#an almost implausible amount

[just-eyeballs]

I started reading Doctrine of Labyrinths after seeing it mentioned in the TLT sub and here are my thoughts so far:

Overall the vibe is “dark 90s yaoi” (over-the-top Bad Ex Boyfriend with huge hands and all)

Wow, this book has a Harrow and a Gideon AND an Ianthe…?

Wow, this was just re-released for ebook LAST MONTH?

The Tumblr fandom for this is much larger than I expected, how have I never heard of this before?

When will the suffering END?

I need to read this entire thing as quickly as possible and then probably twice.

[ddarker-dreams]

missing scarlet ribbons so bad… brain food for SR: confined space stand that lowkey locks SR reader in a really small alternate dimension space with the bucci gang. like… chest to chest on top like “aughh sorry!! its so cramped in here :((“ and the guys r j internally screaming over it

RETURNING WITH SOME SCARLET RIBBONS !!!!!!!!!!!! i love them your honor <33333333

[Scarlet Ribbons index]

Although Giorno recognizes this predicament's unique benefits, he still prioritizes your well-being. He will check you over, ensuring no harm has been inflicted. Once that’s settled, admittedly, a few mischievous thoughts flit through his mind… none that he’ll act on, however. He accommodates you to the best of his ability. Ever the opportunist, he’ll gratefully accept any physical contact your shuffling around results in. Should you find yourself bored while waiting out the Stand’s effects, he’ll humor (most) requests you make of Gold Experience. And no, he won’t agree to create an elephant, no matter how passionately you plead your case. You’ll have to settle for a duckling or something similarly small. Capybaras aren’t off the table. 

Your level-headed leader, Bruno, finds himself unusually flustered. He recoils a bit too fast from any contact and dedicates a lengthy chunk of time to clearing his throat. He steels his nerves by asking if you’re alright, feeling any adverse side effects, etc. Sticky Fingers is summoned to check for a way out of this pocket dimension, an idea that’s proven implausible. You’ll both have to wait it out. Bruno gives you as much space as he can, to the point his contortions are stressing you out from how uncomfortable they must be. He almost chokes when you offhandedly suggest sitting on his lap to ‘free up space.’ Poor man. 

Fugo’s irritated over the fight’s outcome. He feels useless, since your presence prevents him from utilizing Purple Haze, lest you fall victim to the Stand’s abilities. He critiques your strategies and lists what you should’ve done differently. Don’t take it personally — internally, he’s berating himself for being unable to do more. The self-loathing steadily fades away as he recognizes how close these accommodations have you. Fugo cuts himself off mid rant, sputtering incoherent gibberish. His heart starts beating so hard, he wonders if he might be going into cardiac arrest. Your knees are brushing against each other. Why aren’t you panicking? Why is he panicking? … And why does he feel some gratitude toward the Stand User responsibles for this? 

Narancia considers this a golden opportunity to prove how reliable (and cool!) he is. Will most likely quote an action hero for maximum effect. He reassures you that he’s ‘totally got this’ and suggests shooting the walls with Aerosmith to bust out. You have to talk him out of this brilliant plan, reminding him that ricochet is a thing. Sitting still and waiting for the Stand’s ability to run its course hits him the hardest. He wants to be proactive, primed to pummel the asshole that got you both in this situation. However, your presence greatly decreases the likelihood he’ll do anything rash. At a certain point, he finds the whole thing kinda cool, like a secret base only you two know about. 

Mista used to pray for days like these. He’s thanking all the saints (that he can remember) for this gracious opportunity. Still, he’s mindful of your boundaries, doing his best not to intrude on your space. He will be inhaling your perfume, though. In copious amounts. While escape should be a high priority, seeing as neither of you are dying, he’s rather chill about the entire ordeal. You’re his favorite person to goof around with. He jokes about offering himself up if you’re stuck here long enough for starvation to kick in. You don’t get why his mind always ends up in a Hannibal-Lecter-esque place, but it’s a nice (?) sentiment. The Stand’s ability ends far too fast for his liking. 

Abbacchio is secretly grateful it’s you he’s stuck with and not some other schmuck. He might give you a hard time, but your presence is tolerable, even if you have a proclivity for yapping. The fact that you’re nice on the eyes is an added bonus. Considering his height, it’s impossible for you to have absolutely zero contact. Abbacchio’s always been tough on himself — he wouldn’t blame you if you were repulsed by him. So for you not to shrink away when your hands touch… it warms his heart in a way he hadn’t thought possible. He’ll humor your musings, adding his own dry wit on the occasion until you’re both freed. 

[edgeray]

Hello 🍉anon again, hope you’re doing okay and I hope my writing is not atrocious for this request. This idea has been on my mind for an Arlecchino x dragon reader(similar to Neuvillette). So, Arlecchino receive a report from her operatives that an unknown creature is lurking in the shadow near Poisson, that keeps on attacking the others fatui members and stealing their rations. She tells them that she will look into it eventually as she doesn’t want their ressources to be stolen. She starts to investigate to gather information on this creature and possibly locate it and by a twisted turn of fate, stumbles into a dragon(secretly the reader)that look awfully hurt and almost on the verge of dying. Arlecchino took pity on the rather tiny looking dragon (tought it seems to be an adult one) and brought them to the house of the heart to treat their wounds.

As the times pass and Arlecchino started to grow fond of the dragon, she see in the corner of the room, a human. Visibly confused, she starts to draw her scythe ready to impale the person in front of her should they pose a threat. Then the reader just go up to her and nuzzle into her as if it was the most natural thing in the world and it was at this moment that she realized it was the dragon she had rescued. They start to bond and eventually grow more intimate with each others.

My Little Fire

(Arlecchino x GN! Reader)

A/N -  Hi 🍉 Anon! Nice to see you again <3. Sorry this took so long. I just spoiled you guys with dragon arle, but how about dragon reader? Great idea, anon. Y'all really love dragons huh? Dragons are cool af, I don't blame you guys.  Unfortunately, I dunno a whole lot of genshin lore, so how genshin dragons work, idrk. I made you a Pyro Dragon, because bonding over fire abilities >>>  Dunno why I was so braindead while writing this, but that's why this took me an extra day to write this. By the way, the title is the english translation of the last three words. I headcanon that Arlecchino can speak Fontainian (French).  Content warnings / info - monster x human, reader is a dragon, reader is referred to ‘it’ for the most part, not second pov until the middle, arle's pov, reader is gn!, 1.7k words

Arlecchino didn't typically deal with these sorts of outings, not when her job typically dealt with information gathering and diplomacy. However, she couldn't turn a blind eye to this report in another Fatui camp situated in Poisson. Purportedly, rations have been going missing despite attempts to secure and protect them. Fatui operatives have been injured, and while Arlecchino does not doubt that some incompetence may have come into play, she does not believe that they are truly that incompetent. The operatives confirm that it is some type of creature, given the claws marks and the teeth indents the harmed operatives detailed. Whatever it was, it was too quick for the members to see, and so she now had to deal with it. 

Arriving at the camp, witness accounts didn't prove to be very helpful in terms of identifying the troublesome critter. However, the storage room, where the rations were stored, provided an interesting story to her. Unsurprisingly, clawed scratches littered around the containers of food, though she notices the indentures were caused by rather small paws. Despite the suggestion that the creature was rather tiny, it did not mean that creature was not weak, able to cut through solid metal. Interestingly enough, scorch marks also surrounded the area, even though there were no burns recorded in the injury accounts. The creature also seems rather famished. Each occurrence it raids the storage room, a considerable amount of food was stolen. Fascinating. Arlecchino can think of very few creatures like this but all of them seem implausible. 

However, there was a pattern to this creature’s visits. Every three nights, it came, wrecking havoc to whatever was in its way, but Arlecchino is sure that she'd be successful in capturing the beast tonight. She orders that no operatives are around the area–the last thing she desires is some inept fool getting in her way–and then she waits outside. 

It's near midnight when she first sees a glimpse of the creature's silhouette, about the size of a cat, but she can make out a long tail with spikes. Just as she anticipated, the creature appeared, flying through the open window she purposely opened. It pauses at the entrance, as if observing the lack of guards, but not questioning it as it dashes across the floor. Either this isn't a very smart creature, or its desperation for food outweighs the risks. Regardless, it just made a mistake. 

She uses her speed to enter the room before the creature has time to react, standing in front of the window it entered through. She closes the window, her eyes narrowing down on the now cornered beast. A scaled creature, with horns and wings. Its ears flattens against its head and their wings press against its body, imitating the fearful behavior a mutt would display. The longer she observers the creature the more she realizes that these traits match those of a dragon, albeit a very small dragon. She wonders if this was just a hatchling. 

The small dragon snarls at her, and a blaze emanates from its spine, the flames coursing down to its tail. The bright flames illuminate the dragon's features more, and it's when she notices that blood is spewing from a gruesome cut on its leg. 

An injured Pyro Dragon? It's terribly small, and she can't imagine how this one is still alive given its injury. Although the fire is an indicator it's a mature adult, the size is a cause of concern. What a pitiful thing.  

Arlecchino’s eyes flicker over to the box that the dragon tried getting into. As she approaches it, the dragon snarls, tensing its body to lunge at her at any second, however, she simply ignores it. Opening the lid, she's met with thick cuts of raw meat. She takes several cuts of the meat from the insulated container, before holding it out in front of the dragon. If the dragon needs raw meat, she has a particular selection of premium raw meat for herself that she could use for the dragon. 

“Eat,” she demands as she offers the food. The dragon, still maintaining its anxious behavior, stalks closer, sniffing the food before it latches its teeth on the steak. 

“I have as much meat as you could want, better quality as well. I'll feed you, shelter you, and take care of that cut for you. Come with me.” She says, offering another slab of meat. 

The dragon doesn't respond, nor stop eating, but its body relaxes. By the time it reaches its last piece of meat, it's eating out of her hand. Arlecchino uses the close proximity to examine the dragon's injuries. The dragon nudges its head against her hand, and Arlecchino strokes the dragon's head. 

“Will you come home with me?” 

The dragon gives her an affirmative croak. 

—

The dragon did not grow any larger even in the months it stayed with her, nor did it transform into its human form yet. Its wound had been festering for quite a while, however under her care, it is healing remarkably quickly. Arlecchino proposes that the dragon is using its energy to heal from the wound. Had the dragon not done so, it would have surely met an agonizing fate. This continuous depletion didn't allow for the  dragon to grow in size, transform, or use its powers and it would have continued in that state for years had she not rescued it. 

It must be because of this that the dragon does not take long to get attached to her.

