#also warning like very long post

[p1ctur3]

@octdl-lee

Random captive TDL au lore dump and some behind the scenes stuff since you asked so nicely :]

Dark in captivity

victim did use dark as a way to train and get the mercs and him used to the box

victim and agent (i would probably explore their dynamic in this au also, mitsi would haunt this narrative because yes)

some behind the scenes things

additional art

[cut-pricemikeyarwood]

These two episodes give me the same vibes as a group of friends splitting to talk separately to Idiot number 1 and Idiot number 2, who have been pining around each other for ages, to convince them to

JUST TALK JESUS CHRIST, ENOUGH!

STAGED - S02E04 The Warthog and the Mongoose 1 | S02E05 The Warthog and the Mongoose 2

Edit: here... the fucking part between Michael and Josh, dear lord.

[smallidarityfan]

smallidarity highschool au

came up with this au like actually 2 years ago where it's mainly empires 2 smallidarity centric, with Jimmy as a student council member and Joel as an honours student who doesn't like the way Jimmy runs things around the school.

As payback for the regulations Jimmy put up that Joel thought was stupid, Joel does these elaborate 'The Office' style pranks on Jimmy (specifically) while Jimmy retaliates by trying his best to dig up dirt on Joel. This banter goes on for a while— however Joel ends up doing the pranks less as a statement, and instead more just to see how Jimmy would react... with his comical, cartoony villain yells, and... weirdly cute face....? (YAOI YAOI YAOI YAOI)

very very old au drawings below:

from July 2023

😭😭 joel does NOT look like a highschooler here 😭😭😭😭 (i also wanted to draw angst in the first two ig idk a year later it's pretty cringe [i am still cringe]) (also partially inspired by when I read "Go for it, Nakamura!" and the mc reminded me of joel for no actual reason. or maybe i was just thinking about that manga while drawing smallidarity. idk)

from November 2022:

I think these doodles were genuinely the first instance of me converting from being against mcyt shipping to for shipping LMAOO

[meamiki]

5% of a color headcanon.... two versions since b&w emphasizes the dagger more i think but i still like the warm tones ASFSADA

i am not biased towards rainbow daggers whatsoever i promise (lie)

((also friend is streaming now and im there too!! bit more info linked here, its rated mature tho))

[thisismycorneroftheinternet]

Ok, update on the latest Neoboards Transphobia drama, so people on the (former) General Discussion board and on Site Events have been complaining about the ongoing moderation issue and how the transphobes are literally there, still insulting us and trying to twist the narrative into the typical "this is inappropriate" type of bullshit argument, while if we argue back or post threads about it we keep on getting silenced and warned and all.

And, well, if you don't want to believe this is the mods 100% supporting transphobia, here's VERY strong evidence for the case, two warnings that a user got, the first regarding a thread on Site Events talking about mods not protecting trans people in site, and the second on the subsequent thread complaining about being warned for said first thread.

Yeah... The moderation is arguing that talking about trans topics is talking about sexual topics. A classic bigoted argument against trans people's existence.

All of this while the transphobes continue to harass users and spam threads with transphobic rhetoric.

So yeah, ain't it fun?

[frog-chemicals]

hi did you finish the fic about the bad kids and their various autistic traits? I'd love to read it

Oh! It is nowhere near finished! (I’ve been doing SO many Other Things)

But! That does not mean I will not be informing you of my Many Elaborate Headcanons and Why I Have Them!

I think either Gorgug or Adaine would be the first to get diagnosed with anything.

Adaine, obviously, gets diagnosed with anxiety first. I think from there on out she gets Actual Therapy, which then leads to her getting diagnosed as autistic. I think she really struggles with learning how to unmask and actually be comfortable in her own skin, in being her own person.

A lot of the autistic traits she does not hide could be explained by her being a High-Elf Wizard.

She’s very blunt, she’s very fixated on things making sense, she hyper focuses on Her Specific Field of Interest, she’s peculiar about how her things are organized. She only likes when a select few people touch her and that’s not even all the time.

When she does allow herself to unmask, I think most of her stims involve swaying and repeating phrases, spell names, spell ingredients, those sorts of things.

