#I'm not shipping anyone i prommy

[kebriones]

*cracks knuckles* well maybe I will draw some early 19th century greeks. Maybe i will. Nobody can stop me.

[redysetdare]

"This fandom is so queer friendly!" This fandom literally hates, bisexual, trans, nonbinary, and aspec people but ok.

[coulsonlives]

For self-proclaimed leftists, some of y'all seem weirdly comfortable with telling people to kill themselves

[liftys-favorite]

mutual from main found the self shipping blog everyone take cover!!

[lucabyte]

i'm so curious about your character gender reads now tho 👀👀

(You enter the kitchen and see me, eating shredded cheese out of the fridge by the handful)

(I turn around to face you.)

Hi. Do you want me to sell you on amab NB Siffrin? I'm going to try and sell you on amab NB Siffrin. And maybe even a little bit of tranfem siffrin and/or loop. as a treat. just for you.

So, (I put the cheese back in the fridge.)

This read of mine comes from a number of things, a lot of them to do with the game's themes, and to do with Siffrin being a narrative foil to the other characters. And Vaugarde as a whole.

(READMORE WARNING: THIS IS LIKE 6K WORDS LONG. YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW BY NOW I DON'T MAKE POSTS WITHOUT UNCONSCIOUNABLE AMOUNTS OF EVIDENCE AND EXPLANATION. IF ANYTHING I'M BEING RESTRAINED HERE. THUMBS UP.)

(Pre-readmore note: this is in response to me having given an analysis of how I personally percieve Sifloop in relation to asexuality and shipping. Which you can look at here. (x))

It is however, not what my like, no-holds-barred no-rules just-for-me headcanon for Siffrin would be. (which is intersex 'head empty no thoughts' siffrin, for the record). This is instead my close-reading-of-the-text-and-themes interpretation of Siffrin. This is why I'm gonna be saying Read and not Headcanon, to distinguish the two. (Anything I consider a little bit too much of a stretch vis a vis interpretive hard reads I will call a headcanon. But those are for the last bit of this post.)

Unlike *gestures at mass media* All That… ISAT is already packed to the gills with queer rep, to the point where I feel no need to grasp at straws and make overextended reaches into obviously unintended subtext. Like with, y'know, most media. Since here, the subtext isn't unintended. Like this isn't a Transfem Metal Sonic or Aroace Ash Ketchum situation where I know none of the evidence is on purpose and I'm just having fun making a conspiracy theory pinboard out of it. This is like… There's intentionality there. And I want to engage with it on its level, see what the text itself suggests. It's my personal preferred method of expressing deep respect to a text. (Not that it has to be anyone else's, obviously. This is just my way of showing I love a work.)

So yeah, I am, in general, very interested in hearing hard-fought arguments when it comes to interpreting texts. I'm glad ISAT has a lot to pick at here, and so, I will. (and since not a lot of texts ever have anywhere near this kind of depth in this arena, i don't wanna squander it… i'll try and keep my own biases as in check as i can, and already have done by hashing quite a bit of this interpretation out with two people of very different gender identities to mine. To put it mildly, binary-aligned or transfem I am very squarely Not.)

(Now that the cheese bag has been removed from the equation, I drop this framing device, sit you down at the table and begin to dredge up evidence from below it.)

Okay, so. What are my like… Core reasonings here? I think I can split it into three categories. Broadly, with an amount of overlap, so bear with me…

SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.

SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.

SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.

Okay so up top I'm going to split my argument for Siffrin's gender identity Present and Future here. This means, for now, I'm arguing for AMAB NB Siffrin alone. The transfem stuff is for later (and more for loop, in my mind, too).

I have a few direct observations of the text here that set things up. Here are the things in-game that make me assume that Siffrin, as of the start of the game, has not yet undergone any radical change to their identity in their life. Not on purpose, at least. These are ordered in a messy but logical flow, so uh, try and keep up. I'll synthesise at the end. I Prommy.

SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.

CHANGE & THE UNIVERSE: PERCEIVED OPPOSITES

When interacting with most objects in the Changing Room in the house, they express a genuine curiosity toward body craft. It seems they are legitimately unfamiliar with it on a deeper level than having simply heard of it.

Despite this curiosity (explicitly stating they've previously wondered about it), they dismiss it as too much work early on in the game. These points combined seem to suggest to me that they have never previously sought out any kind of real change to their appearance or identity. Either for gender reasons, or other body dysmorphia reasons. (Which, despite the dismissal, they do refer to their body as a 'meat prison', which is not particularly positive) However...

This changes in Act 3. In acts 3 and 4 they flatly state: "You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now." While still never spoken aloud, their declining mental state corrosponds with a worn-down, almost nihilistic reckoning with the feelings they masked with the 'meat prison' joke in act 2.

[Image: Interactions with the change craft textbook in acts 2 and 3/4.]

In talking to Mirabelle, they are very self assured that one can stay the same/be comfortable with their born identity. They also seem a little unsettled by the change religion's flippancy in general, which makes sense, as they have been clinging to the famliar (even when painful) to cope with other traumas. (More on this later, section 2)

The Universe Faith appears to heavily disincentivise Wanting for oneself and other expressions of Free Will due to safeguarding against Wish craft. This seems to have impacted Siffrin's mental state majorly, even if they do not recognise it. The followers of the faith are (if Siffrin is to be believed) incentivised to 'go with the flow' and take paths of least resistance, and those that DO make big decisions will tend to justify things as being The Universe's Will. (See: The King's entire Modus Operandi, and the way Loop (and Siffrin) do the same rote actions, constructing worldviews (the play analogy, the Universe's Will) and justify that as what the Universe Would Want (despite a total lack of evidence to prove as such)) As such, it seems as if a follower of this faith as neurotic as Siffrin would be unlikely to act upon any Wants to Change Themselves without a lot of turmoil and backwards-justification. (Of note, Loop's forcible change coinciding with a dropping of pronoun. But that is again for later, section 3) As of the start of the game, they do not appear to have broached this kind of turmoil directly.

[Image: Act 5 interaction with the star journal, emphasis on it being a cautionary tale against reckless usage of wish craft, instilled so deeply to be a children's bedtime story]

Siffrin, in act 5, grows frustrated with both The Universe and The Change God, feeling abandoned by the former. They struggle with simultaneously anthropomorphising the Universe as a cruel onlooker, while also seemingly acknowledging them as a cold, almost scientific fact of nature. This would heavily imply that the 'blame' put upon the Universe by Siffrin in these moments is known to them, at least a little, to be potentially meaningless. It seems that somewhere in Siffrin's belief system is something, be it the core or merely a creeping worry, that the Universe is not a thinking, feeling, thing. And thus that their invocations of "The Universe's Will" are merely rationalisations of random chance and consequence. This is in DIRECT contrast to the Change God, proven to be an emotive sapient entity, who merely refuses to offer a helping hand. (Similar sentiments are, too, spoken by the Change God itself.)

[Images: Interacting with the window in the observatory in act 5, text from the change god meeting]

So. These are the bulk of my observations when it comes to how Siffrin is positioned in contrast to the Change Belief. It would seem to be that Siffrin, inkeeping with their role as an outsider, is a complete fish out of water in Vaugarde's change-centric world. This makes sense! It makes them a compelling foil to the Vaugardians in our cast, and allows the Vaugardians to challenge Siffrin's worldviews merely by existing. It also, more importantly, makes Siffrin an interesting lens through which to inspect our two most Change-driven characters. Mirabelle and Isabeau.

MIRABELLE.

Mirabelle and Siffrin's differing faiths are put on display the most frequently. Interactions like the circle key and the party's disbelief of Siffrin's facts about the stars make this clear. These interactions other Siffrin from the group further, and are another avenue through which Siffrin can ignore their own needs, not communicating with the party and allowing them to dismiss things he deems important.

Obviously, the friendquest is primarily about Mirabelle's struggle with her aromanticism and asexuality. But there's an implicit undercurrent of gender there too. Mirabelle has never made a big change, not like Isabeau. She has never 'changed completely', by her words. And Siffrin distinctly finds this an odd thing to be worried by. Whatever culture he carries has no pressure to explore these avenues, it seems. Siffrin is able to help her by sharing their honest opinions, that he's never felt the need to change these things, and he's happy (allegedly). Why should she?

[Image: Mirabelle's friendquest text] Siffrin is not thinking particularly hard when he first does the friendquests, they are just being themselves. By positioning Siffrin as this unchanged yet confident object, they are in the perfect position to help Mirabelle by being in her almost exact position, both sexuality and transgender status (albeit, with the caveats of potential alloromanticism, and a they pronoun), that they become her ideal foil. (And in fact, the subtle differences between their positions in canon add to this, showing a display of Perceived Genuine Truth, rather than simple in-group camaraderie)

Whereas…

ISABEAU.

When Mal du pays speaks as Isabeau, it says the following;

"I don't want to know someone who won't even try to change, who luxuriates in things staying the exact same like you do."

I don't want to know someone - Shame of being known, that's Isabeau's insecurity. Reflected back at Siffrin, who has become the worst thing imaginable to each of their friends, in Siffrin's own mind. He absorbs their insecurities like a sponge and incorporates them into himself. Empathy turned ill.

Who luxuriates in things staying the exact same - Now THAT'S interesting. This is not Isabeau's insecurity, it's Siffrin's own. But also, it appears as if, Siffrin, whom to Mirabelle was unflappable in that not changing was alright, has internalised some of her worry. That it is MDP's Isabeau saying this, though, shows this is about Personal Change, perhaps even Specifically Gender and Self Image, rather than Mirabelle's spiritual side.

Isabeau and his distinct change in personality and gender, to become someone who he actually likes�� Diametric to Siffrin, who has been stagnant for a long time, presumably as far as they can remember. It would seem to imply they have no recourse against this argument. Siffin becomes, in his mind, the opposite to Isabeau, a man he deeply admires the bravery of when told the story of his Change. These are Siffrin's words against themselves, that they consider themselves to have never even 'tried' whatever it is they think Change to be.

So. These are my main points vis a vis: Siffrin as a foil. This reading would posit that Siffrin's He/They status is, well, almost accidental? Which I would imagine befitting of them. They are, at the start of the game, still the mysterious rogue who never elaborates upon anything. They aren't going to be correcting a they/them from a teammate who is likely far more cautious about assumptions.

Notably, Mirabelle excludes Siffrin from the label "man" in the bathroom monologues… But as does Siffrin when in the prologue poem room. Though one needs remember, Siffrin only expresses these thoughts internally.

[Image: Bathroom conversation featuring Isabeau identified as the party's singular man]

[Image: Prologue!Siffrin expressing that they are not a man in very certain terms.]

While I do wonder what Mirabelle's knowledge (or lack thereof, potentially! Did Siffrin actually divulge this to her, once? Or is she making assumptions again?) is here, this is pretty clear evidence that Siffrin doesn't see themselves As A Man. (that, and Adrienne's word of god "fella" comments). I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this… but.

