#At this point being alive is the only thing the doctors here are willing to confirm

[jane-lynndrake-t]

Hello? Your fucking alive???

Cogito, ergo sum, friend. And my thoughts are consumed by annoyance for this ridiculous heart monitor.

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 01/07

Anonymous asked:i think youre the first liveblogger ive seen to actually remember that orphaner dualscar was eridan’s flarping name?

Mindfang clearly describes the Serkets, so I wonder if Dualscar says anything about the Amporas?

Eridan's greatest enemy does have a duality theme, after all - and he was certainly scarred when the guy stole his crush >:)

@captorations asked:i have terrible news regarding homestuck and the good place: https://x.com/nbcthegoodplace/status/1039908767763259392?lang=en not to mention that. well. the two share more than you've encountered yet. it's very likely not a coincidence. have fun! oh and. re: my ongoing campaign of pointing out the homestuck ancestry of tlt characters. please compare aradia's "i am very much alive and i intend to stay that way" with dulcinea's "i'm not in the river and i won't ever be again"

...oh my god.

On reflection, this makes a lot of sense. Homestuck's fandom is pretty large, and some of its members were bound to be involved in the production of mainstream media. Still, it's wild to see a Homestuck reference - or, technically, a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff reference - on the official Twitter for a show this big.

And Aradia does have a lot in common with Dulcinea, doesn't she? For one thing, they didn't really start influencing the plot until after they died.

Anonymous asked: Not really important anymore, but looking at what Gamzee has in his Strife Deck, it doesn’t look like he has any ranged options: he’s got the bowling pins, what appear to be a discarded sickle and lance from Karkat and Tavros respectively, what I’m PRETTY SURE is a whip of some sort, and the Zillyhoo hammer. The closest to a ranged weapon in that stack is the whip, or maybe the pins if he’s willing to throw them, but neither seem like they’d work very well against Vriska. Barring some secret power or other plot twist, I think Gamzee would genuinely be the underdog in that matchup. (Which feels weird, because Gamzee’s been mutating into a slasher villain while Vriska’s still very much an antihero protagonist. Usually the power balance is the other way around with those archetypes!)

On the face of it, Gamzee didn't seem to have great odds in that fight - but it's hard to know for sure with this pesky Bard. His Strife Deck contains plenty of cards we haven't seen, and whatever he did to the Black King is still shrouded in mystery. Everything's just so uncertain with him.

@mimescantscream asked: I've really been holding back all this time, but now that we've met the Grand-highblood, it really is extra painful to see a Gamzee who was once incredibly loving of his friends (despite their constant ridicule) end up falling down the path that fate seems to have pre-ordained for him. Was he truly always meant to repeat echoes of the past? Could things ever have gone differently for him?

Yeah, I've been having similar thoughts. His PoV seemed completely sincere, so I don't think his original personality was a fabrication, or anything. I think there is a part of Gamzee that cares about his friends - and maybe even he wants it back.

@jade-harley-real asked: […] I want a rant on the bad doctor from you pls pls pls

Scratch is straight up the scariest character in Homestuck.

What's he up to now? Hard to say since we're not telling him what to do. Guardians can never be told what to do.

The aura of menace he's cultivated is incredible, especially considering he barely even moves. He's playing the entire cast like a fiddle, armed with nothing but a typewriter and his own supercharged brain - and there's no doubt in my mind that his confidence isn't a mask. He knows he's going to win in the end.

English is coming. He's basically already here.

@elkian asked: I'll probably never be a Vriska FAN, but I gotta admit, she really never had a chance, what with the only adults in her life being: a trollvorous spider 1 missed meal away from eating her, Marquise "I do what I want" Mindfang, and Doc Scratch. Some role models! @manorinthewoods asked: So, now that Mindfang has been revealed, here's a question for you: how much of Vriska's Vriskyness is because she's Vriska, how much is because of Mindfang, how much is because of her lusus, and how much is because of Alternia in general? ~LOSS (20/6/24)

This is why I don't think she'd be like this on Earth. At this point, it's obvious that none of her Incidents were the result of her personality as it naturally arose.

I mean, look how anti-Aradiacide she was! They weren't even really friends!

Anonymous asked: ‘AA: there are all sorts of friends to meet AA: ones you already know and ones you dont’ I mean…couldn’t she just be referring to various doomed selves? I don’t see why the dream bubbles would just be confined to the alpha timeline seeing as the furthest ring is weird in terms of time and space

I was assuming that only Alpha Timeline deaths would be preserved by the Bubbles, but you're right - I'm not sure that was a reasonable assumption.

The Horrorterrors seem to eschew the concept of the Alpha Timeline. and, they've coordinated with both Doomed and Alpha versions of Rose and Dave. Plus, yeah, there is no time in the Ring, so timelines are probably meaningless there. Why would it only interface with the Alpha?

If the Bubbles do preserve doomed souls, then we might also run into the John who died to Typheus, and the Jade he couldn't save. That's a pair of ghosts I'd be very interested to meet.

Anonymous asked: If every Aradia comes back from every doomed timeline, the number would double each time, so you could get over a thousand of her with only ten doomed timelines.

Fair point- although, if an already doomed Aradia went back in time again, she'd be double doomed. Is that even possible? Would she die twice as quickly?

@mhafanlol2000 asked: Your issues with quirks and speech-to-text are pretty simple to explain. If a troll were to speak into a non-modified speech-to-text program, it would output text with their quirk. Because they, quite literally, speak in their quirk. Terezi probably isnt actually saying “YOU H4V3 LOST TH3 G4M3”, each number at a time, but the vibes are definitely there. I don’t know, this is hard to describe if you don’t inherently get it.

I think, jokes aside, it is indeed about the vibes.

In the troll intro pages, you get told a little about how each troll talks, and I think that's how we're supposed to translate their quirks to an audible medium.

Anonymous asked: i think ppl in the fandom have over time kinda built up a like, generally separate understanding of quadrants from how theyre described in the "official" explanation. which is like, not representative of how these terms are used in homestuck, but probably more useful for describing Good relationships that Do Not Suck. like basically making moirails equivalent to being queer platonic partners, making blackrom more about having a healthy fun rivalry, that kinda stuff.

It's funny, actually - I don't think I've encountered a single asker who accepts the quadrants as they're originally described.

The main issue is that, with the possible exception of matespritship, we haven't seen a single troll relationship with reflects the infodump's explanation of the quadrants. I think Hussie might just have jumped the gun a little when dropping it.

Anonymous asked: Shoutout to Karkat poking his friends in the background! Terezi (crying over Dave) and now Soloux (talking to Terezi). Karkat isn’t sure what the right response is but wants to be included! Reminds me of actual cats, just putting a paw on you for no discernible reason. @manorinthewoods asked: I'd like to note that Karkat poking Terezi's tears is the same sprite (and same 'poooke'!) as Karkat poking Sollux's burnt-out eyesockets. ~LOSS (12/6/24)

My man just likes poking.

@alicesoinions asked: not much to say just wanted to say I really enjoy your liveblog!!

Glad you're enjoying!

I've actually got a few new followers recently. Maybe I'm showing up in people's recommendations?

@heliotropopause asked: Dream bubbles are pretty neat, eh? Neat enough to inspire half of HtN, I'd bet.

…wait.

Oh my god, you're right. It's literally a River Bubble. They're both located in afterlives, for crying out loud!

Anonymous asked: Wanted to thank your liveblog for reminding me of a lot that I had flat out missed in canon, due to not putting it together or just reading too quickly. Most recently and notably on my mind right now, is that Feferi is the one who set up the dreambubbles!!! I had always thought that they were just a part of the world that readers didn’t know about yet, like how we weren’t yet introduced to Alternia and it’s moons until act 5. This went right over my head and it has me absolutely REELING (fishing pun included just for fef!!)

Feferi truly is the MVP.

I wonder what happened to dead Players before the Bubbles?

They're certainly not the only type of afterlife in the multiverse. Alternia has at least two types of undead, which implies that the Players are very, very lucky to have retained their personhood postmortem. Imagine this was what Feferi looked like in Jade's dream.

Anonymous asked: Knowing sollux, he probably already had coded his tech to recognize if his speech ever changed, and gave himself a different typing quirk for it, long ago. Not because he knew or thought it would happen, but because he thought it would be a fun coding project ((I know nothing about coding))

And yet, you somehow know exactly how we think.

Anonymous asked: Something I hadn’t really thought about, until I started reading this liveblog, is how much VRISKA ((autocorrect decided to caps that and I’m leaving it in lol)) was manipul8ted into a lot of her violence. Scratch pushed her towards vengeance against Aradia, and she didn’t want to go through with it. Did VRISKA ever tell anyone how much of her live she spent resisting these forces, or even really acknowledge it? She didn’t hide Spidermom, and arguably her need to kill other trolls was to prevent herself from being killed. BUT on the other hand, VRISKA voice would make it sound like a compliment “I almost didn’t kill you why don’t you appreciate me!!!!!!!!”

The thing is, VRISKA probably felt a lot of social pressure not to tell people she was coerced into her crimes. That would reveal that she was reluctant to kill, which is the opposite of what the Empire wants.

@manorinthewoods asked: You could have written a great Homestuck if you'd been Hussie. I think your style, if translated from reacting-to-comic to making-comic, would work great with what Homestuck is, and could have made a better product. I think you'd make a cerebral Homestuck, which would have been cool to read, except I would have botched reading it like I botched reading Homestuck in our Alpha Timeline. ~LOSS (11/6/24)

Thank you! I've tried to write before, actually, but whenever I reread my stories, they come off as esoteric, stilted and a little hard to follow. It's not an insurmountable problem, of course, and I really need to take a writing workshop at some point.

I'd love to make a webcomic, too, but my art also leaves a lot to be desired. I can adapt sprites just fine, but original drawings are hard, guys. Did anyone else know about this?

Anonymous asked: i counted just now, and only like 24 out of all 54 paradox space comics have zero spoilers. some of them are certainly more substantial than others (e.g. i counted ones that include jade’s consorts that you havent seen yet as spoilers) but a lot of them have Very Big Spoilers

It would have been awfully messy. I'm probably just going to read it once I've reached the Gigapause of 2013, and no longer need to worry about spoilers.

@bladekindeyewear asked: “Nepeta wasn't trying to pacify Equius, nor did she seem to be fulfilling any rigidly defined 'role' in his life. They just came off as very good friends, and their relationship was much better for it.” Well, maybe we ought to look at it through the lens of real relationships between friends? Once a healthy dynamic and boundaries are established, perhaps Moirails stabilize as long as they’re together.

That's a good way to interpret moirallegence - although, it does raise an issue with the quadrant that I'll be discussing on its own post, once I've finished the comp. There's no point in prehashing what I'm about to say, so I'll see you there!

Anonymous asked: karkats message didn't go through because of trollians narrative awareness feature, where it'll display something different in service of one of the several "all"-seeing entities, of which the reader is one <3 watsonian and doylist explanations are kissing with tongue

Since the fourth wall is an actual, physical piece of technology in this world, this isn't even that far-fetched!

@sashonya asked: So, as the session's timers continues to count down, what do you think will happen after The Scratch?

Beyond 'the session ends', it's difficult to say for sure. I think the two most likely possibilities are that the kids start exploring other sessions, or travel to a location completely outside the current scope of the comic. I am, of course, hoping for both.

@ericvilas asked: "I still believe that out of all the trolls, Karkat’s traits were featured the most prominently in humanity" yeah, I guess even humans aren't free from the effects of carcinization

CG: THERE IS ONLY ONE STEP. CG: AND IT IS ME.

[bismuth-209]

thoughts on the series 14 finale?

oh man. i loved this season. i really did. and for it to just end like this..

i think there's a good chance the Doctor is lying about some things because not everything adds up

like. Death times Death equals life was corny and i didn't love it but i'm willing to accept that's how it genuinely resolved. i have some doubts about the effectiveness of death by time vortex when that didn't kill him before.

but whatever. keep the option open for Sutekh 3 if you want and otherwise maintain that killed him

sure

BUT RUBY'S MUM?

okay. so. Sutekh pretty much instakilled the whole earth. i'm guessing by the scene on that other planet that it doesn't have to affect a whole planet at once but considering everyone we saw in London died pretty instantly and the tardis has landed in the UK around the 2020s a LOT i . i think Louise Miller dead as a doornail OR he's kept her alive / she managed to not die because people were,, curious about her? and in that case. i feel he would've been able to tell who she was .

they imply Ruby's bio mum is alive right? SO WHY DOESN'T HE KNOW WHO SHE IS . why does he keep the doctor and ruby alive to figure it out

other things that make NO fucking sense if Louise Miller, regular human woman, is Ruby's mum:

her walking straight and upright and all of that when dropping Ruby off as a FIFTEEN year old who probably had zero medical assistance GIVING BIRTH about 10 hours prior

her having a cape instead of like. a regular hoodie or whatever. maybe she was going through a goth phase

the doctor was THERE when she was pointing. they do like a line about "well why was she pointing at you" "she wasn't pointing at me, she was pointing at the sign" okay but like. it's not like he was invisible though

YOU KNOW WHAT WASN'T THERE IN ANY OF THE PREVIOUS SHOTS OF THE SCENE? the fucking sign!! it MATERIALISED when the doctor said it was there

there is, of course, no way for anyone, save for maybe the Doctor, who was there, to know that she "pointed at the sign" to name her baby Ruby. and the Doctor clearly didn't catch on

the snow!! the snow materializing

the song in Ruby's heart thing that the Maestro is confused by

the memory changing

the doctor crying in the opening scene to church on ruby road when he knows who the mum is, but later not crying when he doesn't know who she is

the ambulance being unable to find any relatives for Ruby even though her parents did give DNA samples in 2046 (although maybe the ambulance was looking for currently alive relatives in which case, fair)

other things that make no sense that aren't directly related to Ruby's mum situation

"the one who waits is almost here" says the maestro. yea he's on a street a couple blocks away. kinda just sitting there though

metal becoming rare and precious in a post-death world. like, i would understand if wood and wool and such were deteriorating on account of having been alive or something . but metal? why would it be difficult to find metal?? the scene slapped though

why was the time window only responsive to Ruby, as well as colonel Chidozie only responding to her

the tardis being there at the church a second time but invisible?

Sutekh letting himself be dragged along with the rope

the stuff with Mrs Flood didn't make sense either but that's forgiven on account of they didn't pretend that made sense

i really hope there's more to some of what was "resolved" this episode because this ending felt cheap and kinda like .

so i like the message of "it's actually the unimportant that are important" but it felt kinda insulting to pull that after the whole season has been saying Ruby's bio mum and Ruby were important and unique, not just like. in the minds of the Doctor and Ruby but also tangibly in the world around them, like with the snow.

the reunion scene with Ruby and Louise was adorable though. it almost made me okay with the whole thing

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Ok so I’m gonna go easy on TWATYTK and the BuddieShannon fic since we just got updates ⚡️⚡️⚡️🔼🔼🔼

But!!!! OMG can’t wait for the continuation of the Buddie scene in zombie fic so 😅!! 🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟🧟

AND CRANBERRY MY BELOVED 🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮🦮

Girl dad Buck is starting to grow on me 🪞🪞🪞🪞🪞

Aaaaand some horny Eddie as a ✨treat✨ 💪💪💪💪💪 😉

Thank you! (epicbuddieficrecs)

BEE! How did I forget this blog was you.

