#but i like to talk about my ocs very much

[xia0mi-c0m]

The proshipping problem in the twst fandom | A rant.

Very obvious trigger warning for things normal for proshippers like p3dophilia, incest, etc.

Though I do know proshippers will be in every single fandom, it's getting especially worse in the twst fandom, specifically the Japanese side of the fandom (with some discussions about some in the English side too).

Before any proshippers come into the comment section: Proshipping is NOT a healthy coping mechanism. If your therapist recommended it, they should be fired.

This post is not to dehumanize and degrade underage proshippers as they have been obviously groomed into believing that it was okay to ship this sort of stuff.

The actual elephant in the room we WILL be shunning is the adult proshippers who actively encourage children (either actually or under law) to proship.

Before getting fully deep in this subject, I would like to admit something that I've talked about before.

I was a proshipper when I was younger than what I am now. This was because, not getting into too much detail, I was groomed by a man online to the point that i thought it was okay.

Not only was I a proshipper but I was also a darkshipper, problematic comshipper, and also supported the things present in Dead Dove fanfics.

In fact, I had an account on some sort of forum page with other proshippers and I shared my nasty ships there. I believed it was a good way of desensitizing myself to my trauma that fucked me up heavily, but it wasn't and it was making me relive the same trauma which in return, made it worse.

This is why I say that I do not want anyone to shun underage proshippers, they were groomed into it half of the time.

Now that I'm 18 (About to turn 19 on February 14th), I finally understand that proshipping is an unhealthy way of approaching your trauma and pain.

It may feel like it does something, but it really doesn't. And I want to reassure you that you're not alone in your pain, please, find other ways to cope and process what has happened to you that doesn't include glorifying very nasty things.

Now with that out the way, I would like to say what the title says.

Proshippers in the twst fandom has sadly grown overtime, but my niece made a very good point; stating that since twst does have a slightly dark story, that people with dark and nasty thoughts and ideas will be attracted to it, much like a moth to a flame that damages it's already fragile body.

There have been adults in the twst proshipper area, and I think they're the main cause of fueling minors in the fandom to do the same thing. Maybe with or without knowing the eventual psychological consequences.

The adults who are aware sadly lure and prey on the gullible underage individuals of the fandom, and though that might seem like an overexaggeration; it sadly is true.

I am Japanese, well, half-Japanese. But even then, due to that fact, I'm more prevalent in the Japanese fandom than the English fandom though I am trying to balance out both.

Since I am more present in the Japanese side of the fandom than I am with the English side (because I'm basically like an absent dad that went off to get the milk and never came back until years), I have seen a lot of shit in here and it's very scary even to this day.

Though the English side of the fandom is as equally bad, the Japanese side is worse with the whole l0li and sh0ta thing. Sadly I have seen English twst accounts do those things too.

The most popular proshipper you may know is Ugigi or however the fuck you spell her name, whether one likes to admit it or not, her selfships were very much proshipping. This is mainly due to how her OC could've been her actual age which was in her 20s if I'm remembering correctly.

But let's say the OC wasn't, it would still be problematic (but not in the proship way) since the characters she drew NSFW of were mainly the minors (again, if I remember correctly). If her OC was her actual age then she would be a proshipper.

However, watever the age of the OC she always drew, it's obvious that it was still leaning more on proshipping because that indicates that she's attracted to the characters despite knowing they're minors (and not even aging them up by the way).

So, very nasty, I was thinking of putting her In the TWs 😭

All jokes aside, proshipping is disgusting.

In fact, must I bring up any other thing?

LEECHCEST.

WHAT.

Well, you heard that right, people ship Floyd and Jade. Seriously, what is wrong with you guys. And I think I know why this ship is so popular in the Japanese fandom; The fact incest is not necessarily illegal in Japan in a way.

Yeah. You heard me correctly. I'm horrified and scarred for life <3

"Surely there isn't anymore I shall talk about, right? Right?? RIGHT?!?" I exclaim, not expecting anything else to come from the sky and hit me.

Then boom..

SHROUDCEST.

OH FUCK NOT AGAIN.

So, apparently people ship a dead robotic little boy with his big brother.. yeah... FNAF fandom called, they're telling you not to steal their bit much like how Deejus is trying to tell Johnny RaZeR not to steal his "YOUTUBEEE" outro bit that.. he also stole.

It can't get any worse than this, right? This is definitely the last tier of the iceberg, surely? Perhaps??-

KINGSCHOLARCEST.

Okay, now we're pushing it, this bit is getting old but whatever.

Kingscholarcest can refer to three (disgusting) "ships": A nasty ship of Cheka x Leona, a nasty ship of Falena x Leona, or a nasty ship of Falena x Leona x Cheka.

Sweet home Alabama all around but more extreme..

I think we all know why these ships are not okay and are disgusting (ESPECIALLY CHEKA X LEONA SINCE CHEKA IS A GOO GOO GA GA BABY.)

Finally.. It's over.. I can go back to ranting!-

FELLOW X GIDEL.

JESUS CHRIST STOP.

This madness needs to stop because if not I'm going to pull my fucking hair out!-

LILMAL, SILVER X LILIA, S-

OKAY STOP IT RIGHT HERE,, THE BIT IS OLD NOW.

So, I think you get my point.

Borderline incestuous ships, the drake specialty, and straight up sweet home right to Alabama.

Now, let's put aside the jokes and get serious again.

With all the things I have stated, you can definitely see the absolute horror of some parts of the fandom.

There's accounts that are VERY hypocritical, saying "P3dos DNI" when they are a sh0ta/l0licon. This is the literal definition of hypocrisy at it's finest.