The thesis here is, that Siffrin may want to explore their gender further; doesn't feel connected to Masculinity, and yet, keeps that He pronoun around? Well, the Universe does not, in Siffrin's mind, really allow for personal wants and desires. If their friends start they/themming them, then cool. They like it, but never requested it, so it's the Universe's will. But, asking? Making decisions and requests and rocking the boat? That seems to scare Siffrin a lot. It seems to scare them so much it causes a lot of, if not all of, the conflict in the game. I feel like it's a fair deduction that this aversion to humour their own desires pervades a lot of their existence.

Plus, I think there's meat there. By only allowing Siffrin to reckon with any potential desires to change only after growing closer with the family, you get to explore things like "How does Mirabelle feel that even the person who said she didn't have to change is changing." and the slightly less potentially harrowing (OR MORE, IF YOU WANT IT TO BE? IDK. I'M NOT YOUR BOSS.) "Isa's continued changing allows Siffrin a space to explore it, maybe even just by proxy, or maybe by joining them."

But mostly, this section is about how Siffrin not having Changed Yet makes them delightfully strong narratively; allowing them to relate to Mirabelle, and get cold feet when comparing themselves to Isabeau. I love this as a narrative strengthener. It's very rare in media that we get to explore a nonbinary character's thoughts and insecurities on whether or not they're "doing enough" to be nonbinary. Even less so Aligned nonbinary people. And reading that alignment and insecurity through the lens of a nonbinary person not fully disconnected from their assigned gender at birth? It's a very compelling exploration of a very common and raw and yet underdiscussed feeling, much like the rest of ISAT. I think this is an extremely potent element should it be read this way, and is only strengthened when taking Siffrin's other themes into account.

Speaking of which.

2. SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.

HOLDING ON TO WHAT YOU KNOW. (OR KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT.)

I explained above many of my thoughts on the Universe Faith, and trying to keep these two sections separate was difficult, but needed to be done for the sake of clarity. But this section and the above are deeply intertwined.

Siffrin… Holds on to the things they know. They do not know much. But man do they fucking hold. And yet, paradoxically, they are also avoidant about it.

It is made clear in the text, to the point where I really don't feel the need to rehash it here, that Siffrin's disconnection from their homeland is incredibly painful, but that they consider that culture utterly and irreplaceably important to them. They cannot face it, it is too painful. They cannot let it go, it is too important.

Knowing what we know of the Island's irl inspirations (though, word of god, the exact location is not supposed to matter, one can infer it from the text (and I did! within reasonable proximity!)), Siffrin is of an indigenous peoples of some description, more than likely. And at the very least, Siffrin carries with them inherent biases and ignorances that show that Vaugarde's conceptions of things don't quite mesh with their own. Bowing to the Vaugardian way of things could very easily be seen as assimilation, in this way.*

And identity? Gender? Presentation? Role? All of that has a cultural element. There's no telling what specifics Siffrin has lost in that arena, and that's the problem. Neither do they. How paralysing, the feeling, to know that should you change yourself you risk unknowingly erasing another piece of home? I wouldn't blame them for locking it off. Keeping their old clothes, keeping what little they can remember of themselves… It doesn't seem to me a conducive or safe mental space to get experimental.

And the Universe makes for a perfect scapegoat. As referenced in the section above, a lot can be justified should you call it "The Universe's Will", because who's there to call you on it? Hardly anyone. Your divine right to Freeze A Place In Time; Your Deserved Punishment for Wanting to be Loved: All of it the Universe-- If you want it to be. And thusly, if the Universe wanted you to be a certain way, wouldn't you already be? Wouldn't it make you so? (Wouldn't it take away your body, that which makes you human? If that is what it thought of you?) So best to put it out of your mind. Wouldn't want to accidentally wish anything.

But as the game itself puts it, personified by The King, you cannot stay mired like this forever. As Loop themselves puts it, they can "get so fixated, sometimes." At some point they need to allow themselves to grow in whatever direction they need, because in the end, they need to live their life. They don't need to abandon their country, their culture, but they can't let it restrain them either.

(* MASSIVE CAVEAT: im white as fuck boyyy. i cant say shit. im like technically Of The Land im like 90% pictish or something ridiculous like that so my particular line has never moved anywhere but. this is notttt something i have input or insight on. this is all gleaned from reading and listening to indiginous perspectives from wherever they may be. i am simply trying to infer from what the game gives us without inserting my own feelings on the matter.)

3. SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.

Alright, here's some less heady and purely-thematic points to round things out. And where we'll also address the fucked up star being in the room; Loop.

My last couple of reading points are the most potentially-transfem to me. Or at least the ones that really hammer home, to me, a seeming lack of want to be masculine-aligned.

ANOTHER NOTE ON THE 'NOT A GUY' THING.

Obviously, there is the aforementioned "Not a man/not that you're a boy" thing. This is rather straightforward, but also still pretty ambiguous. You can be masc-aligned and still Not A Guy. But it does seem to be of note that being a guy very much does not seem to be a goal of Siffrin's. I would posit this in direct contrast to… Isabeau.

But not Isabeau's masculinity. I would instead hold it up against Isa's femininity.

ISAT, as a text, has its characters have genuinely different levels of security in their gender identity, and Isabeau, despite still having insecurities, seems super chill on the gender angle specifically! Their internal strife comes not from their 'not feeling like a man enough' or 'hating being a woman', but instead from their self perception as a friendless nerd! Something that seems to be only tangentially related to Isa's gender, really?

The big dumb bruiser thing is certainly aided by being a dude, but Isa still seems completely comfortable referring to themselves with feminine language, calling himself a "mother hen" (prologue) and having "the heart of a fair maiden" (cookie snack time). (However, they also take being excluded from Mira's girly book club as a surprised compliment, implying they weren't expected to be excluded, and find it affirming.) And even further so, Isa states they want to continue changing further and exploring their identity more, being rather blatant that they might lean back into femininity (and more importantly, let themselves be outwardly smart again), since they're starting to feel hurt by everyone assuming they ARE genuinely stupid.

[Image: Prologue Isa calling himself a mother hen]

And man, this is such a breath of fresh air vis a vis representation. I don't think I really need to explain that. A character who's gender identity is driven by chasing euphoria, even if it started out by trying to drive out misery. Isabeau's character is so damn good. But this essay isn't about him, so get back in the crate, boy.

... So here we have Isa, who is genuinely comfortable reclaiming things about their birth gender, and Mirabelle who loves her traditionally feminine traits to the point where she feels a little guilty that she isn't rejecting them to foster change. And then we have Siffrin… who seems to reject masculine language…? Hrm… (… And then we have The King. A Masculine Title. Someone who Siffrin increasingly sees themselves in and deeply, deeply dislikes this.)

APATHY AND SURVIVAL

It should be clear by now that I see Siffrin's core character as being driven by avoidance and survival. This seems to lead to a lot of apathy, brushing off emotions that are too intense or events and occurences that are too painful. (See: just absolutely everything with Bonnie)

It's all Siffrin really seems to be able to do to Survive. They've travelled, seemingly alone, for what would be around a decade by what the game says about the island's disappearance. They've lived alone on the road as a traveller in a country that so openly welcomes strangers that THE KING and his whole motives can happen. Siffrin is avoidant and refuses to acknowledge problems or strive for help and comfort.

So. That line about the dress. Let's unpack the line(s) about the dress.

THE DRESS LINE, AND THE WAY IT CHANGES BETWEEN PROLOGUE, ACT 2, AND ACT 3.

Good god where to start with this. Full disclosure, the first draft here was way more vague in how I approached this line because I remembered it (and another line, I'll get to it.) way more tame, but going and getting the screenshots..... Siffrin. Buddy. We gotta unpack this.

In act 2, we have "You haven't worn a dress in forever!". This is a neutral, if seemingly a little joyous statement. All we really glean from this is the information that Siffrin at some point, wore 'a' dress. No real inferences there. (Maybe you could say that the singular as opposed to plural makes it more likely that they borrowed/only owned One Dress rather than owned several? But that's a massive stretch...)

Then, act 3/4 shuffles this off into a more general "You wonder if you'll ever wear different clothes again." Which is a more despairing and distant statement. Considering Siffrin seems to travel with only the items they can carry, and owns sleep clothes... It's unclear how many changes of clothing they have. The party seems to consider the cloak a pretty permanent fixture, anyhow. But this line doesn't really say much aside from 'oh god i'm losing myself to the time loop malaise'

NOW THE PROLOGUE. Prologue Sif, buddy, pal, Loop, if I'm allowed to call you that....

Thousands of loops in. We are wistful for specifically dresses. You've forgotten almost everything. You dream about someday seeing the sun again. To be anywhere but here. You want to wear a dress again.

I. Kind of do not know what to do here but point at it. Like I said, my first draft had me half-remembering the progression of this line and as such I was far more vague on what I thought it could imply. Instead this is just straight up yearning.

To, try and segue back to what I had initially written, we'll pick up here...

Siffrin expresses a want to wear other clothes, explore changing their body... But instead, they wear a ratty old form-covering cloak that keeps them warm and safe and is a last reminder of home. They are shapeless, formless, hiding their face under the brim of a wide hat. They do not voice their desire to wear a dress aloud. They once again, keep a desire to themselves, because they do not allow themselves to want publicly. Apathy is safer. Apathy and quiet means you do not risk retribution or hurt.

While I do not think the above is exclusively a transfeminine feeling, it really, really reads like one when taken part and parcel with assuming Siffrin has denied themselves prior exploration.

... And here I have to break my first draft again. I was being, once again, restrained in my reading when writing this. Because I had convinced myself I had maybe straight up imagined one of the lines I was basing my reads on, because I couldn't find it. Because it was a line that read so strikingly desolate to me that my brain had slotted it in during Act Five, meaning when I went looking for it neither me nor my friends could find it.

It's in acts 3 and 4. It's a line I already brought up.

"You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now."

good fucking christ. sorry to break the academic tone but Jimminy Fucking Willikers, Siffrin. What's with that bit. The resignation and despair and guilty comfort we know the timeloop brings them, bleeding into the gender.

This. *taps my finger harshly on my desk* THIS, this feels transfem. this feels so wildly transfem to me. The knowledge that they've never changed before this line lends. The admission that they've been holding back because it's 'too much work'. I spent a lot of time during the game relating Siffrin not to myself but to my friends.

If I'm honest, really, truly, I'm not all too often in Siffrin's shoes. I'm the stable one, of my group. I'm the rock people ground themselves on. And I see so much hesitance, all the time. Denial of joy because what if it's taken away, again? Or futilely out of reach? It hurts more to try, and to fail, than to never try at all.

I wanted to shake Siffrin by the shoulders this whole game. Grit teeth beg them to accept help because for fuck's sake people are clearly offering it get it through your skull--

*coughs* Ah. Ahem. Right. The uh, academic tone.

