#I also have no intention of like actually fleshing out a language so I don't need to delve that deep

[centeris2]

sso headcanon #?

I should reblog my headcanons because I don't remember what number I was on and I wrote those years ago.

Pandoric writing headcanons! Plural because it's little ones!

The Pandoric written language can be read in any direction. Left to right, right to left, and vertically. Like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the direction the symbol is facing indicates the direction it should be read in (and if it is in columns or rows).

The symbols function as a number system, alphabet, and mean concepts/objects. Like Futhark runes. A single sentence can use all three, and the reader has to figure out which are meant to be numbers, letters, and picto/ideograms.

Pandoria is a place of dreams. Because of this, Pandorian writing is difficult to look at. Like writing in dreams the average person glosses over the visual details. A person might "read" in a dream, the dreamer knows what is in a book or what a street sign says, but when they try to really read it gets difficult, often taking them out of the dream. Most people experience a similar sensation when they see Pandoric writing, their eyes slide over it and they can't recall what it looked like.

that's all for now, maybe I have something I'm forgetting, maybe I'll come up with something more. Maybe I'll throw this all out the window in a year! But if I keep this headcanon for more than 12 months it'll be longer than some of SSO's actual canon shhh

[creatingblackcharacters]

Thank you so much for the work you put into this blog.

I'm in the early stages of writing a book that's set in close to modern times. I'm white, but many of my friends, and myself, have had many negative experiences regarding police, and I want my book to talk about that. Its close enough to me that it will be a central theme in the story.

I've been reading a lot and I have every intention of hiring a sensitivity reader when I get to that point, but I'm still fleshing out the story. Right now, all of my main characters have had negative interactions with police, and two of them are Black.

My question is how do I handle the topic of police brutality as a white person? Given the setting, having my Black characters not experience it when the white characters do strikes me as ignoring systemic racism, and that is the opposite of what I want.

Are there other things I can read to better familiarize myself with police violence and how that manifests differently for Black people? Should I avoid describing that?

😅 I don't- I must be honest, this one snatched my breath a little bit. Forgive me, I just can't imagine the privilege of not knowing.

Well first, your friends have varied experience with police violence; none of them are Black that you can talk to? Because if they are, and you haven't had that discussion, that indicates that there's a level of safety they don't feel with you. Not saying that's the case, but if it is... I would pause writing this story in lieu of building your relationships. It would help to consider how the police treated you, versus someone Black in a similar scenario as you. So look into cases like that.

As for this, I mean... The news 😅 police brutality against Black people is so regular that I find myself struggling sometimes to remember which body got which murder over the years, there's so many. Start reading Black abolitionists who write on the topic, for sure. There are also activists who write on it in general; The New Jim Crow is an easy one; even though it's older, things have gotten no better. The documentary 13th; runs in the similar vein of how law enforcement, policy, and the prison industrial complex preys on Black bodies using "color blind" racism to fill prisons for free labor.

Actually, I'm gonna issue you a personal challenge- I also want you to find five news article examples of police brutality against Black people and read both the articles AND some of the comment section of white commenters. I promise by the time you're done, you'll see how police brutality against Black people is responded to. Hell, even on here. Sonya Massey, Jordan Neely; the antiblackness bled from the average Tumblr commenter on those cases.

Read articles of the families left behind and how even in death, we cannot rest; George Floyd's murder sparked mass protest in Summer 2020 and people still tease his daughter about her father's murder. You can even go back in time and read, from lynchings in the 30s to the riots in the 60s and 90s; the rhetoric is generally the same, even if the language isn't overt anymore.

[sadist-babypink]

i've read the first uhtred-series book aka the last kingdom and here are some things that series-only watchers might find intresting or that i just feel like need to be mentioned:

uhtred's grandfather was also called uhtred. and he is related to a former king of the bebbenburg area.

a lot of what happens in the series when uhtred is an adult and after ragnar's death actually happens when uhtred is still a child and with him

the battle where alfred's brother gets wounded and then dies for example. uhtred is present there but on the dane's side but since he's a child he doesn't fight in the shieldwall. but both him and brida do wound english soldiers

ragnar takes out the leather band keeping his hair together whenever he intents to kill someone, so uhtred knows beforehand when someone is about to die

they celebrate yule quiet often

brida in general is batshit crazy in the first book. she licks someone else's blood of her spear at one point

brida and uhtred swim naked in a pool in london when they were there with ragnar (only mentioned in s2) and brida shamelessly feels him up infront of beocca who does not like that at all

uhtred's uncle sends and assassian on him who joins ragnar's men, then when he tries to kill him, brida is the one to save uhtred

more than half the book takes place before uhtred is 18, ending with the fight where he kills ubba (about the middle of s1) which is also his first actual shieldwall

brida joins ragnar later than uhtred when her village is raided. ragnar sees her hitting a woman (her aunt) and he likes that so he takes her under his protection

uhtred meets alfred the first time when he is still a child (13-14ish) and alfred is about 19

prior to ragnar's death, uhtred and ragnar the younger only really met each other for roughly one season when raganar came back from ireland

uhtred spends a lot of time with ubba (and ivar the boneless, but i don't think he is mentioned in the series) prior to joining the english due to ragnar working with them

ubba has two brothers who play a role, ivar and halfdan. they both have their own army but both die in ireland?

brida has the miscarriage at roughly 14 or 15 years old. her and uhtred have a sexual realtionship at that point but neither think of it as more than friendship

ravn is present a lot and uhtred sees him as sort of a grandfather. both him an brida spend a lot of time with him and tell him what is happening around them, and he then in turn explains to them what it is they are seeing.

ragnar's and uhtred's father-son relationship is way more fleshed out

ragnar has another son younger than uhtred named rorik or something but he is sickly and later dies. most of the things a father would teach their son ragnar cannot teach rorik because of his sickness but uhtred learns it from him, like killing boar or how to steer a ship

uhtred meets beocca multiple times before he is under alfred's command

unlike in the show, the danes and english obviously do not speak the same language. alfred always brings interpreters with him who are priests. uhtred serves as interpreter quiet often too, for both sides

uhtred later has sex with a servant girl alfred also had sex with and he takes pride in it that he isn't all guilty and whiny about it like alfred was lol

uhtred lies A LOT. it's insanely funny. mostly he lies to beocca and alfred, but alfred later manages to see through it

at one point uhtred claims ragnar is hitting him, which is a lie, but ragnar is amused by this

brida also lies a lot. she claims she was edmund's niece, then when confronted by aelswith she claims she was his bastard. both brida and uhtred know this is not true.

aelswith calls brida a prostitute at one point

brida does shrooms on the reg lol

whenever uhtred learning how to read is brought up during a meal with him, aelswith, beocca and alfred, beocca says "amen" and its actually histerical

uhtred is related to aethelred of mercia (not the one from s2 but his father?) and stays with him for some time before he is brought to alfred. he is also related to aelswith i think?

uhtred already met aethelflaed when she was still a baby

in the book when uhtred joins the english he is put on a ship called heahengel (it means archangel (bonus fact. engel means angel in german. language sure is interesting)) by alfred. there he meets leofric who "commands" the crew of the ship

leofric is discribed as small but muscular by uhtred. beocca actually has red hair and a crippled (?) hand. uhtred has long light hair, the same as rangar.

all of alfred's ships have names relating to the bible. uhtred thinks this is stupid.

uhtred's seax is called "wasp-sting". there is also a whole story involving who made his sword and the seax but it's too long to tell here. basically it was uhtred's first follower who is pagan and used to be a smith at bebbenburg.

leofric immedietly dislikes uhtred and uhtred immedietly likes him. i think this is partly because of the way leofric talks to him since it's similar to ragnar

they become good friends after fighting together. uhtred even calls it "love" which i think is really cute

leofric wants to command the fleet of 12 ships alfred has after the previous commander (who is some earlsman who did not want the position at all) deserts. but since he is the son of a slave and can't read, he can't, so he encurages uhtred to get alfred to give him the command over the fleet. however, uhtred first has to learn how to read from beocca at 18 years old lol. also leofric claims that while uhtred will command the fleet, leofric will command uhtred so it's kind of his fleet in a way

the whole fleet thing leads then to the marriage we all know about from the show. uhtred was very against marrying since he was not intrested in it. he also has some very outdated (not for the time but for today) opinions about marriage

a lot of battles they win out of sheer luck. like guthrum losing half his fleet to a storm. this is an event that actuall occured in real life btw.

uhtred straight up lies to udda to make him paranoid talking about having read the auguries and that he's gonna die lol

uhtred is in his first actual shield wall in the battle against ubba. the whole battle happens very differently from in the show. but uhtred does fight udda 1v1 and wins only bc udda slips on someone's guts

uhtred DEEPLY DISLIKES young odda

leofric is the one to tell uhtred about his nephew osferth and that he is alfred's bastard

and this is very different from the show i think: uhtred has no qualms lying about being christian. as a child he even thinks its funny. when he's older he does it to get what he wants (the command over the fleet for example). he'll talk about god and christianity because he believes it will win him alfred's favour but doesn't actually believe any of it. alfred sees right through him, naturally.

once i've finished the next few books i'll make more posts like this btw

[mithrilhearts]

Fanfiction Author Interview Game

Thank you for the tag, @pomgore!! It's been so long since I've done a proper tag game, it feels like lol

How many works do you have on AO3?

32 currently, though I'm tempted to trim some of that down with some works I'm not really fond of anymore (orphaning I guess? I'm not sure yet lol)

What's your total AO3 word count?

