#Which was all well and fine and good and dandy and not a problem until I was idly clicking through not really paying attention to what

[sysig]

Does this hurt? (Patreon)

Bonus:

I love surfacetable.txt <3

[indras-curse]

Fox-demon-child Naruto

First || 2 || 3 || 4 ||

Sasuke doesn't understand a lot of the things happening around him, but he doesn't really have time to worry because he's starting the academy soon and since Kakashi and Itachi are really busy, they enlist the help of Boar who insists on being called Tenzo. Which brings its own share of problems.

At first, everything is fine and dandy, Tenzo is good at training them, he says he used to be a captain but failed to say where he was. Regardless, his skills speak for themselves.

Still, Tenzo made one huge mistake.

He had assured him and Naruto that both Kakashi and Itachi knew what he was going to attempt to do and both had given him a green light to try.

He said he wanted to see if it would take care of the fox.

That was the first red flag, Sasuke had only heard people refer to Naruto as the fox contemptuously. Nothing ever good came out of that mean nickname. Sure, Naruto had whiskers and ears but nobody called the Inuzuka the dogs.

Still, Naruto seemed interested in Tenzo and he assured Sasuke everything was going to be okay and he was fine with trying whatever Yamato wanted because Kakashi had said it was okay.

They went to a training ground that was far away from the others and Tenzo summoned some weird wooden pilars from the ground. They formed a circle and Tenzo sat down on the inside while he instructed Naruto to stay still and Sasuke to step away.

Sasuke reluctantly listened and Naruto simply stayed put.

Tenzo pointed the palm of one of his hands at Naruto and for several seconds, it seemed like nothing was going to happen at all, Tenzo was frowning and all, and Naruto shared a confused glance and a shrug with Sasuke.

It looked like whatever Tenzo was trying, didn't work.

Until the screams started.

Sasuke was startled and Tenzo faltered but ultimately held strong and focused. It didn't make sense. Two seconds ago Naruto was just fine and now he was doubling over in pain.

"Stop that" Sasuke whispered, out of breath.

Tenzo couldn't have possibly heard him, but he was certainly not blind and could see how much Naruto was hurting.

Yet he didn't stop.

"Stop!" Sasuke screamed when Naruto tugged on his own hair.

Tenzo didn't listen.

He was concentrating. He may be able to separate Naruto and the Kyuubi, make sure the beast was properly sealed deep inside Naruto, and give the kid a safer chance at life.

If people ever wanted to find out who the jinchuriki of Konoha was, they would just need a glance at Naruto, which would put him in danger.

He was, perhaps, too concentrated.

When he noticed a small body was kicking at his hands with unexpected strength and red eyes staring him down fiercely, he realized he may have gone too far.

The little Uchiha boy kept trying to kick and hit until Tenzo retreated into the trees, keeping the boys in sight.

As soon as Tenzo was far enough, Sasuke ran back to Naruto to check on him.

The other boy had passed out but he was breathing and his face wasn't scrunched in pain.

When Kakashi and Itachi arrived to pick them up, they didn't seem very thrilled about Tenzo going as far as he did and Kakashi told him a talk was needed.

"I'm so sorry... I thought he could take it" He stuttered.

"Not all kids are like us" Itachi chastized. Sasuke didn't know very well what that meant but Tenzo seemed to and looked properly ashamed.

"Anything else?" Kakashi raised a brow at Tenzo.

The man shook his head but then stopped and glanced quickly at Sasuke and then back at Kakashi. Which obviously didn't go unnoticed by IItachi.

"Did you do something to him?" His brother's flaming hot rage could be heard and felt even through his passive face.

"N-no!" Tenzo stumbled back. "He, uh, the sharingan"

Itachi snapped out of his threatening mode to look at Sasuke with wide eyes. "You awakened the sharingan because Naruto was hurt?"

Huh, well, Sasuke guesses he did.

[emcandon]

the ballad of fancy uncle chucklefuck pt. 6

(previously on fancy uncle chucklefuck: 1, 2, 3 (look at the reblog for the update), 4, 5)

a long one! so this time, a cut!

GUESS WHO HAD A BAD TIME THIS WEEK HAHAHAHAHA

my plans to have fancy uncle chucklefuck idly making breakfast for the recently re-traumatized (BY HIS GOD) party were thwarted bc he instead woke up to being physically threatened by another, different god

bc lol the party weren't the only ones his god had pissed off -- an old god of the land itself had come to menace this sad old dandy and make its complaints Known

old god was understandably pretty upset that yet another power was throwing its weight around in barovia -- and even worse, possibly making itself available to strahd?? you idiot!! you asshole!! what's wrong with you!!

sidebar: feral hagdaughter tried to wallop the old god MULTIPLE TIMES bc it was the sensible thing to do! something seem dangerous? whack it until it goes away! DUH.

anyway btwn the old god's ire + the rest of the party's comments about "worst night of our lives" and "truly fucked nightmare" and the like, fancy uncle chucklefuck started to piece together that his god had maybe FUCKED AROUND only to leave him to be the one to find out! come on!! ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

anyway he went from protesting that he didn't really know anything to, well, protesting that he didn't really know anything, but with more detail.

you know, like admitting this power is something he recognizes but could never have expected to wield bc he doesn't even go here. (in terms of both being not of the royal bloodline, also not even technically from the kingdom, so like ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ !!!)

but also in terms of how, well, the power doesn't look like he remembers it looking. he's used it to make light and to heal -- and he only ever saw it used for violence, or to change the course of a mind.

which, to be fair, it has very obviously been fucking around in everyone's brains so ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

tl;dr it's new, he doesn't like it, he's never seen the god -- or whatever it is -- do anything for anyone that wasn't directly harmful, and the only time it ever saw fit to talk to him! it gave him a migraine! so like! ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯

but the worst part was arguably when the old god made some comment about how this god loves him.

uh oh

oh no

why

tangentially, uncle chucklefuck asked Seasonal Affective Disorder: the Warlock a thing he'd been meaning to ask her ever since she said something about how there are "different kinds of dead"

namely whether it's possible for the soul--the self--to be carved out of a body, only for the body to still be breathing

(which was probably the most intense rush of emotion i'd felt at the table thus far bc holy shit not the time he wanted to ask that, if he ever even actually wanted to)

turns out this question hit HER in a terrible and unexpected way, but tl;dr the horrible answer is "YUP"

anyway that was around the point the old god decided it was satisfied -- which it articulated by suggesting they all go walk into a lake so as to not bring any more problems down upon its people or its land. buh-bye!

to which the dragonborn herbo was like "actually that sounds great, byyyyeeeee" and promptly exited stage left

the dour divine bard and SAD: the Warlock went to go talk her through her stress/ongoing powerful aversion to God Shit

which was DARLING esp bc the dour divine bard proved far more emotionally deft and gentle than they had yet dared to be!

but THEN the dragonborn herbo was like "THAT. CHUCKLEFUCK. TOLD ME NOT TO BE VULNERABLE. AND THEN WENT AND EXPOSED HIS ENTIRE FUCKING RIBCAGE TO US." (see 3)

here pictured: me, offscreen, wailing with laughter

SAD: the Warlock's answer to this was along the lines of "to be fair, uncle chucklefuck's probably going through it, and i suspect that awful god is too -- but ALSO, if they touch our brains again, i will kill him :)"

which made the dragonborn herbo feel better so we're all good now! we're fine! we're great! it's chill!

meanwhile fancy uncle chucklefuck had offered to make food for the group before answering any questions they wanted answered and feral hagdaughter was Extremely Interested in breakfast.

which was the most sensible thing that happened all morning and made him finally confess she's his favorite.

while they tended to that, a very distressed farmer's wife politely asked the utena butch bard whether the party planned.....to stay....any longer..... and desperately pretended the farmhouse was SO haunted by the most OBNOXIOUS ghosts so they would probably be MUCH happier if they just CONTINUED ON DOWN THE ROAD...

breakfast ended up remarkably chill all things given. dragonborn herbo (NEEDLESSLY!!!) apologizing for her "outburst" and committing to sticking with the group -- and making clear she keeps her fucking promises.

followed by fancy uncle chucklefuck cautiously offering to part ways with the group bc lol! didn't expect to be contagious! sorry! haha! fuck!

tho he was also talked out of this by the double-punch salvo of 1) we've already caught the contagion and distance probably won't help, 2) strahd has already proved Interested in your god and none of us really want him to get it, so!

ultimately we hit the road again with fancy uncle chucklefuck having changed into the farmer's spare clothes bc 1) god he's tired of putting on fancy face, 2) when he runs out of money, the fancy clothes will also be good for bartering.

and we left off on debating how best to deal with hags who have the bones that we want, with the conclusion that we definitely should not bargain with them, probably could not kill them, and therefore ought to steal from them -- so uncle chucklefuck has a new mission! which is teaching these whippersnappers how to do CRIME.

relatedly, two of the party members who are decidedly not actually whippersnappers due to various circumstances (dour divine bard + SAD: the Warlock) had a sidebar where they were like "hey i maybe Get you in a weird way. anyway are you also feeling 'i just met this dragonborn herbo but if anything happened to her i would kill everyone in this room and then myself?' yes? awesome. good talk."

great and functional party with tremendously admirable coping mechanisms you got there. would be a shame if they were to trauma-bond or something.

