself and ignore the wall of text. Make up your own mind. I’m only writing what I’ve seen, and as a way to make sense of it. 

Under the cut

The relevant videos are (not in chronological order)

1. Star signs

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqblm5bUU51y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: Max F brings up star signs (like, the zodiac) because his chat was discussing it. Lando reacts by saying that if a girl asks about star signs, ‘you get up and leave’, apparently in reference to his personal experience with a girl in conversation about star signs. Max F comments that the girl has ‘dodged a bullet’ based on how, for the lack of better words, passionate (’salty’) Lando’s reaction was. Lando retorts that Max F ‘wouldn’t have wanted to be with her,’ providing some information (where the girl was sitting), which causes Max F to recognize the girl and react in an amused but equally passionate way. The other streamer quoted “she crazy”, supposedly in relation to the girl.

How people have interpreted it: Others have interpreted is as being a sexual encounter, Lando being dismissive of a female-skewed topic of interest (star signs) and only listening to her in hopes of a sexual encounter (edit: the more ‘obvious’ “listening to women in hopes of a sexual encounter” is clip 4, added below. But I’ve also seen people claiming  ‘dipping’ (said by Max F) and ‘coughing’ (said by Lando) here to be references to sex, along with the ‘you wouldn’t have wanted to be with her’ as, of course, having sex, so I’ll leave this interpretation up. Again, I may be getting this wrong), that Lando and friends were making fun of the girl (’she crazy’, ‘you wouldn’t have wanted to be with her’, how Lando said the topic was ‘so boring’ at the mention of star signs, etc.) 

How I interpreted it: Personally, I don’t think we have enough context as to what really went down. I can see how you could come to the above interpretations, but I also, personally, find relating it necessarily to a sexual encounter a reach. Yeah, it could be the men hanging out and getting to know a young woman (girls) but just not jiving with her, or thinking that the woman’s interests were weird and boring. Personal conversations, essentially, that probably has no place on a public stream, but it comes across as being said carelessly and immaturely rather than with malice.  

2. ‘Stealing’, ‘don’t want to talk about it’, ‘that [descriptor]’ 

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbm90Esu01y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: This clip starts with a streamer (honestly I can only identify Max F and Lando, sorry) saying Max is bitter, to which Lando adds that it’s because Max F ‘did not receive love from a girl’. This seems to upset Max F, who retorts that if he should ‘tell a few stories’ about Lando, implied to be embarrassing ones. There was a lot of ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ (Lando and Max F) thrown around about the women. Max F brings up that Lando ‘tried to steal mine (Max F’s)’. Lando refutes this, and Max F looks more upset and says repeatedly that he does not want to ‘have this conversation’ with Lando. Lando continues on, referring to the girls as ‘the [descriptor]’, i.e. “the old one?”; “the top golf one?” and “I did not try to steal that one.” 

The other streamer appears to take issue with this, saying ‘that one?”, and Max F adds “can we stop talking about it like that?” and doubles down and tells Lando to stop the conversation. 

How people have interpreted it: This is the more egregious clip; people took offense at how the women were spoken about (’yours’, ‘mine’), the implications that they can be ‘stolen’, and how Lando referred to them as ‘the [descriptor]’. Some also interpreted Max F’s it as referring to a girl. This all leads into the perception that Lando and Max F were objectifying the women and talking about them in terms of conquests (presumably sexual). 

How I interpreted it: I think Lando and Max F were quite disrespectful in how they were talking about the women, more so Lando because he continued with the conversation (in a public stream) despite Max F telling him to stop. It does sound like ‘locker room banter’ about relationships, which is still, ultimately, misogynistic, immature, disrespectful, and inappropriate, especially in a public stream. 

What I don’t get is how ‘the/that [descriptor]’ was taken as intentional and malicious objectifying, and how the ‘it’ was referring to a woman and not the entire situation. 

3. ‘Cowboy’

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbq6nhmZR1y0rtc3.mp4

How I’d describe it: The clip starts in the middle off in-game banter, with Lando asking Max F if has any other digs at him, to which Max F replies that he does have ‘plenty off digs’ at Lando. Lando brings up ‘cowboy’ as an apparent dig, to which Max F retorts is ‘not a dig’, but was ‘brilliant’ and ‘very good’ for Lando. The Toy Story reference of ‘there’s a snake in my boot!’ is brought up, to which someone says ‘not the only snake, haha’ in a mock-jokey voice. 