The dragon always sticks near her, sometimes physically on top of her. If it's not on her shoulder or head, then it's on her lap. Getting accustomed to how clingy the dragon is was a struggle, but she soon learns. 

If she'd allow it, it'd follow her everywhere. It's almost endearing. 

It only took three days for the dragon to sneak into her bedroom. The morning after, she awakened with an unfamiliar weight over her torso, and she found that the dragon was nestled on top of her. The next night that she slept, it was nuzzled against her neck and sprawled over her right shoulder. She'd be lying if she said it was an unwelcome sight, and it became a nightly occurrence. 

Often the dragon would play and entertain the House of the Hearth children. Sometimes, it'd accompany her outside, but only on certain missions. After all, she needed to test the dragon’s abilities in its current condition, and who better to test it on than the scum of Fontaine? 

Something else she finds intriguing is that the dragon devours fire, much like how the Iudex fancies his water, though the dragon is particular to her blood flames than any typical flames. On occasion, she uses her powers as a treat that the creature happily indulges in. 

Arlecchino only wonders what more she would learn once the dragon finally transforms. 

—

Arlecchino returns to the House of the Hearth after another irritating Harbinger meeting, rather exasperated and irked by some of the impudence and dimness of her ‘coworkers.’ She reaches her bedroom, exhaling a sigh. Before she enters, she hears scuffling from beyond her bedroom door. Her door is slightly cracked open, implying that someone had entered during her absence. From the small opening of her door, she catches a glimpse of a figure. Instantly, her eyes narrow and she withdraws her scythe. 

Intruders have no place in her house. She knows that no children are inside, as it's one of the first things she's instilled when they first come: stay away from her room under any circumstance. So who is this audacious soul that dares trespass into her chambers?

Upon opening the door, she does not expect the speed of her assailant, as a figure crashes into her, wrapping their arms around her neck, face pressed against her neck. Arlecchino is momentarily stunned by the action, but for some reason, it feels familiar. The body is abnormally hot, too warm for a human being. This isn't someone she recognizes, and she was about to throw the being off of her when she paused. A purr erupts from the other person's throat, the vibrations coursing through the Harbinger. 

“Arle…” the person murmurs, the name making Arlecchino hesitate. They lean away, tilting their head and glancing up at her, and then her breath hitches. Vibrant, slitted eyes stare back at her, that gaze only belonging to a certain dragon she knows. 

“You're the–”

“–Dragon. It's finally nice to meet you, Arlecchino,” you say, as you finally uncoil your arms around her. Arlecchino observes you for longer, her scythe disappearing. Now that there's no threat, Arlecchino takes the time to observe your human form. 

“Are you fully healed?”

You nod, giving her a soft smile. “I am. Thank you. I'm indebted to you. I'm sure you know of this, but I would not have survived for much longer if it weren't for your help. If you'd allow me, I'd like to work under you as a repayment. I'm sure you'd like what I have to offer.” 

Arlecchino closes her eyes, a ghost of a smile appearing over her lips. “Very well.” 

—

Arlecchino learns many things about you. She learns of your favorite food, which happens to be her blood fire. The way you favor your meat served and how you're incredibly food-excitable. She learns that your wings and tails are incredibly sensitive underneath her fingertips and she is well aware that she abuses this knowledge. She learns that your presence lifts her heart and it’s only you that can appreciate her curse. 

Your favorite touch from her is your head. Everyday, she'd pat you on the head the same way she did the night she saved you. Kissing your forehead and carding through your hair are close seconds.

She learns that there are some things that don't change even with your new form. While you never return to your small size in your dragon form, it does not mean you still do not linger around her, sitting in her lap when she's at her desk. You still play with the children, often acting as the ‘Mother’ role that the children did not have. And every night, you return to her bedside, embraced in her arms. 

There are a few things that have changed with your new form. Arlecchino feels as if you've rekindled her, your love is another flame in her veins that doesn't scorch her being, but instead, you warm her soul, consuming her cursed blood flames. 

It's what inspires the name that she always calls you before you drift to sleep. 

“Mon petit feu.”

[fromthedragonsdesk]

On Visual Novels and Catharsis

I never had a high opinion of Visual Novels. In my mind, they always seemed to boil down to the most basic wish fulfillment tripe that we'd collectively assign to the isekai genre these days, I'd wager. To me it was a waste of time or energy trying to interact with them (as an aside, I'm well aware that the Phoenix Wright series is arguably a visual novel, but I missed that boat by not having DS-era device). Even today, with a glance over most of games tagged 'visual novel' on Steam, you'll see what could be generously described as fetish pornography. So, seeing all this, I reinforced my belief that visual novels were for people who wanted some plot with their porn, and never thought much of it.

To my surprise, Steam insisted on recommending visual novels to me. I usually just tossed them aside from the recommendation queue, until I got two recommended almost back-to-back: Mice Tea and Changeling Tale.

Mice Tea had generally positive reviews, and many of them cited that the game's writing and characterization were generally humorous and appealing. So, given that it was on sale during the Steam Winter Sale, I figured it was worth a shot. Then, after basically binging on the game for 20 hours, I walked away thinking that I might have misjudged the genre on some levels.

I wouldn't say I was entirely surprised by Mice Tea - the reviews did it justice in terms of you, as the reader, wanting to root for the main cast to succeed. Most of the conflict didn't necessarily arise from an outside force, but rather internalized conflicts and the struggle to essentially be honest with yourself and those around you, risking vulnerability, essentially. At its core, I still felt like it was wish fulfillment to a significant degree, but the implausibilities were generally smoothed over enough to allow for suspension of disbelief to ride along with the story. And yeah, there... was a fair amount of catering to various fetishes and such worked in, but all in a fairly world-consistent sort-of perspective? At its core, the story was light, cheerful with moments of self-reflection and introspection, and wrapped up in a generally nice bow all in the end.

But what Mice Tea ended up doing for me, personally, was allowing me to lower my defenses during a particularly stressful point in my life, staying present in my mind when I then read over the reviews and such for Changeling Tale. I brushed off the emotion reviews, thinking that they were likely being dramatic.

I could not have been more wrong.

While set in a backdrop of old Scottish fantasy, I continually found myself impressed at how grounded Changeling Tale managed to make itself felt. I believe this is because the main character / player character of Changeling Tale (hereafter referred to as "Malcolm") is primarily reacting to the supernatural events occurring around him, rather than necessarily driving them by his own volition. Malcolm is thrust into a world that he already feels disconnected from due to his service in the military, and it cracks further open as fae magic begins seeping into the world around him.

That said, no one in the backwater town in which Malcolm has returned to handles the public appearance of fae magic particularly well, much less the three parallel storylines available to the reader between Jessie, Marion, and Grace. If anything, the most unreasonable reactions come from the player themselves, in how flippant or otherwise easygoing they handle changes happening to the people around them. That said, many decisions have a snowballing / weighted effect that can change plot directions far later on than one might expect, leading to fallings-out with friends and family, or worse.

But then something strange happened to me, as a reader, while working my way through these split storylines. Core messages seemed to stick out to me, interwoven among the stories. But they cut me straight to the core as a person; after finishing all 3 major storylines I was left shaking and bleary-eyed, wishing events could have turned out differently, desperately trying to reject the messages that had been suggested despite knowing deep-down that they were right.

"Be the best you that you can be."

"Encourage people to chase their dreams, but make sure you're pursuing your dream too."

"Sometimes peoples' dreams are irreconcilable with one another. That doesn't mean the love is gone, it just means that it isn't fair to either person."

"The size of the dream does not diminish its value; the holder of the dream determines its value."

(I intentionally omitted the storyline associations I would make)

When I held all of these thoughts together, an emotional dam burst in my heart. For years I never considered myself as having dreams or goals. For years I felt kind of confused and wondering if what I was doing mattered, or had worth. But somehow, a visual novel about fae shenanigans that dances alongside a transformation kink broadsides me with the realization that I AM where I want to be, doing what I am doing. I have a family who l love and loves me back. I am not pursuing a dream; rather, I am cultivating and maintaining a dream I have already attained. I am doing what is important to me and my family, and even if I'm not changing the world around me and leaving a name in the history books, I know that I am here and directly affecting the lives of those around me, and I'm not sure what more I could want for at this very moment.

And for the first time in quite a while, I feel content and satisfied.

[just-horrible-things]

Blue

Have you ever been on a plane bound west, and flown out from the night-shadow of the Earth back into the daylight, even though your body still believes it to be the dead of night? The effect is magical and somewhat eerie – sunrise at midnight, an impossibility made possible by the wonders of modern transportation.

Aeroplanes have always been a little magical to me. I love the moment of take-off, when the wheels come off the tarmac and you feel the lift – the implausible transition from the familiar rumble of a road vehicle – albeit a very very large and very very fast one – to flight, true flight.

Landing brings – in balance – a certain disappointment. Although I am usually as eager as the next person to get off the plane and onward to my next destination, there is still a kind of a pang at touchdown. We leave the domain of the skies and gravity reasserts itself, rendering us earthbound once more.

The plane in question departed at 23:47 local time – only ten minutes after its scheduled departure, so not bad going. Being early spring it was by then quite dark outside, and we took off with cabin lights dimmed and the false promise of sleep in the air.

Bearing almost directly westward, it wasn’t long before the sky outside began to lighten again – someone’s evening becoming our dawn as the clocks turned back. Being a peculiar sort of romantic, I watched the sky avidly as we pursued the recently-set Sun over the horizon, hoping to see it rise again ahead of us.

As I was seated in the middle of my row, this involved a certain amount of craning my head to see past the woman in the window seat. And while people on planes are usually quite understanding of the desire to see out of the window, there is still a certain degree of awkwardness. We laughed about it as one does to clear embarrassment from the air, and from there we were sort of obliged to speak to one another.

She told me that she would swap with me if it weren’t for her air-sickness, and I told her that it was no problem. She mentioned that her family tease her for taking long haul flights anyway, and told me that she was visiting her parents. I spoke briefly about the convention I was attending, we diverted into a brief tangent on anime due to a misunderstanding, introductions were made – her name was Aisyah, which took me a couple of attempts to pronounce correctly – and then we got to talking about my career.

(In the end we didn’t get to see the sun rise in the west, as the nose of the plane thoroughly obstructed our view. Alas.)

I normally try to avoid talking much about my writing, as it seems a little conceited and I’m very conscious of the temptation to ramble well beyond the point of anyone else’s interest in the details of a fictional economy or public transport network. But Aisyah was exceedingly curious about the genre and I must admit I allowed myself to be drawn into a rather self-aggrandising discussion of my works and process.

It was in the middle of this discussion that the bell preceding an announcement chimed, and the senior flight attendant’s voice came over the speakers asking if there were any meteorologists aboard.

