#and i...was thinking of jesse lmfao

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

will you be expanding on the the origins and personalaties of the elemental masters from tournamnet and can you share a bit of them

Of course!!!!!!! That's Reason 386974 I wanna get to Season 4 alreadyyyyyy *gnaws door off its hinges* I dun even really wanna talk about it cuz I don't wanna ruin the surprises!! But, perhaps a few short blurbs~

Andrei Karlof- Once an aeronautical engineer out in Metalonia (Western Province), Karlof moved out to Ninjago City to find himself a job that better suited his passion for working creatively with metal–hence why he is now Ninjago City High's metal shop teacher. Inherited the Element of Metal via bloodlines through his father.

Tox Ikita- Originally from a village near the Toxic Bogs (Southern Province), she and her aunt moved out to Ninjago City when she was young to, like most people, find better life opportunities. Found a passion for mixing music and now serves as the Rockshot Club's primary DJ. Inherited the Element of Poison willingly from her aunt (the same way her aunt had received it herself).

Chamille Carmichael- A daughter of the traveling Carmichael family, she reached her True Potential insanely early and grew up having her abilities exploited by her mother, leaving her somewhat jaded as she grew older. She eventually runs away and ultimately disguises herself as a student of Darkley's...until it no longer supports 'evil' children. Inherited the Element of Form via bloodlines from her father, who vanished after a "job" gone wrong.

Viz Paleman- An extremely wealthy man from Astor City out east, he started out as a musician talent scout before shifting into shadier businesses running a casino. Word is he's also some kind of triple secret agent, but believing he's a secret agent to begin with is already hard enough to...see *ba dum tiss*. Inherited the Element of Light willingly from a distant relative (with that distant relative being the EM that Sunni's descended from).

Griffin Turner- Born not too far from Stiix also out east, Griffin moved out to West Haven in order to find a way to "make it big" utilizing his speed, given that the Order would've hindered his power usage had he went to Ninjago City instead. Hasn't quite achieved the dream yet, but so long as he gets to run, he's happy. Inherited the Element of Speed via bloodlines, though it skipped a generation and jumped from his grandfather to him.

Ash Grey- From the Coastal Village (Southern Province), he comes from a long and ancient line of assassins, though his element getting mixed up into that is a relatively "new" development. Is very good at being an assassin, but is constantly on the fence about pursuing the family legacy. Inherited the Element of Smoke via bloodlines from his mother, Misty Grey.

Jacob Pevsner- Born blind but thankfully with an enhanced penchant for hearing, Jacob wound up dragged into the family music business, but luckily came to develop a personal love for it himself. Like Griffin, moved out to West Haven to make a name for himself as a musician. And, unlike Griffin, he was successful. Inherited the Element of Sound via bloodlines from his father, Collin Pevsner.

Gravis Mikhail- A world traveller with no particular attachments to any one place, Gravis uses his powers to carry himself from place to place with little issue, able to evade the terrain issues most people face when trying to cross the Provinces. He primarily spends his time indulging in other cultures, and writes about what he learns in his spare time (which, he has a lot of). Inherited the Element of Gravity willingly from a lover who perished from elemental-related illness (not unlike Lilly and Aurora).

Shade Vespertine- As the oldest child in a huge family with many siblings and even more aunts, uncles, and cousins (and therefore many Elemental Descendants), Shade was "blessed" with being the Inheritor, giving him a lot of unwanted attention both good and bad from the rest of the family. It drove him to constantly seek solitude, which also left him extremely lonely. But once you get past the "lone wolf" exterior, he's...honestly just some guy. Just happens to be a little spooky. And with powers. Inherited the Element of Shadow from his mother.

Apollo "Neuro" Logi- Originally a well-known neuroscientist working under a branch of Borg Industries studying the effects tech has on the brain (even called "Dr. Neuro" until that got shorted to "Neuro") Neuro didn't become the EM of Mind until willingly taking it on from the previous EM (...a child who also reached their potential too soon and was being exploited, thus desperately sought out the help of someone better equipped to handle it. And being able to read minds does make that a somewhat simpler task).

