#and the character themself is just a messy individual

[electro-scorpion-moving]

shout out to blond animated characters popularly hced as butch and/or as genderqueer sapphics for having some of the most impact on my perception of my gender

[triptychgrip]

Fanfic Rec: What if we'd seen Akito in therapy, post-curse break?

For the second time in just a week, Fruits Basket fanfic has utterly ruined me, in the very best way. For the Fruits Basket Monday prompt 'What If', I wanted to share a rec for the amazing story 'I can barely breathe' by @renywrites, which is a masterful 15K story that details the messiness and loneliness marking Akito's journey of atonement and healing after the zodiac curse break.

Note: in this fic, Akito uses they/them pronouns, which is what I'll be using as well, out of respect for the author's vision

Akito is obviously a very, very polarizing character in the fandom, and I'll be honest that they are not someone that I usually seek out reading material for. But as I detailed in my post on the dangers of individualizing systemic abuse, healing for the Sohmas doesn't begin and end with Akito, because they, too, are a victim in the multi-generational cycle of trauma that has plagued the Sohma family. Given the vastness of this cycle and the many people that enabled it to continue over time, I've always wished we could have seen more content in the manga (and more explicitly in Fruits Basket Another) that touches directly on what the challenges would have been when the various members of the Sohma family have to pick up the pieces of their lives after the curse breaks.

'I can barely breathe' does this so poignantly by focusing on Akito and Shigure, in particular. Below is an excerpt of one of my favorite parts, from chapter 2. I hope you'll give it a chance!

----

Akito starts to panic once the sun begins to set. They’d gone through their entire “toolbox”, as Itsuki would call it. They’d done every distraction in the book to take their mind off of it, and after all of that, they still hadn’t heard anything.

They consider calling Hatori to see if he’d heard anything, but if Shigure truly was mad at them and they pulled strings through Hatori to get him home, he'd be furious. Besides, Hatori would definitely chew him out for blocking them.

But the later it gets, the more Akito’s worry turns to anxiety, and anxiety turns to panic. They start to think about what he’d said the night before. Had he really gone home with a stranger?

The thought alone makes them ill, makes their heart race and palms sweat. He’d slept with their mother to get back at them, once upon a time. That thought doesn’t help any, and their imagination runs wild.

Akito lays in bed, mind racing through all the possibilities. What if he had gone home with a girl? What if he preferred that over coming home to Akito? And if that was the case, was she something better?

(Of course. Everyone was better than Akito.)

Was she pretty? Akito thinks of long, silky hair, and curves that could never be mistaken for a man’s body. They curl tighter into themself, burying their face in the pillow, hiding from the thought of Shigure undressing said curves.

(Their mother looked like a proper woman. Shigure had once said, in a fit of cruelty, that their mother looked like everything Akito could never be. Beautiful, tall, curvy. Akito had always wondered if he wished they looked different. If he wished they could be beautiful, too.)

Once the thoughts start they don’t stop. Soon Akito is stuck in a whirlpool, convinced that he had left for good, that they were now truly all alone. The bed becomes too confining, and they find themself on the bathroom floor, fighting to breathe, the tile cold against their skin.

They wanted it to stop. They didn’t want to feel this way anymore! Itsuki had said it would get better, but when? When would they feel better? When would they be good enough? When would their efforts to be a better person pay off?

Yuki had been right. Shigure deserved so much better. Everyone did, really. Akito tangles a hand in their hair, holding hard and hiccupping. They weren’t god anymore. They weren’t anything anymore. When had they become so small? Had they ever been big in the first place?

[littlebosslady7]

did you ppl calling rockwild shippers delusional or wearing "shipper goggles"? do you ship them, and what do you think about the kiss?

I have not, so I suppose that means I follow kind people. The delusional insult is always rude AF to me, but it's common in any fandom. I've been in DC and Marvel fandoms for many years. Yikes! As someone who likes all 3 campaigns, I never understand the competitiveness between ships/story lines. They're different stories with their own messy chapters. People are allowed to like or dislike something if they so choose. Doesn't mean you need to throw other ship and/or other character under the bus.

The shipper goggles thing is funny. Just because someone is a shipper and I most definitely am, doesn't mean we can't see the value of story telling or the value in characters as individual people. I'm an editor and a writer. You got to see the forest for the trees, but also know where your landmarks are. Meaning understand the grander scheme while also pruning/tending to elements that help your story progress.

Of course I still ship Callowmoore/Rockwild. The kiss was fun and tbh, I was waiting it. Those who claim "Fearne didn't have to process./ [gasp] Fearne was manipulated" After she says, "Well, now I don't know if I wanna put this in there." It's surface level, but that little bit of inner conflict of "Oh! I did like that, but I also made them a promise." Is that not at least the start of processing? Ashley said on 4-Sided Dive and in game as Fearne, "The shard should go to Ashton" /paraphrase. She may not have understood the effects. Neither did Ashton, but they had a plan -- albeit a costly and not so smart, but they knew.

IMO, The kiss response from Ashton was what I figured from a character who has a charisma of 6. It's messy and imperfect, but that's true to character story telling.

@i-am-shitpost brought up several good points about was "Last one you'll fucking get" (paraphrase) a thought for themself. (x)

Also very common for Taliesin characters I suppose. If you love Perc'ahlia you know.

That said, Ashton owes Fearne, FCG and Bell's Hells as a whole an apology. I hope that when they do, they carry that lesson and continue figuring who they want to be.

I just keep picturing Fearne picking up FCG to be at Ash's height when they both give him shit. And Fearne walks away with FCG in search for some Courage or Green Tier whiskey within Whitestone.

[legionaberrations]

Wdyt the legion kids zodiac signs are? (Idk if you're interested in this but I found out that using zodiac signs for characters is a great starter... Like for building their personality).

You can do the main three (ascendant; basically what others get from their first impression of you. Like the personality you use out in public. Sun; your actual personality, the one you'd use around family and close friends. And moon; your inner personality, your feelings and secret traits that you wouldn't express openly).

I hope I explained these well enough and that it makes you think! (New Anon btw. Hello, mun!)

(I hadn't really contemplated this much until you asked, but I love thinking zodiac so I do have some solid answers:

Julie - Gemini Sun, Scorpio Moon, Pisces Ascendant. Julie is both social butterfly and social chameleon. I think her place as the most social member of the group and how easily she lies and plays a different role in front of other people shoes her in for gemini easily, along with her curiosity and morbidity. While she seeks shallow pleasures for brief fun, what she really craves is emotional intensity, which I think plays with scorpio moon well. Pisces rising because of the strong association with art, social-chameleoning, and having a desire to see the world in and live in a dreamy and fantastical way.

Frank - Sagittarius Sun, Leo Moon, Aquarius Ascendant. Frank hates routine and structure. He's friendly and outgoing, but in a way that still sets him apart from others. He's also very active and fond of sports, which is a stereotype associated with the sag lol. They're also associated with optimism, which I think plays interestingly with Frank's ideology that thinking about something is enough to manifest it. Leo moon is associated with controlling and organizing friend activities, which Frank definitely does - bossy guy, trying to push everyone to further extremes. He's a creative sort with a lot of magical thinking, and likes others to think he's really worldly and knowledgeable. He's paradoxically standoffish and social, but also very paradoxical and irreverent, which I feel fits the aquarius assignment well.

