#bc yet again. they do not have comprehension skills.

[mytumblogforgames]

was randomly on twitter for a second and peeped this comment on someone's post about solas talking about how the lack of a name for the feeling about that emotion about going home is his fault and uh.

truly it must be devastating to be this stupid

[dordey]

girl i am by no means a tswift stan but like........when you spend your free time compiling a post about her Years worth of having bangs or wearing clothes back to front, just to complain about it??? sounds kind of like you Are

[chrysalizzm]

survival of the fittest: predictions for generation two

i said in rancord sub-boosty chat that i would probably write a comprehensive meta regarding my theories for generation two and then it got nuked bc i wrote way too much in one message w spoiler blinders so here it is!

spoilers for generation loss episodes one, two, and three.

given that i started watching genloss assuming it was an allegory for genetic algorithms in ai due to the language of “generations” (knowing now that generation loss, as a concept, refers to “degradation of quality resulting from imperfect reproduction techniques”) i think that there's an element both of refinement and of deterioration here. a couple of elements are at play:

for those unfamiliar, a genetic algorithm is a method by which self-learning ai acquire and refine their pool of knowledge. very generally speaking, ai are trained in “generations,” with each generation learning from its predecessor and improving upon itself to reach its ultimate goal. to this end, genetic algorithms use process of elimination to narrow down the best ai—in other words, natural selection: survival of the fittest. the strongest wins. 

in the context of genloss, this seems to align with showfall media’s goal: creating the Perfect Hero for their Perfect Show. it also, perhaps, hints at what’s to come in generations two and three. i get the feeling that we will be seeing new ranboos, each one better equipped for the tasks demanded by the show than their previous iterations, and yet also retaining the knowledge that allowed the generations before them to survive. what are favorable traits within the ecosystem of showfall media? complacency? levelheadedness? the ability to perform unflinching normalcy under hellish conditions? at any rate, showfall media wants the generations of our hero, ranboo, to eventually acquire the skills to be the ideal protagonist and engaging pov character, whatever that may entail. it’d behoove us to keep an eye out for changes in generation two that seem influenced by the erratic and even unstable nature of generation one. 

(on a slight tangent: this is also how our brains learn things, and is relevant to trauma formation and retention. we often develop trauma responses to specific things—triggers—because those are what helped us survive traumatic experiences. there is positive reinforcement here: because we survived, we will do it again, and again, and again. parallel to natural selection, our brains prune responses; this is why trauma survivors have altered responses to things that may seem completely normal for people who don’t share those triggers or responses with them. altered response in brain structures, particularly the amygdala (the so-called “fear center”) are part of the observed neurobiological differences btwn those with and without ptsd—but i digress.)

on to generation loss. this has probably already been theorized before so i won’t beat a dead horse, but in the context of knowledge retention and crystallization as mentioned above, i think we’ll also see the next generations deteriorate significantly. this may manifest as more frequent breaks between the narrative of the show and what’s actually happening (e.g. this clip [blood and emotional distress tw] of the showfall media illusion breaking and us being shown ranboo elbow deep in charlie’s blood) and likely more emotional turmoil and derealization on the part of generation two and three. i wonder if generation two will inherit generation one’s cracked mask as a symbolic gesture and as an implicit warning, but that’s just broad speculation (and i imagine that mask is pretty much crushed to bits by now).

also re:the idea of imperfect reproduction causing the phenomenon of generation loss. we have to remember that ranboo is not the only character to be rescripted. charlie has had multiple generations. sneeg has had multiple generations. it’s sort of implied jerma has had multiple generations just by proxy of how long he’d been part of the genloss project. circling back to charlie and sneeg, though: their generations were imperfect. they made mistakes that broke the flow and immersion of the show, and it cost them. the generation that made the mistake was killed, and a new generation—streamlined, scripted, perfectly seamless—was put in their place. i found sneeg particularly rebellious, and also wonder about the importance of that hat and how it seemingly granted him self-awareness. at a guess it was because the hat was a holdover from the previous episode so the continuity error was what fucked sneeg up, in which case the hat didn’t actually have to be put on sneeg for the same effect to happen, but sneeg did hold it together remarkably well—long enough to attempt an escape. i wonder if that, too, was scripted. i wonder if everything we saw, everything we were handed with both hands by showfall and by hetch, was scripted.

ultimately i was super intrigued by genloss and am hyperfixating on it, if you couldn’t already tell. it was an incredible production with an incredible cast, story, costuming—everything. i’m in love with it. thank you to ranboo and to everyone on the cast and crew for genloss and i’m very excited for what’s next.

other stuff that stuck out to me that didn’t quite fit into this prediction:

hetch isn’t the founder, he’s just someone who appears to have control over the production that ranboo specifically was starring in (which is still a lot of executive power). saying that makes me wonder if there are other shows showfall media is in charge of, and genloss is just one of them. i found it interesting that hetch told ranboo to keep his mask at the outset of ep3, and this was the main reason why i personally did not trust him.

according to the genloss bts twitter, there was a “live” ending. that said, i think hetch opening the floor for ranboo to speak directly to the audience was what ultimately swung the vote so far to “die.” i’ve seen people talking about this already: we swarmed the vote en masse for “live” until hetch told ranboo they would just be reprogrammed into the show again, and ranboo begged. they begged us to let them die. look at us. we were never going to be able to say no to them. (i also think ranboo’s death makes for a compelling story in the future regarding my theory of generations, but i don’t know what the “live” ending would have looked like, so this is fully biased.)

thinking about how the show was shaped to culminate to ep3 from the beginning. we’ve seen and heard hetch through it all, and he was the one to break the illusion for ranboo. every last bit was scripted. uhh something something i think ranboo’s rebellion against chat in ep3 was also intended, even if the specific code that he chose wasn’t scripted. it really defeats a person to realize nothing is in their control, you know? the freedom was an illusion after all.

sources

what is generation loss (concept)? how genetic algorithms work human-guided machine learning optimization of knowledge acquisition

[noctiilio]

If gengetsu was never your favourite, who would be your second choice?

See, i'm sorry to disappoint, but that's an impossible answer for me. But I guess i can find still an answer bc i actually didnt have Gen for most of my time in the fandom. But i can tell you i've been even more invested since ive had her.

I was actually not interested in learning abt her character bc her fanon "jokes" were really insensitive, and turned my 14-15 year old self away from her without even digging deeper. I left it at that and forgot about the twins entirely.

But i did look for her trope these entire 12 years ive been here. I looked for the protective, caring, whimsical, powerful yet still playful personality Gengetsu has. So to me it's like she's been here this whole time but i just didnt know it and attributed these traits to one of the non-speaking midbosses instead bc i could do whatever w them bc no canon info could contradict my vision. imagine my joy when i found out that character EXISTED without me having to make things up. Shes been here for 2 yrs with me knowing but ive acfively searched for her for a decade.

my true best friend who stood the test of time since i was 13, though, was flandre, now that i think of it. That's the case for millions of people, yes, shes a popular kiddo! but i always saw in her what most people in the 2010s (the peak of fanon flan's popularity) didn't see. Even when i was in middle school i saw in flandre a lot of my own traits growing up undiagnosed, so i couldn't antagonize her for the life of me. and so, my portrayal of the scarlets were surprisingly canon friendly despite me not having THAT good of a character reading comprehension skill in my teens.

But still, Gengetsu surpassed her even in those short two years ive had her, and ive made it my life mission to make those horrible jokes about her a long gone nightmare so that people see the good in her. Actually, that's kind of what i do for flan too! I shine light on them so that people can see past the terrible fanon that turned me away from Gen so long ago.

I think they should be friends by the way. A lot of people say that but for, again, fanon "evil girls" reason (to which i frown, pout, and make a sad face) but i think theyre full of whimsy and have a lot of energy to spare, they could be friends on a canon setting too!

All this to say i finally found my Blorbo of All Time and i'm not letting go!

[cataztrophi]

TAZ November Celebration 7: Design/Celebrity AU

I'm a little behind my self-imposed schedule with @taznovembercelebration bc I got carried away with this prompt and wound up with 5k words that would have to be part of a larger fic. I haven't decided if I want to finish it yet, but for now here's the scene I had the most fun writing

“Okay, Krav, what’s wrong?” Kravitz jumped. He hadn’t noticed Taako coming out of the back room with the materials he would need for today’s fitting. 

“What? Nothing. I’m fine.” If he was lucky, he could fake fine-ness until Taako got distracted by whatever minute adjustments he wanted to make. As far as Kravitz could tell, the outfit Taako was making him looked done, but Taako insisted there were things that he could still improve. Kravitz couldn’t blame him for being a perfectionist; this was the first red carpet event for either of them, and an opportunity for Taako to get his name out there in the couture world.

Taako rolled his eyes. “You’re a terrible liar, my man. And you’re fidgeting all over the place, which is gonna make my job harder. You might as well talk, cause I’m gonna have all these in my mouth.” He held up a row of straight pins between his thumb and forefinger. “So I’m not going to be able to carry the conversation with my usual sparkling wit.”