Ah hell yeah I love this.

9 for ⚡️:

---

Regardless, once they all get the email detailing the new coverage - in the middle of a shift in February - it’s sort of hard not to think about it in regards to them.

“This is ridiculous,” Hen grumbles, sipping her coffee and reading the email. “Why couldn’t this have happened while we were paying for IVF?”

“I thought Karen’s benefits paid for most of that?” Chim asks.

“Well, they did. But still. It’s the principle.”

Fair enough.

---

9 for 🔼:

---

“I think that’s reason enough to do it,” Shannon says, before thinking better of it.

“What?” Eddie asks, an amused tint to his voice. 

“Come on. We both agreed we’d never be hard on him the way they were hard on you,” Shannon says.

“Oh, I know.” 

“So if Ramon is anti-therapy, I say we send Chris,” Shannon says. “At least then he’ll never feel like we weren’t willing.”

“That’s a very good point.”

---

30 for 🧟:

---

“She’s alive,” Buck reminds him. “She’s alive and she’s here. You can take her to see Chris again. Isn’t that exactly what you wanted?”

Well, yes. That is true. 

“This isn’t how I wanted her to find out about me,” Eddie admits quietly. 

Buck gives him a sympathetic look. 

“I’m sorry. Kind of ripped the bandaid though, huh?”

“No kidding,” Eddie grumbles. He sighs. “You know the other one?” 

“My ex,” Buck says. “And the librarian back in Sunport. Or she was…”

Jesus Chris. What are the chances?

“This is a weird fucking day,” Eddie exhales. 

“Yep. Now come on,” Buck says. “We’ve gotta get dressed. I fully believe that woman will come back to shoot us."

▪️▪️▪️

It’s somehow just as awkward when Eddie and Buck leave the bedroom, clothed. He’s never done a walk of shame, per se, but if he had, he bets it would feel like this. Which is strange. Because he’s not actually ashamed of what they did. Or who he did it with. Being with Buck felt right. Really good and right. 

---

30 for 🦮:

---

"Not the doctors’. Just random, horrible luck.”

Buck nods. Of course it’s not their fault Daniel died. It sounds like they really did try to save him. But parents only have so much power when it comes to forces of nature, like illness. 

“I think it just fucked them up,” Eddie says. “I think it would fuck any parent up, honestly. I mean, think of all Bobby went through.”

Buck feels a twinge of guilt for saying they didn’t care if he died. He can see how that would have been salt in a never-healing wound. 

“But it’s their fault for letting that hurt you, too,” Eddie says. “They let it hurt you and continue to hurt you and that’s the problem here.”

Buck twists a little in bed to look at him. He wants Eddie to continue. Tell Buck how to feel. He trusts him. He’ll feel it. 

“I know I made mistakes after Shannon left and after she died,” Eddie says. “I let my pain dictate the choices I made. I know that.”

“Not for three decades,” Buck points out.

“No,” Eddie concedes. “But the point is, I’m sure I did things that weren’t best for Chris in the moment. But I tried. I tried like hell to do right by him. Even when it made it harder for me.”

“They did the opposite,” Buck follows.

Eddie nods. “I think they used their pain as a reason not to try.”

---

15 for 🪞:

---

“Mhm,” Buck confirms. “But we gotta ask, though. Look, he’s coming down the stairs.”

Bobby walks down towards them. Buck sets Dove back on the ground. 

“That’s my captain, Bobby.” He tells her. “Should we ask?”

Dove wipes her eyes and nods. 

“Okay, let’s do it,” Buck says. He takes her hand and walks her towards Bobby. 

“You must be Dove,” Bobby says to her, warm smile on his face. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she says, in a very tiny voice. Lacking her newfound confidence.

---

15 for 💪:

---

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says. Full of faux-innocence. He takes a step towards Eddie. “I’m just trying to make conversation.”

“Not sure I’m in the mood to talk,” Eddie replies. His voice is tighter than expected. 

“Oh?” Buck presses. “And what mood are you in?”

Buck is the most infuriating man alive. Eddie is never going on a date with him. He will date any other guy in Los Angeles. They’d all be better behaved. 

“I…” Eddie rasps. “You’re being very bad right now.”

[presidenthades]

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 7!

My original expected chapter count for this fic was 7 (one stanza of “The Song of the Seven” for each chapter title), but as I started increasing the number, I realized I needed to get creative with chapter titles. For this chapter, I picked the penultimate lyric “close your eyes, you shall not fall” because much of the chapter consists of Aegon helping Jace not “fall” into a further downward spiral, and there’s a certain amount of faith required by all parties that everything is going to be OK in the end.

Originally, Jace’s road to recovery was going to be even rougher than in the final version. She refuses to eat or drink anything, and her family gets pretty desperate to the point of doing stupid things to get her to eat. But I felt like that was unnecessary angst and trauma, and she’s already been through enough, so I dialed it back.

Similarly, she was going to have bad perinatal depression up until and after she gave birth, and there was a sequence where she refused to even hold Cheeseball for some time after he was born. But again, it made me feel like I was whumping on Jace and Aegon for unnecessary pain, so I focused more on the “comfort” rather than the “hurt” part.

This chapter is in Aegon’s POV because it was originally supposed to be the second half of Chapter 6 before I realized it was way too long. After I cut it in half, I debated rewriting it in Jace’s POV, but she’s stuck inside her head a lot this chapter whereas Aegon has a lot more action and growth. We return to Jace in Chapter 8 when she’s feeling more like herself but still recovering.

Orwyle is not a popular character in the fandom, which is understandable. He only gets like one minute of screen time, but that one minute made me think a lot about his character. When he’s a junior maester, he suggests a new poultice to try on Viserys instead of the traditional leeching method, and he shows a bit of doctorly compassion to Rhaenys when Vaemond’s body is being prepared. In the book, Orwyle’s defining trait is that he’s cowardly (he literally rewrites history to make himself look better to the Blacks, and he flees from the ship taking him to the Wall). But I was intrigued by how he ends up working at a mid-level brothel and teaches the girls there to read (how he gets caught later). He didn’t have to teach them how to read, but he chose to anyway (to his own detriment).

Overall I consider Orwyle as someone who’s very talented at his job (healing and teaching), and is actually a pretty empathetic person (good quality in a doctor), but he’s not strong-willed and is willing to cave on his principles to stay alive. Not exactly a villain, definitely not a hero either. So he’s going to do his job and do it well, regardless of his patient (especially in this AU verse where there’s less conflict).

After three years in the Stepstones, I’d be shocked if Aegon didn’t learn first aid (same with Aemond). He’s not necessarily interested in healing and such, but he’s capable of basic combat-adjacent medical tasks. So he knows how to clean and bandage wounds, and he can recognize common healing herbs.

I don’t think I need to explain that Westeros has a pretty poor understanding of mental health and doesn’t know what therapy is 😅. For most people who’ve undergone trauma, they would probably be told “carry on, as you were, etc” and they have to just “get over it.” But Jace is a princess who doesn’t have to worry about earning a living, has an overprotective husband, and is pregnant with a very important baby so her health and comfort are of paramount importance. So she luckily has a supportive environment dedicated to her recovery.

As is stated later in the chapter/fic, Jace fires her remaining LIWs because she’s convinced herself that it’s her fault they were injured/killed, and sending them away from her service will keep them safe. Irrational to be sure, but Jace has always been prone to blaming herself for things. She’s also worried that firing the LIWs will reflect poorly on them, hence her trying to compensate them monetarily. But the offer is insulting to Rhaena, who acts as a LIW primarily out of love. If Jace were more herself, she would’ve realized the implications of her offer equating Rhaena’s love/loyalty with a monetary value.

Initially, Jace’s list of “safe people” is very short: Aegon and Luce. Aegon is self-explanatory. Of all her sisters, only Luce makes the initial list because a) they’ve always been very close and b) Luce was there when they found Jace at the Garden, so there’s an added feeling of security. Although Aemond was also at the Garden, he isn’t on the list because their prior relationship wasn’t nearly as close as the other two.

When Rhaenyra touches Jace’s face while trying to feed her, Jace flips out because the Tyroshi grabbed her face when forcing down the dreamwine and later during his attempt with moon tea.

A little irony in Aegon offering to be Jace’s taste tester, when you think about how he dies in F&B 😢.

During Chapter 7 of the Handbook, Luce picks up three dragonglass daggers from the blacksmith. I mentioned them in the Handbook commentaries, but I’ll reiterate that she intended for Jace, herself, and Joff to each have one, as the three full-blooded daughters of Rhaenyra and Laenor. Jace clearly hasn’t been using her dagger, except to display it on her mantel maybe.

Daemon has decided to develop an emergency protocol in case any of the Targ girls are kidnapped again. I’ve been debating writing a oneshot about it.

Castle kitchens are hot, loud, messy places, and a princess would have no reason to ever go there. In a castle as large as the Red Keep, there are probably multiple kitchens. I imagine the Holdfast has a king’s privy kitchen and queen’s privy kitchen solely for prepping their food, and probably other kitchens too. I imagine the largest kitchens to be in the main part of the Red Keep, and that’s where Aegon puts Gyles and Ronnel. It’s a longer walk to get the pies to Jace and Aegon, but Gyles and Ronnel have a much wider social circle of other servants. It’s also where Aegon has his little office of petitions, and he likes being able to run out and grab pies whenever he wants.

Gyles and Ronnel are used to Aegon, so they’re relatively chummy with him. But they’ve never met Jace before, have only ever seen her at 1000% gorgeousness during her wedding parade, and have heard plenty of Aegon’s stories about how perfect she is. Of course they treat her with more respect and awe than they treat Aegon 😛.

I like to think that Ronnel does become a knight one day, and he wins a tourney in Jace’s name 🥰. And he’d probably take on a house name like Baker to honor his father.

I was trying to figure out how orange juice was made before things like juicers were invented. England had cider presses for apples, but citrus wasn’t really a thing for them back in the Middle Ages. Eventually I stumbled across the citrus reamer, which is definitely something they could’ve carved/created back in the day, but I COULD NOT get over how phallic it looked 😂. Naturally, Aegon finds it hilarious. I’m debating whether Gyles truly is innocent or if he’s messing with Aegon and has a great poker face.

I lingered on the details of how the pies are made because it’s important that Jace sees the process for herself and internalizes that pies are safe foods, they aren’t drugged, Gyles is trustworthy, etc.

I wanted to make sure that Jace wasn’t in a depressed, traumatized torpor all the time, because that isn’t how it works. She can have “good” moments when she’s moving around and seems normal, and then there can be “bad” moments when something triggers her, or she’s having an off day, and she spirals. The important thing is that she’s overall making progress, and it’s OK if she has days when she takes a few steps back.

We got more info in Chapter 8 on what Jace and Luce talk about in the garden. Luce is thinking about her upcoming nameday, which is the earliest date that Rhaenyra will allow her to be betrothed. But then there’s another year until her sixteenth nameday, when Rhaenyra will allow her to get married. Luce is pretty impatient, so she wants to figure out how much canoodling she can get away with during the year in between. So she asks Jace, because she’s positive Aegon didn’t keep his hands entirely to himself before the official wedding 😏.

Aegon is now very loath to ever let Jace out of his sight again, unless he’s 100% sure she’s safe in their room. The Joff incident in Chapter 9 probably doesn’t help.

Luce always haggles, even if it’s about how much distance Aegon has to stay behind her and Jace.

Aegon immediately gets bored of guard duty. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some form of ADHD: Impulsive, restless, moody, hyperfixation (usually on Jace, but he can get really into his sleuthing).

Hypersexuality sometimes occurs after trauma/sexual violence, hence Jace’s uncharacteristic behavior after the garden scene. And knowing Jace, she’s probably (wrongfully) blaming herself somehow for “leading on” the Tyroshi.

Luce heard the Langward knight gossiping about Jace and got upset, then Aemond beat up the knight to make her feel better, as one does.

Court life means people are always going to gossip and run with the most salacious rumor possible, and it reignites Aegon’s desire for a private life, where he and Jace can live according to their own devices without worrying about what other people think. Unless he pulls a Maegor, he can’t do anything to stop the courtiers from acting like courtiers. So he comes up with the Dragonstone solution, but it’s only a temporary solution. As Otto says in Chapter 10, they are inextricably a part of the game, and Aegon and Jace can only hide away in Dragonstone for so long.

When they were kids, Aegon came up with many plans that got them all in trouble, so Luce recognizes the face he makes 😝.

Aegon has a very soldier mindset of “just pack some clothes and leave,” without thinking about how complicated it is to actually pack a princess’ household. Luckily Luce knocks some sense into him!

I don’t know what winter roses are supposed to look like except that they’re blue, but I liked the idea of petals close together huddling for warmth. And I completely made up Valyrian roses. Not sure if they actually came from Valyria or if it’s named just for the appearance.

Despite everything that happened, Jace is STILL WORKING 😭. What else do we expect from a girl who worked on her wedding night, I guess…

KL has a well system (it’s a big deal during Jaehaerys’s reign), but I imagine the public wells and fountains get real dirty real fast, especially in poorer parts of the city. When Jace was at the Garden, I imagine the girls had limited clean water to offer her for drinking and washing because they have to walk pretty far for good water. So Jace is thinking about that as she writes her well cleaning proposal.

I’ve been thinking a while about writing an Otto POV fic, and one of the ideas I jotted down for myself was that Otto is secretly a nerd about public infrastructure and sanitation. Oldtown seems to be a much cleaner and better run city than KL. I like to think about Otto adopting pet projects that make the capital less smelly and dirty. So Otto is naturally a supporter of a well cleaning project, and I’ve mentioned before that he likes Jace. Also he’s very invested in the pregnancy being successful, so he’ll do his part to reduce stressors.

Once again, the key to influencing/manipulating Jace is not by appealing to her own desires, but by appealing to the happiness and well-being of her loved ones. Aegon knows this, and it’s a good thing he adores her too much to use this power for evil.

Aegon’s household is basically just Gyles and Ronnel, so his departure preparations are quick. I’m sure he has personal servants assigned to him who handle his laundry and such, but he probably bribed them years ago to leave him alone so he can have privacy and sneak out. And he became rather self-sufficient in the Stepstones (although as royalty, he would’ve had servants there too for menial stuff), so he doesn’t want anyone helping him dress or shave or bathe or whatnot.

Aemond is such a bro, holding down a knight so Aegon can beat him up 🥲. Aegon knows Jace would disapprove of him breaking someone’s jaw for gossiping so he’s careful not to leave any evidence on his person.

Aegon also knows how to push Aemond’s buttons, so he easily convinces Aemond to join the Dragonstone vacation. Aemond would probably have invited himself anyway once he found out about the guest list.

While Jace has been reducing the governing work she does during pregnancy, Rhaenyra has been doing more of it. In canon, Rhaenyra seems content to isolate herself with her family at Dragonstone, so I carried over that attitude of savoring domestic bliss into this verse. But here, Jace is an overachiever, and I think her example kickstarts Rhaenyra into being more active too. So Rhaenyra has work obligations, and social ones as she’s been ingratiating herself at court again. It would be difficult to pack up her entire household (much larger than Jace and Aegon’s) and disappear to Dragonstone for 2-3 months, so she can’t immediately leave like the kids can.