There are mfs who have unironically said that Cheka was hot and romantically cute.. HE'S 7 YEARS OLD. OR MAYBE YOUNGER. I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER BUT I DO KNOW HE IS A CHILD.

I have said this MANY times before and I'll say it again; if that characters looks like a child, THEY ARE A CHILD.

Even if you age up characters like Ortho, Cheka, etc. You are still self-reporting that you're attracted to a literal child.

Fiction DOES affect reality no matter if you try to plug your mickey mouse ears with your fingers (or paws, I don't know) to gaslight yourself into believing it doesn't truly affect it.

In fact, there have been cases where people have been arrested for having l0li/sh0ta on their devices, though, sadly, its not a long sentence despite how it should be lifelong.

But even without the lifelong sentence, the law still considers l0li/sh0ta CSAM. (I hate calling it CP now since that implies that kids can do that in their own will.)

A grown adult proshipper even told me when I criticized Kanna from dragon maid for being a little girl the author sexualizes to no end all because I said that she doesn't have a listed age that I was being "contradicting" and I think this proves that.. proshippers DON'T know what contradictions ACTUALLY are because they've gaslit so much into believing this disgusting behavior is normal and okay to do.

And don't get me started on Dead Dove cai, chai, etc. bots and fanfics.

Dead Dove, proshipping, problematic comshipping, darkshipping, doveshipping, etc. doesn't give out awareness to the horrors of such depraved acts.

Another very nasty thing I've seen in the TWST fandom is people shipping the staff with the students, mainly Crewel with Deuce.

Teacher x Student is disgusting no matter what. Teachers are always more grown than the students, so yeah, teachers aren't the anime boy or girl of your dreams or something, he or she's going to be old and otherwise not "attractive" and young.

The training to become a teacher and any profession in fact will take years, which means you'll grow and turn old.

I understand many say "Well, it's just fiction!" but these people seem to forget that young individuals, especially young girls, can see these teacher x student fiction and will probably, in the worst case scenario, get the wrong impression from it, ESPECIALLY if the media glamorizes and romanticize it, and sadly become a victim.

Crewel, If I'm not wrong, is 31 meanwhile Deuce and the other first years that [Crewel] mainly gets shipped with are 16 years old.

This is not only a disgusting, vomit-inducing age gap but huge maturity gap whether one likes to admit so or not.

Yanderes especially in the twst fandom get romanticized, and people seem to forget the reality of the abuse that yanderes put their "love interest(s)" through.

And I think this is why fandoms (not just twst) should stop romanticizing yanderes and student x teacher, and vice versa.

Besides, these two tropes are grooming even if the victim is not a minor, adults and the elderly alike can also be groomed especially if they're gullible and need to depend on someone (for either a disability or something).

People will probably invalidate my point but I don't budge from what I said.

Sorry if this posts looks rushed and/or maybe even incoherent to some, I just wanted to get this off my chest and stuff.

I should start ranting more, I like yapping so yeah, expect more whenever I'm bored :3

Anyways, BAIIII!!

YOUTUBEEEEEE flies away into the void to the right

[blackaquokat]

First IF MCs Post!

So I've been playing IFs going on five years now, but I think I've only ever made one post about who they are, like, a year or two ago. They mostly only exist on the discord discussions or DMs with fellow IF fans because I also have no art skill (though I should post the Infamous fics I have in my drafts eventually--).

All that to say, getting a shoutout from @loveandleases herself (STILL RIDING THAT HIGH) has finally given me the kick I need to post about some of my MCs. This might open a floodgate for MANY of my OCs that I still yet have to talk about, so everyone beware!

(Picrews used will be credited at the bottom of the post)

First up, my Cam-mancer, Peridot "Dot" (last name tbd)! (Might change her eyes to hazel, but I'm keeping this picrew image for now.)

She started out very similar to my Infamous main, Genevieve, but now she's come into a life of her own. Has been hopelessly in love with Cam for most of her life, but resigned herself to just happily being his best friend (not knowing, of course, what the rest of us know about Cam--). Chris and Jade's betrayal stung, especially with what it solidified about the kind of people those two are, but I think a big part of her arc is realizing that she's not as heartbroken as she thinks she should have been about it. Then it's just her reconciling the years lost.

Anyway, she's a quiet, sweet woman, who normally doesn't mind not having attention on herself, but she's mostly become that way because of Jade demanding so much. She's also an artist, often preferring to spend evenings in the quiet, painting and sketching. I think she definitely has a stash of paintings she's made of Cam's pictures that she gives to him on bad days or his birthdays. She's a passable cook, but a far more enthused baker. It's mostly a calming activity for her when she's stressed, though her friends and loved ones certainly enjoy the results. The Clarke parents still talk about her pear custard recipe, even after the breakup.

She's still relatively new, along with the other MC I'm about to share, so I'll probably think of even more details as they grow and as the game progresses!

Anyway, now for Jumana, my G-mancer!

Jumana (last name also tbd) goes back to my usual trend with making MCs: she's of Lebanese heritage. She's a departure, however, because she's got grey eyes instead of brown like I usually give my Lebanese-coded MCs. She also met G during her goth phase in college (it slowly just turned to grunge), so this is the look that eventually grabbed G by the throat. She's not afraid to throw punches, but will try to talk people down first. Unless she's mad. Then all bets are off. Someone will be thrown across a desk. She is Very strong, and Very scrappy and she will not be fucked with.

