#also started using only they/them pronouns

[diodellet]

try wishing for it: magical girl au (scarabia x gn!reader)

inspired by @ceruleancattail's magical girl au and @yan-lorkai's yandere genie fic. note: i also imagine scarabia's mascot form to look like this. title is ripped from tohma's magical girl eudaemonics. content warnings: -yandere (if you squint, since scarabia's taking the role of kyubey in this fic. references of manipulation and general moral grayness.) -fic uses "magical girl" but means it in a gender-neutral sense (reader is referred to with they/them pronouns) word count: 2.7k words

Being a magical girl means gaining the power to do virtually anything you can dream of.

The first time you defeat a wraith, you stare in awe at your hands, breathing heavily from sheer excitement rather than exertion. With one final roar, the beast falls to the ground, before dissolving into black smoke.

“Woah, you did it! You really took it down!” Kalim barrels into you, gushing praise after praise. “See, Jamil? I told you they were going to be powerful!” 

Jamil is more mindful of you, instead floating over to land on your other shoulder. “Nice job.”

“You’re a natural!” Kalim’s bouncing with joy in your palm, waving his little stubby arms. “You probably won’t even need to use your three wishes!”

Right, there was that. In the case that you were against an overwhelmingly powerful foe, you could draw on your familiars’ magic—a ‘wish,’ they called it.

“Don’t jinx them, Kalim.”

“...What happens if I asked for more wishes?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” The stitches of Jamil’s plush smile don’t change, but there’s a note of something foreboding in his words. “Though, you don’t seem like the type to squander them. Don’t worry about it too much.” Despite their cartoonish appearance, your familiars’ words and warnings carried a grave weight

Your gaze drifts to the slain wraith. All that remains is the tarnished metal collar that hung around its neck, until it too crumbles into dust.

There’s something hauntingly beautiful in that faint shimmer of gold as it gets blown away by the wind.

Being a magical girl means toting around two innocuous round plushies of your familiars to class.

With your new double life, you get two new companions following you around. It means bearing Kalim’s excited chattering as you take notes, dealing with Jamil’s snide teasing as your classmates point out your new bag charms.

What you don’t expect is to see the two of them sitting in your living room the next morning, clad in your school’s uniform.

“Good mor—oof!” Your book bag collides with Kalim’s chest and you use the momentum to drag him and Jamil by the elbow out of your house, ignoring your dad’s concerned calls with a loud “I’m heading out!”

You didn’t get the memo that being able to transform was part of their repertoire as magical familiars, but you should’ve expected this. Between Kalim’s thousand-kilowatt smile and Jamil’s calculating gaze, you very much prefer them as small round plushies.

(It’s strange that your schoolmates and teachers don’t question the two new additions to the class, but you appreciate that your cover wasn’t blown with this curveball. You suspect it might have to do with the red glow in Jamil’s eyes. You decide to question them at the end of the class day.)

“It’d be better if one of you stayed as a plushie.”

“Then that means it would be Jamil since he’s better at keeping attention off of us.”

“By that logic, they’re talking about you, Kalim.” Is it you or is that a hint of a smile on Jamil’s lips?

“Oh.” Kalim’s expression falls into a pout. “But I like attending classes with you!”

He probably wouldn’t like it as much during exams week. “I wouldn’t be able to keep a low profile if people noticed you…guys following me around.”

“Aw, I guess so…Thanks for treating us to ice cream, though!”

You offer to buy them another one, just to make their one and only day at school special. You start heading towards another freezer, there’s a special lottery on these soda popsicles.

Jamil’s attention turns toward the counter. He’d been eyeing the person at the cashier. “Wait, something seems—” 

And that’s all the warning he can give before a group of wraiths crashes through the convenience store wall. Ending up in a sprawled mess of tangled limbs was not ideal. It’s settled, you definitely preferred them in their plushie forms.

Being a magical girl means getting woken up by Kalim in the middle of the night to patrol the city.

As a hand-sized plush ball, he’s already pretty strong. But under the cover of night, he can shed his disguise and drag accompany you around to see you deliver justice to evildoers. 

Your drowsiness fades away as you leap from rooftop to rooftop, dispatching fledgeling wraiths hiding in narrow alleyways, stopping drunken confrontations, watching over lone pedestrians traversing through seedier parts of the city.

“There’s another one, it’s a low-ranking wraith!”

“I’ve got it!” Magic gathers around your weapon, bathing it in golden light as you swing and cleave the monster into two.

It didn’t even get a fighting chance to writhe or fight back. All it can do is dissipate into nothing.

Which is for the best.

“That was so quick!” Kalim bounds over to you as your weapon fades out of view. “You’re getting better and better at fighting!”

“Well, you did say it was a weak one…” You tug at the collar of your outfit. His praise feels like staring into the glare of the sun, straight on. “I’m probably not that much better than those other magical girls before me.”

“Still! It doesn’t make you any less amazing—Are you hurt anywhere?” Kalim starts looking you over for any injuries that he might have missed.