Gorgug’s parents care about him so much. However, I don’t think he actually gets diagnosed until he’s in his teens. There’s probably a few reasons for it ranging from his parents simply not realizing due to gnome culture being incredibly autism friendly to it being really hard to get a half-orc kid diagnosed with anything that won’t end up with the stigmas of said diagnoses causing them more difficulty in life.

That being said, Gorgug’s autistic and probably deals with a lot of body dysmorphia.

He’s one of the people who adapts most easily to learning that What He Experiences Has A Name. He probably does have a brief moment of “Oh. So I am different.” only to once again realize that everyone he’s surrounded himself with are also different and they’re awesome, so him being different is, if not also awesome, completely okay.

He generally struggles socially (bad at social cues, doesn’t know how to make friends, awkward around strangers), he likes listening to Brain Explosion Music, he doesn’t pick up on a lot of things at the same speed that most other people seem to.

I think that when he stims, it’s usually not something very obvious. It’s a lot of playing games it’s his hoodie strings, drumming on things (picked up from Fig), humming a song to himself. That sort of stuff.

I think it takes until after Ayda discovers she’s autistic for the rest of The Bad Kids to Figure It Out.

In my mind, at least, it starts with her asking Fig and Adaine for help making a presentation so she can explain Herself better to her friend.

Adaine already knows a thing or two, having also been diagnosed (probably pretty recently) but it takes her reading Jawbones books for things to fully click that “Oh. We’re all like this”

She still helps Ayda with her presentation, of course. She is her best friend, after all. But it does very much result in a secondary presentation in which Adaine thinks all The Bad Kids are autistic, which several of them had already started to suspect during Ayda’s presentation about herself and her autism.

Riz is most obvious. The only reason he’s not diagnosed is the fact it’s expensive and there’s not a lot of mental health professionals who know anything about goblins in the area.

He’s autistic and has both anxiety and insomnia as a direct result of it.

Initially, he tries to deny it and goes to his mom basically trying to convince her to agree that it’s just goblin stuff, right??? She tells him that not only is he a Remarkably Autistic Goblin, he gets it from Pok.

I think his stimming involve a lot of, for lack of better words, instinctive behaviors? He chews on things, he chitters, he taps his claws on things, he takes cover in small, comfortable places (like his friends backpacks or jackets, especially while they’re wearing them).

But a lot of it is also very,,,, Detectively. Yeah. That’s a word. Why not.

He repeats words and phrases regarding his cases, he scribbles down notes even if he already has the information, even if he knows he will remember, he clicks his pen and probably does some pretty sweet tricks with them too. His clue board making should absolutely be considered a form of stimming, in my opinion.

(Also, him joking about Shooting People being a stim is Very Funny to me)

Kristen I think is pretty chill about it initially, only to have a breakdown about her entire worldview being changed again at a later point.

She has a pretty blatant special interest in religion to me.

She also has adhd and dyspraxia.

Most of her stimming involves a lot of movement. She picks up on hand flapping from Ayda, sways a lot, brunches her legs, taps her feet, taps her hands on things, stretches out and flexes her body a lot. She probably used to play with her hair a lot when it was longer. While she still does, she’s mostly moved on to using the frankly absurd amount of stim toys she’s keeping stored somewhere. Most of them end up getting “borrowed” and lost in the pockets of her party at some point.

Sometimes she sings old hymns.

Fig tries to act cool about it. Fig is not cool about it. She already struggles with Being Herself and Wearing Masks enough as it is. Finding about the ADHD makes sense, really. Finding out about the autism is a slightly higher hurdle to get over.

For a lot of her life, she was so incredibly focused on fitting in, on making the pretty popular girls like her enough to include her, on making sure no one noticed just how much she felt like there was something different about her.

And then it turned out she is different. She’s a tiefling. She’s bisexual. She’s autistic. She is so little like the girl she used to be, like the girl she pretended to be.

It’s difficult, for a while, I think.

But, one thing about being nothing like the kid others expected you to be, is that it’s supper fucking punk.

It still takes a good long while to discover who Fig truly is, but she’s finally starting to feel true confidence that she doesn’t need to know just yet. That she’s allowed to be figuring herself out. That she’s allowed to be complicated and messy.