Joey - Virgo Sun, Taurus Moon, Sagittarius Ascendant. Joey is a hard-working individual, but also a very practical and quick-thinking one. He struggles with anxiety and being high-strung, pushing himself too far. He's Responsible. All very virgo of him. With his moon, I think the taurean moon descriptions of like being very persevering, trying to avoid messy or unpredictable situations, wanting to build a reliable situation, etc. is very relevant to him. Sagittarius rising is often associated with Seeking, wanting more out of life, but also being opinionated and competitive, which I think Joey has a little bit of going on. Even though unpredictable circumstances cause him anxiety, he wants to branch out and try these new, crazy things anyways, and wants to have a good time, and more than anything wants to believe everything can be better if he just tries hard enough. There's a reason he ends up buying into Frank's ideology despite initial hesitation!

Susie - Taurus Sun, Cancer Moon, Aries Ascendant. Susie is a very dependable person, but also someone I see as very stubborn and set in her beliefs. She's sensitive, but she's also very fixed - even upsetting her isn't going to move her, and may in fact fix her more firmly in place. For her moon, that sensitivity rings true. She doesn't like change and is defensive of her friends, wanting what's best for them, but is also indirect, not likely to confront issues head-on. I really like this screenshot of the natal chart website I'm looking at for her:

Speaking of family problems, aries ascendants are often described as having an upbringing that requires them to learn to take care of themself. Impatience and impulsiveness and a youthful charm are also part of this sign. I think Susie isn't necessarily competitive but definitely has a compulsion to "prove herself" and an amount of self-criticism that tracks well with this ascendant placement.

Sorry to anyone who doesn't care about zodiac who had to read all this LOL)

[gryptids]

do all your ocs know each other or do they have subgroups?

EEE thank u for asking!! The OCs I tag for on Tumblr generally fall into three universes/stories. (Also I had to rewrite this like 3 times bcuz Tumblr's ctrl+z function is broken and I kept doing it reflexively, so apologies if this makes no sense lol)

As The World Caves In (#culecore): A 70s-inspired eldritch horror romcom about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakthrough. When a one-night stand leads to world-shattering revelations about her connection to a distant eldritch god, Cara (far left) must confront love, loss, forgiveness, and her community in order to halt an impending apocalypse. Dealing with centuries of relationship drama from her demigod paramours is just the icing on the cake. Messy, queer, and unapologetically indulgent, this is essentially a creative sandbox that I play in almost 24/7!! I love smashing together these terrible little bitches like dolls :]

From left to right we have Carolyn Klein (main character, cuntress supreme, can easily whip a dish that will bring you to tears), Saoirse Ross (not-really-tortured artist, grappling with the world's most protracted identity crisis, eldritch splinter of Chaos), Jude Collins (walking Leyendecker illustration, Captain Autismo, eldritch splinter of Light), and Victor Ward (depressed line cook energy, massive flirt, eldritch splinter of Void).

Threads of Gossamer and Glass (#tgg): A high fantasy political thriller about what comes after survival, reinventing your mind upon meeting someone new, and trying to not break the world in half a second time. This is a novel-length work I'm currently working on, which means I have a novel-style blurb for it LOL:

"Maria has worked her entire life to secure a seat in the Artea Crea, an artist's guild that serves as the highest governing body in her home nation of Trevigi. But when her sister's illegal magical abilities are discovered, she's given an impossible choice; play diplomat in a suicide mission to a land of savage mages, or see her sister hanged. However, Maria quickly discovers that there's more to Peykangraz that meets the eye; deadly games of magic and politics, a mountain range that appears to be shifting, and a powerful mage who is as confounding as he is alluring. With every new ally, deal, and discovery, she begins to glimpse the buried truth that lies between the land and her mission. But what is she willing to risk -- and to lose -- in pursuing what she believes in?"

(art by the lovely @dying_anniris on Twitter!!)

&Lavender (#&lav): In a story that extrapolates the machinations of the fae courts onto high-class mob politics, Lav finds themself walking the razor edge between worlds when their quiet life collides with the unknown. As a jeweler specializing in intricate gem faceting, Lav creates flashy pieces for humans and fae alike, performing humanity for their clients through a combination of glamour magic and ascerbic wit. The Courts ignore them, and they ignore them right back. As a wyldfae -- too unimportant to be considered Seelie or Unseelie -- they're used to the lack of interest. But when a dangerous artifact comes into their possession, they must risk everything and forge an alliance with a member of the Unseelie Court to protect it. What follows is a saga of lust, destruction, and all the terrible things that happen when you understand how much you're truly worth.

Plus, I've got a few miscellaneous OCs (including Beverly, a waifish Texas cannibal, and Ariadne, a vampiric Oath of Conquest paladin) who fall into their own individual universes! Together they form the Insane Blood-Splattered Women Brigade <3

TYSM for asking!!! I love the chance to talk abt my guys... feel free 2 ask more questions abt them if you're curious!!!!

[grimae]

I follow you, for a while, for your original fantasy art (incredible stuff by the way) and just because you answered that anon about your tag that I've come to know the weird overlap in our experiences, I also have been writing/daydreaming about my own fantasy world since I was ten and I also have a google doc filled with lore. Being your own lore master is so hard sometimes, but I've found organization is the key for me, do you have any methods that make it easier for you to find/remember stuff?

Sup! Thank you so much first of all! For the greatest part in my life I kept literally everything stashed away in my brain. Only in late 2018, early 2019, I started actually writing things down. Can't remember anymore how it started, but I made a world-building discord server with a dear friend and just dropped everything in there that had some kind of relevancy, also actually starting to write down my thoughts about my characters. At one point I realized that it had become way too much so I copy pasted everything into a google doc file just to see how much. That specific google doc is now my exposition dump doc, it's where I throw in every single thought only to have it securely stashed away. I then later started writing individual docs on things I needed to have sorted. How dragons work, Sacrosanct creatures, vampire lore, alchemy, magic, some general world-building thoughts, etc etc. There was an honest desperate need for that too, because with the current five-trillion pages, the doc needs literal ages to load, lags and slows down my PC like hell. I made a list of all my characters with some basic and more or less important information, such as how many languages they speak, when their birthdays are, their heights and physical ages, if vampire. And to accompany that, a big damn relationship sheet that is a mess to look through because it doesn't take in account that literally over 1600 years happen between all these characters, so I don't share it unless I know people have a general gist of the lore and can fill that temporal hole themself.

Later I made my own discord server, with only me, for general safekeeping of all kinds of informations.

That is how I sort things in there. I still throw everything important into the old one with my friend though, it's just that I got kinda self-conscious about how much I jump from point A to C with no coherence for anyone but me and wanted to start sorting things first to make it understandable, lol. The skindarimian-exposition-dump channel is here where I write down every single thought, then I drop it into the google doc every end of the month. Discord has this little perfect trait that I can very easily access it from all my devices. Can't tell you how often I woke up at 2 am and my first grab was for my phone because I had a thought I needed to write down. So yeah I guess my way of keeping track is a very thorough amount of google docs, a discord server (or two), and backups of all that saved on my PC. It's honestly so much more messy than I want it to be but for the last three years, almost four, this mess has been well lived in.

