#Definitely talking about Branch

[toon-tales]

Do you ever get this feeling when you want to torture your favorite character?

But at the same time you just try to bury these thoughts because you're maybe, slightly, probably, kinda, a tiny bit, going too - a little too - extreme?

And it's just a kids show? And the setting of the movie/series isn't helping as well? So you just try to forget it?

(But maybe if the setting was helping you might rethink the whole 'burying the thoughts' thing?)

[noknowshame]

listen, I do not condone historical misinformation, but there is nothing I get delight out of more than this absolutely batshit article from a religious website that unironically lists Flint as a mythological god of pirates

[deservedgrace]

i really don't like the "religion is a tool, some people use it for good, some people use it for bad" thing because it's so... passive and individualistic. the problem isn't the religion, it's the Bad People using religion in a Bad Way. it has no accountability for objectively bad structural and systemic issues. it has no empathy or nuance for cult members, who i'm not going to say are all uwu innocent or don't do legitimate harm but are often victims themselves, and a lot of people would do better if they knew better but like you don't just choose to join a cult one day you can't just choose to snap out of one either. like, jehovah's witness is not a neutral thing that some people use for good and some people use for bad. it's a cult. they use cult tactics to keep people trapped and dependent on them. there are doctrinal and structural and systemic issues that are harmful. i hate this idea that it's solely a personal, individual issue if someone gets sucked into a cult or high control religion. i hate the idea that individual people are pulling these beliefs out of thin air because they're Simply Just Bad People and not because some religions have actual systemic issues. of course there are people that just want to hurt others but some people legitimately believe this is the best way to be. and that doesn't absolve them of their harm but if we treat it like it's only an individual issue these cults and high control religions have free reign to continue doing harm.

[nightskyli]

Someone in Pop Village: Hey Branch what was it like being a Rock Zombie after being brainwashed against your will?

Branch's older brothers:

[dark-elf-writes]

I know I jokingly mentioned Fawn Spots Harry being homesick when he goes to Hogwarts, but this kid would be homesick.

More under the cut because this grew legs.

The longest he had ever been away from his parents is the odd weekend where he was being watched by Josh, May, or on one rather thrilling occasion joining Aphrodite on a leg of her tour that was close to home, and he has never been separated from his brother for more than a day since Jason was born. He had tried of course, had even managed the occasional sleepover with some of the other kids whose parents work at H.E.R.A. but he was always glad to go home in the morning.

Hogwarts is different.

He is half a world away from his family, can’t call them, and surrounded by people who take too much of him. (He will never forget the first time someone casually called him Harry seconds after meeting him. Will never forget the fourth year Hufflepuff who asked him if he remembered his parent’s dying. Will never forget the third year that grabbed his chin so hard it ached to touch his scar and the bubbling of fear in his throat before Fred had all out tackled the older student away from him.)

Harry doesn’t sleep much those first few weeks.

Boredom drags him out to the common room and away from the snoring of the other first year gryffindor boys. Not that sitting in one of the plush chairs in front of the fireplace and watching the flames is much more interesting, but it’s better than Ron mumbling about his great aunt’s doilies in his sleep.

It’s Percy that finds him, and for a second Harry is struck with that old terror of breaking a rule (mum and Bibi told him he was allowed to make mistakes. That he wouldn’t be locked away or hurt for telling them. But they weren’t here.) but the older Weasley brother just settles on the couch next to Harry’s chair and pulls out a textbook.

The turning of pages and soft scratch of Korean is so familiar Harry cries. Percy is kind enough not to mention it, though Harry can feel eyes on him, watching to make sure he is okay.

An odd, quiet friendship is formed in those late nights. They never talk about it during the waking hours, not even when Harry slowly gravitates closer and closer until he is leaning against Percy’s side while he studies. Sometimes Harry manages to fall back asleep between the warmth of the fire and the steady sound of Percy breathing. Others he cries, silent and hardly daring to move. Others still he works up the courage to ask about Percy’s homework. Percy doesn’t mind, he claims that explaining it out loud helps him learn it better. “Teaching is the ultimate Mastery, Potter, “ He says with a soft smile and softer eyes behind those glasses.