How people have interpreted it: There’s probably more backstory to this in previous streams, as OP mentioned. Some have taken issue with, again, discussing personal situations involving a third party (OP has mentioned that the nickname ‘cowboy’ is in reference to a woman). Some also claimed that the nickname ‘cowboy’ is a sex position, so took offense to how it sounded like Lando and Max F nicknamed a woman they knew after a sex position, then openly talked about her in a public stream. Some said the nickname was from the woman’s social media handle, which had a cowboy emoji. 

How I interpreted it: This one is weird. I have no idea what the context is. I have no idea how people came to the conclusion that ‘cowboy’ was a sex position. Is the ‘snake’ in reference to male genitalia? I don’t know? I have no interpretation of this other than things without context always sound so weird. There’s entire twitter accounts about shows and podcasts lines taken out of context, which just sounds bizarre. 

4. ‘Reward’

https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_qqbfwzG9GC1wg3eue_720.mp4

How I’d describe it: I’m not sure if I can describe it without transcribing the whole thing or putting my own interpretation / narrative here. It’s a public stream, sure, but it sounds as coherent as a bit of disjointed conversation you’ve eavesdropped on (To me, anyway. I’m not being obtuse on purpose maybe I’m just dim).  

Clip starts with Lando and Max F sounding very amused with something, with Lando telling Max F about an encounter(?)/incident(?)with ‘cowboy’, referencing ‘rounds’ (round 2… round 6). There’s more banter, Max F saying he was ‘worried’ that Lando was talking about someone else, that he will whatever Lando is doing is ‘good for [him]’, and is ‘healthy’. 

Lando says it was “bit boring, really”, to which Max F says ‘oh, 100%, yeah waffle. Complete and utter waffle’ and “gotta do you what you gotta do, listen to her sometimes you know what I mean? Sacrifices do bring on great things.”

How people have interpreted it: Essentially, Lando is telling Max F about his hookups with ‘cowboy’ (the rounds being, well, rounds of hookups). Lando is saying that being with ‘cowboy’ is a bit boring, but Max F saying that Lando has to make sacrifices (his time? listening to boring conversation (’waffle’)?) in order to maintain said hookup partner. The takeaway was that Lando and Max F discussed sexual encounters with a woman (’cowboy’) on public stream, called her ‘boring’, and implied that she should only be listened to in context of getting a hookup is disrespectful. Many were disgusted. 

Some, perhaps not having watched the clip, attributed the ‘sacrifices for women’s attention / sexual gratification from women’ comment to Lando. Others are angry and disappointed that Lando did not speak up against the comment, which indicates that he too is complicit with the notion that women should only be listened to for sexual gratification. 

How I interpreted it: There’s a lot of innuendo here and ‘keywords’ that are attributed to sex and hookups (i.e. ‘rounds’ being hookups / rounds of sex; Max F’s implication that the many rounds (6) are ‘healthy’, a common description for sexual activity as being a healthy part of the human experience.) So, yes, I’ll believe that they’re most likely talking about their sex life. Why did I use so many words to come to that conclusion, and not just say ‘they are talking about their sex life’ out of the bag? Because that was my thought process so idk what to tell you other than what I did. Maybe it’ll come across as being apologetic and intentionally obtuse, who knows. 

Without the context, it’s not going to be very obvious.

So if I’m taking it as their conversation about sex, then the “sacrifices do bring on great things,” will very heavily imply that Lando has to have boring conversations with ‘cowboy’ for sex. Let’s be clear, this is a very disrespectful and demeaning take. It’s also unfortunately a very common one that’s thrown around everywhere in media, among immature men (young or old, lets be real). It’s also very normalized, so I get when people say they find it ‘normal’ or ‘typical’. This doesn’t excuse the comments or topic of conversation. 