784,858, with a good handful of words written down unfinished and unposted

Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

May Your Forge Burn Bright

(Take Me Back To) The Night We Met

Dragonhearted

Forget-Me-Not

An Ink-Stained Vow

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to anyway!! I may not get to them in a "timely" manner, but I try. Even if it's simply reacting with an emoji - I like to let people know I see and appreciate their kind commentary!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I am a happy ending type person, so I don't have any angsty endings, I don't think?

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

See above lol they all end happily, and I want to keep it that way!

Do you write crossovers?

I haven't written any, and as of now, I have no intention to. Not my vibe

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I have a few times now, yes. Honestly, it just goes back to my philosophy of "don't like, don't read", but hey, not all of us can be reasonable and not leave hate when we don't like something. The back button exists for a reason!

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do yep, as for what kind...soft? I don't know how to describe it 🤣 it's not exactly a strength of mine.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

As far as actually WRITING it together, yes! @sunnyrosewritesstuff and I did a collab last year for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Collaboration!

What's your all-time favorite ship?

Bagginshield, I would say. I have some other OTPs, or ships that I enjoy, but they're the one that have their claws deep in my skin at this point

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

This is such a hard question. I genuinely don't want to leave a started (as in, I started posting it on ao3) fic unfinished, but I have no idea where life is going to take me. I have an assortment of fics started, and plot bunnies fleshed out, but no idea where I'll get with them.

What are your writing strengths?

These questions are so hard to answer! I think maybe dialogue, sometimes? And maybe descriptions of emotions.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Run-ons are a huge issue for me during the actual process, but I also struggle very much with battle sequences. I would also throw smut under this as well lol

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it depends! I throw in Khuzdul for dwarves, but offer in translations, but never really go beyond that. I think there are cases where it works, and others where it becomes too much.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

Baldur's Gate 3 and Dragon age! I have stuff drabbled out a little bit for the latter, but haven't posted anything yet. I'm ready to expand my horizons!

What's your favorite fic you've written?

Asking me to pick my favorite child, I see. It can change from day to day, and for TODAY, I'm going to say Kurdu 'abadaz - it gave me an opportunity to do my own take on a "fix it fic", but also held something unique and unseen before which is amazing in a 10+ year fandom lol it was such a huge accomplishment that meant a lot to me.

Tagging @elvain @chaoticangel666 @fantasyinallforms @sunnyrosewritesstuff @imakemywings and any other writers who want to participate!

[quietwingsinthesky]

This is deeply fascinating for me watching you go on an Anna spree because I kinda got caught up in the doylist interpretation of it all, which is that she very much only seemed to be there because Sam was getting way, way more pussy than Dean and we can't have that. We need a girl angel to prove he's still the straight manly man who fucks. And sure, there was potential there, lots of potential, but the actress just fell so flat with everything and it all felt so obligatory to me that I didn't care. So it's just nice to see someone who could enjoy her properly, you know? Like yay! Someone's actually being bothered with the interesting exploration of her character that the actual show couldn't be assed to do.

really? i thought her actress did a fantastic job, especially in the transition from anna as a human to anna knowing she's an angel. her body language and the way she talks almost completely changes after she regains her memories. her little dynamic with ruby is also one of my favorites from the two-parter she's introduced in. not to mention her importance in the trio of uriel-castiel-herself in introducing castiel to rebellion and being his blueprint for doing so.

i'm not going to say that anna wasn't written into the show mostly with the intent of giving dean a love interest. but i do think you are severely understating her actual character by slotting her only into that role.

like, while i think there was a lot more the show could have done with her, should have done with her. and while i think misogyny played a role in why she was not given an expanded role despite how well she fits the themes of the show. i also don't think the show... didn't explore her at all? she's fairly well-fleshed out, especially for a female side character given like 4-5 episodes and way less screentime than that. her relationship with dean feels a lot deeper to me than a lot of people in this fandom are willing to allow it to be; there's a lot going on in their conversations after anna regains her memories. the parallel about their fathers is something people always point to, but even more compelling to me is that they talk about themselves in very similar ways. dean talks about himself as something terrible for what hell shaped him into, and anna calls herself basically the worst thing an angel can be for choosing to fall.

there's a hell of a lot going on between them in how heaven and hell dehumanized them both. her covering the handprint has always been about that to me, and their sex scene as a whole. about trying to reclaim themselves when they are literally being treated like heaven owns them (dean's been fucking branded, and anna is being chased down for slaughter.)

idk. i like her a whole lot. far from a perfect job was done on that show, but what they did do was done very, very well.

[ntls-24722]

Might be a weird question, but you know how humans tend to anthropomorphize animals and objects and such like in fiction?

Either by just giving them human language and thoughts, or by also making the animals/objects stand on two legs or an upright pose and more human like anatomy in the case with furries and such?

Or even give themselves features of animals like my sona with deer ears and legs and a long tail and such?

Or in ancient Egypt with the depictions of gods with animal heads

Or heck even just furries and fursonas

On Bolur, in any era, do the homo mousike ever anthropomorphize animals or objects in their art and stories? How would a Debu/Zebraman/elf fursona look like? How would they visually anthropomorphize other things in their art and stories?

I think about these things sometimes (when it comes to alien life/spec biology in general)

OOOOH. I LIKE THIS QUESTION A LOT.

So first: Yes, they anthropomorphize their animals and objects! Definitely now when their collective histories just began, but especially so in Zebraman culture all throughout their history, when their entire lives are centered around their animals (recent update, I need to flesh it out). Just about every zebraman god is animal-based because of it, and zebramen have way more societies focused on stewarding the land and its animals.

Debu anthropomorphize objects slightly more than other homo mousike - when nothing around you is your size, you relate to the things that are, and generally those things were the things made for you. They give them faces and have these masks or collective objects dedicated to concepts or people, or a particular figure is embued with a spirit of their own.

As for fursonas...

Ok, here on out, I'm gonna be calling them pycnofiberies, since everything here will be based on the night cloe. This is the debu Dog so I think this is a good candidate for furry-ization, and just for simplicity I'll use the night cloe for the zebrapeople anthros, too.

So, first thing off the bat - the most obvious anthromorphization for debu is sizing everything to their just like we do, it's just more obvious now that they're huge. The front teeth are usually really bunched together and seperate from the others on Bolur and while fusing together into beaks or tusks is common, the teeth are often seperate, like they are in night cloes. Debu often fuse them together to make them resemble tusks more ( since gaps in teeth are kind of uncanny to them) and add a beard, even if it's just stubble to their anthros, the same way we add our hair. They also add a mouthglow! In cartoons, Debu mouthglows sometimes are neon colored rather than just white as an exaggeration of the minute color differences in actual mouthglows, either to tell apart individual debu, as stylization or to be more obvious to the yellow-blue colorblind zebrapeople. (which is why yellow and green dyes are so rare - the species that develops the most dyes don't percieve greens and yellows very well.)

Also, a hump, in the same way we add boobs to everything regardless of the boobage in the actual animal. Humps in debu are attractive in both sexes, and are usually added regardless of the intent on making a character attractive.

And of course, for expressions, the nostrils are exaggeratedly large, no matter what animal it's on.

There's also the exaggeration of facial discs in night cloes the same way ears are in our furries, sometimes so extreme the edges jut out from the face. There's also a feature in a lot of "mary sues"/"gary stus" where the claws are overgrown - in Debu cultures, gods are often depicted with overgrown, curved hooves to demonstrate their age and "mythical-ness", as it's an occurrence in elderly debu but not a very common one. So, to show power, alongside a brightly glowing mouth, mary sue cloesonas have great, curved claws. There's also the "beastars" style hands, where they'll give their hooved hands to animals with little other animalistic detail.

Then there's cloe-girls and "angels"

Debu recognize facial discs as the ears of a cloe, but don't put them at their ears, they put them at the same place they see them - around the eyes. They have the same catgirl ear inaccuracies as us!

There's also angels, winged debu. They have the same gig as us where they just slap cloe wings on there without regard to homologous structures.

Now onto zebrapeople anthros!

Zebramen do the same thing as us, making their pycnofiberies stand on 4 or 6 legs rather than all 6 or 8 (depending on the -pedalism). Zebraelves though, as they are equally hexapodal as they are octopodal, do a mix of both, sometimes relating to sex - "drone" and "queen" pycnofiberies (they project their genders/sexes onto non-eusocial animals too) are often more hexapodal than their worker counterparts, as queen zebraelves are sometimes restricted to hexapodality on account of sometimes being too gravid to walk on all 8's, and drones just generally being found on cloeback or on the ground, where zebraelves usually assume a hexapodal posture. "Taurs" are also very common.

There's also the arm situation when it comes to night cloes specifically, because cloes generally have "plantigrade" forearms, while zebrapeople have "digigrade" forearms; their arm appears to have a second joint. Just like how we deal with digigrade legs in our furries, pycnofiberies have it either-or.

So - this is corny? (just because of the focus on stripes, the one thing that zebras are known for) but a beauty/aesthetically pleasing convention in zebrapeople is the "stripe continuation" comparable to how we like facial symmetry. It's attractive to them to have... geometric integrity with their stripes, which is why monobrows are seen as more attractive than broken brows. It's more exaggerated in zebraelves because their black and white stripes are more common, and they serve more of a purpose than they do in zebramen. Following this, cartoon zebrapeople's faces often are depicted with very simplistic X's, swooping stripes, or are made with "one line". So, abiding by toony laws, so are their pycnofiberies!

Their pycnofiberies have their eyebrows either following or coming off from a continued line, and their lip/nasal area is generally colored black, too, or the color of whatever follows the line. Night Cloes must be super common pycnofibersonas for zebrapeople the same way wolves are common fursonas, because wowza those facial discs follow stripe continuation really nicely.