Btw, the daily channel used to be a challenge where in 2021 I wrote down a little thing every day. A try at a poem, a short story, etc. 2021 was successfully finished with only a few days skipped. I wanted to drag it into this year as well but around February my brain got too clouded for another thing I had to do daily so I stopped. The google-docs channel is just links to all the docs. Rewrites is me noting down things I have to rewrite or thoughts on how to organize. Bots is Book of the Sun relating stuff.

[ink-pawprint]

My Favourite tropes

Omnipotent Unreliable Narrator who specifically contradicts themself and repeatedly outright lies and maliciously misrepresents things at times. (Bonus points if the narrator is the embodiment of the theme of the story and that’s where their opinions come from)

Characters who know they are characters (i.e “not real”) and 1. The method of finding out is tailored (i.e they hear the pages turning, start to see the words that make them, feel the repetitiveness, think against their actions etc.) and 2. go through the horror of independence versus design while interacting with the narrator. (Made better by realising they “real” in their own right i.e they make the reader feel “real” emotions so therefore they do real things / the author has to write them “true-to-character” so the author doesn’t have complete control over what they do / etc.)

The BBEG heals/loses interest/joins the heroes/otherwise no longer believes in their previous goal but the Henchman the BBEG had/indoctrinated/corrupted/otherwise wholeheartedly still believes in the cause becomes the next BBEG and even better, gets the original BBEG back on their original side.

Chimerical abominations beloved 🤍 I’m a whore for any “Frankenstein abomination (‘sentient’ or not, both are good) and scientist who thinks they’re superior to god / are god” dynamic.

Bloodthirsty romance. Not just a “power couple”, a relationship where they both tear people (maybe eachother) to bloody ribbons, make them manic, make them feral, make them messy, make them cruel, make them malicious, make them playful, make them unapologetic, make them merciless and make them in “love” (or whatever they think love to be).

Multiverse characters who keep on appearing in different “universes” (i.e a creator makes multiple forms of various media that the character appears in in different stages of their own story separate from the individual media.)

Happy endings no matter the genre

An ethereal/supernatural/god/demon/Angel/non-human entity has to live like a human for whatever reason and finds little human tasks and their new little human life to be very joyful. They by all means live a “mediocre” and “average” life, but they adore the mundane, the domestic and learn to love being human.

[animebw]

So, much like with season 1, my thoughts on AssClass season 2 are... messy. Too messy for a straightforward review, at least. So let’s do it like last time and make a list of all the points I want to mention. Only this time, I’ll put it all below a spoiler bar, since I can’t really discuss some of these points without spoiling basically everything. Those of you who haven’t seen season 2 yet, consider yourselves warned.

Cool? Cool. Let’s do this.

-This season was way more lopsided than the first. The first ten or so episodes were honestly the worst stretch of this show yet, for various reasons I’ll get into momentarily. But once we hit the final exam arc, it basically slams on the gas and never lets up all the way to the end.

-I feel like the fanservice quotient was ramped up this season, and I did not appreciate it.

-The Kaede twist really caught me off guard. I was always wondering why she was so constantly positioned as one of the main supporting roles when she hadn’t really done anything, and the reveal that she’s been a tentacled assassin all along explained everything perfectly.

-Actually, in general, all the backstory/answers we got were great. Koro-sensei’s past gave such weight to his character and fully earned the far more dramatic turn the story takes in the season’s back half.

-As fun as the first encounter with the Reaper was, I still really hate the way Irina’s treated. She didn’t even really get to do anything in that arc! Karasuma had to save her ass while she watched from the sidelines!

-Karma and Nagisa’s big brawl was especially fun for how nasty and in-your-face it got.

-So, did anyone else absolutely fucking hate how Nagisa’s mom was handled? The show treats it like she’s just not very understanding or overly strict and Nagisa needs to make an effort to bridge the communication gap between them, but, like... this is abuse. This is straight-up fucking “report this psycho to child services” behavior. You do not respond to a parent bludgeoning their kid into submission by telling the kid they just need to try a little harder to stand up for themself. Fuck. That. Garbage.

-Also, I’m not a fan of how the mom stuff poisoned the well on Nagisa’s femininity. One of the reasons I liked him as a protagonist is that he was sort of shrimpy and girly and soft-spoken, so different from your typical loudmouth brawler shonen lead. And I wish that was just, like, a part of himself that he could learn to accept rather than a source of trauma he needs to get rid of.

-On a more positive note, Nagisa tutoring that troubled girl was a really sweet subplot.

-This may be a nitpick, but the final arc was way too dark for me. Not as in tone, but, like, the literal scenes were so dimly lit that I often struggled to make out what was going on. How am I supposed to enjoy this giant fucking monster brawl if it’s all shrouded in murky shadows and you can’t tell a tentacle from a tree?

-That said... yeah, that finale was excellent. Not every Shonen Jump series has the guts to end with a 20-minute-long prolonged scene of assisted suicide, let alone pull it off so emotionally. I’m gonna miss that big yellow blob.

-One of these days, I’ll find another shonen that can write romance worth a damn. Not gonna be today, though.

I think that about sums everything up. In conclusion, AssClass season 2 is a messy, imperfect ride with some damn great high points and some damn shameful low moments. I’d say on average it balances out to a 6/10, weaker overall than season 1 even if it has some of the individual best moments. Oh well, can’t win them all. See you next time for whatever 2016 show ends up winning the poll!

[magicaltrans]

On trans tropes (Part II)

Every week (ahem), on the Magical Trans discord server, we have a discussion in the trans-only channels about one topic regarding Harry Potter, fandom life and trans experiences.

This week (cough), the topic was on tropes regarding trans narratives. This is the second part, find the first one here.

Disclaimer, the following is to be taken as resources for self-development as a cis creator and should never be used to tell off authors. You do not know who is trans and should never bully anyone into outing themself to justify that they wrote such or such trope. Some of these tropes we talk here can be extremely fulfilling for a trans individual.

Let's talk about what should be handled with gloves, shall we?

Coming-out narratives are very rarely written correctly by cishet people, simply because they repeat schemes seen in Hollywood and medias profiting of off queer stories. Coming-outs aren't this great big final ending that free our heroes from the torment of queerness. No. Coming-outs come in a variety of shape and weight. Some can be messy or on the contrary very clean, big deals or not important at all but through it all they remain mostly experimental. It's trying on a pair of shoes for the first time and seeing if they fit. Someone may find their glass slipper on first try, it's not the case for a lot of persons from the lgbtgia+ community.

Wit this idea, trans coming out and the "I've always known" narrative happen but aren't a majority. Most of us know something is wrong, a general uncomfortableness but are unable to put words on it until... Years later. Well into our lives. This kind of stories are just reassuring cis people in their cisness and have them pat themselves on the back for doing a good job at trans representation because Boys Playing with Dolls are inherently queer (neuroa folks, this was sarcasm). Trans identity is a lot more complex than that and stopping at just that is harmful.

Are we forbidding cis people from writing coming-outs? No, what rights do we have to that? We're simply encouraging that other narratives should be explored, other faces of transness that need developing. There's been enough of coming out to one's family to have the violence of their rejection thrown into our faces. We're tired of being reduced to only a moment at the beginning of our journey that is often used as a plotwist for the narratives of cis individuals or to be foil to their great open-mindedness.