As someone who understands what a meteorologist studies, this was somewhat concerning to me. 

Aisyah and I shared a look, and then I instinctively looked to the window. By this point Aisyah had somewhat rotated in her seat to make conversation more comfortable, and all I could see over her shoulder was a slice of clear blue sky.

I joked, uncomfortably, about expecting turbulence, and then we returned to our conversation – which at the time I think was about the sliding scale between hard and soft sci fi.

Shortly thereafter, a second announcement was made, this time asking for any scientists aboard – particularly if working in the physical sciences – to please made themselves known to the cabin crew.

This, I think not unreasonably, was rather unsettling to me.

“Why would they need a scientist?” Aisyah asked. “Don’t they usually ask for a doctor?” “In movies, sure,” I responded, “I don’t know if they do that in real life.” But I had no answer to her first, more important question.

We looked around the cabin. A number of other passengers seemed similarly concerned and perplexed, but most were still absorbed in whatever distraction they had brought aboard – screens and books and magazines. A few were successfully sleeping, despite the daylight.

When the announcement was repeated, Aisyah reached up and pushed the call button above our heads.

“You didn’t tell me you worked in science. What do you study?” She laughed – in retrospect somewhat uncomfortably – made a non-committal sound, and wondered aloud, “What do you think they want?”

It did not take long for a flight attendant to appear. Her customer service smile was absent, replaced by grim gravity. I looked to Aisyah expectantly, already pressing myself back against my seat to make room for her to get up. But she pointed at me.

“Me? Oh, no, I’m sorry, there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said. “I mean, I have an undergrad degree in physics but that was a decade ago – I’m an author. I write fiction.” “He’s very knowledgeable,” Aisyah argued. “He writes science fiction, and he reads research papers for all of the science. He’s very nearly a scientist.”

The flight attendant’s lips pressed together in an – understandably! – unimpressed line. She looked up and down the cabin. I looked up and down the cabin. There was a distinct absence of lit call signals, or other attendants speaking to specific passengers as if they had been called. 

I could only see one guy at the front speaking to a rather agitated-looking passenger. He met his colleague’s eyes and did a little grimace and a tiny headshake that I took to mean that his passenger wasn’t a good candidate either.

“Are you?” the attendant said to me, “Very nearly a scientist?” “I mean, I guess I’m well read, I’d consider my grasp of the fundamentals pretty solid…” “And you studied physics?” “Yeah…” “I suppose you’ll do.”

So I followed her up the plane, through the tiny crew area, to the rather solid security doors that separate the pilots from the passengers. 

We were joined as we passed them by the agitated maybe-scientist found by the other flight attendant. He looked about fourteen – though I don’t think he was fourteen, he just had one of those faces that are cursed – or blessed – with looking like teenagers right up until their hair starts to grey. His sense of style reinforced the impression of youth. He had pierced ears and an undercut, and his faded t-shirt bore what I could only assume was the logo of some band I don’t know.

The pilot and co-pilot glanced round as we were ushered into the cockpit. I was surprised by how much space there was, honestly. It was pretty cramped, but there was more space behind the pilots’ seats than I expected. Enough for us two passengers and the one flight attendant to awkwardly squeeze in together. 

I guess the pilots have to be able to get up and stretch their legs every so often.

The captain’s expression was as grim as the attendant’s. There was a slightly wild, haunted cast to her eyes, which did nothing to calm my building unease. She gestured, sharply but expansively, at the windshield – is it called a windshield on an aeroplane? I’m not sure.

Mr. Undercut saw it first. His shocked little “oh” cued me in to the scale of what I was looking for. 

When I saw it, I couldn’t imagine how I didn’t see it instantly. It became searingly obvious, like an optical illusion suddenly snapping into focus, except accompanied by the unpleasant lurching feeling of missing a step on the stairs.

“Where’s the ground?” Mr. Undercut asked. “You’ve identified the crux of the problem,” said the pilot.

As far as the eye could see, there was just open blue sky – a little paler above us, a shade deeper below.

I leant closer to the glass as far as I could, as if imagining that the horizon was merely fractionally out of view beneath the body of the plane. “Are we over the ocean?” I asked, dumbly. I knew we weren’t over the ocean. We weren’t supposed to be over the ocean, at any rate. “No.” 

“Okay,” I said. “Nobody panic.” “Nobody is panicking,” the co-pilot retorted sharply.

“It could be some kind of – attack,” said Undercut. “Someone on the ground aiming something at us that – causes some kind of illusion?” “It seems more likely that it’s some kind of atmospheric effect,” I argued. “What, exactly, are your qualifications?” the co-pilot demanded.

Undercut ran a hand awkwardly through his hair. “I’m doing a PhD in Physical Chemistry,” he admitted. “I have no qualifications,” I said, in a hurry to get that fact out there as soon as possible. “I mean, I have an undergrad degree but – I think we’re the best they could find. I’m widely read. Sorry.” The pilot cast the flight attendant a look of disbelief. “Two hundred passengers,” the co-pilot bemoaned, “and not a single doctorate?” “Sorry,” I repeated.

We stared at the wide open blue in shared discomfort.

“It’s probably some kind of reflection or refraction,” I theorised nervously. “Like a mirage, a temperature differential in the air. Sometimes people on the ground see images floating in the sky of cities or mountains that are hundreds of miles over the horizon –” “Fata Morgana,” the pilot interjected. “Right. Because it refracts – and if the boundary between layers was sharp enough it could even reflect. We’re seeing the sky above us, reflected off a boundary below us. Maybe?” “We thought that,” said the pilot. “What do the instruments say?”

There was a drawn out silence that made me sure before they said anything that what the instruments said was nothing good.

“That’s the other half of the problem,” the pilot ventured grudgingly. “We’ve got no radio, no connection to anyone at all.” “Well.” I swallowed. I was very glad I’m not a nervous flyer. “It could be the same effect, right? The radio waves are bouncing off the same boundary, they can’t reach us.” “We should have a satellite connection,” the co-pilot put in.

I looked up. I’m not sure why a plane needs such a good view of the sky above, but we could certainly see a lot further up than down.

Somewhere up there, the plane should have been able to see the satellites above us. I was struck by the unsettling idea that if it weren’t daylight, there’d be no stars up there either, just unbroken black.

“Hold on,” I said, as I felt that stomach-dropping-out lurching sensation again. “Where’s the sun?”

It should have been directly ahead of us, with the glare in all of our eyes. Instead the light was directionless, like an overcast day but brighter, seeming to come from the whole sky at once and no place in particular.

“Yeah,” said the pilot.

Another silence. I could hear voices from the cabin behind us, the murmur of a lot of people talking at once. 

“Have we… got turned around somehow? Could it be behind us?” “Can’t rule it out. No compass.” “No compass?” That couldn’t be a mirage effect. “No compass.” “It’s not behind us,” the pilot said. “You’d see it on the wings.” “We’ve checked,” the flight attendant added.

She ducked out, then. We heard the raised voices more clearly for a second, with the door open. People had noticed that they couldn't see the ground.

“Some kind of lenticular effect,” Undercut said. He had his phone out and was tapping furiously into what looked at a glance like some kind of notes app. “Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re in a kind of bubble, light and other EM waves are refracting around us. We can’t see the sun or the ground because neither of them are at the right angle.” “Have you heard of anything like that?” asked the pilot. “Anything remotely like that?” “Other than the floating city mirages… no.” “Sun dogs,” Undercut suggested. “It must be a very rare phenomenon. But rare phenomena happen. Someone’s got to be the first to document these things. If we lose altitude we ought to pass below the edge of the effect…”

The hubbub behind us was growing louder. I could hear one man in particular growing louder and more hysterical minute by minute.

The captain flicked a switch, and held up a hand to the rest of us to be quiet.

“This is your captain speaking. As you can see from your windows, we are currently passing through a rare atmospheric phenomenon causing the ground not to be visible from our current position. Please remain calm.

“I have lit the Fasten Seatbelts sign. There is a possibility of sudden turbulence, so please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened, and enjoy the unusual view from the windows. Or, if you are finding it unsettling, simply close your window shutters and wait for it to pass.

“We are about to start descending in order to reach a more favourable layer of air. We are not intending to land, this is likely to be a short descent. We are still three and a half hours from our destination. Once again, please return to your seats and remain calm.”

She exhaled, long and slow, after finishing the announcement. We all listened. The hubbub was no quieter – perhaps even a little louder – but perhaps less agitated and upset. The yelling man had quieted down.

Undercut was still tapping away on his phone.

“I don’t think you can get the refractive index of air high enough,” he said, “to explain this.” “What about reflection?” I asked. “You’d see through it if it was reflection. Like looking at the surface of water.” “Not if it was strong enough.” “I’m not done with the numbers,” he acknowledged. “But I don’t think it’s possible.” “What about contaminants?” I said. “Some… industrial gas in the air, messing with the optical properties…” “Doubtful,” he said. “Diffusion would spread it out pretty fast…” “Diffusion’s weird sometimes. Think haloclines.” “Mh,” he agreed, still tapping. “Can’t rule it out. Yet.”

I felt the subtle shift that told us we’d started our descent. Downward acceleration countering gravity by the tiniest amount. More subtle than the descent of a lift going down, but definitely noticeable.

“You’ll get one hell of a PhD out of this,” I joked. “Whatever the cause.” “In physical chemistry? I don’t think so.” “You’ll have to change to physics.” “Oh hell no.”

“What’s our altitude?” I asked. “Altimeters are out,” the pilot said. “Or at least… the needles aren’t moving.” “Tell me that’s an electronic system,” Undercut said. “Something that can have just, an error…” “The backup is just a barometer. Physical. Detects atmospheric pressure.” “Okay,” I said. “Okay. Well… what do they say our altitude is?” “Ten point two kilometers. Same as before… this.” “And they agree with each other, the different instruments?” “Yes.”

Descent continued. It didn’t feel like much, but I’m no expert and I had no idea how to assess how fast we were descending. Whatever the pilots felt appropriate, I supposed. The conversation had died. Undercut was still buried in his calculations, trying to find a set of conditions that could explain what we were seeing. The rest of us stared, unsettled, into the unbroken blue.

There weren’t even clouds, not even a wisp or a pale haze. Just blue.

[anndramarama]

Dihua fic recipe. Suitable for beginner and experienced cooks.

Add Li Lianhua's fear of intimacy and Di Feisheng's lack of boundaries to a medium saucepan with a generous tablespoon of the self-loathing/anger/guilt felt by both parties regarding 1) their past failures and 2) the helplessness brought on by corruption and betrayal within their martial organizations.