(Percy never takes, not even when Harry grows close to his brothers, not even when he catches Harry breaking rules outside of their late night meetings. Harry gives Percy his name in the middle of one of his lessons on spells years ahead of Harry. He catches Percy’s smile out of the corner of his eye before the older boy continues his explanation.)

He isn’t sure what makes him talk one night. Isn’t sure but is helpless to stop once he starts.

“The castle smells wrong.”

Percy hums, marking his place in the textbook and turning to give Harry his full attention. “Wrong?”

“Wrong!” It’s perhaps a bit too loud considering the late hour, but Harry keeps going. “It’s all stone and wind and potion ingredients. And it’s quiet! It stupid! I shouldn’t miss the sounds of sirens and car alarms in the middle of the night but it’s like the whole world is holding its breath! There’s no music other than the frog choir! It’s all quiet! Like it’s dead!” Harry realized with a start his face was wet with tears, weeks of frustration and loneliness bubbling over. “And it’s so dumb that phones don’t work here! Why not? It’s magic! I should be able to call anywhere! From the bottom of the lake with the stupid squid! I should be able to never have to pay for phone service or wifi ever! Instead it’s just a bunch of nosey people in a castle that smells wrong!”

Percy nods sagely. “I always thought it should smell more like bread.”

It draws Harry up short. “Bread?”

“Mum cooks a lot. The house always smells like bread and bacon grease.” It shocks a laugh out of Harry. It makes him cry harder. It makes him feel a little less alone. Percy leans back against the couch and stretches an arm out along the back in a way that is all the twins and looks so weird on him. Like when Jason tried to mimic Harry. Harry settles against Percy’s side pressing his face into his comfy knit sweater.

“What do you think it should smell like, then?” Percy’s voice is quiet. Barely louder than the crackling of the fire.

Harry closes his eyes. “Like coffee and lemon cookies,” He says, looking at the flames. “My mum bakes a lot and she and Bibi are addicted to coffee.”

Percy snorts. Harry feels a hand in his hair that was so familiar a fresh wave of tears hit him. “How American.”

“Bibi is Greek, actually.”

The hand in his hair tugs gently on a stray lock. “Do you know Greek then?” Harry nods, pressing back against Percy’s hand like Jason’s puppy aura, eager for pets if only to drive away the spike of feeling in his chest.

“That’s worse than the quiet I think,” Harry admits. “It all English unless it’s spells.”

Percy hummed, then pointed to the fire with his free hand. “What’s fire in Greek?”

So Harry teaches him.

(The next morning Harry has to bite back tears when he sees a plate of lemon cookies and a carafe of coffee waiting at his usual seat. Percy toasts him with a fresh cut slice of bread and a smile when he looks up the table. He adds enough sugar and cream to his coffee that it’s nearly white, but the first sip feels so much like home the ache in his chest lessens just a bit more.)

[goodluckclove]

A Meandering Exploration on the Disability-Based Magic System of my Ongoing Fantasy Series (Because I Am Bad at Explaining it to People in my Actual, Physical Life)

I've been priming myself for critique on the world building for Songbird Elegies, with it's magic system being partially based around my "sorcerer" equivalent (i.e. born, innate magic users/birthrights) having some sort of disability.

So far most of the critiques have come from myself. because, as any disabled person likely knows (myself included yayay), what is considered a disability is frustratingly varied. And that's been complicated to explore.

This isn't what I'd usually use my taglist for but I ended up pretty proud of this so here we go hop on hop off per usual.