Like Aegon, Rhaenyra is a bit paranoid now about letting Jace out of her sight. She’s also had a longstanding petty grudge about Jace picking Aegon as her #1, so she strongly disapproves of Aegon’s plan to take Jace away, even though Dragonstone is very close and technically her castle.

Aegon is not what I’d call emotionally mature, and he’s a troublemaker by nature. So he deliberately responds to Rhaenyra with things he knows she’ll hate hearing. And in the end, he forces Rhaenyra’s hand by telling Jace “of course Rhaenyra would love for us to go to Dragonstone” 😇.

Poor Daeron is too pure for Daemon’s Torture 101 class. Meanwhile Joff has an avid clinical interest in human anatomy, and Daemon is having the time of his life. Targ family bonding!

The Tyroshi put a collar on Jace, so Daemon put a collar on him to make things fair.

The Tyroshi knows he’s never going to escape, and he’s already endured an awful amount of torture/mutilation. At this point his goal is to die swiftly, so he tries to provoke Aegon into killing him.

I haven’t 100% decided the Tyroshi’s backstory, but I’m imagining him coming from one of the powerful conclave families in Tyrosh. There was absolutely no need for him to go to Westeros and make money through usury and slavery; he chose to because he thought it’d be fun to “get one over” the Targaryens by conducting a trafficking ring in their own capital (I imagine Tyrosh having an ancestral hatred of Valyrians, even though a lot of their culture was inherited from them as a result of being part of their empire). Just in case it wasn’t clear what kind of sadistic sociopathic person he is.

Joff has been brooding a lot about Laenor’s death ever since they found Old Willow, and now her guilt is carrying over into recent events with Jace.

We will learn more about the wet nurse in Aegon’s memory in future fics 👀. She calls him “Uncrowned One” because in this verse, he’ll be another Aegon the Uncrowned.

“Three children you shall have with your wife, black or green or something in between.” In canon, Aegon has three kids with Helaena. In this verse…well, I feel like I’ve dropped a lot of foreshadowing about him and Jace 😊. “In between” refers to how there isn’t a strong black/green divide in this verse, but there’s a new faction (gold) that includes people on both sides.

“All of them shall break like your legs and wings.” In canon, all of Aegon and Helaena’s children die terribly, and Aegon and Sunfyre end up crippled. In this verse, there is a close call during Cheeseball’s birth; if the maester and midwives had chosen to save Jace, the process for extracting a stuck baby is really gruesome.

“Unless you keep this little shadow close to the sun.” Jace has gotten a lot of sun imagery in this fic, and Joff is kinda obviously the shadow. It’s because of Joff’s intervention that the birth ends well. So there’s a way to avoid the “broken” part of the prophecy, but the condition must be met.

Aegon is a skeptic when it comes to witchcraft and prophecy, but there’s a reason his subconscious brings to the memory at this moment. Don’t leave Joff behind!

Aemond finds it extremely undignified that Vhagar, the largest dragon in the world and a veteran of multiple military conflicts, has been relegated to delivering baggage.

The stained dancing slippers that Jace finds in her room at Dragonstone are the same slippers that someone (Luce) accidentally ruins in Chapter 3 of the Handbook.

Valyria is strongly inspired by Classical Greece and Rome, so I decided to give them Roman-style bathhouses, which were often decorated with mosaics and has a hot room, warm room, and cold room. The Targs (or whoever built the castle) imported this to Dragonstone, and the volcano means they can get hot water very easily. Aegon was in the guest quarters last time he visited so this is his first time seeing the family bathhouse.

Some commenters suggested that Luce and Aemond are probably canoodling during their trips to the Dragonmont. There might be some of that going on, but Aemond is a huge dragon nerd, so I can imagine him geeking out about exploring the Dragonmont while Luce is disgruntled about him being oblivious to her attempts to make out 😂.

Gerardys is hoping that Jace will be OK with him and the midwives helping her by the time it’s time to give birth. But in case she isn’t OK, he decides to put one of the Targ girls on a midwifery fast-track. He picks Baela because she’s the strongest of the bunch, and acting as a midwife can be very physically exhausting.

Meanwhile, the mysterious bangs in the tower are Joff and Daeron trying to figure out ways to light the glass candle. This involves blowing up some stuff along the way.

Hyrkoon the Hero is part of ASOIAF lore, one of the potential alternative names for Azor Ahai. I decided that he’s the main character in quite a few fairy tales/myths, and every hero needs a sidekick. I invented the sidekick Santus the Swine by combining a half-pig character in Chinese folklore and Don Quixote’s Sancho Panza (whose name is supposedly derived from the Latin Sanctus), and it wasn’t until afterwards that I thought about the Pink Dread (which never happened in this universe because Jace stopped Aegon). I guess Aemond really can’t escape the pig references in any universe 🐷.

Anyway, Aegon’s really lucky he didn’t get himself and baby Jace killed when he shoved their wagon down their stairs. And Jace not being cut by the Iron Throne is a sign, maybe??? 👀👀👀 And yes, there is much symbolism in little Aegon helping baby Jace climb up the throne 🥺.

Chapter 8 commentary here

[k--havok]

The Ghost & The Machine Snippet

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Characters: Dragoon, Specter (mentioned) Word Count: 1655 Warnings: Mentions of torture and violence. Graphic depictions of sex. Mating/heat cycles/rutting. Rating: M Summary: Dragoon's patience wears thin as he faces his upcoming rut.

A small character-study I banged out in one sitting. First draft with no editing so pacing may be off and there may be typos. This was mainly practice so I thought I would share!

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Dragoon grit his fangs, the tip of his segmented tail lashing back and forth as he paced through the garden.

Despite the sunny day, with fat and fluffy clouds hanging low in the sky as a light breeze ruffled the blooming flowers which surrounded him, he could not stay still.

He could feel it. Deep in his gut. No, lower than that.

His rut. Unlike the beautiful day which surrounded him, he could feel it like a storm in the air. All-encompassing. A dark shadow. The tension within him grew moment by moment, threatening to break at any time.

Snorting furiously, Dragoon tromped up the stone-carved steps into a small gazebo, plopping himself down on the wooden planks.

The stained glass overhead painted swirls of color across the wood; cool tones of blues and purples punctuated with the warmer and friendlier golds and oranges. Normally, watching the dust catch in the different colors brought a calmness to Dragoon. He would watch in rapt attention as the motes did their dance, the usual frustration he housed melting away.

But with his rut oncoming, it did not matter what he did. No amount of breathing exercises or grounding would help him here. No aromatherapy, warm bathes, or any of the other bullshit his doctors pushed on him would help.

No, there was only one thing that would stop the oncoming rut. Female, preferable, but Dragoon was not picky.

He was infertile. He knew this logically. But his body did not seem to agree with this basic fact of life. And thus, his hormones continued to brew right below. Pumping through whatever veins he had left, both biological and mechanical.

Just the mere thought of sex. No, not even the thought. The barest whisper brought heat pooling even lower, hardening him.

Another guttural growl rumbled in Dragoon’s chest. “Damn this. Damn this. DAMN this,” he chanted, a crescendoing snarl ending each statement. He dug his over-sized claws into the wood, gouging long, hard marks into it.

Although annoying at the best of times and dreadful at the worst, normally his rut would not cause Dragoon such fury. It would impede his life for the week, causing him to seek out relief in any way he could. Sometimes, he could reach out to old contacts who were willing to spend a night or two. Other times, he prowled the streets, desperate to find someone to lay with; whether he had to pay or not did not matter to him.

When all else failed, Dragoon had his own dolls within his chambers. They were not alive. Just avatars of real life. But the sex dolls were better than his own cold, clawed hand.

But this time, he was not alone with his droids. No.

Even now, although she was not present in the garden, Dragoon could scent her.

The slight tang of magic, like the faintest taste of ozone. The sharp squeeze of lemon and linen. The sweeter, lighter notes of melon.

Specter.

The strange half-elf who somehow wormed her way beneath his being, taking place where he had a heart at one point. Her closed-lips smiles when she got to try something new. The way her eyes sparkled with both surprise and joy whenever he gave her anything; even meals.

He even enjoyed the way she looked up at him, craning her neck back so she could capture the sight of his visor despite the lack of the same humanoid emotions she had. And when she realized such, her eyes would slip down the length of his suit, her gaze seeking his tail to try and figure out what he was thinking.

Always searching, that one. Curious, but holding it back. He wished she would open up more and allow all her questions to pour from her lips.

He also wanted to touch her breasts. But Dragoon supposed that was quite normal considering the situations he found himself in with her.

Normally the surge of need was one he could redirect into something else. He would pull away from it, changing his thought process to, quite literally, anything else. But right now, his mind was playing in a loop. Like a scratching record player stuck on the needle.

He could not get his mind to wander away. To stop.

He had seen Specter’s breasts before. Twice, in fact. And the image was burned into his mind. Her creamy pale skin. The dusting of several dark moles on her chest. The rosiness of her nipples.

How would they harden beneath his touch? His tongue? He would have to be gentle with her. Oh so gentle. His suit was not meant for love, but destruction.

Even with the others he hunted for during this time, he never promised to be gentle. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He always made sure to grab onto anything else besides his partners least he render their flesh into ribbons.

Dragoon could not count the amount of times he bent metal bed frames with the strength of his hands. Dug his claws into the wall so hard he found purchase on the studs.

Not to mention the sheets and bedding he had shredded.

His partners were always on their stomach. He did not want to see their expressions as they watched a monster fuck himself into oblivion. Like some sort of beast or animal.

Yet, he wondered if Specter would finally flash her flat teeth in a smile as he positioned himself inside of her as she lay on her back for him. Would her eyes sparkle, her mouth falling open in pleasure as her entire body flushed with need as he thrust into her over and over again? Would her legs hook around his hips, her body stretching out as he chased both their orgasms into infinity?

Their orgasms. Not just his. A strange distinction for Dragoon. But he yearned to know how her mouth would form his name as she came around his cock.

And her thighs. Her beautiful, thick thighs. How he ached to see them slicked with the sweat of effort, her own juices flowing out of her, and the trails of his own remains after he fills her over and over again. They would tremble around him, her body on the brink of breaking before he takes her yet again, claiming her as his.

“Fuck,” Dragoon hissed. His cock ached where it pressed up against his suit, hard as metal and throbbing with need. His knot was so sensitive it almost hurt.

Despite the many ruts Dragoon had suffered through, he had never knotted someone before. Yet, in his fantasies, he could imagine Specter staring up at him with lidded eyes, her lips wet as she ran her tongue across them, hungry for him.

Would she even fit on his knot?

Well, if you fuck her enough, she’ll be able to take it, Dragoon thought to himself wildly, reality bleeding away. Yes, he would fuck her over and over again until she was nice and prepared for him. Until she was so slick, so empty, and so needy for him she would be begging for it.

And yet, she would still have to stretch around it. Dragoon could see her arching up off the bed, grasping for him, trying to settle him deeper into her. It would not take long after that.

In his mind, there was no threat to Specter’s clear skin. He could gleefully grab her hips, dragging her closer. He could make her entire body tremble for him as he palmed her breasts, his claws toying with her hardened and sensitive nipples. He could run his long, sharp tongue across her cheek until he found her mouth, where he would slip his tongue into her, a bastardization of a kiss. He could fuck her as hard as he wanted without threatening to shatter her pelvis.

And he could empty himself inside her, keeping her on his cock and knot for hours until she could swell with his child.

Another fantasy.

Thump.

Dragoon fell back against the wooden floors of the gazebo. Countless gouges in the wood joined him. He stared up through the stained glass. A cloud had passed over the sun, briefly blotting it out, darkening the vibrant colors which surrounded him.

Yes. He would fuck her over and over again. Keep her in his bed. She would only leave to relieve herself and when he would bathe her. At all other times, she would either be asleep beneath the sheets or filled with his knot.

He would never let anything happen to her. She would be his. His mate.

Dragoon jerked up, his suit creaking at how fast he moved. He shook his heavy head back and forth, trying to dislodge the wild and beastly thoughts.

His mate? As if she would ever yearn for something like that. It was… disgusting. Animalistic. Inhuman. Not to mention the image of having her chained to his bed, nude, and begging for him.

Ridiculous. She was not some sort of slave. He would never do that to her. Not her. Not Specter. And she would never want such a life.

She would not want to spend any time in his bed. He tried to kill her. Tortured her. Kept her against her will.

Even now, Dragoon was not sure he could let her go, even if she asked.

She was his. And no amount of scolding himself, of snarling, and growling, could stop that damning word from racing through his mind.

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

No. He could never lay with her. Already, he could barely tolerate the thought of letting her go. If he knotted her. If he spent his rut with her--

Well.

Dragoon never said he was a good man. Nor a man at all. He was a monster. A beast. An animal.

He just hoped Specter would never learn that side of him.

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[imagination-overreaction]

I've been really into Team Fortress Two lately, and seeing as I cannot get the Actual Fic Writing to go, I wanted to do a little character analysis thing as a silly, so here's my favorite tf2 pairings and how i think they'd act:

Soldier x Spy / Freedom Fries

This ship is utter chaos and honestly I love it. There's a lot of light, passive-aggressive bullying (from Spy) and a lot more heavy, just plain aggressive bullying (from Soldier) and they may seem like they want to kill each other at points. However, neither one of the two will hesistate to mow down anyone who threatens the other.

Spy is stuffy with how he shows affection, especially when there's witnesses. Maybe he moves past him a little too closely and brushes his hand on Soldier's arm as he does. Maybe he hides a small smile as he rolls his eyes at what idiotic thing his partner says. Maybe he doesn't immediately call Soldier stupid to his face when he really really wants to, because he's trying so hard. These quiet attempts at passive affection are ruined by Soldier being the antithesis of subtle, in every way imaginable.

Going off of how Soldier is with Zhanna in the comics, I wouldn't say Soldier is the most verbally affectionate person, but his constant antics and comments and death-defying combat skills would certainly help to pry Spy out of his shell just a little bit. I also think that Spy would teach him how to do a few openings on his butterfly knife. Soldier would get the quickdraw down, and possibly the basic opening. Jury's out on anything more complex than that.

Engineer x Medic / Science Party

Evil mad scientist x Morally questionable tech genius. There is no universe where this ship is bad. Well... it can end badly for other people if their forces combine, but that's how it is.

Long, coffee-filled nights in the lab, each one taking turns to listen to their partner's incomprehensible speeches full of science jargon. They nod, half understanding as the other points to different blueprints or medical diagrams, explaining concepts far beyond their own paygrade, and only mostly hold themselves back from interjecting about their own project that would go wonderfully with this one.

The night Engineer finally starts crashing from exhaustion he goes down to where Medic is in the lab and asks when he's coming to bed. Medic, being Medic, says some shit like "Oh no I don't sleep, I removed that part of my hypothalimus years ago."

Engineer says "Alright darlin', see you tomorrow," before kissing him on the head, going to bed, and not worrying about what a hypothalimus is nor how Medic is even still alive at this point.

Does Engineer somehow dodge Medic's request to be some sor tof test subject? Maybe, but there's the even higher possibility that Medic was requested to assist with Engineer's mechanical hand.