I think the way she stims is pretty similar to Kristen. There’s a lot of movement to it. She drums on things, bounces her legs, shifts her weight around a lot when she’s standing, plays with her hair, generally likes keeping her hands busy with something. But she also has a pretty big oral fixation. While her chewing habits aren’t quite as intense as Riz, I do think she tends to chew on stuff like pens when they happen to get near her mouth. I think her smoking habit is also pretty strongly influenced by this.

Fabian is the one who struggles most. While it’s fine for his friends to all be a little odd in all their different ways, he cannot have anything wrong with him. I think it takes a lot of talking before he even accepts that maybe it’s okay for something to be strange about him as well. Even if he is becoming his own man, that boy still has so many insecurities about who he is as a person.

I think he has a similar social struggle to Fig. He seems like someone who fits in. He feels like someone who’s supposed fit in. He adapts so easily whatever situation he’s put in, hoping that maybe if he’ll bend himself the right way, he’ll actually fit somewhere.

But he’s never actually had friends his own age. Sure, part of that is because he’s been on pirate ships up until he was, like, 16 but part is also the fact that, for so long, he’s been trying to be who his father wants him to be that he barely knows how to be his own person.

He struggles socially the same way Fig does. He doesn’t know how to fit in with people that actually like him, so he puts on his rich boy jock persona and he fakes it until, well, something happens. He uses humor in an attempt to deflect the fact he doesn't understand when talk about things in roundabout ways. He acts like he doesn't care when people talk about things that he struggles to understand. He barrels through a team sport solo because he figured it would be more effective that was.

And unlike Fig, who could have probably continued to be that sweet little cheerleader for years to come hadn’t it been for her horns, people realize he’s different, realize he does not fit in.

Fabian struggles with accepting it the most but he does have somewhere he fits in, even if he spent so long trying to deny it. He fits in with this party of weirdo misfits that love him just as much as he’s realized he loves them.

I think, when he finally allows himself to unmask enough to stim, it’s a lot of dancy movement and a lot of vocal stims. He bounces on his feet, he sways on his legs, he hoot-growls to himself a lot. Also, because I love projecting onto Fabian, I think he gets a "Kipperlilly Copperkettle" vocal stim at some point. I also like to think of him as dylsexic but that is a purely self indulgent headcanon

[kangaracha]

white hyacinth + lee know

white hyacinth: 'meddlesome angels and the people they save'

written by @keepswingin

tw/cw: near death experiences, suicide attempts, unspecified eating disorder, references to child abuse, drowning, self-harm.

---

"I never should've saved you," Minho all but hisses as he throws himself into the closest chair, wringing out the bottom of his shirt. "I don't even like you." There's already a small puddle forming beneath his feet as water drips from his clothes. Seaweed is caught behind his ear. "Were you trying to drown yourself?" 

Hyunjin hangs over the kitchen sink, equally drenched. Water droplets slip from his hair and onto the dirty dishes he couldn't bring himself to clean. His fingers are pruned. He's surprised his legs can hold his own weight. His throat is sore and his teeth ache. He coughs to try and relieve some of the lingering pressure in his chest only to hack up more salt water, burning on its way up and out. He groans, slumping against the counter. "And if I say yes?" he counters quietly, voice rasping across the kitchen. 

"Then I should've let you," Minho spits, and a heavy splat of water hitting the tile punctuates his words. Hyunjin isn't sure how to feel when his tone of voice is like this, lingering in the space between biting and sharp. Oddly enough, he doesn't feel guilty for taking Minho's time. "Millions of people die everyday and I save the one person trying to kill himself?" 

"I didn't ask you to," Hyunjin says, quieter. "You could've saved someone else." 

The silence that comes after prickles uncomfortably at Hyunjin's skin. The chair scrapes against the floor when Minho finally stands. Hyunjin doesn't bother to turn, barely bothers to breathe. "No," Minho grumbles, and it sounds like the fight has suddenly been drained from his very body. "I saved you."

oo

"Lose some weight," Minho snarks to the body he drags away from the edge, barely able to budge him any further than a few feet. "You're too heavy." The mud hinders his progress and he spits a curse as he lets go of him, glaring. His arm falls into the muck, splaying across his skin. "Unbelievable." 

