#Isekai Complex

[firefromthegodspro]

I'm not late

Alright, just finished the chapters, now time to l-

What do you mean it's 2025

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57992563/chapters/157356184

God I cannot fucking tell you how hard it was to write these chapters. Yes they are technically late by about a month on their original post date and i'm even later on the post here but uhhhh

Shut up.

Anyways been busy, December was a wash thanks to work, but on the bright side I'm looking into potentially submitting works into lit journals!

Not Isekai Complex, though. I don't think any journal would want it hahaha

Anyways today's random topic is this because rn I cannot stop listening to Ado music to save my life.

Definitely give it a listen, it's the good shit.

Happy New Years All, and may something good be with you because 2025 already kinda looks like a crapshoot

Edit: Thank you AO3 link for not embedding, very cool

[meamiki]

some random reverse entry au [office + reverse isekai loop] drawings :thumbsup:

[mildly interested in this silly au? here is a link to scroll through for all the stuff i've made for it! i'll make a proper master post... someday.....]

[ibelongtotheclassics]

Sharing some of my childhood + present anime & studio ghibli OTPs

*uwu* they’re so precious for meee 💖🎬🇯🇵

< PART 4 / on-going list >

[vermillioncrown]

hey so dbd really just resonated w/ me I used to live outside my native country when i was a kid and moved back when i was seven. the culture shock i got when i moved back, the general isolation, the rumors about the foriegn girl (kids just walked upto me and said 'do you speak hindi?' yes i've been living in this country for five years and hindi is a subject you need to know to pass the fucking exams, you think i don't?) the alienation in my own home and coping with the internet, dbd just sorta

continuation of last ask, i also just masked a lot and i see that is zyx too and just. this fic means a lot to me and i think about it weekly. thank you so much for writing it. like it always gets me how deeply human the characters are and how much i relate to zhu yunxun and the navigation of life in your country but it's alien to you almost and the feeling that your cheating almost because you had the luxury of knowing stuff (eng) beforehand and people who didn't are infinitly cooler.

hey! sorry for the late reply, i legit have just been barely 🤏 making it through all week. thank you for such a heartfelt ask! 🥰

your experience is different than what i've experienced as chinese diaspora (i was born outside of mainland china and only occasionally visit), but it still fits. dbd is exactly about that not-quite-fitting-in experience. isekai as an analog to the diaspora and cultural...mismatch? misalignment? something.

you know more bc you've been outside, but that comes at a cost of not fitting in. and "fitting in" isn't like one is trying to conform---it comes with social advantages in the (ahem) society that you live in! so obvious but there are so many stories about how one needs to break the mold to the extreme and that's obviously one type of story that has to be told.

dbd says that there is no cheat code for "doing it right." but at the end of the day, you need to do it because you live there, and you have to try your best.

hope you're doing well and getting through it. i wrote dbd kinda as my own thing, not trying to force it bc at the heyday of mdzs fandom there were some Very Loud Voices around and those voices were needed to fight against western biases and nonsense in fandom, but idk. it was super disorienting to feel both connected and alienated to my culture in one go. i didn't feel chinese enough. but at the same time, i didn't connect with a lot of my fellow abcs online, the ones that felt like they only wore being chinese for brownie points and were more likely to make fun of their culture than actually engage it. weird place, always in the middle, always feeling alone, but surely, i couldn't be? that would be the height of arrogance, almost like solipsism, to believe that.

writing si fic is the same way. it's a very niche way to engage with fandom, if you break down fandom works by percentage. and meta, too; an si writer makes hard asks of a reader to not only buy their version of canon, but buy into a whole bunch of original content. buy into them as a person without using fandom to hide behind. si writers all read other fics; mainstream fandom rarely seek si writing.

so like, you have the cultural aspect of feeling alienated, you have the subgenre (?) alienation, you have the premise of isekai also being one of alienation

which equals dbd as a tres leches cake about alienation lol

[sweeteastylist]

Nikki adrenaline junkie

[kokorolinkrun]

This scene from Re:Zero (which I'll put under the break for people who want to see it) gave me some serious Henry vibes, so I decided to redraw it with him and Ellie in honour of Fleeing the Complex's ninth anniversary today.