Kravitz let out a short laugh. “It’s not even that interesting.” He paused, and Taako motioned for him to continue before making a tiny alteration to the hem of his shirt.

Finally Kravitz sighed. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I had a meeting with the rest of the band today. They think that, as the frontman, I should be doing more to promote Reaper Run.”

Taako shrugged one shoulder, as if to say, It wouldn’t kill you…. He adjusted the angle of a pleat and pinned it in place.

“I know, they’re probably right. I tend to get cameras shoved at me more often, so it’s only fair to them if I take on more of the promotional stuff. I’m just… I’ve never been good at the publicity side of things. I don’t even know how all of…this… happened.” He made a vague gesture. “I mean, yes, our venues got a little bigger in the past year or so, but nothing that you’d expect to lead to…well, fame.”

Taako took the last pin out of his mouth and used it to take in the ankle of one of the pant legs slightly. “I mean, that viral thirst trap of yours probably had something to do with it.”

“What?” He had heard and understood all the words Taako just said, but hearing them in that order caused a critical failure in his listening comprehension skills.

Taako frowned. “The… you know, that photo of you performing that was, like, all over the Internet a few months ago?”

Kravitz still found himself unable to process whatever Taako was saying. “I’m… not online much,” he said weakly. “Johann handles most of our social media.”

Taako stood up slowly in front of him, his eyes wide. “Kravitz… are you telling me you didn’t know?”

“Okay, now I’m getting worried. What didn’t I know?”

“Hang on.” He pulled out his phone and tapped at it a few times before holding it up to Kravitz. The screen showed a picture of him that he hadn’t seen before.

“Oh yeah,” he said after a moment. “I remember that show. It was at this festival in Georgia in the middle of July, which was probably asking for disaster if I’m honest. It was like a hundred degrees, even after the sun went down. Humid, too.”

“But you don’t recognize the picture?”

Kravitz shook his head. “I only know when it was taken because, well, that's not our usual costume. But they're pretty hot, especially under stage lighting, and one of the guys who went on before us actually collapsed from heat exhaustion, so we decided to make some… adjustments. That shirt wasn’t even mine, I think I borrowed it from Avi.”

Taako looked at the picture again. “I think calling it a shirt is a little generous, my fella.”

Kravitz had to agree with him there. It was more of a mesh shrug, really, that covered his arms and shoulders and left the rest of his torso exposed. His skin was slick with sweat, and the photographer had managed to capture him in a rare moment where he wasn’t making the weirdest facial expression imaginable. Instead he had his head thrown back, his eyes closed, a serene expression on his face that Kravitz could pinpoint to the exact song–the exact chord, even–that he was playing.

“And you think this is why we got famous? I mean, I have to admit, it’s a good picture, but I don’t think it’s ‘rapid increase in popularity’ good.”

“Well I definitely think it helped. I know I’d go looking for more info on you if I saw this.”

Kravitz took another look at the picture and frowned. “Wait a minute…. Do you have this saved on your phone?”

Taako snatched his phone back. “It’s the top image when you search your name, my dude! Which, apparently, you never did!”

“It was in your photo gallery!” Was it his imagination, or was Taako blushing? He felt his own face heating up at the thought that Taako found his picture worth saving.

“You can’t prove anything!” Taako scowled at him, and Kravitz had to bite back a grin. “You can take these off now, I'm done with you. Not the clothes, to be clear: just you and your baseless slander.”

“Honestly, Taako, if you wanted to ogle me you could have just said,” Kravitz teased.

“I will put this through an industrial dryer cycle, I swear to God!”

Kravitz found himself grinning as he changed back into his street clothes. There was a big difference between Taako finding him attractive and Taako wanting the sort of candlelit-dinners-and-morning-kisses thing that he had started daydreaming about, but hey, a guy could hope, and it was nice to be appreciated.

[amanda-ammamnda-amndada-admadna]

My reading skills r so low rn (and in general) it’s an issue

[miekasa]

love talk

+ pairings: eren yeager + (fem) reader

+ genres and warnings: it’s not important that eren is a tattoo artist i just wanted to share bc i gave him tattoos here :’), fluff i think, smut/nsfw content, if you see a hint of eremin then no you don’t </2

+ word count: almost 2k, sickening innit luv

+ notes: yeah, still thinking about eren speaking german during sex bc he’s losing his mind hehe. i suppose this is the… softer version. might post another one later, who knows. and yes, i did almost name this pussy talk. 

Unbeknownst to him, Eren Jaeger speaks three languages.

The first two are obvious, but English is his preferred language; the one you’ll find him speaking most often. It only makes sense, seeing as it’s what the overwhelming majority of people, media, and signs spew at him.

The second is more reserved; something you might assume given his name, but not know for sure unless you asked, or stuck around long enough to catch him rambling excitedly to Armin in German, with broken slang phrases of English interspersed. It’s fascinating—cute, moreover—the way he stumbles back and forth between both tongues; and the difference in tone between them. You’re not sure if your own bias is peeking through, but you’re certain Eren and Armin both sound a little… meaner in German; more sarcastic, at the very least—and you wouldn’t be surprised to find out they were talking shit the whole time.

Though, there is a special, reserved intonation to his mother tongue that shows itself when Eren’s around you. It doesn’t seem to be by choice—gone beyond comprehension that he’s forced to revert to grunted expressions and curses in a language foreign to his surroundings. You assume them to be curses; you never can confirm, and Eren seems to not even be aware of his switching in the heat of the moment, can never quite recall what he was saying to you.

There are times when he’s reduced to mere sounds, no comprehensible words between the hundreds of thousands he knows—only guttural moans, and breathy sighs, and he seems to not even be able to understand himself. You have to admit, it’s a bit of an ego boost to be able to fuck your boyfriend stupid in two languages.

And at first glance, Eren doesn’t seem like the type of guy to know about anything outside of himself. He doesn’t seem like the full-sleeve, three ear piercing, tattoo artist kinda kid; but Eren Jaeger speaks the language of pictures, of symbols, of images, that he is able to decipher and give meaning to upon creation. He’s got a penchant for art, and a vision bigger than himself, so it’s only right that he takes his knowledge and applies it in its most permanent form. The tattoos are more than a hobby for him—they’re an extension of himself, his art, his language; and his body is the only canvas fit enough to capture them.

So, here, with Eren laying on his back, chest exposed, arms bent for his hands to rest against your waist, you get to see the culmination of all the words and all the pictures, from all the languages he’s deemed important enough to find a place on his skin.

“Do all of your tattoos have a meaning?” you question, reaching your hand up to trace over the delicate waves that ride along his right collarbone.

“No,” Eren winces when you move—just enough of him to feel an ounce of friction inside of you, but not enough to give him what he wants. He wiggles himself a bit, desperate for something, “Not at all.”

It makes you chuckle, with a sort of disbelief, at both his words and his actions, “You get things tattooed on your body that don’t mean anything to you?”

Eren lets out a shaky breath, followed with a boyish smile. He blinks at you slowly, lids fluttering and hands gripping tightly at your body, “Learned that not everything has to have a deep meaning to want to keep it around,” he tells you, right palm moving to venture over your tummy, and up your sides, “Somethings you just love.”

You don’t miss the lilt in his voice on the word ‘love,’ but you play it off, rolling your eyes at his deliberately sweet affections, and then, gently, your hips, “Pretty poetic for something with no meaning.”

“Yeah, well, Armin taught me that,” Eren grits, hands fastening themselves at your hips again.

“You talk about Armin a lot when we’re in bed you know,” you taunt him, moving your fingers to trace over more of the tattoos that litter his right shoulder, “Something I should know about?”

Eren shivers at the feeling—of your fingertips on his skin, and what he swears was an intentional clench around him, “You don’t seem to mind.”

You smile at him, enjoying the contortions of his face when you run your hands down his chest, palms pressed lightly against his pelvic bone. Eren bends a knee, but does he best to remain still, and you can’t help but to chuckle. He looks pretty when he’s trying his best.

“I’m greedy,” you tell him, raising your hips, and pausing in your words as you slowly lower yourself back on to him.

“Trust me,” Eren scoffs, a façade to cover up his reddening cheeks and shaky thighs, “I know.”

He tries to move his hips up, desperate for something more; for you to fucking move, but, you keep your hips perfectly still. Instead, you reach your arms behind you, and onto Eren’s thighs, cementing them to the bed. He groans, his hands sliding down to your own thighs, fingertips digging into your flesh.

“And you called me greedy,” you huff, amused, as Eren rolls his eyes beneath you. When you’re sure he’s not going to move, you bring your arms back around, palms splayed on his stomach, “Relax. This is what you asked for, isn’t it?”

“Honestly, in an ideal world, this would be happening when I was playing COD, not when I was already impossibly hard with morning wood. And with a lot less teasing on your part.”

You have to laugh—genuinely giggle—at Eren’s blunt honesty. He’s unintentionally charming; another linguistic skill he seems unaware that he’s proficient in. You can tell he doesn’t understand the source of your amusement, but the look in his eyes, the twinkle in his irises lets you know he’s too far gone to even care.