Changbin lifts his mud-covered arm and stares at for a long moment before dropping it against his chest. His heart is still racing from the adrenaline of it all. He can still feel how weightless he was as he teetered, one foot in the air, his weight tipping forward into near oblivion. Minho's painful grip as his fingers had latched around his forearm, yanking him backwards. 

Minho huffs, still glaring. "What were you thinking? That you'd get a free pass and catch yourself in time?"

Changbin almost laughs. "I wasn't thinking," he says, voice strangely detached. He doesn't know where to go from here. This was his final step. "Were you?" he dares to ask Minho, turning his head so he can watch him. "Thinking?" He's sure there's better people out there to save. He wonders if Minho even bothers when it comes to people that deserve it. He knows he definitely doesn't deserve it and yet Minho pulled him back. 

"I was thinking about how stupid you are," he replies easily, not bothering to soften the words in an attempt to get them through his thick skull. "The movie you've been waiting for comes out on Friday. Your gym just got new weights. You told me you wanted to try new food." He reaches over and grabs at his arm, mud slipping from his skin onto Minho's palm. "I thought you were saving yourself."

"There's nothing left of me to save," he whispers, digging the words out from where they've been buried. 

Minho lets go of his arm. A spot of mud lands on Changbin's cheek. 

"There's plenty of you left," he says. "I'll find it again even if you can't." 

oo

"You're insane," is all Minho can bring himself to say as he stares down at the gun in his hands. He's never held one before and it's heavy in his palms, heavier still with the weight of being able to end a life faster than Minho can save it. He looks up and wants to yell, for the first time in a long time. It pushes and pushes at his chest, but he swallows the words before they can make it anywhere. 

Chan is emotionless as he stares back at Minho, dark bags under his eyes, cheeks sunken with something more than stress. He stands still and numb in the center of the room. His fingers are shaking. Pale. "I was using that," he says, and it could be a joke if this was anything else than what it is, even if his tone is just as empty as the rest of him. 

"Not anymore," Minho throws back, pocketing the pistol and hoping that he was successful in flicking the safety on. "I'm surprised. You're usually smarter than this. Did you expect me to clean up after?" 

Chan winces at the barb. His eyes drift down to his shoes. The abandoned warehouse around them creaks with the next flick of wind. He feels unlike himself. He feels exhausted. He feels like a terrible person as Minho stares him down with eyes that are never as cold as the rest of him. He wonders if there's a limit to how many times one can save him. He wonders if he can find that limit himself or with some help. 

"I'm sorry." He doesn't think he means the words, not in the way he should. His mind keeps replaying the motions. He can still feel Minho's grip, can still hear the shuffle of his feet on the concrete as he had moved toward him. 

Minho rolls his eyes. "Save your apology for when you mean it," he says. Chan gives a small nod. He doesn't know if he should stay here or go home, or find somewhere completely new. He doesn't know where he belongs. "And pick up a new hobby. Guns don't suit you anymore than this does." 

oo

"Do you even care anymore?" Minho asks from outside the bathroom stall, arms crossed as he leans against the medium. "From the sound of it, I don't think that you do. Which is ridiculous when I've never met someone who cares more." The toilet flushes in response and there's a moment where he simply listens to the other's heavy breathing, and then the door opens. 

Felix doesn't spare him a glance as he moves past him to the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looks worse than the last time Minho saw him, smaller, unhealthy. His hair is struggling, and the foundation smeared under his eyes looks out of place on such a thin face. His lips tremble and he can barely hold himself up, let alone walk. Minho isn't surprised that he ended up here. It looks like he's on the brink of something much worse than death.

"I do care," Felix finally says, eyes sliding to meet Minho's in the mirror. 

"Not about yourself," Minho spits, all sharp edges. "You haven't cared about yourself in a long time."

His stomach barely exists. If Minho reached out to grab his arm, he would be afraid that his grip alone would break the limb in two. The designer clothes he's wearing don't fit right even in the smallest size the company can offer. Minho wonders just how much editing they do to his final photos and then tries not to think any further. 

"I'll be fine," Felix dismisses, turning towards the door. But he turns too fast and grows dizzy, nearly stumbling into the wall. Minho darts forward and catches him by the shoulder, keeping him steady. "I'm fine," he murmurs, pulling himself from the other's hold.

