#and probably only 30 of them aren't story related

[lizardlover-skylarglamrock]

Life of a writer that does their stories on their phone.

*Ahem* me.🖐

[lostpai]

Xià Fěi and Vein’s Dual Powers

Vein and Xià Fěi hold the powers of Foresight and Hindsight – here's how I came to believe it. Get ready for a lengthy post—this is the first in a series. (30 mins read).

Have you heard of the dual power theory? Let me explain this beautiful theory first caught by @miyamiwu (GIFs and correlating posts can be found here and here).

For those who missed it, Vein and Xià Fěi’s frames in the LULL Bridon arc credits feature VFX that spill into each other’s frames. As seen in her post, this does not happen with any of the other four characters, all of whom have confirmed powers. We know that Link Click never does anything without a reason! What does this mean, and why are these two characters highlighted over the others? Well Miyamiwu threw it out there that maybe it correlates to them having a dual power. And that theory makes so much sense.

Where have we seen the use of dual powers? We've seen dual powers used before with Lu Guang and Chéng Xiǎoshí, as well as with the siblings Li Tianchen and Li Tianxi. So, this isn’t something new. In fact, of the 7 confirmed characters with powers, 4 of them are in pairs. This makes it highly probable that two new complimenting characters who act as a duo are also connected in this way. The symbolism is clear: the two share something deeper, just like the other powerful pairs. If four others can have dual powers, why not Xià Fěi and Vein, a pair so tightly connected both in contrasting personalities but equal and parallel in their relationship? Now that I've explained this dual theory my goal was to figure out and prove which powers makes the most sense for either of the two to have. To help me I've set up two cannon-bound rules that helped me find what it is. Rule #1 Dual powers means the characters would either have parallel powers with complementary abilities or opposite powers that act as a counterbalance to each other. Vein and Xià Fěi are constantly contrasting in these frames. Not only do the characters themselves contrast personality-wise, but their friendly dynamic complements each other. Given this dynamic, their powers would either need to complement or contrast with one another, or exist in the fine line between. It also goes to show that assuming Vein has smoke or immortal/resurrection powers would not work, because it needs a fitting connecting power.

Rule #2 There’s no reason to assume Link Click's powers are elemental. Based on what we've seen, Powers are tied to photography, time travel, or something related to the body or the mind. Introducing elemental powers would, in my opinion, mess with the established lore.

Assuming Xià Fěi has light powers doesn’t quite fit, even if it aligns with Rule 1 about having a parallel or opposite. Similarly, the theory of Xià Fěi having fire powers falls short if Vein’s doesn't seem like he would complement or contrast with that power in any way. In my quest to narrow down the possible powers, I couldn’t help but find a loophole that had me wondering why Xià Fěi and Vein's eyes always glow so brightly, as if their power is constantly active. Even the other main characters' eyes dim when their powers aren't in use. This led me to a third rule—more hypothesis than canon-based, so your free to ignore it— My biased Rule #3 - If both character’s power is one that stays on, it could be a passive or constant ability, always active but perhaps unnoticed until the right moment. This rule genuinely backs you into a corner, but it only managed to put my last two remaining theories on a pedestal... So, after digging myself into dozens of holes including loopholes to find potential powers that actually fit within a time-travel story, I finally hit on foresight and hindsight—and suddenly, everything clicked. Maybe its called link click because everything always clicks into place. hahaha....just pretend I'm funny. These concepts not only make sense for both characters story arcs, but they’re backed by existing theories and new evidence I've uncovered. Now, I’ll dive into each of their respective powers, explaining the why, how, and what that support my theory.

Vein: "Immediate Foresight" Memory that does not transcend time, but transcends a series of moments.

GIF by ydotome

Vein’s foresight works differently from Lu Guang’s—while Lu Guang’s power transcends time, Vein’s memory doesn’t carry over through each reset. I will stand by my belief that Vein didn’t know or recognize either Lu Guang or CXS before they were introduced to each other in episode 3— otherwise he would have simply killed them both.

While it looks like Lu Guang is on the edge of having both foresight and hindsight, I'd like to argue his power is more akin to clairvoyance. The difference in these powers is significant, but different enough for it makes sense for characters to have such similar abilities. Let me explain further. Vein's power is PREDICTIVE Lu Guangs power is TRUTH

Foresight - Vein's power is about predicting what might happen, based on the present circumstances. It’s more about a sense of anticipation or intuition—He would know what’s likely to happen. The where and how is clear, while the why and when remains predictive until within that moment.

Clairvoyance - Lu Guang’s power is about seeing specific details of the future, present, or past. He wouldn’t just predict what might happen; he has seen and experienced clearly both the past and future as if it were happening right in front of him. It’s about truth—the direct and clear perception of events, like he’s watching a film. 

Since the director mentioned that Lu Guang always stays within his own timeline, I don't believe their powers see different timelines or possible outcomes, but rather 'the timeline's current outcome' in varying levels of clarity. This view of Foresight aligns with Vein's almost superhuman reflexes,

Next 3 GIFs by ydotome I invite you to take a look at this scene until you REALLY understand it. On second glance there's something subtly off about the timing of Vein's reactions.

Study how swiftly Vein moves—it looks effortless. Too easy. Upon closer inspection, it even feels like Vein's own movements anticipate a frame or two before than the other even prepares to strike. Like he is one full moment ahead of each strike. I have several frames here for example (this gif is originally 69 frames long)

While many anime characters can dodge like this, few do it with their eyes closed for three full swings without some kind of 'extra sense perception.' So I'm calling it evidence. Here Vein is showing complete confidence in his knowledge that he won't get hurt. 

Just the fact that he stands still with that smug ass little smile screams that he is in control of the situation. I'm hypothesizing that Vein learns the truth of the moment only within that moment; everything before is predictive. The closer he is, the clearer the information becomes. In that instant, he can dodge every strike because their next move shifts from a probability to a complete certainty. This gives him a sense of control and explains why he often looks so pleased.

I believe Vein is constantly downloading new information about his opponent and surroundings mid-battle, making him the perfect, constantly adapting adversary. Vein is the embodiment of 'right place, right time,' and I doubt need to elaborate further. But I'll show some more GIFs instead.

This post is kinda long already but I also invite you to look into the Vein vs. Shao Yuanyuan fight as well. Because it feels like another use of his foresight abilities (Video link here) and finally Vein's fatal limitation.

If too much is happening in too short a time, it’s possible to slip through the cracks of his foresight. He may fail to react to an immediate danger simply because his attention is divided between too many things. While he might have the right information, he is still human. In a scenario like this, Vein could potentially be open for attack but never taken completely by surprise. So why was Vein blindsided by his own death?

There could be better theories to this part specifically, but maybe Vein never saw the possibility of the attack coming, because Vein's death was never supposed to have happened. It was too fast, and everything he thought would happen changed too quickly. Simply because a more powerful third party had inserted themself into the situation. (From what I understand Lu Guang changed something in their timeline and Vein had never been killed before).

GIF from @shantechni The REAL genuine fear shown when Vein is called by his real name, and during the heart attack show how caught off guard he was. His mind racing, dare I say it had little to do with the fact that he couldn't breathe, but that there was a flaw within his foresight. That he was finally unable to take control of his precious moment. He didn't know what was going on until it was too late to prevent it. But there is nothing wrong with Vein's foresight, because he still figures it out. But at the moment of his realization, Vein's death is already in motion—an attack happening in real time without even touching him, its not something that he can run away from. And it is this eye opening realization on the brink of death where Vein is given the answers he's looking for.

He knows his killer, he knows what happened... and all he can do is laugh at having been one-upped. It's all so very interesting—and he would love to see who plays the next piece in this game of chess. Vein's death is now a certainty. His own tricks used against him. And his final words,

“So that’s how it is…” I'd like to slide in another extra piece of proof for my Foresight theory. This is the 6th episode's cover art. I think its pretty self explanatory.

Screenshot @mysterialistic (posts relating to this sentence here, here, and this) Thank you so much for bearing with me, but we're only halfway done! I already cut this bad boy into two separate separate posts too! Next up....

Xià Fěi: "Hindsight" The tragedy of only ever figuring it out in hindsight. Power born from memories and a grief that transcends the present...

"I’ve made up my mind. No matter how bizarre the truth, I’ll find out what happened."

The idea of hindsight comes from it being the inverse of foresight, and fitting Xià Fěi's potential character development. 

I propose that he always had the power and it wasn’t 're-awakened' until Vein’s death. With Vein’s foresight gone, Xià Fěi's hindsight is born.

I think Xià Fěi always had the ability but was too young or traumatized to use it. His time at Chéng Wěimín's school raises questions. There’s a solid theory that the school was full of children with powers. (here and here).

(if you look up this scene you'll see Chéng is mouthing something, and from there we never see young Xià Fěi's eyes again, as they remain cast in shadow). There are a lot of inconsistencies with this new information, wasn't Felix only an exchange student for college? What's with this scene? What did "it's time," mean? Here me out, what if Xià Fěi's memory was altered by Chéng Wěimín? Xià Fěi seems unaware of what 'Bahati' was. He doesn't seem to know about the fire or the meaning of the word. If he remembered he could've helped them- or maybe warned them. But instead he was perfectly comfortable helping CXS question his previous boss, as well as Vein. Also how interesting is it, that he ended up working once in the same place that he went to school in at one point?? Xià Fěi feels like a character that follows the theme of returning back to the past. If not during the Bridon arc, that at least because we known off screen he's going to dedicate his life to finding out what happened to Vein. Another thing that stood out to me during episode 3 was when (time stamp 14:30) when CXS said "Bahati" there was a magical sound effect. I study these Link click sound effects a lot and they're always happening. Mostly when someone notices something or when one could make the case that someone is subtly using their power. For example the sound effect shows up the most around Vein and Lu Guang. And its always the same sound effect. What if Xià Fěi remembers when the name is spoken, but anything related to CXS's father is a trigger word for a memory wipe on the subject? Another piece of Xià Fěi's story. (Found by @joyokosuka, post here)

I want to believe Vein's interest in Xià Fěi has to do with their close connection and not just because there was a subliminal connection that comes with dual powers. If you believe in fate and all, which I’ll get into the next post. But I don't think either were actually aware of Xià Fěi's power, as it wouldn't have re-manifested until Vein's death. It also makes sense, because Xià Fěi was open to powers existing. Xià Fěi discovering his own past, and using his gift of hindsight would open up a whole can of worms for everyone. The good and the bad, and the past that should've stayed buried.