On the other hand, I can also see a POV that Max F may have said things ironically or sarcastically, since it is a sentiment often used (women are nags) and both Lando and Max F are known to be sarcastic, dramatic, and dry at times. This is a reach to the other end of the ‘harmless banter’ spectrum, but without context, maybe it’s possible.

Still don’t know why ‘cowboy’ is necessarily a nickname derived from a sex position. 

Part 4

[nefoe-dd]

SO SMT AU AM I RIGHT GAMERS

I mentioned this in the tags of another post and joked about it in Discord but my brain went brrrr during my last class of the day and now I lowkey have a full plot starting to form lol.

Keep in mind the only Shin Megami Tensei game I’ve played myself is the Nocturne remake, plus I only really remember bits of the plot of 4 and whatever we’ve been given so far of 5 so I’m not super well versed in the series.

Also I’ll add this to the tags too but DSMP Spoilers specifically for the contents of Techno’s Will exist in this post, because that is where the idea for this came from. A lot of other JRPGs have similar plotlines but I specifically thought of SMT because its kind of a meme specifically for that at this point how the plot always seems to have the same type ending bosses. 

Also some spoilers for Shin Megami Tensei IV

ANYWAYS

Now Presenting: An AU where Techno’s Limbo is an SMT Game lol

(Under a ‘Read More’ because it got way ahead of me)

An Introduction to Relevant SMT terminology:

Demons: Makes up a large majority of the characters in the game. They are the enemies that you face in combat, and its possible to recruit them to your team through various means. Some demons exist in the overworld though, and can be talked to normally, they’re chill most of the time, unless you do something to tick them off. ‘Demon’ is not taken literally by the Christian definition, they are based off of various figures in folklore and religion around the world, some are even based on Gods and Angels.

Law vs Chaos: Many SMT games have multiple endings based on these two alignments, along with the neutral alignment. It is usually decided by some important decisions the player makes throughout the game. I’m most aware of the SMT 4 ending, in which the route you are on decides the final dungeon, the character you team with for the ending, and the final boss (its either Satan or the in-game version of God). It’s based off of the traditional interpretation of these two, where Law represents the importance of authority, and Chaos represents the importance of freedom. 

Another note is that a lot of SMT games take place in a post-apocalyptic world of some kind, which, spoiler, is the case here.

General Plot Details and Worldbuilding:

- Techno dies in the prison. The stasis chamber fails and Quackity succeeds in killing him. Permanently. 

- Despite dying, he wakes up again in the main prison cell, but things are different. The lava isn’t blocking the entrance anymore, (in fact there isn’t any lava at all), and he’s alone. Upon peering outside the main cell, he notices a bit of sky peeking through the prison ceiling, like it had been broken into. 

- The drop down to the bottom floor is long, but he’s dead, so he just shrugs and jumps down so he can see what’s going on. Turns out there are several holes in this part of the prison, in fact there are multiple on the ground, likely where the lava had escaped from. (Obviously Minecraft lava specifically doesn’t work like that, I’m pretty sure in the DreamSMP the bottom is all source blocks, but just ignore that bit). 

- He exits from the back wall of the prison, and everything there so far looks normal, except for the fact that there appears to be less trees than normal. Of the trees that are still there, many of them were cut down and never collected, and some appear to have fallen over due to some damage.

- Techno goes around the prison to the front, and that’s when he notices some things that are very wrong. Various parts of the prison, not just the main cell, are also sitting destroyed. Many cracks, scuff marks and full-on chunks are missing on the walls. The usual entrance which houses the nether portal is hardly still standing, and he can see straight into the main lobby where the portal would lead into once you were let through. 

- The surrounding areas are not much better. Tommy’s outpost is toppled over in the distance, only the base and bottom floor are left standing. The tents near the beach are collapsed and destroyed, the only remnants of one of them is a small piece of fabric ripped from the main bit and laying on the ground. Skeppy and Badboyhalo’s mansion is crumbling where it stands, half of the back wall and ceiling are gone. And that’s only what’s visible from here. 

- The rest of the server is also in various states of destruction, the spawn walls are hardly left standing, the main nether portal area is covered in potholes, none of the portals are active. The prime path is rotted and broken in most areas, the buildings along it are not faring much better than the ones he’d seen before. And the further he gets away from the prison, the more the plants themselves appear to be dead or dying. 