Heavy x Medic / Red Oktoberfest

What is there to say that hasn't been said already, by authors far better than i?

Evil mad scientist x All-too-willing test subject that could also crush this scientist like a bug if he chose (but he doesn't. He doesn't, because he loves this doctor). No notes, 10/10, moving on.

Sniper x Spy / Bloody Suit

Also called Spyper, which is the best ship name ever made imo.

Same Spy characterization as before, but instead of the extreme of Soldier it's the general curmudgeony attitude of Sniper. There's also a lot of bullying in this one, probably more than there is with Freedom Fries because Sniper is also not passive aggresive, he just likes to pick on Spy to get a rise out of him, and Spy likes to pick on Sniper to get a rise out of him, and so on and so forth until something is broken and they're either aggresively arguing or aggresively making out. Who's to say.

There's so many possible ships and honestly? I haven't seen a single one I could automatically dismiss (other than Scout/Spy, but Scout & Spy as a familial relationship is good). I wanna do more of these as I find more ships I like, obviously I didn't even mention anything with Demo, Pyro, or Scout, and I barely mentioned Heavy, but what can I say I'm biased <3

Part 2

[feltpool]

Psychological Torture

We see A LOT of it happening in Ep 03.

Three basic tenets of this are Separate, Isolate, and Dominate. You can also thrown in dehumanization, humiliation, and lots, lots more!

Now Crosshair took care of Separate all by himself. He’s just spent 32 rotations alone on a platform on Kamino with nothing but wind sheer and pouring rain for company.

And once he was recovered it’d have been easy to keep him Isolated in the med bay, to only have droids tend to him and not any human doctors. Once out of there the other troopers won’t interact with him. And why not? Those aren’t conscripted troopers wary of killer clones taking their jobs. He isn’t a part of Clone Force 99 now, he’s a soldier in the army of the Galactic Empire. So what grounds do other clones have for shunning him apart from following orders to do just that?

We’re led to assume that this is simply a follow on from CF99 being shunned back in Ep 01. But who benefitted from them being Isolated back then, from being Separated from the other clones? Who was Dominating them? All good questions, but not the point here.

Anyway, they sprinkle in a little Dehumanization here too. The cell-like room with a solid looking bed which is likely slightly shorter than he is tall, no blankets, no pillow, and no control of any sort. The lights come on and the alarm blares, his whole existence dictated to him by the whims of others.

His clothes differ to what everyone else there is wearing, both in his civilian dress and in his armour. There’s no mistaking him for someone else, so they all know who to avoid even if they can’t see his face or the burn on his head that hasn’t been healed up even though we know that it could be.

And even the simple pleasure of a good filling meal is denied to him. Repeatedly. But this is just a funny reference to Ep 01, right? Poor old Crosshair can’t get to eat his dinner in peace, lol!

Right?

But keeping someone hungry and weak is a well known way to break morale, to grind someone down, to make them more compliant.

Which brings us to the Dominating part. And it’s important to note that this entire episode should be viewed through the lens of knowing that Rampart already knows that the Batch are still alive. Just before Crosshair walks into Rampart’s office the first time we get a nice clear look at the datapad in his hand so we can see what it is that he’s looking at.

He knows, and he wants Crosshair to admit to knowing about it. And Wilco already knows just how well that’d be likely to turn out for him. Maybe not right away, Rampart wants to wipe out the Batch first, but that fate would be waiting for him.

So Rampart is making his life hard in order to try to make him crack, to be willing to give up any information on the Batch that he knows. Contacts, friends, hideouts, resources, habits, any scrap of anything that they might have revealed to him when he last saw them.

Because he knows the team like no one else does, their tactics, their weaknesses. Just what it is that they do, and how. Cody knows them as in he knows who they are, but he hasn’t worked with them. He tried to once before but that didn’t work out as planned.

But Rampart wants them destroyed and he isn’t about to trust Crosshair with that job again, not after his previous failures. So he’s going to try a different tactic

So, stripped of his name and his former rank, and receiving some mild mockery in the process with a side hint that if he’s a good boy he could get one of those things back, he gets sent off to meet a familiar face. Probably the only person on the whole of Coruscant who knows Crosshair in any way at all

Which is where Cody is sent in. To play the role of The Friendly Face, the offerer of sympathy, of someone to talk to, someone who understands.

And Crosshair waits for him, watching troopers pass by together. How long he has to wait there with the longing to be a part of that again growing we have no idea

But when he does show up Cody repeats the exact same line that Rex drops when he runs into the Batch again in the bar. Aww, how cute. Nice and familiar, and such a subtle way to make us associate him with someone we know to be a good man fighting the good fight.

And he tells Crosshair he specifically asked for him, tries to make him feel wanted, then gives him an opportunity to volunteer information on the Batch having gone rogue, Cross counters with it not just being them going AWOL and says they’re traitors. Drops in the quip about the Jedi having been traitors too.

Sure, he knows it’ll hurt Cody to hear it, but they’re both sounding each other out here. Each one trying to see where the other’s loyalties actually lie. Neither one of them wanting to look the other in the face while they do it, only allowing themselves sliding sideways glances. Trying to see something in the other without giving anything away themselves.

Cody sees that this isn’t getting him anywhere and drops ‘good soldiers follow orders’ followed by Cross’s ‘mm-hmm’ of neither agreeing or disagreeing and the accompanying scowl at Cody’s back.

.

And off they go to Desix, directly mirroring the scene where Cody explains the first mission we see them go on all the way back in S7.

And this is a nicely familiar job isn’t it? Battle droids. Just like the old days. How touching!

Now, Cody doesn’t just look around and give orders here, he turns to Crosshair, treats him like an equal, allows him to make suggestions, to be a part of the mission he’s commanding. But when Crosshair asks him to trust him he sounds far from thrilled at the idea. Says he makes life ‘interesting’ But he has a job to do here so he goes with it. What choice does he have?

And Crosshair does his job, and does it well. Never misses a shot and headshots every time. Even as out of practice as he currently is after all that time away. And Cody is quick to compliment him. Good shot, good boy, pat on the head and a biscuit for you my lad!

But Crosshair stays mission focused, doesn’t preen or pose even though he knows how excellent a shot that was, doesn’t let Cody distract him with praise.

And Cody drops it.

And then they’re on the stairs, and this time it’s Crosshair’s turn to test Cody. Because that droid has him by the throat, but he doesn’t draw his sidearm and shoot it, he doesn’t kick it or push off the wall behind him to try to throw it down the stairs, and we’ve seen him throwing droids around in the past. He’s no weakling. But instead he calls to Cody, appeals to him to help.

And he does help him

But that’s when Crosshair messes up. Exposes himself. He lets Cody see the trick with the reflectors and you can practically see the cogs turning in his head as he suddenly realises how come the Elite Squad didn’t take down any of the Batch back on Kamino. Knows that one shot from Crosshair is all he’d need to take down all 4 of them in one go, all he needs is a line of sight. ES-02 might have been able to report that the Batch and Crosshair were fighting a bunch of combat droids in that room, that she herself had to flee to survive. But she couldn’t have explained how come all of her squadmates had gone down and no one else had done.

But now he knows, or is at least starting to.

In the Governors office Cody then does his best to appeal to Tawni Ames, to persuade her to roll over and let the Empire have what it wants. Oh sure, it all sounds reasonable, who wants a war? But she’s being offered nothing in return for her surrender with or without the Untitled Goose Game meme reference.

And as soon as Grotty threatens Cody with being reprimanded for disobedience Crosshair shoots her. But only once a brother is threatened. And Crosshair already knows what that’s like, being unjustly punished for disobedience. We’re told from the start he disobeys orders. But never what orders, or why he’d choose to, only that he does. And if there was a legit reason for it, they’d have told us what orders he’d refused to obey in the first place.

But Crosshair had Cody’s back, just like he had Hunter’s back in the training room.

And we close in on Cody looking down at Tawni Ames smoking body while dramatic music plays in the background. His face shifts slightly as he stands there thinking things through, and juuuuuust as the screenwipe is about to happen, just for a few frames, Cody starts to frown.

Blink and you’ll miss it

By the shuttle he gives a pained look after Crosshair passes. He hasn’t made what comes next easy for him, but he has a job to do and he’s going to do it.

Does he have a pang of conscience seeing the fresh troopers arrive, seeing Grotty overseeing them, knowing that he helped to make this possible? It sure looks that way, doesn’t it.

And we return to the memorial where Cody questions whether he’s doing the right thing, whether they’re making the world a better place. Talks about making choices and having to live with them too, while not being able to do more than glance at Crosshair while he says it.

Because he already knows he’s about to go straight to Rampart’s office to report in and tell him all about how Crosshair took out his Elite Squad with just one shot and this super special trick he’s super good at.

To sell him out completely and utterly.

Because Cody is a soldier of the Empire, and he’s doing the job he’s been ordered to do. And good soldiers follow orders. Whether they like them or not.

.

And we return to the torture process once more. Separation, dehumanization, and the denial of basic needs. And he looks scared when his number is called, just for a moment. But he steels himself for what’s about to happen, for how badly this might be about to go.

And boy has Rampart’s attitude to Crosshair worsened when he sees him in his office the second time. Far more mocking and dismissive of him than before. He’s refused to be Dominated, has stood his ground regardless of the opportunities presented to him to take the easier way out.

So Rampart doesn’t so much as look up at him when he enters, keeps turned away from him, only glances at him as and when the conversation requires it. Keeps his attention fixed on the datapad in his hand despite the fact that there can’t be anything left on that report that he hasn’t already read by this point. Pretends not to know Cody’s name, smug little grin, laugh and tut from Rampart. Oh these silly clones, acting like they’re actual people, with names and such. Lol!

Oh no, Cody isn’t here anymore, and isn’t it weird how these clones around you just keep on disappearing. (Like I don’t know exactly where this one just went)

But don’t worry, I’m still going to assign you work. And I won’t at all be trying to give you enough rope to hang yourself with, to see if you can be caught in the act of doing something you shouldn’t, or trying to get a good close look at how you what you do. Oh no, of course not!

Now go away.

.

And with Cody reported as being AWOL Rampart is free to deny that any action he partakes in has anything to do with him or any order he issued, and he won’t hesitate to Wilco him when he’s done in order to keep it all secret.

[lunarianebula872]

so who wants to learn how @aimeelouart 's Calamity Zack and Cursed Cloud met this little Cloud? Well it was because that little Cloud's Sephiroth was angry and seeking aid because he didn't want kids to go through what he, Angeal, and Genesis went through and when Calamity Zack and Cursed Cloud were in his world he asked for their help to see if there were any kids Hojo kidnapped to use as experiments and it turns out there was

Sephiroth is angry about that and instead of marching off to behead Hojo he looks straight at Cursed and asks "would you like to do the honors?" As he wonders if maybe killing Hojo could aid Cursed of any Hojo related trauma by letting Cuesed kill the scientist however he makes sure to figure out if the kids were even alive however only finding out that two kids were still alive [Cloud and Zack]

Sephiroth quickly escorts Zack to a doctor who won't go to science and goes back to Cloud where he overhears Cloud talking to Calamity Zack about how they're so cool and such and that Cursed Cloud is to cool to be called a curse [bless your heart little chocobo], if wondering where Angeal and Genesis are is they made a distraction via letting the specimens out to cover Sephiroth and Cursed Cloud's tracks as that world's Kunsel fucks up the cams

Sephiroth after the events takes Cuesed Cloud and Calamity Zack up with little Cloud to the room where Little Zack is so they both can be updated on the situation this is where Sephiroth steps up and mentions he'll take two little ones in and looks at Cursed Cloud and Calamity Zack for some parental advice if they have any [unaware he's speaking to dads here lol] Angeal, Genesis, and Kunsel come in and state they will aid Sephiroth with the kids when Sephiroth is on mission and if needed they will take turns [Kunsel here ends up becoming Uncle Kuns]

[Sephiroth and his partners and friend suddenly getting bombarded by tons of dad info would be straight up funny] Sephiroth showing he does care for those around him but is still his awkward self as well however he gets called 'the protective silver dragon' at this point as he basically does his damn hardest to care for his adopted two sons

Calamity Zack at some point in time will notice that Sephiroth ain't resting much as he works a whole lot but also spends most if not all his free time with his partners, kids, and friend to the point he needs a break [the silver dragon needs a good nap lol] so Calamity Zack asks Angeal, Genesis, and Kunsel when they have their days off so Sephiroth would get some sleep but also help with a schedule

Sephiroth out of the blue since Calamity Zack is trusting would ask when Calamity Zack isn't busy to watch the two only when he isn't busy and if he wants to and that he's even willing to pay Calamity Zack and even make sure Calamity Zack even has lunch himself while babysitting [geez Sephiroth going to town on the dad instincts but also the abilities of cooking that Angeal bestows apon him so the kids are fed and even the babysitter]

Sephiroth at random does mention that he doesn't know if he's doing to much or to little so he might need more tips but even some tricks if needed.

I think Cursed Cloud is proud of the two little ones for making Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis become dads [who take their parental tasks very seriously just like their jobs since they love their kids dearly and Kunsel is being a great uncle to them] though one thing's for sure is that he probably didn't expect the firsts to go head first into but they did anyway [Cursed Cloud got like eight to go boxes full of food Angeal and Sephiroth made as a thank you for the help on top of that even let Cursed Cloud nap on the comfy reclining couch]

alright so it's 7:10am and I'm going to sleep because I haven't went to bed [I really need to fix my sleep schedule I swear, anyways enjoy this concept]

[lorezhaze]

🌟🪻 General Roleplay Inquiry Post 🌀

intro & info:

Lo, 22, he/they, EST time zone.

Very minimal triggers and limitations, 19+, 3rd person literate writing (at least a paragraph), discord only.

mxm or nbxm, I hardly ever do straight or lesbian ships (I’m just not as good as writing it).

I love world building and knowing the other character’s feelings. I also love getting to know my roleplay partners and becoming friends of sorts + a sucker for creating playlists and Pinterest boards.

NSFW scenes and/or undertones/themes at some point. I do like smut, especially paired with angst and certain dynamics, but if that isn’t your thing and our writing styles are otherwise compatible we can always keep it limited or fade to black.

CW(!): From here down, my plots or OC’s backgrounds may contain triggering content, I attempt to remain vague and non-descriptive given these are just outlines!

plots i’m willing to explore:

Stalker falls in love with someone, all falls apart when things go too well and their obsession crosses paths with them and they eventually go out, but break up. The stalker is determined to watch over their lover while also keeping others away from them until they “come to their senses” on their own time.

Son of a rich politician falls in love with a narcoleptic sex worker he hires.

Alternatively, an older man with a successful career, empty marriage and multiple kids ends up falling in love with a slightly younger intersex and narcoleptic sex worker, the first and only sex worker he hires (think Stan and Angel from Pose vibes).

Post-apocalyptic setting, final survivor of a run down camp continues to live among the undead of their loved ones. another survivor from a nearby camp stumbles upon the ruins of the previous camp while scavenging and sees someone alive on the other side of the fence, living with the dead as if they were dead as well. Day by day they come back, bringing their new things, trying to bring some life back into them again. 16th-19th century setting:

Enemies to lovers, a member of the royal family ends up falling for a knight that saves their life, unfortunately, this knight just happens to be the royal’s childhood enemy.  