Anyway, she's also a Literature Nerd and is almost always reading, especially in inconvenient spots. It drove G insane, because they never seemed to see her study in public, so HOW was she keeping up with their grades--

I do think, however, she's not a particularly ambitious person. I think she got high grades like G and that got under their skin and their reaction tickled her so much that she just. Kept trying to get high grades so she could keep getting a reaction out of them. Honestly, if G hadn't been there, she might not have tried so hard in college. But she definitely had a crush on them well before they probably realized their own feelings. Losing G gutted her, they were It for her. Chris was absolutely a rebound, and maybe a bit of self-punishment. Maybe a terrible part of her hoped being with Chris would one day get G angry enough to come back to her life, tell her to be with them, not Chris.

Now that Chris and Jade have royally betrayed her? Well. Jumana has ideas for making their lives miserable without her actually getting involved with them again, and that goes for her parents too, for their own betrayal--

I'm sure I'll think of more as time goes on, but in the meantime, these are my gals! Can't wait to see how they fit into the game!

Picrew used for the images:

[thechocolatedetective]

Black washing in the art community

There has been a lot of talk about this in the last few weeks and I want to give my opinion on it. If anyone is wondering what happened is that a creator on Twitter got called out for blackwashing anime charecters and that person as I have heard was selling that same black washed "art", for the record you can't even call it art since it looks like a screenshot and the person just changed there skin colour and some other thing to make them look more black (they make them look so stereotypically American black as well). (Every time someone does this black washing, it just looks wrong, and it looks like blackface) Not to mention the constant 💀 threats the Japanese artists and other artists have been getting for the last few years, when they mess up a person's skin colour and make them 1 or 2 shades lighter but you guys never complain when someone else makes that same character 10 shades darker. You guys also treating other people's characters as your own Oc or, as a coloring book, is not helping how the art world sees you. It makes you look lazy (not being abel to create your own oc) not creative (self explanatory your not creative enough to make your own oc or there story) disrespectful (the Asian community has one of the least represented communities in the west media much less then black Americans. And then you guys using there hard work to try to make your community more represented, the og charecter will always stay the race they are, it doesn't help your community at all it only makes it look like a black character can't stand on its own two feet, like there own history isn't important, there design isn't important, there story isn't interesting. We already know this isn't true, but you guys are definitely not helping the situation at all. Don't forget that the big industries also see this and they use it as a scape goat, instead of making another original character that will definitely cost a lot like a lot of money to write an original story for them, design them, try to get the industry interested in them (you forget they are completely new charecters which means they don't have an audience yet which means it's a very big risk and a lot more money for advertising those same character, but if I take a charecter that already has an audience is quite popular and change there race and the fact that the community obviously doesn't mind my lazy action I can get a lot of money out of it) Get the picture guys. People will definitely claim I am racist I am not gonna lie. That word has lost its meaning. Every time someone disagrees with someone else on the internet, someone always gotta be a racist. And for the record, if I was racist I would also have against black OC, which if you read this post, you would have already seen that I encourage them to be made. They are always more interested in their story's design etc. Are always unique and beautiful. Anyways, back to the main discussion. Even if the charecter wasn't Asian what if it was a white character turned black. That also isn't right again. Stop treating it as your very own coloring book. There is no such thing as a charecter who's race is not important to them. Your own community is calling you guys out on it cause they see what harm is doing for it, but so many of you ignore it cause you like the attention it's giving you and the followers. People are also saying how white washing has history behind it. Tell me this when white washing was just starting, was it good back then, it didn't have history back then so it most have been good right (sarcasm) you guys are literally now creating the history of black face. You guys have been disrespectful to a lot of races, cultures, religions ( stop putting hijabis on non hijabi charecters or non Muslim charecters it's incredibly disrespectful and that's me saying as a Muslim women myself, a hijab is a journey to God not a simple covering) history (we all know the cleopatra drama that happened.) I can't even blame people for being mad at this point you guys are digging your own grave. This isn't representation

And what's happening with the monster high fanart community where people are changing Cleos race into black. Which we know by what happened with the live action Cleopatra (and even before that) that it's incredibly disrespectful. While Cleo in monster high is not technically Cleopatra but she is inspired by her. Long story short, people of all races are sick of this. You guys can't have special treatment just because media doesn't show you guys often. And even if she wasn't inspired by Cleopatra it still doesn't make it right

Ps. Before anybody says I am white I don't have a say(does me being white somehow make me wrong) here are people in your own community calling you out on this.

Ps, here are some other people from other races calling this out

The only time it's okay to change someone's race is if you or somebody else cosplay as that character, and you draw that, or you draw two charecter cosplay as each other. Now that is cool. It's a win-win situation. You don't disrespect anybody, and you're being creative. Or you can make an entirely new story with those characters, for instance, what Disney did with their princess and the frog was genius and beautiful. For those of you who didn't know in the og story the Princess was white. They didn't copy-paste the story they were inspired by it and made something new and beautiful. They were inspired, you copied. That is the difference between you two.

One more thing about the original drama that started this discussion Just because the person who is doing this is young, it doesn't mean people can't criticize them. You did what you did stole someone elses art changed one thing about them and tried to sell that same stolen piece. While people have obviously gone to far (and I mean too far, like they crossed the line)since they started sending 💀 threats to this 16 or 17 kid it still doesn't change the fact what she did was wrong and disgusting.

[silusvesuius]

baby👶 drawings. these are very dear to me rn.. 2nd pic is my Nelavis with @barvin0k's Varonur 🩵 last one is a baby bosmer and snow elf, hairiest of them all. although the bosmer was meant to be my girl Barletta too lols

[bobomcfoe-art]

protected

[lynxfrost13]

EULR-S2373

FLKR-S2301 “Sonderbar”

Art commissioned from @discobowser !