- L’manburg’s crater looks much the same as it once did right after its destruction, albeit with more debris at the bottom which had fallen from the sides as they slowly eroded. The flag at the bottom is torn up and discoloured, honestly its hardly recognizable. The nature that had finally begun to reclaim the land has slowly been dying instead over time, and the bridge overtop has completely collapsed. The only thing still standing, is the ever present obsidian grid that looms over it in the sky. He supposes that whatever disaster had caused this wasn’t able to reach that high up, or that it was at least in part done by someone that liked the way it looked. Not that there seems to be a need for the reminder anymore. 

- Something something, he finds out DreamXD is here, and that he might have had something to do with how this world looks. And as much as it shouldn’t matter in the afterlife, he did promise Phil he would be killing God sooooo he goes on a mission to do just that. He can do pretty much anything now that he really doesn’t have to worry about dying, so why not. He has no reason to care about some God, especially when they’re the only ones left.

- Some DSMP people hang around the world and are represented by certain demons, the mostly chill ones that kinda just hang around in the apocalyptic scenery. They don’t recognize him, it isn’t really the people he knows after all, but they are willing to talk to him since they can tell he isn’t human either. He learns little bits of what happened through them, and learns where DreamXD resides, that being one of the strongholds that’s a bit further out. 

- Unfortunately, due to the portals being inactive, and his inability to break anything efficiently, or even at all, he has to travel using the overworld. Along the way he manages to speak to some others, this allows him to better locate where the God is, although it doesn’t seem to be hiding out. He even sees it sometimes flying around, which he uses to follow where its hiding. 

- Some of the random demons he runs into recognize that he’s not supposed to be here (according to them at least), so he has to fight his way through them. Luckily, many of the friendly demons that he talks to end up tagging along in order to help, thus making up a team he can use to get through them instead.

 - There’s probably a demon that seems to resemble Phil somewhere, living alone (alone for so so long) away from everyone in an arctic house perhaps. If I wanted to really up the angst, the demon takes a liking to Techno right away, which is partly how Techno is able to tell its him so quickly. The more they talk, the more Techno realizes how lonely the Phil he knows must be without him there, how upset he’d be once he reads the will and finds out what happened to him. Thus he’s more motivated to, you know, fight God, in an attempt to figure out what the hell happened. (DXD is the only entity existing here that also exists where he’s from, he can guess pretty easily that maybe, just maybe, they are one and the same). Thus, he is given a choice that he knows he will have to make in the future. 

- Eventually he manages to find the stronghold and comes face to face with DreamXD himself. DreamXD is just kinda chillin there, they fight, through DreamXD doesn’t seem to be putting in too much effort, almost like it does not want to win. 

- Techno wins (duh), and he is left with a choice, a choice to finish the job, or spare the god and allow it to go free. And, well, he feels that he doesn’t really have the right to decide whether it lives or dies, and while its possible that DreamXD caused whatever disaster created the current state of the world, but he doesn’t know that for sure. DreamXD has done nothing this whole time he’s been here, and its done nothing to him or his companions.

- He chooses to leave it alone, and DreamXD seems to know that it was always going to end that way. 

- DreamXD disappears, and Techno wakes up in the cell again post-revival, the prison and the world around it is the same as he remembers

(I don’t remember the exact real-world to limbo time difference but I imagine that it felt like, a day, maybe half that, while irl it was only a few minutes to an hour.)

Some other notes/details:

- The other possible ending would have resulted in Techno killing DreamXD and being given ANOTHER choice to take its power over the world, or just leave and stay there forever. Basically DreamXD’s existence is vital to the power of the revival book, and it’s death would have resulted in Dream not being successful in his revival attempts. Obviously we have no idea how the powers actually work yet, but I just came up with an explanation because I thought it would be interesting. You can decide on your own which of these endings fall into Law, Chaos or Neutral because uh, its complicated given the scenario. You can also decide if letting DreamXD live even fits into his character! Idk! But its not like DreamXD’s being oppressive by any means, not that there’s anyone to oppress here anyways. That’s my logic anyways.