Too close. “Not a scratch. Come on, let’s head home.”

Though you should’ve expected things would go sideways at some point, that the night would bring untold horrors instead of passing peacefully. In a mix of your carelessness and Kalim’s overexcitement, an avian-like wraith appears and catches you both offguard, talons closing around his midsection and carrying him into the sky, each powerful beat of its wings taking him farther and farther away from you.

Adrenaline surges through you and the asphalt of the sidewalk cracks underneath your soles as you leap to the sky in pursuit. “Kalim!” Just before you can close the distance, he screams at you to get back, making you falter. A long shadow whips through the air—a prehensile tail of sorts—preventing you from approaching. 

Switching tactics, you aim for its wings. Better to bring it to the ground.

(Miraculously, Kalim got the cue to turn into his plushie form to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. You manage to catch him before the both of you crash. Though, Kalim’s awed gushing was probably going to give you a sunburn.)

Being a magical girl means Jamil takes your healthcare into his own hands, sometimes.

“It’s the sleep deprivation.”

“No, it’s not.” A coughing fit strikes you at that moment, betraying the extent of your sickness.

“It’s because you’re overexerting yourself with your ‘nightly escapades.’”

“Fine—so what if I am? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? To protect helpless people day and night?”

“Obviously, not at the cost of your own wellbeing!”

You didn’t think you would ever end up in this kind of situation, being yelled at by a floating plush ball while confined to your bed of messy blankets and used tissues.

The angry heat in your face is making your headache worse, makes you see gray for a moment before you could fire back.

“...I’m sorry,” you spit without an ounce of penance.

Jamil sighs. “Well. There’s no use in pressing the matter any further.” Just before he disappears, he tells you to get some rest.

Easier said than done.

The minutes inch by agonizingly slow. Your room is so silent, magnifying the buzz of your own thoughts. Up until this point, your life became a whirlwind of academics, extracurriculars, and fighting evil monsters. But at this moment of standstill, you can’t help but come to the realization that he was right. With your rashness, you basically incapacitated yourself. Sure, your familiars were also capable magic users. Sure, they could hold off wraiths from doing any major damage, but the thought that this entire situation could have been avoided, that this was entirely your fault—

A tear slips down your cheek, then more and more, until you’re quietly sobbing, frustrated, into your palms.

The mattress of your bed dips with the added weight of another person. “Mom—”

Jamil shushes you. “Drink this first.” You hear the rustle of plastic—did he go to the pharmacy?—and feel him press two tablets into your hand. As you swallow them, he hands you a glass of water. His other hand rests against your sweat-covered back, thumb rubbing soothing circles into your skin. 

(It is a stark contrast to his rough words from earlier.)

“I thought you…” They probably had other magical fighters to watch over, didn’t they?

It’s probably the fever messing with your senses, but there’s an uncharacteristic softness in Jamil’s voice. “Shh. No more of that, now.”

“...then why?” Were you really the only one?

“Just focus on getting better.” 

“But—”

“Your mom’s making soup for dinner, she will come to check on you in an hour. I’ll stay with you until then. Rest.” 

His words are not enough to placate your worries fully, but there’s a soft glow of red in his irises that makes you acquiesce and close your eyes, all while clutching onto Jamil’s wrist.

Being a magical girl means thinking up new ways to explain your many conversations “to yourself.”

Your parents are easy, it’s just the angst of youth. But your siblings are a little more difficult to convince. In addition to your moments of listlessness, they can hear your frantic back and forth pacing and the thump of you throwing your plushies against the paper-thin walls of your room. It can only mean one thing—

“Get out! I’m not having romance issues!” You slam the door behind your sibling’s cackles.

Your familiars remain still, seated on your bed until the sound of footsteps is sufficiently out of earshot.

“Are you really seeing someone?” Kalim pipes up.

“No!” You bury your face into your hands. “I—How would I have the time for that?”

“Besides,” Jamil chimes in, “we’re the only ones who’ve been accompanying them. Unless—”

Your body moves of its own accord, snatching Jamil with both hands and giving him a threatening squeeze, an unspoken ‘don’t you dare finish that sentence’ left hanging in mid-air.

When he stays quiet, your death grip lightens up. Just a little bit. A heavy exhale leaves your frame. “Look, for all that we’ve gone through—”

(A part of you is hesitant to admit it but, having gained them as new companions made your journey as a magical girl feel less daunting. You felt safe knowing that you could rely on them to watch your back, in spite of the close calls you’ve had. 

As for whether or not you’d started looking at them differently, well, you’d need more time to think on it. There. End of conversation.)

“I guess… I’m glad I met you. The both of you,” you finished lamely.

The silence that followed was deafening. For once, you’d wished their plushie forms could emote more instead of giving you that placid smile. 

With a pop! and shower of golden sparks, Kalim’s arms close around you in a tight hug. A bright grin splitting his cheeks. “I’m happy we’re friends too!”

“Stop squeezing me!” Jamil grits out.