[that-darn-clown]

thought about Claire in the Rewrite...haunts the fucking narrative if you think about it (she was effectively the first domino of William's downward mental spiral, and while Elizabeth's death was the death that started the chain of events in the Rewrite, you could technically count Claire's death as being the catalyst for all of this).

like. she and William met in college, just a week after William realized he was bi. Claire herself, though she didn't know it, was aro, but wanted a relationship because A) she wants kids (like genuinely), and B), she believes it's what's expected of her. she's also, unknowingly, transmasc. which technically makes her a gay aro trans guy, but she never got a chance to really...realize that. she always felt this odd envy of Henry. she was one of the first few people to find out, after all. but she never understood why.

(insert the "gee, Rewrite!Will, why does Dandy let you have two (technical) transmasc love interests?" meme here)

(also, isn't it interesting how the animatronic William made to represent her was an ambiguously gendered, but more masc-leaning, fox that was a comedian? a dream of hers? a career that she was practically barred from chasing?)

this isn't to say she didn't love William, not at all. just not...romantically. she viewed it as just being legally bound to a friend (as well as a way to be a mother. because William was also very interested in having children).

she also eventually believed that, in a sense, they were in a Lavender Marriage. mostly because Will was not at all being subtle that he was still in love with Henry. like not even remotely. (fun fact for you: neither Claire nor Annabeth were mad about this, surprisingly! Claire due to the fact that, as mentioned before, she viewed Will as a friend more than anything else, so she didn't really feel like she was being cheated on or anything. Annabeth was more because A) she's a lesbian and so she was never attracted to Henry like that in the first place, even if she didn't realize it until later, and B) she was more upset that Henry was that oblivious. like. Henry. he's asking y'all to discreetly ship your fursonas together, and his fursona's just basically him...just to name one of the biggest things here)

and so things are going well. business is booming at Fredbear's, and Claire gives birth to four beautiful children: Alexander, Michael (named Michel at the time), Evan, and Elizabeth. it looks like things are only looking up for the Aftons.

then Claire gets pregnant with Cassidy.

at first, everything seems fine. she gets morning sickness, they find out they're having a fifth child...why wouldn't they get excited?

but then she starts getting weaker. something that hasn't happened since she got pregnant with Alex. but even then...it had turned out to be nothing. she had gotten over it after Alex was born. so, that's what she and William assume it is. when doctors express concern over it, she brushes them off. she was fine last time, why wouldn't she be fine now?

then it starts getting worse over the next few months. the doctors deliver the bad news: it's not good. they've pretty much passed the point where they can help her in a way that would allow both Claire and her son to live. there's a high likelihood that if she carries Cassidy til the end of the pregnancy...she likely won't live to watch him grow up.

but there's...a small problem. Claire had been raised to believe that if a woman got pregnant, she had to carry that baby until it either died naturally or was born. and even though she knows, logically, that Will likely wouldn't judge her or anything if they had to terminate the pregnancy to save her life, that belief that she'd be fucking horrible for even so much as considering this is deeply ingrained in her. so she decides that she'll see this through. if she makes it through, then she'll make it. if she dies, she dies.

she doesn't say a word to William about what the doctor said. she keeps getting weaker and weaker, enough so that William's family points it out on (what would become) their last visit.

and then Cassidy is born. the next day and a half is rough.

then it happens. William takes Mike to see his baby brother. Evan and Liz are staying with Henry and his family, waiting for their family to get home from the hospital. Alex stays by his mother's side the whole time. he was always a Mama's Boy.

his mother, dying, tells him that she loves him and that she's proud of him, and to look after his siblings. William is alerted of the fact that his wife is dying, and he rushes back to the room. he gives her a kiss on the head, and she tells him, too that she loves him.

Claire takes his hand and kisses it, telling him one final thing:

"Look after the kids for me, will you?"

and that was it. she passed on.

(and William took her final request a tad bit too seriously)

Bonus Scene for you, bestie:

Claire, in the afterlife: Oh, Charlie! Everyone's been telling me about Cassidy and Will...where are they? I'm a bit surprised I haven't seen them yet...are they lagging behind a bit?

Charlie:

Charlie: Dad, I think I'll let you handle this one-

Screaming crying and throwing up in the club at this. Rip Claire you would've loved hrt

[msfbgraves]

Knights and Pawns…this world the story takes place in comes off as highly…”sexualized” for lack of better word. There’s something very primal/a barely restrained primal nature with regards to the social dynamics. Especially, or mainly, between Alphas and Omegas.

Alphas seem to just restrain themselves from jumping an Omega’s bones. There’s a sense of sensual danger and dominance and submission in many an interaction. A feel of ownership and claiming—those bite marks themselves come off as the physical sign of this sexy ambiance. A social and acceptable and very public hierarchy of Doms and subs.

Omegas themselves are like hypersexulized beautiful little nymphs from a Nabakov wet dream who turn Alphas from horny functioning people into rapist salivating wolves with their mere presence, a glance of their eyes. Their scent. Sex seems to be lurking (simmering?) just under the surface of ever interaction between Alpha and Omega, and perhaps Alpha and others, if the mood is right.

This society loves babies, and children, and perhaps the making of them even more. Alphas like Terry seem obsessed with breeding their mates back to back. Show them off, yes, this is what I did to my pretty Danny. Alphas in general seem to have this possessive and obsessive nature towards their mates—especially Omegas—while Omegas themselves are so coy and flirtatious without even trying. The definition of “she said no, that really means she wants it”.

No matter how brazen or brave an Omega is, even Daniel, they appear to turn into jelly once an Alpha gets their hands on them. It’s like a 1950s housewife pennynovel fantasy brought to life. It’s dangerously hot, but also a little dark. Or a lot, depending. But yeah. The whole setting is very sensual and passionate. Sultry even in suburbia.

I really enjoyed this analysis and I thank you for it. I have no problem with sultry suburbia at all, I'm just curious, Nonnie - are you perhaps a little annoyed by this fantasy I built? Goodness knows, I am often foaming at the mouth at The Karate Kid III and Cobra Kai, so I know that this feeling doesn't keep people from enjoying something and thinking about it and sharing those thoughts. And maybe I'm not even right in how interpret what you've written.

I can only say it's not a manifesto. I'm not advocating for how people ought to live. I simply like Putting Them In Situations and writing about all kinds of gender and sexism and fear issues and thinking that it might feel very safe having a Big and Strong person around until that person and you do not see eye to eye, and I also like writing about manipulating in relationships, which, and that's what patriarchy always omits, usually comes from not being able to say no to such a person. But you know, flirting with machos is also quite funny at times. And I wanted a world in which Daniel LaRusso is allowed to get pegged and spend his time hugging people and making food and maybe dance or play a bit of music because that is all that character really wants, leave him alone! And power dynamics, if they float your boat, are very sexy but you can't tell people that in our world, because you might as well say you support global warming. And yet it's something more people enjoy but don't ever admit, so they put it in all kinds of places in media they would never put convential romantic storylines and that just irks me. Teenage me did not put on Buffy the Vampire Slayer to contemplate two forty something men being somehow very kinky in a high school library in broad daylight. I did not watch the karate kid III expecting to ship Daniel LaRusso with Terry Silver. So if these things are a bit opener in omegaverse - and I know I'm certainly not the only one writing these things, going by Ao3 - that's a relief to me. Because sometimes I do put on Jane Eyre or Miss Julie to watch people playing sexy power games and that's all fine and dandy when you're in the mood, but most of the time you're like, watching, say, X Men Apocalypse and thinking: "Why is this in there. Why is a purple monster making bedroom eyes at Charles Xavier. I mean, I'll take it, but honestly, this hardly seems the place!"

[essayofthoughts]

👀

So like. I don't know if I'd ever write the Syldor Isn't A Dick AU even though I've got several pages of notes at this point but I think it would be really interesting? A world where the twins were raised by a father who loved them and who may well have remained in contact with their mother, who stayed longer in Syngorn because even if their classmates were awful they had support and care. A world where they were told when their mother died, and mourned her, and had support in mourning her.

It'd drastically change who the twins are as people, not in a "whole new person" way, but very much a "Turning a stone in the light" way. Without the negative pressures of Syldor they'd still be affected by Syngorn, but it likely wouldn't be as severe. They'd have a solid grounding in themselves and be more confident. Hells, Syldor might have told them that Syngorn could go to the Feywild!

I do still see them leaving - after all, Syldor isn't a dick, but that doesn't mean that Syngorn is all fine and dandy. I imagine there's still a lot of social pressure, it's just that Syldor's home, and perhaps even travelling with Syldor for work (which might enable Vex to still get Trinket) become a haven from that. But, say, when Syldor is considering marriage to Devana, there would absolutely be elves commenting on him finally making a good marriage and perhaps producing some proper children - and I think that might prompt the twins to leave. Sick of dealing with that, sick of their father having to shield them and support them despite that, knowing that it hurts their father to see those things said about them - so they remove themselves from it all.