If anybody wants it, here's the original scene this is referencing:

[realfuurikuuri]

IT’S TIME FOR MORE MANGA

[princelysnape]

u died (like right now. in this moment you're reading ts) and reincarnate in 1974 as a ghost that only severus snape can see; no one else can see you. you can hang around in his head and say stuff (but not read his thoughts). You cannot directly make him do anything. You also know you only have 5 years like this before you move to the afterlife.

Wyd.

The clothes you died in are also your forever ghost outfit.

the prince in 1974 (part one)

oh damn, i can't believe i died wearing a sweatshirt, shorts, socks, and messy eyeliner lmao

hmmm, let's see. first of all, i presume you're talking about the harry potter book series and not the movies, right? that's important to know because i know more about the books than the movies. then again, it's been a while since i last read the books too, which could prove to be challenging if i plan to change stuff. however, for the sake of realism and immersion, i'll just wing it with what i know now

and before we can actually start, let's establish a few things:

if i died june 20th, 2025, then it makes sense that i would appear june 20th, 1974, yes?

if i died exactly where i was, then i died in south america, brazil. literally a continent away—too far from our story

if i died at my precise age, then i died in my late 20s. specifically at 26. still very young

if i died right after this ask and knowing for a fact that this new reality will only last for 5 years, then i'm also already aware that i've been isekai'd to the harry potter universe

now let's take a look at my new reality. i'm currently a ghost who died at home after coming back from work, tired as hell and sleepy, all because of your dumbass ask lol. i would be pissed fr, but since i at least know what happened to me and where i am and when, i wouldn't panic so much. and since this whole thing revolves around severus snape and his future, it makes sense that instead of showing up exactly where i was, i would show up right beside him or close to his general presence. which implies that 1) my ghostly form (or soul, i guess) is tethered to his and 2) if he's the only one who can see me, then i'm not a regular ghost like moaning myrtle or even like peeves. the rules of this world don't completely apply to me

as for my location and surroundings... well, i saw this a little after midnight, so i'm probably standing in the middle of the empty slytherin common room. maybe there's a few students around, but none of them can see me anyway, so that's a moot point. but if i'm here, then sev can't be far away, right? and sure enough, there he is, sitting close to the fire, book in his hands, in all his fourteen-year-old glory, looking at me completely baffled. literally everything about him is screaming "what the actual fuck"

look, the thing is, i may not be the smartest cookie in the jar, but my god do i know how to work under pressure. i absolutely cannot talk to severus right now without some sort of plan or strategy, but i also can't leave him hanging there. it's important to show him i'm harmless, and hey, i've built a whole reputation on being disarming and unthreatening, so how hard can this be? so of course i just awkwardly wave at him like a total idiot

if it's even possible, he looks even more baffled than before, but he quickly checks himself. i believe sev is smart enough to immediately clock that i look completely out of place here. i'm obviously dead, too old to be a student and too young to be a professor, i'm wearing muggle, weirdly boyish clothes, and no one else seems to be acknowledging me, so neither can he without looking fucking crazy. he deliberately goes back to his book, ignoring the shit out of me. a good thing too, because now i have time to think about what the hell i'm going to do now

i mean, is it possible to change the future? do i even want to change the future? for all the tragedy and death that happened in the wizarding world, they had a happy ending (kinda). and who knows, in my eagerness to stop things from happening, i could accidentally change things so much that my knowledge of the future would be useless. and anyway, this is all theoretical if i can't make severus trust me enough to hear me out. if i try to simply tell him everything i know, he'll think i'm insane. or worse, he'll think he's the one who's insane, and i can't have him doubting his own mind. he needs to be sharp to protect himself against the noseless bastard. so i need him to take me seriously, and i need to prepare him for what's to come

so step one would be my backstory

i'm gonna have to lie to him. no way around it. i can't tell him i'm from another dimension or that for me he's just a character in a children's book—that's insane, and it would make him have an existential crisis. however, i also can't just make everything up. severus is young and nowhere near as sharp as his older self, but he's not fucking stupid. i think he would be able to tell if i bullshit him too much. and you know what they say: the best lies are wrapped in truth

if he asks, i'll tell him my actual name and general age ("more than 25," because i'm not sure if i'll need to lie about my age too). i was born on another continent, and that's why i don't sound like a british citizen or even an american one. i never went to hogwarts, and i'm from the future (also unspecified, one can never be too careful)