On the same line, it's really not okay to pour the transphobia "needed" to your story in one character to either 1/ make your hero shine with rightful outrage and how woke they are to defend the trans character or 2/ not have to deal with the insidious transphobia that everyone has been dosed with at birth. Transphobia needs to be carved out of oneself; it's a process and it's a necessary one. Telling a story where only the villains are transphobic and that transphobia is erased the moment they are defeated is just erasing our struggles.

And for the love of all that is alive, stop comparing us to butterflies. Transition isn't a nice cocoon where you can just exist and come out of looking pretty and colourful. It's difficult and confusing and so very public it's exhausting.

This is the opinion of a singular group of people and isn’t the opinion of the entire community. If you would like to join the discussion as a trans person or to become a better ally, join the server! 18+ only.

[crystalkleure]

I think this isn’t widely known. The desire to explore dark topics and grisly situations in fiction doesn’t necessarily come from the desire to partake in those things in real life, and frustration at the inability to do so.

It actually often comes from the exact opposite. It comes from fear.

It comes from the fear of potentially eventually being faced with those horrifying things in person. By exploring them in fiction, a person is allowed to plan out how to navigate the distressing situations without actually being in them. They are able to construct an intricate, detailed, horrible scenario, which allows them to grasp an understanding of it and thus subsequently puzzle out what can then be done to deal with it. Closely examining all the gory details of a gory situation, laying them out like a blueprint [or a map], is in fact crucial for then cathartically deconstructing and subverting it. Their subconscious is trying to figure out how to protect them from something that has been identified as a potential threat.

Humans are afraid of things we don’t understand. We are hardwired to fear the unknown, it’s a basic survival instinct. So, therefore, the key to fearing something less is to understand it more. Dissecting it, researching it extensively, and, often, fantasizing about it -- imagining what you would do to stay safe from it and/or brace yourself for it if you were hypothetically unfortunately ever actually faced with it, are cathartic behaviours.

Because it’s fiction, the methodology is not always realistic though, because it doesn’t have to be. A person who fears death might write about a character being brutally murdered, but then continuing to exist in some sort of afterlife. It’s still a case of “examine this horrifying situation and figure out how to make it fine,” it’s just that rather than “figure out how to avoid death in the first place,” the soothing “it’s fine” outcome the writer is exploring is “death is maybe not actually that bad.”

A person who is terrified of abduction might also write about a character who befriends or seduces their abductors and is thus unharmed by them. This is unrealistic, and is thus arguably pretty useless for the subconscious purpose of making the person actually better prepared for potential abduction IRL, but it is still successful at quelling their fear of it. And if their fear is irrational in the first place, they have no logical reason to think they WILL be abducted IRL, there’s really no need to be realistic about how to deal with it then -- they just needed some anxiety abatement.

Someone who is afraid of vampires might pretend to be one, attracted to the logic of “If I am this Powerful Thing myself, I can stand my ground against the other Powerful Things!”

Someone who is afraid of, I don’t know, vomiting [emetophobia is actually one of the most common phobias], might even develop a sexual fetish for vomit, because fear and horniness actually can’t coexist. Your brain can’t be in Fuck Mode and Fight Or Flight Mode at the same time. Monkey Brain says fucking’s gotta wait until you’re safe, because you’re vulnerable when you’re getting it on, so as a result of that, Monkey Brain assumes you must be safe if you’re in Fuck Mode. This is probably why you see so much porn of horror media monsters; someone can trick themself out of being afraid of something by figuring out how to be horny about it instead. The Horny overrides the Anxiety.

Fantasizing about how to outright avoid something scary is one Anxiety Countermeasure, but fantasizing about how to gain control of a scary situation -- and thus take its power away -- is also very common, and can manifest in many different ways due to the specificity of each individual person, and each individual hypothetical situation being examined. Planning on how to cope with a stressful situation may even be more healthy than trying to avoid it outright forever, in some cases. The two mental tactics might also coexist, like a Plan A and Plan B. Our brains are very messy and complicated.

[autisticpride]

April 10th: How important is representation to you? Is the representation that is out there generally good or bad? What is your favorite piece of representation? What you like to see more of in autism representation? What would you like to see less of?

representation is really important to us and we’ll end up going on a couple long rants about some of our favorites (under the cut) because we can, it’ll be real messy because theres at least 3 of us talking and im just about positive that people were blurry when writing shit out so sorry about that but that’s just how it is

for us, representation enables us to see people like us in stories. the other thing for us, not specific to autistic representation, is just that we tend to enjoy more diverse stories more? maybe we’ve just had good luck but we’ve found that stories with characters who are members of marginalized groups (whether the story itself is diverse or not) tend to be better written. maybe it’s because we generally prioritize ownvoices works, idk.

so first i wanted to take a look at some numbers regarding autistic characters we’re familiar with (yes we know there are more, we just have a focus on books in our brain) and we started with books & comics and got some interesting numbers that we weren’t expecting! we haven’t read all these books yet so there are some gaps in the information.

of the 10 characters (from 8 books and 1 webcomic):

5 are female, 4 are male, and 1 is nonbinary.  2 are black, 2 are white, 1 is mixed (surinamese/dutch), 1 is mixed (vietnamese/irish), 1 is mixed (fictional races). 9 (possibly all 10) are main characters 6 are over 21, 2 are under 12 (9 and 11), 1 is 16, 1 is 18 3 are straight, 3 are gay/lesbian, 1 is bi.

I think that’s very cool actually! we would like to see more trans autistic characters (the only trans character out of the 10 seems to be the 1 nonbinary character) for sure, and more explicitly canon autistic characters in general. i’d like to see less “autism representation” that isn’t actually canon (even though we do love some of the characters, if you have to go find an interview with a producer where they say probably in order to find out the character’s autistic, it’s not canon).

now time for our specialized little rambles!

so i’m going to start with another quick explanation of fictives again because it’s extremely relevant right now.

again, a system is multiple people in one body. individuals within a system are system members (there are many different terms, that’s what we prefer). fictives are system members who are/are based on/are versions of characters

i’m a fictive of danny becket from the webcomic sharp zero and honestly we all love sharp zero! it’s extra fun now because it’s one of the special interests we all share and it’s my source and i’m double autistic (system as a whole is autistic, and I was autistic to begin with) so i now have this intense special interest surrounding... myself??? anyway, sharp zero is great because

sharp zero doesn’t go “the autism one is pure and innocent <3″ sharp zero goes “the autism one drags a corpse through a magic portal to perform a ritual to resurrect him” and that’s pretty cool

also explicitly showing the use of stim toys!! tangle spotted

~Danny

I’m a fictive of Julian from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and I’m one of the favorite cases of representation for most of the system, which is very interesting for me. In the show, it’s a case of unnamed disorder, which my parents tried to ‘fix’ via genetic engineering. I specifically matter to the system because of one particular parallel.

When I was a child, my parents noticed me ‘falling behind’ and decided to ‘fix’ me, and then proceeded to hide that information from me. When I was 15, I found out what they’d done, and began going by a different name.

When the body was a child, we were going to a neurologist for other reasons, and the parents were told that we’re most likely autistic but to not get a diagnosis ‘unless it gets in the way’. They proceeded to hide that information from us. When we were 15, we found out about that. Around the same time, the old host came out as trans and began using a different name.

That parallel is very important to most of our system members, especially the old host.