I imagine Xià Fěi will be pretty upset when learning about the past and revisiting his memories before Vein’s death. It’s going to destroy him if he figures out that Lu Guang and CXS were involved. I could see him using his power in a way that might allow him to re-experience or analyze past events but not actually go back in time. He will constantly search and long for for what he missed out on.

And if not to attempt revenge… then for closure.

Xià Fěi is taking up the gauntlet of an unwanted legacy for closure. How sad and ironic that Vein could've potentially been using his power along side him but Xià Fěi never realizes until the death of his counterpart. Xià Fěi's power gives an ulterior meaning to what he told our mains.

“but I’ll remember the time I spent with you guys forever”

It's so haunting. Knowing he was backstabbed by his friends. This feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The tragedy of hindsight.

Now after explaining where Hindsight would fit into the plot, I'll share the rest of the evidence for why Xià Fěi's power is Hindsight, more than just because he is Vein's inverse/parallel. In another post by @miyamiwu (Click here) beautiful theory by the way. There was one thing she said that stood out to me.

She explained that “In Mandarin Chinese, time is viewed in a vertical fashion. The past is above you, while the future is below you.”

Because of this I asked my friend for an impromptu lesson in Mandarin, to help me analyze that the name 夏斐 (Xià Fěi) can be linked to the idea of time. Thank you so much to Yuqianqian 🌸💕 for dealing with my madness.

In Mandarin the past and future is viewed in a vertical fashion only through a spoken fashion.

Let me introduce you to “The Four Mandarin Chinese Tones” which are used to identify the TONE (shēngdiào) of a word. You use each tone to help you pitch your syllables. All Chinese words have tones.

First tone: a level and higher pitch Second tone: rising, start from a lower pitch and end at a slightly higher pitch Third tone: falling rising, start at a neutral tone then dip to a lower pitch before ending at a higher pitch Fourth tone: falling, start the syllable at a slightly higher than neutral pitch then go quickly and strongly downwards

The reason the future is viewed downwards And past is viewed upwards is because they pitch upwards and downwards when you say it!

Fun fact you can figure out out which tone both the first and surname are in by using these diacritical marks.

1st tone:  ā 

2nd tone:  á 

3rd tone:  ǎ 

4th tone:  à

Neutral tone - a  (no pitch)

So Xià (is the 4th falling tone) followed by Fěi (the 3rd falling/rising tone). 

Chinese people usually give their kid a 2 words name or 3 words name. If the words in a first name were both the same tone it’s would be hard to pronounce. 

谐音 is a literarily trick similar to how a writer can use homophones in English to symbolize something. 

谐音 is when words can sound the exact same but be are spelled completely differently. 

“By, bye, buy” “To, too, two”  “Flour, flower” “Knight, night”

夏斐 Xià Fěi’s name actually uses 谐音

夏 is Pronounced Xià it means “summer”

下 is also pronounced Xià it means “down”

It changes meaning depending on the word next to it though, but other meanings of Xià still include; Downwards, Under, Below, Descend, Fall, Give birth too, Spate...

'Second of two parts'... guys is it obvious I ship Veinfei 下 is not typically not used anymore unless it refers to very specific instances of time, directions, or positions.

This play on words of Xià and the concept of 下 “down” works in tandem with the 4th tone. And brings us back to the original idea of “the future being below you.” It perfectly relates the idea of time to the name, while also holding symbolism. The future is below Xià Fěi.

And who is future?

Vein's name is first pointed out by @rainibao (here). That Vein’s true name - 萧未影 Xiāo Wèiyǐng relates to the concept of the future! 

I’d like to add that 未 by itself does not mean future, but rather it’s 未来.

未来 - Future 未 on its own means “not yet”  Both are falling tones.

Just in case I made this pretty confusing. I gave Xià Fěi's name as proof to show that he is RELATED TO TIME and related to VEIN. Meanwhile every example of Vein points to downwards symbolism as well. And even though Xià Fěi should represent Upwards symbolism, the fact that he also represents downward symbolism felt like it does help my case in relate to hindsight as well. But either way, heres some pretty obvious Upwards symbolism for Xià Fěi too.

This is a post by miyamiwu (here) guys wtf I already ran out of image space Here with the water Lu Guang is drowning and falling downwards into the Future Vein pulls Xià Fěi upwards above water into the past. Once again it also references unwanted legacies left behind by Vein.

In the end we see the huanting idea of Vein as a concept of life after death Xia Fei as a concept life before death  And Lu Guang representing death itself

Thank you so much for listening to my theory! I feel like this theory has revolutionized the way I see these two. Feel free to contact me or disprove or add to my theory. I took like a whole weeks to make this. Soon I will release the second part of my theory (yes I have more evidence). This time in relation to Liú Xiāo, how he fits into this entire equation, and what his other power may be. And what happens Post-Vein's death. PT. 2 (TBA)

[soaps-mohawk]

Okay so in case you were wondering why I turned anon off, and won't be turning it on probably for a while, I'm here to deliver receipts.

This is a long post so I'm putting it under a cut

There's been a few cases over the last week or so of people purposefully using other anon's emojis to send asks (not all of these were questionable or malicious. If you accidentally used one already claimed, this post is NOT about you.)

It was brought to my attention by a few anons that asks were sent that were not them. A lot of these asks weren't malicious or harassing which makes it hard to tell. As is the nature of anonymous asks, I cannot tell who sends them without some kind of sign-off or emoji, hence the use of emojis. While I believe not all of these were on purpose (see above), some of them absolutely were.

This started before the debacle about a week or so ago with ♾️ anon (which it has been confirmed that the person who asked to use that emoji was not behind the anonymous asks using that emoji) harassing me about not answering their ask. I took a screenshot of said ask, and this was what they were harassing me about

When I had anon on, I'd get a lot of asks. Sometimes as many as 20 or 30 a day. I am one person running this blog, and it takes me a while to get through asks sometimes. Most people who have ever sent asks to popular blogs (which still pains me to call this one popular) knows it can take sometimes days to get an answer because we get a lot of asks constantly.

Honestly, I wasn't going to answer this one anyway because...it's odd. Especially the timing because this was sent after chapter 29 was posted, right before chapter 30, in which neither chapter had smut in it. I know some people really love angst though so I didn't want to yuck anyone's yum, it was just very odd.

So, as I do, I start with the bottom of the inbox where the oldest asks are and I work my way up to the most recent (there are exceptions in the case of asks related to a post I just made, or asks that are easy to answer with just a few words or a gif versus a long thought out answer).

Anyway about a day after that ask was sent, I got others from that anon asking if I got their ask.

Then I made a post mid-breakdown about life sucking and the horrible position I was in (See here)

They then sent in THIS ask and got publicly shamed as they should.

A day or so goes by and I start to get a flood of asks in my inbox. Some are normal-ish, kind of odd but I'm used to kind of odd questions.

Then I start to get these

Obviously those aren't those anons. Figured that out pretty fast after a few hours of them sitting in my inbox.

Soon after I get this ask as I was getting ready for a job interview and went off because I was already stressed as fuck about the interview.

And then of course after I posted that I get this in response which I took a screenshot of and answered before blocking that anon.

And as I kind of had an inkling about, those asks above as well as several other strange ones in my inbox disappeared after blocking that anon. So it had been one perpetrator behind those at least (which was not the person who claimed that emoji that was a big misunderstanding on my part and that has since been solved and resolved.)

BUT that is not the end of this story.

As the weekend happens and the chapter is posted, I continue to get asks sent in by anons with emojis and continue to get messages from either anons saying they are that emoji anon and they didn't send that in, or those anons privately messaging me and saying they didn't send those in.

So we were having several cases of emoji stealing.

I also continue to get questionable, downright harassing asks, including these two.

That last one is what broke the camel's back and what made me turn anon off. I don't know if I'm the only one getting anons like this or if this is some new fart anon trend or what, but...look. I'm all for getting horny in my inbox. But things like this?? These kinds of things border on sexual harassment and honestly, they made me feel gross. I literally felt gross after reading those.

I don't mind being told a change of panties was necessary after smut chapters but after an angst chapter?? The timing of it was what made me suspicious. If they had sent that about three chapters ago I might not have looked twice at it.

You wanna tell me you had to pull out the willy stick for a chapter, cool. Just don't tell me what hole it was in and how long. I don't need to know that much detail. You wanna send that about fictional characters?? That's what we're here for. But I don't need to know that about YOU. I have boundaries and I'm going to add this to my rules list.

These asks definitely felt like someone very immature (and likely underage) sent them which makes me feel more disgusted about it.

I blocked that anon and the ones above. I just got pushed over the edge by people not being respectful and KNOWINGLY using others emojis making me not able to trust that an anon is who they claimed to be. Between that and the harassing asks above (which were just a select few) I decided to turn anon off indefinitely. Sorry to all my anons who aren't comfortable coming off anon but I just can't do it anymore. If you previously were an anon and are comfortable sending asks, you can still use your emoji. I don't mind that at all.

So yeah, that's the long story of why I turned anon off, and the receipts of the disgusting harassing asks I was getting. Hopefully having anon off indefinitely will make those sickos grow bored of waiting and force them to reevaluate their lives or mature enough to realize they were being stupid (cautiously hopeful but probably not.) If the internet has taught us anything, it's that trolls are gonna troll into adulthood and they will never reach the point of maturity to realize they're just being stupid. That's why they live in their parents' basement alone with no friends.

[demonslayerunhinged]

SaneGiyuu Argument 2 - 'But they have descendants!'

This is another point antis love to make against the SaneGiyuu ship and it's true after all, it's in the last chapter of the manga so yeah it's canon, they have biological descendants....or do they?

I'd like to thank the lovely angel who added this little tidbit of info in the Demon Slayer Tv tropes page. Whoever you are I love you! 😘

So I did a little research and it turns out the concept of descendants in Japanese culture are vastly different from that of ours in the west.