Being a magical girl means double checking your word choice, especially for any quips and retorts.

The first time you transformed, you commented offhandedly about your footwear and Jamil made a little adjustment to your attire. 

With a snap of his fingers, a golden bangle clasps around your ankle. Lightweight, no doubt it would look beautiful when the light hits it at the right angle, but—

A frown pulls at your lips.

“Would you like another one? Just for some…symmetry,” Jamil suggests. 

You decide better against responding to that. 

“Think of it as a gift from me and Kalim.”

Was this something they bestowed to every magical fighter they took under their wing? “...Some gift this is.”

“Relax, you still have three wishes left. I won’t trick you into wasting them.”

Well, that diminished most of your initial doubt. “How can I be sure of that?” you question.

Jamil’s head tilts to the side, appraising you with an eerily-observant gaze. “All you have to do is ask. Anything that your heart desires, anything your mind can conceive.” 

You don’t like how his eyes are trained on you, making you feel small. You pick at an imaginary speck of dirt on your top, straighten out the already-impeccable fabric.

A thick silence falls over the both of you.

“...Will you—will you both ask me if I’m sure, before granting my wish?” It’s such a stupid thing to worry about, to fuss over the intricacies of your arrangement as Magical Girl and Familiar.

“Of course.” Jamil gives you a smile. “Shall we head to where Kalim is?”

“Yeah.” Your weapon appears in your hand with a flash of gold. “Let’s destroy that wraith’s nest.”

(More than desires you want fulfilled, there are anxieties you want quelled, fears you want silenced. Miracles to the myriad of unfortunate catastrophes that plagued your home—the flawed world that you lived in. So what if you contained untold power at your fingertips? You were only one person tasked with the protection of hundreds. At the peak of your distress—in the midst of sirens and flashing lights—you call for Jamil and utter your first wish through choked sobs.)

Being a magical girl means not relying on your powers, sometimes.

The trapped kitten gives another pitiful wail, thrashing against your grip as you clamber down the tree. In holding onto it tightly, you earn a set of angry-red scratch marks along the backs of your hands before reaching solid ground. The kitten bounds away with a final hiss.

“Why didn’t you transform?” Kalim asks.

You shrug, running a finger over one of the scratches. “I guess it’s ’cause I didn’t wanna mess up the outfit.”

“What do you mean?”

Bashful, your gaze ducks to your shoes, worn from years of use but sturdily hanging on. “It’s just, lately, the wraiths have been getting more and more powerful. And I…” Feel weak? Pressured? Alright, maybe you were still hung up over leaving a little crater at a major intersection, but it was either that or letting the ursine wraith lay waste to the nearby shopping center. There wasn’t any time to dwell on those shortcomings.

(But your mind liked to circle back to it. Was there any more you could do? Why couldn’t you do more?)

They warned you about this, that at some point, you would end up facing more destructive wraiths. That you would have to choose among innocents.

He takes your injured hands. “You can always make a wish.” Kalim’s healing magic washes over you, cool and gentle, like a stream of water. You watch the scratches slowly close up until they become nothing more than a set of faint white lines. “That’s what me and Jamil are for.”

“That’s true…”

“Anything you want.” Kalim repeats. “I’ll make it happen.”

It’s those simple words— and the sight of him cradling your hands in his palms—that grant you the courage to speak your next words, your second wish.

Being a magical girl means weighing your soul against the lives of people, friends and strangers alike.

“Come on, you have to get up.” Tears are streaming down Kalim’s cheeks, his hands hover by your prone and bloodied form, unsure of which wounds to heal.

Wearily, you gaze cranes upwards as if every bit of movement caused pain throughout your body.

Jamil has witnessed this scenario a thousand times. He keeps a stoic face. “Are you just going to let them destroy everything?”

“...I can’t let them…”

“You’re hurting yourself! Jamil, you have to do something!”

“It’s not my choice to make.”

When in the face of an unstoppable threat—a horde of chimeran wraiths that will lay waste to your home, will you make that final third wish and trust in them?

Jamil knows how you’ll answer. Rather than using them as quick and easy schemes, your first two wishes were—in some way—made for the good of others around you. For someone who won’t even know or care about that small bit of kindness. At the core of every human is a desperate self-preservation instinct that pushes them to make a final wish. And like clockwork, you will follow like the rest of the magical girls that they created. It’s a strategy that has benefited him and Kalim. And he has been fervently waiting for this moment, for a powerful one like you to—

“I’m...not giving up…!”

Or not? 

His lips curl into a smile. “Then give them hell.”