Despite it never being stated that I’m autistic, and it being implied that my parents may have succeeded in their attempt to ‘fix’ me, it’s clear from my behaviour that they didn’t. Even if they had, it was clearly shown that what they did was illegal and wrong, and that it did direct harm to me. But every autistic person we’ve met who has watched DS9 has taken one look at me and said something along the lines of that man’s a whole autism.

I’m shown having clear interpersonal issues, including trouble with social cues and clear implications that I never had friends before arriving on DS9. My own parents thought a half-finished hologram with no personality who didn’t recognize them was me.

I think that kind of representation is important. The kind where things did go wrong, where there has been suffering and loneliness, and it takes time, but a support system does get found.

-Julian

k now y’all need someone who isn’t just sorta talkin about themself i think, who fuckin knew i’d be the one who was giving the general system-wide opinion

so, rep is really important to all of us, seeing people who’re like us. makes us all feel like someone might actually understand it and understand us

our favorite autistic rep is probably julian, which is real fun with him being here and all that. and i mean it’s actually fun and we all get each other. the way our system works, the way we have a mostly-shared memory, means that we all really get it, and all of us relate to julian a lot in one way or another

anyway, a while back we started lookin’ for books with autistic rep by autistic authors and the first one we found was on the edge of gone by corinne duyvis, and we’ll always have a soft spot for it cuz it’s really good and it was the first one we got

-trip

[girlofmanyfandoms]

Forbidden Spicy Gatorade Chronicles Chapter One

A/n: Ok, so the cult is getting stronger by the minute so if you haven’t been introduced yet, don’t be offended! I’ll try to go through everyone and introduce you in the next chapter. Erica (@the-never-ending-void) has asked not to be included in this fic.

Key:

Tater - @a-lonely-tatertot 

Lynn - @lesbilynnette

Gray - @silver-snow

Lilah - @tribblemakingalicorn

Cadence - me

Ivy - @imaramennoodle

Molly - @molly-sencen

Farris - @everyonehasthoughts

Speens - @an-absolute-travesty

Holes - @holesinmyfalseconfidence

Connor - @linhammon-roll-bromance101

Panda - @worldwidepandamonium

Meg - @ultralazycreatorfan

Word count: 2,382

Warnings: If you’re reading this, you already know what’s about to pop off

Lilah poked Cadence’s shoulder who promptly rolled over. Lilah poked her several more times, a bit more aggressively. Grumbling Cadence sat up quickly and smacked her head on the top of the bunk bed. She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Her eyes slowly adjusted to her surroundings, taking in the strangely black, purple, and gold aesthetic room.

“Why’d you wake me up?”

“You got a notification,” Lilah said, eyes wide open, handing her the phone, slowly walking out of their shared room.

Cadence furrowed her brows, unlocking the phone before calling out to her roommate. “Wait, how long have you been up?”

“OREOS!” she called back. “Where are the keys?”

“On the kitchen counter,” Cadence replied, checking her emails. 1 unread message from Gray, the AI developer who she made small talk with during lunch breaks.

Dear Cadence,

Good evening! There’s a new play coming out on Mainstreet, called The Facade, and I was approached by the team to create a promotional piece. I was hoping you could help, and we would split the rewards 50/50. The play is about a murder crime, which is plotted out in a series of intricate riddles. The plot twist: the lead detective was the murderer, and had been delaying her trial while she was pretending to gather evidence, and stealing from a suspect to gain enough money to flee. And her second in command was funding the plots without knowing that her boss was the mastermind behind it all.

Ok, now that my boss has read above the cut we can talk freely. The offer is real, and I WOULD like to split it 50/50, I just can’t stand talking all formal, y’know? Anyway, since you said you do animations and stuff as a side gig, I thought maybe you could make the animations, and I’ll edit and do the social networking? Idk, I’m just spitballing here, let me know what you think.

Also, Lilah directed me towards this email, she’s really good at tracking people down.

Sorry if I made any spelling mistakes, I haven’t slept in weeks,

Gray

“Huh,” Cadence huffed, glancing at the clock. 3 AM. She had time. So, grabbing her IPad, she opened Procreate and got to work. The Facade. Sounds interesting enough. But what to draw? A lock perhaps? A silhouette of the main character? Before she could decide, her phone buzzed again, a voice recording this time, from Lilah.

“Hey, so I just ran into two of the actresses from The Facade and they said they want to talk to you about it so you can create a better promotional vid, meet me at the local library, k bye.”

Cadence wished on a shooting star that at least an hour had passed by so the buses would be running. But how wrong she was. It was 3 AM. It was raining. And the library was at least a mile away.

“This should be fun,” she mumbled, grabbing her set of keys, her IPad, and a raincoat before jogging the mile it took to get to the library.

_______

By the time Cadence arrived her hair was drenched and she was so out of breath and tired she thought she was going to pass out. She looked for any sign of her roommate, but she was nowhere to be found. Instead, she saw three people sitting at a table chatting freely and crying laughing. The librarian wasn’t fazed in the slightest. On the contrary, they seemed to be enjoying it, leaning over the library’s registry system, talking with them. Quickly Googling “The Facade,” Cadence confirmed that the two ladies were the actresses from the play. The other one offered occasional comments, mostly just watching the occurrences that went on. Social anxiety kicked in and told her to run in the other direction, but she really needed the money. She forced herself to approach them.

“Hey, I’m Cadence,” I introduce myself nervously. “Lilah said you wanted to speak to me about promoting your play?”

“Cadence! Lilah mentioned your animations, and we thought it’d be a new, eye-catching way to get our work out there,” the first one chirped. “I’m Molly, by the way. I play the detective’s second in command.”

“And I’m Ivy,” the other one greeted. “I play the lead.”

Cadence expected the third person to introduce themself next, but the librarian took the initiative. “Hello, fellow human, you may address me as SPEENS, I accept liver sacrifices.”

“They do that all the time,” the third person assured her. “Tater, by the way. I’m not in the play, I’m just working on a novel with Molly. We met up here to talk to good ‘ol Speens when these bit-”

“Language,” Molly warned.

“When these lovely individuals,” Tater corrected, “decided to make this a research sesh for the book. As if we needed more work. I’m free to fly wherever the wind takes me.”

“Amen to that, sibling,” Speens responded solemnly, pulling five wine glasses and vodka out from under the desk like a bartender. Cadence looked confused, but not against it. “Say, where’s the rest of the crew? Lynn, Gray, Farris, and the lot of them?”

“Farris doesn’t work on the set,” Ivy reminded her. “They’re an archaeologist. Holes makes the sets for us.”

Speens wrinkled their nose, seemingly in disgust. “And the others?”

“Well, if you can take a break, we can meet up with them at the theatre. Even Farris, since I heard their last trip was a bust,” Molly offered.

Without a second thought, Speens put up a sign that read “The Librarian is Out.”

“Do they-”

“All the time,” Ivy nodded. “It’s kinda their thing.”

“But, yeah, Farris and Connor tend to hang around the set,” Molly explained. “They don’t bother anyone, no one bothers them. They’re a bit older, kinda like the authority figures of the group.”

“If authority figures would let you make a dumba-”

“Tater,” Ivy nudged.

Tater changed their wording. “-unwise move in order to see what would happen.”

“They’re responsible for us without being responsible for us, if that makes sense,” Ivy commented. “Let’s get going though, before someone blows something up.” She shot a sideways glance at Speens, who put a hand up in surrender.

________

Ivy swung open the doors to the theatre and immediately had to duck for cover. “What the HELL, Connor?”