The youngest son of a royal is 7th in line for the throne and has health issues, thus has no chance of inheriting the throne. in attempts to grasp onto any bit of power his father has, the royal marries off his frail and feminine son as a wife to a prince of another territory, an upcoming heir of a throne (loosely inspired by sporus and nero).

The King allowed his son (Lucien) to be abused by his painting instructor growing up, all this rage builds up and explodes when Lucien tries to convict his instructor, but the King instead pardons the boy’s abuser during a set of public trials outside the castle. Lucien, a teenager and young Prince at the time, kills his father in front of everyone, unintentionally becoming King himself from then on. Despite exiling his abuser after the bloody trial, the then Prince, now King is seen as cruel and scary, not to be crossed even nearly ten years later. Meanwhile, a citizen with a sick sister is caught stealing medicine. Being on trial with King Lucien is scary enough, but medicine thieves in particular are known to be punished heavily, since the Princess, who is one of the only people thats kind to the prince-now-king, makes a majority of the medicine available. During a public trial, the thieve’s mother pleads for his life and Lucien realizes that the thief is someone he knew, that he had recognized those fearful eyes from somewhere else. He was amongst the crowd when he killed his own father. He spares the thief, and allows the best doctors to treat his ill sister. As long as he works directly for him in the castle until his debt is repaid.

It is tradition for the royal family to keep their children within the gates of the castle and away from the public eye until they are grown enough to handle it. The Princess was introduced to society at the age of 13, but every year the reveal of their younger and troubled son (Lucien) his delayed for various vague reasons. Everyone is both eager and suspicious, which doesn’t help matters. This is when the royal parents essentially give up when the boy turns 21, allowing him out with no announcement to the public. While practically frolicking through the flowery fields, enjoying the feeling of the grass and the new sights, he has a love-at-first-sight moment with another boy (your character). This is just an ordinary boy from a hard working family, and since the Prince was never revealed, he has no idea the boy he’s immediately smitten with is the Prince everyone is eagerly awaiting to meet. That is until he finds out, obviously. Misc:

(Movie theme) The Hunger Games, two people from opposite teams. Queer themes; gay men, trans person called upon as their assigned gender at birth.

(Movie theme) 50 first dates: (OC: Meadow-Lane) - unfinished/rough draft idea.

(Movie theme) Ego: Character A gets hurt and temporarily loses their vision. While their wealthy parents look for a medical solution, they have them live in the guest house and hire a caregiver, character B, to stop by everyday and take care of them. Naturally, character a and the caregiver get close, but there’s a big problem: character A is a superficial, seemingly shallow and straight. As a result, character B feels pressured to lie about their identity and what they look like when character A tries to guess what they are like.

I’m more than willing to hear out any of your plots/ideas as well!

OCs (Pinterest boards linked!):

Lucien - Royal prince held under the control of his King father, struggles from physical and mental disabilities from past abuse. Abuse via paint instructor creating a complicated relationship with art.

Lena - Delusional obsessive-compulsive stalker with dangerous tendencies/habits, they/them pronouns (unlabeled).

Emrys - GNC bisexual man, caregiver, related to Lena (older half-sibling)

Celeste - Post-apocalyptic OC, unlabeled/gnc, 27, loses their mind after their family, friends and everyone else in their survivalist camp perishes, but continues to live among them as if they’re dead as well, numb and on auto-pilot mode.

Emmy - Intersex narcoleptic sex worker, 22, he/she/they pronouns. adopted into and estranged from a wealthy well-known family after their biological father died overseas and they were taken from their mother by the system.

Daniel Laurie - Cisgender bisexual man that typically presents as straight, coparenting his daughter aged 6, severe daddy issues and a hard past/upbringing despite being the only son in a wealthy family.

Damon - Cis bisexual male working crime scene data analysis by day while performing annual vigilante killings by night, hoping one day he’ll have somehow got to at least one of his past abusers that he can’t recall the faces of. Struggles with PTSD, paranoia and mild facial blindness from past abuse via his step-father and others he called upon.

Del - Cis gay male, bloodluster (custom hybrid species, more species info included w/ full bio). Mother died shortly after he was born and was raised as an experiment by who he assumed was his father only to escape after he attacked and ate him. Survives off human blood and flesh, doesn’t like to hurt anyone and is terrified of someone else just as awful as his mad father finding out of his existence.

Alexei - Trans hunger games victor from district 6 (transportation/metal-workers, modifying the district to work on the production of transportation as well as the train tracks to give them a little bit more of a purpose). name was pulled for the hunger games a few days short of their 19th birthday, which also sparks their journey with their gender identity + presentation.

Meadow-Lane: Severe short term memory loss, free spirit.. (more info coming soon)

Xena - Trans femme black vampire (more info coming soon)

feel free to inquire for full bios of characters!

fandoms/ships i’m willing to explore:

(bolded characters are those i’m willing to write as)

OFMD Izzy/Blackbeard Izzy/Blackbeard/Stede Izzy/Lucius Jim/Lucius

HANNIBAL Will/Hannibal

MR ROBOT Tyrell/Elliot

Candy Shop AU: No 5/9 hacks or fsociety, Tyrell runs a Swedish sweets/candy store that lately Elliot frequently visits for the same fix of cherry hard candies, and to steal glances at the good-looking store clerk. After talking it out in therapy, Elliot’s therapist, Krista, convinces him talk to him and be honest about how he feels.

Post-Apocalypse AU: After the world goes to shit whatever left of New York that wasn’t completely ruin down by the undead is primarily taken over by a few different groups. When Elliot’s group becomes completely run down with major fatalities, Tyrell’s group (which he happens to lead) decides to lend a hand to an old friend. Little does Tyrell know Elliot was injured in the attack, and little does Elliot know the infection is less straight forward than they anticipated.

UNTIL DAWN Josh/Chris Josh/Mike

(Post-prank, twins live) Josh is the openly gay friend in the group, Mike becomes curious after walking in on Josh hooking up with someone at a party and later can’t get it out of his head.

SCREAM Billy/Stu

Other beloved honorable mentions include: Killing Eve, Sally Face, Yellowjackets, The Wilds, Sherlock, Life is Strange (Nathan and Warren) and sometimes Harry Potter (Drarry)

[red-dyed-sarumane]

marshall maximizer is a series song right. i think thats the only one ive listened to (yet), un:c did a good cover of it ...... what are ur thoughts on it whats it about . kicking my legs in the air

YES YES MARSHALL MAXIMIZER IS A SERIES SONG. theres so much going on in it u have no idea yes the song fucks verily but holy shit is it so important to the story.

okay so i think i need to give like. a quick reminder of the story here right. so u have "a certain world" & basically these people onset the destruction of said world such that it basically crumbles to pieces & then disappears. tragic. okay. but theres a catch. they get more than one chance to try. when one iteration of the world ends instead of really dying they kind of just. wake up in a new version. the world's still going to end in the day, but they get another chance to try and save it. the only real thing about it is any given person still has to have sight of their own goals or they aren't allowed to wake up next time & they disappear as well. this is, in the original song and afterwords referred as as being a "person" and having "one's self" or not having your self & being a "thing".

marshall maximizer is the explanation of this phenomenon (the later song laboratory being the demonstration of this concept btw to build off what this song says) among other things.

ill get to the lyrics in a second but the thing that always gets me about this song is the text in the middle of the video that's a conversation between two people. idk how to even go about this i just want to quote the whole thing at u. the beginning of its the narrator (perhaps not the same one as the lyrics but i cant prove or disprove this) trying to figure out the whole thing and the person working with them- referred to as "doctor"- basically says choosing who u are is an impossibility and if u cant prove ur alive of ur own volition then u arent even truly "alive" & won't have a place in heaven or hell. the narrator then asks the doctor to prove if he's alive for himself to which he doesnt answer and the narrator goes "Doctor, you have the appearance of a human. But, what of the possibility you're a 'thing' someone created?" to which the doctor answers "and if im not a 'person'?" and the narrator continues "Just as an example. Doctor, you said 'I chose this job in order to go to heaven.' And the reason you stay here is because 'if i can go to heaven, then it's fine to die,' right?" after this the doctor still cant give a solid answer and when the narrator looks for him again, he's disappeared entirely. which is nearly one to one with what the girls in the songs are going through. the doctor wasnt really doing it for himself he was doing it simply to achieve an end, with no real strong desire or goal along the way, which essentially turns him into a mere tool or 'thing' to achieve that end. much like the girls in the songs; they have to have something in it for themselves or they're a mere "thing" to be used, and at that point they'll disappear entirely.

theres also flashing text of 2 kanji words at the end that are a lot less profound but do give some insight on the series. the terms are broken up a series of three question marks & im willing to bet its describing the timelines in the story. the first 5 words regarding observing the failures of the past, the next 11 dealing more with what sounds like the more modern songs & all the confusion & rash decisions bringing them to their end, and then the last 15 words possibly being from the sort of future or at the very least whatever point in time the first song takes place in as it seems to lineup the most with shoushitsu itself. but its not like its as important to this song's understanding as the mini novel in the middle is.

so whats up with the lyrics then. as u can guess its not as fun as the song sounds. theres a lot of mentions of experiments in this song & ive seen people say its like the demon core thing irl, but i need u to understand the while series been talking about science experiments the whole time. like. all of aru sekai shoushitsu is talking about it, kyuuyaku is talking about it, shuuen touhikou is to some extent talking about it, oumen is, apoptosis is, etc etc this is just par for the course okay, but it does show maximizer in particular does have direct influence on experiments being performed or at least attempted. she is pretty casual about how she talks about it btw the character in this song gives me a very easy going type of vibe with how she talks which is probably why the song itself is the way it is and not like something that fills u with dread the entire time. though i would argue parts of the instrumental do sound like theres a bit of weight in them and its not ALL party time vibes.

one thing i do want to point out in regards to both the lyrics and the people vs thing topic, are the lines "ki ga kuruu HITO no furi wo shiteiru KIMI wo miteiru" (observing You pretending to be a Person gone mad) and "ki ga kuruu HITO no mane wo shiteiru KIMI e" (to You who's imitating a person gone mad) where both the words for person and you are in katakana drawing emphasis to it as well as mirroring how the "people' vs "thing" is written in both the background texts & previous songs. which is to say the narrator here is very aware of this other person not actually being a person. the implications here that since its "pretending to be a person" the "you" is a…. perhaps less direct way of calling out that its a "thing" or in completely transparent terms, is a person not acting on their own will and doomed to disappear. similar to this is the most recognizable lyrics in this song the "tabete sugu nete ushi ni naru/ okite mata nete hito de nashi?"(eating, falling right asleep, becoming a cow/ waking up, sleeping again, is that so inhuman?) is also calling on that "person" aspect, although not as strongly as hito uses the kanji this time rather than katakana. in any case she's still making the claim that despite all the horrors going on she's still acting as she pleases so she should still count as a person……right?(spoilers she does)(this isnt really spoilers because its told to u by the fact the nami no ne no motif is in the song) but it DOES show she's a little worried about it. not enough to full out panic but she sees other people no longer counting as people it makes sense she's going to worry about herself.

likewise the lines in the chorus "nante koto da! shindeshimau!"(what the hell is this! we'll die!" is much more likely referring to the fact if they arent "people" they disappear and are REALLY dead & is kind of worrying over that. like the line later what the hell is this! we'll live! is not really rejoicing at a percieved break in the case so much as realizing she DOES have her own goals in it and she's not about to disappear just yet.

and then of course i cannot overlook that this is also Sunk Cost Fallacy:The Song. the whole "sunk coster, sunk costess! 'i want to return to the isotope we had at the end!' 'we're falling to the worst of hell! falling!' but a dazzling unbalance diverged farway!" like on top of all of this she's still going to run the experiments that are risking her literal self to whatever extent that she invests herself in them. she cant give up yet. they've put so much into trying to correct this disaster, lost so many people, endured so much trauma, even when continuing is a sin, there's no other option but to continue at this point. even when they know it's pointless, even when they can see (to take imagery from kanon) the scales have been upset & the outcome will never be good, theres no other option.

theres a bit more to it but that requires getting sources from other songs & its not overly huge details its probably fine to leave them out for now this is long enough as is. one thing i do want to mention is its one of the side songs(songs that are not directly linked to aru sekai shoushitsu itself/not one of the kanji songs that links to certain lyrics in it) that has alliteration in the title (ma ma) as a way of keeping with the "repeating fractals" theme in the series. which to me implies this situation is not particularly unique to this character as some other songs are (oumen especially, touhikou, ashura, etc)(apoptosis i have an argument to make about but thats another topic entirely) and while maybe not 1:1 it can also be applied to other chara's experiences, or maybe implies its happened at other parts of the timeline as well. which makes sense since its common knowledge among the charas that some people are not "people" anymore so yeah i can imagine them keeping watch on coworkers they think are losing or have lost their selves. that doesnt make maximizer a general song though this is still VERY MUCH a subjective song from a particular chara's perspective & leaves things out & emphasizes others accordingly.

anyway my opinion on this song is that its VERY good and VERY important to get a good look at the story. the instrumental behind the tabete sugu nete ushi ni naru parts scratches my brain & the inclusion of the series "this chara lives" motif drives me insane.10000/10 everyone should like this song.

[yearofradicalselfbelief]

Part One - 19/08/23 - the purpose of this blog.

CW: mentions of suicidal ideation (from the past). No gory details, though. Be safe, don't read if it's going to trigger you 💜

Six years ago, I was suicidal. Sometimes depression means actively wanting to die, and sometimes it means just not particularly wanting to be alive, and back then mine got so bad that I toppled strongly, face-first, into the former category. It had been a chronic sort of “thing” for years before that – since my pre-teen years, really – but a combination of lots of concurrent outside events, and an inability to find a doctor who’d listen to me (and therefore medicate me) really sent me spiralling while I was at university, and it culminated in that, by the time I hit my third year. By then, I was leaving my bed only to go to class – on the days I wasn’t too anxious to attend class – I was only writing if not writing would eventually mean answering to an angry course leader, and when I wasn’t forcing myself to sleep until I physically could not sleep any longer (my personal best was a stretch that surpassed twenty-four hours, and I ended up entirely nocturnal at one point, which uh…probably didn’t help), I was wishing I was asleep.

Looking back on it now, none of it actually seems real. It doesn’t seem like a memory, but rather a very, very bad dream. I couldn’t bear being awake, I couldn’t bear being alive, and so I had a plan, and I had a deadline (for lack of less apt phrasing) by which I needed to carry out said plan, and I had the tools I needed for it. All I lacked was the courage. Now that I’m no longer in that headspace, I can absolutely see that courage was not the right word for what I lacked at the time, but it was what I called it back then, as I spent countless days curled up on my bed, staring at the wall in silence, both willing myself to move and forcing myself to stay absolutely still because I was afraid of what I might do if I did eventually find that will to move. It was that grappling, as well as sheer religious faith that my gods were indeed with me, that stopped me from doing something very, very stupid.

As far as the details of that deadline are concerned, I’m not going to get into them because it doesn’t really matter…and I don’t want to offer up any inspiration for people who might currently be struggling with what I grappled with back then. But the deadline approached, the “courage” did not, and I quickly began to realise that I was at a sort of crossroads. Either I’d do it, and…well, no “and”. That was sort of the point, wasn’t it?