But they'd be much better prepared - better trained, better established, better connected. I think it'd drastically change how they meet the others, and things like interactions with Percy - Vax would probably still hate Percy for his posh airs, at least until Percy proves trustworthy, but also like... Vex wouldn't need his affirmation so much? As I've said before I think Percy and Vex's friendship would end up much more rooted in shared interests and personal connection and jokes, because Percy's support wouldn't be as overwhelmingly significant as in canon - it'd still mean plenty and mark him as good and trustworthy to Vex, but when she's had support and affirmation as she didn't in canon, I think it'd be less of a huge deal to her.

But anyway. Yeah. I think a world where Syldor isn't a dick has a lot of potential.

The problem is that

1. I have no idea what I'd write for it and,

2. Uh... a huge quantity of fandom is set very firmly on "Syldor is only and completely a dick"?

And I get it, he's a shitty dad, but it is also a case of ideas he had ingrained in him from his culture, of having to face consequences he wasn't expecting - and he canonically does get better! He and Vex do reconcile! (Probably as a result of other consequences he wasn't expecting - he knew he'd outlive the twins, but I imagine he thought he'd have more time to perhaps reconcile with Vax.)

But a huge amount of fandom would probably, if anything, backlash to this idea, because they want Syldor to be awful. They want that clear delineation. They don't want the idea that he could even reconcile with Vex and try to redeem himself as he does in canon, so I struggle to think they'd be happy with an AU where Syldor is Doing His Best. Not always succeeding - but trying. Probably still a bit stiff and awkward and elvish, but who loves the twins nonetheless and wants them to be and do well.

That's messy. And for all the many good things fandom is, it is often very childish when it comes to dealing with genuinely complicated, messy relationships.

Send me a “👀” and I’ll ramble about an au I have but don’t know if I’ll ever get to writing it

[sangriaking]

WAY TOO MUCH BULLSHIT HAS BEEN HAPPENING LATELY, and frankly, Joseph is sick of it.

There was that strange run in with Straizo a few months back, there was saving uncle Speedwagon from that weird, shady organization -- there was trying to shake off that annoying reporter who kept trailing him everywhere ( SERIOUSLY, HOW DOES SHE PULL THAT OFF? ), maintaining a facade that everything was fine and dandy around Erina and now Smokey's been pulled into the mess too -- man, it was just so much! And this wasn't even accounting for all the trauma he's been forced to bear witness to.

He saw.. SO. MANY. DEAD. BODIES. In such a short span. He even had to chop the leg of a person off! Nightmares have been regularly plaguing him since, and with less sleep comes a more cranky and on edge JoJo. With how far down he tried to shove everything, though, it was clear that he was gonna set the negative emotions as far as he could aside, and try to not think about them. If he didn't think, then he wouldn't blow up about it -- but it's certainly a flawed way of going about things.

Why?

Well. You see. The Thing™ about Joseph Joestar is that when he decides to shove his emotions away, and not address them -- well, he always, always inevitably ends up exploding. If not in the moment, then certainly later on-- when the little things keep mounting pressure and building up, until everything in him EXPLODES with a burning ( but VERY short-lived ) rage.

Unfortunately for the young Joestar ... Today, he's about to reach his current limit. After being shunted off to Italy to learn more about the Pillarmen, because Speedwagon 'knew a chap that could help' or something, but when they'd gotten to the hotel in the heart of Rome, well.. Speedwagon had some matters to attend to, and Joseph had been left alone for much of the day. He hadn't initially done much -- reading comics, mostly, until around noon hit. Though he was jet-lagged to hell and back, he'd decided it'd probably be good to get some breakfast or lunch or whatever a meal would be considered by this hour.

There's... a really, really big problem though.

Joseph is alone, in an Italian hotel, where little if any staff speak English. The menus are all in a language he can't even read, so he doesn't even know most of what he's looking at. The waiter seems to be trying to ask him what he'd like to start with, but because he understands nothing, well -- there's an ever-growing tense expression on his face. An overwhelming sensation starts to take over his mind, barely able to think with how frustrated he feels. The only thing he can think to do is try to ask for a moment to decide, since he can't make out most of the menu...

❝Uhhhhh...... Un....... uuh, how's it -- Un momento?❞ he asks, pronunciation very off. The waiter raises his eyebrow in a judging manner before nodding, saying another something he can't understand -- and right back he goes to fussing over what the hell he could possibly order from the menu that he can't read. The only option that looks like it might be safe is one that has spaghetti in the name, which -- yeah, ok, THAT he at least recognizes. But he isn't sure what the rest of it means ( al nero di seppia??? ), and he isn't so sure he's ready to try something new today.

.. Still, as he reads over the menu, reading and rereading and desperately trying to make sense of what he's looking at, it's pretty clear to any onlookers with eyes that he's getting increasingly frustrated. He has a pretty scrunched up, agitated look to him, only barely hidden by the hand that grips his hair -- which itself is beginning to stand on it's end, and even spark with Hamon just as his teeth do, soft hair going rigid in the process.

Someone should probably help soon, or he's bound to explode..

@caestusvulpes // PLOTTED

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #55

I have been working on something all day today. Because the thing I ordered yesterday arrived today! Behold!!

So you remember that bowl that my klutzy ass shattered yesterday? Well guess what:

The pictures do NOT do it any justice. This thing is SPARKLY!! 🤩

It's not quite finished yet. Again, I am dyspraxic; this is going to take me a while. My hands are clumsy as hell because the idea of my body moving exactly in the way I intend is a distant fantasy for me; being dyspraxic fucking SUCKS. And I'm REALLY SUPER MEGA GLAD that you don't gotta deal with it. Clinical clumsiness is really not a fun time. For ANYONE involved. But whatever! I make it work!!

So the kit comes with this stuff:

You've got paper dishes with black gloves crunched up inside. You're supposed to use gloves because uncured epoxy is supposedly poisonous, but I didn't use the gloves because I can't afford to lose any more points in DEX, and when my fingertips are covered, my DEX score (which is already very low) gets set to -50.

Underneath are two containers of "gold dust" (it's really just extremely fine sparkly gold glitter, but still!). Then you've got the tube of food-grade epoxy (it's made of cashews, I guess? but it smells vaguely like shrimp).

I wasn't able to get you too terribly many pictures of the process, because this stuff sets FAST, holy cow! But I can give you a rundown of the steps:

First, you squirt an amount of the epoxy into one of the paper dishes. Then you add "an appropriate amount" (verbatim from the instructions) of the gold dust to the epoxy and stir it around with the wooden sticks provided. Then you use the stick to glorp the epoxy onto the edges of one of the pieces you're joining. Then you press the pieces together, and wait for a short time, and be VERY careful not to touch the epoxy until it stops being tacky, because the stuff has the stickiness and consistency of partially-melted caramel, and it WILL prioritize sticking to your skin over sticking to the ceramic (go on, ask me how I know! haha!). Keep doing that until all the pieces are joined together. Then you use the handy-dandy... chisel... knife... thing...??? to scrape off any excess epoxy. It looks like this:

...Or uh. That's what it looked like towards the end of doing this, anyway. I've been at this for... 6 or 7 hours now? But still, it's VERY sharp (again, ask me how I know!), and very good at scraping excess epoxy off of ceramic.

Though I didn't get many pictures of mixing the epoxy, or of the pieces after the epoxy was applied to the edges, I did snag a few images while taking quick breaks:

Anyway. Ideally, for a non-dyspraxic person, this process is simple enough. But that is not my lot in life, so... 6 or 7 hours, several sliced-open fingers, epoxy spills and glitter spills on my hands (and in my fresh cuts, fun fun... knowing my luck, I'm gonna have gold-colored scabs until those mend, good grief...), too many instances of accidentally touching still-tacky epoxy while trying to put another piece on, and needing to thus reapply the previous piece, and various spills all over my pants and all over the table I was working on later, I'm....!!!! ...still not finished. 😖

It's together, but I gotta go over each crack one more time with the epoxy goop; Not all of the cracks are thoroughly covered, so I'm still seeing spots where water can get in between things and cause problems. It's not because the kit is bad; the kit is very good! But rather, it's because this is my first time doing something like this, and my hands are clumsy even for things that I do well.

I'm maybe a little cranky about it at the moment because throughout this I mostly forgot to eat and drink (although we did get pork soup dumplings and some other stuff, which prompted me to eat, and that was good!); hyperfocus is a thing, and the time zooms by and I have no idea what happened (what even IS time, anyway? why do we have it? why does it gotta be linear? who decided that this was a good idea? seriously, what the fuck).

But I still had a lot of fun with it, even though my fingers are now ouchy from many accidents with the sharp implement and I've probably accidentally inhaled enough gold dust that my snots are probably gonna be gold-colored every time I blow my nose for the next week. You can bet your bottom that I'm gonna be back at it tomorrow. And then after that, it'll need 48 hours for the epoxy to fully cure and set. After that, though, the bowl will be better and more beautiful than before! It will be a wonderful vessel for that pumpkin soup! Just you wait!