Right. What I mean to say is, this read as transfem to me because of the way it relates to real-world experiences of denial. And this combo of the Dress line, and the progression of the Meat Prison line, the constant evidence of never having strived for what they want, and that insistance that you're not a man, seem to dislike being percieved as a man, but not being able to shed the outward signifiers?

Individually, yes, these points can be read in different ways. The total opposite ways, even, I'm sure! But as a gestalt it feels really, really transfem. Even if yeah, sure Vaugarde is a magical setting where being transgender is accepted, and this hesitance, specifically, around gender, might not 'make sense' in 'the lore'...

Diegesis isn't everything. Sometimes something that reflects a real-world feeling is important, even if it doesn't 'mesh' with 'the lore' of the world.

TANGENT: DIEGESIS AND READING INTO NON-REAL-WORLD-SETTINGS.

This is a Watsonian vs Doylist spectre that's been haunting this whole argument. In-universe (Watsonian), Vaugarde has seemingly no discrimination between genders, sexualities, and a lackadaisical approach to most things in the arena. Reading our own patriarchal/heterosexual/amanonormative/perisexist society unto it does not make sense, not in this context.

In the real world, however (Doylist), ISAT is a text made in our prejudiced society. A text that is distinctly flavoured by those bigotries which it is kicking back against. Because of this, it is not the whole story to simply read the text while discarding our real-world-informed inferences. Isabeau is a big example of this. While perfectly accepted in Vaugarde, he is very obviously a revolutionary character in our real-world space! He has so much to say, specifically BECAUSE things about him that are not readily accepted here, are accepted there! Same with Mira's struggles, and yes, Siffrin's too.

ISAT was written with the knowledge of how it would play against our real world in mind, we know this, clearly, from many an interview. This is most present in how it engages with asexuality and aromanticism (and immigrant identity), but make no mistake, it influences the Whole Text.

Ergo, just because I view certain writing choices here in the context of Our Real World Perspectives On Gender and not Vaugarde's In-Universe Perspectives, it does not make them an invalid read. They are simply a Doylist read.

There's been an admittedly loosey-goosey lack of delineation here between things I'm reading with either lens, because for the most part all of these points have been a vague synthesis of both that I can't quite decouple. Unprofessional, I know, but I'll admit to not having written my thoughts down like this in a good long while. Usually I just hash this out verbally over discord voice to a small number of weirdo literature and classics student friends who are willing to humour me. I'm an arts student too, but animation hardly required I actually write an essay to a literature degree's standard. Lol.

DE-PERSONING. AND LOOP. OH JESUS . LOOP .

Siffrin de-persons themselves a lot. I say de-person rather than dehumanise because, well, there's a subtle difference there. Siffrin doesn't see themselves as vermin or an animal or an object, but they do seem to see themselves as lesser, not requiring the respect they grant others. They aren't, you know, a 'real person'.

People get to have things like thoughts and wants and identities. Siffrin is, at best, Just Siffrin. They have what they have and they don't ask for more and they don't (CAN'T) feel too strongly on what they do have!

When Loop at first offers their pronouns they offer the Royal 'We'. This is at least a little bit, a joke. A nudge toward their true identity, a potential dig at themselves for becoming so understanding of The King. Mostly though, a joke on the first thing…. and a sign that they do not see themselves as a separate entity to the Siffrin stood before them.

When Siffrin rejects this, they settle for they/them. Loop drops the he/him, presumably partially to cover their tracks, but… They just showed their hand with the 'Royal We', and if you wanted to go even further with this, there's no way for us to know whether Loop is treating this pronoun as singular or not. They presumably are, but it is still a potentially plural pronoun.

Loop… Clearly does not see themselves as a person. It's, I would say, a completely reasonable assumption that the form they have taken reflects implicit feelings toward themselves as less than a person, an actor, a monster, a tool, a means to an end. They are rendered inhuman by The Universe, frivolous distractions removed. No mouth, inventory and clothes confiscated, nothing between the legs. Formed roughly in the shape of a person to allow them to do their only job: Help.

Loop's body does not make logical sense, given their continued ability to sleep, dream and their continued habit of deep breaths to self-soothe. It would seem to me, it was made in the image it was, with only the tools it needed to Help Siffrin. Why obfuscate their identity? Because giving the game away too early would likely make them lose hope. Why so deeply, thoroughly star themed? An instant signal, that even if a stranger, they are an ally. They are home.

[Image: Loop saying that they take naps and dream, and evidence of Loop habitually attempting to breathe in the twohats lose-to-loop ending]

And they… Degender themselves. No longer with any bodily signifiers of masculinity, and cruelly disallowed the ability to hide themselves beneath fabric, they are null. The spoiler Q&A (paratext, as it were) states that:

Q. Is Loop: 1. Actually comfortable with both he and they, but only gave the one pronoun to emphasize the distance? 2. Only using they/them because a large life event led to a shift in identity/ how they’d like to be perceived? or 3. time lops stole he from they they :( A. Mostly that first one. But all three of those reasons have a bit of truth to them.

While the 'mostly the first one' comment does imply that Loop would not baulk at being he/him'd (similar to how Siffrin does not), the other reasons, especially the second, having 'a bit of truth' does lend credence to this reading. That Loop's self-perception has shifted, and what I posit, is that this shift is in tandem with a disconnection with humanity. Due, presumably, to the dehumanising experience of the timeloop.

Loop has no biology to speak of, and yet they remain blind in one eye. I take this as an implication that they considered this so core to themselves, to who they could remember being, that it stayed. Even if they had forgotten their own face, trapped in a part of the house with no mirrors, they knew they couldn't see. They kept this, and yet seemingly they, or The Universe, or both of them in tandem, discarded all else.

This isn't like…. Healthy behaviour. That is for certain. But it is interesting that Siffrin and Loop seem to hold on to their masculinity by a thread, and that Loop, when actually given the excuse to make a choice, chooses the Neutral Option. Siffrin might de-person themselves, but Loop, Loop is absolutely dehumanising themselves. From Loop's own mouth (or lack thereof) do they call themselves a Corpse. That's… pretty damn bad.

TANGENT 2: POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE JAPANESE TRANSLATION.

Did somebody say 'distance'? Yeah turns out that has some more potential evidence. In the form of First Person Pronouns. See, English, with its third person only pronouns relies on others to gender you. Japanese, you get to gender yourself. And Siffrin specifically has an interesting discrepancy in the way he refers to himself.

(DISCLAIMER: I . DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT JAPANESE. THIS IS SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE. SOURCED FROM THIS TUMBLR POST AND OTHER QUICK SKIMS OF WIKIPEDIA)

Loop and Siffrin use the same, very neutral "mostly male but could go either way" pronoun of 僕 boku. Safe, soft friendly pronoun. Used by people on the younger side of adulthood, not so impolite that you can't use it in a formal setting. Such a neutral all-rounder that female singers in japan tend to use boku in their songs to relate to the audience with quiet confidence.

And in their internal monologue? Siffrin uses a completely different pronoun. In his head, for himself, he uses 自分 jibun. Now, this may be an artefact of the monologue's english second-person "You", since jibun can also be used to mean a very neutral "self". A "myself/herself/himself" type 'self'. But when used as a first person pronoun, it has a connotation of being… distant, introspective. Which is… a fascinating implication, if that was the intent.

But I don't know anything about japanese so ! If I'm off the mark, discard this!

LOOP, PART 2: MAYBE NOT A GREAT STATE TO BE IN.

While Siffrin I can comfortably argue that they can like, keep their current gender presentation, whatever you may perceive it to be, once the game is over, Loop, I cannot.

Siffrin's potential issues with their identity are ones that honestly feel like they would best be explored with gentle refinement and searching. They don't need to violently seperate themselves from what they are now, far from it, in fact. They need to learn to grow comfortable in their own skin, and with the people they love. To become open and trusting, with an open mind to where it may lead.

Loop has already lost this battle. They don't get to refine anymore, just pick up the pieces. While I don't necessarily think radical change is Good for Loop, I think they may Need It. For them, resting will probably become stagnation (see: napping all day under the tree, resigned, really, to the idea they're stuck there forever.), they need a shake-up in order to re-find their feet. Even if they end up right back where they started, they still need to do the actual painful process of soul-searching first.

Problem is, they're still rather avoidant. So it basically becomes a question of getting them into a situation where this exploration is forced upon them. At which point, that's a whole new plotline. This becomes fanfiction. Hence, why while I think Transfem-Egg Loop is a Valid Read when extrapolated from Siffrin… I must concede any actual adventures into them acting upon that as headcanon territory. I just do not know how you would get them there without making a whole new Thing, at which point it stops being Just A Read of the text haha. It doesn't help that Loop and Siffrin (grudgekeepers supreme) both have reason to spite the Change God after who was phone.

As for whether this egg-read reflects directly back on to Siffrin? Maybe! They are the same person. But I think that, especially with Vaugarde's lax views, and their actual differences (Loop's general worse mania // Siffrin's incentive to stay a reminder to themselves and Loop of their country) means they could easily go two different routes, along the road to becoming their own distinct individuals. (And in all honesty, growing into their differences is probably the more healthy option in the long run if you're keeping Loop around? But again, we are going so far into the future here this is no longer a read. And I am not here to dispense baseless headcanons without massive disclaimer, so…)

Tl;Dr:

Siffrin's Survival-Apathy and hesitance to change feels really thematic to their being 'what's left' of their homeland

They seem unsettled by the flippancy of the Change Religion at times, clinging to the familiar to cope with the trauma of displacement.

Mal du pays speaks of them that they have not 'tried' to change, showing an insecurity there, even outside of the literal stagnance of the loops.

They are self assured to Mira that one does not have to change, in a very genuinely personal impulsive statement.

They and others exclude themselves from being "A Man", but Siffrin keeps desires to explore their expression to themselves.

The Universe belief, seemingly in Siffrin's view of it, disincentivises Free Will and Wants very heavily. It is not hard to assume they extend this to all elements of their life.

They have self-admittedly never pursued tangible change, likely due to this aversion to choice. Despite this, they express interest in changing, seeming nonplussed with their body, and house at least some desire for more traditionally feminine expression.

Oh Good God. Loop Sure Does Not Treat Themselves Like A Person. Why Does That Come With A Pronoun Change? What Does That Mean?

But most of all:

It makes them such a fascinating foil and lens to Change and characters who believe in it! It makes them eerily similar to The King! It opens up such fascinating debate between characters like themselves and Mirabelle, Isabeau and Loop, on whether or not they want to change in future, or if it truly is okay to never radically change yourself! What genuinely fertile ground for dialogues. And man if I'm not heavily drawn towards dialogues.