Or I wouldn’t do it. That was the only alternative, and as my window of opportunity was beginning to shut, I was having to seriously grapple with the fact that it was really beginning to look like I wouldn’t do it. However deeply and endlessly thankful I am for that fact now, back then it filled me with dread and foreboding. Because not doing it would mean more of the dreaded “this”, and “this” was unbearable. “This” being the way my life was back then. So the only real alternative (other than the one I was failing to work up the “nerve” to turn to when it really came down to it) was to change “this”.

That was when I made a deal with myself – and the making of this deal is the only part of these memories that feels real to me now. The deal was pretty simple. With one of my two “options” there was no half-assing it, and there was no going back afterwards. On a very literal, physically possible level. When you check out, there’s no checking back in. So why did the other option have to be any different? Why did that have to be a half-assed sort of weary existence until some outside force put my out of my misery for me?

No. When I scraped together every little shred of hope that I could muster, I told myself this. That if I chose life (insert Trainspotting montage here), I’d have to really choose life. I’d have to go for what I wanted, all or nothing, and really fucking go for it, because if I was going to throw my hands up and do this thing – and live – I’d have to give it my fucking all, because that was all I was going to accept from myself if I was going to insist on sticking around.

The deadline came and went, and I was still around, so I had to make peace with the deal I’d taken.

And this isn’t a Disney movie, right? The depression didn’t disappear. It was never quite as bad as it got in the run-up to the “deadline”, but it was still bad. As a stroke of luck, a couple of months later I finally got a doctor who would actually listen to me, got me medicated the first day I stepped into her office, and set up weekly follow-up appointments so she could keep an eye on me and be a lifeline while I was on a waiting list for proper mental health services. I also ended up living with my brother full-time (as opposed to between uni semesters, as before) which was a godsend because he's my best friend, and he's been through almost everything I have, as far as family is concerned anyway, so there's an inherent understanding there that I can rarely find with others.

The meds got me sleeping properly again (because after graduation I shifted from sleeping constantly, to sleeping two nights a week maximum – in six hours per night – the rest all coming from fitful naps), and they got me to a place where I could begin doing the work that would help the rest fall into place. Therapy, writing again (writing daily, no less, by the time I’d been on the meds for a year or two), seeing friends, taking joy in things. They also helped me build up the strength that I’d need to face what was still on the way – because between then and now, I had to face untangling myself from an abusive living situation, cutting off family members who I’d once been very close to once I saw (at the behest of a therapist) how their treatment of me had played a very big role in the state I’d ended up in, and then the homelessness that all of that spawned.

Getting better basically coincided with spending a good few consecutive years entirely in survival mode. I kept myself together as best I could, ended up obsessed with constant writing and working out as a way to distract myself from everything else happening on the outside, and I was pretty deservedly proud of myself for my much healthier coping mechanisms than the ones I’d used to get through uni.

When I look at where I was then, and who I was then, compared to now, I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved. My mental health is still very wobbly, but it’s not what it was back then – which was un-fucking-survivable – and now I’m writing again (back then it was a major win if I wrote once a week), in fact I’m writing more than ever. I have a novel in the beta reader stage. I’m exercising weekly now, which I never did back then. I’m happy to be alive now, which is something I never thought I’d be able to say back then.

But I’m still not where I want to be. I mentioned that I’ve just spent a few years living in survival mode – right up until I ended my bout of homelessness and sofa surfing by moving cities (and countries) to come and live with family instead. The thing about survival mode is, though, when you’ve lived like that for so long – longer than I even originally realised – it doesn’t just “turn off”. For months and months after I moved and life settled down, I had to grapple with symptoms of C-PTSD that still crop up every now and then, because my brain doesn’t know how to adjust to quiet and relative peace now.

It took some work to get through that – and honestly I don’t yet know if I am fully through it, it comes and goes – but now, for now, things are quieter, and I’m left at sore risk of growing stagnant now that I’ve let myself have a well-deserved bit of peace and quiet. I’m at risk of forgetting the deal I made with myself.

I’m so used to just surviving, and to being on edge, and to doing all of that against a back-drop of near permanent, crippling self-doubt, that I’ve forgotten how to actually live my life. At present, my life revolves around getting my novel finished and sent to agents, but I’m not even managing that because of that crippling self-doubt that was just a sort of background problem while I dealt with a lot of far more pressing things.

I wouldn’t change anything I’ve been through. Any of it. At all. I learned a lot of lessons from it, but I also now need to accept that I’m not going through any of it anymore. And I need to start building what comes next, because this period of peace that I’ve carved out for myself now is hardly going to last forever. And I keep remembering that damn deal, as I sit back and I let anxiety slow down my novel writing progress to a glacial pace. I know I’m a good writer, but with the novel in particular, every sentence I write is hounded by a constant stream of “this is never going to get published, no publisher will want this”, and given that having books on shelves in shops is my one and only life dream, it’s just no fun to sit and tell myself.

So, this week, I’ve been asking myself what if I just gave myself a year – just one single year – of radical self-belief? What if, for the next year, I approached all of my goals like I couldn’t possibly fail them? What if I just gave myself a fucking chance? A chance I owe to myself from six years ago, who resolved to give my present self a fighting chance at doing this thing?

That’s what I want to do. From now, until September 2024, I want to behave as though I can’t lose. Because that’s the only way I’m going to win. I want to stop fear from tainting every single damn thing I do. And the fear, and the anxiety, and the depression, they’ll still be there. But they don’t have to dictate. They don’t have to paralyse. I’m not saying I think I’ll have achieved all of my life’s dreams 12 months from now, but I am saying I’ll have done far more to get there than I will if I keep allowing the fear to dictate what I do and don’t do. I need a reset. I need to shake off the last few years.

Most of all, I need to keep myself accountable. Because it’s all well and good to vow this sort of thing to yourself, but eventually you forget about it, you get tired, and you default to old ways. I no longer have my WordPress blog up (and honestly I don’t need all of the snoopers from IRL from my WordPress blog to be reading this anyway, because this is far more personal than I’d be willing to get on there), so that’s what I’m doing here. Holding myself accountable, and resolving to do this fucking thing. All of it. Because I deserve it.

I’m not sure if anybody is going to end up reading this – I’m very aware that this first post is a fucking drag in terms of content matter, but I’m still going to be here posting anyway, mostly for myself, and if it ends up helping or entertaining anybody along the way, that’s just a nice rosy bonus. I’ve missed creative non-fiction writing, but my WordPress blog was consistently stalked and hounded by some people from my past that I quite frankly do not want as an audience, or to even be reminded of, so this is my way of reclaiming that for myself, too. 💜

[theunofficalttcrrau]

Credits:

Mocha - @mochablogger

Rubix - @rubixisanidi0t

Blair - @blairdrawzstuff

Hazel - @moonmxple

The Traumatized Cup, RR AU: Chapter 2: Broken Glass.

Mocha's sleep was packed with nightmares, each willing to haunt her every second. She felt mildly uncomfortable, tossing and turning in her bedpan. The cup, frustrated and upset, slowly got up to get a bottle of water from her bag. (Don't do it , Mocha. It's not worth it-)

But she was too tired to even move.

Mocha glanced at Blair and Hazel, soundly asleep in their blankets.

"Should I ask them for help..?" Mocha thought.

"Nah.. I don't wanna disturb them.."

Mocha pondered on whether she should wake them up or not , though she CLEARLY thought of Blair to wake her up in case something was wrong.

"Y'know what.. ? Nevermind.."

The tired cup, with bags under her eyes, groaned as she fumbled out of her bedpan. She shuffled her way to the sitting room, where she had left her sleepover bag.

But as she was about to open the zipper , Mocha suddenly fell to the cold, hard floor.

[Blair's P. O. V:]

For some odd reason, Mocha wasn't in her bedpan when I woke up. I slowly got up to see where she was, only to hear knocking on the door. Not even caring about being tired, I get up, and slowly open the door to see.. Oh look, it's Rubix.

"Rubix..?"

"Oh , Hey. I was just researching some butterflies, and I heard a loud thud sound over here." Rubix explained , with a concerned look on his face.

"Is.. Anything going on?"

"Not at the moment.. But I can't find Mocha.."

"You can't find her?"

"Yeah.. Hey.. Would you be a champ , and come help me look?"

"Of course!"

Me and Rubix searched the house, and we couldn't find her. I sighed. Maybe she went home? No.. Not in the middle of the night..

Me and Rubix then checked the sitting room.. We then saw..

[Hazel's P. O. V]:

"Ooooooh! Some pretty butterflies!"

I danced and twirled around the pools of lavenders, petunias, and daffodils. The birds on the large cherry tree chirped and spread their adorable wings. They started chirping and taking off into the blue sk-

"HAZEL! WAKE UP!!"

"WHAT-?!"

I woke up, and realized that it was all just a dream.

"Rubix? What are you doing here? And since WHEN we're you a doctor? Oh, and by the way, I was having an awesome dreeaaamm!! Why'd you wake me uppppp??"

"A, Mocha has fainted. B, I was also a cop, a part of community service, apart of the BoosterFun team.. And etc etc. And C, don't talk to me like that."

".. Excuse me, Mocha WHAT?"

"..Fainted..?"

At first I didn't believe it. But then I sprung up from my bedpan and ran towards the corridor, leaving the slushie behind.

"Wait for me!!!"

I stopped in my tracks.

"...oh.. my.."

Blair then turned to me.

That's Mocha, alright. On the floor, passed out, with BLEEDING cracks in her handle. "What happened??" I said, as I looked towards Blair and Rubix, hopefully expecting an answer.

Blair: "I don't know! I just went to get a midnight snack, heard Rubix at the door saying he heard a loud THUD , we checked the house, and found her fainted!"

Rubix: "Thankfully she's alive.."

Meanwhile, I grabbed a cloth, and cleaned the bloody carpet, while Rubix wrapped her handle with bandages from his first aid kit. He really seemed to know what he was doing.

Blair: "Let's wake her up first, shall we..?"

Rubix: "Yeah.."

Me: "Let's take her to YOUR bedroom.."

While Blair (with a little help of Rubix) dragged Mocha into the bedroom, I noticed something really strange with her left eye. It was white, with a flame of black..

"What's that..?" Blair said, pointing to the odd eye.

"I honestly never seen that before.. What IS that thing?"

Rubix: "I don't know.. Let me see.."

Rubix flipped open some random page of.. An actual GhostBusters journal?

Rubix: "It's a demon. 100%."

Blair: "Oh crap.."

Rubix: "Well, either way, we should try to still wake her up."

Me: "Mhm.."

I looked at Blair, who was holding an ice cold bucket of water, with her shaking nervously. Rubix immediately stood in the corner of the room, with a taser in one hand, and an AK-47 in the other.

Me: "What are y'all gonna do with that?"

SILENCE.

"PUMPKIN PIE!!!" We're the words Blair suddenly yelled, as she poured the water onto Mocha's face. She got up with a yelp. I was too shocked to process what was happening. "Well, you did wake her up.. But was saying "pumpkin pie" really that necessary?"

"I dunno. Blair shrugged. "Do you know how muc-"

Out of nowhere, Mocha sprang up and started to attack Blair, scratching her face and her left eye. She screamed as the blood trickled down her, as she teared up, with the blood staining the carpet.

"FREEZE!" Rubix snapped at Mocha. She turned to face him.

"Stop right there , and put your hands in THE AIR!"

Mocha just smiled creepingly at him..

"I'm not scared of B.S like you..."

"I SAID.."

"FREEZE! ANYTHING YOU SAY OR DO WILL NOT BE HESITATED TO USE AGAINST YOU IN THE COURT OF LAW!"

Mocha was about to attack him.

"So, are you gonna keep looking at me like that, or.."

"Of COURSE I'm gonna look at you like that, you cackling bitch.."

I quickly jumped in.

"Mocha! Is that you?"

"Duh."

"Are you hurt? How did you faint?"

"Stop asking me stupid questions.."

"Why did you.. Uh.. Do the thingy to Blair?"

"Do you have an IQ of negative 25?? EVERYONE knows why Mocha VIOLENTLY HARRASED Blair."

"Violently.. Harrased.. Is not the term I wanna go with.." Blair hoarsingly said.

"I'll.. Just get some bandages.."

I sighed, as I walked towards Rubix's first aid kit, located in the kitchen. As I was grabbing some plasters, I heard a loud scream. I went to check..

"MOCHA!"

Mocha held up a vase, ready to attack Blair , who was on the floor, begging for mercy. Rubix is sitting in the corner, frightened.. His left eye is missing.. Rubix quickly grabbed his taser, and shot Mocha in the eye with it. She dropped the vase, and it shattered, as she dropped onto the carpet.

"Eye for an eye..." He mumbled, as I helped Blair up.

Blair: "I-Is she okay?"

Rubix: Yeah, she's fine.."

Me: "Mostly.."

I went to fix Blair's wounds after that.

____

Chapter 3 - Coming soon.

[fairyringtaxiservice]

Title: Binary Star Fandom: Dr. Stone Pairings: SenkuxOC, ChromexRuri, TaijuxYuzuriha, Summary:

“If you had the opportunity to rebuild civilization as it was, would you?” No? Seriously? Why would she do something that sounded so annoying? But, maybe, if her weird gremlin friend Senku had still been alive, if he hadn’t been murdered, just maybe she would have liked to try. Taken captive by Tsukasa for valuable medical knowledge the Empire needs after refusing to come along willingly, Lumina spends her days trapped in a cell where strange men assume she’s a totally legitimate qualified doctor, despite only being sixteen and irritated, and ask her to treat all sorts of ailments from dermatitis, heavy metal poisoning, to broken hearts. Wait, what’s the last one doing in there? She wasn’t a therapist? If she ever got out of here maybe she really would kickstart civilization just to stick it to Tsu—no, that already sounded exhausting. She’ll continue being spiteful and contrite just to push Tsukasa’s buttons though. She felt she was getting really good at that.

The alternative, less dramatic summary might be something like this: 'might actually just be an afterschool PSA about rabies in disguise' or 'a historical love story between human civilization and water filtration' or '*jazz hands* Senku is a space criminal, read more to find out why~* or 'chapter 4 is objectively the best chapter because it's all Yuzuriha and Yuzuriha is objectively the best character.'

Anyway, it's just a self-indulgent asexual romance with a concentrated focus on what other things they could have made with what they had to create a lot of other quality-of-life civilization building stuff I wanted to see Senku do, but didn’t actually end up happening for what I imagine are a lot of reasons. The scope of the actual story, the genre of the narrative, or even canonically Senku couldn’t have had time to do it all. Romance might not even happen if it doesn't feel right. I also do a closer, more introspective look at all the other character's thoughts and feelings. I like to consider it Dr. Stone DLC. Check it out if you're willing to take a chance.

Chapters: 6/? Word count: 35,908 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45630784/chapters/114822286#workskin

Chp1 text under cut. Thanks for reading in advance. I would have liked to have gotten the canon characters in the first chapter, but I suppose this is a pretty good way to determine whether the OC will drive you nuts if you take a stab at this or not.