(sidenote: i think zebrapeople would CONSTANTLY have weird looksmaxxing fads relating to the the geometric integrity of their stripes too, the same way looksmaxxing circles started fretting about canthal tilts and shit. it would get racist fast. just like us :') )

And, they do cloe-girls and angels the same way as us.

[msfcatlover]

Tim walking into Corruption!Damian's room, and gently placing a weird package down on Damian's desk while Damian watches. Tim giving Damian what Tim probably thinks is a meaningful look, taking in Damian's blank expression, and snorting. Tim rolling his eyes and just saying "You're welcome," before walking out again.

Damian has absolutely no idea what to make of it, until the eggs hatch.

A month later, Tim walks in with a slightly different package and does the exact same thing. Desk, stare, "You're welcome." Damian opens his mouth to ask, but Tim's already gone.

Tim keeps doing it, sometimes when Damian's not even in the room; Damian will just open his bedroom door, and there's a new package on his desk. Which would all be weird enough, if it weren't for the fact that the packages are all different. Different labels, different brands, different logos, even different languages on the labels & instructions.

Damian doesn't know what to do with all these moths. He can't let them loose, this isn't their native environment. He can't send them back, they're too fragile; he's terrified something will happen in transit, killing them all. He'd love to adopt them into his swarm, but Damian is unsure of exactly how that would work—he's never added anything, the moths simply chose him— plus, he doesn't know where the limits of his patron's generosity lie. At this point , Damian has more caterpillars than biomass to potentially hold them, and Damian doesn't want to crowd out the few resilient moths he has left, while also making life worse for the new ones.

(Damian probably shouldn't worry about that, given Jane Prentiss had a literal flood of worms at her command, but then, Damian's relationship with his swarm at this point in time is a hell of a lot healthier than Prentiss's. And the Corruption doesn't really do "healthy" in any way shape or form. So maybe he's right to.)

.

Damian ends up with a new greenhouse. He fills it with plants from around Nanda Parbat, but especially caters to the ailanthus trees he has shipped in. A perfect little Eden for his moths to inhabit.

Tim seems annoyed by this outcome. Damian finally loses patience, demanding to know what Tim thought the outcome would be. (What Tim's intentions were.)

Tim frowns, bemused. "You need more genetic diversity." Damian has no idea what he's talking about. "For your swarm," Tim clarifies.

"My swarm is fine!"

"Dames, you told me you had like 10 moths when you made it to Gotham." Tim raises his eyebrows, like he's stating the obvious. "You have to know that's not a healthy number. Right?"

Damian presses a hand to his chest, a protective tic Dick encouraged despite Damian learning years ago not to give away his feelings (especially not when they might risk his swarm.) "They're strong," he says, voice soft but firm, "they survived Grandfather, the Pit, my—recovery." (Damian doesn't like to think about those months, when his swarm was trapped under his skin, re-burrowing their tunnels, unable to spread their wings. The pain of his flesh being re-molded to its chosen purpose was nothing compared to the weeks Damian had thought the creatures he'd poured his whole being into nurturing, the special moths who changed in order to bond just with him, were extinct.) He glares at Tim. "We don't need your help."

"That's not what you said when I got back," Tim says with a smirk, and Damian looks away. Tim sighs. "I was going to stop soon anyway. Just... consider it, okay? None of us wants to deal with it if it turns out they're weak to the flu."

"They're moths," Damian snaps, more on instinct than anything else, "they can't get the flu."

"Actually, modern studies on transmissible disease—"

Damian scoffs and storms off. (Tim pats himself on the back for definitely winning that argument.)

.

Damian does not add Tim's foreign moths to his swarm. But... he does spend a lot of time in the greenhouse, reading or drawing, and letting his swarm run free. (Damian's their Hive, not their keeper. It's none of his business what his moths get up to when he lets them out to play.)

[reikunrei]

Shadows, Saving, and Simulations

A while back, I made a post (that I can no longer find) about some random bits of a couple episodes of Doctor Who that gave me some Stranger Things vibes with the intent of seeing if my inkling was warranted. Well, I finally watched the episodes again.

They are season 4, episodes 8 and 9, "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead."

The monster of these episodes are called the Vashta Nerada. We never actually see them, but they take the shape of shadows/exist as swarms within the darkness. They were the main reason why I initially thought of these episodes because of their being possible inspiration for the Shadow in Stranger Things, because while the Shadow/Mind Flayer is presented as one (mostly) singular, tangible being, the hive mind aspect of it/the UD is very similar to how the Vashta Nerada operate and communicate amongst each other to hunt.

There are even several characters who become "puppets" of the Vashta Nerada. Though while the don't actually go into the victims, the language is similar in that the Doctor says they become "infected" by the Vashta Nerada. They'll even attach themselves to a victim before consuming them to keep them "fresh" and to infect others. These victims wind up having two shadows: one benign and one infected.

The Vashta Nerada can strip flesh from bone in a fraction of a second, so the victims are dead in an instant and the swarm inhabits the suit they're wearing and manipulates that into moving. It starts off clunky and slow, but as the episode progresses, they get better at moving the suits to keep up with the others.

We even get a fun "strangling the person who's trying to help" moment. Hi, Joyce!

We're also introduced to a concept called "Data Ghosting." The members of the expedition party, the ones in the white suits, are each equipped with a communication device which, upon death of the wearer, hangs on to a copy of their consciousness anywhere from a few seconds to several hours afterward. These "ghosts" can continue to speak to the living until they deteriorate, often repeating a final word or phrase as their consciousness officially leaves.

At one point, the Doctor tries speaking to the Vashta Nerada, encouraging them to use the the lingering "data ghost" of one of the victims to manipulate their speech into telling the Doctor what they want. This occurs later as well when another victim is infected. Though, as the Doctor said earlier, "they're learning."

Anita, a member of the expedition, ultimately finds she has a second shadow, and in an attempt to trick the Vashta Nerada into believing they've already gotten inside her suit, they tint the visor. However, this proves futile, but nobody notices that she's been killed for a good long while, and she even continues talking, keeping pace as they run, and carrying herself like a normal person until the Doctor makes it clear he spotted that she's back down to one shadow.

I had completely forgotten about the "Data Ghosting" aspect of these episodes, so while I went into it thinking "ah, yes, a living shadow that puppets dead people in an attempt to kill others" was a pretty fun little similarity to the Mind Flayer, I didn't expect to then have "the shadow is trying to mimic the infected person in order to cause more damage."

Obviously, this isn't exactly like what's happening with, say, the flayed victims in ST who are still themselves but heightened to a certain degree rather than being wholly replaced (ie. Billy being angrier than usual). However, it specifically makes me think of this theory by @aemiron-main that, for example, "Henry" isn't Henry in TFS, and perhaps certain characters have been replaced with shapeshifters or doppelganger-type monsters. The Vashta Nerada are even feeding off of the remaining "data ghosts" in order to communicate, much like how a doppelganger would have to feed off of/consume their victim in order to pass as that person.

Now, with all that out of the way, let's get to the fun bit: NINA parallels.

These episodes take place on a planet-sized library which was constructed for the consciousness of a little girl to live in for eternity. The little girl, Charlotte, was dying of an incurable disease, so her grandfather created The Library for her to enjoy every book ever written, meanwhile also giving her an imaginary world to exist in as a "real girl," which leads her to believe that The Library is her imagination rather than the reverse reality.

However, as the Doctor, his companion Donna, and the expedition team fall under threat of the Vashta Nerada, Charlotte's psychologist, Dr. Moon, reveals to her the truth.

Yes, he even calls them nightmares!! Just like Henry calls his visions in TFS!!

Throughout the episode, we see Charlotte in her imaginary "real world" interacting with the library.

When the Doctor and Donna first "meet" her, what they actually come across is a hovering, sphere-shaped security camera that shuts off when Charlotte opens her eyes in her "real world." Then, when the Doctor tries to turn the security camera back on using his Sonic Screwdriver (a multi-purpose tool he carries with him), we see Charlotte reacting to the sound it emits/feeling the Doctor forcing the security camera back on, but her father and Dr. Moon don't hear the sound at all.

There are several other instances where Charlotte will hear something that's caused by commotion in the library, but her father in the "real world" can't hear it. At one point, the expedition team are trying to crack into the security protocols for the library in an attempt to find a way out/figure out what's going on, but they hit a wall and trigger an alarm. The alarm manifests as a phone ringing in Charlotte's living room, but when she asks her dad if he's going to pick it up, he says the phone isn't ringing.

Then, in an attempt to break through the security protocols even further, the Doctor winds up transmitting himself onto her TV and they speak briefly to each other. At this point, the Doctor & Co. have yet to know what Charlotte's relation is to the library, but she recognizes him as the man she saw "in my library." Before the Doctor can question her on that, the connection is lost.

Throughout the rest of the episode, we then see Charlotte "watching" what's happening in the library on her TV. She's basically watching the Doctor Who episodes within the Doctor Who episodes, and when she flips through channels, she switches to new scenes/shots. They even have a musical score that is very clearly coming from her TV. Her dad is unaware of this as well, and when she makes comments about the library being "on TV now," he chuckles and reminds her that the library is in her imagination.

Obviously, a lot of this reminded me of El talking to Brenner when she's in NINA in ST4, as well as the several times the grandfather clock chimes in TFS despite its otherwise glaring absence throughout the whole show. There's even that one moment before the attic sequence with Patty where Henry gets interrupted by the clock chime, but Patty doesn't seem to react to it at all, she only reacts to Henry reacting.

Not to mention the Vecna visions in ST4 and seeing/hearing the grandfather clock/other aspects of the vision when no one else can, El's running in and out of the Rainbow Room/shouting eliciting little to no reaction from the other kids, and Henry's weird half-real/half-not visions throughout all of TFS.