(End of essay! Congratulations for making it the whole way! 🎉 I hope this nightmarish deep dive helps with understanding some of the ways I've been writing Siffrin and Loop too. Since while I've not ever focused on the gender side of it (and probably won't in comic form) this does pervade my view of the two, since it would be impossible for it to Not. As you can see, I do think it is pretty relevant to both their themes.)

(Now for some bonus material)

ADDENDUMS:

PERSONAL BIAS NOTE:

Not included in this analysis since this is more a Pet Theme of my own (usually kept quarantined to the realms of my OCs), but something else I see in Siffrin is a reflection of the Dude Issue(tm) of patriarchal irl society disincentivisng Dudes(tm) from ever fucking introspecting ever.

I'm curious about nonbinary/trans characters who have no idea they’re nonbinary/trans because they’ve been disincentivised from thinking/doubting their identity due to societal power structures or simply tradition. I dig around the themes of “a lot of guys are trapped in a societal prison without ever knowing and it makes them miserable but they can’t escape because they don’t even see the cage” like, a lot, in my personal work. It intrigues me. So bleh, cards on the table there. That mode of interacting with nb/trans characters is one I'm inclined to.

This kinda goes hand in hand with the watsonian vs doylist situation i took an aside to mention. But it is so far along the doylist side that I didn't want to include it, since it is a little too assumptive of the text for my comfort. I don't think the game necessarily has much commentary on this specific Societal Bind. But if it does, then hey, there's my thoughts on it.

STRAY SIDE NOTES AND HEADCANONS ABOUT OTHER CHARACTERS (AS A TREAT FOR GETTING THIS FAR):

MID-GAME OBSERVATION ABOUT BONNIE AND ODILE THAT I NEVER WENT BACK TO VERIFY:

I got the impression that Bonnie heavily favours they/them pronouns for Siffrin, and Odile he/him, as a bit of presumed character voice. I don't know that I am right, literally at all, in that observation, because it very well could've been confirmation bias.

BUT! It did give me the impression that one of the things Bonnie was idolising about Siffrin was a degree of "wow!! older person with my gender!! wow!!", which is just like, cute. I like it even if I don't have any solid evidence.

ODILE, WHAT'S HER DEAL?:

Oh she stays just as mysterious as she intends to be, huh? Even with her comments in the Changing Room alluding to knowing things about underground changing operations, you can't draw much of a conclusion about her. I appreciate verily that she's word-of-god unlabelled and also poly. That shit's great. Woman who has stopped drawing lines or caring what she's up against. Nice characterisation flavour I think.

Anyway, I do think that transfem Odile is a really, really nice take. I have no evidence in either direction for her in either direction, and her being a woman of any description makes her relationship with her absent mother something interesting to chew on, but the idea that she pursued womanhood intentionally lends an interesting texture. I've not much to say, but it's a thread to pull on. Makes you wonder what other female role models she had in her life instead. Anyway she's mysterious as fuck I can't extrapolate Jack nor Squat. Shrug! I'm also made curious by the idea of her potentially moving away from womanhood as she feels the weight of her history lifted. This goes either way, really. Diagnosis: mysterious.

HEADCANON NOTE: INTERSEX SIFFRIN

I don't have any in-text support for this so this entire thing is an unbased headcanon to me. but i DO like it because 1. fun and 2. potential for more thematic exploration

haha gotcha its fuckin themes again. its always themes with me.

But yeah. Not much to say here besides drawing a parallel (that I believe I've seen drawn elsewhere in the fandom already?) between ISAT's comments on how a society that values change would view Aroace identities, and how Mira feels about not wanting to change with the real world experiences of Intersex people having alteration and conformity forced upon them, saying the Change Belief would likely be just as bad for them as it is for aroace people.

So, adding it to Siffrin's situation further drags them into the opposition-to-change foil role. Which like I said, think has a lot to explore.

HEADCANON NOTE: A POTENTIAL METHOD FOR GETTING LOOP OUT OF THEIR GOD DAMNED COMFORT ZONE

I think utilising Loop's contrarianism is an effective and funny way to get them to explore their gender. I personally think running with them trying to hide their identity from the party is a hilarious way to do it. Having them try to position themselves in direct opposition to Siffrin to "throw the party off their trail" (not that i think they really need to?), going full feminine-revealing-clothing because it's NOT what a Siffrin would do and accidentally growing accustomed to it. Funny to me. Especially when the party eventually do find out who they are and go . "????? what was the girl stuff about ??? is that something you wanna do now ???".

[Isabeau] "Ohhhh it was a bit! Haha you really are Sif, still a jokester!" [Loop] "HAHA YEAH . JOKES. LOVE THOSE. LOVE TO MAKE JOKES!" [Isabeau] "Yep! Anyway. Tell me if you need anything!"

Bonus bonus:

[Siffrin] "Okay, so, if you're a girl. Does this reflect on like… me?" [Loop] "No doubles. Get your own gender, parasite~!"

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey weird question but, with the context that while conspiracy thought in and of itself is just a sort of dangerous logical fallacy, most conspiracy theories have some kind of tie to antisemetism, are there any antisemetic aspects to gaylor theory? i can't think of how but somehow it almost always weasels in there, no matter how innocently silly something seems on the surface.

DEEP SIGH okay it's time to talk about Scooter Braun and his place in the Gaylor conspiracy

I'm not going to recap everything but will instead link you to this US Weekly article (I know, sorry) which is basically a fine summation of events despite being a bit sensationalist in calling a business disagreement between two adults a "feud"

tl;dr for anyone who doesn't want to read all of that (it's not actually that long, I prommy): in 2019 talent manager Scooter Braun acquired Taylor Swift's former record label Big Machine, giving ownership of the masters of her first six albums. Swift objected to this very publicly on the grounds that she wanted ownership over her own work and had repeatedly been denied the opportunity to buy it outright, while also alleging that Braun has been harassing and bullying her for years. ultimately, Swift has remained unable to buy back her work, leading to her steadily re-releasing expanded versions of her first six albums under the "Taylor's Version" headline.

obviously, given my stance against speculating on the personal lives of famous rich people, I'm not particularly interested in debating whether or not there's merit to Swift's accusations against Braun, although given the exploitative nature of the music industry I hardly think her claims are implausible.

regardless of whether or not Braun sucks as a person, it's important to note that he was only very briefly in ownership of Swift's discography: as the linked article above notes, he only owned them for about a year and a half before selling them off in 2020.

despite this, Braun holds what I would consider a rather outsize role in a lot of Gaylor conspiracy theorizing, with many apparently believing that Swift fully intended to come out in 2019 with the release of her seventh album, Lover, but was prevented from coming out by Braun purchasing her discography. I've seen some claim that he actively subjected her to homophobic bullying and others saying that she didn't him to financially benefit from any career boon she might have after coming out (although no one ever seems to have an answer for why she still hasn't come out three years after he sold her discography).

I can't say whether or not the majority of Gaylors, like, know or care that Braun is Jewish, but it feels tragically predictable and yucky that a Jewish man is given such a disproportional share of blame for why Taylor "can't" come out and is made a scapegoat in the ongoing effort to evade reality with "arguments" like this

(source)

... hang on, what's that?

oh man I love when a Jewish family gets put n SCARY ALL CAPS

okay so let's talk about Karlie Kloss and Josh Kushner!

as many of you probably know by this point, Karlie Kloss is the pinnacle of Taylor Swift's platonic gal pals that she gets relentlessly shipped with; I think it's fair to say that "proving" a romantic relationship existed between the two of them is the primary focus of a lot of Gaylorism.

since 2018 Kloss has been married to Josh Kushner, heir of THAT Kushner family. his infamous brother Jared is in fact Donald Trump's son-in-law and probably guilty of, like, a lot of federal crimes. that doesn't inherently make Josh a shithead or anything and he and Kloss both claim more liberal politics, although it should be noted that like a lot of rich liberals Josh does also suck pretty hard. he and Jared own a real estate management company together and were suing their tenants and evicting them during the COVID-19 rent moratorium, so that's kind of everything you need to know about him and Karlie Kloss IMO!!!

having said that, Josh being a bastard landlord doesn't make it appropriate to frame a Jewish family as having some kind of sinister interest in suppressing a queer woman's sexuality or imply that Kloss and Josh Kushner are in some kind of sham marriage. for YEARS Kloss' marriage to Kushner, including her conversion to Judaism and their two living human children, have been dismissed as elaborate turbo-bearding, with some Gaylors going so far as to allege that Kloss and Swift have actually been married for years and Kloss is just having Kushner's children for... reasons unknown... which feels like, you know. a pretty gross dismissal of a Jewish family in favor of pretending two WASPiest WASPs to ever WASP are secretly scissoring.

anyway I certainly don't think it's the most egregious or deliberate anti-semitism that's out there in the conspiracy world but are there some Gaylors blaming The Jews(TM) for forcing poor innocent Taylor to stay in the closet? resounding yes.

[happy-beeeps]

A Promise Kept

A Tech x reader one shot where everything is fine! We're all fine!

WC: 5.2k

CW: Canon typical violence, descriptions of injuries, drug usage, blissful ignorance of physics and canon deviation. Angst, hurt comfort, fluff, all the good stuff

Summary: What am I if not a clone lover. A fix-it fic made for my irl bestie @scoobydoobydaisy, consider this your late birthday present. Thinking of all my fellow Tech girls who want to live in the world where he’s ok. Welcome! You’ve made it! This is my first time writing for tbb and for Tech, so I’m still working out the kinks, but I’m happy with it. Also if anyone tries to say anything about the survivability of that fall I’m ignoring it let me live in delusion.

(also i live in the reality where this fanart by papanowo is how Tech’s hair looks always because I swear to god I saw this and it changed my life.)

((also I prommy I'm working on the new chapter of BCS, I accidentally got inspired to write chapter 14 so I did that instead oopsie, but if it's any consolation, we've got like 9 more chapters at least of that to go!))

The quiet was what consumed you at first, the lack of chatter and softer clinking of glasses. Then it was the smells, in a broad sense the defining scent of Mantell Mix but, in a more intimate way it was the smell of the grease after he would repair the Marauder, or the fresh, clean scent of his skin in the rare moments you would lean past him when collecting the Batch’s glassware at the bar. No, when the Batch left Cid’s it was him being gone that consumed you, that Tech, your Tech in every way but reality, had left with his team in pursuit of something better and left you behind. You wondered often if they thought of you, if he thought of you, if he regretted leaving you here to clean up their mess. I would never leave him, you thought to yourself in those weeks, sweeping up glass or dealing with one of Cid’s moods. You couldn’t really blame them, you’d been at this bar long before the Batch showed up, and evidently you’d be here long after.

It’s why you’re surprised by a ping on your personal comm, tucked dutifully in the pocket of your apron, while you’re serving a drink to a tired looking Togruta. The bar isn’t packed, it never is, and you pat the pocket of your apron before looking at Cid, “I’m going to smoke, I’ll be back.”