Bolobo- Originating from the Vagabond Plains in the Archipelago, of where its people either venture off seeking adventure or stay in the main village to maintain tradition, Bolobo falls into the latter category, as he much prefers to be somewhere in his Element. Plus, being the latest Inheritor of Nature means special perks from the rest of the village, and he likes to revel in it from time to time (which does annoy his father, but Bolobo's a good seed despite this), and really only answered Chen's call to prove his mettle with the other EMs. Inherited the Element of Nature from his father.

[crmsndragonwngss]

why did he say that?

[formulaonedirection]

H is for Happy Birthday Lewis 🥳

[blood-choke]

hiiii… i wanted to ask more about this particular val scene where mc and her talk about that portrait and mc is a bit stuck on the word husband and wants val to know theyre not a man. can i ask what inspired that type of convo? i wanted to know if it’s something you’ll touch up on again? is this underlying feelings mc had before their entombment… worried that val sees them as a man just because mc is masc? cause i know that’s kind of broader discussion in the lesbian community iirc….. was that why you wanted to incorporate it? this ask has so many questions LOL but basically i wanted to say i was intrigued and it did made me think more on those type of dynamics (thinking back to those resources you rb’d a while ago that go more into depth about diff things in the lesbian community)

oh boy get ready for another long-winded answer from me!

a lot of the feelings mc has about their gender are inspired by Leslie Feinberg's work (mainly Stone Butch Blues)

Feinberg was someone who lived & passed as a man for years of hir life, and wrote a lot about the complexities of hir gender and what it was like being a "gender outlaw."

there was actually a scene in particular from sbb that kinda put the kernel of an idea in my mind that led to this narrative of the mc feeling overshadowed by Standard and anxious about being perceived as a man. it's towards the end of the book when Jess (sbb's protagonist) meets Ruth (a trans woman that Jess falls in love with)

Jess offers to help Ruth carry groceries up to her apartment, and Ruth takes this the wrong way & is offended, partly because she thinks Jess is a man.

One Saturday afternoon I found her clutching two huge bags of groceries and fumbling with the downstairs front-door lock. I pulled out my key.

“Here, let me.” She didn’t say thank you. She hurried ahead of me on the stairs.

“Can I help you carry those?” I offered.

“Do I look weak to you?” she asked.

I stopped on the stairs. “No. Where I come from it’s just a sign of respect, that’s all.”

She continued up the stairs. “Well, where I come from,” she called out, “men don’t reward women for pretending to be helpless.” Once I heard her apartment door close I kicked the stair in anger and frustration.

later, after they get to know each other better, they have this interaction:

I laughed and picked at my salad. “Do you know if I’m a man or a woman?”

“No,” Ruth said. “That’s why I know so much about you.”

I sighed. “Did you think I was a man when you first met me?" She nodded. "Yes. At first I thought you were a straight man. Then I thought you were gay. It’s been a shock for me to realize that even I make assumptions about sex and gender that aren’t true. I thought I was liberated from all of that.”

I smiled. “I didn’t want you to think I was a man. I wanted you to see how much more complicated I am. I wanted you to like what you saw.”

i think the inspiration here is quite obvious, hahaha. i figure anyone that's read sbb can sense the similar through-line here in my work. though the conversation between mc and Valentina has a much different tone.

there's another scene later as well after something happens to Jess and she has to have her jaw wired shut. she's working at a new job and is unable to speak, and she's also passing as a man at this job. she overhears some of her female coworkers talking about her and they refer to her as a "creep" and speculate that she's always watching one of them. Jess overhears all of this and then walks out of the job, goes home and pulls the wires out of her mouth herself:

After I was sure I’d gotten the last piece of wire out of my gums, I rinsed my mouth with whiskey and then drank the rest of it so I could sleep without remembering how Marija’s words had stripped me of my humanity.

butches & gnc women still face this kind of dehumanization; compared or likened to men in a derogatory way, accused of being "heteropatriarchal," the predatory stereotype of the fat ugly lesbian, and on the other side they're also hypersexualized, especially online and in queer spaces. butchphobia is a specific kind of misogyny that hits from all sides, even from the people that are supposed to be a part of your community. and this attitude especially effects trans women and women of color, who are already experiencing all of these things due to transmisogyny and racism.