They were holding onto some theatre seats, zooming back and forth the row on rollerblades, occasionally losing balance and having to sit down. After a particularly messy turn-around, they decided to crawl over to the red carpeted steps and laid there for a moment. Farris was perched in a seat a row down, calming watching as Connor seemed to be having an existential crisis. Upon seeing Tater and Cadence, Farris got up, carefully stepping around Connor. “New kids?”

“Farris, this is Tater, and that’s Cadence,” Ivy helped. “They’re helping us promote the play.”

“Congratulations, you’re adopted,” they vowed, though Tater looked confused. “What? I don’t make the rules. Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be the responsible one…. Ok, so I make the rules, but they can be bent if the alternative’s interesting enough. Right, Connor?”

“Uh huh,” he called from the floor tiredly. If he hadn’t spoken, he would have been deemed dead.

“Lynn and the rest of the gang are in the back,” Farris informed them, pulling a skateboard from under their seat and helping Connor stand. Connor’s rollerblades flailed a bit as he struggled to get up, but his arm was slung around Farris’s shoulder, supporting him.

“DO A KICKFLIP,” Connor prompted, his words slurred.

“Are you kidding, I haven’t skateboarded since I was six, I need an actual skate park to practice that,” Farris recounted. “And how drunk are you?”

“Yes,” he responded, giggling in a hiccupy way. “Does anyone have more vodka?”

“I got you fam,” Speens said, pulling out a suitcase of alcohol from thin air.

“Anyways,” Ivy interjected, trying to get the conversation back on track. “I’ll go get the others, wait here.”

Ivy returned with Gray, Lynn, Holes, Panda, and Meg, and introduced them accordingly. “Gray works on the special effects, Lynn designed everyone’s costumes, Holes makes the set, Panda is a theatre critic, and Meg is our concept artist.”

“So, other than animation, is there anything else you bring to the table?” Molly asked.

“Well, I do glass art,” Cadence supplied. “It’s probably not relevant, but when it’s still really hot and glowy, which is when you can shape it, it looks like it would make a good snack. Hell, it almost looks like Gatorade. I can show a picture if you’d like.”

Cadence took her phone out and everyone crowded around to see.

“More like Powerade, Gatorade doesn’t come in that kind of blue,” Speens added.

“F O R B I D D E N S P I C Y G A T O R A D E,” Connor yelled, startling Farris.

“NO,” Holes countered, clearly distressed. “Do NOT drink molten glass. You’d die!”

“You call it death, I call it adventure,” Molly smirked. “I’m here for it. C’mon Holes, live a little.”

“Sis, how have you made it to adulthood thinking like that?” Lynn questioned, looking a bit scared.

“And I know how to live, I’m living right now!” Holes countered.

“Sure you are, nerd.” Molly rolled her eyes. “And how many near death experiences have you had, huh?”

“Near death- okay, first of all, I am not a nerd-”

“You kinda are,” Tater mumbled. Holes gasped, putting a hand over her heart as if they were betrayed. “What? You are. You make a living off of reading books.”

“Used to, friend,” Holes clarified. “I’m a freelance artist now. I picked up this gig because of these fools. And good thing too, because now you’re about to poison yourselves! Second of all, um, none?! How many have you had?”

Molly clicked her tongue in disappointment. “Five. Blended corn, acorns, eating soap, eating paper, and an intense game of dodgeball. I haven’t even peaked with these experiences yet.”

“Immortal until proven mortal,” Connor finished for her.

Meg stood next to Molly and held her shoulders. “This girl, she’s going places.”

“Meg, not you, too, I swear to god-”

“sLuRp,” Ivy joined in, grinning from ear to ear.

Holes was getting hysterical. “What the actual hell is going on? Lynn, help me out here.”

“The Gatorade is Forbidden for a reason, kids,” Lynn tried to reason.

Gray stood up with a mischievous glint in their eyes. “Where can we get it?”

“From the crunchy forbidden chocolate powder, of course,” Connor chimed in. Panda gave him a high-five while Holes became paler and paler from the cult forming in front of their eyes.

“This one speaks the truth,” Panda shrugged.

“Ok, what even is crunchy forbidden chocolate powder?”

“Sand, duh,” Connor said matter of factly. “Add some vodka, a martini, and some olives, and you got one heck of a slushie.”

“So that means there must be Forbidden Chewy Lettuce and Flavoured Forbidden Chewy Lettuce,” Tater went on. “Grass and flower petals. Cursed, but not wrong.”

“Ooh, and crackle air can be limestones and sodium carbonate, pies are dirt, bread is wood, and hard candy is metal,” Panda proclaimed.

“Fidget spinners are Forbidden Bagels, too,” Connor helped. “I should know, I tried the other day and cut my lip.”

Farris ignored the last part of Connor’s rant. “The variety pack, I like the sound of that.”

“Farris you’re supposed to look after us and you’re condoning this?!” Holes shouted.

Farris mounted his skateboard. “I’m not condoning anything. I’m enabling and hyping them up without joining in. That’s some big brain stuff.”

“This is why they control the brain cell,” Ivy nodded. “WAIT, ARE MY CHICKEN NUGGETS BURNING?!”

“Ives, you literally set a timer on the microwave backstage, you’re fine,” Tater reassured Ivy, holding her from running to check on her meal.

“Oh, like you know anything about microwaves,” Ivy argued. “You microwave ice cream.”

“It takes too long to soften, and I’m impatient,” Tater defended, turning to address Holes. “And it is eaten with a spoon.”

“Do not start this debate again- you know what, Panda, get ice cream from the mini-fridge, we’re settling this here and now,” Holes demanded.

“I think the real question is why is ice cream so hard,” Speens mentioned as Panda brought a tub of Haagen Daz ice cream. Holes used a fork to attempt to chisel out part of the snack. It wasn’t very successful.

“I think that’s just how Haagen Daz works,” Cadence observed.

Holes saw this as an opportunity to gain some momentum in the argument. “Not just this brand! All ice cream works like that!!!”

“No,” Panda objected. “Not Breyer’s. That stuff is always just right when you need it. Hashtag not sponsored.”

“Did you just break the fourth wall?” Lynn asked. “You know what, I don’t wanna know, just for the love of all that is good in this world please don’t drink the Forbidden Spicy Gatorade.”

“Too late,” Cadence said. “It’s easily accessible. Also, I’m calling E so we can recruit her.”

“Holes, I know you’re hiding it from us,” Molly speculated.

“What are you talking-”

“You’re keeping the Forbidden Spicy Gatorade all to yourself because you know of its power and you want it all to yourself.”

“I don’t HAVE the Gatorade, and I’m explicitly telling you it’s going to kill you if you drink it!”

As the bickering went on, Lynn slipped off to the vacant staff lounge to pull out her phone. There had to be a supplier somewhere who would give them this. She searched for a few minutes, and, after a few dead ends, she finally found an investor. “Cha-ching. Forbidden Incorporated is in business,” Lynn smiled to herself.

“Forbidden Incorporated, eh?” Farris asked from the doorway. Lynn froze and cursed herself for forgetting to lock the door. Now Farris knew of her plans. “Tell you what, I’ll keep your secret under one condition: We split the money 50/50, and get equal control over the decisions. So, deal?”

Lynn hesitated. She wasn’t sure she could trust Farris, but seeing as this was the only way to stop Holes from knowing just yet, she had no other choice. “Deal.”