They can wait this out. Compared to their infinite lifespan, your emotional fortitude was only a drop in the ocean.

a/n: aaaa thanks @jessamine-rose for betaing this fic with ur fresh eyes. this au rlly gave me brainworms of the feral variety, i think i liked leaving most of the details ambiguous and free to interpretation, but i might come up with a separate author's note post about worldbuilding bits i couldnt fit in? eh we'll see! i hope yall enjoyed reading this! tagging some jamilnatics: @viperwhispered @twstgo @just-a-little-silly @mama-m1na @crystallizsch @sillystr1ngs (lmk if you wanna join the taglist for jamil writing in the replies)

[drdemonprince]

i'd like to say sth abt the x gender marker thing. i've just started getting the paperwork done for it myself, and although its an exhausting grueling bureaucratic pricess, it's filling me w the kind of joy i last felt when i got my first hrt prescription. i know i will have constant difficulties in a system of institutions that have no official way of dealing w nonbinary identities, and i fully expect the openly white nationalist party in my country to become a significant influence in national government within the next 10 years. i also have an escape plan of sorts, but i'm fully expecting that i may be legally detransitioned again. i would still be betraying myself fundamentally and stealing joy from myself, something that i get to have very little of, if i didn't do it anyway, bc i already cannot access plenty of services including healthcare bc i'm simply too dysphoric and institutionally traumatized to show up and be misgendered. there is no such thing as stealth or passing for a nonbinary person in the society i live in, only erasure; i might as well exercise this tiny amount of power i have been given for a brief time to force them to acknowledge me as who i am. i agree that having one's gender be irrelevant to one's personhood, including legally, would be vastly preferable, but i don't see how me getting an x in my id detracts from or otherwise influences that. my government already has plenty of ways of getting lists of trans ppl if they ever want one. i may be painting a target on my back, but as far as i am concerned, it is already there bc i am already incredibly vulnerable and restricted as a trans person for whom passing or stealth is not an option. i might as well get marginalized for who and what i am and make them look me in the eye at a doctor's office while they awkwardly tell me they don't have the infrastructure to process me as a patient than cringe and stammer while i tell them that actually i'm transgender and i would prefer for them to address me as this or that while knowing damn well they just see me as a quirky woman that they may or may not humor for hashtag diversity's sake. they may still do that ofc, but for all the risks and trouble i am incurring, it also corrects the scales of institutional power just a tiny bit in my favor by giving me legal grounds to argue. i'm also terrified of the police for good reasons, but i'm more terrified of them as a misgendered and scared but not out trans person unsure if and how much to advocate for myself than i am as someone confident enough to at least get hurt for who i am, rather than for who i am not and hiding out of fear of worse punishment. i am not advocating for anyone else to do or not do the same bc it is a subjective and highly varied set of risks and rewards that must be personally evaluated, and above all i'm very aware that as a white (not us) person, for all the institutional violence i have previously endured, i would be risking far worse if i were not, but as far as i am concerned, it feels like one of the best, most powerful things i can do for myself right now is to get the damn papers even if in the worst case they end up taking them away from me again.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I remember that when I was nonbinary and not medically transitioning, I felt much the same way. I was ready to really throw myself on the pyre for the sake of just actually being seen as not the gender I had been forced to be, for once. And honestly? Nothing short of medical transition did that. All the changes to my personal style, hair, comportment, voice training, the pronoun pins, the asserting myself, the putting pronouns in my email signature, the changing my medical forms and documentation at work to make me nonbinary, none of it made what felt like any lick of difference in how i was treated, because nonbinary identities are so thoroughly erased. The ONLY thing that got people to start treating me as gender ambiguous or to they/them me was to begin to transition as a trans man and use he/him pronouns, lol. (And eventually, most people did switch over to actually gendering me correctly as a guy, tho I still do get the they/them once in a while which annoys me and it's always VERY telling who tends to do it).

I don't know your situation or if you have medically transitioned in any fashion or not, or if you even want to, and our stories are different, but all of which is to say, I know how immensely frustrating it is and how confining it is to interpreted as your assigned gender seemingly no matter what you fucking do, and that sensation of being willing to take on serious risk to be seen. if anything that was part of what tipped me over into self conceptualizing as a gender nonconforming man rather than outside the binary altogether. different risks that i chose to take on, but still, the decision to take on risk rather than be locked away inside how people saw me.

I think structural nonbinary erasure runs so deep that very few individual level actions can make a dent in it and it's maddening. Of course there's all the intersections with transmisogyny that also impact who is visible as trans and who is not and who finds themselves yearning for greater visibility and those for whom visibility is nothing but massive vulnerability that itself cannot be escaped. But I understand that you've considered everything carefully and are aware of the risks in what you're taking on, and I hope that it does mean you don't feel that confined unseen feeling anymore. Because as much as I'm qualifying things I do know how fucking awful that sensation is and how few avenues there are for doing a damn thing about it that people will take seriously.

[wylanlupin]

wolfstar micro fic - 655 words

genderfluid sirius black, jealous remus lupin, sirius black uses she/her and they/them pronouns, famous au, marauders are actors

The camera zooms into the scene, everyone is quiet, while they’re filming. Only Sirius and her scene partner Barty, are allowed to talk.

Remus is sitting on his chair, watching his girlfriend work. He loves watching Sirius act, they’re so talented and always put their everything in each scene. And he is truly in awe of her.