i also really wanted to use this to touch on the kind of gender essentialism that we see in a lot of these cis feminist discussions - to these women at this job, Jess had committed no real crime other than being quiet and being the “wrong” kind of man. something about this scene has always stuck with me and really bothered me, but it's hard to put into words; on one hand i can admit i have probably been one of those women who made some kind of similar remark about a man i barely knew, but i've also been someone on the receiving end, too, because of the way i look. the mc in blood choke is put into this box, but they can't fit in, as someone who has been on both sides and doesn't really understand where they belong because of it; how can she stand beside Valentina or Hana or Clear when they might see her as a perpetrator, someone who can't be trusted? how does this mindset harm both the women and the men of the council and everyone in between? how can we break this cycle?

one of the films i mentioned recently when talking about the character designs was The Same Difference, which is specifically about the Black lesbian community and the discrimination within that community based upon gender roles (though this is not something limited to just the Black lesbian community)

a lot of the women in that doc talk about the boxes they're put in as AG or stud lesbians - they can't have their hair long, they can't wear makeup, they can't do this or that, they have to be aggressive and hard or else they're not real studs. they discuss stud on stud (or butch4butch) and how other lesbians look down on those types of lesbians, as well as the disdain for bisexual women for "betraying" the community. it explores the way misogyny and the patriarchy still oppress these women and forces them into this restrictive gender role despite their refusal to adhere to the other role originally assigned to them, and the way racism specifically intersects and exacerbates it for Black lesbians. there's a stud that's an exotic dancer and wears a weave, and a lot of other studs have a problem with this because a weave is "a female thing." another section follows a pregnant stud, and how the community shuns her for that, because she "dresses like a man and acts like a man" so why is she getting pregnant when she should be "the man"?

mc doesn't remember how they felt before entombment, but waking up they feel this need to prove themselves - both in that they are hard and aggressive like a butch should be, but also in that they want to be this person for Valentina or Clear or Hana (or all of them) that is safe and comforting. but they aren't sure how to do that when the world perceives them as this one specific thing - as a husband, as Standard, as a man, specifically this man who hurt Valentina.

of course we've already seen this to not be true of the companions with the last chapter as the mc learns more and spends more time with everyone. but this is kind of the foundation of where this whole idea came from. it started with my novel & i chose vampires for that story & this one because there is a long history of lesbian vampirism (and also because it's sexy) but there's this "curse" that both Hana & Valerie talk about in their respective stories, the first one being the racism she's had to face, the transphobia, along with this alienation and perception of lesbians as predatory and conniving and aggressive, as vampires, which i just think really lends itself to expanding upon these issues lesbians & trans women face both in general and within the community.

anyways if you want to read more i suggest Stone Butch Blues, which you can get for free on Leslie Feinberg's website, as well as S/he, by Minnie Bruce Pratt, available on the internet archive, Gender Failure by Ivan E. Coyote & Rae Spoon also on the internet archive, and you can rent The Same Difference for $10 on vimeo.

[werebutch]

WSBH chara q’s: (you don’t have to answer all the numbers, just whatever you want to 𖢘)

16/35/51 for Scotch

1/6/55 for Atlas

I LOVE YOU

16. What kinds of people do they have arguments with in their head?

okay i truly think scotch argues with seraph in his head all the time. ALL the time. scotch largely ignores them, and vice versa, because he dislikes them and they know it. seraph is very conflict avoidant lol, and as long as hes not a "threat" they dont care to talk to him about their problems. he probably argues with atlas and jacob (his older brother) too, atlas about more stupid small stuff, and jacob about childhood and life stuff :p

im trying to think of more general groups he would argue with but i cant come up with anything BAHAH. hes not exactly conflict avoidant in the annoying libra way that seraph is, he more just ignores conflict for his friends’ (mostly atlas’) sake. idk if that makes sense LOL