@kuebiko-writing @cartoonghosts 

@atlasthecactus @aroaceghosties 

@booksntea6982 @xarrixii 

@mushroommanchanterelle @whoevenknowswhatimwriting

@fukurouonthesea

I establish in book one that the supposed "Birthright Gene" (which isn't - uh - anything. It's a medical term given to a phenomena that has no actual genetic proof backing it) has been seen in a variety of conditions - mental, physical, developmental, even if they happen later on in life (an immediately pretty scary concept for most). It's not every person who has a certain disability, and sometimes a birthright will be classified as the wrong variant of magic because they have comorbidities and the "gene" only affects a certain one. My character Ollie in book two, for instance, was born with cerebral palsy, but actually has her magic based in the ARFID she manages as a result of that.

Which makes sense, in my mind at least. In my experience, and from what I hear from other people, if you have some sort of disability it's a lot easier to fall into a few other conditions. Human bodies are fleshy Jenga towers.

Uh and I've spoken to a few people about how I'm really particular about the magic, or "variants" that make up birthrights. One variant can apply to multiple diagnoses if they slightly overlap. The main idea is that there isn't a Birthright variant that's SUPER useful. The most powerful variant (Ollie's, coincidentally) is the one that allows a user to alter the chemical component of many forms of living matter (Could be all, people don't really know and are hesitant to test), but it's so difficult to even get GOOD at that it's not likely to be weaponized.

But yeah there isn't a variant that overrides a disability. Birthrights are still absolutely disabled and they require varying degrees of treatment and management. The very specific rule I have to stick to is that a Birthright variant is something that could be perceived as an additional accommodation for a corresponding disability, from the perspective of someone who has never actually existed as a human being with a disability. Something that makes sense to an entity seeing humanity through a fragment of magnifying glass, but to a human being would just sort of cause them to be like huh. i guess i can do this now.

Birthrights are magic users who, for the most part, care far more about the culture, beliefs, and ethics of their longstanding communities that are coincidentally formed from their magic, but mainly continue to provide the services they'd done for generations. Mainly social services, legal representation, medical and environmental work, depending on the town they associate with.

Not everyone who is born with the Birthright Gene (which once again, isn't an actual gene, but people call it that to make things sound less scary to people who aren't willing to immediately accept that birthright magic is essentially random) lives in one of these towns. They're definitely not forced to. So far it seems a lot will spend at least a stint there, if only to get work experience in an environment that can provide further connections in certain industries while also being aggressively accessible.

There are registered birthrights, who are salaried, year-round employees of certain towns. Witch towns, as they call them, will sometimes compare themselves to a non-industrial company town. This is mainly an on-paper deal that allows for some minor bureaucratic benefits, as well as a degree of community that still provides a mild optional anonymity that being a sovereign city state would immediately destroy. It allows gives registered birthrights the opportunity to open their own businesses within witch towns, with the initial financial support of the witch town if they're willing to take a few classes.

Official witch towns are, at least so far, either Refuge Hubs or Outreach Centers. Migration Patterns (Book Two) takes place in Bluerose, Oregon, which I believe is the only witch town left on the West Coast. It's a Refuge Hub, which means it specializes in providing social services, housing, and treatment - mainly, in Blueroses case, for families, victims of domestic violence, and people just leaving the foster care system. Refuge hubs are pretty insular, being gated and guarded communities a bit of a drive from the nearest major town. Clients stay for a period of at least six months (but no more than a year), and depending on the case they might be asked to not leave the confines of town within that time (at least, not without a guard).

Refuge hubs are very difficult to keep as secure as they feel like they need to be, so out of the handful of remaining witch towns in the United States, most of them are outreach centers. Outreach centers are weird because they're "towns" that sort of just take over a few neighborhoods in existing cities. Like you're driving through Nebraska and you're right in the middle of Cheney, and all of a sudden your GPS says you're in Stillrush, but then you're back in Cheney.

Outreach centers were more connected with their surrounding communities from the get-go. You never had to be a registered birthright with the not-real "birthright gene" to get a job at an outreach center. But as time went on refuge hubs also more open about allowing non-birthrights in their ranks.