There's this thing called Adult Adoption.

It's a practice where an adult is 'adopted' into the family as their offspring legally and socially. It's a way of preserving the family name and artifacts and stuff.

It's still being practiced today even by family owners of mega corporations.

It's a really common practice:

So it's very possible that Giyuu and Sanemi's descendants aren't biologically related to them. They probably passed on their name and stuff to one of the junior slayers who admired them lots.

Plus, they only have four years left and they aren't the kind of guys to just speedrun their marriage only to then abandon their families when they die, especially Sanemi.

'But Giyuu had a wife-'

There's nowhere in the canon material that a wife is mentioned. It's probably some AO3 story that some asshole passed off as canon like Obanai wanting to propose to Mitsuri with a ring. There is no wife!

But okay, even if their descendants are biologically related to them for some reason, people be acting like queer men can't have kids too 🙄.

In Conclusion, this argument can kiss my ass!

[wrotelovelytears]

Pluto might be in Aquarius

But that's only half the story.

Now I'm not one to believe only the planets inspire change in people but the environment they live in, their disposition and their current state of being impacts them just as much. Astrology without the consideration of culture and context is just astronomy. It has the body but not the soul.

I start with that because of all the current global happenings. I understand the importance of spiritual and religious practices, and they don't exist in a bubble of their own. It is highly related to the cultural movements and ethnic practices of a region. If we are going to be honest religions/spirituality would not exist with out those cultural foundations. Literally there would be nothing if ethnic and cultural differences didn't play a role.

Hoodoo wouldn't exist if African Americans didn't. The Greek Pantheon wouldn't be a thing if the ancient Greeks didn't interact with the Egyptians, Nubians and Macedonians. And it should be very well known the Romans stole their whole flow and rebranded. The same Romans who took Christianity and set the foundation for the many versions we see today.

I say all that because I've noticed a lack of connecting between the social/political climate, traditions and belief systems. We can't pretend that Vedic astrology isn't an actual part of Hinduism because it wouldn't exist if Hinduism wasn't here. And Hinduism is the result of two very different populations interacting with one getting colonized and pushed south and the other needing a system/ belief to justify it. We can't pretend that tropical astrology isn't a more Eurocentric method because the signs, planets and their meanings are not the same outside of Western/Eurocentric ideology. In fact it's heavily based off of Roman and Greek interpretations, the base of Western Society as a whole.

I'm not going to pretend that Pluto moving into Aquarius is the only reason why we suddenly "see" more social changes, more standoffish behavior, more coldness to our fellow human. All Aquarius is doing is putting it on the internet. It sent a tweet out and we all saw it. These issues aren't a magical happening, they are the result of centuries of bs pilling up. Of cultures merging in ways that weren't possible before modern technology. Of colonization. Imperialism. Chattel Slavery. The Arab Slave trade. Ethnic cleansings.

People weren't passive before the shift into Aquarius, people were ignoring it. It's really easy to do when you have no personal reason to care, in fact it's probably something all humans can relate to on one topic or another. Trust me I was heavily into activism spaces a decade ago, everything being talked about in media now was talking about then. It was talkes about when my parents were growing up in the 60s. My grandparents in the 20s/30s and so on. Aquarius just put it in our faces (again, and will continue to do so) and said "now what? ".

I want people to not just lean in to spiritual/religious practices because they are popular but to look into the actual meanings they have. I want people to understand that yes you can be spiritual/religious and your ethnic background does impact how you practice. I want people to understand these changes we see in France (they lost their standing in Africa, literally all their former colonies told it to cope, and that's leading to their collapse), South Korea (this is not the first, and sadly won't be the last time, power has been abused under the name of "anti communism", in fact ask South East Asians how they treated there and you'll see this was going to happen), the United States (a country founded on genocide and racism isn't going to magically be less of those because a Black woman got to run for office) etc aren't solely a shift in the Star positions.

I see people point out the French Revolution happened the last time Pluto was in Aquarius (but they also had lost all the land in the US and Haiti told them to fuck off, so it wasn't just not eating cake, it was the lack of slave labor to fund their empire). Or America getting it's freedom (Britain was getting close to abolishing chattel slavery (again free labor, people hate to lose their free labor), the Irish and Scottish were also giving the English a hard time, they had to pick between the people next door or the ones over the Ocean). At that time it was the lack of free labor that pushed those movements, yeah everyone didn't have slaves but they all benefited from that system.

So many astrologers say don't let the stars determine your life but literally turn around and do that. Astrology is a tool at the end of the day. That's it, because if someone doesn't believe in it that doesn't change what happens. Conformation bias would have us believe differently but that's just part of our nature to lean towards that which supports us, not questions us. It's a practice that spans the globe and millennia because we can all look up and see the same stars at night. Maybe not as bright because light pollution, not the same positions because stars go supernova and the solar system moves, but it's still up for everyone on the planet. It's something that regardless of where you go, there's some meaning to it, maybe not always spiritual but a reason nonetheless. And it's never the same, obviously or else this would be a very boring plane of existence, and there's overlap because humans gonna human no matter where we are.

I implore you to think on your upbringing. Think on your ethnic group(s). Think on your current country of residence. Think on what you were taught in school. Think on your family. Because that's what's impacting you. That's what makes you make the decisions you do. Not just Mars moving through your third house (this is just an example, if that's happening for you good for you or I hope it gets better idk) .

Pluto in Aquarius isn't bring change. It's humans and our individual motives that are and always have.

Aquarius is a sign that puts the spot light on things already in motion. It makes you think because if you don't you can't understand. It makes you detached because if you feel it too much you might get hurt. It makes you remember because this isn't the first, nor the last time it will happen. Aquarius is the personal motive made public part of human nature. The selfish desires that push for survival. The seeking of like mindedness. The drive for community, but only if it's the same as you. Aquarius is the when of the story.

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! Sorry this is going to be a long ask.

I'm writing a cast of four characters, all of whom have some form of disability and I'd like your input, especially since a few of them fall into tropes I've seen talked about on the blog.

I have autism, ADHD, and chronic joint pain that is undiagnosed but probably related to hypermobility. All of them have ADHD and autism but I'm not going to talk about that at length for any of them because I'm pretty comfortable with writing them.

Dispite the amount of disabled characters I have and the questions I have about how to portray them, this is not a story about disability or the disabled experience, but I do want to showcase my disabled characters in a nuanced way that highlights that their disability is not separable from them.

This is also for a fanfiction, and the source has some trouble with how it portrays disability (evil character with an eye patch, bionics that completely negate the disability) and I'm trying to figure out what I can modify and what I need to just throw out.

I'll go in alphabetical order and talk about them and the tropes I'm worried about falling into/what I want advice on.

Autumn (he/they)

He has ADHD, autism, classical EDS, is mildly HoH (about 20-30 decibels less than normal range), and has three fingers on his right hand due to an injury. They use a variety of mobility aids throughout the story, starting with only occasionally using a cane and ending with using forearm crutches on good days and a wheelchair on bad days.

The tropes/things I'm concerned about with them are the “good” wheelchair user, the noble dead disabled character, and finger prosthetics

The "pure/good" wheelchair user trope I'm partially concerned about because he becomes the moral core of the cast as time goes on and he gets more disabled. He doesn't become a better person, really, but everyone else gets Worse. He's still snarky and can be selfish and jaded at times, but I feel like it's harder to demonstrate that at the end.

Being the most honest and least willing to capitulate to doing terrible things leads to his execution, which is a turning point and a point of no return. I feel like this ties into a trope of the disabled character dying first, especially since he's the one who's using disability aids/is most explicitly disabled.

I've seen the posts about why finger prosthetics aren't useful/common, but I was thinking that he'd start off with canon-typical bionic fingers before eventually realizing that he doesn't need them and it's more hassle to put them on and off than it is to just not have them. Is this an okay use of finger prosthetics since it's kind of grappling with the trope itself? Or would it be better for him not to have them in the first place?

Right now I have it so Autumn’s sister Summer died and he named himself in her honor when he transitioned. That's pretty immutable at this point. However, right now I have her as d/Deaf, with much more profound hearing loss than Autumn. (Which is also why he knows ASL) Does this fall into a disabled dead character issue?

Chauncey (he/him)

Chauncey has ADHD, autism, burn scars, chronic pain (unspecified, based on my own experiences) and dyscalculia.

Chauncey's the one I'm frankly least concerned about any specific tropes. There are only one or two concerns I have with him:

As an author, it's important to know what disability a character has even if they don't know. I know in your FAQ you say “I'm disabled is it okay to x” is generally okay, but do you think I should have a more specific disability in mind that matches my symptoms or can I keep it no specificity?

He's a clone who was rapidly aged and I wasn't sure how to figure out if/how that might affect his dyscalculia since it's not exactly a situation that happens in real life but that's about it.

Morticia (she/her)

She's my protagonist. She has autism, ADHD, a visual impairment in the form of a missing eye, and visible scarring on her face.

She's heavily based on the canon character who was an “evil eyepatch” guy. I changed it so she actually has issues with said eye and made her less evil during the period of time she uses it but I'm not sure if I should just ditch the eyepatch all together.

She starts with a bionic eye (it's not perfect, but she can see out of it to some extent). Then she gets into some sci-fi bullshit and starts piloting around a robot telepathically, but her signals get crossed with her bionic eye, so she covers it with an eyepatch while she's piloting the robot. She does use this scheme to commit 28 murders, but the murders are kind of justified by the plot? She's really written as doing some ehh things for what she believes is right. I definitely wouldn't write the eyepatch that way if it wasn't in the source, but it was like the way to identify her character in the source, so it feels weird to not have it at all.

After that, she gets arrested, gets her bionic taken, and gets a prosthetic to keep appearances and hold the shape. Stuff happens, and she gets another bionic with some more visual info that is sometimes too much for her. She gets a lot worse than when she had the eye patch, but she does still have a noticeable eye difference. Her later bionic is totally customizable and she normally keeps it a glowing gold.