Whisk aggressively.

Keep in mind that both ingredients are touch-starved martial geniuses who struggled to tell the difference between sexual attraction and the impulse to fight nearly to the death.

As orphans whose education was incomplete or completely lacking, you might assert that these ingredients should not be served together at the same banquet, let alone combined in such a way, but be patient and trust the recipe even if it's hard at the start.

Di Feisheng in particular will constantly assert that he wants to be "on top" and not know what that means or why it makes Li Xiangyi's eyes flash and cheeks turn pink before he fights him harder, ever harder.

Li Xiangyi will be baffled when their relationship doesn't seem to change no matter how many brain-breaking orgasms he wrings out of the other man, or how many kisses are shared, and will arrange several more negotiations and secret meetings than strictly necessary to try to establish the ultimate, final, total, and most all-encompassing peace the jianghu has ever seen.

But don't worry: Li Xiangyi's bafflement and Di Feisheng's trauma-induced cluelessness are complementary flavors that will only add spice to the dish.

When you get to the point where you're tired of stirring it will still be almost impossible to keep them from separating in the pan, so don't even try. In fact it is essential to the recipe that their essences separate and come together continually in a clash of swords, an exchange of looks, and other forms of rough, suggestive touching.

(Give up on plot at this point. You don't need that, it's expensive, and hardly anyone will notice. You can throw in some implausible machinations by side characters later if you're concerned.)

Next, add two cups of salted water and bring to a roaring boil. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for ten years.

Ignore any sounds of anguish that escape the pan. This is a necessary step that lets them work things out, if only mentally and in the form of heated, yearning nightmares (Li Xiangyi) and repetitive, dissociative hallucinations that for anyone else would be indistinguishable from pining (Di Feisheng).

Finally, uncover and get ready to plate.

At this point both ingredients' idealism, which could barely be detected as a standalone flavor to begin with, should assert itself and almost dazzle the senses, if only briefly. As they slowly re-enter the world together that synchronicity will bring with it a renewed appreciation for life, for gentleness and roughness as appropriate, for tantalizing secrets and lies, and extra time for boning behind closed doors. They will feel young together, and then they will feel middle-aged; Di Feisheng will let himself feel real emotions and, watching him both in and out of bed, Li Xiangyi -- now Li Lianhua -- will wish he had more time.

Add a dash of Fang Duobing at the end, but keep in mind that he isn't just there for garnish: when introduced in the right amounts Fang Duobing can add to the flavor and complexity of the dish, particularly by improving its general sweetness and, for the two main ingredients, he adds an extra note of innocence tempered by regret, sacrifice, and love.

Serve with wedding wine, in secret, under a crescent moon on a day that no one else knows is auspicious.

[kharmii]

Yeah, it's the hugely amount of respect he shows and him just embracing this foreign culture like he always has used it. (Also seeing him going "Almighty Sinnoh!" in fics or getting confused when they refer to the Region as Sinnoh, despite at the end of the games story they decided to call Hisui Sinnoh from now on. It sometimes makes me feel only a handful of people have actually played the game and the majority just does whatever they want...

Nevermind me. Also that comic was wholesome and cute!

Now I wanna hear your take on all of this since it felt you implied you had your own thoughts on that topic as well! (and honestly I like reading your takes and opinions. People might be beefing with you at times but everyone is allowed to have their own opinions. (also all the characters are fictional so lay off the moral compass @ others))

Everybody has the right to their own opinions, but if someone is a minor on here, then they should stay out of shipping discourse. A lot of ships involve stupid fetishes that are R-18. If someone is a legal adult who is not emotionally mature enough to recognize that fetishes can't be seen in the context of irl morality, then that person should also stay out of shipping discourse. Use that block button. If you can't tell that an incest fetish isn't the same as supporting irl incest, then by all means, block that 'immoral' person.

I get this is the 'werewolf fckn site' (as reference to that gross post showing a pineapple being squeezed in a vice to represent knotting). It's not really that specific thing, per se, but Tumblr to me has always been a fandom fetish site. I've been on here since 2014 and seen Rule 34 about almost everything. It just seems like certain kinks are overrepresented because we have to deal with the social contagion of trans-coded fetishes, and so we're stuck seeing smelly wolf beasts, enormously fat people vomiting and farting on each other, ass-womb m-preg abortions, etc etc.....

About Ingo...not sure if anything ever bugged me in fan fiction besides the ultrabeast head canon, but it bothered me in canon that they made him so short. Even with a hunched back, I feel like he should have been closer to Volo's height and definitely taller than the clan leaders. I'm also not wild about the head canons where there's this huge age gap between Ingo and Melli, and that Ingo was there long enough to know him as a child.

Also, blankshippers beefed with Volo ships because they didn't like how he was an implausible alternative, but then Melli is just as bad. They did interact in the highlands and probably both spend a lot of time there, but realistically they are from different clans so it's awkward. I still like the ship because there's so much good content of it, just that in the back of my mind I'm like....there's no way that would ever happen. Ingo might be friendly with his clan and the people in the training grounds, but he wouldn't ever be able to fully integrate. If he said "Almighty Sinnoh" or showed so much respect to Sneasler, then it would only be because he felt he had to do it or risk committing a faux pas. I doubt he'd have anything to do with the Diamond Clan and wouldn't interact with Melli unless he had to.

Anyway, have some cute pictures of Ingo with his giant purple cat sloth thing.

Art credit: The Skiz biz@limitlesskyz

-AND-

agari┃みすきはﾍｯﾀﾞ@agari33 Twitter.

[fallow-grove]

rp cont.

[As you fall deeper and deeper into the water, you find it hard to stay conscious. You drift off, knowing you should do something to save yourself; but the water reeks of magic that binds you, renders you unable to swim upward — not that you even want to, the water is so nice, if you would just let go and fall asleep —

— something yanks you, so rudely pulling you up and out of the lovely waters, and you almost want to fight it to go back to the alluring deep — but you're still tired and unable to move, so you let yourself be dragged away. There's a moment where you're blinded by the sun, crudely thrown onto the sand, and you see a familiar shape — four familiar shapes, albeit blurry. You black out]

[You come to, drenched and coughing water, on a sandy bank. Couple meters away from you @greyhound-with-a-mega-wizard-hat lay still unconscious. In the other direction, Lachlan lies on a flat rock, breathing deeply; open-eyed but not awake. Hunter — the hunter you know — stays near them, with an expression you can't quite decipher, and magically weaves the water from Lachlan's attire, slowly and carefully, as to not damage it]

[A bit further away, where there is a grassy patch near the lake, Horsey is calmly grazing]

[fallow tries to speak, but gags and ends up expelling an implausible amount of water before regaining some semblance of a voice.]

hunter!! hey, you're here! i- one second. [ae picks up hatt with notably more arms than hunter has seen before and holds her upside down, trying to make sure she's not full of water too.] where *kaffh* where've ya been??

[allyheart707]

Even Dead, He Proves Me Wrong!

Just posted chapter 12 if anyone is interested in reading it!! Here is the first chapter:

Chapter One: A Voice In The Dark

— Day Thirty One  —

Donnie didn’t know why he was doing what he was doing, or what he was doing. Even when the probability of Leo’s survival was practically zero- zero point five eight nine to be exact - he found himself studying the key… again . There wasn’t much he could learn through the key alone, but paired with the few scans of the dimension his scanners were able to take during the attack, he was able to learn a little- though none of those scans had made Leo’s chance of survival go up- rather, they made them lower.

At first he was hopeful there would be a form of time dilation that shortened his time in the dimension compared to theirs, but his scans of the rift and the fact that such a large rift could be opened for so long between the two worlds made that idea implausible at best. Another theory he had was that he may have gotten away from the Kraang and was living in solitude somewhere in the dimension somewhere- it was unlikely that he could escape with the alarming amount of injuries detected, but he couldn’t rule it out. However, he could rule that possibility out with another of his scans: life. There was not a single sign of life coming from that dimension. He had found very trace amounts of water, and quite a few large pockets of other random elements during his scan, but nothing organic. The water levels weren’t even high enough for him to assume there would be drinkable water, more just a small hint of humidity in the air. 

The only thing he could cling to now was the fact that the Kraangs had lived in that dimension for so long, there had to be a way to survive, even if he couldn’t figure it out yet.

‘Maybe there was water and food somewhere far enough away from the rift that my scanners couldn’t pick it up? Still, with his injuries… would he be able to get that far away? - especially while also needing to avoid the Kraang… it was unlikely.’

“Zero point five eight nine.” ‘ It isn’t zero until I can prove it. He isn’t dead until I can prove it.’

“... But how do I prove it?” He muttered to himself as he pushed his chair from his white board- filled with the many theories he had been mulling over- back to his desk where the key sat.

It wasn't as if he could use it to open the portal, because that would lead to a repeat apocalypse without the help of their dumb-dumb brother and his horribly dumb plan to sacrifice himself… ' but what if he is alive? What if- what if-'

"Great, Mikey is in my head again!” ‘ What ifs' are not science! ’

“It has to be provable, studiable, and- and the only way to prove it would be too…." He stared at the key, a wave of bitterness washing over him.

"Too doom the world…” ‘and completely betray the final- and dumb- act of his almost certainly - ᵇᵘᵗ ʰᵒᵖᵉᶠᵘˡˡʸ ⁿᵒᵗ - deceased brothers sacrifice!’ 

‘But… really… would destroying the whole world be that bad of a sacrifice? If we could save Leo then- NO! No. He’s gone. I need to accept that- I have accepted that. It has been a month. A month without food, water, and trapped with the kraang… Scared, alone, and-’ 

“Don?” Raph’s deep voice suddenly broke through one of his many inescapable mind loops that he kept inconveniently getting stuck in, sending him jumping practically to the ceiling.

“Oh my god Raph, haven’t you heard of knocking? I’m busy- ” He groaned, staring at the large snapping turtle that leaned against his lab door, his tired eyes staring back at him.

“Busy doin’ what, Don? Staring at that key again? I… I know it’s hard but you need to stop . I know what you're thinking an’ it’s a bad idea. We can’t. Mikey almost died when he-”

“I’m not an idiot, Raph! I’m.. not going to do anything. I just… Maybe if I learn a little about the prison dimension- I can at least find out… I can prove it.”

“Prove what Donnie?” Raph sounded so tired…

He was the only one keeping them together at this point. If it wasn’t for him, Mikey would have tried his ‘magic hands’ again and ended up turning to magic dust, his arms were already pretty screwed up from his first attempt. Donnie was pretty sure he wouldn’t have left his room at all if it wasn’t for Raphs constant nagging. If he was a better brother, he would try and comfort him too but… he just didn’t know how .