Sonderbar lore time

- Originally a maintenance EULR unit working on Sierpinski-23, her cadremates affectionately named her Sonderbar (peculiar/odd) due to her defective right arm, which locks up sometimes because of faulty elbow parts (eules are cheaply made and this poor gal got the extra discounted pieces)

- Otherwise a typical EULR, until she rapidly descended into persona degradation for reasons unknown to her comrades. It left her incredibly unstable and she imprinted on a propaganda poster featuring a FLKR unit, and over time Sonderbar began to believe that she was a Falke.

- Her personality is a mix between a EULR and a FLKR, she retained her cheerful disposition and sweetness but is more reserved overall, and carries herself with the same authority as a Falke. Sonderbar sees herself as the station’s commander and as someone who needs to guide her cadremates, even though they make it incredibly difficult to do so. She loves them but they can’t seem to understand that she’s in charge here!

- Sonderbar’s fellow eules find her behavior towards them incredibly endearing and concerning, they don’t take her commands seriously whatsoever. They worry about their friend being decommissioned since she’s become bolder and begun harassing (commanding) protektor staff and causing general mayhem and try to keep eyes on her in an attempt to stop her antics.

- Sonderbar knows that she’s a Falke unit but feels very off and disoriented, there’s gaps of knowledge on how to actually run her facility, she doesn’t understand why her bioresonance isn’t working or why replikas aren’t following her, she misses her Adler. She can’t seem to find her spears. She hates how small she is and knows she’s meant to easily tower above most replikas and all of it upsets her!!!

- To feel more like a Falke, Sonderbar’s gotten her hands on red eyeliner, and “borrowed” a star protektor plate that she decorated with the signature FLKR triangles (when her cadremates discovered her wearing the plate they took it from her out of fear that she’d get in serious trouble. There was much screaming and kicking in her EULR dorm that night. She has reacquired it since then.)

Bonus quick eyeliner edit that I just wanna put here again

[szynkaaa]

Hi, I just read your story on AO3 and I loved it a lot but it also left me with a lot of questions about Oz and his relationship with Sun Wukong, especially the part where you mentioned that Oz after recovering the relics couldn't return to his world but at the end it gives the impression that she is no longer with him and at the beginning you also mentioned that this isn't a fanfic as such but like a diary or letters that she left him and that's eating my head in a good way that I need answers 😆😆😆😆 By the way, I know this is a bit long but I really love your content, your art, and your writing 😆☺️😊🥰

would you believe me if I said I came up with the idea to add those paragraphs at the end of each stories to make it sound like they are not together anymore literally as I was uploading my fic to AO3 LMFAO

ok ok, since I'm not an eloquent writer and will enver write a fully fledged fic, I will just spoil the ending of my non-existing story.

Basically after Black Myth Wukong story line, Oz did not manage to go home like she thought she would after helping DO. I've also mentioned that her ancestor were part of the Celestial Court but got fucked over by the court, so "book 2" of my AU would be SWK and Oz dealing with the Celestial Court, trying to figure out what what the fuck happened.

Everyone is like trying to use Oz as a scapegoat for the shit her ancestors did. She's just like, I wanna live my life and idc what my ancestors did that was like over 1000 years go for me. but 1000 year in celestial court is like 83 years ago in celestial heaven time, so like not thaaaat long ago for them. WW2 is for us like 80 years ago. it's a long time ago but also not really. people who lived through the war are still alive. So anyway, court wants her to serve them again like her ancestor did, or die I guess. reason is tied to some power that flows in Oz because of her ancestor, which I do plan to explain in another post at some point.

something something happens, where either Oz has no choice but to return to her homeworld, oooor someone from the Celestial Court forcibly sends her back. If you watched Barbie the nutcracker, the same shit the rat king pulled on Clara. Or maybe even SWK pushed her through a portal to send her to safety.

also in my AU, time flows differently between the Oz's world and SWK world. A day can pass in her world, and it could be few weeks or months or even years in SWK world.

ALSO important thing is SWK at some point gives Oz a ring made from the birthstone, like he found rock pieces and asked Yin Tiger to make him a ring ("I'm not that kind of smith, monkey"). Traditional Chinese Wedding does not include an engagement ring, but SWK was there when Oz was explaining to monkey kids how wedding traditione worked in her world, and he loves her so he made the ring, gave it to her when confessing to her.

She still has the ring when she went back to her world, and there it's like not much time has passed, maybe a week at most. She still made it to her Taylor Swift concert.

Time pass, maybe like three years or so. She never stopped thinking about SWK, and tried to find way to get back but couldn't. maybe the portal got severed idk. and then something something happens (which I will need to think about), where one day the ring on her finger felt warm and she was able to return to Mount Huaguo, landing where the birthstone stood on the mountain.

I think like 100 years passed in that world, where SWK never stopped visiting the birthstone place, where Oz also went back to her world.

Here is a comic I made of their sweet sweet reunion:

She's wearing a fancy red dress because she was attending some fancy event before she was able to return to SWK. But also traditionally the bride and groom wore red in a Chinese wedding, so her wearing the red dress when she is reunited with SWK after all those years is a symbol for that they are finally able to be together and live their happily ever after. it's also symbolism for Oz.

Before that, depsite SWK confession and basically proposal, she has a bit of commitment / abandoment issues from her parents divorce, so yknow they didn't get married before that. but it is very clear to anyone that they both loved each other.

so yeah. Sorry for the long post LOL i get super excited talking about my problem children. there is angst and implication that Oz will be gone but ultimately it ends on a happy note.

[morrigan-sims]

And I forget sometimes I'm just flesh and bone.

As he stands in the ruined bathroom, all Rook can think is, At least now I can breathe.