I have questions about her facial scarring because she uses it to play on people's perceptions. When she's campaigning and trying to look innocent and kind, she covers it as much as she can. However, when she feels like she is in control and can do whatever she wants without consequences, she doesn't bother or even chooses to try to cover her freckles but avoid her scars because she thinks they make her more intimidating. This results in her having her scarring visible during scenes where she's being "evil" but not when she's being "good." Is that okay? It feels like it's playing into the "villain with scars" but since she as a character is doing that, it feels less like the story itself is doing it (especially since Chauncey has similar or slightly more prominent scarring and doesn't do similar things), but I'm unsure.

She is evil, and disabled, but I don't want her to be an evil disabled character. I try to associate her covering up her scarring more with masking/trying to fit in than with her being “good” but I'm not sure if it comes off that way.

Mortimer (he/him)

ADHD, autism, and limb difference (upper arm amputee)

Mortimer is probably the character I'm most worried about with my disability rep (shocking considering the five huge paragraphs I just wrote about Morticia). He's the trope of “amputee that fixes his own prosthetics/tinkers on himself.” He also makes Autumn and Morti’s aids (at least until the arrest). He also kind of falls into an autistic savant but I'm less worried about how to navigate that since I'm very familiar with the autistic community, am autistic, and have other autistic characters.

I'm worried that if I make the prosthetics he makes not “cybernetic fix-all” it'll defeat some of what I'm trying to do with making him just as good as inventors who have done that in canon. I don't know how to retcon that canon without using an author's note, which feels disjointed and I want to avoid it.

To try to work with this and not ignore the fact he's disabled, I show the prosthetics needing maintenance and try to show them sometimes being uncomfortable or heavy.

However, this leads into my second problem with how I'm handling his disability. His character arc causes him to go from being the nicest one in the cast who is very meticulous but can sometimes have a temper, to becoming reckless, rude, and seemingly uncaring.

As he becomes more reckless and less willing to care for himself, he stops doing some of the necessary maintenance on his prosthetic, causing it to break more often and rust. I'm worried this looks like I'm tying his disability getting “worse” with his morality, since he also stops caring for others as much when he stops caring for himself.

I'm also not sure if it is okay for him to paint his bionic arm to try to look like a flesh arm, since he was a criminal and he was trying to make himself look less identifiable at a glance. And if it is, when he stops doing his maintenance on it, it makes sense for the paint to chip, but that would strengthen the association of him being more visibly disabled as he becomes meaner and harsher. I'm not sure if having Autumn bring the only one who's personality remains more or less the same while becoming more visibly disabled balences this out a little bit or if it's a point of having two tropes at the same time doesn't make either better. (If Autumn is a “good wheelchair user”)

Questions involving more than one character:

Autumn knows some ASL. Mortimer is an unrealistic character that knows far more than any one person can know, and he knows basically any language as far as the story is concerned. Autumn teaches Morti a little ASL, as well. Since Autumn can understand most conversation, they generally use it instead of whispering rather than in normal conversation. Is that an acceptable use of ASL?

Currently all of my visible facial and limb differences are due to injury. I have extremely few other characters with any prominence or description at all, certainly to the extent where it would be reasonable to know if someone has a difference due to injury or birth. Do I change/add something to these four so it's less All Injuries?

I mentioned before Mortimer and Morticia trying to hide their differences for different reasons. I don't really want to go into any sense of shame they have over it, just them hiding for practical purposes. If it's not appropriate to hide them for practical purposes, do I have people react as if they had hidden them or is that erasure? (e.g. Mortimer doesn't paint his arm and it's visibly mechanical. Is that something the police are looking to identify him by or do I ignore it? It feels weird to ignore it, but if it's causing problems for the characters it feels like a reasonable reaction would be to try to blend in, but is trying to blend in/hiding their disability just heightening the sense that disabled people need to hide?)

I'm so sorry I wrote an Entire Essay I promise I tried to be concise but I have a lot of questions about the tropes I fear I'm hitting and whether I'm missing anything trying to portray the disabilities I don't have

Hey!

I will answer only some of your questions because I don't have enough experience with a lot of the subject matter here. I'd recommend looking at this post some time after it's published to see if maybe a follower had an answer/suggestion for you.

Now for the questions I'm able to answer:

For Chauncey;

It's 100% okay to base it on your own experience. At times disabilities are mysterious and unspecific, that's just how it sometimes is. The problem with this that appears from abled authors is that the symptoms or treatments just often don't make sense, because they have no clue what they're doing; confusing basic terms, making weird conclusions...

But you are a person with lived experience. You understand how your symptoms work and how you manage it from the best - first person - point of view. If someone is well-equipped to write a character with your disability, it's you.

For Morticia (cool name BTW);

As of the bionic eye; as far as I'm aware they don't really exist yet, but this is a sci-fi scenario so it's a bit different. (If you want to hear about the currently real options, here's a post that could interest you).

I'm slightly puzzled by her eyepatch fixing the signal issues; I would've assumed that it would transmit things either way (?) because with an eyepatch she would still see, just the inside of the patch and not the usual stuff. But my cluelessness here might be my fault by the fact that I'm not familiar with the source material. But if it's meant for a general (non-fandom) audience, I think it would be great if you could elaborate on the science here.

With the later eyes she gets, I advise you to keep her visually impaired even if her vision improves somewhat. It shouldn't be a cure. You potentially could think of it like hearing aids, where they can be more or less helpful, but are often more annoying than anything else and aren't fully "restoring" the sense by any means. Maybe her bionic eye has static, or weird spots, or causes double vision.

Now for the "hmm" part...

"When she's campaigning and trying to look innocent and kind, she covers it as much as she can. However, when she feels like she is in control and can do whatever she wants without consequences, she doesn't bother or even chooses to try to cover her freckles but avoid her scars because she thinks they make her more intimidating."

Please, please, please don't do this. To answer your question; not okay.

I have written a post somewhat about this kind of thing. I really dislike playing with ableism in this way. Portraying scars as "intimidating" on an already dicey character... just no.

To pull this off in a way that's not offensive, you would have to research disfiguremisia in and out. It would need active commentary and a lot of teaching-the-reader-why-this-is-bad, and if you have to ask if it's okay, then you just aren't ready for it. And that's fine. You don't have to write a scenario based on heavy disfiguremisia, so don't. Remember, it's not her acting a certain way, it's you writing her to act a certain way.

I don't want you to take this personally, but please just don't write this. Not like this, at least.

For the "fitting in" part, I addressed it in the post linked above; I don't think that I have anything to add that wasn't included there.

For Mortimer, the best I can do right now is give you a bunch of links that will hopefully be helpful to you. This is just way beyond my answering capabilities and we don't have any mods who are amputees at the moment, so you're at the mercy of follower input for the most part. But;

Post of posts about arm prosthetics

Our general amputee tag

@cy-cyborg 's account, xe posts great writing advice, often regarding prosthetics. I believe that ze accepts asks as well.

For the rest of the questions;

"Currently all of my visible facial and limb differences are due to injury [...] Do I change/add something to these four so it's less All Injuries?

I would say yes. Some of the tropes that you're working if are not great, so adding a few additional characters that don't fall into them will help a lot. Try having some characters with similar disabilities that don't tick the issue-causing boxes. Throw someone with a facial difference that doesn't commit any kind of mass murder in there.

"I mentioned before Mortimer and Morticia trying to hide their differences for different reasons. [...] If it's not appropriate to hide them for practical purposes, do I have people react as if they had hidden them or is that erasure?"

In real life they would probably be recognized by it, though I need to say that there is absolutely a part of the population who just doesn't notice. People can absolutely be oblivious, especially if the lack of limb is hidden by clothes. Particularly if there are a lot of things going on.

That said, if whoever seen them has noticed, then they would look for that. That's just the logical outcome. But I don't think an eyepatch helps much to hide the actual disability, they would still assume that the person with a bionic eye and the eyepatch-wearing person are probably the same.

You can potentially avoid it by making a large chunk of the population disabled. "Girl without an eye" isn't very helpful information to hunt someone by when there's dozens of people with that description in the city.

For the end, I'm sorry that some parts of it might have come off as not the most encouraging (the Morticia part...), please remember that I'm just criticizing the tropes and implications. I can kind of tell that whatever the source material is, it is way worse about its treatment of disability/facial difference, so I would consider it an improvement nonetheless. Still, it could be better. I hope that the above links and answers will help you with your project.

If any followers are familiar with the topics discussed here, you can leave a reply or reblog with your suggestions. Remember to be constructive.

I hope this helps!

Mod Sasza

Hey! Mod Patch hopping in here to talk a bit about Autumn. I think that you’re aware of the tropes this could fall into is a good first step. 

First of all, you mention Autumn is missing some fingers and has classical EDS. Both of these could make using a manual wheelchair more difficult. Is the wheelchair in question manual? If it is perhaps consider adding a power assist (perhaps like a fantasy version of a smart drive. 

I’m not too concerned about him being “pure” because you mention that they are 1) working with other “immoral” folks. My suggestion would be to try and lean into the selfish and jaded parts of the character. Show his motivations aren't exclusively disability-related. I am a bit concerned about his execution. I understand that you might not be able to change that plot point but can you have other characters who use mobility aids and survive longer? They don’t have to be as major in the story.

mod Patch

[fiishii]

Not all of these are directly vocaloid related and this mostly reflects my own tastes but.

Ryōshū probably listens to the DMCV and Metal Gear Rising: Revengence songs just loud enough that others can hear it if they sit next to her. Agree on the ADO but would also add Butchers Vanity (chef), symaG, Kan Kan and MARETU.

Faust probably is into game OSTs, like the ones for Neir:Automata and the SMT series. Plus blackY, a lil bit of Team Grimoire, and Touhou. As well as general classical sometimes - I feel like she'd prefer instrumentals. Rhythm game ahh music taste when she isn't trying to focus on something (because she is good at them)

Heath would absolutely like vocaloid, but specifically a real sucker for the catchy ones like Mesmerizer and Luka Luka ☆ Night Fever. Listens to jubyphonic for EN covers. Oft falls prey to the 'bopping song/depressing lyrics' phenomenon (just like Sinclair)

Yi Sang likes peaceful sounding songs, like (gestures at Mili) and video game OSTs ,but I I see him liking upbeat ones like La Primavera and I Got It!. He listens to more songs with lyrics after canto 4.