Lily is the holder of their camera today. Being in a film set so long, with all your friends, just screams to be filmed from their perspective. Everyday someone else is the “camera-holder” as James calls it.

Maybe the fans someday will get to see a little footage of it, but it’s more only for them. Their management team and filming team, are responsible for the footage the fans will have for behind the scenes and bloopers.

Remus is sipping on his ice matcha, with his whole focus on his girlfriend, that he doesn’t even realise that Lily is filming his face up close.

For the twelfth time in the last half hour, does Barty lean down and capture Sirius’ lips in his. He’s holding her face with both of his hands and pressing them against the wall.

It’s a very intense kissing scene and is taking way too long and too many takes, if you ask Remus.

“Cut!” Barty immediately takes a step back and Sirius drives her delicate fingers through her hair. A bright smile takes over her face, which releases a warm feeling in Remus’ chest. “Ok, we have it.” Their director says and the staff starts cleaning the scene.

Sirius is still talking to Barty, so Lily focus the video back on Remus. “How do you feel?”

“Much better now, knowing that this terrible scene is over. And I don’t have to watch Barty kissing my girl.” He grins at the camera and Lily can’t suspend her giggles. “And why is that?”

“Because this mother-“ he just mouths ”f_cker”before he speaks loudly again, “has a crush on Sirius and isn’t even a little subtle about it.”

It bothers Remus a lot, how open and vocal this idiot is about, being in love with Remus’ girlfriend. Lily just chuckles again and zooms into the conversation Sirius is having with Barty.

They’re shouting a series and at the moment, Barty is playing the boyfriend of Sirius’ character, but not for long. They already filmed the break up scene between the characters.

Right now though, has Sirius dressed in the short pink pyjama pants and a white crop shirt. In short, she looks absolutely stunning and Remus would love to ruin her hair, but it were Barty’s hands, that made them this dishevelled.

And the worst part is, that Remus can’t even be mad at Barty, because of course everyone has a crush on Sirius. Everyone here knows how attractive and pretty she is, everyone on set sees what a talented and stunning actress she is and everyone observe, how kind and selfless she is.

Remus can live with that, the whole fucking world loves her, but Barty? He could at least have the respect and not officially tell people how in love he is with them. It wouldn’t bother Remus so much, if he wouldn’t post and talk about her so often.

Finally, Sirius is coming over to Remus and sitting down on his lap. “Hey, my love.” She greets him and gives him a long kiss.

Remus is a simple man, of course he relaxes into her and wraps his arms around hers waist to keep her close. He forgets Barty, the second her tongue meets his.

A cough gets Sirius’ attention and she looks over at Lily, who holds the rolling camera in their faces. “Hi, Lils.” And Remus is not only a simple man, but also pathetic. He forgot about Lily, the camera and his matcha and only remembers those things, when Sirius leaves his lap.

[brittle-doughie]

Hey howdy hello again! Wrote the one thing with reader cookie stabbing Burning Spice with a dagger despite having their leg broken off. I’m back about the beast ancients au I was talking about in the first part of that ask, since you didn’t say anything about it, I just assumed you didn’t want to hear about it. No worries, I don’t mind!

Anyways I’ve had a hell of a time hammering out the specifics of what’s going on, as it turns out planning a war is a huge pain in the ass. But I’ll just toss you the more interesting bits and get out of your hair.

For context, the main cookie this all revolves around, Star Heart Cookie, created a barrier to protect her/their kingdom. The caveat to it being that so long as you genuinely don’t want to kill the cookies within the barrier, you can walk in and out whenever you want

(For the sake of this ask, Star Heart is the reader insert and is thus getting they/them pronouns, there’s a different set of cookies meant to be the reader inserts but I haven’t gotten there yet so :p)

So, where to start I suppose.. probably Vanilla. True Vanilla Cookie specifically

Yeah bro is trying to pacifist ending Shadow Milk, and SM is just kind of offended? Bc Vanilla ascended to become the Beast of Totality, and is essentially trying to become the holder of Knowledge without getting the other soul jam. This has, predictably, really messed him up. But he still makes it a point to go on weekly picnics to see Star Heart. (The fact that he doesn’t know whats weakened them so much is driving him insane)

One of the other beasts who can pass through the barrier, Mythril Lily Cookie, also shows up to ensure that Star Hearts barrier holds. Though she is a little very concerned about the fact that no matter what, Star Heart never seems to be getting any better. When she isn’t having picnics or trying to dodge True Vanilla’s game of 20,000 questions, she’s usually coordinating an attack on one of the beasts. Usually whichever one happens to be closest to wherever Dark Enchantress is or is planning to use at the time.