“Call it a lesson in self-control,” you say, moving your hands to his sides in time with a shallow grind of your hips, “Besides, I’m admiring you.”

Eren keeps his hands anchored on your thighs, shivering at sensitivity of his dick coupled with your hands stroking over his pecs, “Lesson fucking learning—babe, fuck, please—”

“Shh—not yet,” you coo, and reach to pull his arms off of you, leaving you with room to admire his sleeve. You take pity on him, holding his right wrist with both of your hands, before slowly beginning to bounce on him.

Eren squirms, his free hand reaching to grab at the flesh of your ass, eyes blinking open to watch his cock be buried inside of you. The relief is instant—for the both of you—immediate groans and shallow profanities slipping past your lips as you build a steady pace to ride him.

“Tell—tell me what this one means,” you question slowly, keeping your right hand around his wrist, but using your left to point to the tattoo; a stylized line art of crossed wings.

“Some shit about freedom,” Eren grunts, fingers twitching, “Fuck, babe—more, please, I’ll—”

Eren cuts himself off with a whine, and you hiss yourself, lifting your body all the way to the tip, before lowering yourself again at an agonizingly slow pace. At this rate, you can feel everything; every vein on his shaft, every twitch of his cock. You feel Eren deep inside of you, even see where the bulge outlines your tummy.

You still yourself for just a second, catching your breath, anchoring yourself on Eren. You’re pretty far gone yourself, but you want more; for yourself, and for him. You do your best to stay coherent, slowly grinding atop of him, questioning him about another tattoo on his arm, ignoring the way his palm grips at your bicep. It’s a small one, with detailed Japanese characters that you can’t understand, but appreciate anyway; it’s one of your favorites, and you ask Eren about its meaning, clenching yourself around him as punctuation to your question.  

Eren sucks air between his teeth, left hand pulling back to run his fingers through his hair, a grunted word in German falling from his lips. You smirk, but let him try to answer you.

“I don’t fucken’ know,” Eren grumbles, head thrashing from side to side, “It’s really fucken’ hard to remember anything—shit—like this. S’fucking torture.”

“Hm,” you hum, not satisfied; eager for more of Eren’s love language, “Tell me something in German, instead, then.”

But Eren can only babble beneath you; sounds incoherent in either language—reduced to desperate whines and grabby hands at your thighs, waist, boobs—anything. You lean forward, letting go of Eren’s tattooed wrist, and reaching to ghost your fingers over his lips.

“Come on, Eren, you’re usually so good at it when we do this,” you taunt him, words coated in sweetness that distract you from keeping up your pace, “Just want you to talk pretty to me. Tell me something, baby.”

Eren’s eyes travel from your fingertips, up your arm, neck, and to your face. When he meets your gaze something shifts; eyes heavy with want, and bitter with dissatisfaction.

So, he reaches for your extended hand, laces your fingers together, “Something like what?”

You wrap your fingers around his, then do the same with your left hand, “Anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yeah,” you affirm with a smile, finally satisfied.

Eren grunts, bending his right knee for leverage before he flips you over, hands still intertwined, but now pinned over your head, harshly pressed into the pillows below. He buries his head into the crook of your neck; licking a stripe along your collarbone, where you’d teased him minutes before. Then up, up, up, your neck to the shell of your ear, retreating downwards to suck on the skin just beneath your ear, nipping with pointed teeth.

Eren keeps his weight on you, the length of his cock sliding over your slick folds while he bites angry, red blotches into your skin—a kind of impermanent tattoo of his own making on your body. The friction is good, but not enough, and you wonder if Eren intends on teasing you as long as you’d done to him; but, he breathes heavy breaths up your neck again, before mumbling a series of foreign syllables into your ear.

He hovers over your face, satisfied by the daze in your eyes; the slight openness of your mouth. It’s you who looks dumbstruck now, a foreigner to his ministrations; and for once, he’s in control with his second tongue.

“What—what does that mean?” you finally ask, squeezing your eyes briefly when Eren teases the tip just past your entrance.

Eren chuckles, airy, gritty, and cocky all at once. He pushes his cock inside of you, balls deep, only to pull out almost all the way, before leaning forward just slightly, so that his bottom lip grazes over yours.

“It means I love you,” he whispers, hips bucking forward, “Try to remember that, ‘cause I swear I’m gonna fuck you stupid, baby.”

[dikiyvter]

Give s information on how Rigatello was when he was first created?

       Shore! I don’t have enough information ( or energy, for that matter ) for something like . . . comprehensive and particularly coherent, but I can mutter out some of my thoughts. 

       So-- From  the very start, Riga had always been a bit. . . quieter, than Gio ever was. I mentioned before that for the first-- roughly year and a half of his life he didn’t speak much, if at all- and though a big part of this was because he was very very fearful of the people he was surrounded by, I think in part. . . it just sort of took him a bit longer to get a solid grip on how he was supposed to function on a sort of physical level? I think when he did talk it sounded a little weird, a little disjointed. A lot of his actions in general were very- just sort of lacking in dexterity, lmao. Not great fine motor skills. He was p clumsy, and on some level I think that general clumsiness made him rather . . . self-conscious. Though not by design, Riga was ( and still is ) very, very, VERY anxious. 

       Because of how anxious he is, and bc he just- was not entirely sure what was expected of him when he wasn’t being given direct orders, didn’t know what to do with himself, he relied a lot on escapism as a sort of coping mechanism. It started with just. . . spacing out, letting his imagination run wild, and then when he started to pick up reading & writing skills he kind of fell head first into fiction books. That’s kinda. . . been his safe space ever since, tbh? He reads & writes a lot of stories. 

       That said though I kind of think that his creativity is something that developed v slowly over time as he started rly relying on it. I think at first he was kind of . . . v v literal and struggled with just about any sort of metaphorical manner of speaking- Gio was much the same, but I think t hat Gio took a longer while to catch on ( at least, from an outside perspective. ) 

       Mm . . . I think he was almost as curious as Gio was, but it was very muted by his anxiety and his people-pleasing tendencies. But when he did feel safe enough to sort of explore the things around him, he did so very meticulously. Not the feral desire to inhale as much information as soon as possible like Gio, but a careful effort to understand things piece by piece, whatever he could get his hands on before he was startled off again like a wild cat, lmfao.

        He spent a lot of time in his room tbh? He didn’t like talking to people. Didn’t like interacting with them. I think that it would be. . . very apparent in a lot of his attempts to interact w/ people that it was something that brought him great amounts of nervousness, and that it was something he was v much just trying to get through as quickly as possible with as little damage as possible. He really didn’t do anything that wasn’t directly ordered of him by Dottore or someone of equal higher standing above him, tbh tbh. Prolly would’ve been easy for an outsider to mistake him for. Being far less sentient, ngl. 

      Uh . . . his outfit was different, but I haven’t fully figured it out yet. I know that he used to keep his hair almost exclusively tied back into a braid, to keep it out of the way. He didn’t start drawing the little heart on his cheek until sometime after Gio’s creation. 

[piduai]

this has been on my mind for a while, i feel like at this point women mangaka are generally just better people than their male peers. id love to hear some manga ud recommend by women, or even counterpoints, but series like Dungeon Meshi and Full Metal Alchemist (among others) handle almost every concept way better and with more tact, from writing complex stories and compelling characters, to treating women like people and not literal naked rubber dolls colored in and posed like p*rn

you are so correct and right and speak the truth. female mangaka are superior. the only thing i’d say women don’t do inherently better is technical skill, there’s a ton of men who are very artistically talented, but arts such as drawing and music are sexless because they come from within and aren’t influenced by external factors such as upbringing and culture like storytelling is. everything else though is done better by women.

the problem with female mangaka is that they’re gatekept in the industry big time. if you google ‘top selling manga of all time’ and go to the wikipedia page, there’s only one woman (kimetsu no yaiba) and she’s hiding behind a male pen name just like arakawa hiromi did when fma was publishing. neither of these are a coincidence. women are generally discouraged from pursuing writing, and if they do so they’re supposed to be kept to female-catering genres such as shoujo, josei and BL, which are all much less mainstream, aka much less known and much less money making, than shounen. women having to go behind male-sounding pen names just so men don’t feel emasculated when consuming their stories has been a thing since forever across many different cultures. misogyny is universal.

however since i personally am more into grittier stuff and i love gratuitous violence and other Mature Themes i just naturally gravitate more towards manime with all its faults. my favorite genre overall is comedy though and women ARE much funnier and wittier and more clever. female mangaka also typically avoid drawing gore, which i guess is cultural but a shame.