"Stop acting like it," Minho all but growls, reaching out again, shaking his head. His fingers bruise paper-thin skin. "Don't say it again until it's actually true." 

oo

"You did it on purpose, didn't you?" Minho whispers as he picks himself up from the ground, dusting off the sides of his pants before spitting a curse. He's not sure he's allowed to curse. He doesn't really care, something hot and angry bubbling up inside of him. He's always annoyed but this kind of anger is new, especially as he frowns at the young boy curling into himself on the sidewalk in front of him. "There are better ways to die," he continues, almost as a dare. "Don't you know them?"

Jeongin slowly shakes his head. He's made himself so tiny that Minho nearly forgets that he's lived through more things than people twice his age have. The highway before them doesn't stop with them, another thing Minho hates. No one stops to check anymore. No one cares. No one ever cares. If they had hit him like he wanted, they probably would've kept going without looking back.

"Are you planning to stay like that the rest of the night?" he asks. When Jeongin doesn't answer him he sighs and takes a step toward him, shoe poking at his skinny shoulder. "Your shelter is down the road. Go back home." 

"I don't have a home," Jeongin says, still unmoving. "I don't have anything." 

Minho has half a mind to pick him up himself and carry him back. Instead he pokes him with his foot again, harder this time. Jeongin tries to move away from him but Minho follows, unrelenting. "Neither do I," he grouses, ignoring the way that Jeongin peeks at him, eyes wet. "But there's still things to do. Get up and figure out what you do have."

oo

"Can't take a punch?" Minho sarcastically asks as he approaches, immediately going to untie the rope wrapped around and around. "I thought you were used to being a punching bag." The rope tumbles to the ground, leaving the other to slump forward, bucket kicking out from beneath him. Minho catches him around the shoulders and lowers him carefully to the ground, gently leaning his back against the wall.

Seungmin grimaces and lifts a hand to the still bleeding gash in his side. His face is a mess of purples and blues, his left arm hanging limp. Minho thinks it might be broken and glares at the rope like that will change how he found him. His head lolls before finding the wall alongside the rest of him, hitting it with a soft thump. Maybe Minho's too late and he's already gone, an addition to the sea of lost souls he isn't allowed to touch. 

"You're not done, are you?" he asks, shaking him. "Your father finally decides to get rid of you and you just lay down and take it?" He exhales against the prickle in his chest. "You used to fight back." 

"I...used to," Seungmin breathes, the words out of place as they tumble from a mouth that doesn't quite know how to work anymore. Minho shifts closer, party surprised that he's still conscious. "Can't." Another pause as he struggles to form the word he's looking for. "Anymore."

Minho scoffs. "You were never scared to die." 

Seungmin's chest stutters on his next inhale and the wheeze that comes after sounds like something that nearly chokes him. Minho worries that his presence enough won't be enough. Sometimes it isn't. He reaches out and grabs his shoulder, ignoring the pang in his chest when Seungmin flinches. His sight lingers on the red line around his neck, on the rope that had kept him between life and death.

"You didn't die," he says, Seungmin's breath hitching. "Start acting like you deserve to be." 

oo

"You're bleeding," Minho says as he stands in the doorway, taking in the precarious state of the bathroom. Water drips from the sides of the tub with every breath, and there's blood slipping down the porcelain. His sight lingers on the amount of red on both his wrists, held slightly above the water. "I thought you said you were sick of bleeding." 

Jisung huffs. His chest is barely moving up and down like it should. The rest of him is beginning to shake, but Minho's not sure if it's from the shock or blood loss. He figures he should probably learn the difference if every time he sees him, there's always a scene that looks like something from a horror movie. 

"I'm sick of a lot of things," Jisung whispers, voice barely louder than a whisper. His eyes are locked on his wrists, watching as blood rolls and rolls and rolls. Minho moves into the room. He takes a seat beside the bathtub Jisung rests in, leaning his head back. The water tickles his hair. 

"Are you sick of me?" he asks quietly, possibly the softest he's ever spoken. Minho always feels a tug, whenever he's needed. It tugs at him now, reminding him how little time is truly left for the other if he doesn't do something. "If you're sick of me, tell me." 