_______

A/n: So that was fun and took entirely too long to write. I hope you enjoyed it and if you’re in the cult and I didn’t include you, reblog this and I’ll make a list. The next chapter might focus on a smaller group bc there are like thirteen characters here and I’m tired. Peace out!

[daskey]

lena luthor please and thank you

wow such manners

How I feel about this character

i love this emo bitch. canon does her dirty all the time. i’m a sucker for a character who goes through a lot of traumatic shit but despite that still tries to be the best version of themself, and put more good in the world than what was done to them which like, is exactly lena.

she also has the potential to just be. really freakin weird because of her rich girl upbringing and i love it. that scene where she was practicing playing board games for game night? i love it. she’s strange and a genius but also a soft baby and canon doesn’t know what to do with her and it’s a tragedy cause we could have so many good fun moments with her. ugh.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

ok lemme go chronologically. andrea rojas was her first love so jot that down. there are definitely feelings there that haven’t gone away, and andrea still knows lena better than most people because she grew up with her. i ship them in the whole “past lovers who had a messy break up and maybe rekindle that love when they’re older and wiser” sort of way

reigncorp. i love them. where rojascorp sort of grow into and out of love i think it’s different with sam and lena. sam is soulmate material, i mean. you know the way lena talked about her first meeting with sam. an instant connection that let them both know they’d just met someone who would have staying power in their lives. i think they’re neat and underappreciated both in canon (because like, apart from ep 100 where we got breadcrumbs in an alt universe there’s really nothing else building on the dynamic that was developed in s3 with the reign storyline) and in fandom. you all are SLEEPING on this.

agentcorp. ok you know this but like the people need to know that they have chaotic bf/gf vibes. they bicker a lot, and they definitely give kara a headache with their arguing over stupid things but that’s just what happens when you have two stubborn geniuses in a relationship. when they’re both on the same page? they’re a force to be reckoned with. i think a core part of their dynamic that i like is the way they value each other’s honesty, even when it hurts. lena’s not afraid to call alex out when she’s not putting herself first (and prioritising the safety of people who can and should help themselves), and alex isn’t afraid to tell lena when she’s being overdramatic.

honourable crackship mentions: kelly/lena

My non-romantic OTP for this character

lena and jess the secretary.

My unpopular opinion about this character

she doesn’t do chores. she doesn’t know how to, since she’s so used to living in places where she gets things done for her. she realises that people don’t generally have cleaners or house staff or get their clothes dry cleaned all the time when she stays with sam. that doesn’t mean she won’t try but like, you know. it’s unfamiliar to her

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

reigncorp. rojascorp. also like maybe they could write lena as like, a smart individual every once in a while. thanks

[sureuncertainty]

The Silence Agenda- A Reference Post

WHAT IS THIS THING YOU’RE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT, WIN??? 

Well, it’s my original novel, The Silence Agenda, that’s completely taken over this blog to the point of me considering changing my url (don’t worry I won’t, I’m not planning on changing it anytime soon), and I figured it’d be good to have relevant info in one place for anyone interested in learning about it or about the characters! 

Plot Synopsis: A trained assassin and Stressed(tm) grad student room together in a tiny apartment to make rent easier.  (oh my god they were roommates)The book centers around their relationship, growing from not quite enemies, but more like annoyances, to unlikely friends, and eventually of course, to lovers, because I’m predictable like that. 

Nyx (they/them)- 

This tells you most of what you need to know about Nyx. Personality wise, and looks wise. They’re a trained assassin, and have a Tragic Backstory(tm) which I’ll get to in a second. They’re genderfluid, intersex, and pansexual. 

They were kicked out of the house at a young age, were homeless for several years, before joining

The Silence Agenda is the name of the organization of assassins that Nyx is a part of. Their mission is basically to take out people that other people want dead. Essentially doing others’ dirty work. The Boss is the highest up in the organization, and has no name other than The Boss. Other Silence Agenda agents include: 

Iris (she/her)- 

Nyx’s ex girlfriend, and recruiter of them to the silence agenda. She also saved their life. She’s impulsive, somewhat irrational, somewhat crazy, and also drop dead gorgeous so Nyx was wildly in love with her. She sacrificed herself to keep them alive, and they’ve never stopped blaming themself for that. Partially because of 

Kat (she/her)- 

Another silence agenda agent, a transphobic bitch who also happens to be the main antagonist of the story. Always jealous of Nyx because of Iris’s “favoritism”, she holds a deep grudge against them, and also manipulated them into thinking that Iris’s death was their fault, even though it wasn’t. She comes from a rich family, and is also a literal sadist. 

And that’s pretty much it for backstory, Silence Agenda related things. Which is only HALF of the story I’m telling. The other half involves my wonderful boi 

Avery (they/them)- 

A grad student studying history with a deep love of Ireland, and is nerdy as fuck. Agender, demi-bisexual, green hair that they dye lavender halfway through the story (hence different hair colors when I draw them). NOT A SELF INSERT. they’re similar to me but they’re not me. I feel the need to clarify this now. Anyway, they’re very passionate and feel things a lot, and also incredibly messy, which drives Nyx up the wall. As for their backstory... 

Avery was kicked out by their conservative Christian family when they came out as nonbinary their junior year of college, and has been completely on their own financially and otherwise ever since. They had an older sister, Beth, who wasn’t quite as bad as their parents but still pretty bad. Now, they work two jobs (Starbucks and a campus library job) on top of being a full time grad student, just to get by. They’re.... a little insane. 

Sam (he/him)- 

Avery’s only real other friend at the time of the story’s writing, one of their coworkers at Starbucks. A Friend and Boy. Highly supportive, encouraging, and the Ultimate Wingman of Nyx and Avery’s relationship. Gay and in a long term committed relationship with his boyfriend, Carlos. 

The only other important character has no illustrations, but his name is Derek Bernard, and he’s Nyx’s target, who works at Avery’s university as does Nyx undercover. He’s not interesting except that he’s old and white and gross. 

If you made it here, thank you so much for reading! As for the story itself, I have it in both novel and SCREENPLAY form, thanks to my beautiful and incredible girlfriend @drama-dick who you should check out bc she also writes amazing poetry! If you’re interested in reading, DM me! I have individual tags for each of the characters, as well as a main tag for my story, The Silence Agenda (https://sureuncertainty.tumblr.com/tagged/the-silence-agenda), if you’d like to check it out. I am planning on attempting to self publish, and will be posting more details about that as it comes out. 

Feel free, as always to DM me or send me asks with questions for, or about my characters! AND AND AND if you ever want to literally make my entire day, draw art of any of my OCs for me to love you forever!! I already love you forever for reading this!