Sinclair likes Tokyo Teddy Bear. Neru, PinoccioP, MARETU, DECO * 27, syudou and generally the most popular Vocaloid artists like a decade ago. Also likes the occasional classical and stuff like Take Me to Church, Partners in Crime and TLT's Discord remix. Listens to Nightcore when he thinks nobody else can hear it (they can). Eminem.

Gregor likes the songs that shops play bc they were popular 5-30 years ago.

Donqui is also a rhythm game fiend but esp likes the ones like Sswwiinnddlleerr or The Big Black where you aren't 100% sure throwing kitchenware down the stairs or putting an orchestra in a centrifuge wasnt at least a part of the process. Loves Fixer anthems/themes (they probably sound like indie horror game fansongs) and anime songs like A Cruel Angel's Thesis, Lifetime Girl Declaration and Lucky Star's Opening. Eurobeat.

Charon does not yet know what Eurobeat is. This is the reason the bus only hits things sometimes.

Wall of text jumpscare 🫵🐟 /pos

oh my gosh limbus headcanons in my inbox let’s go?? I’ll try responding to these erm hold on.

Ryōshū one I absolutely agree with, can’t believe I never considered Butchers Vanity and the MGR:R soundtrack. She would totally listen to loud blaring songs and metal, songs with raw emotions. But maybe also songs with deeper meanings because uh. Art or something.

Faust being a rhythm gamer is just yes.

You worded the Heathcliff vocaloid bit way better than I did. Imagining Heathcliff listening to mesmerizer or Young girl A completely oblivious, yeah. Jubyphonic as a go-to for english covers is very valid. I also think he might like Laufey for the love songs and such, a bit of mitski or joji in there too perhaps.

I’ve personally always imagined Yi Sang liking any song with some kind of deep meaning behind it(trademark) or some story because erm, typical poet behavior. But he definitely would feel intimidated by loud blaring music so he sticks to mellow, slow-paced songs. At times I imagine him liking the Hawaii Part ii album because of the lore(trademark), other times I imagine him listening to funkytown unironically.

Sinclair, he probably even shares a playlist with Heathcliff. Generally agree on this and I think he would be even more secretive about his music taste than Heathcliff. Sinclair being Sinclair. Probably also shares a playlist with Ryōshū due to them hanging out a lot. Take me to church fits really well considering his source material. Also Eminem oh my god…???

Gregor being a Dad oh god… Sounds accurate honestly. I think he would like Army Dreamers by Kate Bush though.

Don checks out. She’s probably really good at certain songs in rhythm games and absolutely terrible in others, no in between. I like to imagine she comes up with her own fixer songs, almost like a disney channel musical movie protagonist. Just randomly starts singing on the spot. Considering that one Don Quixote musical, if it existed somehow in the Project Moon universe she would love it.

Charon….

Yeah that sounds about right for Ishy. For me she listens to sea shanties very often, mostly for the nostalgia. But those really sad sea shanties like Bones in the Ocean, and other stuff by The Longest Johns or other shanty bands. There’s one I found that’s directly telling the story of Moby Dick (as well as the Moby Dick musical) I know it won’t mix very well considering the lore and timeline just like with the Don Quixote one but still.

No worries :D

I have never heard such a specific name for song. I searched it up just now and thank you anon for introducing me to nanahira lol.

But with Hong Lu mentioned I honestly think he wouldn’t know much about pop songs prior to joining Limbus Company, probably from his relatives keeping him sheltered from the outside world. He probably only knew about traditional songs or classical pieces. But being in Limbus Company now he definitely would share similar tastes to Don Quixote, or is probably really open to any kind of music because he’s never heard a lot of it. I think he’d like Bitter Choco Decoration.

Phew that was a lot. Thank you anon for the fun headcanons to read and think about!!

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 30 of Nona the Ninth

The tower has returned as the image for the chapter

I'm not exactly sure what Paul was trying to do by putting the truck in a bubble, or why Nona and Pyrrha don't think it will work. I guess maybe he thought the bubble would protect them from the ghosts, but Nona and Pyrrha want to be able to see where they're going and don't think Paul can navigate well enough from inside the bubble?

In my first draft of that paragraph I wrote "Palamedes" instead of "Paul". FFS

Back at the beginning of Harrow the Ninth, it wasn't just the ghosts that were the problem with going physically through the River, John also claimed that non-Lyctors would have their souls leave their bodies if they tried that, but Kiriona and Corona seem fine here. Paul probably qualifies as some kind of Lyctor at this point, and Pyrrha might have some special dispensation due to once being part of a Lyctor and Nona is fucking Elder God and it's not clear whether Judith is actually ok or not. There's also a lot of other people in the truck who aren't Lyctors in any way

The ghosts abandoned the River earlier because Number Seven was nearby, and it does speak through Judith again later in the scene, is it protecting them from the ghosts as a favor to Nona? Or is there something else going on with the River as hinted at by Ianthe?

This sounds like maybe the truck is being treated specially here because there is one, maybe two, resurrection beasts on board

Did this telling actually happen on screen at some point, or was it during one of the periods where Nona was unconscious? Presumably Kiriona does know about the tower in the River, since she traveled through the River to New Rho not too terribly long ago, but I don't think she's mentioned it on screen yet

Lmao, of course there's a reference to losing the game in this book

Oddly, that is actually an effective way of communicating what's going on with her, that there are things she doesn't want to remember and she doesn't want to think about how she doesn't want to remember them because then she risks remembering them. She recognizes this tower, so I guess it might be Canaan House, or it might be something related to the Ninth, since that's where they're trying to get to? Harrow did wind up in part of the River that seemed to look like the Tomb the last time we saw her. But Pyrrha must have traveled to the Ninth via the River when she went there to kill Wake, and she doesn't recognize this

I guess Harrow technically did build a version of Canaan House inside a River bubble during the last book, but at the end of that book it was coming apart at the seams. But this might be something else that Harrow built in the River in a more permanent capacity, and maybe it resembles some real place that Alecto remembers

So on the second readthrough, it's definitely sounding like their safe passage through here is because of Number Seven. I don't know what it's talking about, though

Ok, but earlier, Pyrrha said that it was people with "necromantic bodies" that had this reaction to the resurrection beasts' speech, and Paul doesn't have a necromantic body. Also, Palamedes using Camilla's body didn't have any reaction to Number Seven speaking through Judith the first time that happened. This seems kind of inconsistent

That's like kind of weirdly sweet, she doesn't care about dying, and she doesn't care enough about the people she's with to save them, but she cares enough about saving Noodle that she'll save everyone else so that Noodle doesn't have to die. Just your average eldritch monster that only cares about its favorite dog

It's interesting to contrast the Nona parts of this story where Nona is talking about not being afraid of death and wishing she could just die because she is tired of trying to stay in her body and Harrow saying in the last John chapter that Alecto was afraid of dying

That's also an interesting use of the word "home", does Nona consider the Ninth House to be "home" in some way? Because Alecto's body is locked in the Tomb? Because she has residual memories of being Harrow?

[2346khith]

List of canon changes in my au.

So I did a post something similar to this one about how my au is different from the canon but this time it going to less structure and more rant like. I am not trying to compare my au to the neatherrealm timeline or trying to be a better writer than NRS just making an au for fun.

.Kind of a change to my au (I kind of forgot what I did previously with the timeline.) This follows the event similarly to the original timeline but only the arcade era and after that it sort of stagnates a little bit into being a fusion of mkx and deception but that not set in stone. Different factors from different timelines will be implemented depending on how much I like them.

.Kung lao is similar to his mk1 counterpart but more humble

. Raiden is more based on the 95 movie raiden and dotr raiden

.Kenshi joined the special forces much earlier and did so out personal reasons with his mother side of the family being held captive by the black dragon through the yakuza

.Kenshi has his Eurasian background from the og timeline

.Johnny and Sonya are married permanently. The did just get married because Sonya was pregnant but the did fall in love while having Cassie. It was messy trying to raise her as either had any experience dealing with kids but they learned along the way

. Frost real name here is Holly (yes I know that not her canon name this is canon changes to an au and yes I know the name is stupid and lazy but I busy with homework and job hunting so cut me some slack)

.Frost does compete in underground fighting but there not hosted by the black dragon and there no to the death fights

.Johnny , Sonya and Liu Kang are all closed friends (there still the first fighters for earthrealm) who hang out a lot of the time. Johnny enjoys dragging Sonya and Liu around Hollywood, Sonya acts like the one in charge and makes sure the boys aren't in any trouble and Liu is the peacekeeper and makes sure neither Johnny nor Sonya are overly stressed out

.Syzoth currently in the story appears reptilian up until the outworld's invasion where he gets stranded in earthrealm and has to take a human disguise

.Mileena is a clone but unlike her original counterparts, after multiple arcs that I have not even begun to write out yet, they Kitana accepts her as her sister

.Jerrod is inside of Ermac but he never takes control of the collective and is more like Ermac conscience guiding him into specific decisions like protecting Kitana

.Wraiths appear more human the more time the spend out of the neatherrealm but wraith like appearances will show up if there distress or with highten emotions

. Just like in mkx Erron Black is an immortal cowboy who travels all over the realm and is currently the only person besides raiden to hop onto different realms though he not will the share that information with anybody.

. Instead of Suarians originating from earthrealm and moving to zaterria, it the opposite way around with them being originally from zaterria but after outworld invade fleed to earthrealm and hid refugee underground. As the stayed in earthrealm, the evolved to become more versitile in shapeshifting to a point where they can mimic powers which leads to the creation of Khameleon

. Sektor is female while Cyrax is male. Sektor did have some romantic relation with Bi Han for a short while but it end very quickly

. Jax is a little bit older than the rest of the earthrealm fighters(something along the lines of early 30s to most earthrealm fighters early to mid 20s)

.Quan chi is more powerful. What I mean by that is that he could probably take an army on by himself with little to no resistance and he be a lot more powerful than scorpion and noob saibot combine

. Before finding Bi han or Kuai Liang, Sareena found Cyrax first and managed to bring the humanity out of him from... I don't know attacking his lingering soul which caused it to take control on his mechanical body and now have a sort of alliance with each other

. Vaterrians aren't extinct or endangered but are used a slaves until Nitara started a revolution

. Saibot has free will and acts as his own entity

.In the future events when the kombat kids form Cassie is more along the lines of a wrestler while Jacaqui fights with tech. Inspired by @zxid art of them and concept art of Cassie.