Hey, Sephiroth!!! You go around acting like you're some kinda weird abomination and thinking that a normal life is out of reach for you because of it. And I don't agree with that!!! Not even a teeny tiny little bit!!! You are a "monster" in the same way that I am "furniture"! Which is to say, NOT AT ALL. And I know that this probably seems unrelated to the bowl right now, but I promise you it's not! Just listen:

Even if you were a monster, you can still do normal human things if you want to!! You can do them just because you decided it!! Sure some people might look down on you because of how you were born, but that's because they're insecure and judgmental, and you don't have to listen to those ones! There aren't gonna be any "monster police" coming to get you just because you're deciding to grow a garden at your house, or just because you decide to cook yourself a meal, or just because you're sitting on a sofa on a rainy day with a warm, fuzzy blanket, enjoying a hot mug of tea! And even if there were "monster police" who would be foolish enough to try to disturb your peace, you can just summon up some of that "I'd like to see them try" type of attitude you showed us before and send them a-runnin' with their tails between their legs! You are allowed to not give any fucks towards any arbitrary social rule that says you're unlovable or that you're not allowed to enjoy your life because of how you were born, the way you were raised, the horrors you've endured, the mistakes you've made, or whatever challenges you live with as a result of it all! You are not a lost cause! You are not broken beyond repair!

Sephiroth, I was a viciously abused autistic/ADHD child that absolutely no one wanted to have around. I know what it is to feel subhuman! I know what it is to feel out of place! I know what it means to be raised with the idea that, "if I'm not perfect or if I don't do what they want, I'm going to be considered unlovable and everyone is going to hurt me." And I have hurt people in the past who did not deserve it, too.

But you know what? Here I sit in my silly little house with my silly little things, awkwardly putting back together a pretty bowl that my clumsiness destroyed. I am putting it back together despite the difficulties that being AuDHD/dyspraxic presents. I am putting it back together even though my traumatized brain absolutely refuses to give me even a moment's peace, as all my instincts scream at me that the end result is gonna suck because I'm the one doing it, that the bowl is a lost cause, that I should be doing something "more productive" with my time, and that I'm a bad person for the fact that I'm making a mess in the process, and a bad person for the fact that I struggle with things like these to begin with.

But, my limitations and old conditioning that I'm trying to overcome aside, one fact remains: this bowl is going to be BEAUTIFUL when it's done, regardless of how loudly my brain tries to tell me that it's gonna be ugly because it was shattered in the first place, or that it's gonna be ugly simply because it's MY hands trying to fix it.

I've been told my whole life that no one's gonna love me because I don't think or act like most other people. But I'm sitting here with people who absolutely adore me, not despite the fact that I'm weird and abnormal as hell, but BECAUSE I'm weird and abnormal as hell! I'm considered "other" and "monstrous" and "socially unacceptable" by many, just for freaking existing. And here the fuck I am, DOING NORMAL HUMAN THINGS ANYWAY.

Because here's the thing, Sephiroth: only I get to decide whether or not I am allowed to have a normal. Other people are gonna try to tell me that the nature of my existence means that I don't deserve a normal, or that I'll never have a normal, no matter how hard I try. But I don't gotta listen to those people! Because a clumsy, awkward normal is STILL a normal! Just like the bowl, it doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile! There is strength in imperfection! There is beauty in imperfection!

All of this can be true for you as well! You are a human being! And even if you weren't a human being, SO FREAKING WHAT? You're still a person! And as a person, you don't gotta listen if broader society tells you that you're not allowed to have a normal for whatever stupid fucking reason. So just be you. Be the you who laughs and cries and reaches for your locket when you're troubled. Be the you who says what you're thinking and feeling. Be the you who does not stifle his emotions. Be the you who asks for help when those emotions threaten to consume you. People who benefit from keeping your self-esteem low and from encouraging you to dehumanize yourself will tell you that things such as those are weaknesses, but they're not; rather, they're the source of any human being's natural strength.

So, like any human, be like a glorious stained glass window. Be like a beautiful bowl that was pieced back together with intentionality and love. Be like any shattered thing that was put back together. And then go on to put other shattered things back together, even if you do it clumsily. Because shattered things that were repaired are some of the most beautiful things in this world you'll ever find.

If you only knew just how much courage it takes me every day to write to you. If only you knew how much resolve it takes to do the work of putting the shattered pieces of my own voice back together, after years of being silenced and being told who I'm supposed to be by people who didn't have my best interests at heart. If only you knew how much strength it takes, after decades of abuse and decades of being taught that my "stupid, weak-ass thoughts and feelings don't fucking matter to anyone", and decades of being taught that nothing I say or do makes any difference anywhere, to put my still-awkward voice in spaces where I know I'm gonna get hurt or ignored.

If you knew, then maybe you'd understand why I write about repairing broken things as though it is the most important thing there is. If you knew, then maybe you'd understand why I hold out my hand to you and call you so fervently to get up off your knees and do this work upon yourself; the darkness doesn't suit you, and there are plenty of people around who would help you. I'm such a one.

I don't know if it's hard for you to understand. So instead I'll show you that shattered bowls can still hold soup. Just you watch. Please stay safe until I get to show you. Please remember that you are loved; otherwise I wouldn't be trying so hard every day to reach you.

I'm going to write to you again tomorrow, with the same shaky, awkward voice with which I've been writing to you so far. Because it doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile; shattered minds, hearts, and voices can still hold goodwill, compassion, and love.

Your friend, Lumine

[marvelobsessed134]

A rant about a horrible movie I just watched I stopped midway cause I couldn’t finish it it was so bad😍

So literally like 20 minutes ago I wanted to see this movie I saw on HBO Max called Rock Of Ages. The description read that it was a story about a girl falling in love with an aspiring 80s rockstar. Literally up my alley right?

Well anyways I play the movie getting excited. Paradise City plays in the intro so I’m getting hyped. The first scene is where the main character is on a bus on her way to Los Angeles. She’s flipping through her records in her small suitcase. I think everything’s fine and dandy until she starts to sing.

Now I don’t think the actress is a bad singer but I didn’t know it was gonna be a musical. I didn’t want it to be a musical as I’m not a big fan of them. Well anyways I decide to keep going because I think that maybe it will actually be good and will only have a small amount of musical sequences. Nope. She gets out the bus and starts singing AGAIN. Then it cuts to inside this rock club where these rocker boys are dancing around (not on stage btw so another musical sequence) singing Nothin’ But A Good Time by Poison and I will admit I did jam out to it.

There’s this one character who looked like a mix of Douglas Booth’s Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee. And clearly they were trying to make him look like Nikki it was so embarrassingly obvious. Anyways I’m like “ok he’s kind of cute” then he speaks with a British accent. I have nothing against British people but it’s so random. And even if the actor is British he could’ve just faked and American accent like how every other British actor does.

So that was disappointing. Anyways the plot goes that the main character is outside the club and this rocker guy talks to her as a way to mug her. Which he gets away with. The love interest-who’s hair is way too short for a ‘rockstar’ of the 80s-takes his sweet ol time trying to help her get her suitcase but it’s too late.

He reveals he’s a bar back and wants to be a rockstar like his (fictional) idol, Stacee Jaxx (played by Tom Cruise funnily enough). Anyways she complains that all her records are gone. He manages to get her a job as a waitress at the club. It then cuts to a scene where they’re both at a record store and it’s kind of sweet how they’re bonding over records and such. Until he starts to sing. Que another musical sequence.

It then cuts to the British Nikki Sixx looking guy I mentioned earlier and the owner of the club who’s this older guy singing and dancing to a completely different song. It then cuts back to the two in the record store singing their song and so on and so forth. Then once the singing and dancing ends (by the way the main love interest picked up a guitar and doesn’t play it the whole musical scene) it cuts to the British Nikki Sixx and the club owner and they’re literally about to kiss. And of course I have no problem with gay relationships I’m literally bisexual that would be hypocritical of me. But it was just so random and weird? Like we knew nothing about these people and now they’re almost about to kiss. I don’t know.

There’s also a scene before all this about a mayor election that has nothing to do with the characters and it’s so random. Like am I supposed to care?

Anyways the almost kiss scene is when I died of cringe and turned it off. Maybe I’ll go back and watch it but I don’t know.

The movie is called Rock Of Ages btw. Came out in 2012 so I guess that might explain some things?

[angstfactory]

Under normal circumstances, Jesse would like to believe he wasn't someone that would run scared. In fact, he often tried to put forward a tough countenance, like he could handle whatever and anything thrown at him, and often ran head-first into problems that he even saw coming. Foolish, reckless, absolutely stupid sometimes... But cowardly? Well, this wasn't a typical situation. This wasn't a typical town. These weren't just typical people. The circumstances were different and now, for the first time, the man experienced a healthy dose of real fear over what he had gotten himself into. Maybe if he had a way to truly do anything about this, to protect himself? Had some kind of control? Jesse would have been able to weather the alarm better and set up some plan of action.

But this? This shit was unprecedented, unchartered waters. And he was just some fucking bug on these people's radars. Jesse was many things, but he didn't have a fucking death wish.