Let's talk more about Charlotte's "real world."

At the end of the first episode, Donna, while being transported to the TARDIS to be kept safe, gets mysteriously grabbed "by" the library. While Charlotte is watching The Library on her TV, she flips to a channel that is not in the library. We see Donna pulled out of an ambulance on a gurney and taken inside a care facility, where we then see Dr. Moon enter her room. However, she doesn't know who he is or where she is until he "reminds" her.

Peep the two years...

He gently feeds her information that gets her to believe one "reality" over another. And while it's not exactly the same, it reminded me very much of Brenner urging El to "remember" in order to proceed through NINA, and it reminded me of all the times Henry or other characters pushed the "it's a dream/nightmare" sentiment in order to change the outcome of something.

Throughout the rest of their interactions, Dr. Moon says "and then you remembered" and "and then you forgot" very frequently. His motives may seem wishy-washy at this point, since he was telling Charlotte that the "real world" is just her imagination, but here he is telling Donna that the "real world" is real and her memories of the Doctor are just "dreams." From what I can gather, it's mostly just to keep Charlotte/the simulation stable.

In these moments when Dr. Moon "reminds" Donna of what she remembered/forgot, she often will then behave like Dr. Moon has just arrived, greeting him again and seeming surprised, like she forgot he was there/like they hadn't just had a conversation with each other.

The way time progresses within this world really stuck out to me. It's played off like Donna has memory issues, but in reality, whenever something is suggested to her/she thinks of doing something else/going somewhere, it simply... happens. For example, in that scene with Dr. Moon asking her about her "dreams," when he suggests they go for a walk, they're simply suddenly outside taking a walk. She asks him how they got outside, because, from her point of view, there was just a snap transition from her room to outside. He talks her through how they walked out of the building and she laughs it off like she simply forgot again.

This phenomenon is finally explained to her by another character who was in The Library with her, Miss Evangelista, who's sentient of the fact that this "real world" is all a simulation.

Miss Evangelista was the first victim of the Vashta Nerada. She hides her face in a black veil because she was copied into the simulation when she died, resulting in her getting scrambled physically and mentally. In the library, she was a pretty ditz, but in the simulation, she's a photo-booth-swirl-filter-looking genius.

And like... do I even need to say it?

At this point, I guess I should just out and say what's really going on here. Charlotte, full name Charlotte Abigail Lux, or CAL, is the hard drive for The Library.

Her consciousness was essentially made into the computer that runs the whole planet, and 100 years prior to the Doctor and Donna arriving, the Vashta Nerada hatched, alerting the security system that the library was under attack, and in an attempt to rescue the 4,022 people who were physically in The Library that day, the library tried to transport them all out of harm's way. However, with nowhere to send them, CAL saved all of the people to the hard drive in this imaginary "real world."

They spend a lot of time equating this imagined "real world" to a dream. Alongside Dr. Moon initially telling Charlotte that her visions of The Library are "nightmares," the Doctor, attempting to wake up the computer to save the data core before it self-destructs (Charlotte had a meltdown of sorts once Miss Evangelista made Donna realize that her world, her husband, her children, are all just a figment of her imagination/an idealized world/a dream. While overwhelmed, she deleted her dad and Dr. Moon by pressing buttons on her TV remote, and this resulted in The Library going into self-destruct mode. This was also partially because Dr. Moon is a personification of the computer's "doctor moon," a fake moon placed into The Library to act as a virus checker) equates its state to that of someone who's dreaming, and that's when the "child hooked up to a mainframe" situation is revealed, because she is dreaming.

Which leads me into my next detail of import in these episodes: names and identity.

As we've already explored, Charlotte's true identity/purpose remained a mystery for most of the run time. We're aware that she has some sort of influence on/ownership over The Library, and in that early scene with Dr. Moon we're told that her "imagination"/"nightmares" (read: The Library) are the real world. However, it's not until well into the second episode that we're officially told that Charlotte is CAL, and only once they understand that fact are they able to figure out what to do to save the library and everyone inside of it.

We're also introduced to the (future) recurring character River Song. From the first moment we meet her, we're aware that she knows the Doctor. However, the Doctor makes it clear that he doesn't know her. Ultimately, we learn that this is the first time he's ever met her, and it's the last time she's ever going to see him. Because of this, she has years of experience with him to make her trust him unequivocally, but he is very distrustful of her, seeing as she's a total stranger to him.

However, there is one thing she says to him, something that she whispers in his ear so no one, not even the audience, can hear what she says. And that one whisper has him instantly putting all of his trust in her. And what did she say?

Spoilers: later in the show, River and the Doctor get married. That's why she knows his true name, not just his "Doctor" moniker.

Obviously, all of this name and identity stuff has me staring at the Henry slash Vecna slash One nonsense, the existence of Edward Creel, and the general "which character actually is this" of the whole kit and caboodle.

In a similar vein, we get multiple instances of language like this from River:

And while this is clearly just a "you're not the man I know yet" type of sentiment, which is something she specifies, there was no way I could ignore the implications of that kind of dialogue being put into ST. Especially in regard to this post made by James @henrysglock and the general idea that the same person can exist simultaneously/interact with themselves/be both themselves and "someone else." This also happens a lot in DW, and different iterations of the Doctor will meet each other occasionally, and each Doctor is different enough from the other + any later regeneration's additional life experience will allow them to help in different ways.

Just something about the "future you" being the "real you" because that's the "most accurate" you, and all the "past" yous are half-baked, incomplete, and not quite you just yet.

Actually, before I continue, in a similar vein to James's post I linked above, I should explain that we even get a moment of the future Doctor helping the past (present) Doctor within these two episodes.

In order to save all of the people in the hard drive, they need to "restore" them. However, CAL, overwhelmed, doesn't have enough memory in order for it to work smoothly. The Doctor suggests he hook himself up to the mainframe in order to assist, but River offers herself up instead, saying that it'll kill him if he does it and she can't let that happen. Ultimately, she knocks him out, handcuffs him away from her, and takes his place, killing herself in order to restore all of the people in the hard drive.

Earlier in the episodes, we learn that River also has a Sonic Screwdriver, that fancy multi-tool I mentioned a while back. However, that's not something the Doctor just gives away to people. Just before he and Donna are to leave the library, he sets the screwdriver atop her diary, which he was planning to leave in the library along with all of the other books. But then... it clicks.

Why would he give her his Sonic Screwdriver? Why would he do that, knowing he (his future self) would never see her again after this?

He cracks the device open only to see a piece of hardware exactly like the communication device that enabled the "data ghosts" from earlier. He's able to rush back to the hard drive, Sonic in hand (he does have to go fast, she's dwindling), and deposits her into the mainframe for her to exist in the imagined reality of Charlotte with her friends who had been killed by the Vashta Nerada.

His future self, knowing she was going to die on this trip to The Library, planned ahead, knowing his past self would be smart enough to figure it out and save her.

Anyway, where was I? Cripes, this post is all over the place!!

Stranger Things, at the present moment, is a bit of a mess in terms of identity and who's-who. We're told one thing, but when you peel back the layers, you find about a dozen other deviating routes that point in an entirely different direction. As I mentioned earlier, we even get extra characters like Edward Creel, who add another entirely new series of layers to help further muddy the waters.

Blame is something central to the story of Stranger Things. Specifically, where it is wrongly placed.

It was already apparent to me (as to most people) that one of the keys to "beating Vecna" in the end will have to be figuring out who he really is. Given that they think they know his identity, and yet they still managed to not beat him, is clear evidence that they don't have the full picture yet. And, much like how the Doctor wasn't able to figure out how to save The Library until he knew who and what CAL was, our gaggle of teenagers and errant adults won't be able to save Vecna until they know who and what he is.

However, my big takeaway after watching these Doctor Who episodes was... is anything in NINA even real at all?

I personally think that it has to come from some kind of truth, and, at least in the case of El in NINA, I think some of those moments really are her memories. With TFS, I'm a little more willing to look at it and go "yeah all of this is entirely a simulation." Given how many facts are misaligned with on-film canon, the insistent way we're told "Henry" is Henry by Henry (and other characters).

And the number of times Henry says, "This isn't real." Sure, those were in moments of distress when he was experiencing effects of the Shadow, but it still makes me go... okay, "Henry," if that even is your real name... how much of this isn't real?

Donna, once faced with the reality of her world being a simulation/dream, finds herself hard-pressed to keep up the image of it. She starts becoming more aware of the weird way in which time passes, she realizes that every other child in the world is an exact copy of her own, and she finds it difficult to reassure her children of their existence when they confess that they feel like they're not real sometimes. And, after they tell her this, they vanish into thin air.

This, obviously, is where things diverge in terms of how this applies to ST. Obviously, the point of NINA was for El to be aware of the fact that they're memories and to collect them again in order to get her powers back/find the source of her strength. But that leads me again into: if she doesn't remember them, how does she know that they're her own? This has been talked about extensively by folks like Em and James, so I won't touch on it more than that, but I think it's a likely possibility that has to be considered going into ST5.

This is a bit easier to apply to "Henry" in TFS. While I agree that some of it has to be taken from reality in order to construct the world he's in, as I said prior, the inconsistencies and timelines not matching up (again, spoken about a lot by James and Em, especially stuff like the newspaper dates being wrong) makes it stink of something especially wrong.

In these Doctor Who episodes, all of the people that exist in that world are, in fact, also real people! I think the only exception are the children, as they were fully fabricated by Donna's "settle down and start a family" dream. At the end of the second episode, she even goes searching through library records to see if the man she "married" was one of the 4,022 people who'd been saved.