They're still super intensive in the interview process (welcoming, flexible, but thorough), but most of the naturalistic, inexplicably-humanist, pretty hippy-dippy beliefs of early birthrights are now considered outdated. More than that, in later generations there were less and less birthrights born with an "active" gene. Witch towns fell apart for one reason or another, leaving their inhabitants to scatter to adjacent towns to either retire, start new, or continue work in separate organizations.

The towns that kept going wanted to keep their communities alive, because by then a majority of the people essentially - or literally - living in witch towns were doing so for the community and the work done in that community. Even though with the balance way off between refuge hubs and outreach centers, resources are spread thin and demand is high and hard to manage. So now almost every town has a mixture of birthrights and non-birthrights, with even the occasional able-bodied and neurotypical employee.

It's getting stressful, though. The leadership in town feel it more, but everyone can tell. And no one knows why. One of the only lingering traits of old birthright culture is the insistence that they don't need to know - that the things they do and the relationships they make are what matter more than some biological party trick.

But it's hard to know how many people actually believe that. Because it's weird. It's weird that so many people had certain abilities for so, so long, and now it's looking like soon they just...won't anymore.

It's not grief that often provokes, but a vague unease. Like the thought of more and more people suddenly being born without a gallbladder. Like it's probably fine - it might even be a net positive.

But it's weird, right? Why now? What happened?

It doesn't matter though. No one really needs an answer.

Right?

[fulcrvm]

Last Line Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @teejaystumbles ! A really nice surprise!! :D I am indeed contemplating writing two Dead Boy Detectives fic right now, but they're both in the very early 'being-outlined-in-my-head' stage, haha. They both revolve around post-s1 Edwin pining for Charles, one where Edwin takes matters into his own hands and one where he decides to have a chat with the Cat King about it. Not sure if they'll ever be written but they're intriguing!

But for the sake of the tag game, here's a lengthy bit from a Dreamling wip I've slowly been chipping away at for a few months!

A scene from Every Little Thing (Working Title)— In which Morpheus is a figure drawing professor who has just been fired from a film production based on his comics, and Hob does part-time figure modeling and is determined befriend the aforementioned professor.

Morpheus picks his class schedules wisely— he runs two first year general figure drawing classes, at 8 a.m. and at noon on Mondays and Thursdays. He helps the uni’s live figure workshop club on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6 p.m., and meets his sister for lunch on Wednesdays. All other free time was dedicated for his industry work. That wouldn’t be a concern anymore, would it. By the time Morpheus unlocks the door to the studio, sets his bag down by his desk, and starts fiddling with the ceiling studio lights pointed at the model stand, all of Morpheus’ thoughts have reduced to pure spite. Fine, maybe the big studios don’t want him. They don’t deserve him, then, their loss. His portfolio and repertoire are infamous in the industry, they’ll be crawling back to him in no time. Too bad, maybe he would have started his own production studio and he’ll end up with the next ground-breaking animated film. Maybe— Morpheus’ thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door. He shakes himself out of it, calling, “Come in.” A glance at his watch tells him it’s only 7:48, perhaps it’s an overeager student here early. It’s only the second week of the semester, they grab every opportunity to prove themselves with a spirited step that Morpheus might be slightly envious of. “Hello, Morpheus Endeles?” Hearing his full name startles Morpheus, and he turns from the lighting settings to the door. “Yes?” The man who steps into view can only be described as radiant. He can’t be much older than Morpheus, not much taller either but wider in the shoulders. His hair is cropped just above his shoulders and he sports a neatly kept beard. Morpheus registers this all first simply because of his profession but— he gets caught on the man’s brilliant smile and deep brown eyes. There’s something there that knocks all thoughts clear out of Morpheus’ head. The stranger smiles warmly, smiles like he already cares. “I’m here to model for the morning and noon figure classes?” The man says. Morpheus clears his throat and steps forward, “Yes, this is the right studio.” He extends a hand, “Robert Gadling, I presume?” The man takes his hand— god, he’s so warm— and shakes it steadily, “Please, call me Hob! All my friends do.”