i’m not a manga person, i prefer watching anime, so i compiled a list of my favorite anime based on manga written by women a while ago. i am VERY picky and nitpicky and very, very difficult to please so keep in mind that the list is not comprehensive in the slightest, it’s just things that i personally liked. there’s tons of non-shoujo stuff written by women that generally have a good reputation (ao no exorcist, gangsta, kuroshitsuji, noragami, d gray man, magi, xxxholic etc etc etc) that didn’t stand out to me at all so again, short as it may be the list isn’t comprehensive in the slightest, i’m sure that people who are more easily entertained than me could come up with much more names. anyway everything else is copy-pasted, i know you know of fmab but it needs to be included because fmab is my favorite series of all times:

anime based on manga created by female writers that is in fact not heterosexual shoujo/BL garbage and i liked (bc i saw a post talking about female mangakas and all of the examples were in fact heterosexual shoujo/BL garbage that i unfortunately do not like and my anime opinions are super important obviously):

fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood (adventure/action) any comments on why fmab is the best product the anime industry has ever put on the market that will not be outranked ever is tired at this point. fmab is a masterpiece through and through. most of the cast including the mcs is male tho, which is sad

saraiya goyou (historical/drama) if fmab didn’t exist it would have been the best title out there. the word masterpiece was invented solely to have a concept to describe it. the ost makes up about 40% of its greatness and was also written by a woman. too bad all the characters are also dudes

acca: 13ku kansatsuka (drama/political) not quite as good as saraiya goyou but from ono natsume as well. pleasant is the word to describe it. relaxing. most of the cast is male.

dorohedoro (horror/gore/comedy) the best title since like 2006. everything about it is great. i don’t have a single criticism and that’s rare. the cast is actually balanced and the Female Characters™ all 3 of them are like, written like people and are also queens

hachimitsu to clover (slice of life) saddest shit i’ve seen in my whole life in a colorful packaging. heterosexual as hell but not in an obnoxious way. cast seems diverse but it’s predominantly male

3gatsu no lion (drama) from the same great umino chica who is a master at writing uncomfortable truths and playing on emotions. she’s great truly, her character crafting is genuine but it gets under your skin, it’s filled with melancholy. 3gatsu is actually better than hachimitsu to clover but 1) i have history with the former so i like it better and 2) it was produced by shaft which is a sin in itself. they did a great job and all, i just hate the studio. has 3 speaking female characters in total but all 3 are great.

hoozuki no reitetsu (comedy) it’s hilarious it’s fresh it’s pretty it’s original it’s creative it’s clever. i love everything about it. the whole cast is male with like 2 exceptions and a rabbit (best girl).

saiunkoku monogatari (historical) i know it LOOKS like heterosexual shoujo garbage but it in fact isn’t. fits the reverse harem trope solely because everyone is in love with mc, but there’s next to no actual romance in it. unironically a feminist power fantasy. i’m still shooketh at how incredibly pleasant it turned out to be. the mc is a young girl but the rest of the cast is almost exclusively male.

arakawa under the bridge (comedy) surprisingly… by shaft again. maybe i am prejudiced. anyway, hilarious to a fault. is technically centered around a str8 romance but it’s not too invasive so whatever. cast is pretty balanced and the women are written smartly.

saint oniisan (comedy) THE funniest thing i’ve ever watched, or nearly. it’s just great. same author as above. cast exclusively male

doukyuusei (gay romance) which i refuse to categorize as BL simply because it’s not BL. it’s a good gay story, arguably the best one yet. cast is exclusively male but i mean lmao

gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun (comedy) straight to A FAULT but funny nevertheless. is, technically, heterosexual shoujo garbage. but SOME heterosexual shoujo garbage can stay i guess. cast is balanced, there’s still more male characters tho

gokusen (comedy/action) which i don’t remember much about except kumiko being best girl and me liking it. if i remember liking it it means it was good overall just not memorable. cast is exclusively male except mc.

kaleido star (sports) which is the ONLY good, or like decent, or like watchable sports anime, the rest don’t exist. not based on a manga but the writer is a woman which is strongly felt through and through. good story about perseverance and will and optimism and competition. cast is predominantly female and all of them are wonderfully written

michiko to hatchin (adventure) again no manga but main writer is the woman known for creating the skating BL people pretend isn’t BL. michiko to hatchin is way better than the skating BL, but i’m just a humble girl. tons of sexy sexy i could have lived without but otherwise good shit. cast predominantly female.

mushishi (mystery/fantasy) mushishi is just unique. it has similar vibes to saraiya goyou and natsume sure, but ultimately it’s one of its kind. it has what ghibli wants. again no criticism about it at all except that it’s SO chill that binging it is super tiring. cast is predominantly male but it has few reoccurring characters so who cares.

natsume yuujinchou (mystery/fantasy) again similar to mushishi but less grim. chill story, the definition of wholesome unproblematic etc whatever kids are into these days. cast predominantly male but not memorable in the slightest

petshop of horrors (horror) watched it a million years ago so don’t remember shit but i do remember liking it. cast is probably predominantly male

sakamoto desu ga (comedy) well THE actual funniest thing i’ve ever watched, it licherally had me in tears, i watched the new episodes like 3 times on the days they came out, including watching them on tv in real time at like 3 am or whenever it aired in shinya. just really really funny. cast predominantly male.

[tolerateit]

Some points to be made here:

1. If your curriculum includes Toni Morrison and Nella Larsen, it is because of the black parents and students that have called out the lack of diversity and the racism of the curriculum. The majority of colleges and high schools across America do not study black authors yet.

2. I am not saying that just because a character does something bad by today's standards in a book, that the book is bad. But your post was about what book people would be cancelled for not liking, and when they tagged classics, you said that it shows that they didn't attend english class, as if not liking a classic means they lack literary analysis skills. But these people have the right to not like any book. You don't know if the book is triggering to them. And not liking something doesn't mean you don't think it's good. For example, I think the movie The Handmaiden is good, but I do not like it because it triggers me and it makes me feel sick.

3. It's different with a show or a movie or a book outside of the curriculum. My problem is that a lot of literature classes require you to read or analyze all of the books in the syllabus. That you don't have the choice to not read texts that might send you in a panic attack or a depression or a spiral. Maybe your teachers gave you a choice, but in my high school class and then in my college classes, you read every book or you got a failing grade.

[cont'd] And I don't know why you tagged that reply to my ask with "Unless they disrupt my mental health which is a point y'all keep forgetting", when my ask was literally about Lolita disrupting the mental health of students, and how it's unfair to them to be required to read it. It seems like it's you who keeps forgetting that point.

Anon I literally didn't mention school anywhere in my original post good god I'm sorry somebody forced students to read stuff that bothered them or triggered them but you need to acknowledge the fact that calling out classics for having problematic elements is not okay bc those elements are vital for comprehension and send a message!!! Alsooo (since I have seen most of the tags in my notifs) talking about a book you couldn't read bc it triggers you and Hating on a book because you don't 'like' it?? I'm sorry there's a difference and I don't wanna go into it again. Literary comprehension is a necessary skill!

I'm sorry your teachers didn't give you an option to not read a certain book, for the record we didn't have that either. I wasn't talking about schools at all. It's about the general disdain towards classics and you don't have to mix it with this topic.

[urlocalbunny]

Headcanons of what would be the children of boys with MC ???

Aaron:

Probably more than two, but they'd have a gap in between. Two sets of twins. And in full moon Aaron would be apprehensive.

Three boys and one girl, maybe? He is a very present father and the kids absolutely adore him! But they wonder where daddy goes in full moon... You tell them the truth, but hey, they're worried!

One day, however, Aaron turns and goes for his usual hunt in the forest, but then he hears something faintly familiar in the woods. Yelling.

"Aaron! Aaron!" He sort of knows who this is. It's his mate. He is wary, but stays put until you're in sight... With two cubs. His eyes widen comically and he snorts, jumping in surprise. He sniffs the air wildly and realizes those are his cubs. He accepts them, nodding at you and turning his back to you. You sigh in relief, knowing you can count on him, but god... They're going to eat the shoes.

You thought the other two were normal children, until Ivan yells your name into the distance and when you run to see them, well. There are four little holes on Ivan's hand while he holds a diaper. You can only sigh. Good luck, mc.

The third boy and the girl are the little bats. The boy is a little weird but that's how Aaron likes it. Hehe. Like, he's just so cute! One time he'll be right here in daddy's arms, and in the other... Huh? WhERES MY BABY? HE TELEPORTED.

And the girl! Oh, she's so sweet! Once Aaron danced for her and when she swung her fat little arms, she created a shockwave that made him fall on his bum! That's it, daddy's little warrior!!!!

He's a great dad and he'll train his kids from the beginning. He's gentle yet strict, and your kids seem to love training with him. He also likes reading with his kids and teaching them about nature and how to hunt in their human forms. (The kids like it bc the actual rewards are fruit for the cubs and frozen bunny blood popsicle for the vampires.)

Raphael:

Just a little boy.

He's tiny, and no talk him bc he angy. Yes, he's got some bite to him. He likes wearing big hats and he paints. Biggest garden assistance for Vlad. (He likes Aaron more. He has a plan of owning the garden when Vladimir dies, but he doesn't know yet... ToT)

He's very educated and supportive of people with disabilities and he learned to paint with different textures and layers so his daddy can feel his work!!!! Raphael cries every time.