. Skarlet is raised with Kitana and Mileena and while she doesn't exactly turn to the side of good with Kitana and Mileena, she does remain neutral and has a okay sisterly relationship with them

.The only difference between a a demons true form and human disguise is that of appearance. Physically and power wise there the exact same no matter which form their at

.Shao is a god just like raiden

.D'vorah doesn't exist here. Kytinn exist here and are minor race but D'vorah isn't here

.Kotal does exist and was a general for Shao but he doesn't try to take the thrown of kahn instead was more interested in finding and regrouping his people

. Shujinko doesn't become an old man

.currently Ashrah had the kris but has not made her way out of the netherrealm yet

.Tomas is cybernized but his programing is a bit unstable due to his possesion on enenra and in the future when Tomas is brought back, it into a human body while his cybernized body in possed by enenra

.Hanzo is attractive. Thats it. Why does he have to be attractive? Just cause

And that all that I have current apart of mykung au although more stuff might be added later down the line. What do you guys thing. Please put your feedback, criticism, helping ideas and prompt down in the comments(seriously please put them down. I need ideas and I have no idea what I'm doing. every now and then I get these waves of ideas and then my minds completely blank for weeks) Also I promise I'll try to post more about this au as often as I can with all this school work along with other ideas for other series an fandoms I have. Currently I'm thinking of two over aus , one being my own transformers fan continuity and one being an alternate universe in marvel.

[davekat-sucks]

Oh my goodness! That anon talking about hazbin hotel merch made me realize that Hussie could have made bank if he just made a different Homestuck merch and make almost all the merch line ups limited edition pins. With my own personal experience I can say I’ve seen pins sell well, at times they can sell slow but people are willing to pay premium for them if they’re told “I only have 300 of these and I’m never making them again. When they are gone they are gone.”

Homestuck fans are still obsessed enough with Homestuck to want to buy plushies and pins. This is a self own but if you put some Jade merch in front of me that’s GOOD I’m going to snatch it up like a fish eatting a worm on a fishing line.

This honestly shows me Hussie is really incapable of looking at others successes and taking advice. Homestuck is a BRAND focused on CHARACTERS and it is niche but a content creator can take advantage of that.

They used to have enamel pins and other unique items once upon a time on their old WhatPumpkin Store. However, they stopped producing it because the price for these pins as a set were overpriced and didn't sell enough. $15 fucking dollars for a pin set, even for the simpler smaller ones. Some were able to be reduced to $8 under ForFansByFans, but by then, Homestuck was near the end of its run and nobody cared enough to buy the merch. The Beta Kids one in the first pics were 8 dollars each and $30 if you buy all four. But even then, compared to ones like Helluva Boss or The Amazing Digital Circus, they are at least more reasonable with some having gimmicks (like the Lenticular or locket flip) or special shape designs that need better time to mold and painting. And Glitch Productions is even nice that some aren't that limited time only. But I have no idea if the sales would have been better if it was a limited time offer.

Even for recent times, Hussie or James Roach could use something like this Makeship Campaign plush to sell either Homestuck or Hiveswap related characters, but they aren't doing that either. Not even for YouTooz and their quality for making stuff is cheap as shit. What doesn't help that in one of the ForFansByFans livestreams that used to be streamed on Twitch, they or WhatPumpkin, admitted they lost some of the data files for the merch. So things like outlines about how a plushie should look like or made, the 3D model shape and mold for the Homestuck figures, the images for the shirts/bags/calendars/etc, etc. Most of them had been fan-made, so it will be hard to try and contact the original artists for it. And ones for official like the Homestuck figures, they probably have moved on to greener pastures than to stick around with WhatPumpkin and/or lost file data too. Finally, there's also MOTIVATION that is needed to buy the merch. Homestuck at its state was in Gigapause or near end of its run by the time these merch stuff dropped even after the Kickstarter was funded. Maybe some got tired of waiting for the series to update. Maybe some are unhappy with how the story turned out by the end and didn't think they could support Homestuck because of that. Besides just being able to support small indie creators, does the series make people happy or special that it would give people the energy and effort to go out and buy the merch? Even if you love or hate something too, there should at least have some drive to get people to think about a series. For Homestuck, it's nothing but emptiness.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Long story short, my apartment was visited once by a person i have no relations to, and out of convenience he came with his 8-10(?) yo daughter. He had some business with my brother, and my bro, being a people pleaser he is, decided to entertain the kid by showing her my doll collection. I didn't see any harm in this and she was very respectful about not playing with the dolls, but this little girl got obsessed with my custom unoa. She stared at her for 30 minutes straight, and whined to her father about wanting her. I allowed her to take photos, told her father a bit about how these dolls are customized by me and aren't available in toy stores. He managed to pacify the child with "we will look for a doll like this when we get home", and then they left.

Next day a terrifying thought hit me- what if they find unoa recasts on aliexpress, send recasters photos of my doll and ask them to copy her custom stylization? Not only would that result in another recast being purchased, but also i feel like crap because i put so much work into her, everything from top to bottom besides the doll and her shoes is made by me. It makes me so anxious now.I'm too socially awkward to seek contact with this man to explain to him about how recasts are bad. He probably wouldn't even care, because I'm sure he wouldn't buy a full price bjd for a child. I just hope he will think it's too much hustle and that the recast is already too expensive for a toy or something... Still, i feel terrible now.

~Anonymous

[lost-technology]

Since I saw some supplemental materials posted on a reblog browsing a blog and it's from a name that's blocked me... I'm again wondering "Why has this person blocked me???" Okay, there is someone in this fandom (not putting a name up here because I don't want to put them on the spot) who seems to know an awful lot about what Studio Orange is doing, they post a lot of concept-art. I don't know where they get it from - if they go to cons and snap photos of panels or if they do deep-dive searches or if the show bible is available in their country (they appear to be Russian or Russian-speaking while also English-speaking?) and it's stuff we don't get in the U.S.A. wherever it is gotten from, or where they are getting it from, but I do see their stuff reblogged from time to time on other people's blogs. It's the only way I can see it. I can't see this stuff even going to the Trigun tag because they have me blocked - and not just my Trigun-related sideblogs, but my main blog as well. (I do not know if this is because I listed my main blog somewhere or if I've mentioned my Trigun blogs on my main blog and have put stuff in the Trigun tag there before). Anyway, the fact that they have my main blocked and both of my Trigun blogs (I've found out when I've tried to reblog from them in the past and gotten a red-code and I can easily see who has blocked me if I go to replies and go to the drop-down on replies if they have an open reply-box) makes me think "Wow, this person must really hate me." - I haven't the foggiest idea why, either. I don't know what I said on any of my blogs to offend. I have to wonder if they were an OG fan back in "the day" who remembers me before I got medication and therapy / whacked over the head by life and was an objectively much shittier person (at least I hope I'm a much less shitty person today). Maybe there was a misunderstanding? Maybe I annoyed one of their friends? Gheez, I wonder if there's a callout post about me somewhere... (if so, if anyone has seen such, I'd like a chance to clear things up. Maybe a lot of untruth has been said about me. Maybe some things that were true but aren't anymore. Maybe some things stand, but if so, I'd like to be able to know, acknowledge and address). Then again, maybe I'm just banhammered because I am openly an older fan and some people think everyone over 30 should not be in fandom of any kind. Who knows? (My hyper-paranoia makes me worry "Are they on the Orange production crew to bring out all this info that they do every now and again? Did I somehow offend someone who works on the project? Am I even ALLOWED to be a fan? But then I take another look at what posts on reblogs I do see that has them theorizing and guessing as much as everyone else does, which means that they probably aren't and are just...somehow getting some concept-art). Bottom line: I want to know where to access this concept-art and translations of story-theory independent of tumblr and the occasional coming across it on tumblr. I don't want to be kept in the dark until I'm curiosity-browsing someone's art-blog and I see a reblog from "Oh, person whose blog is a Ghost Blog to me for reasons unknown." (Anyway, um, fuck you, too, buddy?)

[rejectedfables]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

Character: Draco Malfoy (HP) Why I love them: I don't. I love the version of him I frankensteined together from fics I read/wrote as an undiagnosed autistic preteen who wished I knew how to be meaner, and was hopelessly demisexually gay for a brunette with glasses.

Character: Uzumaki Naruto (Naruto) Why I love them: Emotionally neglected ADHD powerhouse who thinks "what do 600 hot girls look like? Me with titties and pigtails 600 times obviously" followed by "what do 600 hot boys look like? All my male friends with bedroom eyes OBVIOUSLY" and somehow hasn't figured out he's into dudes and is probably genderfluid. The Haku and Zabuza arc came SO close to "child soldier figures out that making children into soldiers is bad, actually, and resolves to create a better society where fewer people needlessly suffer" but then I think the author got old and forgot his own trajectory in favor of endless spectacle creep and, idk, something about the moon crushing Konoha or whatever. I lost interest in the story, but not the BOY. Also his relentless fixation with that dark haired cool guy he kissed one time makes every other character feel awkward, and I relate to that.

Character: Urameshi Yusuke (Yu Yu Hakusho) Why I love them: LOVE me a guy who even HEAVEN writes off as an irredeemable asshole surprising everyone with an act of selflessness. Love me an asshole who dedicates his life to love and friendship. Yusuke's narrative is basically "Obviously all yokai are evil. Wait, some aren't (some of my best friends are yokai)? Wait, most aren't (I actually really enjoy the yokai world/community)? Wait, I'M a yokai? (THAT'S why I am the way I am, and actually that's not evil it's just different)??? So there's evil humans AND evil yokai but neither are inherently bad, MOST are just regular people on both sides, and both are worth protecting" and anyway this is a neurodivergent and queer allegory to me, which slaps severely.