Frostbite Cacao is currently trying to plunge all of earthbead into an ice age so that his friends will gain the same resolve that he has. Well, it’s more like so he can usurp their kingdoms bc he thinks they don’t run them very well, but who’s asking? Side note; he’d also actually be allowed through the barrier if it weren’t for the fact that Dark Choco lives within Star Hearts kingdom. He’s also mega paranoid about the fact that Mystic Flour isn’t attacking him anymore. (We’ll get to her don’t worry)

Toxiberry (still not sure about the name) is having a depression due to lore reasons. But due to the power of being a raging alcoholic, you can’t even tell :DDDD Nah but seriously, she and her army are constantly on the move since she knows Lily is looking for her. She’s also hoping that it lures Pitaya Dragon back so she can try and get them to on her side to hopefully gain the upper hand on Eternal Sugar, who has even more beef with her then usual, again, due to lore reasons (I wasn’t actually kidding about the depression thing btw, that’s definitely there)

Gilded Cheese (has very upsetting reasons why she’s called that) is currently trying to revitalize the desert with her new waterbending abilities :)))) you do not want to know what happened to give her that power, I promise. On the bright side, she can also electrocute things now, so that’s neat. She’s generally the closest to her normal self here if I’m honest. Though she’s spending most of her time bringing water to the desert (very suspicious water) and trying to weedwhack the hell out of Vanilla’s creepy orchids that keep spreading. She would also be allowed through the barrier, but only by technicality, since she’s only trying to kidnap Star Heart to use their power to enhance the soulcheese. (And Smoked Cheese is hoping to use them to usurp Gilded but yk shhh)

Onto the og beasts, none of which are allowed through the barrier, for obvious reasons.

Shadow Milk is very busy pretending like he’s not bothered with what’s going on. He’s free now! Why should he care what the others are up to? (He cares immensely) He’s honestly very concerned with how far True Vanilla is getting with his plans, and is pivoting to something else since he knows his usual tactics won’t work. Which ends up in him sending party after party of warriors to ascend the vines up to the Vanilla kingdom in order to break Vanillas focus to stall for time as Shadow figures out a more permanent solution. At least he’s found a new way to infuriate him, by simply saying nothing at all.

Mystic Flour is in the middle of her own plan, which is to use Cacao’s paranoia against him. So currently she’s waiting at the top of her mountain pagoda for him to inevitably break and go after her. She’s also sent Cloud Haetae Cookie to scout out a new meditation spot closer to the Dark Cacao kingdom to better keep watch on it. And definitely not because Star Hearts kingdom is literally right next door, not that at all, nope, not even a little.

Eternal Sugar is completely incensed and is personally hunting down Holly to the ends of earthbread for the sheer audacity of… the lore reasons (I promise it’ll at least be interesting) Or at least she would be, but most of the time Eternal Sugar looses them (literally how it’s an entire army?) and decides to fall asleep until she senses her other piece nearby again, and then she’s off like a bat out of hell.

Burning Spice, is behaving irrationally, even for his standards, which is saying something. Specifically speaking, he’s… well he’s waiting on the barrier, hasn’t really moved since the Beast War ended. The only thing that does get him to move away is whenever Gilded Cheese is anywhere nearby. He knows she’s gonna keep trying to get in, so he just waits. What he’s waiting for? Star Heart, and their very special ability that they use every single time cookies attempt to go for the barrier. From within the barrier, Star Heart can actually see him waiting for them since their tower is the highest point in the kingdom. That, and that point in the roof is the only clear spot in the barrier, everything else is stained red due to the permanent spice storm that surrounds the place.

And Silent Salt, who isn’t actually on the continent right now. During the Beast War, he spotted something leaving and decided to follow it on the hunch that if he didn’t, things would get a lot worse. Unfortunately, as the one he was following ended up being Longan Dragon, he isn’t going to be able to prevent him from starting shit.

Alrighty then, that’s that, thank you for your time and all of the lovely writing

-ephemeralcryptid

Now that was quite the read.

[oil-bh]

(Note: I'm using the pronouns I headcanon for the characters. Hank: they/any, they/them preference. Jebediah: he/him. Tricky: it/any. Phobos: He/Him. The Auditor: any. 2B: he/it)

THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY... I think about the Sleepwalkers a lot. My self insert is also Sleepwalker (who managed to keep their sanity and be found by some people and brought back to health) because that project specifically just rots my mind so so much. Like it's actually fucking horrifying when you think about it for more than 20 seconds.

I think it makes a lot of sense in the worldbuilding for madcom if Hank was formerly a Sleepwalker - Hank's shown repeatedly to have very high-level combat skills and to be able to survive things that would kill other grunts, like that train sequence with Tricky. Additionally, in the game, Sleepwalkers get better at combat every time they die, and Hank seems to do similarly, improving and developing after each instance of dying. The only difference is that Hank isn't connected to the self-destructing head gear, and their sanity is very much debatable, like the Sleepwalkers.