Raphael is comprehensive and tends to pay his head way too much every time he does some "oopsie". He also supports his kid and teaches him how to do stuff without seeing because he thinks of the day his kid will have to fend for himself and walking at night in the dark wasn't good when he first started.

Raph trusts his kid with the boys, but Aaron and Vlad are his go-to if he can't spend some time with his kid because he knows they'd only do what they think it's best for the kid. He also eggs his son on when it comes to exploring and running around. No sun though!

(You often catch him walking around during daytime. Y'all just Do. Not. Know. How y'all can't see where he is hiding until you realize this kid can literally conceal himself anywhere. Also he's very good at not burning himself so you stop worrying at some point and he'll just start sleeping during day)

Was he doing that just to scare Raph? Oh, he'll see what's scary. No kisses tonight >| |(

He's also extremely protective of his kid even though he tries to get him to see the world. A minute late and he'll be lectured severely, so please step in sometimes or they'll fight and raph tends to cry. It's gonna take him time to realize his kid can handle himself because he's fragile in your vampire's eyes.

Beliath:

You can see her ANYWHERE. She has two beautiful curled horns and an extremely ravishing purple hair full of curls. She isn't stoppable. She's confident, smart, social, a business woman! She's five! she's not only Beliath's daughter. She is fashion itself.

Beliath is her number one fan, supporter and manager. He'll spend the rest of his life moisturizing washing combing and zipping things up and down if that means his daughter is the most ravishing kid in this city.

One day you'll wake up panting to your kid sitting in bed looking at you as if she was a psycho though. You were dreaming just now of your kid waving at you. Yep, she's got her daddy's powers. A few months later, she's going to be itching her back like crazy. Beliath is going to be jealous because hey! He had no wings! >:(

One day he'll wake up with her appearance all twisted and then she'll create the sickest illusions like a goose head and a penguin wearing glasses. You'll have a lot to teach.

Beliath scolds her A LOT and she gets grounded A LOT because she's him but smaller and they fight a lot over how she should learn how to be humble and try her best instead of just thinking she's the best but she won't listen bc... She's the best?

She's the greatest performer ever. Knows how to dance and that's what she does the most. Another party animal for you. Now turn them Barney songs on!

For some reason, she absolutely LOVES Raphael. I think it's because he's got shiny outfits and he's chill so she can brush his hair however she likes AND read her books for him. Lives rent free on the library reading princess stories and complaining about the princes.

Vladimir:

A boy. He's shy, sweet and super articulated. His hair is blonde and he loves to wear nice clothes. Another one who'll bicker with his dad like he's talking to a kid his age.

Also he can hipnotize others in a specific way that turns him invisible when he wants and he can be persuasive, but it's hard to develop your powers when your dad is always complaining about the millions of cars you left on the floor and you're grumpy so every time you hide on the walls and turn invisible he complains and you go "tch, old hack" and he hears you. Tough life, grrr.

Even though they fight SOMETIMES, all they talk about when they're together is cuddles, studying and gardening. Vladimir is the actual mom if you wanted to be addressed to as the mom, just forget it lol, if not it's fine, you have a mom for your son.

He grounds your kid and talks it out calmly because even if they fight, your kid is a very good listener and he knows when words are well-meaning.

They sleep together a lot like two old grandpas and you have the advantage of Vladimir not knowing about modern cameras. Have fun!!!

Your kid ends up growing up to be an ABSOLUTE gentleman. He's funny, smart, handsome and really educated. Momma owl Daddy is proud!!!

Ethan:

IT'S A BOY AND A GIRL. BEWARE. HELPAJDHIAJDIAJD

They're trouble. Trouble.

Ethan yells, rips his hairs off, jumps and rolls on the floor but these kids, they're absolute raccoons! The girl literally can control minds Neil style and the boy is a tracker just like his father.

Honestly they're smart, but they just like to use it to make his dad go crazy!

They love each other tho, they rarely get in trouble and they behave when you say so. They're scared *laughs evil laugh*

Ethan teaches them many things and since he can't fight so much, he sends them to train with whoever they like. The girl usually hangs into Beliath's sleeve and they get along super well. He teaches her hand in hand and the boy goes with Aaron because his tracking skills are developing. Sometimes he takes both of them and teaches them knife combat and how to be a good medical support because again, being a vampire is tough.

The boy likes embroidery and Ethan thinks he's weird because he makes some sick Dinosaurs but he tells him to go off. He likes how well made they are.

The girl enjoys violence fighting more so she trains extra hard.

Ivan:

This is the sweetest kid of the bunch. Your little girl. Is the shy baby you see clinging to their companion's shirt/pants in the street. She likes gardening herself, not with anyone else. She plants some flowers in a space Vladimir didn't use and she shoos everyone off, but gently bc babygirl is never mean... Until she finds out she has fangs

She's going to run to you crying and pull her lips up and squint as if struggling and then BAM, fangs are out! You'll have to explain with Ivan what's going on. She understands *sniff*.

Ivan is head over heels for her. They read together, they play board games and she's extremely skilled at every single one. She loves to pursue education on her favorite themes and she likes fiction.

Little girl also loves fashion and she wants someone to teach her how to sew. If you don't know it's okay, she'll put extra effort in learning to teach you!! "You'll see, we'll be sewing in no time, I'll teach you too!"

Sometimes you wonder if you're being a parent right because she just doesn't get grounded. You speak once, she never does it again. Is she really Ivan's daughter? "Hey!" "Shut up, go back in the hole or I'll use the stick!" "Ouch, stop!"

She turns very aggressive when she fights though, to the point where you're worried about the others when they teach her, because she fights like her life depends on it and she doesn't hold back until she overexerts herself. Turns out your daughter can use some sort of gravitational field and if you don't stop her, she might send one flying or pull them right into her clutches, so be careful.

Overall 100/10 great kid. Ends up designing hundreds of clothes and lives her life peacefully.

[danni-dollarsign]

HEY here’s Danni yet again ranting about writing bc all I ever do is read books on writing and stare at my WIPS and cry. I’m gonna ramble a bit on word choice and how I personally like to go about that, since I keep running into “USE THESE WORDS INSTEAD” posts and wanted to deposit my thoughts to anyone particularly interested in ‘em. 

Ok, so a lot of times I come across those Tumblr posts that are like “Use any of these words other than this general one in your writing!” and I legit always look at the list of “synonyms” and about half of those words do not have close enough definitions to be used interchangeably. Words used irresponsibly can result in just as much dissonance as bland/basic word choice, so nothing is gained. But as a pretentious, flowery writer who loves romantic and poetic prose, I can’t deny the importance of varying word choice. So, what do we do? If these posts give the impression of simply listing the synonyms list of commonly used words that I can’t just switch out easily, how can I change my word choice to keep the flow and avoid stagnancy?

Allow me to offer a pretty boring but still important standard for your consideration: Try to refrain from switching up word choice just for the sake of switching up word choice.

It’s definitely good to incorporate a wide vocabulary in your writing, not just to retain the interest of your readers, but also fosters language development and comprehension skills for yourself! But at the end of the day, if you’re looking up synonyms for a word and none of their definitions really fit the idea you’re going for, then you’ve already got the perfect word. Use language deliberately, and use it well.

BUT!!! What if you still want to vary verbiage, but your story’s context/scene are making you feel trapped in a specific realm of generic words. Here’s another one that I almost always use in my stuff -- and it’s Re-thinking your scene to generate more evocative language. 

This strategy is sometimes disguised as that whole “Change your Setting” tip you might come across in writing advice forums. But if your story’s setting needs to be specific and cannot be changed, then definitely I recommend this instead. 

Sometimes, the scene I have in my head, the way my characters interact with the plot and each other -- there are only so many words befitting of those strict and specific instances. So, I re-imagine the scene -- not so much the weather or setting, but more figuratively speaking. I imagine myself some dwinky little director man, changing the lighting, re-writing possible dialogue, re-thinking character presentation, doing the scene exactly the same except “a little to the left” (lol) -- all for the sake of discovering just what word-choice can really make this scene “pop”. While I don’t have the energy to write it all out (if you do, like wow I envy u sdhgjfg), I already spend a lot of time daydreaming, so this is perfect for those dreamers who already fixate on their storylines. For instance, changing the “lighting” of a scene can affect the tone, thus changing what syntax structure I want to use; a scene I might cast in blue, somber colors might employ more poetic, gothic writing, words more pertaining to heart-wrenching emotions that reverberate like cathedral bells in the ribcage. Or, that same scene cast in summery daylight of orange and yellow can demonstrate more vitality, naive and seemingly eternal, leaving a brightness in your smile and a twinkle in your eyes. See what I did there? Get a little silly with it - Hell, sometimes when I make that figurative lighting ironic, contrasting like a sad scene with a “happy” tone, it evokes a strange emotion seldom realized in life, but somehow so exceedingly real that it tends to become my more favorite scenes in a fic. While these can be very trial-and-error and might not come across the way you hoped with your readers the first few times, it’s always worth trying if you find it particularly fun.