Lumina was having a moment of indecision. Or maybe it would be more accurate to refer to it as a moral quandary? She didn’t think she was particularly moral or immoral, but she was currently considering killing a man. Which, all things considered, on the morality scale tended to dip way down into immoral, but on the other hand…

This man was going to die anyway.

And if he didn’t die now, then he would continue to suffer. Horribly. In no uncertain terms. Like, in an objectively, egregiously horrible manner.  

Because, howling and raving and shaking below her vantage point crouched atop a fallen tree wedged into the roots of other trees overlooking a small slope, she could tell that this man had rabies. She placed her chin in her hands, elbows resting on her knees as she crouched, and gave a long dispirited sigh. 

The man below her merely quivered, entirely unaware of her existence.

It’s the hydrophobia that really cements it, she thought with a frown and a detached frame of mind.

His body desperately needed water but each time he got close enough to the puddle left over from the rains a day ago in an attempt to actually drink it, he was unable to follow through and violently shuddered away from it. Because that was what rabies did. It took over the portion of the central nervous system that controls swallowing, speaking, breathing. The howling wasn’t because he was raving, it was because the virus caused violent spasms in the throat and larynx. Even thinking about drinking water could trigger a response.

Feeling very much like Atropos, one of the three goddesses of fate in Greek mythology, she watched over him, expressionlessly, poised to consider his thread of life, scissors hovering mere millimeters away. Ah, maybe that was a little dramatic, but… 

Really, she didn’t like having to make this judgment at all. It would be a lot easier to just walk away and do nothing. Rabies was a terrible virus, and she was absolutely and utterly terrified of disease in this world without modern medicine.

…To be fair, she had been terrified of disease back in the old world even with modern medicine.

But regardless, it was a terror she felt significantly more vindicated about here, in this new world.

To be even more fair, however, rabies only spread through the salvatory glands and not so much through human-to-human contact, so long as he didn’t spit in her eye or some other mucus membrane or something, she’d probably be fine? Rabies victims weren’t zombies. After the challenge of making clothing from tanned animal skin, one of the first things she decided to make for herself was a pair of gloves. Because everything was Gross. There were a lot of things that she knew logically, factually, and intellectually weren’t Actually Gross but still made her Feel Gross anyway. Her stitching was pretty much abysmal garbage, and she had to force herself to accept she was simply bad at sewing, but having gloves, tall boots, a comfortable but simple dress and underclothes to protect her from the vast Grossness of the world was important to her.

Anyway, the gloves would probably be fine.

Experimentally, she tried to bite her flesh through the long elbow length gloves.

Yeah okay. It was fine.

…Probably.

….She rubbed her own saliva off her gloves, too. Because, well, Gross. 

As she’d already thought before, it wasn’t like there were any documented cases of human-to-human transmission via bite wounds, but was sound rationality supported by evidence and facts going to stop her disease-fearing anxious ass? No! 

Moving on.

She was disturbingly confident in her ability to kill a man should she need to. The human body was somehow both so, so very fragile and so, so very resilient. But right now? With that man practically insensate to the world it would be very easy for a small and skinny girl like her to extinguish his life. His back was turned to her, he was on his knees, it would then be so easy to take him by surprise. She had a knife and it really would be a simple matter to thrust it into his throat and sever the carotid artery with grim precision. He’d bleed out in twenty minutes, tops, true assassination style. Bet on it.

Lumina recognized she was beginning to disassociate a bit, viewing herself and situation from the outside as if she were someone else. She acknowledged that she knew in her bones, breath, and spirit that she could kill a man. She knew this to be clear and true.

She could kill a man.

If she had to.

She just wasn’t so sure she could kill an innocent man, however.

But walking away and doing nothing was also a choice. Choosing to do nothing here would be choosing to let this guy suffer and she didn’t like that any better. His brain would continue to swell against his skull wracked with encephalitis, burning with fever, causing confusion and seizures and a glut of truly nasty stuff all while his body desperately needed water but the virus denied it, unfeeling and merciless. Then he’d slip into a coma, experience some kind of organ failure, and die. 

Awful way to go, really.

Honestly, this situation sucked for everyone involved. He couldn’t consent to end of life care, she couldn’t provide palliative care where he could be surrounded by family and friends and be comfortable before his end, and she’d have to murder him because she was presently leaning towards that direction since it felt marginally, by the smallest of horrific increments, more kind? And?? It would?? Be murder. There was no consent here? He probably didn’t even have cognizance of where or who or what or anything? 

But who knew! Just maybe he’d be like one of the twenty-nine documented cases of someone who got rabies, experienced the full onset of symptoms, and recovered naturally on their own! Twenty-nine out of… ehhhhh, 59,000 deaths per year (back when there was a human population), so like, not great odds, but still better than zero percent. 

Instead, it’s just zero point zero zero something-something percent. So an infinitesimally small chance. 

She sighed dismally into her hand. 

“What am I going to do with you?” she murmured softly, eyelashes fluttering sorrowfully.

Her mind drifted.

Finding another person in this stone world really should be more shocking, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t the first person she’d come across. Probably wouldn’t be the last either. She’d found very minute, almost imperceptible traces of people as she’d made her journey down to southern Japan from the north. A few footpaths that had now become overgrown, a decrepit bridge over a tiny creek consisting of three sturdy logs lashed together with decaying fibers. Simple things that were old, dilapidated, and would leave no physical evidence in a handful of years, but were also unquestionably made by human hands. She didn’t know how long she’d been encased in stone, but if it was enough time for giant trees to pop up all around them and for the land to irrevocably alter, then it’s probably been like a million years, but really, who knew? Anyway, for these small traces of humanity to exist there had to have been people who woke up from the stone before her.

Wherever and whatever happened to those people now that their works had fallen into disuse, well… it wasn’t entirely too hard to guess. 

She enjoyed the exploration of this new world with a freedom and buoyancy of spirit she never had in the old one. Gone entirely were days of people-related psychologically-entrenched trauma and paranoia! How awesome was that? She didn’t have to worry about anyone! She made her own schedule, she didn’t have to worry about crowds or stares, and she didn’t have to figure out how to interact socially with people her own age after missing almost eight entire years of school! It was just one good thing after another!

She did sorely miss her computer, however.

Despite that, she took to her new life with an inexpressible joy. Sure, it was dangerous and frustrating and she’d nearly died twice already, but she was able to hike mountains, follow rivers, and explore wherever she wanted. The wind in her hair, the stars above her head, her spirit bright and untethered. Her goal was simply to head south. In the back of her mind she sometimes wondered if she would even recognize home when she crossed it or see people she knew trapped in the stone, but always eventually let the thoughts pass by without examination.

And then she started finding the first few skeletons.

They weren’t ancient, but they were old. She usually found them singular and alone, but a few times she’s seen two skeletons at once in close proximity to each other, so they had probably died together. A man and a woman here, a woman and a child there. It was a little sad but also infinitely fascinating trying to put together how these people had lived and died before she’d come upon them.

Still very sad though. None of them had been very old in terms of lived age. She could tell based on how fused some of the bones were. Human bones ossified with age, with some portions only fusing around certain points in development. Being able to tell if someone was in their mid-thirties or if they were younger than her when they died made her feel…

…Unpleasant? Hm, no, that wasn’t quite it. Sad? Well, yes, but also…

Melancholic? That was closer and more specific.

Ah…

Oh. Okay. She got it now.

Lumina was experiencing loss. Grief. Sorrow.

Loss of a future snuffed out in an instant, both hers and a billion others. Loss of everyone she knew and a world she had known. Loss of dreams, of expectations, of a tangible, knowable place in the world. She hadn’t exactly made a place for herself in the old world, but she’d been getting better, and the potential had been there… 

She recognized she didn’t exactly feel lonely or isolated living on her own in the wilds like she probably should, although she hadn’t exactly expected to. However, experiencing existential, soul-aching grief and loss triggered by dead people she didn’t know was different and also wasn’t quite something she was willing to fully unpack any time soon. That was a problem for future-Lumina to deal with. She’d compartmentalize and stuff it in the feelings box for now. Given her past experiences, she wasn’t exactly surprised at her psychological state being what it was. After all, she had lived th–ah. No. Choose a different thought, brain. Psychologically, she was simply just–no, that’s still an intrusive thought. Choose again, and choose better. 

…

Whenever she found the lost, lonely remains of Those Before she would dig shallow graves and arrange their bones properly before burying them. It felt like the right thing to do. She wasn’t religious and didn’t know any prayers, but laying those skeletons to rest beneath the earth and building cairns to mark their passing simply felt fundamentally, intrinsically, and instinctually right. She couldn’t always find all the bones. Animals or time among the elements had taken them away, hidden from the world forever. In those cases, she did her best to find as many of the bones as she could before burial.  

Skeletons didn’t really scare her. Getting sick and catching disease in this world without modern medicine terrified her. Skeletons? Not so much. And what truly interested her, the life passion that electrified her blood and made her heart pound against her chest like a violent prisoner fighting to escape, was figuring out how people died. It was profoundly fascinating, edifying, and, as a weird gremlin friend of hers sometimes liked to say, exhilarating. Even more exhilarating were the deaths that were sneaky. Murderers who covered up their crimes using science or intrigue–relying on the half-life of a drug disappearing from the body of a victim before investigators could identify it had even been there, or poisons that imitate cardiac arrest and other ‘natural deaths’, or “accidents” that, as things turned out, weren’t so accidental after all. 

There were a million different ways to die and therefore a million different things she needed to study in order to identify the really, truly sneaky deaths. Subjects such as toxicology, or biology, or biochemistry, or cytopathology, electrophysiology, epidemiology, hemotology, herbology, neurology, pharmacology, virology–just so many many -ologies that you could use to easily kill people and be deviously sneaky about it!  

It was really… So. Damn. Fascinating.  

Ah. But in the old world you couldn’t just walk up to law enforcement and ask to see their most sneaky ongoing murder cases. Which was honestly a huge bummer. She’d had to make do with cold cases.

Once, in this new world, she’d found a man and woman’s skeletons and they were definitely totally unquestionably murdered. Blunt force trauma. To the skull. Both of them. Probably didn’t die on impact, but also probably didn’t last very long afterwards.

Was she worried there was a murderer running around this forest? Not really. Those bones had been maybe thirty years old at the very least, even if their owners hadn’t lived for quite that long. Ah… she made herself a little sad again. Welp. Disregarding that small, bitter thought, there wasn’t going to be a murderer waiting for thirty years to silence her after finding their victim’s remains. Also? There wasn’t a judicial system anymore given the general lack of an existing society, sooo… 

All things considered, she felt pretty happy being one of the few people roaming around in the world playing forensic scientist, medical examiner, and grave digger with what was left behind. Content, even.

She had done a lot of thinking about the skeletons that had once been real people. Those people either, presumably, broke out of the stone or were born to people who had broken out of the stone. She wasn’t sure what the difference was between herself and the people who’d broken out of the stone and the ones who hadn’t.

It was probably a whole mess of catalytic cascade reactions in response to some kind of synthesis borne from… something? Some kind of outside stimulus maybe? But what…? Assuming the microstructure of the stone wasn’t something entirely alien, then what did it react to in order to cause the cascade?

Lumina hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about that specific phenomena. She didn’t see the point, so she had decided not to waste time puzzling it out when her own survival was her top priority. What did she care about unraveling the secret of the stone? Let someone else do that if they wanted, or existed. 

What her mind came back to again and again and what she thought was kind of amazing, was that after breaking out of the stone she now had sensation in her middle and ring finger on her left hand again. Back in The World Before, those fingers had been sliced off and had to be reattached with surgery, but the nerves never recovered from the initial cuts nor the surgical scarring and so she lost all sensation in those digits.

But now! Full sensation! In her fingers! Amazing!

So, whether it was the (presumed) cascade reaction during depetrification or the petrification phenomenon itself, it had somehow restored the nerves in her fingers. Which, first thing, how? And how was a bigger question that brought even more questions. For example, how did the petrification or the cascade reaction target those specific damaged nerves? How did it identify that they were even damaged? Did it somehow have a map of her exact genetic specifications before she’d suffered the nerve damage and pulled a factory reset on her body? Or did it have a generalized map that it would work its effects on and anyone who broke out of the stone would have the same blueprint?

If it was the latter, then what the hell kind of eugenics bullsh—

No, you know what. Whatever. It wasn’t a mystery she needed to solve right this moment. Or ever.

In a snap judgment, she had decided it was magic. Or aliens. Or magic aliens. Magic aliens with a focus on human eugeni—

In another snap judgment, she decided that, actually, it was the former and thought about it a little more.

The petrification or the subsequent cascade reaction in the undoing of the stone somehow “read” the original “code” and fixed whatever errors it found in order to form a working “program.” Which, now that she thought about it, probably wasn’t too farfetched. Compared to a hard drive, a gram of DNA could store so much more data. Literally 215 petabytes. It was enough to make external hard drives and their pitiful 2 terabytes of data storage cry. Humanity was doing that now—eh… was doing that from… before--since it had been getting harder and harder to make microminiturized data storage and electronics. It was exorbitantly expensive, but it could be done. 

So either the petrification or the cas—maybe she should shorten this to ‘petri-cascade?’ Oh, but no, those things described completely separate phenomena and she couldn't be certain which one specifically had the rejuvenation effect. 

…Petr(ification)-OR-cascade? Petror-cascade? Ehhhh, she hated that. 

…

…So anyway, the petror-cascade probably read the information in RNA/DNA molecules. That’s 1,000,000,000 megabytes of data the phenomena could potentially sift through and assume administration over. Everyone’s DNA was a little different, obviously, so then theoretically you could restore a person back to their personal factory settings without an ‘everyman blueprint’.

Which. Like? Wow?

Did it work on congenital diseases? Genetic disorders? Autoimmune diseases? If it did, then how does it determine an ‘error’ from viable, perfectly executable ‘script’ when those errors are written in the ‘base code’ of that script? Factory resetting would still default to genetic abnormalities since the genetic abnormality existed in the original, default version of the code, wouldn’t it? If it could read DNA, then does it pull information from only an individual’s pre-existing values and variables, or did it pull and reformat from a database? 

And the database concern still led back to eugenics… unless, of course, it was individualized and adaptational genetic treatment. If it truly was based on an individual, personalized DNA gene therapy then… who the hell made such a thing? Even a government would have a hard time getting the funding for such an all-encompassing, comprehensive system let alone all the work and manpower needed to produce such a thing to a satisfactory degree. Who unleashed this upon the entire world at once? How was it executed all at once anyway? What a massive undertaking. 

Definitely, totally had to be aliens. Maybe.

So now all she had to determine is—

Nnnnope! Nope! No! She’s done with this! It’s all just unsubstantiated theory anyway! She’ll figure it out later! Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not.

…She’ll think about it. 

…If she feels like it.

Right now, she had other priorities. She had broken out of the stone a year ago, naked, and upset about it. Now she was far less naked and far more upset about this whole late stage rabies situation instead. She couldn’t keep distracting herself from making a choice. For she recognized that is exactly what she was doing as she followed along with her train of thought. She had stalled for long enough. It was time.

She let out a breath and opened the eyes she didn’t realize she’d closed. Time stilled, time passed, time stilled again.

Then, finally, under the gazes of the litany of souls enshrined in stone around her, she made her decision.

Snap!

She paused. 