But, this wasn't the first time the man encountered something he shied away from because it was unknown waters. A fact to which he was reminded of when Cassidy's voice cut in between the strikes against metal. Jesse's last swing lost most of its heart halfway through, the tire iron then slipping away to clamor against the engine as he then braced on edges, for a moment to catch his breath. There was no hope to calm the erratic pace of his heart at this point, though-- Cassidy's arrival saw to that alone.

Why the fuck was he even here? And who the fuck did that asshole think he was, showing up on his property? They hadn't spoken in months. Last he heard, Cassidy was too good to even hang around him because he had shit to take care of, right? And Jesse would only get in the way of cleaning up his act, wasn't that what'd been said? That was fine and dandy -- whatever. Think he cared? He didn't care. Cassidy was a prick and a bastard and deserved to get chucked in the bin, too. And yet... It had bothered. It still bothered him. Six months later, and just hearing that asshole's voice galled the hell out of him. That wasn't the problem, though. There was another problem entirely that generated most of that pins and needles kind of feeling, anytime the guy came too close.

Before, this could be hidden behind several drinks and crude humor. Mere jokes and teasing. Innocent enough, until Cassidy would call the bluff. Was he attracted? Like a moth to the flame, for some reason. He didn't need drinks to know that, either. In fact, Jesse had long since confronted the fact that yeah, he was attracted to other men and this prick over here, somehow, happened to be one. That he was bisexual wasn't an issue-- it was the whole how to.. handle it.. that got mucked up in the works. Because there were things he wanted to do and say, but to another guy? How did one go about even doing that? Women were so easy, he knew what to expect there (for the most part) and how to proceed. Most of the wooing and pursuit would be on his shoulders, he would be expected to lead, and he was comfortable with that. But men? Weren't they all like that, too? So how in the hell did they decide who would do what and where and when and how? Jesse wasn't sure he was ready to just -- feet first jump into being someone's prison wallet, alright?

In that moment, though... All their bullshit back and forth came flooding back. Jesse reached to use a greasy rag to try and wipe the blood and grease from dirty fingers and palms. He didn't plan to be here much longer. And who's to say Cassidy hadn't just been fucking with him that whole time, anyway? Jesse had never followed through. For all he knew, the guy could be full of shit. He was in everything else. Jesse's stance shifted anxiously as he peered over at Cassidy, idly rubbing that grimy cloth between individual fingers despite the fact this wasn't any help to make them clean -- there were so many things he could say or do in that moment, each of them just as valid as the next.

"Fuck it." Jesse abandoned the rag in much the same manner he had the tire iron. He strode forth, in a moment of full consciousness and zero inebriation to fall back on, and gripped Cassidy's face none-too-gently so Jesse could smash his lips on his. He was done fucking around.

“Fuck this,” Cassidy murmured to himself about to turn around. Last time they spoke, the witch may have insinuated Jesse was someone holding him down and a piece of shit.  Not exactly words he regretted, the problem with Cassidy was that he often would unleash brutal truths upon people in a frenzy, things he deep down thought about the person.  But, the aftermath tended to be scorched Earth.

After the festivities in Raven’s Peak, there was this tugging on the witch.  Something that kept bothering him, but he kept trying to push down.  Yet, the thought of Jesse kept coming to mind.  And tell you what, it was the most annoying thing in the world.  Why did he even care?  It had been over six months since the two spoke.  Things have changed, Cassidy was finally getting his act together and been clean.

Just as he was about to turn around, there was this nudge.  A drawing towards Jesse’s property that felt out of his control.  Before he knew it, he was standing just outside the place watching Jesse absolutely lose his shit over the truck.

“Wow, have you always been this much of a pussy?”  He questioned as he lifted a brow at the disaster in front of him.

[jcbveteran]

Homeless, I Think Not!

You all need to stop and think, I mean think for yourselves not what you hear or read! Are the homeless veterans a issue, no they are not they are living in a true reality, definitely not societies idea of reality. I will attempt to explain using my own self. I served a combat veteran, came out of the service and went through 157 different positions, fully or better qualified than the majority of people in my field. Finally, I realized that the situation was not me, yes not me, it was society the so called majority of people. They were and still are the problem, they cannot handle the truth, the facts, honesty and candid responses to various issues of everyday life and work situations as such they being the so called majority the combat veteran was the issue not them. So their answer was as always throughout time get rid of the soldier. Put labels on the combat veteran, he has PTSD, they have no idea what that is, means or involves, or label them as difficult, impossible, disruptive or aggressive, whatever they can come up with to justify their ignorance.

Soldiers are always hated, desired and prayed for when the shit hits the fan and they the ignorant majority need someone to help, defend or protect them. After that the hell with the veteran, especially the combat ones that lived, saw and watch the hell they went through day in and day out, but that afterwards has no place in society. So to make these majority incompetents feel good, what do they do, they place yellow ribbons on trees, or on their vehicles, or worse yet they say, “Thank You for your Service” that which they have zero understanding of the hell, the torment, the agony, the memories of all the veteran did, heard or seen. Its really a direct insult to all veterans not a tribute. These are the politically correct responses these folks make only to make themselves feel good definitely not for the benefit of the veteran. So my decision was that society and I were like oil and water, so I went back into the service, feeling that hey what the hell, they created me, ruined my previous life and so they were stuck with me, so they had to deal with what they created. Well, that proved a error as time went by, because the military was no longer the military but turned into a girl scout camp of absurdness, no discipline, no soldiers, worthless training, no respect for authority, fully race driven.

That was all fine and dandy until the useless moron majority of society came up with the idea that women should be in combat, a place they as a whole do not belong period. Or that the Gays. Lesbians etc all belonged in the military. Basically that the military was to accept all these type of folk that could not deal with combat or the issues that involves or least of all military life.

God forbid we should ever go into a war again, we do not have a military entity that could handle a combat situation without running away and crying themselves off the battlefield, basically we are doomed. Our military today has no values, Morales ethics, or capability to handle combat. This is the result of the ill liberal morons in our current government, a government of by and for the politicians, the hell with the People!

military

china

war

PTSD

medical

society

'

[dipperdesperado]

The Problem with Rugged Individualism

We have an “individualism” issue. From CEOs to the heroes that populate our screens, to the very methods we use for storytelling (looking at you, Hero’s Journey), the individual is venerated. This is fine and dandy until you realize that it’s directly opposed to more socially focused, cooperative, and collective mindsets, and leads to toxic competition between us. The way we see individualism is a core aspect of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is an ideology that calls for free markets, free trade, and minimal government intervention in the economy. If you’ve ever heard about “trickle-down” economics, neoliberalism is the house in which that ideology lives. Neoliberalism also makes the blanket assumption that people act rationally, are motivated by self-interest, and make decisions based on what they can get or gain out of the situation. Surprising no one, I think that these individualistic assumptions made under neoliberalism stifle social progress and liberation.

Neoliberalism can lead to social atomization and loneliness. If the focus is on an extreme sense of individual responsibility and self-reliance, there is less room for people to build the capacity to have strong and long-lasting relationships. This lack of capacity also can make it where people put their own needs over the needs of the community. Acting in this way can strain the social bonds that do exist and can leave people feeling like they don’t belong or have meaningful connections.

Economic inequality is also made much worse by individualism under neoliberalism. With a smaller government and lower regulations, there is less money available for social democratic programs. For people who are disenfranchised or fall on hard times, this only widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It creates a feedback loop where those with money are able to use that money to further their own interests, through lobbying, investing and more. This mobility is not available for lower classes of people. People who own the means of production have a lot of power over those who have to work.

Oh, by the way, this stuff also affects the environment. As neoliberal profit incentives extract and pollute more than they can return and sequester, people, acting in their (or their venture’s) individual self-interest in the short-term screws over our beautiful planet in the long term. This is how we get into overconsumption (I mean, why does EVERYONE need to own a car??).

Neoliberalism’s encouragement of hierarchy also ties strongly into individualism. In order to uphold the type of society that it proposes, there has to be a rigid pyramidal system. The competitive nature of this brand of individualism will lead to winners and losers, which brings with it a hierarchy around what people believe they deserve. This type of thing perpetrates social hierarchies based on things like race, gender, class, ability, and other identities. When small minorities hold lots of control over industry, different social hierarchies intersect and make extremely difficult living situations for those at or near the bottom.

All of these things orbit around one idea: privatization. By making certain functions of society private, even those which should be available to everyone, like healthcare and education, even our services become individualized. Profit-driven companies for public good services mix about as well as oil and water. This profit focus leads to worse outcomes for the communities, customers, and clients being served. This also reinforces hierarchy; people who can afford more things get a better experience.

Honestly, I’m not sure who thought building an entire society on this individualistic, hierarchical model was a good idea. It leads to a small group of people having ridiculous amounts of power over others and resources. As those people consolidate power, the greater populace is left with fewer and fewer scraps. The only thing this can do is exacerbate socioeconomic problems.

[wordsandrobots]

I think After War: Gundam X is my third favourite Gundam show.