Character: Shi Qingxuan (Heaven Official's Blessing) Why I love them: Gender

Character: Luke Fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss) Why I love them: Nobody's doing character growth like this little shit. An icon. It takes like 30 hours of gameplay for him to become likable and when he does it's somehow genuinely worth it.

Character: Changheng (Love Between Fairy and Devil) Why I love them: (I'm picking only one character per story, which is the only reason Xiao Lanhua and Dongfang Qingcang aren't also on this list.) You're telling me the God of War's narrative is a "tragic princess, betrothed since childhood, can't escape her family's expectations, constantly has to put everyone else above herself, until finally she snaps" story blended with "man who has been forced to live in war, falls for the first person who acknowledges that he, too, needs protection, ultimately rejects the violence he's been forced to endure and enact in favor of pursuing peace" and I'm what? NOT supposed to go insane? Also his nose freckle gives me heart palpitations.

Character: Logan Echolls (Veronica Mars, specifically season 1) Why I love them: What an excellent example of a badly coping shithead jerk fuckup boy who would be SO soft in any context where he's not under constant threat. Something about his mouth-breathing under duress compels me.

Character: Kyo (Fruits Basket) Why I love them: Badly coping under duress, the entire system is stacked against him, anger management issues and the snatched waist of a 90's manga twink. What can I say, a feral cat finding stability and love gets me every time.

Character: Xue Yang (MDZS) Why I love them: Irredeemable asshole feral cat ass man, coping badly at all times with all things but holding it together with a winning personality (gratuitous violence and bad jokes). Falls SO hard for the first person to show him love and kindness, becomes SO soft when not under threat for the first time ever, and then fucks up SO badly he ruins his whole fucking life. Spends more time trying to get back what he lost than he actually HAD what he lost. He's irredeemable. He's irredeemable. He makes apple rabbits for A Qing because she's sad. He's irredeemable. He doesn't pull a weapon on Xingchen even when Xingchen has already stabbed him and he's renowned for violence and revenge. He's irredeemable. I starting writing a post in his defense and hit the character limit halfway through my 'notes to flesh out later' bullet pointed list. He's irredeemable?? Xiao Xingchen could, though, is all I'm saying. The deeper you look into his actions the more humanity there is to find. I'm rotating every single thing about him in my mind like a rotisserie chicken.

Character: Chu Wanning (ERHA) Why I love them: He's hopelessly demisexually gay for literally just one guy. His story is gratuitously tragic but with a happy ending. Autistic Yearning incarnate. He's a burnt out husk of a blushing virgin, and the horniest person alive. Would readily die for his convictions, but won't ask for help. Prettiest wife anyone could ever wish for, with a strong masculine jaw. Total knockout gorgeous with body dysmorphia. Hyper competent with zero emotional intelligence. Widely respected and beloved with intense self loathing. He's never not masking. He's an atticked wife, he's a bossy husband, he's a piece of wood. He's 45. He's 6. He's 20. He's 32. He is catnip for me.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote:

Hello mbti-notes and thank you for having this blog. INTP here (probably). Sorry if this post is unstructured. I'm writing this in middle of what I think of as Fe-grip (anxiety/depression) as my problem is related to that.

If you aren't certain about your type, do a proper type assessment. I won't comment on function development otherwise. At the end of your message, you ask whether your thinking is "rational". This is a concerning question since INTPs should automatically understand what it means to be rational and how to determine it.

My aux Ne is trying to remind me of lots of future worst case scenarios, to the point that I experience anxiety, depression and hopelessness.

These "future worst case scenarios" you speak of are fiction. It is your imagination, so why do you treat them as real? Are you being rational when you can't tell the difference between what happens inside your mind and external reality?

And my Si (combined with Ti) tries to find out other people's experiences (online) and facts to support them. And then my Fe makes me regretful, anxious and depressed.

I don't really understand, why should other people's experience have any bearing on you? Are you not an individual with your own path and your own life to live? Are you being rational when you conflate their experience with yours?

I have written to you before. To cut the long story short, I made wrong choices and also trusted my family in some cases in my late teens and 20s, which caused me to waste all those years and my youth with it.

What do you mean by "waste"? Aren't all of your experiences a part of you and important for making you who you are? Acceptance of your past is an important aspect of self-acceptance. Are you being rational when you seek the impossible, such as wanting only positive experiences and never any negative things in life?

Then in my late 20s, I found my path and decided to fix my life. The problem is, despite trying to improve my life (in order to find a career and also reach my other goals), I feel behind in life. I know I can't make my life as good as the wise version of my teen or YA self, or a person that starts this process in their early 20s.

What do you mean by "fell behind"? By what standards? Society's standards? What is this "wise version of my teen or YA self" you speak of? Wisdom can only come through learning from extensive life experience, so teens, by definition, aren't wise. It may sound insulting but it's a fact of brain maturation. Your perception of the past seems distorted, so your comparisons are nonsensical. Are you being rational when you adopt arbitrary beliefs about "success"?

I'm also really terrified of ageism and aging. To the point that I get a panic attack everytime I see small signs of aging in myself. I've heard people are more respected and desired from 18 to 30. I was always indifferent towards those things and didn't care about being desired by other people, but lately things have changed and I'm starting to get terrified of myself, my age, my body and my future.

People age and die; these are facts of life. Are you being rational when you spend all your energy refusing to accept the facts of life, rather than taking action to make the most of your limited time?

I can't get over my lost youth. I studied something my family wanted and even graduated, but couldn't find a career with it where I live. And I spent most of my 20s in isolation. I refused to date, refused to make friends didn't experience life much and didn't reach my goals (professional, gender-related and immigration related).

You refused to date, refused to make friends, and refused to live a full life? In other words, you are now facing the consequences of your decisions. Negative consequences exist to teach you the error of your ways, such that you can CHANGE and evolve throughout life. Are you being rational by getting angry at logical consequences, rather than learning from them, making different decisions, and getting better outcomes?

These days, I'm either numb or experiencing Fe overload (panic attack, anxiety and depression and some worse things). To the point that I'm afraid of myself. I can't trust psychiatrists as I live in a conservative place and don't know if I can explain EVERYTHING to them.

I sympathize that it's difficult for you to get professional help where you are, but this doesn't mean it's an impossibility. With the internet, you have access to people all over the world. Perhaps you need to learn how to use your imagination for good and explore more possibilities for getting the help you need. If you are deep in Si loop, it means you talk yourself out of good opportunities or convince yourself there are no good opportunities, because you don't want to risk feeling disappointed or hurt again. If that's the case, are you being rational when you'd prefer being stuck in pain to moving forward in life?

And I can't trust my family either. I have tried to find solutions online. It says you have to accept aging or hide it, but I can't do either of them. Nothing has been able to help me. I still regret losing my 20s/youth, not being able to be myself, starting late, etc. To the point that I can't be hopeful about my future. I'm also angry with my society/cntry for being conservative and irrational, for making me stay closeted, forcing me to be covered and wear things that don't define "me" in public, and not being able to deal with a person like me. Plus other issues. I'm also disappointed with my family, for being ashamed of me, forcing me to dress up and hide/change myself, not seeing my struggles and not researching. And most of them are high Si or Se users, so when they see me depressed, they either gaslight/shame me for it, or buy me food or want to take me out, which actually makes me guilty and more depressed.

I have written many times about the pointlessness of blame. It is a distraction. It is a way to deflect responsibility. It is a way to wallow in self-pity by always taking the position of the helpless victim. By your own admission, over and over again, you kept allowing yourself to be swayed by mere opinion. And now you blame all those things rather than facing up to the facts. Without being in touch with the facts, on what basis can you make good decisions? Are you being rational when you continually refuse to face facts?

Yes I know, the most logical thing here is to focus on my goals and studies. And I'm trying my best. But those fears and regrets are always on the back of my head (sometimes even worse) causing me anxiety attacks.

You seem to have a habit of constantly fighting against your feelings and emotions - has it worked for you? Or have they only gotten worse the more you resist and battle them? When a strategy doesn't work, is it rational to keep repeating it?

This is an issue of poor emotional intelligence and another example of being unwilling to face facts, in this case, the facts of your psychology. Please consult past posts about how to improve your emotional intelligence. Are you being rational when your decision-making process has been hijacked by runaway negative emotions?

I mean, my youth got wasted, and from now on, I'm probably going to experience age discrimination and ageism in many areas of life (professional, dating, clubs, etc), even if I reach my other goals and immigrate to a better place.

Do you know why you suffer fear of ageism? Because you have chosen to use age to define your worth. You have internalized the destructive ageist standards of the most shallow members of your society. You blame others for their faults, but you have chosen to be just like them, haven't you?

At some point, you have to grow up, which means making a difficult decision: Are you going to be your own person and live life as you need to, guided by your own carefully considered beliefs and values? Or are you going to keep subjecting yourself to the standards of others and constantly suffer on a roller coaster of their dis/approvals?

You can't have it both ways; you can't keep seeking the highs of validation without also experiencing the lows of invalidation. As long as you keep using this shallow system of evaluating your self-worth, you'll suffer. Pain is unavoidable in life, but suffering is a choice. Is it rational to keep choosing suffering?

My question is, 1) Am I making a rational judgement here?

I'm hard-pressed to find any rational judgment above. It is rational and healthy to feel bad about bad circumstances. You ought to seek comfort for getting through difficult times and support/assistance for changing what you can about negative situations. But it isn't healthy or rational to indulge judgmentalness, throw around blame, dwell in negativity, and/or obsess about things you don't have the power to change; these activities are an empty comfort that not only hold you back in life but keep you stuck in pain and suffering.

2) Is there a way to permanently get out of Fe grip without being later triggered by Si viewpoints?

Yes, it is through properly developing Ti and Ne. If you really don't want to correct your flawed judgment and open your mind to alternative ways of thinking and solving problems, then perhaps you do need to reconsider whether you are actually INTP.

[catscoollike]

Catti and Monster kid walk sprites ^_^ + snowy

Hey look at these!!! I decided to throw my metaphorical hat into the metaphorical ring and try to give some of these dorks walk sprites. They're kinda rough around the edges but I think they turned out pretty good for only being around an afternoon's amount of work. I gotta say though each of these feels like they have their own story of how they were all uniquely a pain in the ass to make.