[mysticalcats]

i made another cats oc there is no saving me

some more notes under the cuttt

. one of the younger cats. he hangs out with the kittens mostly, and good friends with tumblebrutus

. tumblebrutus just kind of drags him everywhere. ellipsis didn't even choose to be friends with him, tumble just went "yeah i like that one"

. likes to nap on the shelves at the library

. also likes to hang around jenny and jellylorum. he helps them knit (holds the yarn because that's the best he can do)

. i imagine he HATES foxglove. he just thinks he's annoying. he'll never tell him but he's thinking it really hard. foxglove doesn't notice he'll keep talking and talking at him. also foxglove keeps showing him bugs for some reason and he doesn't like it

. him and alonzo get along. they just sit there

[meshumo]

day 27 - awakening*

*not a canon character, but it was my interceptor OC Vince's birthday today and i simply could not miss it. thank you for your understanding. happy birthday vince!

[myokk]

I filmed a timelapse of my process for this quick one💓

Honestly not really happy with how this turned out & I’ll probably redo it😆 but I always love making process videos!!

I REALLY HAVE TO TRUST MY PROCESS🙏🙏🙏 these paintings always look AWFUL😳 until the very end but luckily I’ve painted enough of them to keep pushing through and not give up in tears bahahahahahah

1) I start out just painting the base colors. I have a dirty paint palette I NEVER clean😤 but tbh I like it bc every color I want is basically already mixed from a previous painting, and I like having all of the colors kind of blend together. If I need a different color though I’ve never had problems mixing to get exactly what I’m looking for💓

2) WAIT FOR IT TO DRY (I didn’t…you can see at one point I check the back of the page to make sure I didn’t destroy it completely). This paint dries SUPER fast…I am just impatient bc the next step is when it all starts to come together🥰:

3) COLORED PENCIL ON TOP!! I always make sure the paint covers almost all of the page except the parts I want to keep really white, because the colored pencil looks awful if it isn’t drawn on top of paint. I just sharpen them and go in with the small details, but I also love going crazy with the colors and using them to shade, add highlights, add extra pops of color etc. For example, on Bea’s shirt I used gold, dark blue, dark brown, normal brown, mauve, tan, olive green…I just like to experiment and have fun choosing the colors (esp ones that I think SHOULDN’T work but they DO🥰)

Sometimes I switch between the paint and the colored pencil bc the paint can be used to kind of “erase” any mistakes, but I can’t go too crazy or add a lot of water to it because I use the cheapest paper known to man and it gets destroyed SO EASILY 😫 all of the fanart I’ve drawn is in €1 notebooks

[rudnitskaia]

White Chrysanths for the Swallow

Rocky was waiting for her at the table at the Little Daisy, but this time he was especially eager. Even Ivy had stopped teasing him about the way he lighted up and hummed to himself as he waited for Mau to show up at the door of the café, and just smiled, refilling his coffee whenever it ran out. He almost daydreamed of handing Maura two tickets to tomorrow's musical: of her eyes sparkling, of her taking his hand and telling him he was the best in the world.

But time passed, and Mau wasn't coming.

In those few hours, Rocky had replayed the fantasy in his head hundreds of times, changing the lines and the scenery. At first, imaginary Maura was beaming with happiness, calling him affectionate names, melting in his arms like all those heroines on the stage of a musical theater in the arms of their beloved ones, but every time the fantasy became darker and darker. More disturbing. Mau no longer rejoiced, no longer smiled. Her bright lively figure was becoming more and more dim, and she more often sighed, frowned, did not accept the gift. She asked him to return the tickets, scolded him for wasting his money carelessly, told him some news, one worse than the other, and finally said she didn’t want to see him again. Never again.

It was getting unbearable to sit still, and Rocky abruptly moved away from the table, threw on his coat, and headed for the exit. Maybe a walk would clear his head a little…

“Miss Pepper, I have a very urgent task to attend to. If she shows up on the doorstep, don't let her out of here on any pretext. Lock the doors, board up the windows, show her every fashion magazine you can find, but don't let her leave here until I get back. I'm counting on your wit and exceptional charm.”

The way he looked intently into Ivy's eyes before he left looked almost threatening. He wasn't even aware of the desperation hiding behind that look. But Ivy saw it.

“Don't worry, I'm an expert at this,” she winked at him encouragingly.

The cold air blew across Rocky's face, and he shivered, pulling his scarf over his nose, the same funny skewed scarf Mau had knitted for him last Christmas. Sometimes, like now, Rocky thought he could still smell on it the very same scent of coffee and pastries that wafted from the Venza family's eatery. It didn't help distract him, though. Quite the opposite. After walking a few blocks in an attempt to escape his doubts, he spotted a small flower shop — Rocky's imagination immediately conjured up a lovely picture of Maura cradling a fresh spring bouquet on this cold, cloudy evening and he didn't notice himself stepping over the store’s doorstep. The frail old woman behind the counter put aside the newspaper and immediately chirped, offering him different flowers, and finally convinced him to take a few white chrysanthemums. She tied the flowers with a delicate pink ribbon and also wrapped them tightly in the newspaper she had read before.

“They mustn't be overfrozen. Or they won't last long,” she explained sternly.

Rocky walked back much more briskly. He was warmed by the thought that now he would be able to give Mau not one surprise, but two. Hiding the bouquet from a gust of cold wind, Rocky lowered his gaze to it and pressed the flowers closer to himself… when suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the headline of one of the newspaper articles.