[likedoves]

Hello! Not sure if you’ve been actively lately (tumblr needs a time stamp function) but if you are, can you pick two of your OC’s and tell me about them? I love hearing about others peoples ocs! What made you want to bring them to life?

hello!! i have been active actually!! i just started this blog like two nights ago lolol

also thank you for indulging me. this got a little longer than i anticipated so i’m gonna stuff it under a read more

edit: i linked their pinboards to their names also just for fun

ire orchid crouse (they/he/she)

they’re the main character of the wip i’ve started outlining (it has no title currently). i make a lot of like,, well-adjusted characters? and soft characters? and ire started as sort of a “i’m bored and i need something fresh” so i made a really messy person out of them. a fun mess, but a mess all the same. she “whores around” and uses sarcasm to keep people at a distance to protect herself, and struggles with alcoholism for a bit.

basically like at the core ire very much doesn’t like himself and doesn’t think other people like him either so he overcompensates by pretending to be a lot more cocky and confident than he feels–very much a fake it ‘til you make it type. and in a way it works? by being such a cocky insufferable little shit they can control the reason people don’t like them, and can pretend that people just don’t like the front that they put up (so they reject the persona and not…ire themself). by avoiding being vulnerable and real they’re able to evade an actual rejection. as a result they have a lot of acquaintances, but not a lot of friends.

their roommate (and best friend!!!) is a girl named cynthia. she’s super important in ire’s recovery process. they’re both super good and their friendship is important to me and i could go on for ten years about it but i’ll leave it there. she’s the only person who really knows ire aside from their love interest, and they really really care about her.

penemphriel (they/he)

soo pen and ire are kinda polar opposites lol. penemphriel is easily my favorite oc right now but i will try to keep this concise. they’re one of my handfuls of angel ocs from a collaborative wip i’ve concocted with my best friend. idk how likely it is that we’ll start it but we reaaaally want to. i brought penemphriel to life originally because i just wanted an angel oc but they became a commentary on individuality and love and learning to live for yourself and how much i personally dislike literary tragedies and religion as an institution along the way. it got slightly out of hand in a good way

anyways so they’re an archangel, and pretty low on the totem of power (i will not bore you with the 16 metric tons of half-baked lore i came up with at 3am yet). even though they aren’t the most powerful of angels, they are one of the oldest–they’ve been around since the very, very beginning. essentially their job was to be “mankind’s shepherd” as they would put it, to watch over humanity and, most importantly, not to interfere. generally speaking. they were meant to sort of,, gently guide people back to heaven and protect them from demons and that sort of thing. natural disasters, wars, etc.? out of their hands.

as such they were made with Love. like a lot of love. like god took a bucket of love and poured it into penemphriel, and that was the mistake. pen was made to love people and he just loves them too damn much! it results in a lot of anguish on their part because they’re very caught in between being obedient and letting themself…want things. their whole mission is to help people achieve happiness and peace. i’m in the process of reworking the entire storyline but here are the highliiiiiights

- maybe kinda sorta almost fall in love with michelangelo- adopt and raise a young cherub named raziel (their dearest little sister, the apple of their eye, she will always be a darling little fledgling in their heart)- maybe kinda sorta have their wings stolen by an asshole demon- from there they go to work at a bookstore run by a crotchety old woman, meet a much nicer demon, and i refuse to spoil the rest (cough but maybe they fall in love with the nice demon man and they get married and live a happy and fulfilled life idk)

i have a lot of feelings about them Aha,, there’s a lot more lore to them than to ire just because they’re immortal and have existed since the dawn of time so. there’s a lot i didn’t cover as far as backstory and general,, themes….i really could write an essay (or hopefully a nove someday). i might be posting snippets about them because i really love them!!

[smallbluelight]

So I just realized that I haven’t posted stuff about the winged creatures in Thaleli even though it’s been posted elsewhere

So here it is if anyone cares

As well as nonsense words.

This is super old and messy tho so Im so sorry to whoever wants to read this

These creatures are the reason why Thaleli was previously named Aeadimon. (In their native language, Aead/Aea means winged and Imon means land.)

They’re native to the land and lived in harmony with the humans. (Until history happened. Which I’ll show in the future lol)

There are three kinds of Aeakas (originally two): the Lahkas, Dahkas and Dalahkas. Creative I know

(In their native language, Lah means Light, Dah means Dark/Shadow, Kas from Kasa or Kasas means creature/s)

Lahkas are called “Angels” by the humans due to how similar they look with Spiritual Angels.

They’re usually kind, overprotective and mostly the ones who are level-headed in situations. Some Lahkas break these traits at a young age, but since it’s part of their culture, they follow suit as they get older. Some don’t follow, but they’re not ones to constantly get into massive trouble (across other Aeakas).

Dahkas on the other hand are called “Fallen” from Fallen Angel due to their devil-like wings.

They’re often mischieveous and very stubborn as well as daring and adventurous. They have their own chaotic nature and like to have fun. Some act like Lahkas but they can’t get rid of their stubborn trait.

Dalahkas are a mix of the two. Their kind were born from a few Lahkas and Dahkas that decided to be away from their own kinds and group up. They’re often looked down upon by the other Aeakas kinds and due to that, they developed their shy nature, but eventually they’re respected as a new kind of Aeaka.

They have a mix from both kinds. Their wings, eyes and traits have combos from both and some look more Lahka or Dahka-like depending which gene was closest.

They’re usually very curious about the world around them, but if situations come up that threaten them, some would hide away and some would fight back depending on how dire the situation is.

Of course, individually, they all have their own sets of unique personalities and traits, but they like to stick to their respective kind cultures and respect each other.

All Aeakas can be born having multiple pairs of wings and it can be anywhere. They all have the ability to “hide” their wings. Literally tucking them into their body to hide them and making them appear by detracting them. Their bones are incredibly flexible. (I’ll probably draw anatomy for this to make sense)

However in modern times, having a pair of wings is more common than multiple wings.

Now they appear if the Aeaka is either too weak or too strong (by magic/kinetic ability).

To know the difference, they have to tuck in their wings. If an Aeaka is able to tuck in their wings at a young age or puberty then they are strong, healthy and can live normally. If they can’t, even if they reach puberty, then they’re weak.

For a weak Aeaka to have multiple wings is probably their body’s way of protecting themself even if their magic/kinetic ability is too weak.

Whilst a strong one having multiple wings is their body’s way of balancing the amount of power of their magic/kinetic ability they have.

They can also be born with multiple eyes, no matter the number as long as there are no problems. It isn’t as rare as having multiple wings but it happens.

It is more common with the Dahkas and Dalahkas however and happens rarely with the Lahkas.

Some doodles

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Some things to know if ever you want to know lol:

- Actual Angels and Demons do exist in this world where Thaleli exists. They are spiritual beings. However they are seen if they want to be seen. Like our world. They are completely different from the Aeakas. The humans call them “Angels” and “Fallens” due to some of their claims of seeing an actual Spiritual Angel or Demon/Devil and the Aeakas look similar to them.

- Elijah, one of the characters I haven’t posted here, is a Dalahka. I’ll probably not post her until I get a refsheet done.

- Cyles, my innocent child who is Veth and Kyte’s little brother, is not a Spiritual Angel nor a Lahka. He is a human being. He has been experimented on for Lahka wings to be attached to him and be functional enough to fly with. He is the only successful experiment involving attaching Aeaka body parts, mostly their wings. He cannot tuck in his wings unlike the Aeakas can (it isn’t his to begin with) but he can tuck them flat on his back to hide or rest them and stretch them out to fly. (Proving how flexible Aeaka wings are)

In a way, you can see him as a half-Lahka, but not a drop of Aeaka blood entered his system.

He’s fully human. Just with wings that aren’t even his.

- The Dahkas physical forms do exist but their mental state and their traditional traits do not exist anymore. Hence why I wrote they don’t “mentally” exist anymore. Due to this, they’re now called “Monsters” instead of “Fallen” by the humans.