The Trandoshan waved you off immediately, knowing full well about your recent cigarra habit, something you had attributed to the stress of the last few weeks. You slipped out the back entrance, standing in the dimly lit back alley behind the bar, leaning closer to your comm and also fumbling with the carton of cigarras, searching equally hard for your lighter. The familiar sound of the light coaxed your caller out of his silence, breaking the quiet with a long sigh.

“I thought I had adequately warned you about the dangers and symptoms of smoking.” Tech murmurs through the line, and if you squint in your mind you can practically see the disappointment on his face.

“I thought I told you not to go too far.”

“Ah. Yes. To be fair, I had assumed we were speaking in metaphor.”

You flick the ash off the end before bringing it back to your mouth to breathe. “I waited for you, you know.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“No, I know I didn’t. I wanted to. I wanted to believe you wouldn’t leave me without saying goodbye.”

“At the time I didn’t know it was goodbye, otherwise I would’ve left so few things unsaid.” There’s a clatter in the background of his message that makes your heart jump. The sound of things being loaded onto a ship, a ramp being raised. Hunter’s voice yelling, mild panic.

“You’re going somewhere?”

He takes a beat to answer, you can hear Wrecker get Omega settled and the sound of movement. He’s walking, you gather, from the way the sound rustles through the comm. Suddenly it’s clearer, and you only hear his voice and the distant sound of waves crashing. “I am.”

“So that's why you called? To not leave things unsaid?”

“I think, if I have deciphered you correctly, you would like it here. You’d fit in, I think”

“So you think you know me now?”

“I think you and I both know that I do. Just as well as you know me.” There’s that beat again, though this one rings of uncertainty. “Unless I misinterpreted something.”

“You haven’t” your words rush out in a whisper, cigarra nearly finished. “Misinterpreted I mean. You never have.”

“I- I have some things, I want you to know-” Then it's Wrecker, you can tell by the wait of the step over the comm, and he’s calling for Tech and the engines of the Marauder are firing. “We were going to come back for you. I was going to come back for you. That has always been my plan.”

“Tech, why does this sound like goodbye?”

“I was always going to come back for you.”

The line ends with a definitive click, and a moment later the last ash is on the sidewalk and your break is over. You tuck the com and the pack back into your apron, swipe at a few stray tears you hadn’t realized had slipped down your cheek, then head back into the bar, the only remnant of your confession the butt of a cigarra melting in a puddle out back.

* * *

“They’re coming back.” Cid practically spits as she walks by you while you clean glasses. “They walk out on me and now this? They just want to come back? I don’t think so.”

There’s a pit in your stomach now, a feeling of guilt and panic. Cid knows you were close with the team, but does she know how close? Are they actually coming back, and putting themselves in danger over you? “Did they say why?”

“No. It was bandana who called. Sounded down. Someone’s gotta be hurt, no reason they’d be coming back otherwise.”

The pit grows, and you instinctively feel for where your comm is. You hadn’t missed a call, you’re sure of it. Your mind spins with the possibilities. Why was Tech not the one to call? You set the glass down as carefully as you can manage and turn to face Cid. “What are you going to do?”

She looks at the ground before rubbing the back of her neck. “Look, kid, we’ve been in a tight spot these past few months with them being here. You know this, I know this.” She moves to grab your hand, “You don’t do all that well with the empire, I know. Maybe just, go home now. Before it gets worse here, ok?”

Your eyes widen with the implication of her words and you nod before turning to walk out the door, grabbing your bag from the shelf by the bar and careful to be out of the door frame before making a sprint towards the docking bay, hoping to get to them before they land. You’re calling Tech and you’re met with nothing but static, at least reassuring you that that is why he hasn’t called to alert you. “Tech, Tech if you can hear me, it’s a trap, don’t come to Cid’s, I’m going to go to the Marauder. I’m going to see you soon, ok?”

Wrecker is the first to disembark, and he nearly runs you over at the speed he walks off the ship. “Wreck, hey, it's me, you can’t go to Cid’s.” You sputter out as fast as possible before he looks down at you, eyes wide and crazed.

Hunter hears you and bolts out, walking towards you as Wrecker backs away slowly, shaking his head. “I can’t. Hunter I can’t you have to tell her.”

You look at the tattooed clone blinking wildly, “You, you’re not listening to me. You can’t go to Cid’s something is wrong.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Clearly we need to talk Hunter because I still haven’t forgiven you all for abandoning me here, but you have to listen to me, you can’t go-”

“It’s Tech.”

The words have their desired effect of turning everything in your mind into stone as you register Echo quietly shifting to do repairs on the outside of the Marauder and Omega’s tear streaked fast as she all but flies past you to catch up with Wrecker. “What do you mean?”

“He- he’s gone, he,” he runs a hand through his hair before bringing it to the bridge of his nose and shaking his head, “Kriffing Tech said he had it figured out, and he sacrificed himself for us, for the squad.” He looks back at Echo, whose shoulders are tight as he works on Tech’s ship. “He wanted to make sure you were cared for, I know you’ve got a ship and I could’ve sent coordinates but Wrecker insisted we land. And I thought I should tell you in person.” He puts an arm on your shoulder and guides you towards the bay he knows your ship is in, away from Echo and through the winding corridors of the docks. 

You’re moving, but you really aren’t. You’re numb to it all, the situation, the words. The reality of this hasn’t even begun to set in yet. Hunter knows, he always knows, and remains quiet until you get to your ship, a small but fast freighter from your days as a runner off of Corellia. “Why did you let him?”

“He made his choice, and we have to use it to secure our future.”

“Did you… did you find him? Can I say goodbye?”

Hunter runs a hand through his hair, “we didn’t exactly have time to go back for him.”

“So you left him?” You don’t hide the anger, the bitterness in your voice that rises like bile as you look to glare at your friend. “He could be alive.”

“He fell hundreds of feet and was followed by a railcar. I figured I would spare you the image because I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep now having seen it.” He sighs as you tense and your eyes go wide. “I’m sorry. We did everything we could.”

You nod, tears now actively spilling over as you blink and shake your head. “You have to tell me what system you were on.”

“I am not letting you do something stupid, do not make me disrespect his wish like that.”

“Hunter, I have to try.”

“There is nothing you can do.”

“Do not look at me and tell me there is nothing I can do until I am lying dead at your feet,” you nearly spit at him, tears now burning down your cheeks as he groans, “he promised me he would always come back for me, I am not going to deny him the same thing.”

He looks back at Echo working on the ship and chews on his lip, debating in his mind how many deaths he wants on his hands. “If I give you these coordinates, you need to promise to not engage with any of the imperials.”

“Unless they shoot me first.”

“Unless they shoot you first. You need to fly low, and make sure your cloaking is on at all times.” He takes the datapad out of your bag and punches in three sets of numbers. “The first is the system coordinates, the second is the crash site. You cannot stay there long, most of the imperials have probably fled after the attack-”

“Attack?”

“I’ll explain later,” he huffs. “The third is the rendezvous point. Whatever the outcome, meet us there, if you want. He’s right, we shouldn’t have left you. You’re a part of this squad.” He grabs your shoulder and gives it a squeeze before walking towards the direction of Echo. “I get why he loves you, you’re both so stubborn.”

You leave in a hurry, running onto your ship with just your bag and punching in the coordinates. You leave in such a hurry, in fact, that you don’t think until it’s too late that you’ve neglected to remind Hunter of the reason you ran to them in the first place.

* * *

It’s this supposed love that has you speaking into your comm while you travel through hyperspace. You’re greeted by nothing other than static, but you talk. You tell him stories, you tell him about your day. You talk about the regulars at Cid’s, about the first time you smoked. You tell him about your parents, about your home planet, how you got to Corellia. “I want you to know everything about me the way that you know everything about everything. And I think I was afraid to tell you everything because not everything is good. But I think that’s ok. And I promise, when I find you, I’ll give you everything, all of me. The good and the bad,” you sniff, “even if I smell like fumes and my lungs give out because I have a bad habit” you laugh into the comm. “I have more to say, but I think I’d rather tell you when I get there.”

Eriadu is bitterly cold and dotted with peaks of mountains stretching up and above the cloud line. Getting past the security team isn’t difficult, you can tell they’re scrambling to recover from the attack and both expecting support and medic ships, so it doesn’t take much to convince them that you’re a dispatched supplies shuttle. You fly low enough to stay out of their radar, and scour the mountain tops and trees for signs of the wreckage as you get closer to the coordinates Hunter provided. There’s a spot between the trees for you to tuck your ship, and you grab the warmest jacket you have onboard, your blaster, and your vibroblade before setting out on foot.

The air feels still, but when you pause you can hear the sounds of troopers in the distance and shuttles overheard. Nothing entirely threatening, but a bitter reminder of why you’re here in the first place. You’ve taken to talking to Tech again, hoping to hear the buzz of your voice back as you walk through this forest in the vague destination of his demise. “I’ve stopped crying,” you murmur into your comm, twigs crunching between your boots, grateful to past you for opting out of the heeled shoes you normally wear on a busy night at the bar. “I just have decided to believe that you’re here, and I’m going to find you. And I figured you’d say something about the waste of water and the threat of dehydration.” You push past the brush and step over some rocks as you begin to hit a more rocky terrain. “It’s really cold here, you know. I don’t really like the cold. Or rocks. You’re lucky I enjoy your company-”

“Freeze!” The sound of a modulated voice stops you in your tracks, and you turn slowly with your hands in the air, facing a singular trooper with his blaster aimed at your torso. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” He uses his blaster to gesture to the comm in your hand, “Who are you talking to?”

“I’m sorry, I’m lost, our ship wrecked and I’ve been wandering these woods since yesterday, I’m trying to find my husband.” You shake your hand, trying to indicate the comm. The body language of the trooper shifts, you can tell he’s trying to decide if he’s going to believe you, so you bring the tears you’ve been fighting back up. “Please, please I need help, we have a daughter, she’s off-world with her uncle. We need to get home to her, please I can’t find my husband.” 

He shifts again, and moves to lower his blaster and walks towards you, “Okay, ma’am, I don’t know how you crashed here, but this is imperial property, and it’s highly classified, I’ll need to take you in for questioning.” He steps close to you now, too close, and he underestimates you. 

You sigh in mock appreciation while you pull the vibroblade off your hip, pushing it into the exposed portion between the chestplate and pauldron of his shoulder. He yelps and drops the blaster, and you pull your own out from the holster, holding it up to his head. “I’m very appreciative for your help. Now, let’s not make any sudden movements, shall we?” The trooper musters a pained nod as you back away, picking up the dropped blaster and tucking it on your belt. “I need info on a crash site, and I need you to tell me where it is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re the one that crashed here.”

You’re being cruel now and you hate it, but your feelings for Tech outweigh any feeling of pity you have for this trooper as you push the blade further into his arm. This makes you feel gross, there’s a sick feeling in your stomach as you revert back to your old way of being, before the bar, before the squad. “I think you do know, and I can promise you, keeping me from my family is going to hurt you more than the empire can.”