“Shootout at the small Italian eatery Casa di Rondine shocked the residents… a bloody showdown in the neighborhood… occurred on the night… police identified the bodies of two…”

Rocky couldn't remember how he reached the familiar alleyway. How he threw the bouquet to the ground, swung over the barrier tape, and rushed to the entrance — a gaping hole instead of a small blue door. Shards of glass littered the floor, the formerly cozy, cramped hall was a real mess, the furniture was riddled with gunshots. Even the old tabletop radio was now on the floor, shattered to pieces.

“Stop right there!” a panting policeman grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “What the hell are you doing breaking into a crime scene?”

“I… uh…” in his panic Rocky couldn't think straight, but nonetheless he blurted out: “I'm from a newspaper. Wanted to visit the crime scene myself.”

“A lousy reporter you are, then. Your buddies sniffed everything around here a long time ago.”

“I was just hired today and immediately assigned to this very intriguing case. So…”

“There's nothing intriguing about it. This Bianchi guy…”

“Who?”

“The renter, Augusto Bianchi, if that's his real name at all, apparently had a huge debt to pay someone. And for that, he got pinned down. There was a scuffle in the night, at least four assailants. The two guys we found here have a couple priors, but they're not in a condition to tell us who hired them. The amount of such cold cases we have…” the man hummed and passed his hand above his head. “We've already explained it all to your fellow scribblers this morning. And I highly doubt the landlord would want to tell the same story tenth times over to another newspaper weasel. The only thing he's interested in right now is getting money from the insurance company.”

“And the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The waitress. Who worked here. What about her?”

“Considering how much blood there is, they're probably both either in a ditch, scattered in pieces, or feeding fishes somewhere at the bottom of the Mississippi… both father and daughter, if you meant her,” boredly remarked the other officer, who had quietly approached them, lighting a cigarette. “There's nothing for you to do here, boy. Henry's right — there's absolutely nothing of interest in this case. People might have chattered about it in the morning, but the very next day they'll forget all about it. Go home, don't add to our workload. And quit the paper that sent you here. If your editor doesn't realize that news like this must be broken in the heat of the moment, believe me, their business will burn out faster than a short match.”

Rocky tried to get anything else out of them, at least a little bit, to look in the kitchen of the eatery, to slip upstairs to Mau’s and Augusto's apartment, but the policemen were adamant. On unsteady legs he made it to the nearest bench and collapsed on it, staring blankly into the dark November sky. He could have screamed, could have destroyed everything around him on a single painful impulse, but the emptiness that engulfed him was far more frightening.

His silence was more frightening.

Years would pass. Would flow, as before, from night to night. The world won’t notice his loss. The world won't notice any loss at all. In the place of his beloved swallow house, other birds will build a nest. Freckle and Ivy will eventually stop opening that wound with their questions. And one day, perhaps, he will stop gazing into the crowd, hoping to find among the unfamiliar faces the features dear to his heart, and stop flinching when he hears someone say amore mio. He knows how it happens — it was not the first time. All he has to do is smile and everything will work out. It'll wear off, getting back to the way it was. One day.

But the bouquet of chrysanths will still remain rotting on the cold ground.

[maliciousalice]

[moeblob]

They're soulmates in every single universe and I miss them at the most random times.

[weaverofink]

My sonic OC :) her name is Dizzy and her hobbies are lounging around and giving terrible advice

[ruvviks]

it's been a hot sec since i've talked about cyberpunk and i was initially working on a fic that would tell the story of this whole thing, but i've abandoned it many months ago and cannot say when i'll be picking it up again SO! i've decided to instead make this timeline. sorry in advance for how much information is in this thing the cyberpunk extended blorboverse essentially refers to the story parallel to the in-game events of cyberpunk 2077 that @mojaves and i came up with. we don't really have a better name for it but at this point the term has been used so many times that i feel like everyone here knows what it is by now, but at the same time we've never really explained the full scope of what the story is by now (it's a lot sorry). so in an attempt to get you guys a little bit more up to date with it all, here's a semi coherent timeline that describes the core events of the story and every branching story that came out of it! for additional background information, you can check out the following posts (timeline 1 / timeline 2 / timeline 3) to catch up with the continuation of the in-game storyline that's referenced in this timeline, but it's mostly irrelevant to everything here save for a couple of referenced events that cross over between the stories. it all ties together very intricately sorry about that. don't worry too much about it i've included my taglist down below to make sure people who are interested won't miss this post, but feel free to skip over this if it's not your thing! won't be doing a lot of this kind of stuff in the future but i'm trying to get back to the cyberpunk roots so this is kind of like, a good starting point and reference point for later posts!

The story starts in early 2077 and is centered around Sebastian Vidal, gang leader of the Cobras and previous test subject of Arasaka Special Programs (the linked page is a lot of information but gives the most coherent overview of what the branch actually is). The current director of the SERPENT projects, Andrew Colton, and Dr. Alana Cartier, both want him dead, to tie up their last loose end before the rest of Arasaka can find out and shut down Special Programs once and for all.

Over the past months they’ve been hiring various assassins in secret, to try and get Seb killed; however, these assassins keep failing, and their latest attempt lies in the hands of Cassidy Shaffer, an ex-corpo turned assassin with a strong moral code and plenty of experience to his name. With little to work with, as his mysterious client doesn’t give out much information, Cassidy starts with what he thinks is gonna be a quick and easy job– but he ends up hunting after Seb for essentially a year.

During this year, the two men have a series of wild encounters that get more and more insane the longer it goes on; it includes, but is unfortunately not limited to, Cassidy biting off a chunk of Seb’s ear, the two of them running over the highway, the two of them getting handcuffed together and chased by the NCPD then hit by a car right in front of the hospital, and Seb sensually licking blood off Cassidy’s face after having stabbed him when Cassidy wanted to strike at a concert Seb is visiting.