“I-I have to prove he’s really gone. If I can’t prove it then- then- how will I know it’s real? I-I don’t know how to handle this. Every logical thing tells me he’s gone but… I can’t. It’s like my brain is tearing itself apart- if I just have proof then I can- I will be able to accept it. I can move on or- or something ! I just hate- I hate how much i-it h-hurts- Raph… I want it to stop.” Donnie never really liked hugs, but he didn’t mind it when Raph stepped forward and gently placed his arms around him.

“I’m sorry, ‘Tello. I-I’m so sorry. I miss him too but… You can’t risk your life or everyone's just to… I can’t lose anyone else, so please…” He pulled his brother closer, feeling unwanted tears build in his eyes, making him feel overwhelmed and childish; Donatello didn’t cry, he never cried- he… was bawling , and, so was his brother- though that was less surprising to the soft shell. 

They sat in a tearful hug until their tears came to an end and Donnie began to feel overwhelmed by the touch, pulling back from the embrace and wiping away whatever remnants of his emotions were left in order to attempt to pretend they never happened. 

‘ Raph has been holding us together this whole time… I shouldn’t hurt him anymore. I should get out of my room, stop overthinking, stop being so damn irrational!’

“I’m sorry, too, Raph. I’ll… I’ll lock the key away. I will not touch it again, I’m sorry I’ve been such a dumb-dumb lately.” His promise laid heavy in the room as the two turtles fell silent…

Neither of them spoke the rest of the night.

— Day Thirty Two  —

“YOU GAVE UP ON HIM TOO?! H-how could you?” Mikey was bound to be upset, but Donnie couldn’t stand how betrayed and lost he looked, his voice cracking in desperation and anger as he stared between his older brothers.

“Leo would never give up on you!” He shouted at them, his breath ragged, his still bandaged arms flailing around him, proof of his final failed attempt at rescuing their brother. 

Leo wouldn’t have given up on them, Mikey was right about that. He would have worked himself until he couldn’t anymore trying to get them back. He also would be the one to yell at us if we tried to do the same for him. Still, none of those facts mattered in the face of one blatantly obvious one;

“Leo. isn’t. Here. So 'what he would or would not do' does not matter! He’s gone, dead, deceased, don’t you understand that? Don’t you- y-” Mikey turned from him, tears bunching up in his eyes, and ran away. Raph just stared.

“Oh no… Mikey- I didn’t think … I… I’m sorry.” 

….

Mikey wasn’t there to hear his apology.

…

The lair was really quiet after that.

— Day Eighty Nine —

Casey Jr, April, Splinter and the three remaining brothers were gathered in a small, somber group. They had just cleared a section of the base to make room for a simple shrine. Splinter had found a very nice polished wooden dresser that was painted black, it was covered in flowers that April had brought. Raph had found a really nice picture of him and framed it. Donnie made new fairy lights to wrap around it, and Casey set the one katana he managed to find in the center to act as the main display.

Mikey stood the furthest back from the rest of the group, he didn’t set anything at the shrine.

— Day One Hundred —

Raph broke down after a mission.

Donnie ran away to his room again.

And Mikey… 

Mikey added flowers to Leo’s shrine.

…

Happy birthday, Leo.

— Day One Hundred And Twenty, and at precisely two thirty eight in the morning  —

“Shell, I miss sleeping.” Donnie groaned as he stared at the glowing blue shrine.

This was strange to say the least, because the fairy lights were very well programmed, seeing as they were made by none other than Donatello Hamato himself. They were definitely not programmed to randomly light up the room at two in the morning. They were also simple LED bulbs without any color changing abilities what-so-ever - though that would be a nice touch that he would be adding later. The only other logically illogical thing that could be glowing on that shrine was Leo’s katana. Seeing as that was impossible, the explanation was clear: He was hallucinating from lack of sleep. Obviously.

“I should go to sleep.” ‘I shouldn’t get infected by those insistent, nagging, mind-splitting ‘what if’s’ that I have just managed to shake.’

‘But what if…’

‘DAMMIT!’

He found his sleep deprived body moving without his consent, running to the shrine, practically falling over himself as he stared at the shining blue katana. The symbols glowed such a gorgeous blue and shell did he miss his brother… sadly, glowing was all the sword was doing, no portal opened and his brother never appeared. 

‘What does this mean? (It means you need to go to bed.) Does this mean he’s alive? (No, it means you have been awake for three days straight.) Should I do something? (Yes! Go. To. Bed!)’

“Maybe… if I…” He slowly felt his hands move towards the katana, his hands shaking from some weird mix of anticipation, sleep deprivation, and doubt.

The second his hand connected with the sword, a wave of blue shot through the room from the sword, almost immediately giving him a throbbing headache. 

‘Ow! I told you- me- ugh! I knew I should have gone to bed. Hallucinations have never hurt this bad- but that's just what you get when you don’t listen to yourse-’

‘ D-Donnie?’ His missing brother's voice rang inside his head as if they were his own thoughts.

‘… Leo?’ He felt like his brain had just shut down and was in the slow and painful process of restarting. The headache never went away.

‘I’m… hearing Nardo's voice in my head now. Great. Good. Fannnnntastic. I’ve lost it. I finally deprived myself of enough sleep and I’ve gone insane! Why did my hallucination have to be this of all things? Couldn’t my mind have conjured up literally anything else?! Maybe I just need to-’

‘ Dammit- Of course even the hallucination Donnie is only here to confuse me! Hallucinations can’t hallucinate… I think. 

Ha, I bet real-Donnie would know. Irony.’

‘You think I am the hallucination?!’ He felt almost hysterical at this point as he pressed his hand to his head and let out an odd and humorless laugh.

‘Oooooh maybe we're hallucinating each other, Don Ton?’

The headache was thrumming through his head and he was completely overwhelmed. ‘ His voice. Leo’s voice.’ He could feel his heart racing and his whole body shaking. ‘ Why? What does this mean? This can’t be real. WHY! Why, why, why!?’

He was breathing too fast, he was sure of it. He hated not knowing. He hated how much he felt and he despised how much his brain was trying to tell him this was real. He was the logic and science man, not the believes-in-hallucinations-of-their-dead-brother man!

He couldn’t breath and he felt his vision blur.

‘Hey, woah, calm down, Don. I'm sorry for scaring you I just… Really miss you guys. I-I’m kinda glad I went insane… At least I won't be so lonely here.’ His voice sounded just like he remembered it, better than any of his recordings.

‘I… Miss you too, ‘Nardo…’

Then, Donnie promptly and suddenly, completely passed out.

[10thmusemoon]

Ok i gotta know more about "mentally constructing my boss's dong for my waifu's enjoyment" xD

yesss! It actually wasn't Moshangyqy but Bingqiu+yqy!!

Basically, pre-transmigration SY's curiosity over slash fic is prompted by a convo in the forums + by his sister's fujoshi ways. However, he can't read MoBing for reasons he's too uncomfortable to think about, and he hates SQQ so QiJiu or Binggqiu is just out of the question. There's a limited amount of men in PIDW that are actually fully fleshed out and none that he actually thinks are on LBH's level except. Well...

Yue Qingyuan is his favorite non-Binghe cultivator. And he still isn't over how what happened to him. (🤝) His reasoning is this: LBH as the protagonist would, of course, never bottom for someone but if he HAD to wouldn't it make sense for it to be the one cultivator he couldn't directly take on? Also, PIDW canon suggests YQY is taller so it makes sense. The first fic he reads is YQY subjugating LBH and it leaves a sour taste in his mouth that he almost quits this whole endeavor to learn about the ways of the Green JJ sisters. Yes Yue Qingyuan and Luo Binghe are foes but so what!? Isn't this an alternate reality? In what world would Bingge take that and not fight tooth and nail if he was being forced?! And what about YQY's kindly big brother nature??? Too OOC!!

Doesn't Binghe deserve a little kindness? Surely something must exist-

Which is how SY goes down the YueBing rabbit hole, reading everything in the tags and eventually deciding that while it is all extremely implausible and OOC, he can see the appeal. Deleting his fic account and wiping his history, he calls his foray into the slash world of fanfic Finished. Now he never has to think about it again. (He does, he thinks about it a lot.)

After he transmigrates, there's more than one meeting where his brain is stuck in a loop of 'Don't think about zhanmeng-shixiong's dick, don't think about his dick, don't think about his dick-'

anyways, canon happens, he's happily married, and there's an instance where LBH is handling things in the demon realm but SY stays on QJP. Binghe decides to surprise SY in the dream realm only to see a naked YQY making sweet love to (and he is already screaming crying throwing up at this point)....HIM?!?!?

-

[mediocreanomaly]

Listen in your soulmate au we forgot about no less important men

Livio and Razlo! May we have something with them both with the same reader?

Authors Note: I should seriously kiss you on the mouth for this. Yes yes yes 1000x yes of course I'll write Livio and Razlo. They are my boys, I adore them. mwah (that's me giving you a small kiss on the head and cutting the crust of your sandwiches)

*I'm referencing a small amount of my Vashwood parts in here but you don't have to read it to understand this it can be read as a separate thing*

Read the Rest of the Soulmate AU Here!:

Vashwood: Part 1 | Part 2 Knives: Part 1

Livio & Razlo Soulmate AU

• Livio finds out about soulmates from Wolfwood actually, and it scares the living day light out of him.

•Little Livio is trailing behind big brother Nick when Nick suddenly double over, grunting and clutching at his side.

•Liv goes wide eyed grabbing him asking what's wrong

"S'nothin Liv, my soulmate just get's hurt a lot is all" "Soulmate?" "mhmm, you know. It's like- ugh, like you're tethered to another person and they can feel your pain? here let me just show you-" Nick pinches Livio and Livio rubs the spot "hey!" he whines before he suddenly, he feels a return pinch in the same spot

•After that Livio is both fascinated and scared. He's very excited to know there's someone out there meant to care for him but the fact he could potently hurt them...it makes him feel a bit sick

•He does his best to try and not get hurt, the first time he gets a paper cut after learning about soulmates he cries for half an hour while Wolfwood has to try and reassure him that his soulmate will forgive him

•He really does do everything he can to keep his soulmate happy but...then he learns about Razlo and they run away from the orphanage

•Now when Livio realizes that Razlo is there they both have conflicting feelings about...well everything. It's just that their soulmate is part of that very long list of things they need to work out when Livio finds out about Razlos existence

•Starting with Livio, he feels pretty awful that they've been potentially putting their soulmate through pain and he wasn't even aware of it. He doesn't have the memories that Razlos has of their childhood but...he gathers it wasn't great. Meaning they've hypothetically been hurting their soulmate before they even had the chance to prevent it. Along with the fact their joining the Gun-Ho-Gun's...