Right. So we’re still left with that initial question of how can I vary my writing without simply switching up words used in a synonym list?

Well, first, please always look at the definitions of each of those “synonyms”. While, yeah, they are definitely synonyms, but there’s a reason why they’re separate words. Always have confidence that the words you’re using are the best words you can be using in a scene (or at least pretend to have confidence, since literally that’s me everyday of my life). Get friendly with online dictionaries (personally I like online the best bc they’re databases and therefore update a bit easier than a traditional print dictionary). If you’re feeling spicy, seek out a word’s historical usage - sometimes, it can give an extra dimension of POP that can sometimes feel like an Easter egg for readers and rewards those who either seek out that information or already know it. 

For the record, I’m very much an “emotional” writer. I like passionate language, words that particularly strike a chord with me. Your story may not play well with this advice, so disclaimer hgfhggfh - BUT certainly there is plenty reason to beware of just spamming “Find & Replace” all your common words to try and sound better in your writing. Seek out those who’s writing resonates with you. Seek out references and support. Curate your learning experiences so that your writing skills evolve in the best way they can in your amazing care. Certainly don’t just listen to me - try new things, see what works and what doesn’t, and proceed from there. But like, seriously, let’s move on from the whole “said is dead” propaganda - educate, don’t replicate.

[diegosclownshoes]

the s2 plot finally kicks off in this part as the agent and five finally meet and make wonderful first impressions on each other. this part is also reads more like a fic than the last (which you should def read before this for it to make sense if you haven’t bc it sets up the whole scene), since it’s p dialogue heavy, and pretty much all from the agent’s pov, but it’s still more on the draftish, notesish side. also some of the original scenes bw five and elliott are gonna be retconned since the agent’s already answered most of his questions about crop circles and whatnot when she revealed where she came from.

The agent find herself standing face to face with the stranger from the picture, now practically burning a little square down onto her skin through the pocket of her jeans. Elliott’s standing behind him mouthing what the hell is going on, and between the disbelief that boy in the picture has actually, finally shown up, the day has finally come, and the panic over what to do with Elliott, the agent does little more (well actually nothing more) than stand there with her lips parted and not a single word on her tongue.

A beat passes as the boy maintains eye contact while he lifts the mug to his lips, taking a drawn out sip, and only breaks it once he steps forward out towards the open area of what’s now the makeshift research/office space where they’ve put together any and everything that they could get their hands on related to the strangers (does it count if the agent knows them from a picture?) who appeared in the alley after the agent..

“Hm. This Colombian?” he asks, turning back around to face them. He looks far too nonchalant about all of this for the agent’s liking, and she has half a mind knock the coffee out of his hand, even if it means her favorite mug breaks.

Before she has the chance to respond, however, Elliott hastily moves forwards before answering back, “It’s my own blend.” The agent quickly grabs him by the arm and tugs him back into the kitchen, the butter knife that he’d grabbed after the boy’s intrusion clattering to the floor.

“Excuse us just a second,” she grits out, dragging Elliott further back until they’re stood up against the counter where the forgotten groceries lay. “What are you doing, oh my god. ‘It’s my own blend’,” she says, doing a (pretty poor) impression of Elliott. “What, are you gonna tell him the recipe now if he asks?”

“What am I doing,” Elliott hisses back. “What are you doing? Because if I’m not mistaken, that’s the same guy from your picture, and this is what you’ve been waiting here for since the moment you got dropped into that alley!”

The agent quickly glances at the boy, who’s poking around their setup, turning over newspaper clippings and fiddling with the machinery, and doesn’t seem to be paying them all that much attention. “That doesn’t mean that you just tell him everything he asks about! We don’t even know what he’s here for or if that little teleportation trick is all he’s got! And also, isn’t it just awful convenient how the one person we’ve been waiting for shows up last, and how he ended up literally knocking on our door?” She again looks back at the boy, who stops reading whatever journal it is he’s picked up and looks back, arching a brow at her. She scowls back.

Elliott sighs. “Well maybe if he got the chance to speak he’d tell us what he’s here for anyway.” He pauses, then frowns. “No harm in being too careful though,” he agrees, pulling open the drawer under the counter and grabbing a (much sharper) knife before the pair make their way back over to the boy.

He gives Elliott a ‘really?’ look as he sees the knife in his hand, but nontheless ignores it before he asks, “Have you ever heard of Area 51? Roswell?” And honestly the agent can’t help the snort she lets out at that. Who knew letting Elliott keep his conspiracy theory crap mixed in with her research would ever get that reaction out of someone.

“Please, you honestly expect us to believe that you’re from another planet? Which one, home to the alien race of vertically challenged boarding school runaways?” The agent crosses her arms and scoffs but before she can say anything else the boy’s once again blinked and now stands directlyfront of her, and she quickly leans back to steady herself.

“Well,” he says, smiling thinly, “If there were such a planet then you’d no doubt be a citizen there yourself, so let’s both of us ignore that comment for now,” and okay, the agent realizes with a little feeling of indignance, he does have an inch (or two) on her. Still, she doubles down on an overly saccharine smile of her own.

“Alright, let’s,” she says back, and silently hates the sense of relief she feels once he steps back. Behind her Elliott, ever the peacekeeper, clears his throat.

“Um, what my niece over here meant to say is that, while there certainly is reason to believe in extraterrestrial life which exists beyond the limits of our own universe, and beyond our comprehension, you and all the other anomalies we’ve seen don’t seem to to fit into that, uh, narrative. So don’t go trying to avoid the question at hand.” The agent gives him a funny look; which question at hand have they even asked at this point? The boy, on the other hand, quickly leans forward again.

“Which others?”

*

Elliott quickly explains phenomenon that occurred during the five energy surges they’d witnessed together, and the consequent flashes of blazing blue light that  had appeared alongside them each time before depositing a figure into the alley. Somewhere in the middle of his explanation, he’d set down the knife, and the agent hopes that it wasn’t a mistake (she’s confident in her own special power, but if the boy teleports before she has a chance to use it then it won’t be of much use at all).

The boy frowns, brows furrowed. “Did you get a good look at any of them?”

“Yeah, a couple of them. There was the first one, which I saw alone, because, uh my niece wasn’t here at the time.” Before their guest has a chance to ask what he means by that the agent quickly cuts in.

“There was that freakishly big crybaby,” she adds, and the boy turns to face her.

“Crybaby?”

“Yes, a crybaby, a person who cries often, and is thus referred to as a cry plus baby. You know, you should quit playing hooky, otherwise you’ll miss out on more than just those oral comprehension skills you’re lacking here.” And okay, she should feel kinda bad for taking jabs at a teenager but he’s also had her feeling unsettled since the moment he walked (or rather, blinked) in. Before he can respond (most likely with a threat, which. Shocker) Elliott jumps in, breaking up the hostile air.

“He kept coming back to the alley and sat around for hours wailing someone’s name, a woman’s name, it was uhh-”

“Allison,” the agent supplies.

“Yes! Allison.”

The boy frowns (the agent bites her tongue before she makes a comment about his face getting stuck that way). “Luther.”

“Well,” she says instead, “Whoever it was, they all came scattered over the past couple years. No two at the same time. The last one was in September.”

The boy lets out a sigh of relief. “So my family’s alive,” and okay, what? The agent’s eyes widen in part shock and part confusion as he continues. “Shit.I think I stranded them here. Now listen to me-"

"Elliot. My name's Elliot. And this," he gestures towards the agent, “Is-”

“None of his business,” the agent says coolly, crossing her arms.

“Alright, fine. Elliott and None Of His Business, I got ten days to find them and save the world. Now, I need your help to do that,” he says, the last part directed at Elliott. No surprise there, the agent thinks, going for the more guileless of the two. Although it’s not as if she would have done any different herself. However, she once again interjects. Knowing Elliott, he’ll reveal something to this guy before he even asks about it, and she’s not sure she wants him knowing how much they know any more than they need to let on. For now at least.

“You know,” she says, quickly making her way over to one of the desks pushed up against the wall, pulling open one of the drawers and producing a newspaper clipping, “This mugshot looks a lot like arrival number four.” That’s a lie, because she knows for a fact that that is exactly the last arrival, had held the clipping up beside the blurry picture given to her by The Handler and confirmed it at least ten times. But he doesn’t need to know that just yet. She offers out the clipping and he immediately snatches it out of her hands, eyes racing across the picture.

“Diego,” he breathes out, before looking up from the paper and directly at her. She feels a pang of guilt at the look of extreme, almost manic relief in his eyes, when she knows there’s information on all of the rest of, what she knows now to be his family, sitting there in their office.

And then his words truly hit her; in her scramble to make sure Elliott didn’t blurt anything out, she’d almost forgotten that first part where he said he needed to save the world and just. What? Is that a part of her mission? Is she supposed to help him do that too? And why didn’t The Handler ever mention that? She wants to ask him more but has no clue where to start, and before she gets gets the chance to ask (or to be more accurate, splutter incoherently for a second), someone else speaks up first.