- I don’t know what demons would represent specific people, I’d like to use one of the Angels for Phil but the Demons based on Angels usually have an important role in the plot that is in line with the Law alignment and like, protecting god or whatever, so no. There are a couple bird ones but idk if they fit the vibe, idk it could work, I’d have to look at a list if I want to go into this further.

- I kinda want Eret to be an Inugami because it’s body does that thing that ferret’s do when they’re all stretched out :) The only reason I’m hesitant is because Inugami is a dog, and Goose deserves representation.

- The reason I imagined for why Techno can’t break anything is because the mining fatigue lasted throughout this because he died with it, it’d get in the way of fighting too but at least it isn’t weakness, and he’s not alone either.

Uhhhhh that’s it for now I think!

(will potentially add to this if I figure something else out in the future)

[albatris]

ok ok alriiiight ok so the plot of ATDAO

this post is not, like........... well, it’s not gonna be a blurb or a summary or a nice neat synopsis, this is not Professional Writeblr Business, this is, this is, uhhhh

this is like drunk house party logan rambles

works best if you imagine ur just like “hey man how’s it going” super casual and I grasp you firmly by the shoulders and look you dead in the eye and just ramble all of this without taking a single breath

could I have explained in a nice neat concise "elevator pitch" sort of way? probably. mind ur business. that’s not how we do things here at albatris.org

anyway the purpose of this post is “hey people seem to know a lot about the characters and the worldbuilding and the premise but have no clue what happens in the actual story” so I’m not going to be talking about said characters and worldbuilding and premise in depth

in terms of rambles, that stuff’s been covered! this post assumes you know what Ports are, n what the nature of the ATDAO apocalypse is, vaguely what the MCs are like as people......... though I can fetch this info for you if you like

but yeah if you are coming into this post with zero prior ATDAO knowledge........... deeply deeply from the bottom of my heart: sorry

also if this is your first time experiencing One Of These Rambles

also @safe-in-the-steep-cliffs​ and @siarven​ I am tagging you because you said you would like to be tagged and also hi and also I hope y’all knew what you were in for

anyway without further ado

(visual representation of my approach to this rant, not of how complicated my plot actually is)

(my plot is not that complicated)

ALRIGHT

there are two viewpoint characters! and two plotlines which converge near the end of the story, but honestly there’s a very real possibility I will decide these are two separate books meant as companion stories to each other because I love making things difficult for myself yeehaw

ATDAO’s co-protags are Tris and Noa, best buds four years and counting. their friendship is one of the single most important aspects of the story, n the ongoing love and trust they have for each other despite the way unfolding events force their relationship to change is integral to the themes and making the heart of the story what it is. I will now proceed to not mention this friendship for the entire remainder of this post. they’re bros. that’s all u need to know. listen. listen. I have a lot to cover

so yeah, ur first key player is Tris Greer, whose parents are dicks but whose siblings are chill. most notably of said siblings there is Jacob, older brother by thirteen years, whom Tris believes is just about the coolest person on the entire planet. this plotline kicks off when Jacob gets caught in the midst of a freak car accident that kills a dude and wrecks a street corner and also somehow causes Jacob to just kind of................. blip out of existence entirely and without a trace?

n Tris is understandably horrified and distressed by Very Much All Of This, but hey, at least there are responsible adults who can look into this obviously Port-related weird disappearance and figure this mess out, right?

INCORRECT

the relevant interdimensional authorities are brought in to suss out the situation and these authorities are kind of like “hmmmm idk about this” but are all set to take Tris at least somewhat seriously until they learn the following:

that Jacob had already been reported missing to police in his home state three days earlier

that Jacob was in the midst of several ongoing personal crises and at least one nervous breakdown

that Jacob was allegedly tangled up in some real weird shit that would more than account for a disappearance under suspicious circumstances

that Tris is schizophrenic, prone to hallucinations, confusion, memory issues and quote unquote “letting his imagination and anxiety get the better of him”, and precisely zero people can actually corroborate his story that Jacob was even there are the time of the accident to begin with

and after some back-and-forth and Looking Into The Evidence pretty much everyone in any position of authority comes to the conclusion that this is just Ordinary Regular People Crimes and whatever happened to Jacob had nothing to do with weird apocalyptic energies, and that Tris is (at best) stressed out and delusional or (at worst) lying through his teeth because he knows more than he’s letting on