This is way behind Iron-Blooded Oprhans and Turn A Gundam, but compared to the others I’ve watched, it’s definitely more to my tastes. I think it could have benefited from the extra episodes it didn’t get, especially to expand on some of the initial space-based adventures, and it has a lot of the usual issues I have with the franchise (erratically written female characters, a half-arsed approach to condemning structural oppression, and throwing out the ‘horrors of war’ maundering whenever it’s more plot expedient to mow down mooks like there’s no tomorrow). Overall, however, it packs in a much more coherent plot than predecessor Gundam Wing, some charming characters, and a few very deft thematic flourishes.

For example, there’s an episode early on where our heroes have to help save a psychic dolphin and her pod from being turned into an advanced sonar system. Now you might think that’s a very silly sentence and you’d be correct. But the point is, this is something the Federation (emphatically the bad guys here) developed during the war this series takes place after, in order to have more effective underwater combat suits. They took dolphin brains and turned them into spare parts. And a couple episodes later, we discover this is their attitude to psychic humans too, which seems to be the pay-off until we reach the end of the series and, well, let’s just say the approach goes all the way to the top.

In fact, Gundam X is very concerned with the exploitation of psychics both by those who treat them as tools to be used and those who venerate them as humanity’s next evolutionary step. And oh gods, this means I have to write about Newtypes.

[I shall put the rest of this under a cut because I genuinely think this is one series it’d be worth going in blind on and also because this will ramble a bit.]

All right, let’s get this out of the way: Newtypes as depicted throughout both the original 1979 Gundam and this show (which essentially starts as a bad AU to Gundam ‘79/the Universal Century) are humans with extraordinary abilities, who are theorised to be an evolutionary adaptation to living in space. Newtypes have greater levels of awareness, cognition and empathy. That is to say, they can variously gain a deeper understanding of the people around them or be really, really good at driving giant robots. They are in-universe hypothetical until war breaks out and suddenly a lot of people are very interested in the military applications of psychic powers. Also occasionally people get their brains blasted to mush by the weight of too many people dying near them at once and/or are able to unify humanity’s brainwaves in order to atomise asteroids dropped by manipulative blondes with eco-fascistic tendencies. It’s a whole thing.

I am being a little glib here and I also don’t want to delve into the out-of-fiction meaning of Newtypes because I feel woefully unqualified to write about that. But for myself, considering the fiction as presented, I’ve always found Newtypes to suffer from the Jedi Problem: it’s fine and dandy to have quasi-mystical power that increases human connection but if you’re only going to show its applications in war, you’re smothering a lot of interesting potential in the concept.

This is primarily a problem of genre. Gundam is a series of war stories. It is deeply invested in fighting and conflict, and not merely because it’s financed in order to sell brightly coloured war machine kits to children and adults alike. There is nothing wrong with that per se but it limits what can be shown with respect to the doings of the magic people we’re repeatedly told are the heralds of a new age of understanding. Yes, we get to see lots of Newtypes get traumatised by their powers, or artificially created by nefarious powers-that-be, or occasionally bugger off to the end of time with their boy- and girlfriend after causing an untold amount of harm to everyone around them. But we never really get to see much in the way of non-military applications of this supposed ability to connect with others on a fundamental level. Even setting aside creative disillusionment, the very type of stories being told back the idea into a corner.

This is not to say the Gundam ‘79 derived fiction hasn’t made much hay of the in-universe tension between the status quo and the possibility of radical change. It’s kind of its one trick. But to me, it feels like diminishing returns and I end up longing for a story of Newtypes just . . . being. What does that kind of power look like when it’s not plugged into the latest giant robot suit and being sent off to punch whichever red-suited dork is trying it on this week.

Gundam X is not a story of Newtypes just being. It’s a setting where Newtypes are conscripted, manufactured or mutilated to be used as weapons. It’s a setting where one faction has proclaimed everyone in space to be a Newtype, in order to justify the wide-scale slaughter of anyone left living on Earth. And it’s a story in which, as it turns out, Newtypes do not actually exist.

Oh, there are people with unusual abilities. A girl who has prophetic visions. A pair of brothers with a psychic link. Ace pilots who glimpsed the future. But the ultimate revelation is that these are one-offs and the grand theory of advancing human evolution via living in space is so much hot air, dreamt up to further various agendas. And that makes a hell of a lot of sense in hindsight.

You see, throughout Gundam X we see a wide variety of supernatural abilities, but only some of these are classed as ‘proper’ Newtypes (resentment over this fuels the primary antagonists, the Frost brothers, who decide to burn down the world over being dismissed). As a viewer, you get pulled along by this without thinking too closely about it. But there are hints from the start (including a couple of ex-soldiers selling themselves as Newtypes while clearly not being anything special) that the term might be less than it seems. Amuro Ray-alike Jamil Neate’s stated goal is to protect Newtypes from oppression but he finds a grand total of one to safeguard in the entire series. Our hero, Garrod Ran, is an unusually gifted, empathic pilot who never gets the term applied to him. The working definition the world-dominating Federation are using is simply ‘can operate our patented robot control system’. Meanwhile the leader of the Space Rebellion has, as I said, declared everyone born in space a Newtype, making the existence of supposed Newtypes born on Earth very inconvenient. The term is at once over-specific and overly-wide, depending on who’s using it.

And in the end? Turns out the ‘first’ Newtype was some poor sod who could use that robot control system and got turned into a computer on the moon for their trouble. That was the source of the working definition and everything afterwards was just various people building castles in the sky. The powers are anomalous. Inexplicable, but not any kind of evolutionary leap. They just . . . happen. Every Newtype is their own distinct thing and not really an indication of anything very much other than fluke.

Which is actually pretty clever. It means the whole conflict is driven by people building taxonomies and raising certain things on to pedestals not because of something that definitely exists but because it suits their agendas to do so. It’s also a neat solution to the Jedi Problem, turning it around and saying, yes, these people only display their powers in combat because those looking for them only said those that were useful in war were actually Newtypes.

(I know the Gundam ‘79 and its sequels do stuff like this as well, but Gundam X has the advantage of making it the entire point, rather than wanting to have it both ways because it has the ending of Char’s Counterattack to deal with.)

Bit of a shame this all gets rushed out in the last couple of episodes due to the series running short. But perhaps that’s for the best, given there’s nowhere really to go once you’ve pulled the rug out from under everyone and demonstrated the antagonists’ motivation is fundamentally a hugely inappropriate reaction to a categorisation error.

Other observations:

Garrod Ran is fairly generic as protagonists go but I do find it amusing how he basically gloms on to every angsty teenager he encounters like they’re a precious baby in need of protecting. Including the one who was definitely trying to kill him when they met.

Tiffa’s arc would have worked much better if her attempts to define herself beyond her status as a Newtype had been emphasised more. Like, it’s sort of there, but it only comes to the fore at the very end.

Toniya and Ennil absolutely deserve to end up together and leave Witz and Roybea moping around a cornfield somewhere.

I really like the design of the Dauntless mobile suit. It’s an almost unsettling take on the GM model from the Unviersal Century. In fact, I generally appreciate seeing a Wing-esque aesthetic mapped backwards on to the original style, with greater emphasis on making the non-Gundam machines look that little bit off.

For all that I enjoyed this show, I really dearly wish Jamil hadn’t gone back to the Federation at the end. They make themselves utterly irredeemable across the course of the series and there isn’t any functional need to maintain them beyond the end. It’s a sour note, honestly, especially without any indication the rampant empire building across Earth is going to be reversed. But that’s the kind of pat assimilation ending Gundam seems to trade in more often than not, so it’s not a unique flaw.

Depths Of Minds Elevating. Huh. That’s a very long walk for what is itself a totally undescriptive acronym.

I am somewhat tempted to write Jamil/Lanslow fic. Not even necessarily Like That, but just to explore an older, more relaxed Amuro/Char dynamic in which both sides have learned how to chill the hell out.

[mistertiberius]

20 Questions for Fic Writers (& Artists)

A/N: Thanks for the tag!!!

—

1. How many works do you have on ao3(Tumblr)?

Ao3: 30 fics

Tumblr: 61 fics, 4 drabbles

2. What's your total ao3 (Tumblr) word count?

Ao3: 485,525

Tumblr: 79,971

Combined: 565,496

3. What fandoms do you write for?

My stupid brain can only fixate on one fandom at a time usually so it depends on whatever media I'm consuming. So, say I'm watching/reading fanfiction for The Witcher, there's a good chance I'm gonna be writing for it too.

But a few of my favorite fandoms to write for are:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse/Across the Spider-Verse

Supernatural

The Witcher

Teen Wolf

4.What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Is Meant To Be (Always Finds A Way) | Geraskier | 2,687 kudos

Tell Me Every Terrible Thing You've Done (And Let Me Love You Anyways) | Montgomery Gator & Gregory [Gen] | 2,359 kudos

The Goal Isn't To Live Forever (It's To Create Something That Will) | Winterberg | 1,897 kudos

Someone To Hold Me (And Tell Me Everything Will Be Alright) | Miles Morales & Miguel O'Hara [Gen] | 1,340 kudos

Sometimes Peace Come From Painful Things | Winterberg | 1,143 kudos

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

I always try my best to respond to comments because I appreciate that the readers took the time to give me feedback, but sometimes I forget/put it off until so much time has passed that I feel awkward replying. You know?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm not really one to write angst without a happy ending, the closest I've ever gotten was my CoD: MW2 fic Just A Dream, Just A Nightmare featuring man-eating cryptid Ghost and human Soap being captured by enemy combatants. I'm sure you can imagine how well that goes...