SNOWY

Starting with everyone's favorite deltarune character, Snowy! Holy hell! How I hope to never make a sprite for this dork ever again! In a game full of relatively simple character designs this dude just stands out as a beacon of complexity. He's just so weird man.

Now actually I completely forgot that he already had a sprite for him facing to the left in the game. (It's only used twice in the whole game). And I really didn't expect him to be that uh, flat?

Yeah, I don't know I guess he got hit in the face with a frying pan or something.

MONSTER KID

This little charmer was easier to sprite by several orders of magnitude. One of the reasons why is that 30% of their directional movement sprites were already done. And the reason I say only 30% of its done is because the one used in game is uh...

... Just the sprite that's used when they're sitting at their desk in class. Seriously! Thats their walking sprite! When MK and Snowy run away from Susie at the bunker, they just slide out of there!

Now to be fair they're gone in like half a second so it's pretty hard to notice if you aren't looking for it and its also probably why the spriters didn't feel the need to give them walking animations yet. but whenever I see this scene used in a theory video about the bunker I always chuckle.

But still, it was very helpful to have a sort of jumping off point for making their sprites. Since I wasn't just going to reinvent the wheel and draw them a whole new face. But I did need to give them a new body though, since I doubt monster kids body is a perfect cone from every angle.

CATTI

Now the thing is that there many very talented pixel artists that work on deltarune... Toby fox is not one of them.

Now I only mention this because with the fucking 2 sprites, that catti has in the game there is a pretty clear difference in artistic ability between them.

One sprite of her in her work uniform with shading. And one sprite of her sitting at her desk that uses flat default MS paint colors. Thats all I have to work with.

So, assuming that god is good and that the sprite that doesn't look like pixel barf is the one that more accurately represents her design. I used that to reference the color of her earrings and eyes. Along with her head sprite, since again, don't need to reinvent the wheel. Especially since I don't imagine her face shape completely changing once she changes her clothes. But I did add some shading since I though it looked nice.

After I had the head done, I decided to sprite... well, the rest of her. I sorta skimped out on the front facing body. And just made it a heavily altered version of Catty's. I only did that because every other member of the family pretty much just has the same body. And since shes related to them I thought it made sense to not make her some weird outlier to the rest of her family. Contrary to what Catti may tell you in game.

Making the directional sprites felt like pulling teeth. Once I had the down sprite done the up sprite was a piece of cake but oh man. The horizontal sprites. yeah uh, that's... probably not what that sprite is going to look like in deltarune.

Her head shape was tough, I didn't know if she had a prominent snout, or if her head is just completely round like it is when looking at it from the front. But after messing around with it while listening to the entirety of RV pine's fanmade chapter 3 soundtrack. I finally got something passable.

But that's about it, I guess. I know I just got done complaining about how these were super-duper hard to make and stuff. But it was pretty fun to make these.

[trench-rot]

11, 15, 29, 30 for the OTP questions for all three please <3

Thank you Skelly! This is probably going to end up obnoxiously long but I love the babies and I don't talk about them nearly enough.

Unfortunately word vomiting also means this is just shy of 1.5k words of such.

11. What is their love language?

chloe x jacob - Chloe is an acts of service kinda gal, which is excellent for Jacob since words seemingly live to fail him when it comes to her. Their cabin is never low on firewood, even if neither of them have been there recently. She reads the 'I love yous' in every dinner, in the times hes gone out of his way for her time to be less shitty. Extra food, extra water. normal romanticizing captor things. (several peak story plot points are atrocities Jacob commits in Chloe's name). Jacob is words of affirmation, but Christ you'll never hear him admit it. Chloe has grown to note the little side smiles he thinks she can't see, holding them close to her heart. Listening to his heart race while she gives him her adoration is loud enough a proclamation.

theo x john - Theo finds restorative love in quality time. Eden's Gate keeps him extraordinarily busy, especially as one of Jacob's Chosen. There is very little opportunity to sneak away, and having to keep things on the dl makes it more frustrating. Long showers with quality soaps and late morning breakfasts at John's ranch are treasured moments he doesn't know when he'll have again. John has a mix of physical touch and receiving gifts. He's used to giving gifts, but the thought that someone thought of him and wants to give him something, knowing he can afford to buy what he wants is so very personal. It's a delicate balance though, between flattery and insult. If the gift is something he doesn't actually like or think relates to himself, he rejects it- harshly. It stems from hurt and not feeling understood, rejecting the venerability.

pie x sharky - Pie is a sucker for words of affirmation, she likes to see someone work for it. She is smart, and pretty, just a bit unhinged and she knows it. Doesn't mean she doesn't like hearing it, too. Sharky is physical touch and quality time. Some time with just him, the love of his life and fire? Absolutely nothing better. Until of course, the love of his life wants to touch some too. That is even better.

15. Why do they like each other?

chloe x jacob - Tenacity. Any odds stuck against her, and Chloe will find a way. Jacob finds her fearlessness both annoying and intriguing. She's also the only person who's given him a compliment without a breath of pity or malice, something rare even from his family. The judges like her, even Haniel does and she hates everyone. He can blame wanting to study her as an interest all he wants, he cant deny the appeal of the vessel the intrigue comes in either. After their rough introductions and a few months of exhausting her, Chloe finds solace when Jacob is around. Thinking isn't so loud, things aren't so hard. She enjoys the challenge, learning to toy with him. On a more serious manner, she sees how hard he works. How much of himself he gives away and how hard he's holding onto both. His pride, his skeletons, how fiercely he loves and protects his own. When things go wrong and she feels scared, it's Jacob she longs for.

theo x john - Theo makes everything fun for John. He's witty, smart, important to Eden's Gate, strong. He can handle John's humor, his sass, his anger. His plane has major plus points, and the loyalty seals the deal. Anyone willing to lie to Jacob to protect him, he trusts with his whole heart. Theo loves all of John, even the manic side of things. He can handle a little blood, tests of violence are far from unusual. He loves having a space to express his doubts, someone that understands the pressures of the Reaping, can help relieve some of that stress constantly building. There's security for Theo in being who John seeks for comfort, an honor in sinful thoughts. John also happens to be the most beautiful man Theo knows.

pie x sharky - Sharky is in love with Pie in the most puppy way imaginable. Nothing compares to the way his heart races when they're together. Completely addicted- his woman, his inspiration, his private religion. She might be qualified to have worked at NASA but she never makes him feel dumb, not for real. He loves hearing her talk, about anything and everything. He learns so much from the way she views life and loves every creature. His absolute lack of self preservation slowly wore her down edges and they talked many a night of her fixing him and Hurk up after something stupid. She loves his bravery, even if its partially a lack of awareness. Admires his lack of fucks and drive to have fun, after having forgotten how herself for so long. No matter how sad she's felt, he's never failed to make her smile. Their chemistry is almost electric, a tangible feel in the air whenever their eyes lock. He makes her believe in magic, and there's nothing more precious than that.

29. Who said I Love You, first?

chloe x jacob - Jacob did, as unexpected as that sounds. He'd been completely feral for 3.5 weeks at that point, looking for her. Chloe was taken into the Wolf's Den by Rook after being attacked by a bear. Jacob found nothing but what were once his chosen decorating his forest floor with no trace of her. When he finally got his arms around her again, there was nothing left to deny. The "I love you.." whispered as Chloe fell asleep in front of their fire, safe, and snuggling into a bear hide rug she couldn't quite remember being there before.

theo x john - Theo said it first, although it was reciprocated immediately. Following an argument where John was bratting himself into a fight, stuck feeling like Theo was abandoning him as the Reaping began and work doubled for everyone. Angsty [nasty sassy] fight ensues, and ends in some very passionate sex outside. Peak climax sets free a "-so good for me, you.. do so, I- I love you..". John has known he loved Theo but refused to admit it first, out of principle, until that moment. John says it often after that.

pie x sharky - Sharky!! Man is a SIMP! Absolutely the most husband. He's been in love with Pie for years and he's said it with his chest every time. Pie rejected him every time, focusing on her work and caring for her uncle.

30. When did they realize they loved each other?

chloe x jacob - A bit hard to answer without giving away lots of juicy bits- but I'll summarize. Chloe's moment of realization hit her like a truck after she spared Jacob's life by taking.. another's with very little hesitation. She split in a mortified 'fuck, I love you' and immediately throws up. She managed to keep it to herself for the time being, thankfully. Jacob's smug self would've never dropped it had she not only killed an important person for him AND admitted he'd succeeded in ensnaring her psyche one go. Jacob at this point had been living his best delulu mindset until almost a month prior- he had to think a bear killed her first, conveniently. This was mostly so I could write a distraught 'fuck, I love you' from both povs if I'm being entirely honest.

theo x john - Theo of course knew who John was, but knowing John is very different experience. Knowing all the bits and pieces, seeing him cry, seeing him angry, afraid? Really knowing him is a privilege. Sitting in the greenhouse Theo realized how much he likes when John leans on him, needs him, surrounds him.. Its altered a deeper understanding and he doesn't want to go without it. Maybe he can't, either way he's absolutely certain, he's in love with John. John has much more of a primal awakening, comparatively. They'd been flirting and teasing each other for weeks on and off, leading up to chosen initiation week dubbed 'pit week'. John was entirely purposeful in riling Theo up, pushing buttons to spike the tension. Standing on a balcony watching Theo beat the shit out of cocky newbies in mud was doing things to him at an alarming rate. Theo's eyes locked with his, face splattered with blood and John is aware he's completely unrecoverable.

pie x sharky - One of the times Sharky blew himself up worse than usual, she went off on him about how she could've lost her best friend, one of the 5 people she's ever loved. Sharky manages to lift whats left of his right eyebrow, "How hard did I hit mah head?" (that ends in super cute fluff- in a wip atm). Sharky fell for Pie in freshman year. The only thing he regretted about dropping out was not seeing her as often. He missed his pyre, his spark. His Pie. She was so smart, and kind. He was always laughing at something she said. "Have I told you I love you before?". Pity the roller rink date went so wrong, but it ended in him sure he'd never love anyone else more.