Jisung stays silent. For moment, Minho worries that he's died. He turns his head to glance at him, only to find that he's still watching the blood, almost like he's trapped in a trance. Minho sighs and slides closer, grabbing the wrist he can reach and wrapping his hand around the wound before lifting the limb into the air. Jisung's eyes flicker to his. There's still life in them, Minho thinks, before squeezing tighter at his arm. 

"Are you sick of me?" he repeats. He doesn't know why he feels as though he needs the answer. Usually he holds them all, but this one feels far out of reach. 

"You've saved me more times than I can count," Jisung replies, tone painfully netural. There's a part of Minho that hates how calm he is, how resigned he is to die everytime he slices another line into his skin. "Pretty soon I'm going to be in your debt." 

"You already are," Minho is quick to jab, falling back to what he knows. 

Jisung doesn't flinch, barely reacts. Blood sticks to Minho's palm. His tight hold is barely clotting the cut. Jisung's other arm isn't fairing any better on its own, blood slipping against the water. Soon the everything around Jisung will run red and his fate will be sealed. Minho isn't sure he wants to be here for that, if that's what the other truly wants this time. For as many times as he scolds, or spits jokes that bite, he's never been one to clean up the messes that are left behind. That's for the being that comes after him, the one Minho is sure hates him for all he doesn't do. He's never had the gall to attempt to meet them. There's a part of him that thinks he doesn't ever want to  because all it will do is remind him of his failures.

"If you keep it up you'll owe me a house, you know," Minho continues, nearly chiding. "Then a car. Maybe the rest of your savings." 

Jisung's skin is cold. Minho almost shivers. 

"Okay," he whispers, resigned. Minho doesn't like it, eyes sliding back to Jisung's face. He never had a problem rising to the challenge, throwing something just as equally scalding back. 

"Do you still want to be saved?" Minho finally brings himself to ask, and for some reason the words hammer against his ribcage, stick to the inside of his chest like they don't want to come out. 

A shaky exhale slips from Jisung's lips. For a long heartbreaking moment, Minho thinks he's going to say no, but before that moment can come, sirens echo from outside. A soft smile crosses his lips. Curse Jisung's downstairs neighbor for better or for worse, but the water must've found a crevice that happened to be in the old woman's sight. He nearly blesses the apartment right then and there too, something close to relief flooding him when he hears the sound of car doors slamming shut. The pounding of fists on the door a few moments later. 

Jisung's eyes flicker. They have trouble finding Minho's own, but when they do, a tear finds its way down his cheek. Minho squeezes tighter and tighter, and tighter still. Blood rolls down his own wrist, mimicking the wounds that brought him here in the first place. "You owe me," he says, like it means something. Jisung's chest shudders. "I don't go around saving just anyone." 

Voices growing louder, the crack of wood splintering. Minho thinks it's an attempt at a laugh, the noise that leaves Jisung then. "You save us," he mumbles, barely audible. "Every time. We must mean something." 

Minho's mouth runs dry. His heart beats faster. He can hear it in his ears. 

"Yeah," he says simply. "You do." 

---

permanent taglist

@amyyscorner @kokinu09 @rainfallingfromthesky @keepswingin @rylea08 @puppysmileseungmin

@thatonedemigodfromseoul @atinyniki

[anghraine]

My best friend and I moved in together with his closest friend from his MA program, and while I had met her before (the friend; my bff is a man), we hadn't spent much time together because I've never lived away from the West Coast (and only two years out of the PNW) and she's never lived outside of North Carolina and only briefly visited the PNW once, when she went to Portland last year.

It's been a delight to show her around the PNW and realize we need to explain things that are just sort of omnipresent in our lives. The bff and I were casually griping with each other about having to run an errand to Trader Joe's at an inconvenient hour, and were telling her, "it's okay, you can stay in the car and avoid the people if you want" and she was like "NO I MUST SEE IT, I'VE ONLY HEARD OF THEM" and nearly ascended to another plane when we showed her around the store.

The bff and I grew up in the same town in NW Washington (him for his first 18 years, me from 9 to 19) and he lived in Bellingham and Seattle for years before he went to NC for grad school (I went to the SF Bay Area for mine, a very different experience). Both of them are hardcore coffee aficionados, but he struggled with the different Coffee Ways of the South, so for the true PNW experience they want to tour various indie coffeeshops next.