now this is where the lies start, because telling him i'm from the future is already a lot, i can't overwhelm him too much. so as far as he's aware, i'm just a muggleborn witch and i went to castelobruxo, so that's why my magical knowledge is quirky and spotty. i wasn't born in england, but i moved there as a young woman after living in the states as a teenager. i wasn't personally involved in the war because i went into hiding. my family was killed by the dark lord. i'm not completely sure how i died or why i'm stuck to him specifically. and the cherry on top: i knew him as an adult, and dare i say... we were quite close

why would i say this? because before anything else can happen, i need to establish myself as an ally and a trustworthy confidant. i worked with children long enough to know that they all crave the attention and emotional validation from an authority figure deep down. they're extremely mentally fragile and moldable, and severus is especially vulnerable to this phenomenon (look at voldemort, dumbledore, lucius, and hell, even lily, and you'll see where i'm coming from), and that's the path i'm taking. i think i can use this weak spot to my advantage and to further my agenda. now, i know this sounds awful, but five years is really not that much, and having a literal kid as my only asset will make things even harder for the both of us. besides, i'm not a complete piece of shit. by the end of our acquaintance, i promise his self-esteem will be much higher and he won't have to resort to the old fools for validation. i do think he's better off with me than without me. admittedly, i've never had a child before, but i can't possibly do worse than tobias and eileen

i'm not clueless though. with all my vague answers, and too-intimate knowledge about him, and the fact that i'm quite invested in his personal welfare, severus could very well trick himself into concluding we were once romantically involved and i just won't say so because he's too young now. i could play into that and leave it heavily implied that, yes, that's exactly the case. he will be much more likely to believe me if he thinks i'm acting in self-interest and not in some misguided attempt to be a goody two-shoes. it's an efficient tactic, but also, icky as shit, and it sounds a lot like grooming (not that my tactics have been very morally upright so far, mind you). and anyway, it would leave him even more open to this type of manipulation, which is exactly what i'm trying to avoid here

so i'll just... not. i can hardly control what he thinks, and it's normal for kids his age to have crushes on adults. but if he ever tries to tell me about his theory, i'm shutting that shit down. it won't do for me to become a second lily in his life, especially considering that i'm going to disappear in five years' time. he needs to form connections outside of me, outside of lily, and outside of the death eaters

oof, are you bored yet? lmao

if you're wondering, yes, i thought about all of this while still in the slytherin common room. crazy how much time i have now that i don't need to sleep

since i arrived june 20th, it's the end of severus' third year at hogwarts. in a few days, he'll be back in cokeworth. back to his personal hell, and i'll be right there with him whether we both want to or not. so i better start talking to him

i think it's better to corner him during breakfast. he'll be fed and calmer, and if we're in public, he can't snap at me without looking insane. so i just sit down next to him and start talking his ears off about nothing and everything, getting him used to me. predictably, he ignores me. his eye twitches a little, but otherwise, he doesn't acknowledge me. he's very aware that no one else seems to think this is weird or out of norm; like they don't see me at all. at this point, he probably thinks he's hallucinating this whole encounter or that the marauders are pranking him. either way, he can't suffer the indignity of a reaction

the next few days are spent exactly like this. i talk at him, he pretends he can't hear or see me, i follow him around the castle making little funny comments here and there to amuse us both, i make funny faces, i try helping him navigate slytherin politics (guess what, he ignores me)

i watch the marauders coming to bully him as per usual, watch him confront the marauders about their latest prank, watch the marauders being defensive and confused, watch him realize they really have no idea what he's talking about, and watch lily climbing onto her high horse about picking fights with them. they fight and then make up

the end of term is arriving and nothing truly gives. he's still not talking to me, but at least he stopped pretending he can't see or hear me. he seems weirdly accepting of my presence now that he knows i'm not some ploy against him. he raises an eyebrow every time people come and go without acknowledging me, rolls his eyes when i try to be funny, and sighs tiredly every time i open my mouth, but doesn't otherwise engage

after spending nights wondering what the fuck is going on with him, i believe he concluded that i'm hogwarts' new ghost and for some quirky reason i decided to pick on him and there's that—not a lot he can do about it. he reads some books on ghosts though, so i guess he's vaguely curious about this phenomenon (even more so when he notices other ghosts also don't acknowledge me), but not enough to actually talk to me

everything comes to a head in the hogwarts express

if he spent this whole time thinking i'm just a weird ghost haunting hogwarts, you can imagine his surprise when not only can i follow him inside the train, but i also don't feel any particular compulsion to go back to my supposed haunting place