However, in the end, he was real. We see him trying to call out to her as she walks away with the Doctor, but he gets teleported out of the library before he can get her attention.

Not only did this remind me of idea that Patty might not be real, but it sort of put me further in the camp of "Patty in TFS isn't real, but Patty is a real person." Like, I genuinely don't think that she's a fully fabricated being, but rather she's taken from some other reality and molded to fit the current situation.

Which also reminds me of, in these Doctor Who episodes, there are statues throughout The Library which offer information to guests, and they have real human faces on them. Donna talks to one early on in the first episode and it gives some spiel about how it "chose" a face she would "like" from their data bank. The Doctor says it's "like donating an organ." This idea has been talked about irt Patty in TFS being so similar to Henry in terms of likes and desires (they're both comic/superhero nerds and they both want to get away from their abusive households) (I know either Em or James have posted about that but I cannot for the life of me find the posts lol). Not to mention that Patty winds up filling a sort of maternal role for Henry, who is without a proper maternal figure in his life, which Em talks about in posts like this one irt Patty also looking for a paternal figure in her life/rebelling against the one she has.

So, they're both looking for something specific of these relationships, and, at least from Henry's side, he gets given someone who shares his interests and experiences and is willing to give him love and affection when the "proper" person isn't willing to (even if it does go awry in the end, but, y'know).

I got a bit sidetracked there, but looping back to what I said just a little ways above about the purpose of El's NINA simulation being to be aware of the fact that they're memories and try to follow them "the right way"... it's, again, interesting to me that the only time we see "Henry" insisting something isn't real is when he's in a "bad vision," and it makes me wonder what would have happened if he'd been able to question reality outside of that as well. Other characters tell him it's a dream/nightmare/not real (whether that's actually Patty or a friend in disguise, like James suggests in one of the posts of his I linked earlier, is to be confirmed) and that helps to snap him out of it/ground himself... but what if we got more of that? Would all of it fall apart? Much like how, once Charlotte became fully aware of what was going on and the "reality" was questioned, she sent the library into self-destruct?

And looping back again to the "Patty isn't real" stuff and Em's doppelganger theory, if Henry was allowed to question himself, would we potentially learn that "Henry" really isn't Henry? Like Donna said, he "could have had a different name out [there]."

Okay I... think I need to stop myself from going any further, so here's some closing thoughts!!

In short, none of these ideas are new. James and Em have spoken extensively about NINA/TFS being fake, or interspersed with lies at the very least; they've spoken about there being missing information/scenes during/prior to the 1979 HNL massacre; and aaaall that other stuff I already linked. Stav @heroesbyler was also the first to talk about Brenner's Doctor/Time Lord coding, which is something I also talk more about in this post.

Ultimately, the fact that there were so many things that jumped out at me in these DW episodes that aligned with ideas presented not only in these theories about ST, but within ST itself, makes me think that those theories really aren't far off the mark.

And while none of this gave me any answers, it reinforced a lot of questions (and added some new ones) that make me eager to see how everything culminates in this upcoming final season.

What's real and what isn't? Who's real and who isn't? Which are memories and which are fabrications? Whose memories/dreams belong to themselves and which ones belong to someone else? Are they twisted/swapped to get a specific outcome someone else wants? Is anything idealized to make it more alluring? Who can we actually trust throughout this whole damn series?

[kitemist]

Thoughts on twinkling watermelon (kdrama 2023)

I know I barely post here anymore but I finished a kdrama and I don't know who else to talk to about it.

Spoilers for the everything

I haven't watched a single k drama since attorney woo and I found this on tiktok after seeing an edit of it and it has been a while since I watched anything with deaf themes.

Synopsis: A CODA struggles with his passion for music when his father opposes him being in a band, and is suddenly zapped back to 1995 and assigns himself the quest of pairing his teenage future parents together so that he can return back safely, but then runs into complications when his future dad has another crush instead of his future mom, dedicating an entire band of all things purely to win her heart.

Throughout the series it shows quite a bit of life in 1995, and Eun Gyeol slowly learns the past of his parents that he has never told them when they were children, such as how his dad did not have his mom as his first love, or that he was actually born hearing and lost his hearing later in life. Later he meets his mom, a deaf girl going to a different high school for the arts, and his main obstacle that turns out to be a friend, Se Gyeong. From trying to investigate what happened on both sides and being victim of an accident, he ends up in his future mom's house and finds that she is being abused by her adoptive mother and stepsisters, all without the father's knowledge because he is constantly overseas for his instrument business. He promises her father to make her smile, and teaches her sign language as her tutor, the same sign language he had learned from her as a child. I thought that was a beautiful yet tragic way of paying it back.

Se Gyeong is actually Eun Yu, another time traveller from the present day who went back in time to masquerade as her mother, and prevent her parents from meeting so that she didn't have to be born, after her present day life from a father that abandoned her, a mother that tries to live through her, and a second father that moved on so easily after moving overseas all wanted nothing to do with her or her achievements as her own person. She is very much a tsundere and plays around without any regard for people's feelings or any real risks, but ends up attached to Eun Gyeol. They end up having a love hate relationship with each other but then end up falling in love for real after the trials of the band.

Some things are just never explained, such as why the master offers time travelling to the both of them, even though he is revealed to Mr. Viva by the end, the intentions of the time travel are never revealed, even though Eun Gyeol was also wondering as much as well. Why did Chung ah's mother abandon her, where did she go, and the only thing that was revealed was that her moving away was not her choice? And how did the adoptive mother get hired in the first place? Was she a babysitter? She tells Chung ah that from then on she would be her new mother, but from simply being FIRED it was enough to eject her and her kids. Also I felt like Eun Ho, the deaf brother, was not fleshed out enough as a character until somewhat at the very end when Eun Gyeol and Eun Yu are trying to figure out the accident only for it to happen anyway. It almost came off like Viva la Music gives this time traveling trip as a service from how the master was cryptic and worded things, but then it just was for those two in the end. Was it his way of paying things back to them when he couldn't do it in his own lifetime? Wait, wow, that just already explained that. Huh.

Also there are some times where Eun Gyeol is just a huge idiot and never learns until it is actually too late and that's when I felt that the show was much longer than it should be, or at least felt longer. Like he already knows his parent's names but then still calls them dad and mom even though they are the same age as him in 1995. When Eun Yu lets it slip that she's a time traveller, three times in the same episode, he doesn't catch onto any of it until they are on the same train with a smartphone in hand? He also doesn't know how to come off as protective to Yi Chan, without just seeming gay. As funny as that is as a gag it ends up being overused because for some reason Eun Gyeol doesn't know any other way to be protective of him.

It also bothered me greatly that Eun Gyeol also assigns himself the mission of preventing the accident from happening to his father, because it was the reason he became deaf. Like firstoff the mission was to pair them together so that he could be born and return to the present day safely, and secondly, it's like he doesn't want him to be deaf even though he knows it's not always a bad thing. It also seemed to be written last second that Eun Yu would help him with this mission as well, only for it to happen anyway.

The way that Eun Gyeol ended up so interconnected with Eun Yu has got to be one of my favorite parts of the writing. And how the alternative series of events in 1995 flow together, like how Chung ah's brother comes back as an alternate way for the accident to happen, and how music became both of their passions only to sour into a source of grief because of familial expectations.

Eun Gyeol and Yi Chan did have a quality relationship once the latter finally learned to not be such a prick. They quite literally did everything they could for each other, ultimately. If it wasn't time travel, they could have been lifelong friends.

Eun Yu's past of being with a club of similarly high expectations well off children was well written even though briefly shown. It was enough to show the start of her slippery slope into grief, which ultimately made her do stupid shit to try and get attention to her as a person instead of her talents or image of her mother, but I still considered her annoying most of the time. Only when she cooperated with Eun Gyeol, or actually did her job when she was asked, or knew well how to manipulate Watermelon Sugar was when she was a neat character.

Going back to the future and ending up in a better future than where he came from was really nice, he positively impacted the right people who provided everything for his parents. But I wish there were more moments between Eun Gyeol and Chung ah, and ultimately Yi Chan and Chung ah. For being the main couple that has to get together, they didn't share that many moments together, even though that sign language song concert was very sweet. Yi Chan is very strong hearted, and it's his strength with Chung ah but easily his biggest weakness with Se Gyeong, expecting his bandmates to be the same as him even though everyone knows that he only made the band for the sake of a girl so what professionalism is there to be had. In the end, Yi Chan ended up being just a good kid. Ma Joo however was annoying when it came to showing the tape that Yi Chan promised to not show anyone. That's when he actually cares about the band as someone who is only an assistant to it, at the cost of the frontman.

The sign language parts of the drama were not much, but it was so heartwarming when everyone in the band learned some sign for her, and that Eun Gyeol gave the same book to her father. I appreciate the dedication to all the signing being correct, but I wish that the deaf parts were also given to deaf actors. Could just be me watching Switched at Birth so much and seeing that it's a well loved thing in the US to have that though. And the connection between Chung ah and Frida Kahlo, I thought would be much more because it was in the opening and it was the painting that got them to say Viva la Vida. They did talk about her life and how she was strong from how she grew from everything that happened to her, and some parts of her life may be inappropriate for the age rating(?), but there could have been more to show, like other works she had done. Also. Eun Gyeol and Eun Yu deserved sign names. Actually, everyone does.

Overall, I liked the drama, but I cannot recommend it because it felt longer than it should have been, when the characters are annoying it's painful levels of annoying, and Eun Gyeol ultimately not learning much even though the time called for it, only in the end part does it finally cultivate.

9/10 though. I love Chung ah.

[bi-turtle-enthusiast]

Hello.... Can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from MDZS? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Thanks if you want to answer....

yeah sure!