“So that’s helpful then,” Elliott states more than questions, looking almost eager to be of more use.

“You have no idea,” is all the boy says, and before the agent gets a chance to ask him wait, hold up, let’s go back to that saving the world bit, he folds up the snippet of paper and disappears with a soft zap. The agent and Elliott both turn to face each. other. Almost a minute passes and then-

“Well that was something.“

[blookmallow]

whos up for a 

✨COMPLICATED LUMENIA LORE POST ✨

i know, i know, try to contain the excitement

theres... a big spoiler in here but i cant figure out how to talk about this without it lmao so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i dont think it rly matters to anyone anyway but the section its in is marked. this is still a work in progress but here it is anyway

All soul collectors (and familiars) have two alignments: life or death and light or darkness 

these do Not mean “good” and “evil” however, and all collectors have some connection to them all (and magic can be learned, as well)

--

Life aligned are often immensely powerful, but at times difficult to control without proper focus and discipline. They have high stamina and heal quickly, often have skill with healing and protection magic. Often have very high magic levels. They are often able to create small forms of life, with lesser sentience - such as Venus’s plants, Chris’s robots, Mayzie’s sugarsprites, etc. Shuri is an exception - she is a Death aligned, but studied extensively under Mother’s guidance and has learned (and even mastered) Life magic. Life magic at that level (creating forms of life) is inaccessible to humans, though some Antis in very rare circumstances can use it (though creating sentience is only possible to soul collectors). Lumeni who are not soul collectors often have life magic as well, but do not have the power that soul collectors have. Creating little motes to help out around the house (which disappear after a while) is a fairly common ability, but creating a lasting, real living creature with sentience would not be possible for those who are not soul collectors. 

Death aligned generally cannot make life (at least not without extensive training), but are very perceptive and empathetic, often skilled in divination and prone to visions or premonitions. They are very good at communicating with the dead - all soul collectors can do this, of course, and all can see ghosts (thats. Their Job) but Death aligned are particularly good at it, and often will pick up lost or abandoned souls that were not claimed by their collectors (either through unusual circumstances, negligence, or whatever the case may be) or will take over for others when dealing with particularly volatile souls. Souls of children are often transferred to Death aligned as well. Humans with Death magic in them can almost always see (or at least sense) ghosts. Premonitions and visions are common as well, often stronger in Antis. Most Antis can see or sense ghosts regardless of alignment, but Death aligned will have greater skill (and a better sense for the situation - a Death aligned Anti or human will be much more likely to figure out what an angry spirit wants, while a Life aligned might be able to see it, but not know what it is trying to communicate). Death aligned tend to have a higher comprehension of Time and Mortality. 

i havent sorted out Light and Dark as clearly yet, but 

Light energy is very strong and focused; can be difficult to control, especially in children, but can become highly powerful when used correctly. Often very physical, such as manipulating environments or elements. not well defined yet

Dark energy is chaotic and often destructive, frequently involves psychic abilities or altering the flow of time in small ways. also not well defined yet. probably even more undefined right now, :’) 

---

All soul collectors have these alignments, again, they all have a little of everything but will naturally be drawn to one side or the other in both aspects, and the abilities they have also depends a lot on what they study and what they practice. 

Familiars will almost always have the same alignment as their masters, but often will mirror in one aspect and have different tendencies in the other (like, SC has Light/Death, familiar has Light with Life tendencies, etc), and the souls in a collector’s possession will often have traces of the same alignments as their collector. this manifests in really weird ways with antis sometimes. more on that later

Soul collectors are born from eggs that form in an underground spring, drawn from the magic in the planet’s core (which is why their magic levels are so much higher than anyone else on their planet - other Lumeni bear children the same as humans. They are deeply affected by the planet’s core, but not born from it) 

there’s a lot of debate as to whether this is a strictly natural occurrence, or if the core has some kind of sentient will to intentionally create the eggs (or, if this core is possibly controlled by some higher being) (or if the core IS a higher being)

the First Egg was a twin egg - a single egg containing two collectors (and their two familiars), this being Rachna and Shivari (who would later come to be known as the Great Mother)

these two represent a perfect balance of the alignments - Rachna as Death and Darkness, Shivari as Light and Life. Again, not “good and evil” - there’s no evil twin (and they’re not remotely identical either lmao) and no conflict between them, they work Together, always, neither of them ever takes action without consulting the other first 

their familiars mirror them, “Muffin” is also Death/Darkness, and Jacinda is also Light/Life

Twin eggs are not exactly “siblings” the way humans think of them - they can look drastically different and have very different powers/attributes/skills, but will usually see themselves as akin to siblings 

Shivari created, over time, all the plant life on Lumenia. the legend goes that she also created all the animals and the first Lumeni themselves, but she won’t confirm it either way. she probably did not create the lumeni, though, in any case

Lumeni look up to her as their high queen, and some worship her as a mother goddess as well; she has temples across the planet 

Rachna is said to be the first to have realized the ability to create Underworlds and the whole system of soul collection and judgement. The extent to which this is actually true is unclear, but probably more likely than the “mother created lumeni” theory.

*** this is the part where the spoilers happen ***

the second egg was another twin egg - this time containing an unbalanced pair: Kadri and Nahbi. Kadri is a necromancer - she is simultaneously Life and Death at once, with Dark energy. Nahbi was Death aligned, with both Light and Dark at once, and therefore incredibly powerful, but very, very dangerous though he never intended to be. 

Nahbi is dead. The story goes that he was murdered by an Anti, but the truth may be that he was in fact destroyed by his own power (which destroyed his familiar in the process, and destroyed the Anti’s body). He has a statue in the tomb beneath Mother’s temple garden, but is rarely ever spoken of now. Kadri cannot talk about him without getting extremely distressed. Not many people know about him at all. 

after that, the core produced another egg - this time, the first single egg, containing Kali and Dasa, a Death/Darkness aligned pair, though Kali has some light tendencies as well. This is said to have been the universe attempting to rebalance itself again after the last egg. They were the first born without a twin, which possibly may have influenced their eventual decision to join together - a sense of missing a twin that never was. 

*** ok the spoilers are over ***

Shivari, Rachna, Kadri, and Kalidasa are known today as “The Ancient Ones.” They are the only collectors hatched from single eggs forming one at a time - after this, the core began producing batches of several eggs at once in varying amounts, now referred to as “cycles.” The new cycles are highly varied and much more balanced, though twin eggs have become increasingly rare. 

----

alignments and notes about them if i have them but this is already getting to be way longer than it needs to be. also some mentions of their souls where i remember them bc i dont want to look up who everyone was assigned to right now lmao

Shivari (”Mother”) || Life/Light --- Jacinda || Life/Light

- Bee and Dan are both Mother’s souls, both tending toward Life/Light too 

Rachna || Death/Darkness --- (the unspeakable name only the ancients can pronounce) (”Muffin”) || Death/Darkness

- Lex has a high Death alignment; he’s good with ghosts and has a very strong sense for bad vibes and such. sometimes gets premonitions about things, not straight up visions of the future but just strong “I really should not do this” or “something bad is going to happen if I do that” or “there’s bad energy in here something really bad happened here” senses. his origin has it too but denies it violently and thinks its influences of the devil - which might be why lex trusts it and embraces it, as her opposite

Kadri || Life-Death/Darkness --- Skrab || Death / Darkness 

Kadri is an exception: she has a command of both Life and Death. Her powers are in fact weak necromancy - she can’t literally bring someone back from the dead (though it might not be impossible), but she can reanimate corpses and create skeletal minions with lesser forms of sentience. any zombies or skeletons she creates do not have souls and will just go back to being dead once she stops powering them, they’re basically just puppets, but a lot of collectors (especially Death aligned) think this is a complete abomination just on principle. kadri does not care. she has not spent any time honing her Death magic skills, so her ability with time/divination/etc is basically nonexistent even though the potential is there

- kadri’s souls tend to be especially chaotic because of that power imbalance and that’s why we have people like laelia 

Kalidasa || Death/Darkness

Venus || Life/Darkness --- Dahlia || Death/Darkness

Celina || Death/Darkness with some Light tendencies --- Cesare || Death/Darkness 

Shuri || Death/Light, with Life tendencies brought out through study --- Stasia || Life/Light

- dreyden has death alignment but is completely oblivious to it. he could probably see a ghost but wouldn’t notice it at all, or wouldn’t notice it was a ghost. he thinks he just has really bizarre luck sometimes and has no idea whatsoever that its often actually premonition - “i got off at Brookton because i just felt like it i guess, i dunno” actually ended up being the place he met his future boyfriend, made the best friends he’s ever had, finally found a place to live, etc, but he would never even consider “I had a premonition about this place” as like, even a Possibility 