“There’s a site, half a klick away, railcar crash.”

You push the blade in one final time and through gritted teeth ask him, “What. Direction.”

The trooper answers with the direction, and you smile before taking the back of your blaster and tapping him on the side of the head. After a pulse check to be sure you haven’t killed the now slumped man you soldier on, emboldened by the confirmation of the site, eager to get to Tech as soon as possible.

The crash site is genuinely nauseating. The remains of the railcar are smashed and split at the base of the mountain, laying against a tall cedar tree. There’s wires coming out in all directions sending blue sparks out into the orange sky, and the air has the taste of oil and metal, whether it's from the bent and ugly pieces on the ground or the blood that lingers you aren’t sure. The ground around the site is pushed up and bulging from the impact, and there’s small crates from rocks being dislodged and shot as the car hit the ground. It’s ugly, the crash has left no survivors from the car that went down, and you’re not sure you have the gut to wander in further. You lean against a tree nearby and notice the black tether cord jutting out of the bottom of the car. Your heart sinks and you think you’d pass out if you hadn’t been leaning against something sturdy. “Oh, oh Tech.” You whisper, slinking to the ground and letting yourself cry, really cry, for the first time today. You bring your knees up to your chest and drop your head down, tears stinging your cheeks as the cold burns them into your skin. You have to start moving, you aren’t really dressed for this, and as the sky turns magenta you know it isn’t long before it turns to night, not to mention that you know there are troopers nearby. 

You lift your head up, deciding you’re going to go walk back in a moment, and you rest the base of your head back on the tree and your eyes drift shut. “Hey Tech, it’s me again.” You whisper into the comm, still crying as you go on, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I failed you. I just had to try. I have so much I want to say to you, there’s so much-” your ears suddenly focus on something not too far from you. It’s the echo of your voice, reverberating off the nearby trees that has your heart pounding. “Hello? Hello!” you call, hearing the sound of your voice grow louder when suddenly, under the base of a tree, you hear it. It’s faint, but strong, and it’s your name being carried over the wind and down to you, spoken as soft as a prayer. When you look up you can see him, tangled in a mess of grapple line and tarp, armor dented and cracked, goggles missing. It’s your Tech, leaning against the trunk of this tree in a mess of his own creation, battered and bloody but breathing. “Tech!” You climb up to him as best you can, you aren’t an excellent climber by any means but the branches are sturdy and well placed, and suddenly you’ve reached him and he’s real. Your hands are everywhere, gentle and prodding, untangling him from the grapple line and running soothing strokes along the side of his face as he looks at you like you’ve got ten heads. He’s cold, he looks like he’s in pain, and you can tell by the grimace on his face when you brush his torso he’s got cracked ribs.

“Given my blood loss and my pain, this logically must be a hallucination.”

“No no no,” you’re soothing yourself now too, trying not to be hysterical as you untangle him and think of ways to get him down from the tree. “No, Tech I’m here, I’m here.”

“I, I don’t understand.”

“Tech,” you pause, placing a hand on his chest and looking into his eyes. He really is a mess, bloody and tired and his hair is flying in every which way. You’re laughing now, out of hysteria, out of irony, as you finally discard the tarp and shuffle the grapple line away from his body. “Do you remember how we met?”

“Of course,” he strains at the movement of you pulling him off of the trunk, “You were in the process of being mugged if I remember correctly?”

“I was negotiating the return of my wallet”

“And we found you on our walk through Ord Mantell. And then you took us to Cid’s.”

“Do you remember how I looked?”

He looks at you know confused, before slowly reaching up to feel his hair, the dried blood and the cuts still dripping, and despite it all, he cracks a smile. “Don’t tell me I look worse than that.”

You bite your cheek at the joke, happy he’s alive enough to even be making a joke, “Despite it all, I think you’ll live.”

Getting Tech down from the tree is awkward and clunky. He’s hurt, bad, and you’re worried with the movement he’s going to hurt himself beyond repair. You’ve got a solid medkit on your ship, and you just have to get him there. He’s fashioned himself a crutch out of a discarded branch and is using you to hold the majority of his weight, yet the walk still takes over double the time to get back to the ship. He regales you with the tale of his survival, though you admit that around the point he begins discussing “inertia” and the forces of gravity and the quick thinking of his pack, you’re more focused on him than what he’s saying. You get him back onto your ship quietly, careful to avoid the few troopers you see on the ground in order to avoid a firefight. Your ship is small, but it was designed to carry you and cargo, so you lead him to the small bed chamber off the cockpit. You press the button to open the door and lead him to your bed, tucked in the corner near a storage cubby, a mirror, and a small viewport. “Stay here.” You command as you lay him down in the bed, heading towards the cockpit to punch in the rendezvous coordinates. 

“I don’t believe I have much of a choice.”

* * *

“Hold still.”

“I would much prefer just the patches, thank you.”

“And I would much prefer you alive, thanks.” You huff as you inject Tech with one of the loose bacta shots you have in your kit. He grimaces, and you continue working on removing the shattered pieces of his armor and tossing them haphazardly on the floor.

“Why do you even have that, are they not illegal?”

“Lots of good things are illegal,” you mumble out as you rip gauze to lay over the bacta patches you’ve started to apply to his wounds. “Besides, of the two of us, who’s the one wanted by the empire right now?” You go to life up his shirt and squeeze your eyes shut at the dried, bloody mess around his ribs. 

He grimaces in response. “Fair point.”

You work in silence, his voice becoming more tired the more he’s spoken to you, and you don’t want to push him at risk of hurting him more. You’re applying the patches higher and higher before you sigh, breaking the silence. “Tech, I’m going to need to cut this undershirt off. I need to access your chest, and I don’t want you moving your arms more than you have to. He nods as you work on the rest of his body, whispering to both yourself and him, “Oh Tech.” 

He won’t meet your eyes, but in the darkened room he looks at the ceiling, “When you first arrived, I thought I was dead.”

“You have that little faith in my rescuing abilities.”

“I assumed you were an angel.” There’s a silence that fills the room, and you can practically feel the tension as it rolls off of him.

“I knew you were alive, I did.”

“Oh? Explain your logic.”

“I just think I would know if something happened to you.” You say, the end of the sentence trailing off into quiet as you continue to work, stepping back to begin working on his chest.

“I assume my clothing options are limited then,” his eyes land on the pile of clothes in the supply cubby behind you, thrown haphazardly as you searched for any jacket.

“I’ve got something for you, actually,” you murmur as you cut the shirt off, peeling the scraps of fabric off his body and exposing his torso, tanned and marred, you suck in a breath as you see the reality of it. 

He notices and grabs your hand. “If it soothes you, I did hit a very sturdy tree at a very swift impact, but clone armor is resilient. If I had done a proper examination, I would guess I’ve only cracked four ribs on my right side, where I made the most direct impact with the tree.”

“Oh good,” you snort, “only four.”

“I am… very fortunate I have a medic who is capable of helping me.” He looks at you earnestly, like he’s trying to decide what to say, and in reality, so are you. Hunter’s words are still ringing around in your skull, bouncing off your brain and worming themselves comfortably around your heart.

“Oh yeah, full service, you should see the trooper I took out.”

“I’m sorry?” He starts, and you bring a hand to his lips, shushing him quietly as you ease him back down to your bed. You stand up and walk towards the cubby, grabbing a similar black shirt to the one laying in scraps at your feet.

“Will this work?”

He squints at it, as if trying to place why it looks so familiar, when it clicks. “Is that… the undershirt I leant you when you stayed with Omega on our run to Tatooine?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have it here?”

You don’t know what to say, and the way he’s looking at you, brown eyes boring into your soul with equal parts skepticism and hope, you decide the truth is best. “Because, sometimes, when you were gone, it was nice to sleep in. And sometimes I took myself flying because I didn’t like being in Ord Mantell alone, and so I would pack a change of clothes.”

“But you were never alone on Ord Mantell.”

You fold the shirt and place it on the edge of your bed, the confession you were so emboldened by suddenly feeling so small. As you make to walk towards the cockpit you shrug, “It felt like I was when you left.”

His grip is surprisingly strong (a perk of the illegal extra dose of bacta you assume) as he grabs your wrist, keeping you tethered to his side. He looks radiant like this somehow, patched up in your bed, hair mussed up on your pillow, shirt long discarded. He looks like your wildest dream. “Please. Stay. I have not been honest with you.” 

You sit down at the edge of the bed, hand landing on his shin. There’s enough room here that you could recline and lay with him, albeit squished, but not much. Instead, you back up and scoot so your back is flush to the wall of the ship and you’re sitting to his side, your body angled towards him.

“I, I haven’t really had a situation like that. One where I could not think of a suitable solution that had a high probability of success and survival. When I decided to remove myself from the equation so that the rest of the squad could survive, I found myself thinking of one thing.”

“Oh?” you question, your hand pausing in its small rotation of absentminded circles along his leg.

“I could not stop thinking about how much regret I had in not confessing my emotions to you, not allowing you the ability to decipher what you felt about them.”

It’s like the air is knocked out of you then, as he pushes himself up on his forearms to be closer to you and you shift towards him, backing off the wall and sitting closer to his hips now. “Tech I-”

“Please,” he starts, “I am not very good at understanding emotion. I have tried and tried and I haven’t ever felt adequate in it. I had assumed for many months now that you were simply being kind to me, that you felt nothing, and perhaps that is still right, but after Safa Toma, I began to think that you did feel something, something aside from friendship.”

Tears threaten to spill over your eyes as you beam at him, laughing quietly to yourself as you nod, both a quiet reassurance and indicator for him to go on. 

“I heard your messages, all of them. I wish to know you, all of you, as much as you chose to let me. If you would have me that is. It is very common for people to say things they don’t mean when under duress, and I would not hold it against you-”

You cut him off the only way your brain will let you as you lean closer to him, pulling his face up to yours and meeting him for a kiss. It’s everything you need from him, from this, soft and gentle and reassuring and comforting. He sighs against you for just a moment, as if reality is overwhelming him, and pulls you in deeper, shifting to the other side of your bed and allowing you to recline next to him on his left. He tastes metallic and medicinal but past all of the trauma and the medicine there’s still something (caf? chocolate?) that tastes like him, sweet and warm and him. He’s your Tech, he’s always been your Tech, and as you pull away you smile at him, running a finger along his cheek as he plants his hands firmly on the small of your back. 

“You promised me you’d always come back for me, and I want to promise you the same.” He pulls you in closer at that, placing your head on his chest. “And for the record, I fell for you much earlier than Safa Toma, but seeing you win that race really helped.”

He chuckles a bit at that, keeping you tucked in under his arm and with your head on his heart, he starts to slowly drift to sleep. You focus on that, the drum of his heart, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and start to dream too, knowing that no dream can match reality. You will wake up in a world where Tech is still alive and he is still yours, and you already can’t wait to get there.