Characters:

5. Lan Sizhui/Lan Jingyi I love their dynamic SO much. They're best friends who have clearly known each other for such a long time, and they're both really interesting characters in their own right! Lan Sizhui is so interesting, what with his Lan upbringing and his Wen heritage, and the fact that he's connecting to both by the end of the book. Lan Jingyi is Lan Sizhui's ride-or-die, protecting his best friend at every opportunity while having the best lines in the entire book, and he makes every scene he's in 100x better.

4. Wen Qing Medical malplractice queen!! But in all seriousness, there's something so viscerally powerful about the fact that she's willing to go against nature itself for her baby brother. She'd both die and kill for Wen Ning, and later for Wei Wuxian. I feel like her type of character (murderous older sister) is kind of rare and I really, really like her. I feel like The Untamed really fleshed out her character and I really appreciated her after I watched it. She's equally capable of nurturing and destroying—a force of nature herself.

3. Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian Fun fact: I hated Lan Wangji when I first read MDZS, and to be honest I'm still so-so on novel Lan Wangji. However, he was easily one of my favorite characters in The Untamed, and watching it made me see him in a whole different light. He doesn't communicate through his words, but through his actions. I think Wang Yibo was perfect casting because he NAILED Lan Wangji's micro-expressions and body language and really brought the character to life. Reading Lan Wangji as autistic also made me understand him a lot more. As for Wei Wuxian, I initially read him as a silly guy and... was right. Despite everything, he stays silly. I do find him a little insufferable pre-death, but I think that was intentional. He probably would have been higher on the list, but while I think he's a really compelling character (and ADHD personified, just like me fr), I'm also very frustrated by him and I don't like how he treats people sometimes. Still, I adore the way he looks after Jin Ling, refuses to let anyone blame Jiang Cheng for anything that happened to him, and takes care of Lan Wangji (towards the end, anyway).

2. Jin Ling Ok he probably would have been at the very top of this list but unfortunately jiang cheng brainrot is real. But CAN WE TALK ABOUT HIM. Over the course of the story, he finds out that his disgraced uncle who insulted him for not having a mom was actually Wei Wuxian reincarnated, then had to contend with the fact that Wei Wuxian was both the reason his parents and grandparents died AND the guy who protected him at every opportunity. Not to mention, he learned that Jin Guangyao, his beloved uncle who gifted him his beloved dog, had orchestrated his parents' death and was ready to kill him too. And what does he do at the end of the novel? He cries. He doesn't seek revenge, he doesn't get angry, he just cries, and he lets go. He chooses not to pursue revenge, because he's seen how the quest for revenge has destroyed everyone around him in one way or another. He's a little shit (because he's an edgy 15 year old) but he's a really intelligent and kind person who loves Jiang Cheng more than anything.

1. Jiang Cheng Some of y'all are going to disagree with me but it must be said. Jiang Cheng is the best MDZS character. Jiang Yanli's love and care taught him how to be loving and caring too. He loved Wei Wuxian, he loved Jin Ling, and he loved his sect. Jiang Cheng never stopped loving Wei Wuxian, even after everything that happened. He hated Wei Wuxian too—that's undeniable—but he also loved him. He kept his belongings intact, he never stopped believing he would come back, he literally gave up his golden core to protect Wei Wuxian. And Jin Ling! He loves Jin Ling so much! Despite having AWFUL parents himself, he was determined not to be that way towards Jin Ling. He did his best to break the generational trauma of his family because he wanted Jin Ling to have it better than he did. When Jin Ling becomes sect leader, he makes sure that he knows that if he EVER needs ANYTHING, he'll provide it to the best of his ability. I could go on for hours about this man. Best MDZS character. He's so full of resentment and hatred and vengeance, but in the end, the thing that always wins out over everything else is his unshakeable love.

Honorable mention: I loved MianMian in the Untamed and wish she got more time to shine in the novel

Favorite moments: 5. Literally anytime Lan Jingyi is in a scene. Every time he opens his mouth it's my favorite scene. He keeps Wei Wuxian humble in a way that only a teenager can. 4. The WangXian scene where Wei Wuxian hides porn in Lan Wangji's book. It starts off so genuinely nice—you can tell Lan Wangji isn't really serious anymore when he tells Wei Wuxian to stfu, and you get the feeling that Wei Wuxian is probably the closest thing Lan Wangji has to a friend. Wei Wuxian draws Lan Wangji a little portrait, and it's genuinely a sweet gesture. Lan Wangji thinks so too—he hasn't ever gotten something like this, and the fact that Wei Wuxian took the time to learn his appearance and commit it to paper makes him feel some type of way. And then, it turns out that everything was just a ruse so Wei Wuxian could prank Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji is,, understandably enraged. It feels cruel that Wei Wuxian would be so insincere just to do that. I kind of hated Wei Wuxian in this scene, but it's one of my favorites because it kind of shows the nature of their initial relationship—half-sincere, but never truly sincere. 3. Xuanwu cave scene. It's so funny and so painful and so sweet. We really see everyone's characters coming out—Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji being selfless protective, Jiang Cheng being capable and responsible, Jin Zixuan being brave and righteous, MianMian being the GOAT, Wang Lingjiao and Wen Chao deserving death, etc. 2. The umbrella scene in the Untamed. It was just so powerful. Lan Wangji putting down his umbrella, which represents the rules and morality of his sect, and just letting the rain mess up his perfect appearance. He doesn't know what's right and wrong anymore, because he loves Wei Wuxian, but everyone is telling him that's wrong. Wei Wuxian himself doesn't know what's right and wrong. Lan Wangji has been thinking in terms of black and white all this time, and for the first time, he finds himself in a gray area. It was just so powerful!! 1. The conversation between Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng after the temple scene at the end. It was just so beautiful. Go read/watch it.

[meggoreads]

Meg Thinks: Iron Flame

There's going to be spoilers in this post so please read at your own risk.

First of all, this book felt very Anime Filler Arc. I feel like we've been reading 2000 pages of setup between the first and second book.

Honestly, I think Book 1 and the first half of book 2 could have been one book as long as all the fluff from book 1 was taken out. Take out Jack Barlowe coming back and keep Varrish as the big bad (make him the secret Venin) and then keep the ending with everyone fleeing Basgiath with Book 2 starting with everyone in Aretia and go from there.

Because right now I am getting whiplash between all the back and forth between Aretia and Basgiath.

But let's get into it.

Things I Liked:

Always always the dragons. Though I do feel like they are still set up as comic relief and plot devices rather than fleshed out characters. We didn't get nearly enough of Sgaeyl (and Andarna) in this book.

Jesinia & Imogen, whom I felt were better friends to Violet than her own squadmates. And also felt like more fleshed out characters.

Things I Didn't Like:

Violet & Xaden. God, their relationship was so annoying. Xaden, you should know which information you should be forthcoming with. Violet, people are allowed to be private even if you're in a relationship with them.

Someone also mentioned that the whole "ask me" schtick feels very weaponized incompetence and now I couldn't agree more.

The "intentions" signet. Congratulations, you're just really good at reading body language. They introduce mind-reading as some stairway to madness but of course give the MMC the Lite version instead of actually writing something interesting like descent into insanity (but I guess the venin plot will be doing this for us ???)

Still no real explanation for Violet's disability and it doesn't seem to really impact her day-to-day life outside of a few throwaway lines. I would just like to see the representation be representing. But maybe this will pave the way for other authors.

I don't think having both Sloane and Cat vehemently hate Violet was necessary in one book. Cat's whole "I don't love him, I just want the crown" was flimsy at best, & Sloane just all of a sudden does a complete 180 as soon as Cat is in the picture makes no sense.

Things I Need Clarity On:

Okay, what color is Andarna supposed to be? Is she purple? Is she all of them? I was hoping she would be silver to match Violet. It just didn't feel explained very well. (The last couple chapters in general seemed rushed)

Things To Be Improved:

I still feel like I know next to nothing about Rhiannon, Ridoc, & Sawyer. I don't feel their camaraderie. I actually can barely tell the difference between Ridoc and Sawyer.

Like I had said in my Fourth Wing post, when it was announced Iron Flame would be released so soon, I knew that this book would be unpolished and rushed and RY had no time to really deep dive into the criticisms of the first book to improve her craft. But kudos to her for producing that crack that makes you want to keep reading.

Will I continue to read the series? Probably. Do I think they'll get any better? Probably not. Do I still hope for a decent live action adaptation? Most definitely.

[jackiewepps]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

Oh my! This is a hard one! I have so many works. How can I pick five?I guess I can list a few, and since I can't bring myself to rank them, let's do it in cronological order, the oldest first.

Free Parenting 2015 (AO3 2016)

The story just means a lot to me. I came up with it together with a friend, and it triggered a whole series. It is obvious that this story is eight years old at this point. My understanding of the English language and the Japanese culture has developed a lot since I wrote it, but I'm still proud of what I made, even if reading the mistakes now makes me cringe, it's only because I care. That I came up with that AU and all the conflicts that would come from this setting is still beyond me.

Hotel Room Fantasies 2017

This is still my most successful one-shot ever. Of course, it is BL, so that makes sense. Still, I once again managed to pull off exactly what I wanted. My intentions with the story was that the reader should not be able to tell whether what the boys do is actually happening or if it's just something going on in Serinuma's head, and I think I accomplished that really well. I really want to say I did it to perfection, but I also don't want to praise myself too much, but oh well. The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to this story.