Also, she adores Kaidan in Mass Effect and we were like, oh, is your passport up to date? We could take a trip sometime and show you your boyfriend's beloved English Bay. It's very beautiful :)

her: O_O

me: Actually, it's worth going to Vancouver BC for its own sake as well, it's truly spectacular. We used to go all the time as kids.

bff: And Victoria!

her: O_O

[chiimeramanticore]

waow

[insertpinkchiphere]

//Weird ass ask I'm not answering under the cut.

WHAT??? PARDON???

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

It's so funny to me when I actually want to burn the day away because most the time I get stuck in a loop of "This would take me several hours to do should I really do it? I dont wanna regret it. But it's a thing I love. but but but but -> proceeds to never do thing and gets upset anyway because now day is over and spent it mindlessly scrolling stuck in Waiting Mode and indecisiveness." but since i WANT to burn it away it's like okay time to binge watch several movie trilogies that will easily get ride of like foour or five hours. Especially if I;m stopping to pause it. And maybe let's look at some movies that I have in my watchlist(one's that I know I'm safe from leaving without new freak F/O) and oh hey let's actually PURPOSELY get lost in scrolling that always burns some hours away.

[michameinmicha]

Going to the botanical garden is fun until you are standing in front of the millionth incredibly edible looking plant and your impulse control is wearing reeeeaaally thin by now...

[moophinz]

I’ve made a short, tiny piece of criticism regarding fandom’s behavior of being super demanding and not engaging with the thing they demanded. But there’s something else that’s been bothering me for a while now…

This fandom feels very baby. In that way, I mean that it feels super young. So young, that certain popular people on Twitter who would have been called out for numerous counts of various flavors of poor behavior in other fandoms get strangely shared around a lot here. I don’t find much in the way of deeper analysis topics or video essays. Memes (that if I may be honest) have been used to death and beyond still get repeated— even when it’s completely unwarranted. The worse of the meme brain rot crossover with steep bigotry people tend to overwhelm and act incredibly disgusting in some corners of the fandom and on official posts.

Like with any thing or community or what have you, there’s people who seek engagement bait and spread negativity. I’m surprised at how successful it can be to do that in this fandom on Twitter. It creates such a rotten atmosphere. All in all, a lot of these things have been pushing me away from the community even though I only joined into this series in 2021. It feels like some kind of tide turned for the worse.

Yes, this fandom is in fact relatively new in a way. It’s existed for almost two decades but exploded some years ago with a continued high stream of sudden growth. But there are certain things that I’m still astonished by.

[exopelagic]

WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME BURROWS END WASNT FREE

[125storejuice]

Okay small rant time !!!!

[defensivelee]

Can you do The Menhera au and the Alien Alien au??? I think it’ll he fun!!

anything for you my dear Wivew <333

You would be right, it does look like fun! I think I would use the plot and setting of MENHERAMEN, but the general worldbuilding of Alien Alien. I think that'd be interesting, exploring that world with modern dynamics.

CW: mentions of addiction, abusive relationships, kidnapping, torture, objectification, and death.

William isn't stadtholder or king here, he's a simple Defender hybrid with the same issues he has in MENHERAMEN (addiction and PTSD). When he was younger and in the foster system, he was given a little android friend to cheer him up and bring everywhere, which would be given to a lot of kids here to help them with any issues they may have (therapy substitute, in their words).

His android, Bentinck, grows to be much more protective here than he is in Alien Alien, in a sense going down this path of bloodshed and darkness because of his own insecurities and uncertainty of what his destiny should be. In the original MENHERAMEN, he's never found any joy in his life other than when he is with William, and never shows himself any respect because he believes that's up to William to decide. In this AU, that's amplified by...a lot, considering he was quite literally made just for William. He follows Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics with pride, but he also won't hesitate to switch his First and Second Laws should William be in any danger.

Something added to his insecurity in this AU would be his worries that William may no longer need him once he grows and recovers from his trauma. Normally he wouldn't mind, in fact he takes pride in the fact that William decides when he dies...but oh, no. He's in love with his master, he doesn't want to leave him, he wants to be here to protect him forever.