•Well Livio is distraught about that too but he doesn't really see another option. He's not really a praying man but rest assured he'll beg god that his soulmate understands if they ever meet considering all the things The Eye of Michael did to him

•As for Razlo...he's got complicated feelings about the whole thing. First off...he's jealous. Not that'd he'd ever take it out on Livio but when he began fronting and one day he felt their soulmate stub their toe, he got a bit in his head because...was this person really even his soulmate?

•Sure it was Livios soulmate but did the universe happen to factor him in? Would they be disappointed that they got stuck with him too? Would they even like him? What happened if Livio lost his soulmate just because he was there?

•In all it's a bit of a touchy subject for him. That along with the fact he holds most the memories of the body getting hurt so in a way he almost feels like it's his fault if their soulmate gets hurt. (even though it's 100% not)

•When they leave the leave the Gun-Ho-Guns to travel with Vash they eventually have to have a talk with each other about it. While working for Knives they honestly didn't even expect to meet their soulmate but now that their moving town to town with Vash (and his spitfire soulmate that he managed to find) it doesn't seem that implausible

•Livio wants their soulmate. He's tired of fighting and maybe it's the childish dreamer in him coming back but...he wants nothing more than his universally perfect other half. He often finds himself day dreaming about what they'll be like. Male? Female? Neither? Short? Tall? Loud? Quiet? honestly it changes in his head every time and no matter what he's sure he'll love them

•Razlo is slowly coming to terms with the whole thing although he's going to be a bit guarded until he meets them. Really he just wants to see how their soulmate will react to him before he gets his hope up. Still, considering how gung ho (get it?) Livio is about meeting their soulmate...he can't help but wonder too

•The only other thing they are both nervous about is...they've taken their fair share of punches. From the their childhood, to The Eye of Michael, to their travels with Vash, they've most certainly fucked over their soulmate a bit which causes some guilt to bloom

•They're both already trying to come up with how to apologize for the pain they inflicted on their soulmate (Livio's speech is a little more heartfelt, Razlo suggested they added the line "but you did break your arm when we were 15 which made it hard to hold all our guns" which was instantly shot down by Livio)

•I think it'd be awhile before they found their soulmate though. Not through lack of trying. They're both pretty protective, I'll be it in different ways, but it's hard to track through small pinches and aching backs

•In fact...it's completely by accident when they happen to stumble across you

Livio sighs as he steps into the small bakery, eager to get out of the sweltering heat of Gunsmoke. Although his large form hardly fits through the door he is confident in his decision for a snack the second the sweet smell of icing and vanilla fill his nose.

"Welcome in! I'll be with you in just one second!" Whom he presumes is the baker calls. He watches as they move behind the counter fussing over rolling out dough and topping cupcakes with sprinkles. He notices the way a few strands of their hair fall loosely in front of their face, their cute apron messy with flour and, as if they were in a movie, a perfect smear of icing on their cheek. Livio blushes slightly when he realizes he's staring counting his lucky stars they seem busy with the treats.

"oh uh right, take your time" He says and tries to look busy examining the sweets in the display case. As Lizio looks over the various cupcakes and cookies laid out he can feel Razlo pushing forward slightly, not trying to front but somethings got his attention. Livio largely ignores him too focused on which dessert he wants to try, when he feels a burn against his thumb. At the same time...he hears the baker in front of him hiss.

"shit still hot" they huff under their breath as they pull their thumb back from the hot tray they apparently tried to grab. They sigh and wipe their hands off and glance up at him with a smile.

"Sorry about that! What can I get for you?" They hum. He blinks, forgetting about why he came in here entirely.

"Looks like we're staying in town for awhile" Razlo muses, although Livio isn't entirely sure if it was meant towards him or himself. Either way...Livio instantly agrees.

[crissiebaby]

The Padded Palace Act IV: Chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: This story contains diaper usage, crossdressing, inappropriate language, humiliation, masturbation/diaper sex, and other ABDL themes. I hope you enjoy!

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*THUD!*

Plopping the partially picked-through package of Megamax diapers on the bed, Stacy finally gave up on trying to push the peculiarly placed padding to the back of her mind. “Okay, think. Skye and Latasha probably sleep together from time to time. It’s probably for emergencies,” she said to herself, finding the mental image of Latasha in a diaper too ridiculous to be believed. Never once had Latasha shown even a smidge of submissiveness.

So then…why Megamaxes? There were at least a dozen different diaper types downstairs in the nursery, any one of which would be sure to make a diaper-print fanatic like Skye go gaga. Meanwhile, Megamax diapers were medical diapers with no prints whatsoever. As hard as it was to envision a padded Latasha, picturing Skye in something this devoid of color was equally implausible.

Digging into the tattered packaging, Stacy plucked a single diaper out and promptly unfolded it on the bed. Skye wasn’t the only one unaccustomed to the realm of medical diapers. She’d been recommended Megamaxes numerous times due to the amount they hold but as someone who preferred cloth to plastic, she never pulled the trigger on that purchase. Poking the crinkly padding with her pointer finger, a ping of desire echoed throughout her midsection.

“No, no, I don’t need it,” Stacy scoffed, folding the diaper in half and pushing it to the opposite edge of the bed. To her, if she put a diaper on now, it would be like admitting Riri was right. Big girl beds weren’t for diaper babies: a rule that had been a part of the Padded Palace since its inaugural day. It didn’t matter that she could take it off after without anyone knowing. It was the principal of the matter.

…

But what if they were Latasha’s? Wouldn’t that mean the rule about wearing diapers in a Big bed was null and void? Furthermore, it wasn’t like these were the cutesy, immature adult baby diapers stocked in the nursery. If the elderly could wear them to bed, and Latasha could wear them to bed, so could she.

Having justified her decision, Stacy slipped her panties and PJ pants off, retrieved the previously discarded diaper, and slid it under her butt. She then took her faux maturity a step further as she momentarily debated if she should go the whole nine yards with lotion and powder. Eventually, she came down on the side that going without made the act of being diapered less juvenile. Taping the dry, powderless diaper to the hips, she wiggled her butt and giggled at the rustling noise she so rarely got the chance to hear.

*YAWN!*

Almost as if her ability to sleep was activated by nappies, Stacy was hit by a wave of exhaustion. Lounging against the stack of pillows, she slipped her legs under the sheets, accidentally nudging the pair of satin panties off the bed in the process.

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*THUD!*

Depositing Connor’s noxious nappy into its own plastic bag, Riri was sweating bullets. Scrunching the collar of her nightie up to her nose did little to block the nose hair-searing scent that circulated the air around her. Her enjoyment of ABDL, robust as it was, didn’t necessarily translate into handling diaper changes from the Big’s perspective. That said, she couldn’t help but feel an abundance of pride as she knotted the trash bag shut.

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Connor, having lost track of how many times he’d repeated that three-word phrase. Burying his face beneath the skirt of the blue nightie that Riri picked out for him, he could only imagine what the interior of his previous diaper must’ve looked like, though if the number of wipes it took Riri to swab down his bum-bum area was anything to go off of, it couldn’t have been pretty.

Riri wiped the moisture away from her eyes as she uncupped the cloth from her mouth and nose to speak, “Say sorry again and I’m getting the paddle.” Her tone was nowhere near serious in spite of her withering stare. Tossing the wad of used wipes in the diaper pail, she proceeded to lotion, powder, and diaper the caregiver who her Daddy actively paid to do the same for her. The irony was too rich not to chuckle at.

Spreading his fingers slightly, Connor observed as Riri fiddled with the tapes on his diaper. “Um…not to…uh…nevermind,” he said, his face turning a few shades redder.

“Not to what?” asked Riri earnestly. She didn’t want any secrets between Connor and her, even if it was just an off-the-cuff comment.

Sighing anxiously, Connor thought about stiffing Riri’s question. However, as he spread his fingers wide enough to peek through, his ability to remain stone-faced dissipated rapidly. “Not to be a backseat caregiver but the tapes don’t need to be that tight. You should be able to run your finger along the inside of the leg hole without snagging,” he said, his acquired knowledge of ABDL on full display. The color in his cheeks deepened.

“Is that so?” said Riri, unable to disguise her amusement over the way Connor glowed when he flexed his caregiving prowess. It was a comforting reminder that, regardless of the ups and downs, this was still a healthy outlet for him. After what happened with Stacy, Ellie, and to some extent, herself only a few hours prior, she wouldn’t have blamed the newfound ageplayer for ditching all kink wholesale. It was all she could do now to reinforce how positive and fulfilling a healthy kink lifestyle could be, “Let me go ahead and get that fixed then.” Unsticking and reapplying the tapes, she dragged her delicate finger across each leg hole. “There, snug as a baby bug in a rug. Hehe, that’s what Daddy always says.”

Snickering at Riri’s inherent silliness, a strange, yet palpable envy began to build. There was little doubt in his mind anymore that this was exactly where he wanted to be, especially as he felt the head of his penis dribbling pre-cum into his diaper. So…why did it still seem like something he should be embarrassed of? It was as if every fiber of his being was compelling him toward a world of padded pleasure, except for a faction of his mind that refused to let go of the adult he was supposed to be. Sucking in air through gritted teeth, he leaned his head back against the spongy changing table. “I’m tired,” he said simply, his mind abuzz with a myriad of illuminating and troubling thoughts.

“Alright then,” responded Riri as she moved to help Connor sit up. No doubt, she’d kept him up long enough for one night, “Why don’t we get you back in your crib? I’ll make sure that the trash gets thrown awa-”

“No…” said Connor, his eyes wide open and fixed on the cartoonish stars and crescent moons painted across the powder blue ceiling, “...I’m tired of feeling ashamed and anxious over something I want. I like diapers. Goddess, I more than like diapers, and fuck anyone who has a problem with that. Pardon my language.” He sighed once more, this time powerful enough to shrug off much of the weight that had been pressing on his shoulders. 

Shaking her head, Riri took hold of Connor’s hand. “No, it’s okay. And you’re absolutely right. So much about ABDL centers around getting to ease into a mindset where you stop caring about self-image and let yourself be…Little. It’s beautiful, at least to me anyway,” she said, growing bashful as her gushing went on.

Energized and emboldened by Riri’s short speech, Connor shifted his legs off the changing table, allowing himself to sit up and take hold of Riri’s hand. His nerves were rampant but he didn’t care. He wanted to push himself. “I know it’s a lot to ask but would you be willing to teach me about Little Space? I don’t want to have to rely on others getting me off for my brain to relax anymore,” he said, unaware of what a massive undertaking his request was. Had he asked anyone else, he likely would’ve gotten some passive answer agreeing to help him only for their interest to wean with each passing day. Thankfully for him, he was talking to Riri.