Sleepwalkers were created by Jeb as a means to get Project Zed shut down or at least abandoned, but Phobos trained them to be His private army instead. I feel like that point especially could explain some of Hank's relationships with other characters:

Jebediah - Jeb and Hank have a long history of absolutely hating each other. Jeb hates how violent Hank is, and view them as a threat to the armageddon that he thinks he needs to bring about. However, in the Sleepwalker Hank HC, I think this can be expanded on a LOT. Jeb has a long and negative history with Phobos, the Zeds, etc. I think that seeing Hank running around and killing people would lead to Jeb viewing Hank as a remnant of Phobos, even after the events of MPN. I think that could be a key motivating factor for his behaviours of targeting Hank and his brief alliance with the AAHW. I think it could also feed into how his character is pretty implied to be delusional and how he might be having stress/trauma responses to seeing Hank, thinking that Hank could be a Generation One grunt with the ability to ascend like Phobos tried to do.

Tricky - Formerly being one of the Nexus Scientists and now being a Zed itself, I think Tricky has a hell of a lot of motivation to hate Hank. I think it'd also be interesting if Tricky sort of like... projected? onto Hank. It has a history of saying things like "you don't kill clown, clown kills you" and while that could be brushed off as a rivalry dynamic or something, I think it'd made more sense if Tricky's former status as a Nexus scientist has rendered its mind more intact than other Zeds, and therefore intact enough to feel a sort of self-loathing or twisted perception of feeling inferior as a Zed and how Sleepwalkers were presented as so much better than Zeds were.

AAHW - Okay, hear me out on this one. I mentioned briefly that I HC the AAHW as a branch that split off from Nexus Core, and I want to elaborate on that. I think Nexus/Phobos realized how dangerous the Sleepwalkers could be if they weren't controlled, since they're always being fed combat data. That said, I think that after Hank somehow got loose or otherwise separated and no longer under Nexus'/Phobos' control, they started training people to seek out and hunt down Hank. Those people then later formed the AAHW and then fully split off from Nexus either due to Phobos' death or due to the Auditor inserting himself into their ranks, eventually twisting some of their morals to suit her ideas.

SQ and 2B - I really, really think that 2B was a former Nexus scientist and not just an ex-AAHW member. I headcanon him to have overseen some of the experiments in Nexus Core before being transferred to what would later become the AAHW. I think it never had the same Hank-centric plans of capture and/or destruction, but that he still had a lot of interest in Hank. Enough to possibly be connected to experiments like them to have gotten loose or escaped. I really think that he was behind these sorts of things as one of the original Dissenters and with its early ideas that would later found Status Quo.

Anyway hehe... that's my little ramble. I should seriously doodle more of this HC and the other HCs that take place in my personal AU/interpretation of Madness Combat. Have some extra little tidbits for this HC!! :

Hank is semi-verbal (like me!) because speech wasn't prioritized in the Sleepwalker Program.

They also don't have many general education skills (reading, writing, math, etc) for similar reason as above.

Hank goes into a dissociated autopilot state sometimes during combat.

The goggles and mask feel comforting and familiar to the mask that they wore during the experiments.

Hank has an interest in non-combat things such as guitar lessons and volleyball tryouts, but has a difficult time picking them up because they're so accustomed to combat.

They're somniphobic and will often push themself as far as physically possible to avoid sleeping; often 2B is the one relaxing them into resting. This is why Doc is stated to be the only one to know Hank's soft side, their weaknesses.

Hank developed DPDR as a result of the Sleepwalker Project, since that half-awake and half-asleep state suspended their brain into dissociative states and experiencing reality in a foggy way.

Can you tell that I think about this ALL of the time...

I need to figure out how to draw Hank 😭😭 my headcanon for them is that they were a Sleepwalker and somehow managed to get separated from the Nexus stuff, and that because they were a Sleepwalker, it’s the cause of all their combat skills and why they just randomly started killing in the first episode, and also the general violence… and then maybe that led to a faction of Nexus Core becoming the AAHW (also a headcanon that the two groups were affiliated at some point if not from the same original group and later divided) to take Hank down because they are watching the consequences of their actions via Hank. I’m very tired and in a time cramp so this isn’t very cohesive but Imve been thinking of this headcanon for years

[shouts-into-the-void]

I've been coming to the realization that I'm demiromantic over the past week, which is extremely uncomfortable given I've identified as Aro-Ace for the past three years, and I've obviously been met with a lot of the "you'll find the right person eventually" crowd

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

[wizardsix]

is it just me or is bioware spoiling way too much about the game . talking about gameplay improvements is one thing but revealing story and companion arcs seems very insecure to me bc now the mystery is gone when people play for the first time . seems like they're trying too hard to prove that their game isn't garbage after that first trailer but this is not how you do that

[ace-s-fav-dp-posts]

Afab clones reformation AU

Trans!Danny au in which all of the melted clones reform at a later point after Danny manages to get them to Frostbite and see if he can help them.

But because this is Trans!Danny, all of the clones reform with afab bodies, because while Vlad could certainly mold their physical appearance to be masculine;

Without that exterior intent being applied, their cores just kinda looked at what human DNA it had to base a body off of, and spat out afab bodies because they didn't really have the chance to develop their own identities yet (which is what normally takes priority in a ghost's form).

This exterior influence on their cores while forming originally is also partially what lead to them all being so much less stable than Dani (Vlad influencing Dani's shape basically failed completely, which actually helped her stability), along with Tiny, Monster, and Bedsheet looking so mutated.