So, of course, the overdose happens, and Bentinck kills Charles as he does in the original MENHERAMEN. From there the story would be pretty much the same as the original (for those of you who've read it), with just a few added dynamics that I think would be interesting to explore.

In MENHERAMEN, Bentinck is portrayed as a killer who has no idea what he's doing. He wanted Charles' death to be painless, but he just couldn't stab the correct artery...!! Things like that. Here, however, he uses his database to figure out how to make it as painless as possible...and by the time he kidnaps Marly, he can also know how to make it as painful as possible.

On that note, there are so many new ways a robot could mess with a biological being. In MENHERAMEN, he has a little fight with James, and that happens here too, of course. James tries to bite him, infect him with his venom, but there's just no way to make Bentinck back down. In addition, he wouldn't need to smack James on the head with any old stick-- he could just use his fist as it is, and if he swings hard enough, it can kill James. Also, of course, tail-snapping!! In Alien Alien, Bentinck accidentally breaks James' tail, but there's nothing accidental about it here.

When Marly is in Bentinck's possession, he can scream and fight all he wants, but a huge metal hand over your mouth is better than any average gag. He's also insanely strong-- a little human can't do much against that massive metal creature. The size difference would be a fun thing to explore, as well.

The romance between Keppel and Bentinck could also be fun! Keppel wouldn't be as much as an expert with robots as he is in Alien Alien, but he'd know some stuff here, enough so that Bentinck feels unsettled by just how much Keppel knows about how his body works.

But Bentinck wouldn't be the only one unsettled here. Keppel's aware of just how big and dangerous Bentinck can be, but he doesn't dare believe it at first-- Bentinck's the sweetest robot he knows, a gentle giant. Slowly, though, as Bentinck turns his violence against Keppel, he realizes that every time they're alone, he is in so much danger. Of course, that's a dynamic in the original MENHERAMEN, but here, just looking at Bentinck's hands sends shivers down Keppel's spine.

In Alien Alien, Bentinck considers himself inferior to the Asterothiriots. But in MENHERAMEN, he grows to consider himself superior, a hero, to everyone around him. What if I work with that dynamic here? While his confidence in his identity is shattering, he comes to believe himself superior to these nasty, feral little creatures-- he's smarter and stronger than they are, after all. Is he, then, not justified in doing what he pleases to them just because he can? After all they've done to him?

Add that to the Hansijoost dynamic! Humans are the most inferior species of all. Keppel doesn't deserve respect from Bentinck.

M&W would be interesting! Bentinck is not only threatened by the love Mary shows William, but by her species as well. She's fucking HUGE....and with a single bite, she could end William. Ironically enough, Bentinck's afraid that because of the inclinations of her species, she may snap the same way he did. He sees her as a far more plausible threat here than he does in MENHERAMEN and seeks to eliminate her as soon as possible.

Another threatening factor are her visions of the future. Not everyone has visions as precise as hers, thus she was the one who knew immediately, even before anything happened. But she held onto the hope, the thin thread where she stops him...sometimes following the dark paths where Bentinck ends her life. Later on, she's consumed with guilt over the knowledge that there were many times where she feels she could have stopped him, but didn't, all because she wanted to follow the unlikely timeline where she maybe could have stopped him and maybe everyone would have been safe.

In Alien Alien, there are times where something unexpected, but very small, happens and throws Mary's timelines off. By the time it's happened, she doesn't know what it is, because she can't look into the past. But...the day William overdoses, she just feels a twinge...something is wrong, and she notices immediately when William starts acting off.

Oh, and another thing I just thought of: she could have known the night Charles was going to die. She wanted to tell him, but she knows how dangerous Charles is (and by addition, his terrifying brother), so to protect Bentinck, perhaps she follows him downstairs and tries to talk him out of it. Ooh, yes, in fact, why not make that a dynamic? She knows, and he knows that she knows, and they play around with that until their final confrontation.

By the end of it, Bentinck is supposed to turn himself in. But there is no prison for androids, only deactivation. By that time, he thinks it's more than he deserves, as he's always believed death to be a more of reward for him rather than anything to be afraid of. But he doesn't complain. As it is, androids have no heaven.