[matmiraculous]

(I am your God au stalker :3)

More questions-

1. How will trolls 1,2, and 3 go for God au

2. Is there anyone who JD wants to kill so bad?

3. How will the brozone happy ending work out

4. Does brozone (the band) still happens

5. Is there any more ships besides Hickdory and Bruce x Brandy?

6. How many kids does Bruce have, same or does things change

7. What are JDs relationship with Branch, Floyd, and the sisters + Dickory

8. What happened to the country trolls after Delta died

9. JD forgiveness arc?

10. Does JD have any friends, he only has hickory, poor him💀(forgets about dickory)

If you don't know, I'm in love with your god au- I go crazy whenever I remember about it, I even got grounded for being too loud and crazy😅....

(Extra question)

11. Unusually usual chapter 23 when? (No pressure! /take your time on it!\

I almost cried when I got this ask Anon. The joy it brought me you have no idea. It's been a really hard couple of weeks. Onto the questions thought! 1. Imagine Poppy accidentally befriends a grumpy god and she doesn't know he's a god. Now you can imagine trolls 1. As for trolls 2 and 3, it really depends on how I develop the story. 2. Nah, he doesn't really wish death on anyone to be honest. 3. They will get the happy ending. Let's just say it has something to do with their dad. 4. Not really? I mean they did have a band as kids but since they're gods it didn't really become a huge thing.

5. Broppy obviously. As for Clay and Floyd getting a ship? I'm on the fence tbh. 6. 13 still. It's a magic number for him. His little demigod demons :> 7. JD and Floyd got along really well. Floyd wants to leave JD be since he's working through some stuff. Alone. Branch really honestly doesn't remember JD all that much. As for the other three, its probably pretty tense, he's always iffy with mortals. 8. They got a new sheriff but they definitely do not like JD.

9. Oh yeah totally. Clay is going to see reasoning at some point. Honestly, Clay and JD's relationship is the most interesting to me. Like Bruce and JD is my favorite and Branch and JD has a super special place in my heart but Clay and JD just make me want to put them in little jars and shake them y'know? 10. He really doesn't have that many friends. He doesn't want to hurt people. PS. 11. I'm sorry ive been doing other work for school and other personal projects and I am so mentally tired I haven't had time for it. I'll get back to it eventually prommy.

[aihoshiino]

could you share some of your ai/nino toxic yuri visions :)

gosh anon since you've TWISTED MY ARM <3

I can't talk about toxic Ai/Nino without recommending the EXCELLENT Ai/Nino focus chapter of the equally excellent fic series From Miserable Me to Miserable You by an anon creator on AO3 (who i know reads my tumblr pleeease come into my inbox and be besties with me ill be normal about unhealthy gay women i prommy).

Their take on the girls represents basically the platonic ideal of Ai/Nino as a ship for me - the near incomprehensible blend of feelings Nino has for Ai, a sense of resentment, desire, superiority, inferiority, jealousy, admiration... she wants Ai while also hating Ai for supposedly stealing the things that belonged to her and that black smear of emotions is expressed as love that stings, a kiss that turns into a bite.

From Ai's side, I think it would be the culmination of something I've kind of turned over in my brain for a bit - an idea of what it would look like for her desperate desire for acceptance to lead her into unhealthy or even abusive dynamics. Ai is, after all, both an abuse survivor and someone who had an upbringing that has left her predisposed to codependency and repeating the unhealthy relationship dynamics that were pattered for her in her mother's home. To Ai, who has never loved or been loved by anyone, she has precious few defenses to navigate or negotiate her way around these sorts of relationships, especially when she herself is so absolutely desperate to be loved and accepted, to be touched by and connected to another person. She was especially desperate to connect with the other founding members in B-Komachi and the manga has put a particular emphasis on her and Nino's relationship as being one that had a lot of weight to her. So I think if Nino was the one reaching out first, Ai would take anything she could get from her… even a bite.

you can really tell i'm a gay chick because all my hypothetical m/f ships for ai are so soft and sweet and healing and all my f/f ones are about ai getting bullied by her yandere girlfriend. love wins! <3

[sighonaraa]

tagged by the brilliant @jamiesfootball and the stunning @lady-of-the-spirit and the gorgeous @abubblingcandle! thank you all for the tag MWAH <3

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

11

2. what's your total AO3 word count?

120,102

3. what fandoms do you write for?

ted lasso (quick everybody act surprised), daredevil (i WILL get back to that fic i prommy), thor & loki, and uh. i haven't posted anything yet but somehow succession got me to care very deeply about billionaires so. watch this space............

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

It's the Great Father's Day, Ted Lasso (ted lasso)

It's the Great Valentine's in May, Colin Hughes (ted lasso)

hear you calling from some lost and distant shore (thor & loki)

and do not recognize us as we pass (ted lasso)

It's the Great Moving Away, Sam Obisanya (ted lasso)

5. do you respond to comments? why or why not?

I DO. I KNOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE A LIE AND THAT IS BECAUSE IT IS. i have been woefully bad at catching up with responding to comments........... however i will fix this once school gets out.

6. what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hmmm. despite the fact that my fics tend to be Incredibly Angsty, they almost all end with deep and abiding sappiness. i suppose at the moment the sun is only a God if you learn to starve has the angstiest ending, although that's mostly just because it only has the one singular chapter atm.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

probably It's the Great Father's Day, Ted Lasso! i love that ending very very much.

8. do you get hate on fics?

thankfully not yet!! pls be nice to me im This Tiny (i am not short at all) (be nice to me anyways)

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

i have not! maybe one day, possibly, but i'm very [blushing] about writing that right now lmfao.

10. do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've written?

i haven't written any crossovers before! i tend more towards AUs (as we can attest)

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

as far as i'm aware, nope!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

no but if anyone ever wants to, i'm so incredibly down for that

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

no! BUT! i would LOVE to! come to my dms and let's brainstorm.

14. what's your all-time favourite ship?

all of my favorite characters/therapy. tbh.

15. what's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

i will finish every WIP i've posted a chapter of because i will. this is my Brave Face Mantra. in terms of ones i want to finish in my head.... the ted lasso s3 fix it will hopefully eventually happen but not for A While.

16. what are your writing strengths?

hrm. hrngh. i hate complimenting myself. people have told me i have a good grasp of character voices and also prose? so? [throws that at you and runs away]

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

i am THEE absolute worst at describing settings/environments. i'm not a visual reader at all which translates into not being a visual writer and it's just. urgh. HELP.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

hell yea! most of the characters i've written for so far have been mostly english-speaking, but for characters who are bilingual (dani, sam, richard) i try to include phrases in their native language they would use. if i were to ever write a lot of dialogue in another language, i'd probably give an in-narrative translation, or just stick 'em in the end notes.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

when i was 12 and infinity war came out i was so distraught that i wrote like 10 fix it fics and none of them will ever see the light of day.

20. favourite fic you've ever written?

and do not recognize us as we pass & find a new place to be from! yes i cheated and chose two.

tagging! not sure who has and who hasn't done it yet so! @altschmerzes @jamietarttsnorthernattitude @iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid @thirteenemeraldcats @nativestarwrites @orbitalpirate + absolutely anybody else who would like to participate and use me as their tagger! MWAH <3

[stellevatum]

Respond to the following prompts out of character, then tag others you'd like to get to know a little bit better.

Roleplayer name: Kar/Karmun/Karthonic

Roleplayer pronouns: They/Them

Muse name(s): Kar Alor'ade/Nari'ad

Preferred communication: DMs at first, Discord if we're vibing.

Experience: I've been roleplaying since 2001-2002. I was there when the deep magic was written, etc. AIM, YIM, MSN, Gaia, BB Boards, Skype, you name. I've been writing Kar in general/SW verse since 2003, and her BPRD AU since maybe 2005-2006?

Preferred roleplay type: I try to match, novella works but sometimes you just got the brainpower for shitposty one-lines/casual chat RP, which seems to be what scratches my itch more these days. Theme-wise, I'm into the dark humor and cracky stuff more than serious, but that doesn't mean I won't write it.

Pet peeves & dealbreakers:

Breaking Reblog Karma-- SUCH a pet peeve.

Utilizing something that's more of the character's thoughts or internal exposition like it's something the character said.

Constant first meeting threads (that usually go nowhere). I can only handle the "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" or "WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?!" prompts for so long. Please let us hash out rapports and figure it out as we go along, Please let our character already have a framework of a story and then fill it in as we go. It's much more freeing I prommy.

Not adding input to a plot, or not communicating at all when planning. If you're not interested in a plot/ship/etc, just say so, don't just give me vague or one word replies. Enthusiastic consent is not just for the bedroom, and "Yes And" ing is not just for improv theater.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting but whatevs.

Best time to write: Usually during slow hours at work, and weekends, mostly nights my time (NY Timezone).

Are you like your muse?: Overall? Nope. We have the same name (though they had the name first before me lmao), and some of the same interests but nah she's a self indulgent whatever I want character.

Tagged by: Stole from my other blog. Tagging: Anyone interested.

[anisaanisa]

🚀 20 Questions 🚀

Tag game tag game! Thank you @mayarab, your timing is impeccible, for nano is right round the corner (eek!) 🤸‍♀️

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

27!

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

197,644!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Inuyasha and the effervescent No Fandom!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. One Word 2. Homecoming 3. Evermore 4. Members Only 5. Two for the Show

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Though sporadic, I do try (operative) and respond to all of them. It takes a certain set of variables for me to aquire the spoons, but I get there eventually. As for the why, I just like to say thanks :3

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hm. You caught me. I am a compulsive happy ending built writer.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably One Word? It's the most picket-fenced ending, at the very least.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Inuyasha is a drop in the fanfiction ocean, and hate in this realm tends to be an echo, rather than a rabble.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do! All kinds! Sex positivity is nifty my dudes!

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I do not. Never say never though!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! The lovely @minakok translated One Word into Spanish, and I am eternally grateful for her and those who have had a chance to read it 😭

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Technically, yes! I joined in on an AU art challenge that resulted in InuKag as a Reylo role-reversal piece. One thang led to another and before you know it, @boflicker and I went from brainworming to actualising that into a fic, Irredeemable. I've done a fair few art collabs, but this one is extra special to me; not only is Bo an excellent writer, but a stellar collaborater, and we are very often haunted by this story and it's characters while they're out there in the big wild kicking ass and taking names (love you BoBo) :3

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Gosh. This one is so hard. How ever shall I pick? (deadpan, unserious)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

...lower your voice. I have every intention of finishing everything ever, prommy. Sharing is another question though :3

16. What are your writing strengths?

Characters (question mark) and The Hook(tm), possibly.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Momentum and retaining motivation via associated annoyances.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I mean. Yeah, why not? If it calls for it, it calls for it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Inuyasha! Dated November 2020!