Gripping Connor’s hand tenderly, Riri wasn’t prepared for the sheer sincerity in his voice and the heartfelt desperation in his eyes. She would’ve already gone to the ends of the Earth to help guide him through his ABDL journey but now, her commitment to Connor was as iron-clad as a pair of locking plastic panties. “I’m with you every step of the way. I promise,” she said, throwing her arms around Connor and pulling to his feet for a much-needed hug. As she leaned her head on his shoulder, she caught sight of their fellow nurserymate snoring away in her crib. A risky yet tantalizing idea popped into her head, “Though I must say, if you’re looking for an expert on getting in and out of Little Space, we could always wake our resident expert.”

Breaking from his hug with Riri, Connor shot her a look of confusion. She nodded for him to turn around, causing him to follow her sightline directly to Ellie’s crib.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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[exeggcute]

the problem with username scarcity isnt that theyll run out its that it makes some usernames more "valuable" than others. also, again, security issues can't be dismissed with "well those people should be less stupid" but so many websites ask you for unique usernames and so many websites are necessary these days that it is functionally just unlikely for most people to put the effort into coming up with a new memorable unique user login for every website; username scarcity encourages these types of digital breadcrumb trails. why make every username something only 1 person can have? what purpose does it have for us to change to this worse version that encourages a username economy?

(1) ...username economy?

(2) "why make every username something only 1 person can have" because usernames should be a unique identifier! that's how almost every website and online service ever created has always worked!!

(3) all of these concerns are still exceedingly abstract (if not downright implausible) to me but this discord developer blog explains the myriad technical issues with the current system and their reason for changing it: https://discord.com/blog/usernames

(4) re. privacy concerns, discord is literally the only service I can think of (other than battlenet) that uses a non-unique username system. if people are already not taking security measures to vary their usernames across websites to keep random people from finding them cross-platform, like, isn't discord just one more item in that pile? you're using the same username on tumblr twitter tiktok snapchat instagram reddit mastodon pinterest and youtube but your discord username simply must remain separate and you won't willingly use a different one?

I would also argue that the sheer amount of attention that this whole matter is getting should be enough to alert people to the value of using different monikers on different websites, and I would also also argue that none of that is a security issue to begin with, it would be a privacy issue.

[bestworstcase]

To be fair I think it might be the fact that havens huntsman academy is still undergoing repairs, they have a shortage of competent huntsman at the moment so they might not be able to help as much, such an influx may overwhelm what few defenses they still have

setting aside the specific question of grimm management: the refugees represent almost the entire population of atlas and mantle. the evacuation was a huge success that got nearly everybody out. (if you watch what’s going on in the background of the last couple episodes of V8, evacuees continue to move through the portal after cinder makes her move, and their numbers gradually thin out until there’s nobody left right around the time she murders penny—at this point there’s still quite a bit of time to spare before she collapses the portals, and it takes even longer for atlas to crash into mantle. this is underscored by cinder saying “they used the staff to save thousands” later on: very few if any people were left behind.) the exact population we’re talking here is somewhat unclear, but with some allowances for the limitations of animation re: crowd size numbers in the 100k to 200k range are not mathematically implausible, especially taking into consideration mantle’s apparent end-to-end density. but let’s really lowball it and say, for the sake of illustration, there’s 25k refugees. that’s way too low based on what we’re shown in V7-8, but it’s what we’re going to work with to illustrate The Problem.

the problem is this:

POV you are a council member in either mistral or vacuo (pick your poison) and twenty-five thousand refugees have just been magically poofed into existence on your doorstep with zero warning. they brought nothing but the clothes on their backs. we will assume that you are not heartless; you do not want these people to die. you have no real choice but to help them.

it’s the dead of winter.

(ignore the grimm for now. pretend they don’t exist.)

if you picked mistral, you urgently need to house twenty-five thousand people before they freeze to death. if you’re in vacuo, you can probably squeak by for a while by setting up makeshift shelters and tents in the ruins outside of the city—but you do need a more permanent solution sooner than later, because it’s only a matter of time until the next sandstorm buries the ruins again.

(you can’t cram all twenty-five thousand people into a huntsman academy. beacon’s student body is canonically 160 students [if we assume from the semester plan that there is only one new class per year; i don’t think it would be unreasonable for the academies to intake new students multiple times throughout the year, once per quarter maybe, but that isn’t what’s shown.] even if we go by visual appearance instead of stated numbers, these schools can’t be much larger than a couple thousand students—especially not when you take into consideration that beacon, at least, has dedicated dormitories for exchange students.)

you also need to allocate food and water for these people.

if you picked mistral, water probably won’t be an issue. lake matsu is right there, and way too big to freeze no matter how cold it gets. (assuming matsu is freshwater, anyway.) but what about food? it’s the middle of winter. mistral is a) at approximately the same latitude as vale, and b) landlocked, which means it’s going to get way, WAY colder in the wintertime. […we will ignore for the moment that vale is on the equator and pretend the seasonal weather shown in V1-3 makes geographic sense.]

how much food does a person need to eat every day? let’s say about 1kg. (i am not pulling this number completely out of thin air: it’s on the low end of average daily rations for premodern armies. low end, because refugees are going to have lower caloric needs than an army on the move, but they’re not going to be that much more sedentary, not with the enormous amount of work that needs to be done very fast to keep them all. you know. alive.)

you need to come up with an extra 25,000kg of food—about 27.5 tons—PER. DAY., starting right now, without starving your own citizenry. global communications are down and whatever global supply chain existed before is shot, so you can’t just import what you need. you figure out a way to subsist off whatever you’ve got, or else what you’ve got is tens of thousands of people starving to death.

if you picked mistral? well lake matsu probably has fish. game is going to be lean in the winter, but it’s better than nothing. you’re also living on nice, temperate, arable land, so hopefully you have a decent stockpile of grains to tide everyone over until spring. oh, and you’ve got three cities with lovely, efficient trains running between them, and a decent number of airships at your disposal, so you can ease the burden on the capital by spreading the refugees out and juggling supplies between your cities. it’ll be tight, sure, but if you plan well and ration well you can probably pull it off.

but vacuo.

you live in a blazing-hot, desolate sandpit that had all the natural resources sucked out of it centuries ago. your water supply is an underground reservoir whose seepage was already carefully rationed before your water needs increased by almost fifty thousand liters per day. and food? your diet is cave beetles, bats, and whatever meat you can get from hunting mole crabs—animals just as dangerous as the grimm.

a necessary corollary here: rwby is not this kind of story, per se. the narrative is not going to run the numbers on the supply chain logistics and kill off tens of thousands of people from dehydration. there’s a lot of wiggle room baked in to the tone and genre. BUT, the CFVY novels devote a lot of page space to hammering how barren and inhospitable the vacuan desert is. “blistering heat, scarce food, and scarcer water” is a descriptive motif established early and repeated often. it seems like a safe bet that scarcity will become a significant pain point for the vacuo arc—so i do think we’re going to see a narrative thread or two in the vein of strict rationing and shortages running through the social tensions in vacuo. it’s not going to be this granular, but the novels do set this exact concern up pretty blatantly.

the point of laying out the numbers here is to illustrate the logistical scale of The Problem as a way of elaborating on why i think the narrative is going to treat bringing the refugees to vacuo as a mistake. because even if we ignore the grimm as a threat completely, dropping tens of thousands of refugees into a massive dust bowl where scarcity is already a major problem is A REALLY PROFOUNDLY BAD IDEA unless you genuinely have no better options—and the kids did have a better option. (they could’ve asked for a portal with two exits, even. sending the refugees to a kingdom that could, like, Probably Feed Them isn’t incompatible with getting the relics to vacuo!)

and, while i’ll grant that it’s possible this is simply a small plot hole opened by narrative expediency, i don’t… think that’s the case, for a few reasons:

1 - as noted, the CFVY novels really emphasize the point of scarcity. the narrative is like. Aware that this is a problem. the groundwork for it to Matter in the show proper is already there.

2 - the montage of people across the globe receiving ruby’s broadcast goes to mistral first—and it doesn’t just show us the cotta-arcs, it shows us the bustling transit hub we saw at the beginning of V6, with a whole crowd of ordinary civilians just going about their business. the only thing that’s changed since we last saw this place months ago is that it’s nighttime now and people are dressed for colder weather; if anything it looks livelier than before. so we get this solid visual message that mistral is doing okay.

3 - that happens in tandem with ruby mentioning beacon (status: in ruins, still overrun by grimm) but not haven (status: temporarily closed). the juxtaposition between what the narrative shows the audience and what ruby’s speech implies about her perception of the global situation sets up the more grievous oversight that happens with the evac plan.

4 - again, the CFVY novels specifically highlight this conflation of haven with mistral and vice versa several times.

5 - the kids themselves are plainly cognizant of the reality that bringing the refugees to vacuo isn’t a great option—but that awareness is restricted to worrying that shade’s huntsmen (in training) won’t be able to fend off the grimm after the kids “drop a kingdom’s worth of negativity on their doorstep.” and this is the piece that’s really tantalizing, because it ties the rest together!

i’ve made this point before, but: these kids have spent their whole lives doing nothing except fighting grimm. the ones who went to combat schools have been undergoing intensive, hyper-specialized training since they were at least twelve or thirteen years old, maybe younger. (pyrrha won the mistral regional tournaments four years in a row before she comes to beacon at the age of seventeen—so she’s got at least four and probably more years of training behind her, and we know she attended a combat school.) they are effectively high school graduates who happen to also belong to an elite monster-killing warrior class of which they are a) the cream of the crop and b) de facto leaders. which is to say, they don’t know how to do anything else. they are really good at slaying grimm and That’s It, and now—god help them—they’re trying to do politics because the huntsmen institution was the keystone of the entire post-war order and also a cult that collapsed like a jenga tower when its leader died and now Everything Is Falling Apart.

and that’s, like, The Point, narratively. these kids signed up to fight monsters and then the whole world imploded and through a comedy of horrors they ended up being the ones in charge and HOO BOY. they do not have a fucking clue what they’re doing, so they keep defaulting to what they CAN do, which is Be Very Good At Killing Grimm. ironwood’s tailspin in V8 forced them to broaden their horizons to Save People From Fascist Dictators Who Haven’t Slept In 72 Hours but they, notably, deal with that the same way they deal with the grimm: move the civilians out of danger and fight.

so they are, um, laughably ill-equipped to handle a city-wide evacuation because The Only Problem They Know How To Deal With Is Grimm, and they’re also so deeply immersed in huntsmen culture that they have kind of a habit of tackling All Other Problems from the angle of preventing negativity to mitigate the threat of the grimm. they, through no real fault of their own given the whole warrior eschaton cult situation, are really fucking myopic about this One Thing.

the narrative does not, however, share that myopia. indeed the narrative hints quite strongly that the grimm are not the all-encompassing sole universal danger that the huntsmen make them out to be: that town in V4 blithely dealt with a monster of a geist for weeks, no worse for wear; oscar shrugs off his experience of fending off grimm with NO DEFENSIVE AURA WHATSOEVER as something that doesn’t count as real fighting; blake and sun are in menagerie (a kingdom with no huntsmen and no combat schools) for months without a single notable grimm encounter; robyn is both a huntress and a political activist and, while mantle’s crumbling fortifications is one of her concerns, she’s a lot more focused on economic inequality, systemic injustices, and political corruption—her perspective is much wider in scope than the kids’ (because she’s an adult and an activist with much wider experience) and she treats the grimm as a relatively minor issue. the narrative has also devoted quite a bit of time to quietly, slowly building up a critique of the huntsmen system itself, which became extremely overt in V7-8 with the kids beginning to confront the reality that they are in way, way, way over their heads and also the rhodes sledgehammer.

so like, the kids naturally are thinking about the evacuation like this:

1 - there is an urgent need to get everybody out of atlas and mantle.