Ace of Chatrooms 2017

My first chat-fic and my most successful one (of two). I remember that I only wrote this story because I wanted to try and write a chat-fic, and before I knew it, I had written half the story and it wasn't about to end anytime soon. I have no understanding of English chat-language and therefore did not use it. As a result, it probably feels less realistic, but everyone can follow it easily. It also has a lot of my humor in it and it is one of the fics I will sit down to read when I feel down and need something to laugh at. I've already read it more times than I can count, and the sequal too. When the Daiya anime continues, I'll probably write the third part of this series, but I definitely need the material to base the chaos off of before I can unfold it again.

Danger Zone 2021 (Title might change)

This story is probably the most complicated one I've ever written, and not because I find the plot too complicated. It's mainly the storylines. We follow quite a few characters throughout the story and their stories are all connected, not just because they know each other, but each minor plotline has an impact on the overall story. I'm proud of how it turned out. I still call it my masterpiece. I mean, it took me two years writing it and only half a year publishing it. That part is bittersweet, but I'm proud of my work and I enjoy going back to read it.

I Will Go With You 2021-2022

So much research went into this story. I did the same when I wrote Figure Swimming, but I still did more research here. I wanted to make the snowboarding seem realistic, and I wanted all facts about Canada to be as accurate as possible. There were a few problems, as it is not known exactly where in Canada Langa is from, except they don't speak French there. But I looked into how long it would take to travel to Canada, how to get in, what kind of food is traditionally Canadian, the school system, and of course everything worth knowing about snowboarding. On top of that, I feel like I managed to flesh out my original characters really well. I still have art of Louis and Lian that I don't think made it unto any website. I also think I managed to make Langa's grandparents into more than just some stick figures, and the same with Erica. I managed to include all the scenes I had in my head and make an interesting story. The only thing I'm sad about is that even in my story Reki can't win a race. Good thing I'm playing with the idea of making a sequel to this story too.

Honorable Mentions:

Imagination (2016) because I like that I managed to come up with it and execute the idea that well.

Figure Swimming (2017) because other people tell me I got the characters' personalities really well (and it was the first work I did a lot of research for).

Dumb Luck (2022) because it marks my "dark age" of realism. I also personally think it makes sense in spite of me not using the names of the main characters of the story.

Knights and Princesses (2022) because the scene on the bridge came out just as I had intended it to.

I know I was not supposed to list this many, but with a total of 88 works on AO3, there is quite a lot to choose from. I also would have liked to mention a few more, but I guess I'll really have to stop myself at this point.

[crowithy]

Gonna take this chance to ramble about the world building I swear I will post eventually, but just the points from this in no.particular order

- 3 moons (4 if you count the one that blew up)

- planetary rings (from the moon that blew up)

- no "true night" due to how much light is reflected from the moons and rings (think twilight and little to no stars)

- Moons aren't actually moons, they are dormant gods (sleeping like curled up cats) that slowly turned to stone. The moon that blew up was because of a fight amongst all 4 gods, against him. This fight was due to a disagreement about how to deal with the mortals during the "chaos times".

- a very rare "weather" pattern caused by mass death in one localized area. Unnamed as of yet but it's essentially a tornado of souls trying to rip itself apart, but inadvertently pulling itself together. (Like crabs in a bucket, it's not intentional but the act of trying to pull oneself free pulls everyone back in). This was very common during the above mentioned "chaos times" it's also partly how gods form.

- for the dragons of this world some cultures make carvings with inset gems on the horns. Often times the gems reflect the eye color of the dragons partner, or their partners favorite though this isn't exactly a rule.

- technically the dragons on the volcanic islands are obligate carnivores due to not having plants around the active volcanoes. Overtime they lost the ability to digest plants for the most part. The technically is also because on the rarer occasion they will eat rocks. Why? I forgot it's in my notes somewhere tho I'll figure it out eventually.

- due to all animals scaled up to dragonsize humans can't really have animal pets. They get bugs (and maybe some rodents but mostly bugs) the bugs aren't scales proportionally though, a random example is bees are the size of toddlers. Each human kingdom has a dedicated bug, with mixes of each specific species fulfilling some niches by irl domesticated animals (wooly moths acting as sheep, i would put more examples but so far only the moth kingdom is fleshed out) but msot have their own unique things. Bee hives are entire cities (though the cities in this kingdom do range on the smaller side, solely for the bees) which each houses having honeycomb integrated into walls and 2-10 "house bees" depending on size. They also get their own dedicated buildings on each street, for the "street bees". It's a very symbiotic relationship with the bees.

-two of my kingdoms mainly use sign language, the mermaids, due to verbal language not being applicable underwater, although they still use it on land as they prefer it. As well as my bee kingdom, due to having a high deaf population.

- one kingdom uses preserves vines wood and flowers for jewlery. The monarchs crown is even hand weaved by each successive ruler and magically preserved to last year's after their own death. After each ruler, small flowers from the crown are removed and incorporated into the new rulers crown and the largest is added to the throne. The oldest flower on the throne is 500 years old and is a now extinct flower.

- don't know if this counts but the bee kingdom uses honey or beeswax products as currency.

- magic tends to mutate the more exposure or by extensive use of it. Those born magically often often have some sort of visible mutation. For example, a non aquatic dragon may be born with gills. Someone might have an extra pair of wings, a split tail, four ears, an extra toe, one may become biolumecent and glow when injured, the tail tip of one may grow. This happens with humans too though less common.

- in relation to this, the magic mutations also are the reason dragons despite being wild different are able to hybridize. Think like dog breed except it was magic. This happened to humans too, there's mermaids,satyrs,elves,dwarves, but they are still technically human. There's also regular humans, but each still has some magic influenced trait. One kingdom has visible stripes, another has tails (not like animal tails just like if you extended a human spine). The mutations just depend on the amount of magic in the area

- speaking of magic, magic is caused by the moon dust and rocks that settled and landed on the planet. I mean its the corpse of a dead god

- one of the human kingdoms makes jewlry from bug exoskeletons

- the aquatic dragon kingdoms can change the color of their skin and communicates by creating patterns, with color acting as like tone indicators/punctuation. (They also have really soft scales because of this ability)

- the gods do *kinda* looks like people, if your counting dragons but in a weird messed up way. Like it's a mix of human and dragon features in a way that it's really neither. Idk if this really counts tho. There are lesser gods that look like neither but I'm not fleshing those out yet

- the main aquatic kingdom tends to make jewlery from sea glass more than crystals

-carnivorous unicorns

-carnivorous rabbits

And that's all I have that fits this

Small fantasy worldbuilding elements you might want to think about:

A currency that isn’t gold-standard/having gold be as valuable as tin

A currency that runs entirely on a perishable resource, like cocoa beans

A clock that isn’t 24-hours

More or less than four seasons/seasons other than the ones we know

Fantastical weather patterns like irregular cloud formations, iridescent rain

Multiple moons/no moon

Planetary rings

A northern lights effect, but near the equator

Roads that aren’t brown or grey/black, like San Juan’s blue bricks

Jewelry beyond precious gems and metals

Marriage signifiers other than wedding bands

The husband taking the wife's name / newlyweds inventing a new surname upon marriage

No concept of virginity or bastardry

More than 2 genders/no concept of gender

Monotheism, but not creationism

Gods that don’t look like people

Domesticated pets that aren’t re-skinned dogs and cats

Some normalized supernatural element that has nothing to do with the plot

Magical communication that isn’t Fantasy Zoom

“Books” that aren’t bound or scrolls

A nonverbal means of communicating, like sign language

A race of people who are obligate carnivores/ vegetarians/ vegans/ pescatarians (not religious, biological imperative)

I’ve done about half of these myself in one WIP or another and a little detail here or there goes a long way in reminding the audience that this isn’t Kansas anymore.

[cidiliabra]

Idk it pisses me off when people say Heathcliff is canonically a specific type of POC. White Americans wanna shove on a racial identity on something so quickly, all we know is that Heathcliff is swarthy and has dark eyes, thick dark hair, and his wild personality. Emily was a writer of her times so she uses racially descriptive language about baseless shit all the time. G*psy not because Heathcliff is actually one, but because he's homeless when he's found. They just call him it, there's no statement saying that's what he is. Nelly describes him as an Eastern Oriental Prince because why not, it'll sorta reaffirm his features, but Nelly doesn't actually know what the fuck that looks like. She's never seen anyone else like Heathcliff, at least in the flesh and not from stories.

There's lot of talk about characters being coded nowadays, but I think that can only be done when there's actual true intent behind the coding. I don't think that was the case for Heathcliff. This being Gothic literature, a white seemingly pious Englishman possibly having sex with a woman of color (doesn't matter what) outside of wedlock to create a child who falls in love with his possible half sister is delicious all around.

Emily was writing a Gothic book at a time where racial eugenics were becoming increasingly mainstream, specificity was not the intent, would've added too much baggage. She's allowing the reader to take their pick of what would be more exotic, therefore erotic, and equally offensive.

Now, Jacob Elordi doesn't even meet the requirements of swarthy, or ethnically ambiguous, and overall a bad choice, but I also don't like people taking these vague descriptions as gospel. I'm also just tired of getting white people scraps in books and calling it representation or coded. Heathcliff's race is vague for a reason, for characters to hate him for something out of his control, for exoticism and eroticism. Now, we should cast an actor of color because that's cool and it's dope but there's no one true racial "look" to Heathcliff.

[malimothreads64]

🥩Body and Soul by L. Eveland🥩

Genre: Adult MM Dark Romance

Series Status: 4th Book

I have to say, I was very impressed with this book. I don't mean to keep shitting on Body Count, I've made it abundantly clear that it's my least favourite book in the series (by constantly saying how much better the sequels have been,) but to have now gone on to read Vicious Cycle and Body & Soul, seeing how well schizophrenia and D.I.D. have been represented compared to Body Count, it's like night and day — to the point it's retcon, tbh. However, the fact that it's more accurately showcasing these disorders in a less stigmatising way: drawing the line that their disorders aren't why they're violent killers? I don't mind the inconsistency.