…What was that? 

Elsewhere, Gen Asagiri ambled out from the tree line to spot a village by the sea. From his vantage point, he could see a small crowd forming just outside near the bridges. An almost nostalgic scent lured him towards the crowd and he knew without seeing that he had found Tsukasa’s alleged dead man.

How intriguing. How fun! [Next] link tba

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

So! Re: director's commentary shsksjsj. Melliferous is literally like always on my mind and it's just shsksjsks so good. Bls whatever crumb you're willing to give us about the fic, I will very much enjoy. Plus!! The Thomas and Virgil buried alive fic!!!! So good! I am kissing you on the forehead for that one so ye. Whenever you're up for it I am basically vibrating for the director's commentary for those.

Here's some odd thoughts on both of them, just for you!

melliferous

So one of the things I'm really careful and insistent about in my writing is POV. You might have noticed it. I'm meticulous about this, both in reading and writing: the point of view of the narration has to be both consistent and recognizable. If it's from Virgil's POV, then that must be distinguishable from anyone else's, and we aren't getting insight into another character's head or thoughts as long as we remain with Virgil, and so on. Usually I stick with one character the whole way through (Virgil in Chessboxing, Thomas in Pick A Side, the OC in the Inception AU) or I switch POV from chapter to chapter (Eucatastrophe with its rotation through the full cast, Syzygy goes back and forth between Thomas and Janus).

Melliferous is the anomaly here, because it doesn't have a defined narrator or point of view. It's an omniscient narrator, which I usually shy away from on principle, but I did this on purpose. I wanted the whole story to have a kind of drowsy, dreamy feel of unreality to it, and narrowing things down to a single narrator would have taken away from that. It couldn't be Thomas (my go-to when I'm writing ensemble cast stories like this) because Thomas is dead and not there. It couldn't be any one of the Sides, because that would be elevating them to protagonist, and Melliferous is, at its core, about the group.

So instead you get a narrator reminiscent of folk tales and fairy tales, who knows more about the world than you do, patiently tells you what you need to know, and speaks with pretty words and a kind of knowing resignation, because they know exactly how it's going to end before it's even started. It's the only way this story could be told, I think.

A lot about Melliferous was carefully calculated to be disorientating and strange. It's not a normal Sanders Sides fic, and I knew that going in. Things like: the story opening on a conjunction and in medias res, never explaining exactly how the Sides are alive when Thomas isn't, never explicitly saying 'Hades is a Bee, Seph is a butterfly, also Seph is Persephone' - leaving that all up to implication, albeit very obvious implication - and of course the fact that the strangeness of everything is barely questioned by the people inhabiting the story. The TSS canon universe should not be one that supports concepts such as Greek Gods And Bee Hell without question, but I never wanted that to be in question, just like I wanted everyone to be as in-character as I could manage the whole time.

I feel like that's what makes good surrealism. The familiar tempered with the wholly absurd, in a way that it takes you a minute to go 'wait, why am I just accepting it?' - melliferous is definitely one of my more successful wanders into that sort of storytelling.

lying in a box with a lid on it

This fic was born out of a very specific set of thoughts I had, which I will now roughly try to recreate, in order:

there are a certain bunch of fic tropes that I really enjoy, involving characters being put into Situations, often much to their distress. however, I only really see these specific tropes in certain types of fandoms, like Marvel and the Witcher, occasionally Doctor Who.

Whenever I do see them in Sanders Sides fics, it's usually in the context of an AU (not always my thing) or in the context of Canon-ish Imagination Adventures (again, not always my thing)

I don't think I've ever seen a canonverse fic wielding the Buried Alive trope, have I?

(related thought from a completely different train, arriving almost simulstaneously at the station with the last one) the only way you could get Virgil to discuss his problems with Thomas is if you locked them both in a box and kept them there for hours.

hey wait a second

I like writing unique stories, stuff you couldn't find anywhere else. And there was just something really novel to the idea of Thomas and Virgil getting trapped somewhere together in his brain that I liked the idea of. It felt fresh and interesting, and also something that hopefully would stay a oneshot instead of turning into a multi-chapter epic.

Virgil and Thomas's dynamic is one of the more fascinating ones to me, because of the coexistence between 'we are friends and i love you' and 'you are literally my anxiety and as much as i love you, you occasionally hurt me as a part of your existence'. Someone in the comments of this fic described it as the Hedgehog's Dillemma, and fuck, that's exactly it, isn't it? Shoving them into an enclosed space ratchets the mental health issues up to a million, because they hurt each other. But it also makes them talk it out, because they don't want to be hurting each other.

Was this fic also just an excuse to force them to cuddle? Maaaaybe. Maybe that was my secondary motivation. That happens to be a favorite trope of mine, too.

[fanfictionandpearls]

When The Levee Breaks- Ch2

Pairing: Kimberly Hart X Tommy Oliver

Summary: A tornado appears in Oklahoma, unlike any tornado this world has ever seen. The Winchesters go to investigate what is causing this phenomenon and find a world that is completely different from their own. Supernatural/Power Rangers Mash Up.

"Agent Holt, Agent Wilson, follow me," a nurse said as Sam and Dean walked behind her and they took in the extra security. The only reason they were ahead of the real FBI was Bobby's tip off and they needed to get these two beings out of here. With the war in heaven, there was no telling what side these beings were on and it was best to neutralize them until they knew where they fell.

"What can you tell us about their condition?" Dean asked as they paused in the doorway and the nurse looked back at them.

"Unconscious, but surprisingly healthy and stable. If they hadn't been in that field, I would just say that they were sleeping," the nurse admitted as they nodded. That certainly made things a lot easier for them and the plan they had. "Their identifications were weird though."

"Weird how?" Sam asked as Dean walked further into the room and glanced at the medicine that they were attached to. It was nothing that was really keeping them alive. Bobby was meeting them at a safehouse he had outside Ashland, Nebraska, but it was up to them to talk the doctors and nurses into letting them walk out with these two beings. They looked human, but they had been around too many monsters that appeared human to the average joe as well. Until they knew for sure, this was a new kind of monster that no one had ever run into before.

"Their ids aren't from real places. Reefside, California. Briarwood, Oregon. We can't find them on any map and Google isn't helping either. The best we got were some tv show references," the nurse said as Sam took the evidence bag from her and nodded.

"We have authorization to move them to a federal facility. We're not sure if they are a danger to this world," Dean said as he passed them some paperwork that they had hastily forged and the nurse nodded. "We will require an ambulance, but since they are stable- no need for medical personnel."

"That's unorthodox," the nurse responded as Sam turned on the charm and Dean motioned to the other medical personnel who were willing to move them onto ambulance gurneys. It was obvious to the both of them that they did not want them in this hospital any longer than they needed to be. The circumstances that got them here freaked out even the most experienced medical personnel.

They put them into the ambulance and Dean let out a sigh of relief. As they pulled out of the ambulance bay they saw government plated cars pull into the parking lot and turned on the sirens. The impala was parked a few streets over and it was not going to take long for the hospital personnel to realize that they had let fake federal agents take the only people that might know what had happened in that field. Dean switched on the lights and sirens and floored it, every second was going to count.

"They are not on the angels' side," Cas said as he landed in the passenger's seat and Dean jerked the wheel before quickly correcting back into his lane. No matter how many times Cas dropped in, he would never get used to the sudden appearances.

"Thanks, Cas. You could have just answered the text Sam sent you," Dean pointed out as Sam glanced up into the front of the ambulance. "Sammy?"

"He's starting to come around. I'll knock him back out if he wakes up," Sam stated as Cas and Dean exchanged a glance, but didn't argue with him. They didn't know what they were up against and if they could be unconscious- that was the easiest way to keep them until they got to the safehouse.

-----------------

"Where…where am I?" the woman murmured as she blinked her eyes open and felt that she was secured to a chair. She glanced around the room and saw three men watching her and Tommy attached to a similar chair. She had water thrown in her face and she sputtered as she stared up at the tallest man who had pulled out a knife and he quickly slashed her arm and then pulled out another one and slashed the other. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Huh. Doesn't react to holy water, silver, or iron," Sam said as she wondered what the hell the man was talking about. Why would she react to any of those? Was there some sort of allergy she would suddenly develop?

"Dead man's blood did nothing. Ashes of a phoenix did nothing. Goopher dust did nothing," Bobby remarked as she glanced down to see several syringe marks on her arms. What had they injected her with? "What are you?"

"Human," she sassed as she pulled against the restraints, testing them. She was feeling her strength come back and if Tommy didn't wake up soon- she was going to have to get them out of this and then she would cuss Tommy up one side and down the other for pulling her into this mess, again. "Where am I?"

"We're asking the questions here," Dean said as he leaned in close to her and she met him head on. This man didn't scare her. She had had real things in her life that were terrifying. He was not terrifying by any means. "How did you get here?"

"It looks like you kidnapped me. How about you enlighten me then?" she quipped as Dean smirked. That smart mouth would be attractive if she was actually human, but he highly doubted it. The man started to come around and Sam repeated the tests on him. They were concerned about testing him while he was conscious, there was something about him that made them all think he could be dangerous. "Do you work for Lipretere?"

"Sorry who?" Bobby asked as he watched the man test the bonds and for the first time felt a jolt of fear. They could control her, but there was something in his eyes that made him think the man was not controllable. There was something that made him think that they were going to be hunted if these beings weren't on their side.

"Lipretere. The being that attacked her to get to me," the man said as they all shook their heads. They had never heard of a Lipretere before. "Where are we?"

"No idea. Best guess- still on Earth," the woman replied as she flexed her hands and they watched as something appeared. Sam wrestled it out of her hands and they all stared at it. They moved away from them and studied the item as she let out a groan. She hadn't even meant to summon her morpher, she was just trying to see how much give they had left her. "I'd like my morpher back!"

The men retreated even further out of the room and she looked over at Tommy again. He flicked his hands and his morpher appeared. He muttered his morphing sequence and a light filled the cabin as he morphed. It broke the ropes that held him, but also called the attention of the three men. They charged back into the room, but froze as they watched the man rise to his feet. He ignored them as he walked over to the women and quickly checked her over.

"No way. Sam- didn't you watch some kung fu shit when you were a kid where…" Dean trailed off as the masked man went about untying the woman's ropes. "Oh what was it… Super Soldiers? Galactic Gurus?"

"Power Rangers?" Sam suggested as they watched the beings freeze. They both exchanged a glance as the men smiled. "What was the girl you had a major crush on?"

The two groups studied each other. The more the Winchesters examined the foreign beings, the more they realized that they looked exactly like a couple of characters from one of Sam's favorite shows as a kid. They were older, but there was no denying who the woman was and they both had a sinking feeling about who the man was as well. They'd been really smart to test his reaction when he was unconscious.

"Smooth, Sammy. Real smooth," Dean muttered as the woman rose to her feet and she moved towards him. "Kimberly Hart?"

"And Tommy Oliver. I'll take that," Tommy said as he grabbed her morpher and tossed it over to her as she turned her glare to him. "Can we agree that we're human now that you have some idea who we are?"

"You asshole," Kimberly growled as she charged at Tommy and sparks flew up as she punched him. "You were awake and you let them torture me!"

"They tortured you?" Tommy asked as he demorphed and wrapped his arms around her as she struggled against him. He looked down at her arms and saw multiple cuts and he felt that she was soaked. "You tortured her?"

"Just doing our job- we had to check," Sam said as he held his hands up and Tommy glared over at him as Kimberly bucked in his arms. "You could have been anything- from vampires to werewolves to demons. So yeah- we had to check."

"Those aren't real," Kim said as she finally pulled out of Tommy's arms and glared over at him. He let out a sigh. Now that their lives were not immediately in danger, she was going to go back to hating him. "How the fuck did you get us into this?"

"I warned you that Lipretere was going to come after you and that you should get back to Reefside or go into hiding. You ignored me," Tommy ground out as the Winchesters continued to watch them. This was definitely not the couple that had been portrayed in the tv show, that couple had been wildly in love.

"Why would he use me to get to you?" Kim asked as he just gave her a look and she snorted. "Not that shit again. You don't cheat on your fiancee with multiple people and still be desperately in love with her."

"I was evil," Tommy clarified to the room as she laughed.

"Oh yeah, evil enough to fuck your way through Katherine, Renee, Jasmine, Michelle- who else?" Kim growled as he let out a groan. It had been over ten years and she still could not forgive him for what he had done when he was evil. She had forgiven basically everything but the infidelity and that was something he understood, but he still cared about her. He still cared about her enough that every evil in the universe knew that she was his achilles' heel. She tolerated him when she was in danger, she craved him when she was terrified, but mostly he was her safe place and he was fine if that was all he ever was again. She seemed to hate herself and him for the fact that she felt safest with a man who had hurt her heart so much. "How far are we from Briarwood, Oregon?"

"See- that's the problem- there's no Briarwood, Oregon or Reefside, California. You got dropped in that field by a tornado that hovered there for over a day- your lives- were a kids tv show," Dean said as Sam pulled up an episode and began playing a clip. Kim and Tommy huddled around the screen and they watched their mortified stares. "Yeah…we know. Similar thing happened to us, but that involved angels and our friend Cas said you weren't part of an angel thing."

"And they certainly aren't part of any deal I would make for hell," Crowley said as they all jerked around to him. "Hello boys…and girl. A little birdie said that you picked up what fell out of that storm- I guess they were right."

"Seriously? Did I ever look like that?" Kim shrieked as Tommy looked back at the computer and shook his head no. She might have been the pink ranger, but she had never dressed that way. "Ignoring that- different universe?"

"Looks like it and looks like Lipretere brought us here," Tommy stated as he let out a sigh. He wanted to go after Lipretere, but they owed the people that had saved them from all the questioning. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dean and this is my brother Sam. We're hunters," Dean said as he watched them carefully as they studied him. He was not sure that he wanted them as an ally, but he had a feeling he definitely didn't want them as an enemy. "We hunt ghosts and werewolves and vampires and demons. And sometimes angels. You are now our problem."

"We can take care of ourselves. We've been down this road before and once we can get Lipretere, we should get back to our world," Tommy said as Kim nodded. The two of them had had this happen more times than they wanted to admit and they knew best how to track down Lipretere. They also knew that anyone that was with them, was in danger. "Thanks for getting us out of any awkward questions."

"I don't think it's going to be that easy," Bobby said as they all turned to him. "What can you do? Really do. I mean you muttered a few words and were powered up to take us on and anything that got in your way. Both sides are going to want you as a weapon."

"We're no one's weapon," Kim ground out as Sam and Dean grimaced. They had both said that before, but it didn't matter- they were turned into weapons anyway. "What?"

"Allow me," Crowley said as smoke poured out of his mouth and he took over Kimberly's body. Her eyes blinked open and Tommy jumped back as he saw they were pitch black.

"Get out of her," Tommy ordered and to all of their surprise black smoke immediately poured out of her mouth. She collapsed into Tommy's arms and he watched the man stand back up. Crowley stared at him as he shook his head. He'd never had that happen before.

"Well I'll be damned," Bobby muttered as Tommy gave them a confused look before Kimberly leaned over to the side and threw up. She batted his hands away as he ignored her and continued to care for her. The rest of the room stared at them in awe. Yeah, they definitely had some powers that all sides would want.