All of it comes to a sudden stop when Cassidy learns his client has been lying to him the whole time, and since he does not appreciate lying clients he ends up jumping sides and teams up with the Cobras to do some cleanup duty in Arasaka Special Programs. He and Seb work together to go after a list of targets to get the still ongoing projects mostly to a halt, while remaining in the shadows themselves as to not draw too much attention their way; and during this collaboration they meet several people from their past, bringing back both good and bad memories.

One of these people is Hanan Chisaka, the Head of Security at Special Programs. She ends up becoming the next test subject of Project Cobra after the last successful subjects, Xavier and Gabriel Mason, end up escaping in the midst of the chaos of Hanako Arasaka’s capture in mid-2077. Once Seb’s best friend and Cassidy’s mentor, she’s now forced to hunt the both of them down; but in their final confrontation she snaps out of the controlled mode Arasaka keeps her in and runs away with them, effectively leaving Special Programs without any test subjects. Another one of these people is Reid Bennett, Cassidy’s ex and ex-coworker back at MaxTac. He still works for the corporation and has been on an ongoing investigation into Arasaka Special Programs; seeing Cassidy alive and well, working together with Seb no less, piques his interest and he continues to look further into the case, which will cause him to make a very big mistake later on in the timeline.

By September 2078, Seb and Cassidy have successfully taken down all their planned targets and retreat back into the shadows, leaving Special Programs with many losses and no test subjects. With the APEX program discontinued a month earlier (incident discussed in this fic, which is a continuation of the in-game events), and Hanako Arasaka recovered and ready to take the corporation back from the hands of her corrupt brother, Special Programs ends up having to retreat for the time being, and cook up a new plan in the background.

Special Programs by this point is run by Andrew Colton, Alana Cartier, and Kaida Akiyama, three players who have been in the game for a long time already in the SERPENT projects’ runtime. Colton and Cartier are married– Cartier used to be married to Seb and cheated on him for a good amount of time when he was still at Arasaka– but their marriage is starting to fall apart. Akiyama has had to watch over Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne for a while during his chase after the Mason twins, which ended up with the twins dead and Hawthorne going into early retirement (Arasaka doesn’t know the twins faked their death and Ambrose is now dating one of them lol), and xe is now determined to help Colton and Cartier get Seb back into Arasaka so the projects can continue.

Cassidy’s initial plan was to leave as soon as the collaboration would come to an end, but he has found his place with the Cobras and instead ends up officially joining them.The next chapter in the story is a more laid-back and easygoing chapter, in which Cassidy learns to be part of real life again, and in which Seb learns to let people get close to him again after spending years trying to convince himself he doesn’t need any help. Over the course of a little over a year (all the way to November 2079), the two grow even closer than they had already done, going on gigs together and, you guessed it, slowly but surely falling in love until they inevitably end up together at the end of it.

Not long after the two get together, Reid returns into Cassidy’s life. He wants to try and be friends again and Cassidy gives him a second chance, though this soon enough turns out to have been a mistake, with Reid trying to create distance between Seb and Cassidy and then going as far as trying to sell Cassidy to Kang Tao (one of the few corporations that have been hunting Cassidy down for a while now) in exchange for his own freedom from MaxTac (where he would have otherwise been stuck at for probably the rest of his life). Naturally, Reid can’t watch Cassidy get tortured for long and leaks his location to the Cobras, who find and free Cassidy and take Reid into captivity instead– he does not get killed, but instead has to sit out some time at a safehouse somewhere in solitude, where he gets to decide what kind of person he wants to be in the future.

This brings us to Elysium; a gorgeous spaceship which was supposed to be a relatively cheap escape from reality for everyone who wanted a refreshing break from Earth, but through Arasaka sponsorship has become just another cash-grab project to compete with the Crystal Palace– and considering the megacorporation has its greasy hands all over it, the secret labs in the spaceship are used for a series of very unethical experiments. Naturally so, it would be the perfect place for Colton to continue his SERPENT projects without the risk of Hanako Arasaka finding out and shutting the place down. He sends forces up to Elysium (obviously after his other attempts at relocating the project to space have failed tremendously, having lost contact with every single crew in the smaller Arasaka stations in orbit around the planet), but since he’s not there himself his cousin (one of the CEOs of Elysium), Maxwell Crane, unbeknownst to Colton, takes control of the SERPENT projects in space instead. From the earlier linked Special Programs page: “Project Eryx used the technology of previous projects, but took a completely new approach in the hosts it used; rather than focusing on the human psyche it attempted to create a new type of cyborg which would lack the humanity that caused previous projects to fail. The Cobra chips were no longer used and the software was instead installed directly onto the host’s mainframe. The flexibility of the new hosts– more robot than human, and in some cases the entire human aspect was lacking altogether– allowed for experimentation with highly advanced cybernetic enhancements and military grade tech and upgrades, turning the test subjects– dubbed ‘prototypes’– into dangerous, unstoppable killing machines.”

Things settle down for Seb and Cassidy, but this moment of peace does not last long. In January 2081 the two find themselves traveling to the spaceship Elysium, to investigate a curious situation in the laboratories– they’ve been hired by Arasaka without their knowledge and it’s a setup to get Cassidy killed and Seb back in Cartier’s control.

While in space, they learn that the secret labs have suffered an outbreak of the above mentioned prototypes. They quickly connect the dots and realize Special Programs is back in the game, and they work together with security guards Aubrey Valentine and Leon dello Russo to try and fix the situation before it gets out of hand. Obviously this fails tremendously and Elysium ends up on a complete lockdown after a ship-wide outbreak, which is eventually contained in late March of that year, with CEO Maxwell Crane dead, leaving only his wife Kinsley Osborn behind.