so Tris is forced to hop pretty quick from “I’m sure someone will handle this” to “no one believes me but I’m sure if I can find some concrete proof they’ll listen and someone will handle it” to Well Fuck I Guess That Someone Is Me

cue bizarre reality-hopping fantasy quest, which is ten times easier said than done when most of the time Tris is terrified enough just, like, going to the supermarket

he enlists the help of his new classmate Shara, amateur paranormal investigator and professional weird-bullshit enthusiast, who agrees to help him puzzle out what the fuck happened to Jacob in exchange for his assistance in mapping out Adelaide’s interdimensional “fault lines” as part of her ongoing quest to track down the source of the apocalypse

she’s got big fuckin dreams, ok, go hard or go home

slso worth noting at this point that there HAS been an uptick in Ports and their related reality-bending strangeness in Adelaide recently which is why this is of particular interest to her currently. gotta find out What Makes The Weirdness Tick, gotta find out Why The Sudden Extra Weirdness

..........and also Kai is there

Kai has no nice neat reason to get involved with the plot, Kai just likes drama and being all up in people’s personal business. Tris brings them on board for one single afternoon like “hey I will pay you some money to come to my house and fix my fucked up phone so I can listen to an interdimensional voicemail” but forgot the apparently key addendum “and then leave”

their first three chapters of knowing each other is basically Tris being like “stop inviting yourself into my house we are not friends” and Kai being like “that’s a rude thing to say to your friend. also your sister gave me the netflix password and I used your kitchen to bake pastries feel free to help yourself”

but yeah so Tris’s story mostly focuses on his quest to figure out where Jacob got yeeted to and how to get him safely home (y’all probably know a bit about The Unreality already maybe?), whilst also dealing with rising family tensions, whatever shifty stuff Jacob was involved with prior to his disappearance, and his own creeping doubts about his perceptions of reality

n I’m also saying flat out it’s not a plot that’s going the “oh the whole thing was just a delusion all along” route because ew

his psychosis is a fairly involved part of his character but the explorations around it are more to do with, like......... the difficulties he has in trusting himself and whether he has the luxury of letting himself get swept into some Big Weird Implausible Adventure when this has extremely different implications for him than it would someone else. n eventually to how his success and survival is not ~in spite of~ but specifically because of the different way he understands and interprets the world and the skills he’s developed

THAT TANGENT WAS A PERSONAL RANT IT WAS NOT RELEVANT I just have words to say on the subject of how psychosis is treated in fiction and didn’t want people jumping to the “none of it is real” conclusion anyway ok moving on

ur SECOND key player is Noa Yun, who has rather a lot on her plate right now. she’s broke as fuck and her mum is sick and her car is making Noises and she’s not getting enough hours at her job at Not-IKEA and everyone is on her back about her failing studies as if that’s a thing she has the energy to care about. feeling rather backed into a corner by life’s bullshit and her financial situation, she blatantly lies her way into a field job at the Department of Interdimensional Instabilities, because A) surely it can’t be THAT bad, and B) what does she have to lose?

so more or less what she’s doing is the equivalent of emergency services for Port-related weirdness, it’s going out and dealing with highly unstable otherworldly energies head on, navigating Weird Phenomena and bendy patches in reality......... it is, among other things, a job that’s relatively easy to get into because no one wants to touch it with a ten foot pole unless they absolutely have to

n the DII is a whole other post, this shit has lots of different functions and levels and branches and corruption and secrets and a tendency to view workers who have to go out and deal with the brunt of the apocalypse head-on as vaguely expendable and I’ve talked about it a bit before and in more Serious Words

things kinda kick off for her when in true Noa fashion she hurls herself into a dangerous situation to help out a coworker, n enters a pretty standard issue “overlap” where the barriers between universes are a little fucky, but hey, she seems to come out of it with nary a scratch, so it’s reasonable to assume everything is fine, right?