I'm a sucker for the 'Morpheus catalogues Hob's appearance during their first meeting' trope in most Dreamling human AU fics, I couldn't not do it too :]

Besides this, I've also got a Dreamling Velvet Goldmine-ish AU fic that I want to get done this summer. I'm a very slow and ruminative writer so let's see if I can commit to any of these fics now that I've posted about them lol!

No pressure tags! I have no idea who's been tagged recently so-- lol. @hardly-an-escape @valeriianz @moorishflower @amielot :)

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

When you have to take off your socks to change into clean socks and your bare feet touch the floor for exactly fifteen seconds and the dry, smooth sensation makes you want to chop your toes off

[mcmorare]

katrina + the feeling of love as light

mjulmjul | giov.anni gaspa.rro | jen.ny sla.te | poemsonmars | je.thro buc.k | david visc.ott | r.ilke | sa.ra eliza joh.nson | gregory or.r | buf.fy the vamp.ire slayer | unknown

[spocks-kaathyra]

what if I kill myself

[rosecabenson]

Missing DA Arther Branch, my criminally underrated boy

[humanmorph]

my baseless palisade 2 speculation is that while listening to Jack + Austin in pal56 I thought it could be fun if the protocol was part of the next system they're using somehow since it's become so important. like characters have "favors" btw them instead of bonds or w/e. now I don't know how much sense that would make for returning characters who have a sense of arbitrage contracts & how scary they are - while of course the protocol doesn't have anything to do with contracts, as it's been stressed, one could make a comparison - or the revolution in general? It'd immediately compromise player characters to an extend given arbitrage is the big bad, but this can be cool (really depends on the story setting out to be tell(hence the baseless part of the speculation)). mostly I just like when big setting stuff is directly reflected in the rules for the game so the narrative & system can influence each other back & forth.

[unknownarmageddon]

hozierr!!

YEAHH!! lesgo

[giurochedadomani]

The fan favourite, Eddie wasn't dead when they left him in the upside down, Billy finds him, they must fight together to get out, but with a twist: every cycle starts with Billy gasping for air and scrambling to close a chest wound that... Isn't open anymore. Every cycle starts with Eddie flinching violently to get away from the bats.... That turns out to be Billy's hand gently shaking him to wake him up. Billy's not aware than a whole year has passed since his death, they figure out that they're in some kind of loop and have to figure out how to break free before el closes the doors (and somehow save Max in the process)

[nejackdaw]

Because I'm an angst peddler, a little Miguel contribution:

I have a heart built for war / but I have never fought a fucking war like this

[tdicksupreme]

"If what we call "dominant masculinity" appears to be a naturalized relation between maleness and power, then it makes little sense to examine men for the contours of that masculinity's social construction. Masculinity, this book will claim, becomes legible as masculinity where and when it leaves the white male middle-class body. Arguments about excessive masculinity tend to focus on black bodies (male and female), latino/a bodies, or working-class bodies, and insufficient masculinity is all too often figured by Asian bodies or upper-class bodies; these stereotypical constructions of variable masculinity mark the process by which masculinity becomes dominant in the sphere of white middle-class maleness. But all too many studies that currently attempt to account for the power of white masculinity recenter this white male body by concentrating all their analytical efforts on detailing the forms and expressions of white male dominance. Numerous studies of Elvis, white male youth, white male feminism, men and marriage, and domestications of maleness amass information about a subject whom we know intimately and ad nauseam. This study professes a degree of indifference to the whiteness of the male and the masculinity of the white male and the project of naming his power: male masculinity figures in my project as a hermeneutic, and as a counterexample to the kinds of masculinity that seem most informative about gender relations and most generative of social change." - Jack Halberstam, Female Masculinity, p. 2-3