I think a perfect example of that is Keres. In Body Count, the way Keres is described is as a caged animal that should never be let out. He has a desire to punish the guilty but can't actually determine who is innocent and who is not; so, for all intents and purposes, framing him as an indiscriminate killer, or the "monster alter" trope that's in almost all D.I.D. media. That is not the Keres in this book. For one thing, he's a protector, that is an actual D.I.D. term that the book itself implies he is, which makes sense because he is the best at physical defense and we see that in the book; Keres fronting and being a very talented killer for the sake of not only self-defence, but defense of his family and love interest. His personality is also primal, the way he acts and thinks I don't think it would be a stretch to say he's a non-human alter, or at least acts like one. I think the most fucked up thing about Keres as an alter is the same thing that's the most fucked up about book, which is the cannibalism? But again, he's not a cannibal because he's an alter in a D.I.D. system, he's a cannibal because he was raised in a cult that made him eat human flesh from the time he was like 6 or 7. When he was adopted by the Laskin's, they understood this was something he needed, so they taught him to do it in the right way: by killing abusers. Same as the rest of the family, only he goes the step further and.. eats them.

Then to talk about the D.I.D. aspect, I think it was done well. I don't have D.I.D. however, the author did have someone with it work with them while writing the book, as well as I used to be really interested in D.I.D. as a condition, so going into this probably knew more than the average reader. I think for me, what really impressed me and showed that L. Eveland had done their research was the alter, Azrael. He's the only alter in this book that reader doesn't know about going in since you're told about Shepherd, Keres, Bryce, and Dex in the first book. He's also a protector, but unlike Keres, the way he shows up in the book is more realistic to how protectors work in real life. The first time we see him is during an interrogation scene, Shepherd is being asked really triggering questions by an FBI agent and so Azrael fronts to get them out of that situation as fast as possible to keep them safe. His primary role is to care for Dex, who is the only child alter in the system, which leads him to do things that would technically make him a persecutor, which is what really showed me the author done their research. A persecutor is literally just a protector, but they do things that the rest of the system may view as harmful or negative. In this instance, he views Eli, the love interest, as a weakness that could lead to harm for Dex, and so he does things to emotionally harm Eli to try and force him to leave Shepherd. This obviously is against Shepherds interests, it's against what Bryce or Dex would want, and also, against Keres would allow but for Azrael it's what would keep them safest so, does what he thinks is best — even if he later regrets it.

I also think how D.I.D. is talked about the in book is handled with care? When first explaining his disorder to Eli, Shepard uses all the correct language, in the clincial sense, with how D.I.D. is characterised as a person with two or more distinct personality states, that he's the "host" or the alter in charge of daily life, but also just larger concepts as well. When Eli first finds out about Dex, he questions that if because he shares the same name as the body's original legal name, is he's the "original" one? Which is corrected since all the alters are equally fractured parts of a whole mind, there is no "original."

I also liked how it showcases all of their roles? Shepherd is the part in charge of daily living, Keres and Azrael are protectors, Dex's role is actually discussed in the book about his role is to literal just to be a child and live in that innocence the body never got to experience, and then Bryce who's role is a lot more subtle, which is to handle stress. His personality is very laid back and chill, and so when Shepherd can no longer front, Bryce comes out and essentially gives the body time to decompress. The book also shows the way in which their system stays in communication, which is a journal they all write in to keep each other up to date so they can function in their multiplicity. It thankfully also shows how frustrationing a disorder it can be to live with. When Eli is kidnapped, it's the first time we really see Shepherd struggle with being multiple because at the end of the day, it's a DISSOCIATIVE disorder, you lose time and can't always remember what happened when you weren't fronting which is a really inconvenient and scary way to live if you don't have good communication with your alters, or especially if you're undiagnosed.

To now actually talk about the romance, I really appreciated the way it was done. Eli is in a romantic relationship with 3 of the alters and a sexual realtionship with 2 of them, and the book treats it as a poly romance, with each of the relationships being completely individual and not contingent on the others. Shepherds D/s dymanic with Eli has nothing to do with Keres possessive primal claim on him, and nothing to do with his low-key relationship with Bryce. There's even some jealousy, with Shepherd at some points even being a little resentful that he has to share Eli with his alters, which I think is very real and human reaction to the situation.

I think I've yapped enough. There is more I could talk about, but I think what I've discussed here sums up my admiration for how well the book was handled and justifying my rating, and I'm looking forward to starting book 5! The book is in no way perfect, and I'm sure there's things that are inaccurate but I really enjoyed it.

[lavernius]

Hi hello i would love to hear ur takes on the chorusans and their dynamics 👀 any of them/who ever u feel like getting into really, i just cant get them out of my head and would love to hear other ppls takes on them too (1A maintenance team is welcome to be included as well if u would like, im a firm believer in encouraging oc lore dumps at all times)

You just opened Pandora's box. I used to be such a diehard Chorus fan that I'd flesh out minor details of their planet's geography and economy and society and language on the regular.

Strap in: headcanons and a couple old Chorusan doodles under cut! Gets a liiittle long...

Bitters and Smith are, and always have been, friends. Surprisingly close ones, but they were both made lieutenants too young (out of necessity) and disagree with each others' styles of leading, especially because they can't see the Rebels as soldiers, but as friends. Everyone thinks they hate each other, but they WILL call the other a friend if asked (with some aloof reluctance on Bitters' part). They know that they ultimately need each other (Bitters balances out Smith's blind idealism, Smith balances out Bitters' deadly cynicism) and thus trust each other deeply, but it's just hard for them to agree on what the right thing to do is most the time.

Matthews has been friends with them for a while too! He's not very popular in the army, but they both enjoy his company and he acts as a good middle ground between them (incredibly optimistic, but sensitive enough to recognize risk). They both like (like-like, even...) him :-)

On the topic of Chorusan side characters--Ghanoush and McCallister are a little older than the lieutenants and like to cause trouble. They're actually Kimball's appointed archivists, which they take as an opportunity to snoop around as much as possible. Their rude and inappropriate behavior is an effect of having to document so much dark history, which has caused both of them to be a little detached from the severity of the situation.

And diverging into detachment: Doyle is actually one of the most emotionally detached soldiers for a large portion of his time as the Federal Army's leader--up until Locus's betrayal. His early career had him making one too many wrong calls until he started putting most of his faith in Locus, because Locus was somehow more likely to get things done without the damage to the rest of the army. He's faint-of-heart and a coward, yes, but he isn't always good at showing his other emotions, to the point that he comes across as a kingly leader (compared to Kimball's brash attitude but deep care for her men). Cowardice that runs so deep that he can't even face himself properly.

Kimball isn't without her flaws, either. She loves very deeply but has lost so intensely that even if she can show she cares (in small and subtle amounts, or in angry rushes of regret), she is extremely guarded. She worries but is scared that showing it is the catalyst to everything going wrong. It also makes her very keen on doing things alone if she can, and holding everything in. She sees a lot of herself in Grif as well as Tucker, actually, which is why...

...Kimball trusts Grif as much as she does Tucker. Tucker shares her need to be the hero, but Grif shares her overprotective parental instinct: operating below the radar and behind the scenes, but worrying so intensely and privately at all times. Even after the war, when Kimball asks the Reds and Blues to help for as long as they might be willing to, she turns to the two of them first and foremost for advice.

Kimball's desire to hold everything in out of misguided noble intention also reflects in, to everyone's surprise, Grey--Grey is one of the people Kimball starts consulting frequently after the war, initially as the local genius and later as someone she trusts intimately. They do not get along at first. A lot of pot-calling-kettle-stubborn, because they are both stubborn, and they don't want to admit to seeing any good in each other. They're selfless obstinacy in the form, anger staying in, anger going out. They balance each other out in the end, teaching each other a sort of real, raw honesty--toward the world in Grey's case and toward the self in Kimball's. Very push-pull dynamic. Yuri, if you will.

And speaking of Grey! My second favorite female character in all of RVB. She's not as young as people assume, and she's been through a lot as a medic and sometimes falls into a trap of thinking she's useless because of/despite it. Very weathered under the helmet, stress lines melding into smile lines from permanently-plastered-on friendliness. During the time they were both Feds, Locus actually learned to respect her as a direct result of trauma on her end--to Grey, if all she's good for is fixing people, that's all she needs to do and she needs to do it right. A mentality Locus shares for unhealthy reasons, but Grey is doing it consciously where Locus follows command blindly, which Grey is aware of. They don't like each other, even with Locus's one-sided respect for her.

"You don't have to tell me twice. And to think—last I remember us talking, you said you respected me." Locus does. He always has; Emily Grey is competent, talented, and responsible. If it wasn't for her medical talent, it would be for her ability to balance her emotions in the face of a war's turbulence—a skill Locus had seen in her early on, past her cheery veil. He sees it now as she secures the band around his upper arm. It's purely out of distaste, the way she drops her façade around him, but it's commendable. Sympathy and kindness aren't reserved for someone like Locus.

Grey also has a complicated relationship with Doyle because of it. She sees him as a sort of brotherly figure because of how closely she has to watch his back, but Doyle is so very preoccupied with himself and every wrong step he could take that it often seems like a one-sided concern. Doyle does, though, rely on Grey as a sensible and clever mind, though it can come across more as a tactical opinion than a personal one. At their best, they are very sibling-like.

1A is full of loners because most people think they're all heartless and mean and weird. But they have each other and Lopez, who also "hates" them. So it's OK.