INCORRECT AGAIN

she basically gets some whacked-out otherworldly energies latched onto her that are now following her through her everyday life, and it turns out she’s starting to bend the reality around her the way certain types of Ports do, which is! obviously not ideal! she’s not exactly a Port herself, because she’s pretty sure that’s impossible, but it’s clear capital s Something happened to her in that overlap, and she doubts it’s good news. and to make matters even more disconcerting, she’s now being dogged at every step by strange visions of a child who speaks in an unfamiliar language and who seems Real Fuckin Pissed at her

so her thing is basically “I acquired fucked up reality-bending powers against my will and they might be lowkey killing me ‘cause Ports are notoriously unstable like that and also I’m haunted for some godforsaken reason” which all somehow ended up being, like, the least interesting part of her plotline for me lmao

oh and Noa also enlists the help of Shara, Because Ghosts

anyway yeah so her search to find out what’s happening to her re: Weird Children, being a Port-adjacent something-or-other, and whether there’s a way to stop her own unravelling leads her to (rogue computer programmer? mad scientist? general shifty bastard?) Laurence Marrick Thiele, who claims to have suffered a similar affliction in the past and now does some real interesting research on the subject. n this guy. well. he’s got some fuckin stuff going on

he definitely knows more about the nature of Ports than he should. also is he actually researching what he says he’s researching? also what’s with all the weird tech? also did he just straight up murder that guy Avery? all will be revealed later, maybe, if I feel like it

but yeah at about the same time as Noa goes “actually fuck this you’re shady as hell I’m out” she stumbles into, like, The Actual Reality of what Marrick is up to re: manipulating Ports and interdimensional doorways for his own gain, and the various ways this spells bad news not only for her but potentially for the entire city and anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire, and she shifts gear to “actually you know what I’m gonna kick your ass”

there are various reasons for this, but first and foremosterly you have to understand that Noa’s got a fuckload of pent-up rage and she will bring it in full force the moment you say some stupid shit like “some people are expendable” or “it’s inevitable for the greater good”

(there’s also a fun ongoing subplot with her work at the DII where she and her team are investigating a string of strange illnesses with bizarre symptoms that appear to be spreading via obscure radio stations so that’s. happening. I guess?)

but yeah the main story here mostly follows Noa’s attempts to undermine Marrick, bastard supreme, and find a way to fuck him up before he goes, like, Full Cartoon Supervillain, n also like........... her attempts to keep up her work at the DII despite her rising paranoia that the teammates she’s growing to care about will notice her increasingly unstable state and the fact that she’s all tangled up with the very forces they’re meant to be thwarting. n along the way discovering the reality of what happened to her in The Aforementioned Overlap Incident and about her visions and such

so that’s all that. did that make sense

n she’s got a whole arc going on about trust and learning to lean on others, like, she comes into this story as a very standoffish person with lots of paranoia, she’s spent much of her life feeling like she can only rely on herself, n she’s. well. yeah, like I said, she’s got a lot of anger at the world and at the various systems that have failed her and her loved ones, n the story puts her in a position to become even more isolated

and her plotline isn’t so much “you have no reason to be angry or afraid” or her learning to Not Be, It’s more, like........... yeah you have every fucking right to be furious and of course you’re afraid! but there are people around you who love you and who will jump at the chance to defend you and who will help you carry the weight of your anger and grief and none of this needs to be yours to bear alone which is extremely cheesy

which applies to both her Weird Supernatural Goings-On as well as her regular ordinary life goings-on

I feel like Alice and Jet deserve a mention for Noa’s plotline but also this went on and on too long already so. well. Alice and Jet exist! yep. they work with Noa at the DII. I have things to say about them. I will not be saying them today

and uhhhhhh

in general, for Tris, his plotline, you wanna think, like, fantasy/adventure vibes which veer pretty sharply into horror, and for Noa you wanna think...... kinda, sci-fi mystery conspiracy vibes with a dash of some superhero bullshit maybe except not really

and that

pretty much is it I think

also the fact that Kai just invites themself into the plot for funsies and then is dragged kicking and screaming into caring about themself and making positive changes in their life means there was no convenient place in this post to be like

"oh there's also a whole major subplot about a time loop"

but there's also a whole major subplot about a time loop

goodnight! thanks for coming to....................... whatever this was! have a nice saturday everyone