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

One that I haven't posted 🦇

Weeheeeee this was a good finger stretch. I'm gonna tag @inussunflower @sin-and-punishment @moonnue @iam-jacks-redacted-information and anyone else that wants to join! ψ(｀∇´)ψ

[star-fandoms]

i did ONE Danganronpa redesign before hyperfixating on cookie run...SIGH

I have been having so much fun though thinking about mine and my friends cookie run ocs. I gotta share them!

Freaking GAMER cookie my beloved

This ref and design is pretty old, I gotta redesign her. Gamer x Sandwich x Pizza cookie poly relationship real. She's a recluse who stays inside most of the time. She streams her playing games and that's how she gets her money. That said since she refuses to leave her house she often orders takeout(Although another part of it is to see Sandwich and Pizza cookie outside of college)

LOL YOU CAN TELL WHICH IS A MORE RECENT DRAWING

Anyways, G x S x P before their official friendship to after their friendship. They have sleepovers often(since they just go to the same school anyways) and they just kinda listen to Sandwich cookie ramble about anything and everything. Btw it doesn't look like it in the drawing but i prommy they are in fact listening to her. Anyways Gamer has just always been a recluse and shy person and so when Sandwich cookie talks to her and is nice to her, Gamer kind of develops feelings fast since she's never had that before. Gamer really admires Pizza cookie for her hard work, she can't help but wonder what drives Pizza cookie to work so hard. Gamer has stopped putting in a lot of effort because no matter what she's never lived up to anyone's expectations, so to see someone who works so hard no matter what, she really admires that. That said she does worry about Pizza cookies health and tries to get her to relax as much as possible. When she order's pizza and Pizza cookie delivers, she feels bad but she also takes this as an opportunity to give her a large tip(she gives her like $50-100 every time LMAOOO she is down horrendous) She does also tip Sandwich cookie a lot of money too!!

Epic Gamer cookie and Gunpowder cookie art done by yours truly. Also Gunpowder belongs to @muddymcmeatz, my bestie! Check him out!! Anyways, Gamer and GPC have a silly dynamic, they're friends, Gamer questions every day how it happened. Anyways, Gamer likes to cosplay and went to GPC for a weapon made for one of her cosplay, and they've been in contact since.

Jawbreaker Cookie!!

JBC x Roguefort Cookie as the one mlp meme LOL, im not really proud of this piece so i gotta redo it eventually LOL but this meme is literally them to me

JBC and Gunpowder are in the same gang and they have a silly sibling bond. They constantly play fight and tease each other. They have ruined each others hair more times then they can count which has made Salty Dog Cookie(Made by @/muddymcmeatz again lol) shave their heads. They constantly pull pranks on each other, they are very annoying, but they care for each other deeply, just as they do the rest of their gang!

Finally, Blue Rose Cookie!

Guh BRC and Rockstar Cookie my beloveds. Im doing a whole ass animatic with Blue Rose's relationship with her, Mint Choco, Hot Cocoa, and Rockstar to Duet, from the Omori soundtrack. Blue Rose plays the piano and her and Mint Choco would often duet together, but the Duet animatic im working on is their final duet together because BRC is aware she has no chance and just wants to move on, shes tired of chasing after someone who likes someone else. Anyways BRC and Rockstar cookie have been friends since high school and he's liked her since and she's always been a huge fan of his, they support each other! Anyways Rockstar will get his happy end with her

Here's one of the drawings from the Duet animatic!

I have some other design ideas that I'm really excited to work on!

Rose Water cookie: She's shipped with Peach Blossom cookie from Cookie Run Kingdom! They'd be so pretty and majestic together fr fr I gotta draw them soon!

Apple Bunny cookie: She's shipped with Onyx Cream cookie from Cookie Run Witches Castle.

Gummy Shark cookie: I don't have her shipped with anyone as of now. She's a cruel loan shark who's enemies with Salty Dog's gang. She's always accompanied by her two body guards Baja Blast Cookie and Mtn Dew Cookie.

Firefly cookie: Shipped with Amber Sugar cookie, i don't have too much info for her rn

[pluck-heartstrings]

"Her aesthetic is platinum, with an array of subtle colours. Picture fine particles of glitter that catch the light and refract into a multitude of colours"

Do you have any *idea* what a yarn crafting nightmare this is? I have some ideas but I've finally decided on a long bodied frame I can put multiple dresses on so I can experiment. Unless I find the perfect embroidery thread for a mini......

In any case-

I fully believe the future of Princess merchandise for Fazco lies in makeup/costumes/dress up merch, and hard bodied dolls. Think like, american girl, barbie, monster high, ect. Ball jointed things with every accessory under the sun. The castle, by nature of its built in narritive, would be downright tone deaf to not merchandise towards pretend play. And fazco has two predominate plush styles. The chunky kind (think plush baby) and the long bodied kind (sun and moon AR plushes). While possible for them to redesign the plush's from the ground up, the infrastructure for assembly already existed from the pizzaplex. The attendant's hips are also a plush nightmare. But liberties are probably taken to emphasize other features and leave them the long body plush bodies.

Now you can either market the princess as a unit with the attendants, giving her the long body type, or independently, reusing the chunky plush style, which has far less detail and is printed felt. Actually given her size, and encouraging imagination play with the knight plushes (no doubt chunky), making her a chunky plush in sky blue (guarentee it would test better than grey. Might even end up in like a cream cause little girls would dig it as wedding aestetic) is most likley.

*having said that*

I personally would prefer her in a long body, to preserve her elegance.

So that's def what I'm doing.

after my current project, which unfortunately is slated for a few months worth of work given my limited work time, I'm definitly going to bare minimum rough out a body and face. Time to order all the armature wire ever.

(A mental image, of a small girl repeat customer, who obsessivley ships anyone but sun with the princess, and makes direct eye contact with sun while making her toys kiss. She probably has a crush on sun)

Nelly I'm so sorry I was just trying to give you more informationnnnn Basically I'm saying her palette is really minimal so she'll look great in a bunch of colours and I TRUST ANYTHING YOU DO I PROMMIE

I totally agree that dolls would be a huge hit later down the line when the Castle gets more popular. Doll!Princess would be a similar shape to the Glamrock action figures to encourage cross over play. Glamrock Chica and Roxy having girlie sleepovers with the Princess, small replicas of the Castle made ripping off Barbie's Dream House.

(Also that little girl with the Princess toy doll making them kiss everyone, that's me. That's my self insert. She's got a big ol' crush on Sun but keeps making doll!Sun smooch literally everybody.)

[bobmckenzie]

THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH for all the kind tags on my most recent art omg 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 i was so excited to post that piece and you all made it 1000x better!!! :') i'm so hyped to get more comfortable in this art style :D

ALSO if I missed following anyone back from promos yesterday or you followed from a non self-ship blog feel free to reply to this or send me an ask!! i prommy i don't bite lol and i always feel like i missed someone!

(also ummm WHAT on earth did tumblr do to the desktop layout... it's so disorienting wtf is this...)

[downbytheriversside]

something you think that's underrated (show, music, ship, habit, animal, absolutely anything. can be multiple/a list. go wild)

Oh get ready to be here a while here we fuckin go...

Wind. It reminds me what it's like to be alive

Matt Maltese. Sad boy music that's so so good and makes me feel so much pain and catharsis. Also a lot of his songs are byler/Mike coded. You deserve an Oscar, shoe, everyone adores you, outrun the bear (byler will pov), as the world caves in, strange time (its second or third line is literally "and we'll both gladly lose our minds LIKE!!). Also paper thin hotel is tom wambsgan's song, and tom wambsgan's alone.

Lucas GODDAMN Sinclair. Need I say more? Doesn't matter cus I'm gonna- I genuinely believe he's the best written and performed character in the whole show, he's my sweet child ray of sunshine I love him dlfkgkfdn and he would NOT be the same without what Caleb brings to the table in his performance. And since day ONE he fucking ATE I keep putting EMPHASIS on so many WORDS but I digress. I do understand the problems with some of his writing which sucks but he is still incredible and you can tell that Caleb cares so much about him which I always love to see

The oh hellos album dear wormwood. Omg. Omfg. It's fucking TRANSCENDENT. ANYONE READING THIS WHO HAS GONE THROUGH/IS GOING THROUGH A TOXIC OR ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP OF ANY KIND LISTEN TO THIS IT IS SO HEALING. Not only is it cathartic asf but it depicts the anger and regret and pain and resignation and fucking every emotion under the sun that you experience in those kinds of relationships. And just how connected all of the songs are. The album itself is a loop, seriously. The last part of Thus Always to Tyrants (the final song on the album) leads right into the beginning of Prelude. And while we're on the subject of thus always to tyrants can we talk about how fucking impactful it is to end the album on that note? On a bittersweet toast to the people who hurt us because there is no getting rid of what they did, only making yourself stronger from it and healing?!!? About the notion that what they did was terrible but that is something you'll never forget because you can't but you're moving on to better things, wondering if they will change/have changed from who you knew them as?!??! ARE YOU FUCKNG KIDDING ME!!!!! AND just how connected the lyrics and melodies are in all of the songs. I've listened to the whole album easily over a hundred times and I still notice new lines that relate to each other or when bg melodies in one song are the main motif (?) of another. You can tell how much care and thought and love and emotion was put into its creation and I love it so so so much. Also if you dear reader do not want to spend 40 min listening to the album please please please just listen to Pale White Horse and Where is Your Rider. Oh. My. Fucking. God. Jesus fuck these songs. I'm just typing about them and I got chills like. I'm not joking at all when I say these songs actually changed my life. And the interconnectedness of them (sorta like a horse and its rider?) is just so special. They're whole fucking experiences to listen to and I will never get tired of it. Aaaaaaaahhh I wanna keep talking about this album but we'd be here for a long long long time but I might make a post about it if anyone was actually interested on my music blog @lyricsdumblikethelinoleumfloor at some point so. Stick around for that ?

Forehead kisses. We need more of those pls

Sincerity. For the love of the night sky. BE EARNEST! BE SINCERE!! BE GENUINE I WILL FUCKING STAB YOU-

Little thumb rubs while holding hands

My mutuals all of you deserve love and appreciation and tenderness every one of you fuckers I love you all <33333

Cucumbers. Shit fucks

LIBRARIES! Please if you can visit your local library, it'll be so lovely I prommy

Humans committing to silly bits together. And just like building off of each other's energy. One of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed and that I'm so grateful to have experienced

Introspection. For the love of fuck pleaaaase more people need this. Everyone needs to practice introspection idc just do it it's not some shameful act it just helps you grow

Peach flavoured things. They're yummy 😋

My ever growing gnome figurine collection pretty underrated imo kinda flying under the radar imho

Burger King foot lettuce

Laying on the floor and doing nothing. 10/10 activity honestly. Especially when you're in a sun spot shit fucks

And that's m'list! Glad you made it to the end, sorry for the long post