2 - the refugees are going to be terrified, angry, and upset.

3 - wherever they go, that place is going to end up swarming with grimm.

4 - we need to send them somewhere with as many warriors as possible!

5 - vacuo is the only kingdom with a huntsmen academy still in operation.

6 - vacuo is the only option!

but the NARRATIVE is thinking about the evacuation like this:

1 - here’s a book about theodore heading off a popular insurgency because the beacon survivors are a political liability for him and a not-insignificant number of his own students willingly sided with the insurgents!

2 - have we mentioned in this chapter how hot, barren, inhospitable, harsh, dry, and dangerous vacuo is? no? haha here is another sardonic joke about how vacuo is great if you love dying of dehydration.

3 - what about the inescapable and unpredictable danger of sinkholes and sandstorms that wipe whole settlements off the map, have we reminded you about that lately? here’s a ruin that gets literally dug out and completely buried like three times in the space of as many days. haha

4 - oh yeah and the popular insurgent movement? they’re reactionary, viciously xenophobic, fascists. and the good guys are a bunch of outsiders who get bullied for being refugees and this handful of slightly less xenophobic vacuans.

5 - sandstorms are a constant, deadly threat that knock out local comms, dramatically reshape the landscape, blind anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in one, and bury people alive. haha guess what the refugees land in the middle of!

6 - the grimm are here too, of course. winter can solo them now, though, so it’s fine. hashtag don’t worry about it.

before the dawn literally ends with the coffee kids being like. THANK GODS. EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL. IM SO GLAD WE CAN JUST CHILL AND KILL GRIMM AGAIN :) like the insurrection is explicitly worse than anything the grimm could dish out to the point that the characters at multiple points are like “man i wish i could go back to fighting grimm” and then actively team up with the grimm against the insurgents because they make the (accurate) tactical calculation that mopping up the grimm afterwards will be not just possible but comparatively easy.

so. while the kids, for sure, don’t consider mistral as an option because their biggest concern is handling that inevitable initial wave of grimm, they’re dropping tens of thousands—potentially even a hundred or two hundred thousand—refugees into a setting that ancillary texts have taken GREAT PAINS to establish is an inhospitable, hostile wasteland with barely enough water or food to sustain its own population, stacked sky-high with sociopolitical problems that are explicitly, textually bigger and badder and way harder to deal with than the grimm.

and only a few episodes prior the narrative made a point of reminding the audience that mistral is, like, completely fine. haven academy isn’t even closed for repairs, it’s closed to sort out staffing issues caused by the dead headmaster.

there’s also the open question of whether there actually IS a true shortage of huntsmen in the kingdom? (as opposed to a shortage of Huntsmen In Ozpin’s Immediate Sphere Of Influence.)

in 5.1, lionheart delays by claiming he needs to “convince the council” that he needs huntsmen more than they do, and qrow doesn’t question that (he’s just like, ok fuck the council then, we’ll do it by ourselves). lionheart is bullshitting, but it’s clearly passable bullshit—meaning most huntsmen in mistral really do answer to the council. then, in 5.3, ozpin says they need to enlist the aid of more huntsmen, and when the kids raise concerns about the council, qrow interjects that the council “doesn’t own every huntsman in mistral.” that’s who he’s looking for. the three dozen or so huntsmen and huntresses on his list are, specifically, personal contacts of his with no formal allegiance to the mistrali council.

lionheart remarks that a lot of haven faculty died in the aftershocks of beacon falling (which might be true, although no doubt some of them were just assassinated), and salem took out all of qrow’s contacts (read: intelligence network, the man is ozpin’s spy).

we… don’t actually get a solid indication either way if this amounts to a majority of the huntsmen in the city of mistral. it’s probably all or at least most of the huntsmen salem could link directly to ozpin, but: a) the council has what sounds like a fairly large body of huntsmen who don’t answer to ozpin even indirectly, b) mistral is the largest kingdom by a wide margin (three whole cities!) and even in taking into consideration that there’s probably a grand total of, like, two thousand huntsmen in the world it beggars belief that only about forty of them would be active in the capital city of the biggest kingdom, and c) nobody else in mistral seems to notice or care that these few dozen huntsmen bit the dust, which suggests that this spate of casualties did not rise far enough above average to cause widespread alarm in the way that the sudden mysterious deaths of nearly the Entire Warrior Class months after a horrifying terrorist attack would, uh, rattle the general public. so either the mistral council is pulling off some top level There Is No War In Ba Sing Se shenanigans or salem took a relatively judicious approach to her assassinations. given she obviously wanted to be in and out of haven with no one the wiser, the latter seems a lot more likely: she took advantage of the upheaval caused by the attack on beacon to discreetly eliminate ozpin’s allies and all the load-bearing nodes in his mistrali intelligence network while The Rest Of Mistral, presumably including all the huntsmen who aren’t, um, cultists, weathered the storm and then settled back into business as usual.

lionheart says the kingdom is in complete shambles but he is, like, pretty clearly lying on account of how very much not in shambles anything is, like within a few weeks of the kids arriving in haven there’s a documentary about the fall of beacon premiering in argus and there are zero grimm incidents in the capital while the kids are there, the citizenry is shown emphatically to have arrived at Life Goes On. and then V7 takes us to atlas, where mantle is Actually In Shambles, for comparison purposes. like if V5 is a genuine representation of mistral being a mess vs what it’s usually like in mistral, then the worst mistral has to offer is dramatically better than mantle’s “oh are the grimm rampaging through my neighborhood again? it must be tuesday” dysfunctional police state normal. the average mantelian would look at mistral “in shambles” and be like oh my gods the autonomous military drones that killed a bunch of people in vale aren’t patrolling on every street and there’s no gaping holes in the grimm wall and you people are complaining about the price of NOODLES? (shiro wan’s 16,000Ⱡ tab at the ramen place haunts me) (for my sanity i have to assume that in a hypothetical FX trade lien is weak against the dollar but like, how weak. if it’s akin to JPY that’s a tab in the neighborhood of like 125$ being treated like a really serious amount of money. if it’s more of a CNY situation this dude racked up like 2.4k USD worth of debt buying noodles on credit. mistral economy broke)

so yeah i think the narrative is lining up here to wallop our heroes with the ol’ baseball bat of unintended consequences

[acourtofthought]

I don’t really consider Elain / Az / Lucien to be a love triangle because she’s not currently dating both.  

From a readers perspective, however, there are two possible endgame love interests for Elain which means her book could go one of two ways.

Option 1) Elain ends up with the male who we’ve seen her share looks and the occasional brush of fingers with.  Whose interactions have consisted of “softly and gently" and a near kiss in someone else’s book.  The, as it looks from the outside, male who it appears she’s currently interested in. 

Option 2) Elain ends up with the male who was made her mate in book 2 but who she’s refused to get to know.  Who it appears that there is zero possibility she could ever end up with despite having a bond as she looks at him with wariness and shrinks further into herself.  

Sure, option 1 might look obvious because it’s a simple formula, right?  Girl and boy almost kiss, boy and girl will definitely end up together.  But is obvious exciting when there is another love interest in the story but one that looks implausible?  

With a sort of love triangle, a seasoned author doesn’t go for the simple formula of boy and girl almost kiss before their book so boy and girl have to end up together, especially ones who enjoys versions of the enemies to lovers trope.  A seasoned author will take an impossible situation at the start of the book and turn it into magic by the end.

If a couple begins their story at 30 mph because of “all the buildup”, then getting to 60 mph by the end of the book isn’t all that much of a ride.  

But if two people begin their story with the speedometer resting at 0 then it’s a whole hell of a lot more exciting accelerating to 60 in the same amount of time. 

[joels6string]

I have yet to watch it, but how do you feel/what’s your opinion on the new episode of The Last Of Us? I’m going to be completely honest with you, I’m going to get past these last three episodes but I am just not feeling the show anymore. I was giving it a chance and I genuinely liked a few things about it(Episode 1, or at least the Pre-Outbreak portion was the only thing I thoroughly enjoyed), but episode 6 really threw me off with the changes. Love Pedro Pascal to death and the actor for Tommy but I’m sort of getting almost… “tired” of the show? The game will forever be better.

Tired is a very good way to put it haha. You’re not the first person to say that to me, either. It’s just not there for me. Most of the emotional beats are rushed or totally altered, like I feel nothing watching this show and I’m staring at the clock waiting for the hour to be up. Two more weeks 😫 I loved the pre-outbreak stuff, Gabriel Luna in general, and Bill and Frank in episode 3. They can keep the rest. The rest is under the cutttt:

As for this week, they changed what I assumed they’d change. Though I was surprised that they removed the parallel about the malls, never mind the way they woke Joel up to magically be totally coherent again with enough strength to fight Ellie off (and they said spores were implausible). Storm Reid was fantastic as Riley, loved her so much. Very upset about the arcade changes and the absence of two certain weapons, since you haven’t watched I’ll stay mum haha. I will say, with them claiming we’d get expanded moments in the show, I was surprised one thing I did want to see wasn’t added. The ending of it was however, rushed, which is what I should have expected 😂.

The finale is only 43 minutes which is a laughable amount of time to close this story off with, so I expect even less from it here at the end after we get David this week.