(now, if i'm not mistaken, the reason why myrtle haunts the girls' bathroom is because she was previously haunting another hogwarts student, so the ministry had to confine her to a place instead of a person. but it is something that can happen)

after reading the books about ghosts, he's probably coming to the correct assumption that i'm actually haunting him, not hogwarts. and boy, is he pissed lmao

which might look obvious, but let's throw him a bone here. he has absolutely no reason to believe this random woman he never met in his entire life has a valid enough reason to be haunting him around. so finally, FINALLY, he confronts me. we're thankfully alone in the train compartment after lily goes to the bathroom because i don't think he would want anyone to see how angry and genuinely scared he looks right now. he asks me what the bloody hell i think i'm doing, who am i, why he's the only one who can see me, what did he ever do to me, why don't i just move on, this is ridiculous, etc

i'm actually relieved, being ignored was starting to get old. and here is where i start spinning my story: i tell him my name, explain that i don't know how i died, that i seem to be stuck to him for some reason (looking suspicious, so he'll start wondering if i'm telling the truth), apologize for the inconvenience and that i'll try to leave him alone to the best of my abilities if at all possible (i won't, but it serves the purpose of disarming him of his, admittedly, justified anger)

[deus-ex-mona]

if the trope works, it ✨works✨ y’know~

[firefromthegodspro]

Oh Dear Heavens, Look at the Time!

Hm, time to hop on Tumblr once again! It surely hasn't been that lo-

What do you mean its the 29th?

Well, anyways, I'll get the boring stuff out of the way now:

Links to Isekai Complex chapter 3 out now!!! FP and AO3 went up like 10 days ago actually, I just slacked off on the Wattpad mirror because it usually doesn't save my formatting when I post on my laptop.

...Anyways, this month's chapter was posted to Wattpad from my desktop where it does save formatting so needless to say I will be doing it this way for the foreseeable future (the end of time).

I have no other updates (for this post) besides this tbh. I recently got off a 6-day work week and have been really eepy. I have set myself up with a weekly task list, though. So hopefully productivity will increase!

Editing to say that said 6 day stint has led to me working on a Patreon/Ko-fi so I can hopefully earn some pocket change. Look forward to those links once I finish setting them up

Until next time, peace out my fellas

[twiishaa]

i will never shut up about the characters who didn’t get justice done in their anime adaptation because in the manga they look SAUR GOOD but then in the anime they look chopped 🥀

[houndsrending]

PEACEMAKER IS IN SUICIDE SQUAD ISEKAI.

I AM GOING TO GET ANNOYING AGAIN SOON.

[bumpscosity]

isekai is so fun like im in there now

[wastrelwoods]

just dragged my lifeless body through 150k words of a fic where after every single explosive argument that could have even slightly propelled the plot forward or built any dramatic tension everyone just immediately walked it back and apologized and said well lets forgive and forget. And this happened by my count six times in a row. Faked out every time. I could cry. Absolutely fuckawl to care about here. Nowt whatsoever

Slamming my palm hard against the roof of the ao3 tag again STOP. making everybody talk to each other clearly and directly and resolve all their problems. its not fun to READ its BORING wheres the DRAMA. the INTEREST. Lying and dysfunction forever!!!

[cosmik-homo]

blake is not REMOTELY a nothingburger protagonist he has a lot of interesting shit going on its just very tied- by the protagonism but not remotely just that, its an active part of who he is- to plot and setting and stuff. Its not really convenient for shortform ramble-posting. except maybe "I think he'd do honestly p good if

[firefromthegodspro]

Not Dead, Just Dead

Hello! I return after 1 month as prophesied! Let's get the important bits out of the way first:

ISEKAI COMPLEX CHAPTER 2!!!

(FictionPress gets to go first in the link tree because it preserves my precious formatting the best)

This received less editing than Chapter 1, so apologies for that. Retail Grind sucks and interferes with writing time.

If you would be so kind, please review/comment/etc. on whatever website you read it on! I love feedback (even if it's just insults).

Now onto other things, Hibiki Symphonia!

In that I actually started working on it.

Thank the new Madoka Movie trailer for fully reactivating the brainworms like I'm some sort of Maho Shojo Manchurian Candidate or something.

It looked cool, by the way, really love Homura dancing with her crush and also having a mirror that insults her. Funniest shit I've seen.

Anyways, I'm returning to the goblin mines to continue writing. See you all in (hopefully) less than a month with more brainrot posts