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Basically everything I write has a happy ending, but my favorite would have to be What Is Meant To Be (Will Always Find A Way), which is a Geralt/Jaskier fic.

8. Do you get hate on any fics (Art)?

Mostly complaints about the content (which, why? I tag properly. Not my problem that you clicked on it and didn't like it).

But there was an comment from a bot about how I wrote my Witcher fic with the help of AI, which is insulting because it was first published it way back in 2020, before AI was as big a deal as it is now.

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

I have dabbled in smut, though I stick to strictly M/M content. My tastes are pretty specific in that department, so I normally have to write my own smut if I want to see that particular dynamic between a pairing I like (since I tend to lean more toward the less popular opinions about how parings get it on).

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

I only really have two really crazy crossovers.

One of which being The Walking Dead/Supernatural because I accidentally fell into the crack ship that is Dean Winchester/Daryl Dixon. I looked up the tag on a whim one day and now I can't seem to ship either of them with anyone else rip.

The second one is a short and sweet Harry Potter/Person of Interest crossover. The fic is only in the Harry Potter setting, with John and Harold transferring to Hogwarts. I wrote it because I read a fic with the same premise and hated it because Reese and Finch were sorted different houses and they were all fine and dandy with it. My brain said screw that and I wrote my own take.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thankfully, no.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Way back when I was posting on Wattpad (I know, live and learn), I had someone translate a fic into Russian. And, more recently, someone reached out and asked to translate my Five Night's at Freddy's: Security Breach fic into Russian.

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

Yup, but only my usual co-creator.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I don't think I've ever been as obsessed with a pairing as I am with John "Soap" MacTavish/Simon "Ghost" Riley. I have so many wips for these two morons falling in love in all kinds of settings. I honestly don't think I'll be able to give all the fic ideas I spat out the attention they rightfully deserve.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Most likely any of my Marvel stuff, I fell out of the fandom a while ago and haven't really wanted to revisit. I'm not really fond of the ship I was writing for either, I have expanded my horizons from Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes to Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes and even Clint Barton/Bucky Barnes.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Fluff, most definitely fluff. I love to write soft scenes between characters, whether it be intimate (in a sfw way) or them just learning about each other during a peaceful moment. I'm also really good at details, filling in the gaps to make a scene more descriptive or to make sure the reader can follow along with what the character is doing or how they are feeling and why.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Because I'm so detail oriented, I can sometimes ramble on with a scene when what I need is a transition paragraph to get me back on track with the narrative. This is usually where my co-author comes in to save the day.

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

I'm an English speaker only, so I rely on Google pretty heavily when it comes to other languages/accents. I haven't gotten any complaints thus far, but it sure does make me want to make some bilingual friends lol.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Unofficially (as in never posted): Vampire Diaries

First fandom I posted to Wattpad (sobs): ZoSan (Zoro/Sanji from One Piece)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Jeez, another difficult question. Um... I'm gonna go with What Is Meant To Be (Always Finds A Way), for several reasons.

It was the very first fic that I posted to my ao3 account.

It was the first multi-chaptered fic that I'd ever completed.

I managed to finish and post the final chapter on the day of my birthday (which was a pleasant surprise).

I love it so much that my co-writer and I are actually currently in the midst of lovingly revisiting/revising the entire fic to make it even better!

—

I'm gonna tag @early20sfailingplenty, @phoenixe3, @houseofdabs, and anyone else who wants to participate feel free to!

20 Questions for Fic Writers (& Artists)

AN: I wasn't tagged, but I saw this and just had to do it!

1. How many works do you have on ao3(Tumblr)?

65 works on ao3 (27 of which are cross-posted on Tumblr)

2. What's your total ao3 (Tumblr) word count?

611,206 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Honestly, whatever I'm into at the time (but I have a tendency to bounce around a lot) so I'll just list off a few of my favs to write for:

Call of Duty: MW2

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse

Teen Wolf

Stranger Things

Supernatural

My Hero Academia

The Walking Dead

4.What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Is Meant To Be (Always Finds A Way) | Geraskier | 2,687 kudos

Tell Me Every Terrible Thing You've Done (And Let Me Love You Anyways) | Montgomery Gator & Gregory [Gen] | 2,359 kudos

The Goal Isn't To Live Forever (It's To Create Something That Will) | Winterberg | 1,897 kudos

Someone To Hold Me (And Tell Me Everything Will Be Alright) | Miles Morales & Miguel O'Hara [Gen] | 1,340 kudos

Sometimes Peace Come From Painful Things | Winterberg | 1,143 kudos

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

I don't always respond to comments and I usually leave that to my co-writer (and partner in crime) Tibby since we both collaborate on most of the fics I post and they're more comfortable with responding to comments. But if it's a solo fic, then I work through my anxiety and respond to anyone who's kind enough to leave a comment because I genuinely love getting feedback and seeing people enjoy my work really inspires me to keep writing!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uhhh... That's gotta be my newer oneshot, Free Fall. It's a SoapGhost fic and a rewrite of the ending of MW3 (Yeah, you know the scene).

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I've got a few (cause I'm a sucker for a happy ending) but the one I'm gonna go with has to be The Goal Isn't To Live Forever (It's To Create Something That Will). It's a part of the list above and it's currently one of my only completed, multi-chaptered fics.

8. Do you get hate on any fics (Art)?

Unfortunately, yeah. But mostly on my smut pieces (especially the ones that include a trans character).

Though I also remember recently getting a particularly rude comment accusing me of using chat ai to write my Geraskier fic, even though it was first published it way back in 2020, before chat ai was even a thing that people used.

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

Yup. I usually stick to my comfort zone and write M/M stuff.

Though, in my longer fics, the smut isn't really the main focal point so I keep it pretty tame.

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

Oh boy. My co-author has actually got me hooked on a crazy rare pair to the point where we wrote a whole fic for it (and are working on the second in the series). It's a Daryl Dixon/Dean Winchester pairing set in the TWD universe.

A close second would be my Among Us x KiriBaku AU.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope, thank god.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup! Someone reached out to me and asked to translate my FNaF: SB fic into Russian.

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

Sure have, but only with one other person.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Omg, no! I have to pick!?

Well, if forced with a gun to my head, I supposed I'd have to say Rinch (John Reese x Harold Finch from the TV series Person of Interest). I love the show and the characters and the story and the world building. It's just a pairing that I will always keep coming back to no matter how many other ships/fandoms I fall into.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My KiriBaku x Among Us crossover fic. The main page, where I had planned out the entire fic, was accidentally deleted and I don't know if I'll ever recover from that since I'd have to rehash the entire rest of the story from scratch if I decided to one day come back to it.

However, that being said, I'm still holding out hope that I'll randomly get a burst of motivation for the story. Who knows.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'd say my strengths are writing angst, witty banter, and transition paragraphs (since my co-author often gets stuck going on tangents and writing really detailed scenes so they often ask for me to make a segue in order to get us to the next plot point, which works out for everyone).

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My weakness is definitely in-depth, detailed scenes, hands down. It's kinda embarrassing, but my writing can sometimes lack the descriptive, engaging language necessary to make the story/situation/characters interesting (especially when it's decidedly not a writing day) and it often reads like boring exposition.

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

I am not fluent in anything other than English, but that doesn't exactly stop me from (relying heavily on google) and using other languages in my fics, especially if the character that I'm writing for prefers another language. Take Miguel O'Hara for example, who is canonically bilingual.

The same kind of goes for accents too. I try my best to emulate how it the words would sound while speaking it while writing dialogue. Take for example my SoapGhost fics, where both characters have a thick, distinct accent.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Unofficially (as in never posted): Vampire Diaries.

First fandom I posted to Wattpad (yikes) when I was like twelve: BBC Sherlock

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Jeez, another difficult question. Um... I'm gonna go with What Is Meant To Be (Always Finds A Way), for several reasons.

It was the very first fic that I posted to my ao3 account.

It was the first multi-chaptered fic that I'd ever completed.

I managed to finish and post the final chapter on the day of my birthday (which was a pleasant surprise).

I love it so much that my co-writer and I are actually currently in the midst of lovingly revisiting/revising the entire fic to make it even better!

_____

That was fun! Now for the tagging!

@mistertiberius, @ghostao3, @captain-mj, @fogsrollingin

[duckletranslations]

Ariadne Ch 9 - Answers to Illusions 2

Season: Fall

Tens of minutes later

Niki: Mm~. This doesn’t look like it either.

This looks like a dead end too. Kohaku-chan, did you find anything?

Kohaku: Nope. My end’s also blocked off.

It’s fine and dandy that we decided to buckle down and recover HiMERU-han’s song. But findin’ an exit’s already tough enough. There goes the labyrinth’s spite, striking once again.