35. What is the smallest, morally questionable choice they’ve made?

hmmm.. smallest? i mean scotch strings eloise along for most of the time pre timeskip. its not a main focus but its definitely important in order to understand scotch as a whole. she and scotch go out for a while, and mid way through that he realizes hes GAY gay. lol. and obviously lying to her about that is pretty questionable after a while. especially since he and atlas have been 👉👌 like the whole time. but she kind of knows. well

something a little bigger would be him encouraging or otherwise turning a blind eye to all the weird stuff atlas is up to. he doesn't know what it's like to be a werewolf, he can't say anything, right? lol.... murder is okay if its a talking dog doing it. scotch enabler supreme. actually when seraph is introduced, he and atlas have a 'joke' (kind of starts being real) about luring seraph somewhere to kill them. obviously doesnt happen and gets abandoned. but i think its important to know about their dynamic LOL

51. What’s a phrase they say a lot?

this guy is kind of goofy. i cant think of phrases rn but he has a specific way of speaking.. you could watch pretty much any old pop punk band interview and kind of get the idea. HAHAH

1. What’s the lie your character says most often?

atlas is a big fan of saying 'its fine' for all situations ever. family in mortal danger? its fine. completely splitting? its fine. arthritis excruciating? its fine. hes one of those people that dont like to deal with the fawning of others unless hes feeling real special. Ends up putting people in more danger a lot of the time. i think eloise is the only fan of communication in this friend group to be honest. i should have made her the main character

he tends to make promises he cant keep as well, but thats more general..

6. What’s their favorite [insert anything] that they’ve never recommended to anyone before?

i have NO idea. i feel like atlas would be a music snob, so maybe his favorite 'super underground' bands. otherwise he'd probably never recommend raw human meat to another human (no matter how much scotch asks -__-).. (he would chicken out anyway)

55. What’s something they’re expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate?

um. so atlas hates working out. he especially hates running, you know, the thing that wolves are known for doing a lot of? unfortunately the lycanthropy came with a side effect of pretty bad arthritis, so that doesnt exactly encourage him. he DOES exercise, a lot since hes pretty much required for his ermm "side job", but he hates it 😸 besides the arthritis it’s mostly because I think it’s silly that he hates it. yay

[rolandkaros]

the official us open channel currently streaming the women's 2024 final on youtube right now i truly think god hates me

[friendshipgun]

doughboy

thinking about how incredible this ask is out of context lmao anyway, this is the sole Evil West WIP i have, and i think it might be one of only two Evil West fics written total? at least it was the last time i checked the tag on ao3. title's for the monster-of-the-week i created for the fic, which was actually kind of a feat, bc Evil West is so enthusiastically gross (which is one of the things that's great about it, honestly) i really felt i needed to work at it to make a critter that was gross enough.

anyway it's eventual Jesse/Edgar bc you can't look at a game with a "what, you gonna kiss me? just kidding hahah. unless......." scene and not write it, lbr. think i must have started writing it right after we beat the game last, uhh, March? gotta finish the dang thing so there can be two whole Evil West fics up on ao3.

dumped all of what i have written here for now tho!

[mariatesstruther]

me dreaming of writing my tlou x hunger games au as a full fic one day

[chadillacboseman]

Thinking about my OCs as mermaids once more

[sprolden]

no but I've been wondering about this bc what is keeping Jessamine on earth...... directly protecting the london institute from a massive threat does seem like it would be the thing to allow her to move on but it obviously didn't. so if it's not her having to make peace with the fact that she's a shadowhunter then what IS her unfinished business

[prismatoxic]

i always intended to return to my yosuke ask blog, bc i wanted to do a big dramatic reveal of how much better my style had gotten. unfortunately i was pretty burnt out on the idea and eventually lost my hyperfocus, so i honestly might delete it... or at the very least change the name so someone else can have the one i used, if they want it.

what if i made an ask blog for nate and co, though. what if i did that actually

[derangedfaggot]

people on this site should never change because where else can we find such clinically insane takes

[shokuto]

Photographer!Jess having a secret album of her friends, they're all candid shots

[godblooded]

the first thing people always notice about alana is her eyes.

[wolvisms]

ok across the spiderverse thoughts in the tags

[woundedheartwithin]

x