Along with the poor cloning technique involved in their creation.

While all of the clones reform with afab bodies that are less malformed than their original bodies (Tiny isn't all melty and missing an eye, Bedsheet has flesh though she has a ghost tail instead of legs, and Monster is still extremely tall and jacked and very firmly swimming in the Fenton end of the gene pool even with an afab body), their forms are later altered by their emerging gender identities, so in spite of their new afab bodies not all of them turn out to be girls.

Bedsheet is agender and their form shifts to becoming more androgynous over time, losing the more feminine features that they'd formed with the second time around, such as breasts and wide hips.

Tiny is a transboy just like Danny, so there are jokes all around for a bit about him literally being Danny in miniature.

Monster however is very much cis, in spite of her immense height, impressive musculature, and more tomboy sense of style and presentation. [Think of a cross between what most people think of when thinking of Tall!Jazz/Amazonian!Jazz, and Vi from Arcane. She's just generally very much swimming in the deep end of the Fenton gene pool.]

Prime on the other hand is what can only be described as nonbinary/3rd gender to humans. As their actual gender identity is something previously almost exclusively found among the Yetis of the Far Frozen and a few other ghost settlements that have primary population that's never been human (where Prime chooses to live the majority of the time as the only Clone to inherit Danny's ice) and doesn't really have a direct counter part in human culture.

[bonetrousledbones]

do u ever think about how crazy it is that undertale came out with its insane amount of unambiguously queer characters in fucking 2015

[lunarharp]

wip thing...

of my bg3 avatar hellebore. i also did some casual nude studies of my 3 characters which i'll put under a cut... rather unlike me after all. (so WARNING for abrupt non-sexual full Artistic nudity lol...,,,,) (< won't be making a habit of this)

they mean the world to me

[sanguinewolves]

sigh. i hate like… name/pronoun bleed where if one person starts using a specific name/pronoun set for me then other people end up using it too including ppl i don’t want to. they should let me draw beautiful telepathic lines between people so i don’t have to correct anyone

[coquelicoq]

did i tell u guys about how my family, who have been lukewarm at best and vaguely antagonistic at worst about using they/them pronouns for my nonbinary sibling, did a complete 180 upon learning that my sibling is also good with she/her...like i can't even tell you how hard it's been to get them to even just try to use they/them and then they hear she/her and a switch is flipped in their brains that goes "you are an asshole actually" and all of a sudden my mom is buying PROTECT TRANS KIDS t-shirts and my grandmother's apologizing to me when she messes up. okay i'm glad you got there eventually but if this capability was inside you all along i don't understand why you couldn't have been doing this with the they/them set. like my grandmother told me a couple years ago that she wasn't even going to make an effort because she was probably going to die soon (<-completely made up excuse; obviously any of us could die at any time, and she is old, but she's in good health and her mother lived to be 100) and therefore wouldn't be seeing my sibling often enough for it to matter??? but she/her is worth the effort where they/them was not, apparently. like again i can't complain about the outcome but i am very much complaining about how we got here. what even is this.

[retordedd]

I never use this blog because the eddsworld fandom is genuinely the only fandom I've been completely fucking miserable trying to engage with. It's full of trans people and yet the community is SO hostile towards non-afab or non masc aligned in some way trans people. I've had people blatantly refused to respect my pronouns after saying they would. I've been misgendered in a server full of trans people where literally no one else was misgendered because there were pronoun roles. In that same server, while I was uplifting trans people making jokes about being proud of their bodies, they made fun of me for not having breasts. I've had multiple people debate my boundaries like it's a topic of discussion because I asked not to be called dude, a GENDERED TERM. I've had people gang up on me to the point of tears because I dared to describe my experiences being raised with an unconventional relationship to gender. I've been accused of holding grudges and being aggressive for even daring to speak up when I'm tired of being treated this way

And these events don't refer to a bunch of random assholes, they refer to people well known in the fandom. People I've seen on multiple servers. People whose names you say and it gets recognized

The eddsworld fandom has a HUGE transmisogyny problem and it needs to be discussed. The way I constantly feel unsafe when in a fandom surrounded by trans people is completely unacceptable

[biblicalhorror]

Thinking about one of the loser men I dated directly post-college who, after I showed them Dirty Computer [the emotion picture] by Janelle Monae, said they "prefer rap that has something to say"

[kateis-cakeis]

I'm curious more than anything, but why did fanon decide that Aithusa is female?

I mean, it's never 100% completely confirmed that Aithusa is male either. Yes, Kilgharrah said "'you named him", but he also said that Aithusa "bodes well for Albion, for you and Arthur, and for the land that you will build together."

So Kilgharrah can be wrong.

But! I wanna know if anyone has a good starting point of how this part of fanon came about. I tried to search, but nothing was really coming up for it.

Though, I do know with fanon sometimes things just start and nobody knows how they started or when exactly, so I understand if this is one of those cases :P