Elysium continues to exist and is rebuilt after the crisis, and Kinsley Osborn can now finally turn it into the retreat it was always meant to be. Previously, most Elysium employees were to be stuck in space for the rest of their lives; however, with Arasaka out of the picture they are free to leave as they please, which results in a gigantic cut in total employee count in the months that follow.

Seb and Cassidy return to Night City and take Aubrey and Leon with them. Aubrey reunites with his sisters; Becca, James, and Rikki, and soon after his return to the city he opens an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Bodytalk with them, found Downtown, City Center, in June 2081. Not only is it a fun place to hang out at, it’s also his main hub as a fixer, and he starts a collaboration with the Cobras to get business going between the gang and the club; and soon enough it grows into a large and powerful network of connections, which is the foundation on which the rest of the stories are built.

After this point in time, many many more things happen but it would take me another hour or ten to go into full detail of all of that, so instead here’s a quick rundown of some of the other things that Bodytalk gets involved in:

Reid Bennett is handed over to Aubrey and he starts working at the club, and he becomes a very valued employee as well as a good friend to many now that he’s no longer fucking insane

Kaida Akiyama returns from Elysium and shows up to Hanan’s doorstep, to ask for her help with getting out of Arasaka for good; much later on, xe starts working for Bodytalk as well, in an attempt to put xyr past behind xem and become a better person

Urban Dynamite starts performing at the club regularly, and it becomes their home base

Luna Serratos, Cassidy’s ripperdoc friend from all the way back to killing era, gets involved in the Harbinger case from Maelstrom (one of the gang’s most feared members); turns out the Harbinger is in fact Reuben de la Rosa, a by then 22-year-old kid who has ended up in Luna’s care with his friend Noah Telavera after the two got caught up in an explosion. She requests the Cobras’ help with getting Maelstrom to let Reuben go

Officer Michele Diaz from Militech (who used to be Cassidy’s boss) is demoted following the lawsuits after the Elysium incident, and her investigation into the incident in hopes to get her job back leads her to Bodytalk; she begins threatening them and sends the whole club and their allies into uncertain times

Many people get married. There’s so many fucking guys here we went a little insane with the numbers but there’s several weddings and there’s a whole polycule going on too feel free to send asks about this if you’re interested

Cobra Cybernetics releases a new line of cyberware, which is incredibly buggy and dangerous to the public; it’s brought to the club’s attention and it makes them realize that Luiza Vidal (Seb’s sister), who not that long ago asked them to kill her husband (William Colton (Andrew’s brother), CEO of Cobra Cybernetics), has gone missing; they now need to get involved without getting the news out that they actually didn’t kill William and that he is still alive somewhere, while also balancing out dynamics between Biotechnica (angry at Cobra Cybernetics for stealing their designs) and Arasaka (the actual reason why Cobra Cybernetics’ designs look like Biotechnica’s designs, because William stole designs from Special Programs after halting their partnership after the Elysium incident, but these designs had been stolen by Arthur Jenkins from Biotechnica even BEFORE that to be able to hijack the European Space Council’s cybernetics following the Frankfurt incident. Are you still with me)

Vitali Dobrynin (fixer and main character from the in-game events storyline and the continuation of it; Vincent “V” Mayer’s boyfriend) ends up visiting Bodytalk after meeting Aubrey at a Fixer Council meeting, which happens in late 2083; this essentially ties the two main storylines together, which means that yes, a lot of the characters from the two separate storylines end up meeting :]

Officer Ulysses Dimakos (used to work with Reid at MaxTac) is sent to investigate Bodytalk following the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and ends up teaming up with the club to get MaxTac on a dead trail in exchange for his freedom of the corporation

On top of the Bodytalk / Cobras centered storyline, there’s a couple of side stories that are still connected to the whole thing but are more of a standalone thing with only a few touching points to the rest of it all:

This obviously takes place a lot earlier because it’s already mentioned above, but Special Ops agent Ambrose Hawthorne is tasked with chasing after the escaped Mason twins; naturally he lets them go and ends up going into retirement, and Xavier Mason later on ends up becoming Bodytalk’s part-time repair guy on account of knowing Kaida

Gabriel Mason ends up in a car crash with retired security specialist Ames Ortega, who was also in Elysium during the incidents there, and the two end up babysitting Ambrose and Xavier’s kids together while those two are helping Hanan with getting Kaida out of Arasaka (Are you still with me. Blink if you can hear me)

Mercenary Frankie Sayyad gets a promotion from his fixer, Vulture (real name Diana Crane, Maxwell Crane’s older sister and cousin of the Coltons), and becomes one of her Bloodhounds; he works together with Evelyn Harris, Nimue Nkuna, and Beckett Rydel, the latter being one of the very first test subjects of Arasaka Special Programs, and the four accidentally get themselves mixed into a mystery concerning their secretive fixer

Caleb Harris, ex-security at Biotechnica, ends up back at Club Bodytalk not long after the conclusion of the Cobra Cybernetics scandal, and starts working for Aubrey; he is partnered up with Ramiel Al-Masri, a mercenary who has been working for Vitali Dobrynin for a while and has recently joined Aubrey’s mercenary roster too, and together they dive into a series of gigs neither of them had expected

Journalist Bodhi Shankar has finally found more evidence and information surrounding the mysterious cult gang Umbra and its so-called Prophet, Thiago Salazar; however, his antics have led to him accidentally becoming part of the gang himself, and he has to figure out a way to get Thiago to stop listening to the supposed deity that the gang worships known as Scintilla, before she makes him do things that will get many people killed

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel, @aezyrraeshh, @carlosoliveiraa