Niki: Isn’t this so much more brutal than what the Vice President challenged in Bogie Time? Back then there were a lot of strange traps, so there being few traps now is helpful.

It’s as if the whole point is to make us wander aimlessly….

Kohaku: Y’can’t say “as if,” when it’s actually true. To think this’ll sell well…. that’s questionable at best.

Anyway, I wonder how things are on Rinne-han and HiMERU-han’s side. They’re investigating the opposite end from us, so…

Niki: Yeah. Our side was just full of dead ends, so there’s gotta be something on Rinne-kun’s end.

I wanna get the Red Treasure Chest right this time and get the water or food.

Kohaku: Oh yeah, I got two or three Red Treasure Chest problems right on our way here, but it paid the bare minimum amount of food.

It was a pretty small amount in proportion to the effort we put in and our amount of people. On top of the series of mistakes that caused us to lose the other Red Treasure Chest missions many times over.

People say that poverty makes your wits dim and your character poor, which applies mighty well to our current situation. I’m afraid our minuses are stackin’ up and eventually we’re gonna get stuck.

Niki: Mm, for sure, my calories are in shortage!

I think I’m starting to lose it. So hungry~....

Kohaku: Ah yeah. I’m especially worried about your hunger Niki-han, stuffin’ anything in your mouth no rhyme or reason as ya did.

Niki: Oh, did that happen? Nyahaha, I don’t really remember ♪

Kohaku: It darn seemed like you were conscious, but y’can’t remember? I guess ya were groaning like a beast.

Well, if ya go feral I’ll be stoppin’ ya. Now I’m startin’ to wanta challenge the Red Treasure Chests.

Niki: Mm, mm. As the name suggests, the Red Treasure Chests are more common than the Golden Treasure Chests. Isn’t it just a matter of time until we run into one~?

Rinne: Bingo! C’mere, Niki! Some food’s waitin’!

Niki: Ooh, speak of the devil!

Where, where! I’ll hurry over so please wait for me!

Kohaku: Niki-han! Runnin’ ahead so suddenly like that’s dangerous—

…Hoo, he’s already off.

Seriously Niki-han, when it comes to food, don’t his instincts completely take over? As if he up and becomes a wild animal?

Kokoko. Even so, the way I can’t hate ‘em sure is Niki-han’s—no, Crazy:B’s merit ♪

Niki: Rinne-kun, where’s the food? I wanna eat soon!

Rinne: No, look straight. I didn’t find food, but a Red Treasure Chest.

You’re also hungry, right? Let’s finish the mission and get us some good food ♪

Niki: Alright, sounds good! Touch the key, grab—

Quiz Mission!

Question Number 8: What is the name of the author who wrote “Divine Comedy,” which features the Minotaur in the episode of Hell?

Niki:Aw yeah~! It’s a quiz mission!

This is HiMERU-kun’s specialty ♪ Huhuhu…..it’s been a while since food~♪

HiMERU:You are quite hasty, Shiina. The contents of the chest have not yet been determined to be food.

However, the answer is simple.

The answer is “Dante Alighieri,” He was the poet who wrote “Divine Comedy” that consists of three episodes, “Heaven,” “Hell,” and “Purgatory.” Isn’t that right, Vice President?

Ibara:Correct!

Your range of knowledge is quite extensive, HiMERU-shi~

Of course, it would be a given if it pertained to your hobby of military-related trivia. But I can’t believe you answered this liberal arts question so easily!

I would like to ask you where you could have learned it. However, putting that aside for the moment—yes, the correct answer was “Dante Alighieri”.

The Minotaur’s role in the episode of Hell in “Divine Comedy” is to torment all heretics. One could say it’s exactly like the situation Crazy:B is in now~♪

Kohaku:All heretics, y’say. —All heretics, y’say. —Other words, y’mean how we’re the Crazy:B who doesn’t go along with CosPro’s demands, and acts as we please... plus we’re stuck in this labyrinth to boot.

HiMERU:Since the program is linked to “Ariadne’s Thread,” it was named “Minotaur’s Labyrinth.” So that’s how it is.

Well, there’s a bit more of a playful feel than that. Is this even regular content for a variety show?

Ibara:Thank you for the feedback. We will use the complaints you mentioned for future improvement—Also a lot of time has passed in the second half, so please pick up the pace!

The prize for answering correctly is a map of this labyrinth. With this, you may easily find the way to the exit or a Golden Treasure Chest!

With that said—you must remain vigilant until the end. The fact that I prepared this map means

Enjoy hell to the fullest, gentlemen ♪

Niki:Heyyy. Wait a minute, Vice President! What about my food?

As I thought, I can’t go on anymore….. I’m so hungry I’m at my limit! If you’re my boss, I would like you to properly supply me!

Ibara:As a certain famous person once said! The key to solving poverty is not to give them fish, but to teach them how to fish!

Handing over the map of the treasure chest locations is like handing over food! Isn’t that so, Shiina-shi?

Niki:No, no, no, no! No matter how I see it, fishing methods don’t matter right now! If you really are a strategist, I think you should keep the saying, “You can’t fight on an empty stomach.” in mind…..!

Ibara:Yes, I will keep that in mind!

There is not much of the labyrinth left. Please keep up the good work until the end! Salute~☆

Niki:Ah, uh, sure

….Like hell! Was that not just some muddled up hodgepodge!?

[mortar-canyon]

One of my favorite things to do with casual shipping is to make things as inconvenient as possible. This has resulted in me accidentally getting attached to joke ships - ie, Silvourget or Zorow - but it's also really fun with, like, platonic ships

So consider: platonic Shadally, with the express purpose of getting Maximilian to stop bitching about who Sally "should" marry. It starts as a petty way of telling her dad to fuck off and ends as a Black Arms medical revolution

Let's say, this is a mix of pre- and post-SGW. Maybe she and Sonic broke up at some point - on good terms, of course; they're close friends regardless and he still plays an active part in protecting the Acorn Kingdom - so now Sally is dating Nicole. The problem is, her dad is still a dick and cares more about the Acorn family line than his daughter's actual well-being, so he keeps pushing her to go find some nice, distinguished, non-hologram dude, bc she needs an heir and all that bullshit

Shadow, meanwhile, has just been introduced to the world of "people who get way too comfortable prying into celebrities' personal lives", as well as (bc the whole Eclipse thing made me very sad and they all deserve better) taking the crown as King of the Black Arms; he has no idea what he's doing, but now there's all these hurt, confused people with blood on their hands who have a free wireless connection into his brain, and he's doing his best to help them even though he didn't do well with social interaction before people could read his mind

Sonic hears them both talking about how bad everything sucks lately and gets the idea to set them up so they can solve eachother's problems. Sally's good at diplomacy, crisis management, leadership, and civic planning; Shadow is... Shadow. Famous, intimidating, and a marvel of modern science, give or take a few massive breaches of medical ethics. Plus, although people are still reasonably scared of the Black Arms, they're also aware that these aliens are incredibly strong and loyal to the end, so, allying themselves with a power like the Acorn Kingdom would do wonders for their reputation. It's a win-win! Max gets his respectable son-in-law, the Black Arms get a safe place to recover, and the Acorn Kingdom gets both a new army and a terrifying, unkillable Chaos-wielder to defend it.

This is all fine and dandy, right up until Max finds out that no heirs are going to come of this arrangement. Even if Shadow and Sally were genuinely interested in each other - which, hey, if you want to take it in a romantic direction, that path's still available, Mobian "pack" culture is very open to polyamory - Shadow is physically incapable of having a child. Like, genetically, instinctually, Ken Doll-y, it ain't happening... Unless, they open up a lab to sort of splice things together, like Gerald did back in the day but with less GUN meddling and/or demonic deals involved.

Which, as soon as that project is completed, means the staff can begin working on more important things, like figuring out how to undo some of the damage Black Doom did to the Black Arms' genome in the process of reshaping them into perfect, unquestioning cannon fodder. There's a ton of work to be done on setting up regulations for that project, largely because that's a lot of power for anyone to have over a population and they need to ensure this technology is used responsibly and with the Black Arms' active approval and consent, but... It can be done.

What about restoring their complex taste buds so they can once again tell the difference between food they like, food they hate, food that's just kinda mush but is good for them, and actual poison? Or, redirecting certain nutrients back to things like pigment production for the iridescent scales they used to have instead of just bulking them up with unreasonable amounts of muscle and plating? Maybe gradually rewiring their pain receptors so they can tell when they're hurt and ask for help again, rather than powering through because back in the day there was no help available? Hell, in the next few generations, they might not even have to deal with all that sleeper agent programming! That's a pretty big deal!

There is a lot that could go wrong, absolutely... But that's why Shadow's there, and why Sally is backing him up. If anyone even thinks about trying to use this against the Black Arms, or anyone else they think needs unwanted "alterations", they will have the entire goddamn Knothole Alliance on their ass. And the nice thing is, Shadow can't die, so even after a hundred years, when the rest of the squad has all been laid to rest, he will still be there to keep their goal alive.

All of that because Sally is the queen of malicious compliance.