- Skye seems like the last person you’d expect to have a Death alignment but he actually definitely does; he’s incredibly empathetic and sensitive to the energy and emotions around him, he can see ghosts, he’s had actual direct prophetic dreams before, he trusts instincts when he gets them because they’re usually right. He also has a very high Light affinity. this manifested COMPLETELY backwards with damian, possibly Because skye’s alignment is so solid and strong - damian’s powers are literally darkness, and despite being a piece of shit murderer obsessed with death, he actually has basically no skill with Death magic at all. he’s barely aware of ghosts. he acts on impulse and self interest, he ignores Vibes and Energy because he feels he’s above it and knows best himself regardless. he has No empathy. he loves to kill but he does not understand death. he doesn’t see himself as a person who can die. the dead want nothing to do with him

Chris || Life/Light --- Phoebe || Life/Light

chris doesn’t seem to match his alignment - telekinesis seems like it’d be a Dark magic, but it’s actually highly physical, you can actually see it manifesting as light in his eyes when he uses it, and it’s all about physically manipulating objects in his environment. He cares very deeply about his souls and has learned to communicate well with the dead, but struggles to connect emotionally in a way that makes sense to others around him. He cares fiercely, intensely, with everything in his being; he stores collected souls in a mechanism he integrated in with his own actual physical heart, but he has a very difficult time expressing and showing it, so he still often comes across as distant and emotionally oblivious, especially to Death aligned people 

- Gavin and Kayzee both have strong Light tendencies too. kayzee especially is a definite Life person 

Mayzie || Life/Darkness with some Light tendencies

mayzie is very very very bad at Death magic, which is. probably a big reason she dropped out of her training

[fmdtaeyong]

— i tell myself to let go of the pain, so sick of keeping it all in.

date: fall 2021. word count: 1803 words, excluding lyrics. summary: - notes: writing verification.

the last two songs on the album are also the last two he writes after he’s chopped his list of potential songs into a more comprehensive track list with form and reason. only a few songs are cut because he hadn’t written the piles upon piles of songs over the past year that he usually does, nor has he dug back into the files of songs he wrote years ago. he wants to album to be clear representation of his recent feelings, and digging into his past won’t achieve that.

the earlier songs hadn’t been written with the full concept for the album he has in mind and if he wants a concept album, he has to make sure there’s enough depth to justify it. he can’t go into interviews and claim it’s all interwoven in some way if he hasn’t put the effort into making that clear outside of his own head, so now what he needs is to tie the pieces together with a bow as rough-cut as the emotions he shows on the album are.

the business side of making music has never clicked with him the way the creative side of making music has, but over the years, he’s been forced to assimilate to it in some ways. in a perfect world, he could write an album and put it out into the world with no thought other than the music he’s created, but the music industry doesn’t allow that in reality. the world is so saturated with aspiring musicians making music they hope reaches ears that it would be ungrateful of him not to take advantage of the resource he has of a whole a&r department and a production crew and creatives skilled in areas he’s not. ash’s decision to sign a second contract with bc entertainment had been a largely emotional one, but it had not been absent of all rational thought. they’d promised him a solo career with a platform to influence people to listen to his music and monetary resources no other label who’d be willing to take him on if he left on bc’s bad side would have been able to provide him with.

so, as the parts of his album within his control fall into place, he attends the meetings he has to and plays the games he’s required to as far as he must without compromising himself. he does enough of that for titan already and since the beginning of his solo career, he’s been determined not to have to cede more than he gets in return in his solo work too.

“i can see what you’re going for, but it doesn’t feel fully fleshed out yet,” is the response he gets after presenting the idea he has for the album. late nights cracking back into his high school skills on powerpoint had netted him his best attempt at a proposal for everything he has in mind, from the story concept to the director he wants for the music video to the packaging. he isn’t so naive to think that they’ll be willing to accept his ideas directly without any changes, but he has such a vision for the album that he wants to be more forthcoming than giving feedback on what bc’s teams come up with.

“that’s because it’s not. i still need to add a song or two to bring the track list to a close, but i don’t have those tracks finished just yet.” it hadn’t been his best move to come not completely prepared, but he’d be back from hiatus soon and the wheels had started up turning again for what he’d release next. he needed to take the lead before someone else could take it from him.

“come back when you have everything figured out. we’ll meet again the same time next week, and you can show me the completed package.”

he’s frustrated, but he has to take what he can get when he knows he’s already wiggled his way into more freedom than most get, inside bc and out of it, by virtue of the success he’s been able to have in the past. some of the songs had been forced in the sense that he’d been pushing himself to reconnect to music, but none of them had been written on the deadline he was usually working with when it came to an album. 

still, he’ll do what he has to to have his vision fully realized.

———

he already has the “intro” to the character that pops up throughout the album, but he still titles the song “welcome to the show” before he even has anything for it to be. it’s not meant to be some cheeky twist of expectations, but a welcome into a third layer of the parts of himself he’s baring. he won’t follow through with it, but that’s the point: there’s only so much someone he doesn’t know can see beyond the line that exists between taeyong, the pop idol, and ash kwon, the person who exists when no one is cheering his name.

the genre the song should be occurs to him without much thought. welcome to the show brings to mind the guitar of classic rock ballad-style instrumentals, a lone man on a stage with a mic and a message to convey. without a reason that immediately comes to mind, he’s been drawn to guitar of late. piano will be his first love for his whole, but acoustic guitar holds a confessional quality in pop music that ivory keys can’t replicate the same way. maybe it has something to do with all of the time he’d spent in jeju. buying a piano and moving into the house would have been pointless and costly when he had no clear idea of how long he’d be on hiatus and musical inspiration was evading him anyway, but on one of his trips back to seoul, once musical creativity had formed a tiny dot in his head instead of the black hole it’d once been, he’d decided to bring his guitar back with him.

it was the only real instrument he’d had to work with for a while, so it had claimed a key place in the experimentation he’d done in careful steps to return to making music. near the end of his stay in jeju, he’d taken to strumming his guitar out in his backyard or in the living room. he’d taken the time with the promise to himself he wouldn’t force anything out of him that didn’t come naturally. sometimes that resulted in nothing more than his fingers playing the familiar chords of an old song, at times his, but most times someone else’s, before he gave up and retreated to a snack or an early retirement to bed. other nights, something new had drifted its way out of him, but he’d left it there in the moment and never come back to it. not every musical moment he experienced had to be repackaged for the consumption of others. it’s been a self-forced learning of accepting letting go, and while it hadn’t been completely successful, it had created memories he could look back on now that he was back on the path to creating for output.

in his studio in seoul now, he plays out a simple chord progression on his guitar and sings over it, simple and easy. 

you tried bringing out the sunny times you're not really good at telling lies

ash’s music is never particularly happy. it’s been pointed out to him time and time again. sometimes, people say it in the form of a question, but it’s clear they’ve already passed their judgment on the value of that, for better or for worse.

when his first solo album had been in the works, ash remembers the haunting fear that had hung over his shoulder that his music was too dark for anyone to care. just because he loved heartbreak ballads and introspection doesn’t mean that he had the talent to illicit the emotional connection for people to not turn his music off and dismiss it as whining. troublemaker had done well, and it had been upbeat and sexy. he’d spent the whole time leading up to his debut album wondering if that’s what was wanted from him instead. when bc removed shirts from his wardrobe for the eyes, nose, lips video, it only served to make him further doubt the merit of his own emotion on its own.

as he’d released album after album and single after single, he’d started to settle more and more into a defined style, a style that was decidedly rarely happy. but it was true to the lows he often lived in. the highs, those are harder to put into words when his mind is racing and songs he makes in the process don’t feel true to the person he is when the bottom drops out from under him.

this is him. he can change in some ways, but he’ll never be able to completely erase who he is at heart. as he pieces together a dramatic melody that starts soft and then builds to a belted plea, the pieces of what welcome to the show means click into place inside his mind.

the more he works on it, the more sure he is that the song can’t all be stripped back and confessional. it needs to have its highs and lows, just like he does. his show is dark and often isolating and there are times it feels like it repeats with no end with him in an unlit room, but other times, he stands center stage with loud drums and a chorus of voices and begs to be understood.

so can you stay a little longer? 'cause i don't know who i want to be so can you stay a little longer? just until i know you see me standing here sometimes

self-discovery had once felt like the only noble goal, but four months away from the world he’d thought had caused him to lose himself hadn’t magically found him face to face with his true self the way he had thought. it’s a journey that will take a little longer, but the album he’s made over the past few months serves as a case file in the investigation into the person that lives inside of him, all of the dark parts and regrets and complexes and flaws.

is it worth it to other people to look upon an unfinished sketch of himself?

he doesn’t know, but he does know that even the blurry outline he’s painted of ash kwon is more than he had before and he’ll hold onto it for dear life, even if it warps and changes in front of him.

i still don't know where to go

and piano leads the song out. no voice croons over the closing thirty seconds of the track. it’s the parts of him that hide undiscovered still, the unknown third act. incomplete, but with a hint of closure.

after everything he’s gone through this year, that’s more than he could have ever hoped for.

[driftbending]

“and so i ask you, i implore you, give america a fair trial. give america a fair trial. she’s worth it.”

schiff ends the managers case with such a simple plea. he is astounding.